Re-branding Autism and the “Noble Lie”
By Kent Heckenlively, Esq.
It’s a lament I’ve heard more than once and I don’t know what to make of it.
Vaccines and autism equals rolled eyes, whether it’s from the Vaccine Court, news reporters, or official organs of the medical establishment.
But call vaccine damage something else, like neuro-inflammation, pervasive developmental disorder, an encephalopathy, or a mitochondrial dysfunction, and suddenly the conversation gets a little warmer. People are more ready to listen. And yet the actual science bears little resemblance to the public debate.
Medical authorities readily admit that drugs can have side-effects. And they’re pouring billions of dollars into studying areas such as pharmo-genetics in order to determine those people most likely to suffer from adverse reactions. For example, the cytochrome P450 enzymes are necessary for the metabolism of many medications with the most vivid example being coumadin, a blood-thinner. Coumadin, also known as warfarin (used as a rat-killer because it causes the rats to bleed to death) can cause internal bleeding in some people. Those individuals generally have a polymorphism in those enzymes. By identifying the individuals with these polymorphisms it's believed the injuries and deaths associated with coumadin usage can be drastically reduced.
The medical community readily agrees that vaccinations entail an “immune challenge” to the body yet we lack the ability to identify those individuals whose immune systems might not be ready for that “challenge.” This should be viewed as a reasonable scientific question. But our current legal and medical systems are not set up to even consider such questions. The Vaccine Court has obliterated the truth-seeking function of trials and placed such issues in a forum which doesn’t allow for even reasonable discovery from the files of the pharmaceutical companies or the government’s own vaccine safety database.
And so what happens? You have instances such as when former Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to answer the question of whether his young son, Leo was fully vaccinated while Dr. Andrew Wakefield endures an unprecedented two year trial before the General Medical Council for his findings of the measles virus in the gut of autistic children with bowel problems. You also have instances such as the former head of the National Institute of Health, Dr. Bernadine Healy saying her colleagues are scared to look at the question of adverse vaccine reactions, and yet the press continually acts as if only Jenny McCarthy and a few other assorted wackos are concerned about this problem.
However, the most troubling development lately has been reading research from places such as Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Harvard, and UC Davis which all point to the same concerns we parents have that our children are suffering from vaccine reactions. It’s even more frustrating to talk to people at the very center of this research who will privately tell me they believe the vaccines are causing the majority of these problems (although they will also say that there are other immune challenges such as exposure to pollution, pesticides, bacteria, and viruses), but they’re afraid to say such things publicly for fear of reprisal.
They tell me they’re not calling it autism, but something different. They’ll call it neuro-inflammation, an amino acid problem, a methylation disorder, anything to steer clear of the dreaded “A” word. What will we call it, if not autism? The “flappers” disease? The “children of silence” syndrome? I’ve even had lawyers involved in the Vaccine Court tell me they need to start calling the problem “encephalopathy (brain swelling) resulting in cognitive impairments”, rather than autism if they want to get compensation for their clients.
And all of this strikes me as a lie.
But what kind of a lie is it? When I was in Catholic school I took classes on morality and they'd pose questions to us. Is it ever acceptable to lie? Many students would answer no. The priest would then ask what we would do if we lived in a totalitarian society and soldiers were coming to kill an innocent man we were hiding. Would we turn him over, knowing what was going to happen?
I had no problem saying I’d lie my ass off. The priest referred to my answer as the "noble lie", meant to protect something greater than truth. Could re-branding autism as something else speed up the day when we stop the current insanity and science gets to work on the real problems of our children?
And yet I’m uncomfortable with the lie.
In a totalitarian society it's one thing, but modern-day America? I also learned in those morality classes that when you lie you do violence to the truth. And the truth is that in the vast majority of cases the vaccines have led directly to autism. Now I can’t tell you the exact path. I don’t know if it’s a methylation problem, an amino acid disorder, abnormal lipids, genetic vulnerabilities, mitochondrial abnormalities, neuro-inflammation, viruses, opportunistic bacteria, or a mold, or fungus, but I do know what started the whole damned thing.
I also don’t like believing I live in a country in which the medical community is so intolerant of the possibility they have caused harm that we must resort to the lie. But the example of Wakefield, and what others in the medical community have told me suggest it may be true.
Or maybe it’s all a front. I’ve also been told that the pharmaceutical companies and the “medical authorities” aren’t quite as all-knowing and monolithic as they appear. Maybe they're scaring us into the lie. What if twenty-five top researchers at our best universities proclaimed publicly what their own journal articles are saying quietly? Would that be enough to bring down the current system? Would that be enough to stop the hundreds of thousands of children who will be harmed in the next few years by our current system and also provide hope to those currently afflicted?
