AGE OF AUTISM

"Hacker's Disease" or "A Little Bit Autistic" as Legal Defense?

Managing Editor's Note: Last week we ran a post from a police officer who is also an autism Dad on autism and police interaction with those on the spectrum. Here's a pressing question asked by a blog site called Naked Security: Should having autism be a legal defence to hacking charges?


Last summer, Julian Assange was quoted in an unauthorised autobiography saying, "I am - like all hackers - a little bit autistic".

He coined the term "Hackers Disease" meaning a "bottomless curiosity, single-mindedness, and an obsession with precision" and notes its similarities with autistic spectrum disorders.

And a recent news broadcast from Channel 4 also raised the issue, asking whether autism be a defence for hacking?

While Assange made a sweeping generalisation about a sensitive issue, there are nevertheless UK examples of indicted hackers having autism, particularly Asperger syndrome. Gary McKinnon and Ryan Cleary have also been reported to have this condition.

The National Autistic Society (NAS) defines autism as a spectrum condition with common characteristics including difficulty with social communication, interaction and imagination. It impacts each person differently and other conditions can exacerbate effects.

The NAS states that those on the spectrum with high-functioning autism, and Asperger syndrome, will have above average intelligence and an obsessive interest in a hobby as a common trait.

Hacker Gary McKinnon, wanting to prove the existence of UFOs, hacked into NASA and Pentagon databases and allegedly caused $700,000 of damage.

According to Wikipedia, Gary McKinnon "was diagnosed by three of the world's leading experts...as suffering from an autism spectrum disorder compounded with clinical depression."

The unfairness of his potential US extradition has aroused public anger. However, the lack of judicial sympathy to his Asperger syndrome has compounded these claims.

Director of the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University, Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, was an expert witness during Gary McKinnon's trial and claimed that he suffers from his theory of "mind-blindness", meaning that Gary McKinnon was so focused on finding the truth, he lost sight of the consequences of his actions.

In another UK case last summer, alleged LulzSec hacker Ryan Cleary was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.

Mr Cleary was charged with five counts under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, including a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on the UK Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA).

Looking at this from a legal perspective, should a defendant's autism have an effect on the charges? There are convincing arguments on both sides. Read more at Should having autism be a legal defence to hacking charges?

Mother Issues Tearful Plea to County Officials to Help Autistic Son in Custody at Jail

Managing Editor's Note:  As far as we've come with overall autism awareness, the reality for day to day living for our loved ones as they grow older is grim.   Ben (in the story below) has Asperger's syndrome. My children have full autism. The diagnoses differ. On Thursday night I spoke to a group of parents and providers at a therapy center in my town.  I stressed, as I always do when I speak, that the autism spectrum is not a hierarchy of "us" down at the bottom and "them" at the top with Asperger's.  My friends whose sons have AS worry just as much as I do about what the future holds for their kids.  Their troubles are more real world - often more dangerous - because their kids will live very much in the neurotypical world, whereas my own will be somewhat sheltered in the special needs system. I'm as sharp as a razor as I describe autism as a horizontal spectrum - not vertical.  I've had it with the shiny, happy horseshit of acceptance and awareness - that's a no brainer and an excuse to raise money and do little else.   We need paid training, media messages that teach the differences in our kids, support programs for employment and post-secondary schooling.  If I see one more autistic kid solving number problems on TV or being the quirky genius I'll scream. Are some of our kids able to that? Sure. A handful. The reality of autism from lowest functioning to Asperger's is a hostile world that does not understand them, know how to work with them, or respect them in the least.

Nancy Speer says her 22-year-old son, Ben Warren, has gone without the mental health treatment he needs since being incarcerated. (HERE)

Just outside the Santa Barbara County Jail, where her son is being held, Nancy Speer issued a tearful plea to officials on Thursday to provide her son with the mental health treatment she says he’s been refused since being incarcerated a year ago.

Ben Warren, 22, of Santa Barbara was arrested last year on a charge of grand theft auto and has been serving a one-year jail sentence. He’s been kept in solitary confinement in a “safety cell” for most of that sentence, according to Speer.

Warren was diagnosed with psychosis and Asperger syndrome, a form of autism, as a child, and his family says he has refused medications since being in jail. Speer recalled visiting Warren last Saturday at the county’s Psychiatric Health Facility. She said he has refused food and water, and has lost about 80 pounds since being in jail.

He also had large cuts and scratches all over his body, which Speer said she was told by staff were self-inflicted.

“These physical wounds don’t even touch how far away he’s gone in his psychosis,” she told reporters.

 

The Appeal of Prof John Walker-Smith Against the United Kingdom General Medical Council (Wakefield Case)

On Monday the appeal begins of Prof John Walker-Smith against the decisions of the GMC as one of the three doctors in the Wakefield case. It should be stressed that Prof Walker-Smith’s appeal is purely on his own behalf and that Andrew Wakefield was forced to withdraw from the appeal due to cost. A third doctor, Prof Simon Murch, was permitted by the GMC to return to work on the basis that he was only Prof Walker-Smith’s junior at the time.

A key issue at the GMC hearing was the prosecution claim that the Wakefield 1998 Lancet paper was in reality a study that had been commissioned by the UK Legal Aid Board relating to pending litigation over the MMR. The three doctors, on the other hand, contended that the projected LAB study was never performed, and that Lancet paper was “an early report” of cases seen on the basis of clinical need, as indeed it had stated. Paradoxically, the GMC panel also found the doctors to be guilty of breaching the terms of the LAB protocol in virtually every respect, instead of accepting the plausible evidence of the doctors that it was simply not the same paper. The panel found:

“The Panel has heard that ethical approval had been sought and granted for other trials and it has been specifically suggested that Project 172-96 was never undertaken and that in fact, the Lancet 12 children’s investigations were clinically indicated and the research parts of those clinically justified investigations were covered by Project 162-95. In the light of all the available evidence, the Panel rejected this proposition.”

However, the panel never elaborated on what evidence it was they were citing, and another problem was that the panel mis-described  ‘Project 162-95’ which was not a project at all but the ethical permission granted to Prof Walker-Smith to retain biopsy samples taken in the course of clinical routine for further scientific investigation, when he brought his clinic to the Royal Free Hospital in autumn 1995. Indeed, parents of the Lancet paper children had signed this ethical permission in the course of their children’s routine clinical investigation. Of course, if the panel had stated this openly before the assembled media in January 2010 they would certainly have had some further explaining to do, which may have been avoided by the ruse of calling 162-95 a “project”.

The Death of Public Discourse and the Heavy Snow of Plausibility

By Louis Conte

“WARNING: This Site is Hazardous to Those Who Promote Censorship”

It is becoming apparent that all of the internet activity around vaccines and autism is frustrating those who support the “scientific consensus” that there is no connection between vaccines and autism.

