Autism Recovery Revisited: Tell the Chicago Tribune They Are Wrong
The Chicago Tribune is running another series of articles stating that "risky" treatments are of little use to children/people with autism (HERE). (Meanwhile, the American Academy of Pediatrics, in their backyard, will tell parents to use powerful psychiatric drugs with little to know knowledge of how they work or their long term effects on kids. Talk about risky.) We'll be sharing more info with you about the interview process these journalists followed and what did and did not make their final article. In the meantime, we invite you to send Patrician Callahan ([email protected]), Trine Tsouderos ([email protected]) and Editor Gerould Kern ([email protected]) a polite email sharing how treatments have improved your child's life. When you send your email, include a copy in our comments, please.
We beg to differ with the slant the Tribune is taking. Children can make tremendous progress and we will share stories with you from our recovery category. Start with this little girl, who is using speech for the first time. If you ever figure out why people with autism are NOT supposed to see improvement or, God forbid, recover, let us know. The anger, skepticism and outright denial of medical care for autism is stunning.
From August, 12, 2009 (HERE) : Yesterday, we told you about the 2009 National Autism Association Conference in Florida this November. The video below is a gorgeous advertisement for why you should attend the conference. This beautiful, nine year old child was non-verbal until just weeks ago.
Her Mom has attended every National Autism Association Conference. Because this child is Aly Fournier, daughter of NAA President Wendy Fournier. The video is called "Aly's Letters." Just see if you can stop smiling while you watch this.
From Wendy on 7/24/09: Friends, I have a miracle to share with you! It's all about Hopeism. My daughter Aly is 9 years old and severely injured by her vaccines - diagnosis: Autism. She has never had functional language. I have a recording on my computer of her saying Mama when she was about 11 months old. I haven't heard it since. The last 7 years have been more difficult than I can say, but many of you don't need an explanation, you're living it.
When Aly was diagnosed, I hit the ground running. I soaked up everything I could about autism, vaccine injury, therapies, biomedical treatments, attended conferences, asked a million questions, talked to doctors and other parents, spent sleepness nights searching Pubmed. I was absolutely convinced that she would be perfectly fine and recovered by First Grade.
First grade came and went, she'll be a 4th grader this fall. She's been making slow progress over the last couple of years, but painfully slow and no big "Wows". She's finally potty trained which I am extremely grateful for! She's sleeping through the night, with rare exceptions. She's using picture exchange to make very basic requests, but is still unable to tell us how she feels, or if something hurts.
This past winter was so hard. I looked at her one day and really saw her. It hit me like a truck how sick she is, and I started grieving for everything that's been stolen from her and our family. The holidays, dreaded birthdays that simply mark the passage of another year without recovery, the joy of having friends, going to the movies, being able to play outside without the worry of her running into the street, and family vacations? Not even a possibility.
Enough of that, I'll get to the good stuff. This past week, my non-verbal little girl started SAYING letters. Looking at them, pointing to them, and getting the sounds to come out of her mouth. She's never been able to do anything like this before. It's AMAZING! I've been hesitant to even say anything about it because I'm so terrified that it will go away. But I need to share this with all of you who have been fighting so long. When Aly's 9th birthday came and went, I was beginning to wonder if she would ever be able to find her voice. And now she has! Hope has been dumped all over me and I'm filled with excitement about what's to come!
Update – 2 weeks later: Aly is now verbally labeling all of her letters, numbers to 10, and naming about 35 objects and people - including Mommy! She has also started using her voice to request her favorite things – showers and cookies!
The treatment category is sponsored by Lee Silsby, the leader in quality compounded medications for autism.
I can't believe what I read here.
I am autistic.
I do not think that I am "suffering" from a terrible disease.
I have a good life.
I am glad I am different.
I am glad my mind is not continuously full of emotional nonsense.
I am glad I can understand things as what they are at a deeper level than others.
It is clear as the nose on my face that autism is genetic, also interesting it is on the same gene as schitsophenia.
There is an interesting correlation between mothers taking amphetamines before pregnancy and autism.
I see many parents trying to hide their guilt and shame that their child is not the same as others.
Please stop punishing us autistics because we don't meet your unrealistic expectations.
Teach us what we need to know about the world, not what you need to know.
We aren't the same as you. Please don't try to make us the same. It would be the same as you being punished for not being autistic.
Posted by: Bruce | January 04, 2011 at 05:31 PM
The following is also essential to understanding the “big picture” on autism.
The fact that autism is a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being, experience, and consciousness is consistent with toxicity/damage/disorder.
The NUMEROUS vaccines are biologically active, and yet they are unnatural and foreign to the body. So when the body THEN reacts as if it is infected with disease (via antibodies/immune responses), is it not diseased/ill/damaged/infected to some extent? All of these NUMEROUS and altered/unnatural immune responses/vaccinations will eventually compromise our immune function.
Autism also involves a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of memory, feeling, thought, and emotion. Importantly, autism may be usefully understood as involving BIOLOGICAL toxicity/disorder/damage that relates to, involves, or pertains to thought, feeling, and emotion.