Are there twenty-five researchers who would be willing to make such a united declaration? Or will the re-branding of autism and the noble lie be our best option?
Kent Heckenlively is a Contributing Editor to Age of Autism
Regarding Kent's statement: "I don’t know if it’s a methylation problem, an amino acid disorder, abnormal lipids, genetic vulnerabilities, mitochondrial abnormalities, neuro-inflammation, viruses, opportunistic bacteria, or a mold, or fungus, but I do know what started the whole damned thing."
This is what I call the "Beat Around the Bush Lies"---No there is not just one lie, but all kinds of lies (as in plural). Yes there are many things that have shown an association with increasing the chances of vaccine damages, but the bottom line is that without these vaccines, these other issues can be singularly handled by the human body and WILL NOT RESULT IN AUTISM, OR “encephalopathy (brain swelling) resulting in cognitive impairments”. This is made obvious by the fact that all of these health issues and vulnerabilities existed prior to the autism epidemic, and yet there were only 1 in 10,000 cases of autism before the vaccine schedule was quadrupled. The vaccine industry wisely arranged for legal immunity from liability prior to unleashing this massive assault on humanity, so what have they to fear? Only the TRUTH, which requires lies lies and more lies to counteract.
There are even worse lies in the legal system regarding the charges against the vaccine industry. Why don't we call it what it really is...Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Intent to Commit Bodily Harm, Conspiracy, Attempted Murder and Murder in the First Degree.
Posted by: Autism Grandma | August 30, 2009 at 12:44 AM
Dear Kent,
I've been doing vaccine reaction work now for 28 years. I've even represented families, in court, though I'm not a lawyer.
There is another way to look at it, instead of considering "renaming" autism, as being the big lie.
To me, the big lie was actually the diversion of the truth away from inflammation of the brain following X environmental insult, to an amorphous, useless word, such as Autism. To me, Kanner did no-one any favours. And perhaps, in an effort to save themselves some work and blame refrigerator mothers, the medical profession enthusiastically adopted the "blame someone else" approach.
Never once, in all the years of dealing with children whose "end point" is what they now call autistic spectrum disorders, have I ever ventured near that word, and I've counselled parents who chose to represent themselves, never to use that word.
And parents who have ignored my advice, have had their claims turned down without fail.
To me, the word "autism" has been the biggest red herring ever enthusiastically adopted by the medical profession, parents and lawyers who took the bait and fell for it.
It is not, and never has been, a biochemical, physiologically accurate description of what happens after any "insult" to a person, whether in utero, neonatally, or as a young toddler, resulting in the diverse patterns now lumped together as "autism".
From my perspective, the sooner they get rid of the word "autism" the better. That that was my wish 28 years ago. It's still my wish today.
What these experts are talking about, is not just neuro-inflammation, an amino acid problem, and a methylation disorder...; it's also immune dysfunction, at certain key point in a child's development. These can be made worse by in utero nutrient deficiencies, neonatal nutrient deficiencies, and even something as biologically explosive as constant, unrelenting stress.
The biochemical result inside the child results in the epigenetic programming for the "normal" development of the brain and immune system, is derailed, by epigenetic "monkey wrenches".
What that monkey wrenches are, depends on the child.
In my experience, a DT (note I didn't say DPT) vaccine can be as much of a monkey wrench as any other vaccine. These syndromes started long before the MMR, and it was a tragedy, in my opinion, when MMR became so firmly linked to problems I saw years ago, after the DPT, or even DT vaccines in babies.
In those days they weren't called autism of course. They had a huge raft of other names to call them. But they were "never" considered vaccine related. The temporal association was always coincidental.
But the common factor in all cases of children, is that the epigenetically sensitive running of the blue-print programme, is derailed at critical points, for that child. When you look at the gene expression in utero and to the age of four years, it's going at such a fast rate that it's totally biologically plausible that there could be quite a few "insults" which could, for a susceptible child, be like tossing a metal bar into the spokes of a bicycle travelling downhill at top speed.
The "causes" ARE multifocal. But to discuss them, would be to write a book.
I believe those scientists are right, but the blame could be placed right back where it belongs, with the scientists who accepted Kanner's explanation without any scientific bases (plural) for unquestioned adoption. However, that too would not be a constructive way forward.
It is my hope that one day, principled scientists will start using biochemical scientific principles to investigate the children themselves (forget epidemiology) so that parents can have accurate information as to what is happening in their child.
Posted by: Hilary Butler | August 29, 2009 at 07:32 PM
Several years ago,(and maybe still), the Holocaust Memorial in DC had an exhibit on the Nazi doctors. It was an opportunity for the NVIC to focus on the principle of informed consent, established during the Nuremberg Trials of Nazi physicians, yet so egregiously violated regarding vaccines and their toxic ingredients today.