On January 23, Evgeny Morozov wrote an article for Future Tense called “Warning: This Site Contains Conspiracy Theories” which proposes the notion that search engines should label and flag websites that engage in discourse about the potential link between autism and vaccines. Morozov suggests that Google and Bing install a “pop up message” advising readers to “check a previously generated list of authoritative resources before making up their minds.” Morozov’s support for censorship is particularly ironic given that he has written extensively on how authoritarian regimes have used the internet to further oppression. This article was followed up by Commentary by Dr. Kevin Pho on KevinMD.com in an article titled “Should Google censor anti-vaccine claims?” Dr. Pho described Morozov’s article as “fascinating.”

Is censorship really “fascinating”? History doesn’t usually record it that way. In fact, censorship is usually accompanied by oppression – as Morozov notes. I suspect that those who have suffered oppression – and censorship – do not sit around wondering how fascinating the experience was.

Open Letter to Sunday Times Editor John Witherow: ‘We wouldn’t do fishing’

By John Stone

Yesterday the editor of The Times of London, James Harding, was forced to issue an apology over evidence he gave to the Leveson Inquiry into media standards in the UK, to a High Court judge, Mr Justice Eady (whose name will be known to regular AoA readers) and to a Mr Richard Horton (a policeman, not to be confused with editor the Lancet). Age of Autism now requests that the editor of The Times’s sister Murdoch newspaper, John Witherow, answer equally pertinent questions about his evidence.

Dear Mr Witherow,

Following the admission of your colleague James Harding that he had given erroneous evidence to the Leveson Inquiry I am writing regarding your statement in your oral evidence to Lord Leveson on 17 January 2012 that ‘We wouldn’t do fishing’. This statement would appear to be contradicted by the Sunday Times hired journalist, Mr Brian Deer, concerning the inception of his investigation of Andrew Wakefield. Deer stated in an article in British Medical Journal :

'For me the story started with a lunch. So many do. “I need something big,” said a Sunday Times section editor. “About what?” I replied. Him: “MMR?”'

The editor in question, Paul Nuki, was apparently the son of Prof George Nuki who sat on the Committee on Safety in Medicines in 1987  when a known-to-be defective version of the MMR vaccine, Pluserix, was being considered for license  . Pluserix was not withdrawn till 1992. The younger Nuki subsequently went on to manage the National Health Service’s main website, NHS Choices .

Equally anomalous was the fact that Deer, with the permission of the newspaper, interviewed two litigant members of the public under a false name, although they were told that he was from the Sunday Times . This may be because of an earlier “investigation” by Mr Deer into Margaret Best, whose son was damaged by DPT vaccine, however it is hard to see why this would have been necessary unless Mr Deer had an agenda which could not be fulfilled by another journalist using their own name. What was at stake, given that this was not an ordinary “under-cover” type investigation?

The Trouble with the ANTI “Anti-Vaccine” Movement: How They Hijack the Issue; Distort the Facts; and Totally Miss the Point

By Julie Obradovic

1. They believe there is an anti-vaccine movement.

This may surprise a lot of people, but there actually isn't an "anti-vaccine movement”. Although there are definitely people who believe no vaccine is a good vaccine, the controversy has never been solely about whether or not vaccines are good or bad; it's been about whether or not they are being used responsibly and have been properly investigated for their role in chronic health conditions.

The more appropriate term to describe people raising this important question would be consumer safety advocates, seeking informed consent, more research, product liability, and policy reform.

Only a few possibilities exist to explain why those who insist on using the "anti-vaccine" label anyway continue to do so: they erroneously assume anyone who questions a product's safety is automatically against it; they believe vaccines already are being used as responsibly as they possibly can be and have been properly investigated; or they choose to use a red herring label like "anti-vaccine" to manipulate people. 

2. Anyone who disagrees with them is an idiot.

If the first line of attack doesn't work it will almost always be followed by an insult. Not only are people who disagree portrayed as dangerous lunatics who want to see the world explode in infectious disease, supposedly they are also "flat-earthers" who can't accept the world is round. Certain journalists have gone so far as to suggest it's no wonder their children have problems.

Such commentary is breathtaking in its insensitivity, entirely unnecessary, and most troublesome once again, not true. Even the CDC has recognized for years, most recently in a study on Hepatitis B uptake, that the most common demographic of a person who questions vaccine safety or refuses them is a highly educated mother with a master's degree.

When faced with this unpleasant fact, anti “anti-vaxxers” are left with little place to go. Some have started calling these parents “superstitious”, “defenders of pseudo-science”, or “conspiracy theorist” instead.

3. They blame Dr. Wakefield for everything.

Dr. Wakefield has now become the scapegoat for the whole controversy. Supposedly this man and his team of researchers, who had the audacity to suggest there might be a problem with the MMR that warranted further study, is single-handedly responsible for the plummeting vaccine uptake throughout the country.

Police and Autism: A Unique Perspective

By Jerry Turning

Alex was 5’9 and every bit of 200 lbs.  He was “uncontrollable” and destroying his family’s home.  We arrived to find Alex’s grandmother on the front porch.  Her arms were literally purple with bruises; the aftermath of one of Alex’s tantrums earlier in the month.  She directed us inside where Alex’s mother was trying in vain to calm him down.  We found him in the basement lying on his back.  Mom was trying to hold his hands.  She was crying.  She was sweating.  She was bleeding.  Around him were toddler toys:  Elmo dolls, a ring-toss game, coloring books.  There were no toddlers in the house.  The toys were Alex’s.  Alex was 14 years old.  He had Autism. 

In recent months there have been many high profile incidents concerning police using force to deal with children and adults on the Spectrum:

-Police Taser Autistic Teen and Then, After Family Complains, Return and Arrest Teen

-Teen with autism shot to death by police

-Autistic Man with Toy Gun Killed by Miami Police Officers

The most gut-wrenching of these incidents involved a young man named Stephon Watts.  Stephon, diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, was shot and killed by police in Calumet City, Ill on February 1^st, 2012 after he slashed an officer with a kitchen knife.  This incident has gained national attention and stirred outrage within the ASD community.  I would like to offer my perspective. 

I am a 16 year-veteran police officer.  I am a police K9 handler and trainer with 12 years experience in searching for wandering ASD individuals.  I am also an Autism Dad. 

Vive la Difference: The LeRoy Outbreak, Toxic Gender Disparity and Conversion of the Media

By Adriana Gamondes

By now the outbreak of tics and Tourette’s like symptoms among primarily female high school students in LeRoy, New York, has hit the mainstream media—all except The New York Times, which so far has printed nothing on the tragedy.  Why? 

It’s possible that Times management may have foreseen that, after more low-brow media had exhausted the standard diversionary red herring theory for mass outbreaks of movement disorders among females— that the girls suffered from the too-Freudian “conversion disorder” or “mass hysteria”— environmentalists would eventually descend on LeRoy to test the soil, air and water and study potential toxic sources.

The problem for the Times may be that there's no progressive-seeming way to spin the story—mod shade of lipstick or not, the hysteria theory is still a pig.  Though it’s a very useful pig with so many industry-exculpating applications which the Times is deeply invested in. For instance, what if environmental theory in the LeRoy outbreak implicates industries or institutions represented by the Times’ shared board members? 