Posted by: Frank Martin DiMeglio | March 06, 2010 at 04:08 PM
The big picture regarding vaccines cannot be properly and fully understood apart from the following.
The great revelation of art (including music) is that the world requires and involves man; although science has been slow to recognize this; for the danger of technology is that it is creating a world of experience that is toxic and foreign to the self where man is neither truly involved nor required. By pervasively and fundamentally changing our various sensory experiences (including the range of feeling thereof), the self's ability to represent and form a consistent, comprehensive, and relatively extensive approximation of sense is being compromised; whereby sense and feeling [increasingly] cannot be properly experienced, utilized, and understood as the expression and extension of the self's desire; and it is not only our loss of language that we face. (Consciousness and language involve the ability to represent, form, and experience comprehensive approximations of experience in general; and this includes art and music as well.) The reconfiguration (i.e., disintegration, alteration, reduction, and/or replacement) of sensory experience in general (including range of feeling) is progressively involving a disintegration and contraction of being and experience (including thought). This is evident in (and includes) sleep disorders, depression, anxiety, autism, obesity, and the experience of television. (Clearly, obesity involves a disintegration, contraction, and detachment of being/experience; and it is associated with increased risk of death from all causes.)
Moreover, there is no true difference between what is foreign/unnatural and toxic. Artificially reconfigured sensory experience (including pollution, vaccines, processed foods, television, etc., etc.) makes the self increasingly unconscious (and reactive) in unpredictable ways. The disintegration, alteration, reduction, and replacement of sensory experience and feeling involve the loss of the instincts; as the self is disconnected and detached from what is natural and truly sustaining. The disintegration and contraction (and this includes detachment) of being and experience go hand in hand. Being and experience are becoming excessively (and increasingly) unconscious and less animate. Finally, in reference to sleep disorders, it is important that dreams involve a fundamental integration and spreading of being and experience at the mid-range of feeling between thought and sense, in conjunction with the natural extensiveness and interactivity of being and experience.
In both depression and anxiety, the emotional disintegration and contraction of being and experience involves increased feeling at the emotional center of the self. In anxiety, this is consistent with excessive concern, the reduction in the desirability of experience, emotional imbalance (or variability), bodily aches and pains (i.e., emotional disintegration), the mind "going blank", panic attacks (involving a sort of generalized paralysis and loss of experience), etc. Comparatively (and similarly), in depression, there is a contraction, detachment, disintegration, and loss of being and experience that also involves a loss of emotion. The loss of desire in both depression and anxiety involves a significant reduction in the comprehensiveness and consistency of both intention and concern as they relate to experience in general; and this has the dream-like effect of reducing thought, emotion, and memory, including the desirability and totality of experience as well.
Posted by: Frank Martin DiMeglio | February 16, 2010 at 04:38 PM
Help! Our local paper re-ran the Tribune story. I'm too upset to write anything. Could any of you send your letters to our editor? Here's the link www.timesleader.com.
Home // Opinion // Submit Your Letter Tuesday, December 22, 2009 8:18 am
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
The Times Leader welcomes letters from our readers on topics of interest. All letters must be signed and include day and evening phone numbers so we can verify authorship. All letters run with the writer's name and town where the writer lives.
Also, because of space considerations, in most cases, the Times Leader publishes one letter every 30 days, per writer. We reserve the right to edit all letters for clarity, space and libel.
You can submit your letter using the form below or by mail, fax or email.
Times Leader
15 North Main St.
Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711
Fax (570) 829-5537
ATTN: Mailbag
Or e-mail directly to [email protected].
THANKS!
Posted by: Mom23boys | December 22, 2009 at 08:48 AM
This bashing of the comprehensive physiological treatment of children with autism is part of the larger campaign to ration healthcare in the name of cost-cutting. Fewer mammograms, fewer pap smears, and don’t investigate and treat what ails our kids. They have become throw-aways, just like the women whose breast and cervical cancers will go undiagnosed.
Autism can kill, whether by seizures, running into traffic, or drowning. The morbidity of full-blown autism, and its concomitant immune and gastrointestinal dysfunction, is nothing less than a human tragedy (anyone who disagrees with this knows nothing of full-blown autism). The “scientists” who lack the sense of urgency, intellectual curiosity, and moral courage to study and treat our kids are the ones who do harm. They, along with the writers and editors of this article who encourage their complacency, are accomplices in the death and destruction of our kids.
Posted by: Amy Becker Clark | November 24, 2009 at 05:10 PM
here's my letter i copied to all 3 of them:
Hi there,
I am an autism mother and a autism patient advocate for a pediatrician. I have met and helped at least 500 families get started with biomedical treatments to help their children get better. And by better, I mean, lessen or erase the symptoms of autism. Changes in diet, supplementation, treatment for pathogens such as yeast and bacteria, removal of heavy metals and hyperbaric oxygen treatments have changed the lives of many many children, and thus their families' as well.
