“You don’t die from autism...". Actually, people do.

“You don’t die from autism, but from exclusion, and that’s what we’re trying to change” https://en.protothema.gr/2025/03/18/dimitris-papanikolaou-you-dont-die-from-autism-but-from-exclusion-and-thats-what-were-trying-to-change/

Actually people do die from autism. Indeed, one of the biggest killers of particularly young children, often with severe/profound autism and/or who are non-verbal, is a deadly triad: autism, wandering/elopement and drowning. It's killed many people. It's not a topic some like to talk about but, when children and adults are dying, we should be talking more about including an important word: prevention. That deadly triad also happens worldwide including here in the UK: https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2024-01-25/luke-was-such-a-beautiful-soul-says-grieving-mum-of-boy-found-in-river

There are various other ways that a diagnosis of autism seems to be a risk factor for early mortality: suicide, diagnostic overshadowing (particularly for those who are non-verbal), the effects from various over-represented comorbidity such as epilepsy (including epilepsy as part of syndromic autism), and more. Another important issue that overlaps with the risks from autism is that of assissted dying, a topic that is currently being discussed here in the UK: Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide in people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorders: investigation of 39 Dutch case reports (2012-2021) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37218567/

As a collective, such issues tell us that autism is, for some, a diagnosis people die from. To say otherwise erases those deaths.