Maybe in an oblique, all-purpose pitch to de-pig-ify the hysteria theory, Times editors could dredge up a representative from an astroturf breed of Prozac-friendly postfeminist like Elizabeth Wilson, author of Psychosomatic: Feminism and the Neurological Body, in which she argues incomprehensibly that:

Listening to Prozac does not simplistically replace psychological or cultural determinism with biological determinism; more carefully, it opens up the very nature of determination (i.e., certainty, termination, resolution) to interrogation.

But there’s another option beyond bad genes and bad childhoods: Biological indeterminism—as in consumers have little informed consent about the safety of the air we breathe, the food and water we consume and the drugs we take. We are not always in control of how toxins impact us in combination, how they got into us in the first place or our individual toxic susceptibility.

The environmentalists have in fact descended on Leroy::

The competing psychological-disorder diagnosis — Buffalo Drs. Laszlo Mechtler and Jennifer McVige have called it both conversion disorder and mass psychogenic illness — is what's known as a diagnosis of exclusion, meaning it is applied when other more tangible explanations have been ruled out.

Miller and representatives of the environmental and health groups say not enough work has been done to exclude these other possibilities.

"Right now you have a cluster of sick kids, and nobody's quite sure what's going on. It's kind of been a rush to judgment here," said Claire Barnett, executive director of the Healthy Schools Network, a nonprofit group with offices in Washington, D.C., and Albany.

Officials at the state Department of Health, which has looked into the cluster, avoid speculating about the cause. Spokesman Jeffrey Hammond notes there are "many causes of tics-like symptoms," and stress often makes them worse.

But Hammond did say most of the girls did not get the HPV vaccine Gardasil, so any side effects wouldn't have caused the symptoms. He said the physicians in Buffalo also ruled out infections in the patients they saw.

Hammond noted that indoor air testing done for the school district found no evidence of toxic-chemical contamination, a lack of fresh air, mold or other problems. And he argued the lack of symptoms reported by staff members and male students argued against a contaminant spread through the air.

In the end the claim that solely female students were stricken has been contradicted. Aside from vague reports that, among the 15 or so victims in LeRoy, one male student may have been affected, Age of Autism blog editors Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill were contacted by the family of Bryan Trembley, a thirty-five year old resident of Bath, New York, who developed very similar symptoms to the girls in LeRoy in September. Bath—aptly named considering that, like LeRoy, the area is low-lying and subject to flooding as the Age of Autism editors documented— is approximately 60 miles southeast of LeRoy, though the towns appear to be connected by an intricate network of waterways.

Bryan Trembley is obviously not an adolescent or female and so far, no one has suggested he suffers from conversion disorder. In a similar past outbreaks, such as at the William Byrd High School in Roanoke, Virginia in 2007, one adult teacher succumbed to tics along with students. Still, the gender disparity and adolescent bent of the syndrome is obvious, which is likely what brought on quaint speculations of victims’ female-borne psychological instability. Who could be more “susceptible” to this kind of sloppy inference than teenage girls?

EBCALA Center on Fox News RE: DSM-5 Changes for Autism & Asperger's

A Yale School of Medicine researcher, Dr. Fred Volkmar, recently used the APA’s new criteria for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders version five (DSM V) to find that only 45% of individuals who have an autism diagnosis today would retain that diagnosis. The New York Times reported extensively on this development last week.

Since diagnoses determine eligibility for services, this constricted definition would likely withhold remedial services for more than half of all individuals diagnosed with autism today. This could be a disaster for both the autism community and the wider public.

EBCALA issued a press release with other autism and environmental groups to warn of the serious risks of the proposed changes. The coalition is deeply concerned about the possible cut-off of services and about the future of scientific research. Could this redefinition jeopardize years of research and millions of dollars already invested? Has the APA fully considered all the ramifications of the proposed changes? SafeMinds Executive Director, Eric Uram, stated in the press release, “Toxic exposures to the general population change over time and having good consistent epidemiology allows researchers to judge the likelihood of a toxin being involved in autism.”

EBCALA can see no solid foundation for these proposed changes. Dr. Fred Volkmar stated in the New York Times, “The changes would narrow the diagnosis so much that it could effectively end the autism surge… We would nip it in the bud.” Ending the autism epidemic in name only is surely an unworthy goal for the APA or anyone else.

Please contact the APA to express your concern about how these changes might affect those living with autism at

• apa@psych.org or
• 1-888-357-7924. 

Ask the APA what impact it expects the redefinition to have on health insurance coverage, state services, school district services, and epidemiological research. Ask the APA to explain its rationale for these changes. Tell them your views.

News Media Continue to Manipulate the MMR Controversy with Research ‘Disproving’ Link Between Autism and MMR

News media continue to manipulate the MMR controversy with research ‘disproving’ the link between autism and MMR

By Martin Hewitt

For some years a common media response to new autism research was the question: what do these findings say about the MMR/autism controversy. The response applies especially to research on the presence of autism prior to the first MMR jab at 13 months; evidence of autism before the jab is taken without question as proof there is no MMR/autism link. This has become a key question for reporters and interviewers seeking to make sense of new autism research and produce easily digested reports for news audiences, however relevant or not the question to the specific research under review. Researchers themselves sometimes encourage this response when they make statements alerting news media to the significance of their research for the MMR controversy.

So it is with the latest UK research into the association of early infant responses to eye gaze and the subsequent onset of autism pre-released last week (Elsabbagh et al ‘Infant neural sensitivity to dynamic eye gaze is associated with later emerging autism’, Current Biology, Vol 2, pp. 1-5, February 21 2012, available online here). On the 27^th January edition of the BBC’s premiere morning radio programme ‘Today’, presenter Sarah Montague ended her interview with Professor Tony Charman, co-author of the study, with the question: "There is of course one rather obvious thing, if you can say a child has autism at six months, you can say it's not the result of an injection – say the MMR row – the child has at one". Charman replied: “I think that is a very good point but not one we make in the paper. But there is so much weight of evidence about this, and our study makes a contribution to something that should have been over many years ago". UK newspapers took a similar line. We will return to the relevance of the research for the MMR issue later.

The research

One of the first signs parents notice of autism is their child’s failure to respond to their gaze; the child shows little interest when a parent looks them in the eye. Recent research has used this insight in measuring the neural activity of children confronted with dynamic images of adult faces gazing at and then away from them – activity also taken as a sign of future impairment in social interaction. The study compared neural activity in 54 infants between six and ten months with older autistic siblings (the at risk group) and 50 infants of the same age without autistic siblings (the control group). This prospective longitudinal study then independently assessed the two groups for autism at 24 and at 36 months. The research found that 17 children in the at risk group who had showed atypical neural activity in response to dynamic eye shifts were later diagnosed with autism at 36 months. The study concluded that measures of neural activity in response to eye shifts at 6 months could be developed into a predictive measure of whether a child was likely to become autistic at 36 months. Early intervention could then be targeted at these children. Currently the first signs of autistic behaviour are seen in the second year of life at the time when the diagnosis is first made. The research seeks to bring diagnosis forward into the first six to ten months when behavioural symptoms of autism are not normally observable.