My son was a very violent, sick toddler with constant diarrhea the colors of which you've never seen. At almost 3 years of age, we took away wheat and dairy and in 3 days he looked at me (finally) like he'd never seen me before. Since then, through testing and going on the theory that environmental toxins had wreaked havoc on his body, he has grown to be a fully included 3rd grader. This happened to him because his autoimmune background is filled with 2 grandmothers with lupus, one also with epilepsy. Vaccination is certainly mostly to blame. How could a 9 lb baby with an autoimmune history such as his handle that first HepB shot, containing 25 mcg of thimerosal on Day 2 of life? Much less 4 vaccines at 2 months, 4 at 4 months and 3 at 6 months?
In the population I have interviewed and helped to find treatments that fit a particular child, I find that most have a similar history of autoimmune problems in the family, were vaccinated sick, were vaccinated as preemies, are military children double vaccinated as they move about the country. There is certainly a running theme here.
I respectfully believe that you need to take another look at a HUGE population of families in this country who believe this is what has happened to their child. I find that even most families with autistic children who choose NOT to treat for vaccine/environmental damage still believe vaccines had something to do with their child's issues. Most of the time, these families do not pursue treatment because they cannot afford it. And then, the money holder in the family, grandpa or dad or uncle or their GOVERNMENT, read articles like yours and will not pay for such treatments because they believe YOU.
There is plenty of science to prove why my son got better. It is there. It's just an inconvenient truth. Our government has bailed out cars, banks, how in the world will our country bail out Pharma, too? I'm not sure, but sooner or later, there are going to be so many families affected that the bubble is going to burst. In the meantime, more children are needlessly damaged and it breaks my heart everyday.
You could be the saviors of this situation. Instead you choose to turn a blind eye. I beg you to open your minds. We are everywhere.
Thank You for your time,
Kim Spencer
Savannah, GA
Posted by: Kim Spencer | November 23, 2009 at 03:22 PM
Regarding your piece on autism treatments….
First, I must admit that I believe I am wasting my time by writing to you. This is an unfortunate common occurrence once your child regresses into autism if you dare to ask questions and search for answers. You may be better received if you say nothing, do nothing and just accept that your child has now suddenly has autism, is always sick, has new absence seizures, new gastrointestinal pain, new allergies, lost all of their skills, etc. and nothing will ever help. I do not know if this type of parent is accepted more than those who question because I was always in the question and search mode. My son was/is sick, physically and suddenly developed autism 8 years ago and my pediatrician admitted he knows nothing about autism, there's no treatments that he knows of and all of the symptoms are no big deal or in some cases has inferred that I was making them up. HMMM, I've never been sure what my motives could have been for making up symptoms. I've always been under the assumption that if your child is sick, and you give their symptoms, a physician runs tests to figure out what may be causing them. Pediatrician's treat children was what I had been taught, however this only happens until something they do not want to address comes up like a regressive diagnosis of autism. Then you become the pariah, or the woman with the scarlet letter "A" on her chest.
From your article I realize that you all have obviously bought into the mantra "educated white woman lie" when talking about their children's physical symptoms. It seems to be a new wave of discrimination of woman, we are all naïve and dumb no matter our educational backgrounds and we make up stories. We cannot possibly be trusted to read studies and make our own decisions regarding the medical treatments of our children. You have made it sound like tens of thousands of parents of children with autism are completely insane, have no right to have a voice and clearly need to be chastised. You couldn’t be more dangerously wrong.
I happened to be at Autism One when Ms. Callahan showed up, I did not meet her, nor was I one of the parents confronted with her beleaguering. But I did see other parents frustration and exhaustion from having been maligned by her line of questioning. She obviously did not make it into any of the presentations I did or else the attack would not have played out the way it did. I was at Autism One because my son's seizures returned last year with persistence. I had been taking him to a mainstream neurologist who did admit my son's regression into autism following his MMR when reviewing our family history of autoimmune illnesses, seizures, etc, and my son's history of regression and symptomology and subsequent EEGs showing absence seizures. He is a well respected neuro and is well aware of the inflammatory process from viral illness that can cause brain abnormalities to occur and cause regression. He admitted though that he believed my son would have developed autism if he had, had a bout of chicken pox at the same age. He believes my son has underlying autoimmune challenges that set him up for a fall after vaccination or other viral illness. He mentioned that he wished he had seen my son before he was 4 years because he could have possibly turned the regression around. Too bad I was sent around to other fools in the neuro mainstream field who were clueless.
Back to Autism One, where thankfully they had planned a seizure symposium. One where my head spun from scientific study, after study, involving the GABA receptors, etc. and their commonalities in autism. You see, seizures become more common in Autism as a child gets older, especially nearing puberty. Had Ms. Callahan come into any of these scientific presentations she would have seen that there were no quacks around. No one promising complete recovery or the end of all of our problems, but a group of Doctors and Scientists giving us every avenue of research to possibly include into our children's treatment protocols. At the time, even while on strong anticonvulsants my son was having 6 to 8 clinical, visually noticeable, absence seizures daily. After this conference I discussed switching meds with my doctor because my son was out of control behaviorally. He did so, and some things behavioral wise started to calm down. However the seizures were still coming, many every day. That was until I put in place many of the recommended daily supplements I learned about at A1, to help where seizures are concerned. I researched for hours each supplement and slowly introduced them. He now is only having a seizure, not very noticeably, every 2 to 3 weeks.