The Holocaust parallels are never far from our minds. Kathy Blanco mentions, "the lifeguard watching it happen." And Donna Kincannon's ".....of suffering and damaged children, it is the personal physicians who refused to be honest about what they witnessed happening to our children....and SILENCE and inaction". And Robin writes "...... They have been and are, currently committing genocide."
Those words echo the behavior that fueled and allowed the Holocaust. No changing of the words to what we are witnessing, can change this truth: The medical community is culpable and the "theys" is our government and media mouthpieces. Our future and future generations are in peril, unless we hold everyone accountable for this modern day Holocaust.
"Among all criminals and murderers, the most dangerous type is the criminal physician"--Miklos Nyiszli, prisoner and pathologist to Dr. Josef Mengele at Aushwitz
Posted by: michael framson | August 29, 2009 at 06:56 PM
Benedetta, the root words "autos-" and "-ismos" are Greek, though apparently a Swiss psychiatrist created a German word from these Greek roots. (And thank you!)
Posted by: Twyla | August 29, 2009 at 01:11 AM
Thanks Twyla, and Cherry you both are so clever and smart, love to read your comments;
A German/Swiss word, not even a really good Latin/Greek scientific nomenclature. Always nice to have a different language in which to describe brain injury! Softens it up some for the general population that don't have a clue and still thinking it is savants, or Brain Man Tippman, or -- what is really bad and makes me dumb is that I had a four year old and my neighbor asked me if I knew what autism was????? I really didn't I just knew he had a stroke and was not speaking!
Posted by: Benedetta Stilwell | August 28, 2009 at 07:36 PM
To Benedetta, I recall reading one of the first descriptions of an autistic child when I was a teenager- It depicted a cute little girl, living in her own world, paying no attention to anyone else and not talking (apparently because she did not WANT to)- and therefore the word autism sounded just fine- someone who is only involved with self. So I got quite a shock when more than 40 years later I saw my first real autistic child and thought "Autism? This is clearly brain damage!"
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | August 28, 2009 at 04:18 PM
Changing names could be useful in getting some of the population to listen to what we are saying. It will not help in getting public health officials and the AAP or IOM to do what they ought to do. Their primary goal is to keep the public's faith in vaccines, because once that is gone they are in big trouble. That is their perspective. We need to get our own lobbying and PR mechanisms going
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | August 28, 2009 at 04:08 PM
Thanks for the spot-on post! I think we should stop calling it autism. We should call it "immune dysfunction related encephalopathy" which results in the behavioral syndrome of autism. Let's stop with the use of the A label and instead, identify the medical condition that damages the same areas of the brain to the extent that the children exhibit similar behavioral symptoms. After the behaviors are noticed, the damage has already been done!
Posted by: Nick'smom | August 28, 2009 at 11:52 AM
I don't look at my kids any different, than a child found face down in a swimming pool with a lifegaurd watching it happen...this is just the right analogy, sick one, to think about next time someone denies the vaccine autism link....are they not damaged by looking away?
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | August 28, 2009 at 11:35 AM
Kent wrote:
They tell me they’re not calling it autism, but something different.
I don’t quite understand, Kent. What is it that you think that They hope to accomplish by acknowledging that certain other forms of damage could have been caused by vaccines -- just not autism? Aren’t They still admitting fault? Or do They somehow feel, by still refusing to say that autism could be caused by vaccination, that They can clear themselves at least of the guilt of the hundreds of thousands of children who’ve been lost to vaccine damage in the decades that parents have been screaming at them “it’s the vaccines, stupid”?
And what do parents of children with ASD hope to gain by agreeing to follow the code of silence and to not use the ‘A’ word? Do they believe that maybe then they will get treatment from Them that will help their children?
I’ve often wondered if the only way that parents might get any help would be by making the concession that would allow Them to admit that the interventions that so many have used, such as diet restrictions and supplements and chelation, are helpful only not for the reasons that parents have been claiming. This would allow Doctors to save face. I understand that it’s a thing that’s highly valued by people, this ability to allow others to save face when they’ve done wrong. I’m not sure I understand the concept, at least not when the wrongs that have been done are more on the order of serious crimes rather than just silly mistakes.
The way I see it there are two kinds of lies, and one of them is acceptable. I don’t know that I would call them noble, just acceptable, in that I myself could understand why the one type of lie might occur.
In one instance, there is the lie that is a lie of convenience. I see it as any attempt at deceit that is meant to bring advantage to a person. In this category I would put theft, or adultery, or bearing false witness. I would call these lies ‘casual’ lies, mostly because people seem to commit them oh so casually these days without any thought that what they might be doing is wrong or might bring adverse consequences. And all too often, it seems, there aren’t any consequences.