Call In: National Vaccine Advisory Committee Meetings

Agenda as of February 3, 2012

Hubert H. Humphrey Building
200 Independence Avenue, S.W., Room 800
Washington, DC 20201

February 7-8, 2012 Meeting

See two day agenda HERE.

Participant Call-In: 1- 888-779-6189 Passcode: 9371282
Toll Number: 1-517-308-9034

Topics include:

• Immunization Programs: More than Just Vaccine
  Discussion, Public Comments and Vote
  
• Overview of H1N1 Vaccine Safety Monitoring
  Information and Discussion
  
  
• Health Care Provider Toolkit
  Information and Discussion

Tics and Toxins: Pesticide Ban, Rainfall Could Point to Poisonous Fungus as Factor in Student Outbreaks

By Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill

LEROY, N.Y., February 6  -- Last year, during the wettest spring ever recorded across large swaths of New York state, a little-noticed law took effect: As of May 18, pesticide use was banned from the grounds of every school in the state. That same month, a girl at the junior/senior high school here, and another at a high school near Albany, developed a mysterious tic disorder. The total number of cases in LeRoy has now risen to 15.

This convergence adds a new possibility to the list of suspects already being scrutinized in this picturesque Western New York village of 4,400, suspects that range from a 1970 train derailment that spewed toxic chemicals, to an autoimmune disorder called PANDAS, to leaks from gas wells on school grounds that may or may not have employed “fracking." The new possibility: Poisoning from a fungus that grows on a grass commonly planted on school grounds.

The fungus is called ergot, and it can grow when ryegrass – used on most athletic playing fields – sprouts a floweret that gets infected. That most often happens during wet spring months and on low-lying or marshy areas. (This photo was taken on school grounds last week.)

Two other tic cases have been reported in girls who attend Corinth High School, north of Albany. Both are members of the school softball team; the first girl collapsed unconscious in May during the first inning of a softball game and began twitching and convulsing, according to the Albany Times-Union; in LeRoy, at least 6 of the first 12 cases were among athletically active girls – four cheerleaders and two members of the soccer team.

And as we have reported, a 35-year-old man in the village of Bath, about 70 miles from LeRoy, was stricken with the same symptoms in September. He lives close to a field that was planted last spring in rye and not harvested; there is a swamp and a levee nearby; and his water comes from a well in his yard. (This is a photo of the swamp.)

In Corinth, the first girl was affected in May; according to a report from the New York State Department of Health released Friday, the first case in LeRoy was also in May, followed by three more cases in weeks that began in September, two cases in October, one case in November, and one case in December. The state report dismissed environmental or infectious factors and embraced the official diagnosis of “conversion disorder,” in which stress or trauma are subconsciously converted into physical symptoms (several cases at once is called “a mass psychogenic event”).

Conversion Disorder in Leroy NY?

By Teresa Conrick

I have been following all of the news and reports on the teens and now two adults who have developed sudden onset tics and Tourette-like symptoms in upper NY.  It is an unanswered medical phenomenon still and one that is devastating.  One thing that seems certain -- the issue of Conversion Disorder vs Immune Disorder needs a further analysis.  A report titled, "Investigation of Neurologic Symptoms among Le Roy Jr/Sr High School Students, October 2011 – January 2012"  has been made available for viewing and some interesting pieces of information seem worthy of our attention:

All cases were female. Three of the 12 cases were identified as having pre-existing medical conditions associated with tic disorders. Two of the three cases, who were tic free for a period of time, experienced an exacerbation of tic symptoms during this time period. The third case was identified as having a previous diagnosis of Tourette’s disorder and did not have a new onset of tic symptoms, but rather an acceleration of on-going tics during this time period. Onsets of tic symptoms ranged from May 2011 to December 2011 for the nine new onsets.

My good and learned friends here at Age of Autism, Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted, have been writing about LeRoy and some of the intriguing (AofA Tics and Toxins A History of Building Woes) and significant environmental factors that may be at play. (AofA Tics and Toxins Playing Fields on FEMA Flood Hazard)  Kevin Barry, an avid Age of Autism reader and researcher,  also included some historical, pertinent pieces as to what could be making some of the teens so ill.  Having my own daughter with similar issues of sudden onset motor and vocal tics, seizures and a history of repeated Strep infections, parasites, and lengthy viral illnesses has made the search for the source of this mystery all the more important to me.

Rise From the Ashes

By Cathy Jameson

A rush of excitement filled my house this week.  Ronan found a word!  I should restate that.  He retrieved a word he’d said many, many moons ago.  Gathered around his room one night after being tucked in, Ronan’s siblings and I waited to hear him.  After several attempts with great encouragement from Daddy, we cheered in disbelief and then in ecstatic joy when our own ears were graced with this major accomplishment. 

The excitement started earlier in the evening when Ronan first spoke.  My husband knew it was more than just a vocal attempt like we sometimes hear.  When Ronan spoke again my husband quickly called me over to please come have a listen myself!  I sat on the edge of Ronan’s bed with my typical children standing close by because they too were filled with excitement.  Ronan had only moments earlier uttered this word for Daddy, so we were all anxiously hoping and waiting to see if he could say it again.  While Ronan lay all snug under the blankies my husband began the simple nursery rhyme slowly with a twinkle in his eye, “Ring….around….the Rosie.  Pocket…full of…posies…..”  Wait for it.  Wait for it.  “….Ahhhhd-chgees….ahhhhhd-shezzz…,” Ronan sputtered while Daddy continued amidst the squeals from the rest of us, “WE ALL FALL DOWNNNNNN!”  With rounds of belly laughs, lots of smiles and some fist pumps in the air, that moment was a perfect way to end another one of our very long days.

Years ago we used to sing Ring Around the Rosie to Ronan because we knew he could say “ashes.”  He always said it when he was little.  Ronan would wait excitedly for his cue to fill in that part of the song.  He could say it so many times back then.  Over the years we’ve tried to get him to say “ashes” again, but he never did.  This week something magical happened.  We heard his voice again.  Very, very infrequently Ronan makes sounds that could be words.  It takes great concentration and effort which can quickly turn into frustration followed by silence.  When some sounds turn into real live words you’d have thought Ronan just gave a Valedictory speech.  How we cheer for him!  The entire family jumps up in the hopes of hearing Ronan speak one more time because his speech is one of the missing pieces we all so diligently work to find.  

What a feeling it is to hear Ronan talk.  He had two more verbal attempts and successes in the last few days with this one needing to be noted as well.  This week I didn’t doubt his ability to talk like I sometimes do.  I didn’t have to question myself, Could what I just heard really be language?  Sometimes it is a fluke and I think, Oh!  Was that…? Did I hear him say something?  Nah, it was just noises, not even babbling.  No return of words yet.  This time though, he didn’t just sort of make out a word I was hoping he’d say.  He did say some words. 

Age of Autism Contest Winners: National Autism Association Heart Necklace

Congrats to Jan Randall, Rebekah Gill and Kevin who have won this necklace. Please support our friends at National Autism Association  and Designs by Ja9 and purchase your necklaces now for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Teacher gifts at Designs By Ja9.