These seizures reoccurred last year but they had been taken care of for years with the removal of gluten. A crumb of gluten would bring on two days of absence seizures. So thanks to DAN research and alternative doctor's who search for real, applicable, individualized protocols for our children's medical issues, my son was free of seizures for years because of gluten and allergen food removal, and then again, recently because of supplement protocols and the science behind them were presented to me at Autism One.
Next time someone at the Chicago Tribune would like to do an article on Autism, treatments, etc, they should send someone with less aggressive, anti-mother, anti-Doctors with science, etc. to do a full two sided argument rather than a seemingly biased attack by Ms. Callahan who clearly does not understand nor is interested in understanding the complexity of our children's medical pictures. Her article will not change any of our avenues, it only goes down as another assault on parents of injured children who everyone would just like to have sit down and be quiet already. Well, quiet is not in my nature.
Sincerely,
Allison Chapman
Posted by: Allison | November 23, 2009 at 12:31 PM
Here is a portion of my email to the Chicago Tribune:
I am the mother of three children who have been diagnosed with autism: H (7.5yrs) and P (6yrs) were diagnosed with classic autism and B (2.5yrs) was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.
I am one of the many, many parents who have invested a significant amount of time and money in the “risky alternative therapies” you described in your article. However, I wish to provide you with a different perspective that your article does not offer to your readers. You are approaching this viewpoint from the perspective of the mainstream medical community and the general public who really have not truly invested time and money to investigate the medical health aspect of neurological disorders, specifically health epidemic in the past couple generation of children which includes autism spectrum disorders.
Autism to the degree of severity that exist in my children does not exist in the maternal and paternal side of H, P & B’s family. H had signs of autism since infancy, but she definitely regressed by loosing language and social communication skills as she developed. P and B both presented no signs of autism, but both began regressing after 12 months. If you ask a mainstream medical doctor or researcher what might have caused their regression, you will be told that there is no cause and they are still trying to figure out the unfolding of autism. If you ask my husband and I, we will tell you that our family medical history is full of autoimmune disorders and varying events from the environment caused health issues significant enough that our children developed a neurological disorder. Pre-disposition to development of autoimmune disorder + environment = autism.
Based on that belief, we have TREATED THE MEDICAL HEALTH PROBLEMS that exist in our three children with autism through a physician using lab and interventions that in some cases are covered by health insurance. My children have health issues recognized and diagnosed (in many cases) through the some measurements developed by the mainstream medical and scientific community.
My husband and I started treating their health problems through biomedical and dietary interventions at a very young age. H was 3.5 yrs. P and B were around 18 months. They have been on the gluten-free, casein-free diet, healthier diet, injections of methylcobalamin b-12, probiotics, digestive enzymes, minerals, vitamins and other needed medications. We have also used chelation with H & P. Out of all of the interventions, we have seen the greatest gains with chelation for H who dumped a variety heavy metals, but predominately lead and arsenic.
As a result of the successful treatment of their health problems, they have made significant gains in their development. We aren’t the fortunate ones that have fully recovered their children, but they have made such great gains that I fully believe that they will become independent, functional adults who will be a strong contributor to society. H and P are mainstreamed into a regular public education classroom and B is making steady gains at his young age.
A question I am frequently asked is “how do you know it was the biomedical and dietary interventions and not the traditional therapies?” My response: it is my job as a parent to provide my children with every opportunity to improve their health and well being so that they are in the best health and are more receptive to the traditional interventions and education. My actions are not that of a desperate parent randomly choosing risky treatments, but a well educated parent researching all sides of an issue before making the best decision on the treatment plan for my children. The mainstream medical community and those with the same viewpoint consistently say that there is not enough research that biomedical and dietary interventions can greatly improve the outcome of a person with autism. As a parent, I am not going to wait 50 years before the mainstream medical and scientific community decide, fund, implement and complete the research that confirms what I and so many already know – persons with autism have medically treatable health conditions that can greatly improve their outcome.
Posted by: Jennifer Morgan-Byrd | November 23, 2009 at 02:10 AM
"There is no cure for autism. You can only hope to make an autistic person's life more comfortable."
Oh hell Kim, they don't even want us to do THAT (make them more comfortable). The response of my daughter's doctor when I told them that she constantly itches her bottom and her privates until they are raw and that she never sleeps more than three or four hours a night? That *I* needed to "get therapy". They don't even give two shits to the wind if our children are comfortable.
