David Kirby on HuffPo: Autism Speaks, Don't Rule out Vaccines

Our dedicated contributor David Kirby has a post over at HuffPo HERE
titled, "Autism Speaks: Don't Rule out Vaccines." Please pop over there to leave a comment on his post, won't you?  As always, David, thank you.
Is the vaccine-autism debate over? Not according to the co-founder of the largest, most mainstream, most influential autism organization in the world.

Click HERE to read a HuffPo I wrote about when Suzanne Wright promised me in front of hundreds of people that AS would look at the autism vaccine connection. On camera. 

Comments

[jennifer]

Stephen, I know that you would have access to your kids' files although there likely wouldn't be any reference to vaccinations in them. You could maybe bring it up at parent-teacher conferences, maybe their child regressed at some certain point... I guess just keep on caring about your students and welcome to the site-you will get lots of info here. I don't know how much you can "officially" say to parents about diets and chelation but you may be able to let them know about certain organizations. I remember one time this one little boy in my daughter's class struck me as being very "off" (he could barely spell 2 letter words in grade 3). I said a little prayer to myself -if I am meant to let that mother know that I think her son is being under-served in this school then give me a sign. Sure enough, next morning I saw her at the grocery store! I have never seen her there before or since that 1 time. I let her know that I thought he was badly mis-labelled and to go back to the Children's Hospital and contact the local Learning Disabilities chapter. She did all of that, gladly, and forced the principal to strike his ODD label and he ended up going to a wonderful placement where he really got the help he needed. The teacher and principals' resistance in the matter was staggering both to me and to the child psychiatrist. As a teacher you have to be careful but you can always give them info about certain organizations(generation rescue or here). Maybe someone else here will respond with ideas (i also work as an ed assistant good luck!)

[jennifer]

which is which, I have a strong feeling that Josephius is a PhD chemist who writes on everyday science issues. He doth protest a little too much (is very pro-vaccine) but I wonder if he might just be looking into it enough to see that there just may be some truth to what many, many people are saying (that the vaccination program is not without casualties, and lots of them). I just let him know about Dr. Martha Herbert who has some very interesting studies on autism and environment. (You can see a video of her talk at Autism Canada web-site).

[Stephen Michael Stapanian]

I am a Teacher for the intermediate grades on behalf of children who are challenged with Autism Spectrum Disorders. I am extreamy interested and concerned about the ramifications that the inoculation of unspecified vaccinations may have, thus creating ASD in our children.I wish to take a proactive position, with respect to this issue. One of my student's parents just shared with me that his son at age two was given the required childrens vaccination and soon after had a fever which led to a shut-down of his capabilities which led to the diagnosis of ASD. His son appeared fine prior to the administration of the vaccine.

[which is which?]

Hmm, comments from Orac, autismnewsbeat and somebody named josephius, who has to be one of the regular jokers who pontificates that there is no real increase in autism. There are only about 5 or 6 of them in total, but it is probably just autismnewsbeat taking a sock puppet name.

[maggie]

Thanks, David.

I think that Autism Speaks will surprise us all someday. Autism Speaks has already established themselves as being against vaccines causing autism so when they finally come out and say vaccines cause brain damage AKA autism, people might actualy listen.

[Stagmom]

As much as I wish Bob and Suzanne would do something, I fear the glacial pace of progress will mean that very little will happen. Bob Wright could easily get airtime on NBC. Why hasn't he refuted Dr. Nancy Snyderman in publi? It was HIS network. Autism Speaks could take out ads demanding vaccine safety in a Park Avenue minute.

The house is on fire and Bob and Suzanne are throwing thimbles of champagne at the conflagration.

Yes, that's harsh. But I refuse to believe they can't do MORE. For God's sake, they founded AS. Threaten to shut it down, take away all the lucre and see if we can get progress....