 

Request to Secretary Sebelius to Rescind FDA Gardasil Approval

  In the interest of public health and safety, Sane Vax Inc., appeals to the Secretary of Health and Human services to request that FDA approval of Gardasil® be rescinded due to lack of efficacy demonstrated during post-licensure monitoring.

By Norma Erickson, President
February 2, 2012

According to a recently published, industry-sponsored study conducted on 12,852 young women, HPV vaccination was found to reduce HPV-16 infections a mere 0.6% in vaccinated women versus unvaccinated women. At the same time, other high-risk (carcinogenic) HPV infections were diagnosed in vaccinated women 2.6% to 6.2% more frequently than in the unvaccinated women. The increased rate of infections caused by carcinogenic HPV types other than those targeted by Gardasil^® in vaccinated women is 4 to 10 times higher than the reduction in HPV 16/18 infections.^[1]

These statistics are not exactly encouraging when it comes to demonstrating efficacy for Gardasil^®. In fact, quite the opposite – these figures seem to indicate that women who receive Gardasil^® may indeed increase their risk of developing cervical cancer from high-risk HPV types that are not targeted by the vaccine.

Medical consumers cannot afford to take the chance of increasing their risk of contracting a disease that has been virtually eradicated by good gynecological care in the United States (cervical cancer) by taking a series of HPV vaccines and hoping they will find out decades later the vaccine worked. It is certainly not a risk children should have to take.

Armed with the knowledge that any drug approved under the FDA’s accelerated approval process using a surrogate endpoint, such as Gardasil^®, requires post-marketing studies “to verify and describe the drugs clinical benefit and to resolve remaining uncertainty as to the relation of the surrogate endpoint upon which approval was based to clinical benefit…[2],” the SaneVax Team felt compelled to appeal to the person in charge of FDA/CDC oversight, Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Tics and Toxins: Similar Case in County Near LeRoy May Point to Environment

By Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill

BATH, N.Y., February 3 – “I’ve always been a fighter,” Bryan Tremblay says, and that’s not just a metaphor. Now 35 but still a slight 112 pounds at 5 foot 1, he was a bully magnet as a child and learned early to defend himself. That was an advantage when he wrestled for his high school team.

But now Tremblay, who lives in the Steuben County village of Bath in the Finger Lakes region, is battling a demon he can’t control. Since September, he’s suffered from a major tic disorder. It goes on, unpredictably, for hours a day. Even on three heavy-duty medicines, he has seizure-like episodes that leave him sitting dazed for half an hour.

 

The disorder keeps him at home. It makes it hard to study for his online degree in graphic design from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh – and well-nigh impossible to look for work after being laid off early last year from his job at a furniture factory. It creates inevitable fears for his health, his wife, his future.

“It’s so frustrating,” he says. “I just want an answer to what I’ve got.”

Whatever Bryan Tremblay’s got is remarkably similar to the tic-like illnesses that have afflicted 15 students at LeRoy Junior/Senior High School about 70 miles away. Many of the LeRoy students, all but one a girl, came down with the disorder about the same time Tremblay did (he didn’t hear about that until much later). Most were diagnosed with “conversion disorder,” and since so many cases were involved, medical experts have declared it a “mass psychogenic event,” in which stress or trauma is supposedly converted unconsciously into physical symptoms and spreads among affinity groups. School and state health officials say they’ve ruled out environmental or infectious causes and insisted again on Wednesday that the school the girls attend “is safe.”

No one is suggesting conversion disorder in Tremblay’s illness. No one he knows has anything like it. Extensive neurological workups have turned up nothing. He’s due for another follow-up in a couple of weeks at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Tremblay doesn’t drink or use prescription or recreational drugs, nor has he been to LeRoy.

He is no publicity seeker. His sister mentioned his situation in a comment on a story we wrote about LeRoy. She gave us his contact information when we asked, and we reached out to Tremblay.

In an e-mail, he responded: “The symptoms seemed to appear almost out of thin air. It started with uncontrollable body spasms and convulsions in my mid to upper body area. These convulsions lasted from approximately 15 minutes to a 30 minute span.

“Soon the spasms started moving to my head and neck area and the movement was similar to a strong neck-whip similar to that of whiplash, sharp and strong and completely random. I did seem to notice that the amount of stress was a factor in the strength of the tics. The problem is the stress level increases once it starts and the tics become stronger and increase as well.

“I noticed that after five months the tics have become vocal, more yelling and humming with points of time where I repeat noises over and over. I find myself spacing out for large amounts of time and daydreaming with difficulty recovering.

“I have also started hand and arm movements.”

In almost every way, Tremblay’s life circumstances could not be more different from the LeRoy cases. But one common factor was evident during a visit – water. Water everywhere. Tremblay lives in a low-lying area. His house backs up to a levee less than a football field’s length behind his house.

Why Do Autism "Experts" Know So Little? The DSM-5 Debacle.

By Anne Dachel

Experts know NOTHING about autism. NOTHING. Not the cause or the cure. They’re not sure what the current rate is since the last time they updated the numbers was three years ago but it was based on studies of eight year olds back in 2006. Now they’re also telling us that they don’t even know exactly what autism is.

Stories are out everywhere about the American Psychiatric Association’s plan to revise their manual of mental disorders, known as the DSM, where they’ll be changing what we now call autism.

I’m not sure why we should trust the people who can’t tell us anything for sure about autism. When exactly are they going to get it right? In a couple of years will they be overhauling autism again? I would think that a lot of psychiatrists are embarrassed about the perpetual head scratching over autism, but they’re not. News reports give us doctors who welcome the changes. It seems they’ve finally figured out what the word autism really means.

Parents are worried however. No one is expressing a lot of hope that a new definition will make life better for any kids with autism, in fact, a lot of parents are very concerned that getting rid of the label of autism will mean children will lose critical services.

Now Dr. Catherine Lord, one of the experts working on the DSM changes, hopes that won’t happen. She was on CBS News on Jan 25  saying, "Families are very, very concerned that their kids are going to lose their diagnosis. It's really important to reassure people that there's no intention that that will happen. ...The intention of the new criteria is to better describe children--and adults--who have autism, Aspergers Syndrome, PDD-NOS, ... We don't want criteria that diagnose everyone as having autism. We want to do a better job of diagnosing the people who do. We're not trying to exclude anyone."

And Lord also announced on CBS that for some kids, autism isn’t a lifelong disability. Lord said, “10 to 20 percent outgrow autism--those without other severe problems.” That is a stunning claim. I seriously want to see the thousands of kids who outgrew autism, especially kids who were non-verbal and who displayed all the signs of classic autism we’re so familiar with. I want to see those children today as a typical-acting with no signs of autism.

With all the quibbling over the word autism, no one is ever worried. The Catherine Lords of the world act like we have lots of time to figure out autism and that losing a generation of children to a disorder no one ever heard about 25 years is something we just have to learn to live with. No one talks about what this country will be like when one percent of adults as well as kids have autism and we’re paying and paying and paying. (And I’m sure there are lots of people who look forward to that day so they can say, “See, we told you the rate was the same for adults!”)