Of course once you take your child to a DAN!, then of course they notice and suddenly you are abusive because you took your child to a "quack". Sorry sweetie, I tried your way and you refused to even give her very real physical problems the time of day. It was time to go to someone who knew how to get the job done (and she did).
Posted by: Chris | November 23, 2009 at 12:36 AM
University Hospital of Cleveland, first page of the packet they gave me when they diagnosed my 3 and 4 year old girls:
There is no cure for autism. You can only hope to make an autistic person's life more comfortable.
My answer? F*ck you. And so began my advocacy.
Posted by: Stagmom | November 22, 2009 at 03:57 PM
JB, you silly boy, it's NOT in the health section! It's in the OMG your ass smells so good when I kiss it dear AAP in our backyard section.
Posted by: Stagmom | November 22, 2009 at 03:33 PM
“Take him home, love him, and save your money for his institutionalization when he turns twenty-one.” That was the pediatric neurologist’s advice when Ben was diagnosed at three years four months. That diagnosis plunged me and Ben’s mom into a decades-long struggle with the medical system, the school system, and at times each other.
ABA therapy stopped the slide deeper into autism. Early medical interventions – GFCF diet, vitamins, and supplements, IVIG – brought some improvement, but Sue and I were still dealing with a damaged child.
In 2005, we consulted a DAN! doctor, who put Ben on a program to remove the toxins, rebalance his metabolism, and rebuild his damaged gut and brain.
We began Ben’s chelation, his detoxification, in December, 2006: DSMA three days on and four days off. For the first three months, lead came pouring out. “I was tearing down a lead-painted barn when I was pregnant,” said Sue. “I’d forgotten about that.” We bought a home low-pressure hyperbaric chamber for home use. More tests had revealed another problem, Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcus (PANDAS), a disease that attacks the basil ganglia, the communication channel between the lower and higher brain. Dr. Kotsanis put Ben on a protocol of antibiotics, antivirals, and antifungals, and probiotics. Ben’s symptoms improved. A follow-up PANDAS test showed seven out of twelve panels trending down.
Ben is not fully recovered but he is happy and healthy. Not every therapy has been equally successful, but together they have improved the quality of his life, and ours. Ben's mom and I are grateful for the help we have received from DAN! doctors and parents who shared their stories with us.
Posted by: Dan E. Burns | November 22, 2009 at 03:05 PM
I went to the health section of their website and can't even find this article anymore, and it came out yesterday. Maybe they are embarrassed, too.
Posted by: JB Handley | November 22, 2009 at 03:00 PM
SHAME ON THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE!!!
Those bastards are so desperate to sell papers that they are willing to write anything to get readers! The Chicago Tribune Paper is a huge wad of useless information. My family and friends have cancelled their subscription to the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Herald years ago because it was trash. I will get better written articles and news from AgeofAutism.com than I will ever get from the Tribune.
If we stop reading the Tribune it will go away and hopefully they will once and for all go Bankrupt.
Posted by: Elucidatus | November 22, 2009 at 02:42 PM
I wish I could send a nice letter to the Tribune but every time I respond to things like that, I just get angry and end up wasting a lot of emotional energy. I have nothing left for people who just don't give a damn about what caused my son's autism or the biomed treatments that are helping his recovery, to the extent that recovery is possible. And I'm getting tired of telling people that he has autism. I'm just telling them he has vaccine encephalitis or giving no explanation at all. Honestly, why do people go to such great lengths to perpetuate the lies and why do so many sheeple just rebleat them over and over like a broken record??
I'm just disgusted with the whole "anti-anti-vaxxer" movement tonight and I just wish the darn things had never come to be in the first place. I know polio was a terrible thing, but my own excellent father survived and he was stricken so terribly with it that he was fully expected to die when he was just a two year old little boy. They even moved him out to the balcony of his hospital ward, which was where they put polio victims who were not expected to survive the night, so that the rest of the children in the ward wouldn't hear him dying and lose hope for themselves. But God gave him his life back - not some vaccine. And although he could never walk again without the aid of crutches and, later on, a scooter, he lived a very full 63 years and had five children and even more grandchildren. He was the most intelligent, genuine, funny man I have ever known, who dedicated 40 years of his life to teaching children speech, debate, acting and how to write with proper grammar. He had his mind but I don't know if my son will ever have even that.
I'm just so tired of fighting people right now and I'm very, very grateful that there are people, good people like those here on this site, who are supportive and understand and are fighting and have been fighting so hard. That's why I keep coming here. Thank you!
Posted by: Bonnie | November 22, 2009 at 01:06 AM
If there is anybody interested in the latest research by Dr. Vijendra Singh, feel free to contact me directly and ask for "Phenotypic expression of autoimmune autistic disorder (AAD): A major subset of autism".
I know many organizations/parents think that mercury is the only cause of autism or that greening vaccines are the answer, but there is a viral-autommunity link to autism that is being ignored and it is a big factor. People are ignoring the science by Andy Wakefield and Vijendra Singh and unfortunately not enough resources are looking into this link.