I haven’t ever considered myself to be a religious person in the sense that I believe that some all knowing, all powerful God cares about what I do and the choices that I make. I used to believe, however, that other people did. I used to believe that other people expected me to speak the truth.
I have to say that I’ve gotten confused. I no longer know what people expect of others or of me. It seems that so often people don’t seem to mind the most depraved of behavior that they see in others, or are in fact even impressed by it. I’m continuing on thru my life as if the expectations are that I speak the truth, if only because it feels too much like staring into an abyss to consider any other courses of action.
At any rate, I’ve seen a lot of these first types of lies, the casual ones, and it seems that there are more and more of them being told all of the time. But then there is another kind of lie and I haven’t seen it being told yet but I fear it’s day is not far off, and I think that I don’t have to point out the times and places in history when this sort of lie has needed to be told. It’s the sort of lie that must be told by a person if that person wishes to avoid serious pain and/or death which will ensue if he or she speaks the truth.
And no, I don’t think that refusal to blow the whistle on crimes that are being committed because one fears the loss of a job would put a lie into the second category—the understandable and therefore acceptable category. I don’t think that the possible loss of a salary that would allow for a large house in the suburbs with an in ground pool in the back yard and a long circular driveway (or any salary for that matter) is quite the same as the fear that one might lose one’s life. And I certainly would not rank such fears, or the lies that might be told because of them, in the same category as the fear that the life of one’s child might be taken.
At any rate, and perhaps this is easy for me to say as I’ve not held a full time job for a couple of decades now, but I can’t seem to summon up much in the way of sympathy for those who would refuse to blow the whistle on a crime for such reasons.
In recent years I’ve found myself sometimes wishing for bad things to happen to my fellow Americans. I think that the reason I’ve been wishing this is because I feel that it would be the only justice that will occur. I do not see any justice being done by my government. I feel that the natural consequences that I think must occur to a culture of people who so willingly accept the telling of so many lies are the only justice that will be done. I think that people get what they deserve, for the most part, or at least that they should. And I think that hell isn’t some place that people go to when they die, I think it’s something that’s brought on by people here and now in this life.
And I look around and it seems that almost everyone is guilty.
I spent my life trying to do, always, what other people expected of me. I went to school, studied hard. I couldn’t chit chat with people, although I knew that this was expected of me. But I tried to do everything else that was expected. I had parents who felt that there was no reason that I wasn’t worthy of and capable of the same sort of life, the same sort of standard of living, that any other hard working honest American was worthy of and capable of. I believe that most people, while they were disconcerted by my lack of small talk, believed the same.
However in the last five years, since I began saying the words ‘thimerosal’ and ‘autism’ in the same paragraph, I’ve found that I am no longer being treated the same way. I’m no longer being treated like a human being with civil rights, a person worthy of respect.
I feel that I did most everything right. I went to college, got a degree in engineering and a PE license, worked for years before having my children. After I had four children I did everything I could to raise them to believe that hard work and character and honesty mattered if one wanted to succeed in life.
How do I explain to them that sometimes people lose their jobs if they speak the truth? How do I explain to them that I’ve been banned from almost every internet political chat room on the left and the right simply for saying ‘thimerosal’, and threatened with arrest for handing out information about it on a public sidewalk? How do I explain to them that sometimes the best way to get money and support from other people, especially large organizations of people, is by telling lies? How do I explain to them my true feelings, which are these:
I look at my fellow Americans, and when I look much farther than my immediate family, it has become so difficult for me to care about any of them at all. If I wish anything for them it is only that their lies have some consequence. Not in the next life but in this one. I understand that society and civility is only just a very thin veneer, and I don’t see how that thin veneer can survive the kinds of lies I’ve seen told in recent years. I find myself wanting the veneer to break. I do understand that a broken veneer would mean the bleakest of futures for my children. But yet, I ask myself, how could it be any more bleak than the future I ALREADY see for them, the future I’ve seen for five years now? The future that is their present, in which they live in a country in which They have been and are currently committing genocide.
If parents hope to receive some kind of help for their children from Them by agreeing to follow the code of silence and call their child’s injury something other than autism, I’m not sure it’s going to work out so well for them. I, too, am made very uncomfortable by the lie, even if we do call it a noble one. Again, I suppose this is an easier thing to say for me, than for most, as I have no children on the spectrum.
It’s just that it’s always been my impression that when some people are telling other people lies, they usually don’t have those peoples best interests at heart.
The phrase “Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?” just keeps on running thru my head.
Posted by: Robin Nemeth | August 28, 2009 at 09:00 AM
Benedetta, here is a derivation of the word "autism":
German Autismus, coined 1912 by Swiss psychiatrist Paul Bleuler (1857-1939) from Gk. autos- "self" + -ismos (which is a suffix denoting an action or the state of being something).