The New York Miracle Book Tour and Seven Keys to Unlock Autism Giveaway!

Leave a comment to win one of 5 copies of  Seven Keys to Unlock Autism. Our friend Dr. Stephen Shore wrote the foreword.

THE MIRACLE PROJECT PRESENTS

I  HEART  AUTISM: The New York Miracle Book Tour

With

Elaine Hall & Diane Isaacs

Authors of

SEVEN KEYS TO UNLOCK AUTISM

In February, the acclaimed approach to helping children with autism,

profiled in the award-winning documentary Autism: The Musical,

comes to New York!

(New York, January 2012)-- The Miracle Project, a theater arts program for children with autism, announces the “I Heart Autism: The New York Miracle Book Tour” -- kicking off with a fundraiser and book signing on Tuesday, February 7 at Barnes & Noble in New York City.

Authors Elaine Hall and Diane Isaacs will read and sign copies of their new book SEVEN KEYS TO UNLOCK AUTISM at Barnes & Noble (150 East 85^th Street, New York City) at 7:00pm.   This groundbreaking book outlines seven integrated keys for educators and parents to make meaningful connections with children on the autism spectrum. The book is based on the unique approach used by Elaine Hall and Diane Isaacs of The Miracle Project, a musical theater program for children with autism and their peers and siblings. The book teaches ways to apply these effective strategies at school and at home to nurture kids' self-expression and social skills. 

The Case Against the Whittemores and the Importance to the Neuro-Immune Disease Community

By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.

The Reno Gazette-Journal and the Las Vegas Review Journal are both reporting that Harvey and Annette Whittemore, founders of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute for Neuro-Immune Diseases at the University of Nevada/Reno have been sued by their former business partners for embezzlement in the amount of more than 40 million dollars. The articles can be accessed HERE.

This development may have an enormous impact on the ME/CFS community (myalgic encephelomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) and also end up being of great importance to the autism community.

The readers of this blog will no doubt be aware that Dr. Judy Mikovits, the former research director of the Whittemore-Peterson Institute presented information at a poster session of the First International Conference on XMRV in September of 2010 that in a small study 14 out of 17 children with autism, who had parents with ME/CFS, tested positive for signs of a retroviral infection. (This was in addition to her reporting that 66 out of 101 patients with ME/CFS showed signs of retroviral infection.  The research was published in the journal Science.  It has since been retracted, although further research is continuing, and the controversy shows little sign of abating.)

National Autism Association Exclusive: Designs by Ja9 Love Puzzle Necklace Giveaway

Our friends at National Autism Association  and Designs by Ja9 have given us three of these beautiful necklaces for our readers. Leave a comment to enter. We'll draw the winner on Saturday. Good luck!

In the meantime, purchase your necklaces now for Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and Teacher gifts at Designs By Ja9.

 

Tics and Toxins: Leroy Put Student Playing Fields on FEMA Flood Hazard Land

By Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill

LEROY, N.Y., February 2 – School officials who say environmental factors can’t be responsible for the outbreak of tics at the Junior/Senior High School might want to check last year’s record rainfalls – and the flood-prone ground right under their feet.

The tics broke out after an unusual pattern of heavy rain, followed by a mild winter that has kept the ground from freezing and left lots of standing water at Leroy Junior/Senior High School.

That should be no surprise. Part of the school grounds -- including athletic fields -- are right on top of a federally designated FEMA Flood Hazard Area. While a county official told us that the school itself sits on a slope just above the hazard area, the zone cuts right across the girls’ softball diamond, as well as the football/track field and another, larger baseball field.

The land in the flood hazard area generally correlates with other mapping that shows less optimal and more flood prone Canandaigua soil covering the site.

In fact, we’ve been told by local residents that some fields, including the girls’ softball field just built in 2009, had to be dug up and rebuilt within the last year because the ground was so wet. The building itself has not escaped water and structural woes – the gym could not be used when the school was first opened a few years back because the floor buckled and sank, and the opening of school was delayed one year for a week by flooding, according to a former student.

School officials won’t comment, but Superintendent Kim M. Cox issued a new statement Wednesday, mostly blasting national press attention and the involvement of famed advocate Erin Brockovich, who has cited a train derailment of hazardous material a few miles from town in 1970 as a likely cause. Cox said new tests have shown drinking water inside the school – which comes from neighboring Monroe County – is safe.

Citing state and federal experts, she said: “All of these agencies and professionals from these agencies have assured us that our school is safe. There is no evidence of an environmental or infectious cause. Environmental causes would not discriminate. We would see a wide range of people affected.”

But no one seems to be looking up at the sky or down at the ground. LeRoy, like other New York state and Northeastern U.S. locations, has seen an epic amount of rain during the past 12 months. We put this chart together to show 2011 rainfall versus normal amounts in Buffalo and Rochester. LeRoy is located between them.

Alice Park and TIME: Great Media Frauds

By Jake Crosby

Just recently, TIME Magazine writer Alice Park included Dr. Andrew Wakefield among the “Great Science Frauds” of all time in TIME “HealthLand” on January 12, 2012. But if there is anything one should know about Park, it’s that she is a great media accomplice of pharma in the vaccine injury cover-up.

In 2008, Alice Park penned an article titled “How Safe Are Vaccines?” timetabled to coincide with the Washington DC “Green Our Vaccines” rally. The piece drew public rebuke from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the rally, who announced in front of the capital, “I called that woman who wrote that TIME Magazine article!” “That woman” was Alice Park.

It so happens that TIME Magazine was going through a makeover implemented by the corporate global consulting firm, McKinsey, which was still firmly under the leadership of Ian Davis, twin brother to the judge who killed MMR litigation in the UK. Their older brother, Crispin Davis, was the boss of Lancet Editor-in-Chief Richard Horton when Horton lied about not knowing of Dr. Wakefield’s involvement in litigation. McKinsey was also the location for a book party for congressionally reprimanded millionaire vaccine industrialist Paul Offit.

Other examples of TIME’s abhorrent coverage include a profile of Jenny McCarthy that questioned her son’s diagnosis of autism on the basis of speculation by unnamed doctors who never examined her child. The author, Karl Taro Greenfeld, is now a contributor to Alison Singer’s blog.

Editorial influence could have also played a role. TIME’s Senior Science and Technology Editor, Jeffrey Kluger once interviewed Jenny McCarthy with a barrage of loaded questions. Kluger had a history of writing about the vaccine industry even before he began covering this controversy.

In 2005, Kluger authored Splendid Solution, Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio. The book aimed to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the success of Salk’s polio vaccine. However, the book was full of errors.