When I had The Autism Autoimmunity Project (TAAP) we spent $130,000.00 to look into this link. Since then it has BEEN TOTALLY IGNORED. The VIRAL-AUTOIMMUNITY LINK TO AUTISM IS NO LONGER RELEVANT-VERY UNFORTUNATE FOR CHILDREN/ADULTS WITH AUTISM.
These children/adults DO NOT MATTER. They are statistics and non-existent.
The NIH, CDC, IACC, etc. DOES NOT CARE about these children and adults with AAD. Nor does anybody else except the families involved.
You can contact me at [email protected] to get the research article by Vijendra Singh, PhD since it IS NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH to be picked up by others. Why it isn't, you would have to ask why. All I know is that I will gladly supply the article to those who contact me.
Ray Gallup
'
Posted by: Raymond Gallup | November 21, 2009 at 11:48 PM
The Chicago Tribune can get stuffed.
Be of good cheer people because a few really big things are happening. For starters, Dr. Palevsky's questioning of "herd immunity" when it comes to immunization is interesting. IF true, and hopefully this will be further explored, that wipes out one of their biggest aruguments.
Also, the business "thinktank news" about the hyrdrolyzed gelatin role in autism is interesting AND the MS news of an Italian doctor, who out for the love of his wife (an MS sufferer) sought hard for the cause of MS. Heavy metals (lead), blood brain barrier issues, vascular surgery are all mentioned in this story. On the Globe and Mail "comments" section nearly everyone is commenting that big pharma won't like this news. ..."The U.S. society goes further, discouraging patients from getting tested or seeking surgical treatment. Rather it continues to promote drug treatments used to alleviate symptoms which include corticosteroids, chemotherapy agents and pain medication." It's a must read there are so many parallels.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/researchers-labour-of-love-leads-to-breakthrough-in-treating-ms/article1372414/
Posted by: jen | November 21, 2009 at 11:44 PM
IMHO, there is a discernible effort to cast the "biomedical" approach as not meeting the medical standard of care - and thus as a negligent option at best, and a dangerous approach at worst.
The steady drumbeat of this movement is alarming. Those of us who have seen the truth with our own eyes need to be vigilant.
Posted by: Angela | November 21, 2009 at 11:13 PM
How disappointing to read yet another trash series on autism biomedical treatments for children with autism. My daughter would still be in physical pain and be unreachable if it were not for treatments tailored for her specific issues. We spent years doing solely ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) and my daughter made no progress as she was aggressive, spacey, and in diapers, well over the age of 8. The pediatrician had no recommendations except seeing a psychiatrist. We did, and after 7 days on Adderall for her "hyperactive" behaviors, she became dizzy on it, ended up falling and was rushed to the ER for stitches.
Switching to a gluten-free, casein-free, soy-free diet with digestive enzymes stopped her "hyperactive" behavior, chronic diarrhea and she was then able to be effective in using a toilet and out of diapers at age 9. Supplements, vitamins and minerals helped with her dysfunctional immune system, and stopped frequent nosebleeds and allowed her body to begin fighting fungal, bacterial, and viral infections that had been chronic since she was a toddler, after vaccines left her ill and "autistic."
Her DAN! doctor has been the only doctor since her autism diagnosis to alleviate the pain and suffering my child has had. Issues with mitochondrial dysfunction, GI swelling and inflammation in her head (my daughter would bang her head as she is nonverbal and unable to tell of her pain) are being treated and her life has been transformed. She is happy, affectionate and is able to function and keeps showing us that she is picking up more understanding of her "new world", one that is pain free.
I am done with the Tribune reporting and will notify all family and friends to do the same. The slant and bias presented does such a disservice to families needing medical help for their sick children, labeled "autistic". It is sad that historically these children have had behaviors related to pain and inflammation and have been given pills to sedate them or slow down their motions when the roots to the behavior,again- pain and inflammation, cascaded into symptoms that we now see as the core issues of autism. Off label, untested psychotropics, stimulants and anti-psychotics have been constantly pushed as not a treatment or a cure for autism, but a band-aid for the symptoms. Why is the Tribune not reporting on that and the dishonesty of the American Psychiatric Association for disregarding the side effects of these dangerous medications?
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | November 21, 2009 at 09:59 PM
Didn't you all *love* the Dr. Martha Herbert snippet? They don't actually talk about anything this brilliant woman with an extensive pedigree talks about - they chose to focus on her emphatically stating that she would sue them if they lied about what she said to them. So she's now some nutcase hellbent on litigation.
Folks - how can we possibly talk to these people?
Posted by: Jessica | November 21, 2009 at 09:35 PM
Sarah -
Congrats on your daughter's success.
"...But there aren't any for all the stuff your DAN dispenses, (at a healthy profit for himself, no doubt!) - Talk about your conflict of interest."
Unfortunately you, like the authors of this Tribune piece, acutally don't have a clue about DAN! doctors or how they operate. You've never been to one - so how the hell do you know anything about how they profit? I would be enormously embarrassed if I posted something that so blatently showed my outright igonorance of DAN doctors like you did.