"Auto" means "self", as in "automobile" (which propels itself without a horse) and "autobiography" (in which someone writes about himself/herself).
The word autism was created because people with autism were thought to be totally self-absorbed and unable to relate to others, out of touch with the world around them.
Posted by: Twyla | August 28, 2009 at 01:23 AM
'Autism' is loose terminology and its looseness is being exploited legally by the other side (it also has an intellectually undistinguished history). The lead expert in the Bailey Banks argued that Bailey was not autistic but had PDD because his autism had a cause - so 'autism' doesn't have a cause - and can't be awarded. In the words of Special Master Abell:
"He noted that the conflation of designations resulted from a medical convention created for the sake of explanation to laymen, but that the two are not properly interchangeable, but actually quite distinct. Id. Speaking more directly, Dr. Lopez stated that “Bailey does not have autism because he has a reason for his deficits.” Tr. at 42."
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/BANKS_CASE.pdf
(p.7)
It is obvious, of course, that we are in the realms of tautology, and semantic games, rather than science. The question is whether anything happened to our children which caused them to be disabled, whether or not they have a label of autism. If the courts can't look beyond the label they are indeed playing with deception, and wasting everyone's time and money - but I don't think there is anything sacrosanct about the term.
Posted by: John Stone | August 28, 2009 at 01:15 AM
This is a most distressing phenomenon. Thank you for describing it so well.
I find myself imagining this scene -- inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne's book The Scarlet Letter: A little boy with autism receives benefits from the vaccine court and treatment paid for by insurance because his parents don't call it autism -- they call it something elses such as encephalopathy or mitochondrial dysfunction. But then one day a doctor examines him and finds that he has a large scarlet "A" on his chest. "This boy has autism!!" proclaims the doctor, who promptly reports him to the government and the insurance company. Henceforth no treatments are paid for, because of course autism is genetic.
Posted by: Twyla | August 28, 2009 at 01:11 AM
I have always looked at my son's vaccine injury and asked what are the phsycalities of Autism, the traits? My instinct was that by staying away from labels and focusing on the traits, I would give him the most options. This has had a cost in that I do not have anything publicly funded and now am in debt from seeking therapies, but I will say they have worked and the government funded programs are not all that great in the end. It takes passion to solve problems. Thank you for this powerful examination of the naming of the problem associated as the problem. Its not a nobel lie... living in oppression is not right either. Freedom has to be generated each moment.
Posted by: Sunshine | August 28, 2009 at 12:37 AM
I totally agree and am frustrated daily by the big lie. Maybe the answer isn't so much in changing the term, but in increasing the understanding of what the "A" word really is: a worthless behavioral diagnosis. We need to shed light on how damaging the DSM-IV and the practice of "behavioral diagnosis" really are to public health and society as a whole. I would argue all psychiatric diagnoses have a biological basis, and the quicker we get on with identifying those and basing diagnosis and treatment on hard science, the better off we'll all be.
Posted by: mlinn | August 27, 2009 at 10:46 PM
Exactly! I've always told people that my son had an encephaleptic reaction to his vaccines, which damaged his immune system and impaired brain function.
Posted by: Angela S. | August 27, 2009 at 09:46 PM
Ken brings up how research is being done to identify what people may be vulnerable to drug side effect, so these can be avoided, but that this is not happening with vaccines. Of course it is not. The govt. wants as close to 100% vaccination compliance as it can get, so of course they will never support research into sub groups that may be vulnerable to vaccine injury. Better to quickly compensate vaccine injured persons in federal vaccine court while maintaining the public position that vaccines are safe for all people.
Whenever I hear someone say, "well, even if vaccines are harming some people its better than having diseases come back" I want to scream that "we live in the most inventive, resourceful country on the planet. Do you think we are incapable of determining who will be vulnerable to vaccine injury and still protect ourselves from diseases by having everyone except these people vaccinated?!!!" The govt. simply is not interested, period!
Posted by: AnaB | August 27, 2009 at 09:44 PM
People are affixed to labels...they can't get away from it. Use to hear something along this lines...that we don't like people who are too smart and too pretty and too rich, maybe by way of jealousy, and we don't like people who are too dumb, different, poor and afflicted and awkward, because maybe that awakes something in us, that we are fallible human beings. I for one, never minded people on any part of that spectrum yet, when I find myself tearing down the mindsets of autism, I am still left to apologize that "their autistic", when in reality, I should say, they were damaged by mankind in every thought word and deed by greed and averice and ill gotten gain, and if you have a problem with that, and I ruffeled your feathers today out of your norm trance, please excume me to waking you up to the realities of our world....yes, you are not in Kansas anymore" ...
I guess I just don't have the time or patience to go into the diatribe...but I wonder, if we all started doing that, and equally describing in minutia details of why, then maybe, just maybe, people will start to question their belief systems?
