AGE OF AUTISM

PAUL OFFIT AND THE NYT

David Kirby has quite a bit to add to the Offit piece over at HuffPo, HERE.

The New York Times ran an Op-Ed piece HERE by Dr. Paul Offit of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia today.  I'm not even going to get into the slap in the face to the Poling family and the 4900+ other families waiting for their cases to be heard. Or the rest of us with a child with autism.  Instead, I'm going to concentrate on how Dr. Offit presents himself. 

Oh, by the way, did you see today's news (HERE)that a panel of cardiologists is recommending that docs STOP prescribing Vytorin for it's clear lack of effectiveness in patients? No wonder Merck wants that Rototeq vaccine that Paul Offit promotes to be injected into every American child three times, by law no less. Got to make up those profits somewhere. Your baby is a fine place to start.

The bio below his Op-Ed piece reads:  "Paul A. Offit, chief of the infectious diseases division of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, is the author of “Vaccinated: One Man’s Quest to Defeat the World’s Deadliest Diseases.”

OLMSTED ON AUTISM: SUSAN JACOBY’S PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL JUNK

BY DAN OLMSTED

Facing a long plane ride recently, I was thumbing through the airport bookstore and came across a new book by Susan Jacoby titled “The Age of American Unreason.” Now there was a title to catch my attention, because I do think that the general level of education and discourse and shared values in this country is in decline, and not unrelated to the mess we find ourselves in concerning autism, the practice of medicine, the damaging mediocrity of the mainstream media, and so on. I looked forward to spending the next four hours agreeing with Jacoby.

THE POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE HANNAH POLING DECISION

Editor's Note: Margaret Dunkle is Hannah Poling’s great aunt and an early intervention specialist. She wrote the following memo to her colleagues at the “Early Identification and Intervention Collaborative for Los Angeles County” and has given her permission to Age of Autism to reprint it in full.


To: Early Identification and Intervention Collaborative for Los Angeles County
From: Margaret Dunkle
Date: March 17, 2008

What Are the Policy Implications of the Hannah Poling Decision
for Screening, Intervention and Treatment?

Most of you have heard that the federal government has conceded that:
“…the vaccinations Hannah [Poling, an Athens, GA, girl who is now nine years old] received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder.” *

Additionally:
“Having reviewed this additional evidence, [medical personnel at the Division of Vaccine Injury Compensation, Department of Health and Human Services (DVIC)] now recommends compensation for Hannah’s seizure disorder as sequela of her vaccine-injury….” **

What are the policy implications of this decision? What questions need to be asked – and answered – by people who care about both:

CRY SHAME! SUPPORT FOR MURCH, WAKEFIELD AND WALKER-SMITH

CryShame (please note their web address is www.cryshame.com) is a campaigning group co-founded by a number of UK parents and professionals who are concerned about the catastrophic rise in autism spectrum disorders and in the potential link with environmental toxins– particularly MMR and thimerosol (mercury) containing vaccines.

REVIEW: AUTISM THE MUSICAL

By Michelle O'Neil

I agreed instantly to do a review of  Autism the Musical, a film that aired on HBO last week. The movie was gorgeous and I fell in love with every single kid in it. I fell in love with the drama teacher who's vision was responsible for the whole thing. The moments of brilliance on the part of the children. A girl named Lexi, who sings like an angel but can't carry a conversation. A boy named Wyatt who deeply and openly processes his own feelings and behaviors on camera. Gentle Henry who finally calmed down enough to accept a heartfelt compliment from a friend. A non-verbal boy, that seemed to have nothing to say, but then typed out a poignant message to his dedicated mama, asking her to "listen" more.

There were moments of tension, when a mother so used to controlling everything about her son's life, is forced to let go during dress rehearsal.

A moving, somewhat lonely scene of a mother and son lighting their menorah for Hanukkah.

But as I reflected on what to write about the film, the thing that kept coming up for me was marriage. This movie went right to the heart of what autism in the family does to a marriage.

HOW CAN YOU LIVE FOREVER IF YOU DON'T TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF?

By Michelle Dozois

We all know being a parent requires a tremendous amount of energy and patience.  Add to that the demands of raising a child with special needs and our personal health can easily get shoved to the back burner. I make my living helping others get fit yet, when my son was diagnosed with autism, I put all my energies into him, neglecting myself. I felt drained, tired and depressed. Who wouldn’t? By getting back into a regular exercise routine, I felt a million times better and was able to put even more energy into my family.

We all want to be there to help care for our children but how do we find time to take care of ourselves?

CDC'S GERBERDING TO CNN: VACCINES CAN TRIGGER AUTISM SYMPTOMS

Here's the CDC's latest slide down the slippery slope to acknowledging what I've taken to calling So Effing Obvious: Vaccines can trigger "symptoms that have characteristics of autism" in susceptible kids.

Recall David Kirby's recent piece that mitochondrial susceptibility might be 1 in 50 kids. -- Dan Olmsted

JULIE GERBERDING, DR., CDC DIRECTOR: Well, you know, I don't have all the facts because I still haven't been able to review the case files myself. But my understanding is that the child has a -- what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder. And children that have this disease, anything that stresses them creates a situation where their cells just can't make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally.

Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids.

So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you're predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism.

The transcript is HERE.

FORBES.COM: 1 in 50 AT RISK?

Forbes.com picked up the NAA press release on mitochondrial disease and autism. You can see their site HERE.

THE NAKED AUTHOR STRIPS AUTISM BARE

Thank you to Cornelia Read of The Naked Authors and mother of a 14 year old daughter who is profoundly affected by her autism. By profoundly, I mean in ways I can not fathom. And I have three girls with autism. Even if you only scroll down to the bottom of the post - take a look at that beautiful young girl. And think hard. The post parallels the vaccine/autism controversy with the history of drugs and products long removed from the market or given stark warning labels. I warn you, this post is long. It's intense. It's the work of a creative, talented mother who loves her child. If you want the CODE for it so you can run it on your own blog, email me at kim stagliano at gmail.

By Cornelia Read There's a topic I've wanted to blog about here for a long time, but it's pretty heavy stuff--not exactly the bright and breezy fare most people want to skim through online while sipping their morning beverage of choice. Over the last year or so, every time I said to myself, "hey, maybe this week, if I can just get my head around a way to make the info meaningful and compelling... to personalize it somehow so that it's not a complete drag to ingest, but yet not so bereft of necessary info that it's easy to blow off..." I'd end up scuppering the whole thing as impossible to convey. I'm still not sure I can make a blog post out of this that won't put you to sleep, but something happened this month that makes me feel like it's really, really important that I give it my very best effort right now, okay?

MAYBE WE SHOULD TAKE OUR KIDS TO THE VET?

A reader sent us THIS ARTICLE about dogs and vaccines from a Pet Food site. Here's the start:

Back in 1991, my four-year-old Golden Retriever Oliver died very suddenly. Like any grieving 'mum', I asked why. Two years later, Oliver's sister Prudence died of leukaemia, and again I asked why. My other dogs were also suffering: Chappie had thyroid disease; Sophie had crippling arthritis; Samson had autoimmune disease (he died when he was five); and Guinnevere had allergies. I thought I must be the worst dog owner in the world, and tried to discover what I was doing wrong.

I learnt that all of the above can arise from over-vaccination and inappropriate feeding.