I have never, ever purchased a single supplement from my DAN doctor - and believe me, he takes a lot of supplements. And I've got one of the "big-name" conference speaking DANs. He doesn't make his living off of selling things to parents. In fact, he left a much better paying career as an ER doctor to be a DAN doctor full time because his son was poisoned by vaccines years ago. My DAN doctor answers my calls - his nurses call and email me about anything and everything I want to talk about - they write letters for my insurance and care plan letters for his school - and all I have ever, ever paid him was an office fee.
Conflict of interest?? What about your beloved pediatrician, who is a slave for Big Pharma? Talk about your double standards. The biggest mistake we all can make is thinking OUR child is just like YOUR child. My kid couldn't talk AT ALL in kindergarten - unlike your daughter - so don't complain to me about how some teacher wanted her to memorize her address. At least she had words! No amount of "just love" was going to fix my son's HEALTH issues. Because autism is NOT A BEHAVIORAL CONDITION. Does "just love" cure cancer too?
So again, way to talk out your ass of things you know nothing about.
Posted by: Jessica | November 21, 2009 at 09:28 PM
Here is what I don't understand. The AAP, FDA and CDC want us to give dozens of untested vaccines to our children, in the name of preventing illness. But yet they call it "experimental" when we give them vitamins and supplements and chelate them for the poisons that are present in their bodies???
Please tell me why when a child has cancer, ungoes chemotherapy/radiation the child becomes a cancer survivor.
But when a child is recovered from autism, that child apparently was misdiagnosed, and never had it in the first place???
A dear friend of mine said something that makes perfect sense. Hundreds of years ago, hand washing was laughed at as a way to reduce illness and death. It took many many years before people realized this to be the case. I have a feeling this is the same thing that will happen in our quest to recover our children, or heck, even stopping them from spiraling into autism in the first place.
We shall overcome! Just like Aly and so many others have!
Posted by: Judith | November 21, 2009 at 08:59 PM
@Sarah (of no last name) -
Congratulations, a spontaneous recovery from "an ASD." You must have worked very hard to help your daughter, without any special financial assistance, to toilet train and stop having "temper tantrums." It would be instructive for other readers to learn what you did to help your daughter - please share!
I can't imagine why you would not want your child to learn her address by rote, in Kindergarten, though; my daughter struggled for five years (after we worked, intensively, for three years to help her develop the ability to learn and use words) to learn all of her personal safety information - and we had a celebration when she finally succeeded!
It is sad nobody at her daycare facilitated her interaction with the other children, but generally, pre-school children play more side-by-side than with one-another.
So what happened in the seven years that made her want to listen to her teachers? Is she performing at grade-level? Does she need help to learn?
See, my daughter's vaccine-damage left her brain impaired - she now has hippocampal sclerosis which limits the ability of the largest organ of learning in her brain from doing its job - add this to autoimmunity to her own myelin (likely a gift from the aluminum in her vaccines), and the frontal and temporal lobe seizures (probably caused by the hydrolyzed gelatin in her vaccines and assisted by the mercury and aluminum), and finish with the chronic hypoxic state of the core of her brain (an indication or result of encephalitis?), and you might understand what a miracle my daughter's progress is.
It is good to know your daughter "has friends, she has traveled to Europe with her family, and she's a wonderful and happy child," but you sound a trifle defensive...
My daughter now has friends, too. She loves to read books, and just received her new passport; she is hoping to go with her ice hockey team to Canada as part of a host family exchange.
She also helps her therapists work with other children who are overcoming the hurdles of "Autism." She is great at calling a spade a spade, and will tell her friends ("typical" or "special") when their behavior is not appropriate.
Though your daughter has not been seen by a DAN doctor, and "hasn't been taking all kinds of supplements, she hasn't had chelation or any other unproven treatment," this does not mean you have done nothing to help her, nor does her ability to "pass" in society necessarily mean she no longer has "an ASD."
What I can say for certain is that, without DAN!, my daughter would still be in a classroom where the goals included "make eye-contact with a person once a day," head-banging, drooling, shrieking, and not speaking - see time is NOT a cure for co-morbid issues of "Autism" like neurologic, mitochondrial, GI, renal, and hepatic dysfunction. You can attribute your daughter's progress to elapsed time, but I suspect the “excellent teaching” was rather more specialized than you are alluding. Certainly, there is not a family embroiled in this debate who does not lavish their child with love; and it seems that we agree on the need for this.
Every child’s “Autism” is unique. That's the problem with ASD. The course of development is entirely dependent on the point in time the individual's "toxic tipping point" was attained. Since my daughter was derailed at 14 weeks, her developing organs and systems were impacted quite significantly.
It is impossible to clearly ascribe improvements to any specific treatment because a number of interventions is required, in order to make the person whole again. Since each is impaired at a unique point in his/her development, it is virtually impossible to have a tidy, placebo controlled study.