Hacked Off Boss, Martin Moore, Sat on UK Government Panel with Editor who Hired Brian Deer

By John Stone

Martin Moore (left), the unresponsive boss of the organisation ostensibly set up to support members of the public who have fallen victim of the unethical journalistic practices of the Murdoch media empire in the UK (See Age of Autism "Write to Hacked Off.." HERE), sat on a panel set up by the UK’s Department for Business to plan the future of science journalism in Britain producing a report ‘Science and the Media: Securing a Future’. Moore has repeatedly refused to be drawn on a catalogue of apparent abuses in Deer’s MMR investigation, including Deer’s assertion that a Sunday Times news editor, Paul Nuki (right), had hired him to find “something big” on “MMR” (which sounds suspiciously like a fishing expedition). It now turns out that Nuki and Moore sat on the same government committee in 2009-10 to determine the future of British science journalism under the chairmanship of Fiona Fox. Fox, the head of Science Media Centre, has also recently given evidence regarding the MMR to Leveson Inquiry on ethics in British journalism.

Meanwhile, Moore’s organisation Hacked Off effectively sits as unofficial guard dog to the government appointed Leveson Inquiry, which has now heard a succession of witnesses including Fox condemn as irresponsible earlier media concerns about the safety of MMR, but has so far failed to hear witness statements based any of the submissions about Deer’s investigation.

To date Moore and Hacked Off have ignored documented concerns that:-

Open Letter to the Town of Leroy, NY: Learn Lessons from the Autism Epidemic

By Kevin Barry

TOWN OFFICIALS:  LISTEN TO AFFECTED FAMILIES, BE PUBLIC AND TRANSPARENT WITH ENVIRONMENTAL TEST RESULTS & DON’T OFFER RIDICULOUS EXPLANATIONS BLAMING THE INJURED.

The heavy rains and flooding in August and September 2011 may have lead to a release of dichloroacetylene (DCA) in LeRoy, NY.  DCA is a neurotoxic decomposition product of trichloroethylene (TCE) which spilled in the area 40 years ago due to a train derailment.  DCA has been shown to cause tremors and cranial nerve palsies – or the more vernacular name - tics.  More investigation of this possible connection is warranted.

Mass hysteria?  Conversion disorder?  Really? Have you learned nothing since the Salem Witch Trials? Those explanations are no more ridiculous than trying to blame refrigerator mothers or old sperm for the autism epidemic.   Wasting time on ridiculous explanations is tragic because it does not help those currently injured and it does not prevent new injuries.  LeRoy psychiatrists?  Please admit that you do not know what happened to these girls and move along.

I listened to the families and the girls who were experiencing the symptoms, which lead me to question, why LeRoy, NY?  Why now? 

After reading about the 1970 TCE spill, which is unique to the LeRoy community, I began searching to see if TCE could have a role in the neurological issues.  Additionally, could the massive flooding that the LeRoy area experienced in the aftermath of both Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee help explain why this is happening now, and not previously in the last 40 years?

The town officials and school district should be transparent with their environmental test results and provide those results to the public as soon as possible. The town officials and school district should also allow for private testing to search for TCE/DCA exposure to corroborate their results.   I believe there is sufficient rationale for additional testing to determine specifically if TCE/DCA plays a role in the physical issues these children are experiencing.  

While the potential connection between TCE/DCA and the girls with neurological symptoms is speculative and needs to be confirmed by testing, the potential connection warrants specific investigation.   An article from 1984 in the journal Archives of Toxicology suggests all that is required to form DCA vapor is TCE plus “moist concrete.”  As a result, in addition to the school property, many locations in LeRoy should be tested for TCE/DCA contamination.

A 1944 paper describes how DCA may have caused “Cranial Nerve Palsies” in 13 patients (10 women) when TCE was used as an anesthetic.  The 1944 paper makes a very important general point about toxicology: 

Sir Crispin Davis and James Murdoch No Longer on GSK Board

The Wall Street Journal reports that James Murdoch, son of beleaguered media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose empire is embroiled in scandal, has stepped down  from the GlaxoSmithKline board. See WSJ online HERE.  In addition, Sir Crispin Davis, former Chief Executive of Reed Elsevier, which owns The Lancet, which published the paper that included Dr. Andrew Wakefield's MMR information,  is leaving the board after a nine year tenure.

The heir to Rupert Murdoch’s media empire has quit the board of Britain’s biggest drugs company in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

James Murdoch joined  GlaxoSmithKline less than two years ago.

He has come under fire from MPs who have questioned him about signing off out-of-court settlements to hacking victims without a full picture of what had gone on at the News of the World.

He was forced to deny misleading Parliament over the extent of his knowledge.

Glaxo said Mr Murdoch’s decision to turn his back on the £98,000 role was entirely his own.

Chairman Chris Gent said: ‘James has taken this decision to focus on his current duties as non-executive chairman of BSkyB and following his decision to re-locate to the United States as chairman and chief executive, international, of News Corporation.’

John Stone has written about both Murdoch and Davis and their proximity to the Dr. Andrew Wakefield MMR Lancet Paper BMJ topic.

James Murdoch Still Supported by GlaxoSmithKline ran last July:

Lancet Boss Failed to Disclose Own Conflicts to Parliament While Denouncing Wakefield

Both posts run in full following the jump:

Tics and Toxins: Just Before Mystery Illnesses Hit Leroy NY, School Built New Playing Fields

By Dan Olmsted

LEROY, N.Y., January 30 -- New playing fields, including one for girls' softball, were completed the year before the outbreak of tics and other ailments began afflicting girls at Leroy Junior/Senior High School.

Aerial photographs compiled by the Genesee County assessments office clearly show the construction in progress in 2009, here:

The 2010 photo shows the completed fields, here:

 

The smaller field to the immediate left of the school is the girls' softball field, according to a former student at the school. All but one of the students affected so far are girls. There are unconfirmed reports that one boy was also stricken.

School officials said earlier this month that two reports they commissioned of indoor air quality and mold had ruled out any environmental cause. New York Health Department officials concurred and a spokesman told me last week, "The school is safe." Most of the girls were diagnosed at a Buffalo neurological clinic with "conversion disorder," in which psychological stress or trauma is supposedly converted into physical symptoms that clusters of people can display at the same time.

But parents and the girls themselves have rejected that diagnosis, and other theories have been advanced; school officials now say they are ordering another round of tests. I reported last week that the first testing did not include any outside areas of the school grounds, except for reviewing school pesticide logs. Because those logs were in order, environmental factors outside the school building were ruled out. State health officials also say no infectious agent was involved.

But in any investigation of a new illness, the question of what's new in the environment -- from medicines a person is taking, to places they have been, to changes in where and how they live -- needs to be ruled out first.

Building ballfields within the past two years certainly qualifies as new. That could hypothetically create new risks, either from stirring up toxins such as pesticides on the site, or importing materials such as fill or sod that was previously contaminated. New attention has been given to a railroad derailment several miles away in 1970 that spilled both cyanide and TCE, a highly toxic manufacturing agent. Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has suggested that the school site was contaminated by runoff from that incident, or that dirt from that area was used to construct the school in the early 2000s.

The Situation Room: Autism, Vaccines, and Agent Orange

Managing Editor's Note: We're proud to welcome Dan Burns as our newest Age of Autism Contributing Editor.  Dan has an adult son with autism named Ben, and his perspective and writing style are a great addition to our content. Welcome, Dan.