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | August 27, 2009 at 06:39 PM
In considering Mr. Heckenlively's article, I would like to address the "noble lie" idea in a different context and how it has been used most effectively against our children.
"the 'noble lie', meant to protect something greater than truth"
Herein lies what our children have been up against and the crux of the problem.
This is how doctors are able to assuage any feelings of guilt over what they have perpetrated against innocent children. Their protection of the immunization program is their "noble" cause and they see their cover-up of vaccine damage as a "noble lie." Until that mindset changes they will continue to damage more children in their horribly mistaken belief that they are the heroes in a war against infectious disease. The vaccine industry and public health officials are counting on this mindset to protect their interests. It is crystal clear to the increasing number of affected families and friends of damaged children that there is nothing noble about these doctors' actions resulting from this mindset.
The crux of the problem, indictment if you will, is this. If there is anyone we should hold most responsible for this debacle of suffering and damaged children it is the personal physicians who refused to be honest about what they witnessed happening to our children--their patients. Make no mistake, they saw previously healthy infants/children descend into illness and disability before their very eyes. Their refusal to consider each individual child's health and history in administering their immunization goals is inexcusable. But most importantly, their inaction and SILENCE about what we observed and what they witnessed happening to our children is the biggest part of the problem. They are the public health sentinels. They should have been the ones leading the charge to the public health hierarchy regarding vaccine safety. They should be the ones fighting the pharmaceutical corporations in the courts for dangerous and defective medicines on which they staked their reputations and our children's health.
The media darlings and research bureaucrats of the medical science and public health community have appropriately earned our righteous anger by their efforts to block proper diagnosis, treatment and justice for our children and future children. It is a pervasive mistaken assumption that because someone went into medicine that ethical behavior is somehow inherent in that profession. Most of us are not so naive anymore and we have come to expect that people in positions of authority or media spotlight will use it to further an agenda opposed to the truth in the case of our damaged children. And our advocates tirelessly work to bring change through this avenue. Yet, they are a big distraction from where the change must start.
When our personal physicians refuse to report or take action concerning vaccine damage how can we expect the medical policy bureaucrats to take heed of this public health trainwreck. Change needs to start at the bottom and work its way up. The doctors who plunged the syringes need to do the truly noble thing by owning up to the damage they are responsible for and lead the fight for our children's health. Until then, wordsmithing and loopholes won't change the crux of the problem we have been battling.
Posted by: Donna Kincanon | August 27, 2009 at 03:27 PM
I wish people could see our children for the injured human beings that they are. When I look at my son, I only see someone who is hurting and overwhelmed. They see someone who is strange because he flaps his hands and jumps around the room all the time. I see the person he might have been and who he might become given the right path to recovery. They look at me as if I am some weirdo that has genetic mutants for babies. I see the pain and confusion described in his actions that he can't put into words. They wonder if he'll give himself brain damage by banging his head on the floor so hard.
I do hate using the word "Autism" sometimes because, for someone who has never experienced it firsthand (and I mean lived with it on a daily basis), it seems to imply that my son is just being a bad kid. "Autism" to them means that he needs a good spanking every so often and he'll "grow out of it." "At least it's not as bad as cancer" they say, and I want to yell at them that they don't know about the "cancer-like" disease that is eating away at him from the inside out - - that has robbed me of knowing who my son really is. The one my insurance company won't pay a dime for treatment for.
I'm not sure if we need another word for Autism, but I do know that we need a new definition - - one that encompasses all the damage done by a System that will probably keep it's head in the sand until the "1 in 100" becomes "their" child.
Posted by: Bonnie | August 27, 2009 at 02:26 PM
It's not too surprising that they can't figure out what causes autism. I've come to the conclusion that epidemiologists often can't find their fannies with both hands, but that's because they design their studies to avoid that region of their anatomy.
Recently I discovered that they finally figured out what caused the hugely elevated rate of breast cancer in Marin County, California, in the 1990s. Here I'd been thinking that it was still a big mystery. Was it power lines? Styrofoam cups? Eating out? Breast feeding? Not breast feeding? All I knew is that I wasn't moving there.
In 2002 a study comparing women on estrogen plus progestin versus women on placebo was stopped because the women on e+p were at increased risk of breast cancer, stroke, blood clots and heart disease. Not too surprisingly, women stopped taking HRT and breast cancer rates in the "highly-educated, affluent," previously HRT-hungry Marin County fell.
Why wasn't this association picked up earlier? One 2002 epidemiological study I looked at made sure that the cancer-free control group was similar in HRT consumption to the cancer cases. This study acknowledged that HRT may pose a "small increased risk" for breast cancer of 25-30%(!) and I wouldn't have a problem with them normalizing for that if they had been looking for an additional risk factor, but they weren't looking for that, oh no. The study wasn't designed to rule HRT out or in and they thought maybe somebody should look at that sometime. Instead the study natters on about fathers being self-employed and what religion the participants were and finally ends up with the cause of breast cancer not being specifically geographic and don't drink more than one drink a day.
And there's a similar problem with autism research. They don't want to look at vaccinated vs. unvaccinated populations because the results might leap out in a vaccine-unfriendly way the same way the results popped out in the HRT vs non-HRT study.
Posted by: Carol | August 27, 2009 at 01:59 PM
The main culprit for the situation Mr. Heckenlively deplores is the mainstream press. These ladies and gentlemen are not only poorly educated but also lazy. This combination makes them all too ready to accept the party line of authorities and "experts" rather than investigating matters for themselves (and not just about autism!). The end result is that the self-interested opinions of the foxes guarding the hen roost are validated in the public mind ("it must be true, I read it in the paper") and the dissenters are marginalized.
Posted by: Theodore M. Van Oosbree | August 27, 2009 at 01:54 PM
Let's call a spade a spade - say our kids have 'vaccinosis', and we can hand over the 'autism' label to the neurodiversity community. Then everyone's happy.
Posted by: Donna L. | August 27, 2009 at 12:48 PM
Excellent post Kent! No more lies - it's autism.
Below is a quote from a daily inspiration email I get from the Domiicans of St. Jude Thaddeus - it applies so much to what you are saying Kent:
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
Martin Luther King
Confucius said a great many things; once he said: "What is important in life is not to be liked, but to be liked by the good people and disliked by the bad." This implies that it is worth the price to defend your position as opposed to a wrong one. In our society, the winner in a debate is often the last one standing. But is this right? In the marketplace of ideas, a healthy collision of different ideas is good. One would hope that the truth and not the persuasion, however, will win out.
Fr. Robert O.P
Posted by: Theresa Cedillo | August 27, 2009 at 12:48 PM
Of course vaccines cause autism, but as Dr. Robert Sears points out in his chilling post (June 1, 2009, AoA)--it doesn't make any difference!
The vaccine schedule "should" change, but it's unlikely that it will!
Meanwhile, if you vaccinate according to this schedule, your baby has a 1 in 100 chance of developing autism (severe brain/immune/gut damage), possibly never to be reversed; a 1 in 9 chance of developing asthma; a 1 in 6 chance of developing some kind of "learning" or "behavioral" (brain damage) disorder.
It's literally unreal to me, but I have actually seen people *with affected children* who have decided to close their eyes to the possibility of vaccine damage, or (more unbelievable still)--acknowledge the probability, only to later decide that "the evidence no longer seems to point that way"!
The desire to avoid even a 1 in 100,000 chance that your child might possibly catch a disease, and that disease might possibly lead to fatal complications is (apparently) enough to turn off the brain cells completely *for lots of people.*
Understanding the relative size of the risks we take is important.
Understanding what is and what is not in our control is important.
I have actually had a close family member accuse me of thinking it would be better for our son to be dead than to be autistic.
No, I think this: I would take a 1 in 100,000 chance that my child might possibly become sick, and that sickness might possibly be fatal, because that is what I consider "nil," close to zero, not to be worried about. And further, our chances are lower, because we practice basic hygiene!
And, if my son were to become sick, I trust my ability to nurture him through it!
So--practically nil!
In contrast, I would not (had I known) take a 1 in 6 chance of causing brain damage, immune damage and/or gut damage to my child--all of these, too, which might be fatal--because a 1 in 6 chance means it could happen! Easily!
Really--would you *literally* put a gun to your child's head?
And yet people are doing essentially that with today's out-of-control vaccination program, but (obviously) they fail to see it that way.
It really can't change until people stop saying things like (I have actually heard this one, too): "My nephew has autism, too--pretty bad. But I got (my youngest) vaccinated anyway, because *what can you do*?"
Well, one thing you can do is note that (in my case, anyway) I have never known a child with measles, mumps, rubella, or polio, and I also know the statistics about complications even if my child *were* to catch one of these now-rare diseases. (Slim to none.)
On the other hand, I know these kids: my own son (recovering from autism), my younger daughter (recovering from asthma), her best friend ("sensory issues" like crazy, and some emotional stuff to boot), the 15-year-old down the street who acts like about 11 or 12 years old, the kid who didn't talk until he was 4 years old, the kid at our birthday party with seizure disorder. . .and these are just the kids I know *personally*!
That doesn't begin to count the ones I "know of"--the 3 kids out of 100 in the 2nd grade, the older kid in jr. high, the other "new kid" in my daughter's class, the friends of friends who come to me for help, the kid with Asperger's (his mom is now a classroom aide). . .and the nephew mentioned above!