By Dan E. Burns 

Project Draft 13

 I will show you fear in a handful of dust

(T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land).

We stared at it, my Public Relations colleagues and I, perhaps a little too long. Projected on the wall of the Situation Room stood the Agent Orange distillation column, a 50-foot tall steel vessel reigning over a graveyard of oil drums labeled “Diamond Shamrock Corporation” and “Hazardous Waste.”

Agent Orange is not an ingredient in vaccines. But what happened – or didn’t happen – in the Situation Room has a lesson for us, the parents of vaccine-injured children.

In 1983, Vietnam vets from Operation Ranch Hand were suffering from neural and blood disorders, miscarriages, leukemia, and cancers of the prostate, lung, and liver. They were marching, waving signs, and pointing fingers. At us. Allegedly, the damage came not from Agent Orange per se, but from 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, a contaminant produced during the “cooking” or fractionation process when the temperature in the tower rose a little too high for a little too long. As it did in the Diamond Shamrock Ironbound plant. If the EPA is right – the claim is disputed HERE – dioxin is one of the most potent carcinogens known to human kind.

Diamond Shamrock mounted a vigorous defense. “We can’t cure anyone’s cancer,” said the General Counsel. “What’s done is done. If we move one shovelful of dirt more than required, we open ourselves up to additional liability. That would just spread the mess.”

My colleagues in the Situation Room were decent, caring people. “Chipper,” to my right, recruited and went to bat for minorities. “Lou,” to my left, our one-man brain trust, played the blues guitar and wrote protest songs light with whimsy and humor. I was Executive Speechwriter, raising two college-bound children. After an underpaid career in academia, I needed this job.

Lou had researched the issue for years. “In jungle warfare,” he said, “G.I.s were exposed to a host of tropical pathogens, fungi, protozoa, unknown viruses, and biological agents coming at them through novel vectors on all sides. We don’t know what caused their chronic fatigue, birth defects, and cancers. Diamond Shamrock operated under mandate from the government, and our actions were safe, proper, and legal.”

‘That’s right,” chimed in the General Counsel. “We have a fiduciary responsibility to our shareholders. That’s why we’re here today.”

National Autism Association & AutismCollege.com To Offer Free Online Safety Conference

National Autism Association & AutismCollege.com To Offer Free Online Safety Conference

San Diego, CA – The National Autism Association and AutismCollege.com are teaming up in February to offer a free web conference for caregivers of those diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).  The web conference series entitled Autism Safety and Crisis Prevention will feature top autism experts covering sensitive safety topics that include sexual-abuse risk reduction, bullying prevention, suicide ideation, wandering prevention, and prevention of risks associated with restraint and seclusion.

Historically, medical literature has maintained that ASD does not affect life expectancy; however, a 2001 California study found elevated death rates in ASD related to several causes that included accidents such as suffocation and drowning. “Safety is a primary concern for those on the spectrum and their parents, yet there is very little practical information out there,” says Chantal Sicile-Kira, author and founder of Autism College. “Autism College is happy to partner with the National Autism Association to help empower parents with information they need to protect their children and teens.”

The Autism Safety and Crisis Prevention webinar will be available to caregivers through February. To register, visit www.autismcollege.com.

Webinar presenters will offer real-life strategies to address multiple safety topics, followed by a question-and-answer session. “Even those families who currently do not face safety challenges can learn valuable information through this free safety online conference,” says NAA President Wendy Fournier. “Being aware of the issues and armed with information is critical for all parents.”

Autism Safety and Crisis Prevention Webinar Schedule:

-        Saturday, February 11, 8:15am- 9:45am PST, Dr. Nora Baladerian, Ph.D. will present “How Can Parents Reduce the Risk of Sexual Abuse of Their Child or Young Adult?”

-        Saturday, February 11, 10:00am-11:30am PST, Dr. Lori Ernsperger will discuss “The 3 R's to Bullying Prevention for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Recognize, Respond, and Report.”

-        Wednesday, February 15, 6:00pm-7:30pm PST, Dr. Joshua Feder will discuss “The Problem of Depression and Suicidal Ideation in Autism and Related Disorders.”

-        Saturday, February 18, 8:15am-9:45am PST,  Wendy Fournier of the NAA will discuss Wandering Prevention and Response.

-        Saturday, February 18, 10:00am- 11:30am PST, Pat Amos, M.A. will discuss “Preventing and Eliminating the Use of Restraints and Seclusion.”

About AutismCollege.com:

AutismCollege.com provides practical information and training on autism.

About National Autism Association (NAA):

NAA is a parent-run nonprofit organization and the leading voice on issues related to autism safety and crisis prevention. The organization’s mission is to respond to the most urgent needs of the autism community, providing real help and hope so that all affected can reach their full potential. For more information, visit nationalautismassociation.org.

Your Life Narrated by Me, Your Mother

By Cathy Jameson

I noticed something the other day.  I talk a lot.  I talk more now than before.  It’s not all the time that I’m a Chatty Cathy, but when I’m with Ronan I don’t shut up.  I am still somewhat reserved when it comes to first-time meet and greets with new friends and with people I get to meet.  The inner geek in me will want to sit at the back of the group, out of sight nestled a corner or the back row.  But, when it comes to taking care of Ronan I don’t mind sticking my neck out to be seen.  Nor do I mind raising my voice to be heard. 

I realized how much I talk when I’m with Ronan when he and I started out last week to get to an appointment.  I caught myself non-stop talking while I was holding Ronan’s hand.  As we walked into the therapist’s waiting room I said, “Keep going, you’re almost there, step over the toys, careful…careful, sit down, hold on, stay with Mommy.  You did it!”  I stayed close to Ronan stroking his back as he sat in my lap while we waited for his name to be called.  The video playing on the television was a tad loud, as were the other patients and their siblings also in the waiting room.  I quietly spoke to Ronan, “You like this movie?  It’s called “Cars 2.”  Remember we saw it at the theatre with Daddy.  Oh, look!  That part made you laugh.  Hey, it’s your turn now.  Stand up, let’s go.  Come on, watch your step.  Down the hallway, here you go!  Okay, bye now, Buddy.  I’ll see you in a little bit.  Kiss.”  How many times have I done that--given a play-by-play of exactly who, what, where, when and why?

Did I really need to narrate the entire trip into the clinic and into the therapy room?  Did Ronan care that I was observing and noting all sorts of things as we went?  Did he see all of it as we went by?  Did he hear it?   Of course, he heard it.  But, I wonder.  Does Ronan tune me out like he seems to tune out many other things in his environment?  Why do I think I need to state every step and every action?  I guess part of it is because I’ve had to remind Ronan several times about the same thing (walk OVER the toy, not ON it).  Maybe I talk so much because I want a little bit of feedback that shows me Ronan has some sort of understanding of what’s going on in the world.  But, since Ronan is still just barely pre-verbal, the only reliable feedback I get is from me talking to myself. 

Who knows though; maybe with all this chit chat I do for Ronan will have him one day spontaneously respond, “Ma, cut it out.  Okay?  I can do it by myself now.  Watch me.”