It really won't change until parents begin to accept that the world is not risk-free, but the risk of death by natural disease is now much, much smaller (at least in the developed countries) than the risk of death and permanent disability caused by current vaccination practices.
Posted by: Terri Lewis | August 27, 2009 at 11:54 AM
Thanks for the great post...agree completely.
Posted by: denise | August 27, 2009 at 11:49 AM
Dear Kent,
I am the mother of four high functioning autistic children, as I have mentioned in the past. I was trained in Statistics with my friend who now is a biostatistician in the Public Health Department at Yale. He worked on vaccine animal studies and assured me in 2003 that everyone knew, at that time, that vaccines were the cause of autism. Why does he not speak out? Why the silence of physicians, politicians and bioethicists concerning the epidemic of autism and it's apparent connection to vaccination? In the words of the ancient Romans... follow the money.
On the back of my van I have several bumper stickers:
VACCINATION + HEREDITY = AUTISM
and
Violence done to the Truth
cannot prchase Peace
They have been there for two years. I'm waiting for justice for all autism families and mercy for those not yet vaccinated.
Posted by: mary podlesak | August 27, 2009 at 10:57 AM
Thank you for this.
When Thailand issued a compulsory license for an Abbott Lab AIDS drug, pharma began to lobby Congress to invade the country. http://www.pharmalot.com/2007/04/should_the_us_invade_thailand/
Perception is stronger than truth in some ways and pharma seems to have an awful lot of perceived power which makes itself actual to a large degree.Before he died, my father wrote that the pharmaceutical industry was seeking nothing less than the "divine right of kings" and felt we were living in a type of industrial oligarchy.
So the lie is only noble if a lawyer has to use it to get a very sick child compensation. It's not noble-- but it is suspiciously kingly-- that industry has the power to make this kind of subterfuge necessary.
Posted by: Adriana | August 27, 2009 at 10:55 AM
Great post, Kent.
I have struggled with this for years.
Whenever someone asks me what happened to Eve, I say, well, she used to have Autism, but it wasn't really Autism, it was mercury toxicity coupled with all kinds of other problems, blah, blah, blah. They look at me crazy, but I feel like I'm betraying her if I don't tell the truth about what she really had.
So for me, not using Autism as her diagnosis isn't the lie. The lie is calling it Autism in the first place.
Posted by: Julie Obradovic | August 27, 2009 at 10:52 AM
I prefer VACCINE INJURED. I make sure it's on all school documents. However on this years "health appraisal form" required for school I will put the following:
Dx: Vaccine Injured - toxic encephalopathy, immune dysfunction, mitochondria dysfunction, thus - inflammation in gut and brain.
So, I guess, i'm with you on that noble lie.
Posted by: Renee Tag | August 27, 2009 at 10:40 AM
I'm all for changing the name - autism is the end result of assaults on the body from toxins, environment, cr@p we call "food" and vaccines. Instead of calling this disorder the end result, start with something closer to the triggers - auto immune deficiency, gut-brain inflammation, celiac-induced malnutrition...let's "brain storm" here. Vaccine-injured causes eye rolls, too. Let's have a serious re-naming that's a medical disorder and perhaps our revolution will get more traction and insurance coverage.
Posted by: Deb in IL | August 27, 2009 at 09:49 AM
No more Noble Lies...
Rosa Parks Moment our kids kicked off bus http://tinyurl.com/lyp3m3 Time 4 Economic Impact Boycott Mercury http://tinyurl.com/m636pd #autism
No more lies. Demand answers. Time to make an economic impact Ford Motor Company Mercury Milan will never be Green. It's all in a NAME the NAME is AUTISM!
Posted by: Tanners Dad | August 27, 2009 at 09:18 AM
Sadly,physicians and scientist who have the fortitude and integrity of Dr. Wakefield are exceedingly rare. The history of American medicine is replete with self-righteousness, arrogance and widespread ignorance, which it passes "down" to the vulgar herd. There is no more profound (or tragic) example than its general denial of Autism...unless it's their denial of all drugless, non-surgical solutions to the maladies that plague mankind.
Posted by: Zed | August 27, 2009 at 08:35 AM
I know about Dr. Kanner and all. But where did this word autism come from? What ever it is - it has caused a brain injury. I am 100% sure it is also a systemic disease that can attack not just the brain but the heart, the lungs, the pancreas, the thyroid, the kidneys. But where did the word autism come from? Is it a Latin word?
Posted by: Benedetta Stilwell | August 27, 2009 at 08:32 AM
Excellent commentary.
The behavior you describe smacks of the government's public response to the Poling settlement where they acknowledged that vaccines aggravated an existing condition which resulted in autism like symptoms.
Posted by: Harold L Doherty | August 27, 2009 at 07:36 AM