Though in Japan, they did manage control with this study, “Reduction of autistic traits following dietary intervention and elimination of exposure to environmental substances” http://www.immuneweb.org/articles/slimak.html - this study involved changing the children’s diet AND maintaining a pure environment…
Your snide comment about my daughter's DAN! pediatrician is both uncalled for and entirely off-base. Although she is prescribed a number of supplements, we are free to purchase these from whatever supply-house we choose; sometimes our DAN! pediatrician offers a product at a significant savings because he can purchase in bulk, but he does not offer most of what she is prescribed, and what he does offer is discounted significantly over what I would pay anywhere else.
Our DAN! pediatrician is emphatically NOT out to take advantage of his patients and their families. His hourly rate is less than my physician's; he regularly answers phone calls and e-mails at all hours, without charging a single cent, and has done more to synthesize my daughter's myriad issues and develop solutions that help her overcome them than her neurologists, gastroenterologist, orthopaedist, psychologist, endocrinologist and other "specialists;" and not surprisingly, many of her specialists are supportive of what we have chosen to do - some so impressed by our results that they regularly refer their patients to our DAN! pediatrician for help.
Posted by: Liz Parker | November 21, 2009 at 08:41 PM
Go Aly!!!!!
Posted by: jen | November 21, 2009 at 08:01 PM
Most parents leave their doctors at the American Academy of Poisoning to find a DAN doctor who can and will actually help.
Posted by: cmo | November 21, 2009 at 07:38 PM
Sarah,
Hmmm-"lots of loving"....so not only is your purpose here to bash DAN! and Liz's true experience but to promote some type of 2009 refrigerator mom nonsense. We don't love our children but lo and behold, you give "excellent teaching and lots of loving" then autism is cured at your house.
Your post smacks of neurodiverse crap and the typical denial of reality - these kids are sick and all your bullshit does not change that fact.
Posted by: Teresa Conrick | November 21, 2009 at 07:31 PM
I see the article portrays the DAN doctors as an "influential group", while the poor underdog AAP struggles to get its message out. Like Amy Wallace's account of poor Paul Offit's uphill struggle against the "powerful anti-vaccine lobby", it's an understatement to say that this sets off my BS detector.
Thanks to all who posted their inspiring stories.
Posted by: Schoolteacher in NYC | November 21, 2009 at 07:10 PM
I wrote all three of the geniuses separate and sort of different letters. I hope I did not speak over their heads with big words like inflammatory blood vessels, mitochondria, Atkin's modified diet, messed up metabolism.
I was nice!
Considering I have been in a very bad, dark,gloomy, hateful mood the last few days.
By the way:
I was told by a person that knows a psychairist whose speciality is Aspergers. That specialist said that it is not 25% but 50% have seizure disorders.
But this is the same doctor that does not believe it is vaccines that is the cause apparently to the point of being obnoxious, so I am suppose to grobble at his feet when I see him. So maybe he is not an expert.
Grobble at his feet, grobble at his feet! God I pray to you to give me the strength that as of now I do not have!
Posted by: Benedetta | November 21, 2009 at 07:01 PM
There are many maddening things about this article, but right now I'll just mention one. Here are two quotes from this article:
“One in 100 U.S. children is diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder by age 8, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That figure has increased in recent decades, though experts do not know whether more children actually have autism or more cases are being diagnosed.”
“After thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines except for some flu shots, autism diagnoses continued to rise.”
Over and over these days, vaccine defenders say that we don’t really know whether autism has increased (in spite of the huge change from 1 or 4 in 10,000 to 1 in 100 or 91), but they also say that thimerosal has been proven safe because the rate of autism has increased since thimerosal was removed from vaccines.
The latest official autism stats from the CDC are for kids born in 1996, well before thimerosal in vaccines even began to be reduced. Vaccines containing thimerosal were not recalled and continued to be used until their expiration dates in 2003 or 2004, and there is still some thimerosal in some vaccines especially flu shots. Yet people keep telling us that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism because autism has increased since it was removed, at the same time as telling us that autism hasn’t increased and it’s just “better diagnosis”.
(And never mind, of course, that thimerosal is not the only vaccine ingredient that can cause autism, and that the number of vaccines have continued to increase, as well as the level of mercury in our environment has continued to increase...)
Posted by: Twyla | November 21, 2009 at 05:51 PM
Autistic children show high incidence of systemic mycoplasmal infections. Mycoplasma acts by attaching to a gene in either the cell nuclei or mitochondria. Mycoplasma is in many vaccines.
Mycoplasma cannot be successfully treated with the usual short course duration of antibiotics due to their intracellular location, slow proliferation rate and inherent resistance to most antibiotics, the few Mycoplasma experts that specialize in this field are recommending six-months to one year of non-stop treatments using strong antibiotics such as Cipro and Doxycycline.
Many of the treatments currently deployed in mitochondrial disease (i.e., coenzyme Q10, vitamin B-12, lipoic acid, biotin, dietary changes, etc.) are part of the alternative treatment regimen that many parents use on their children with ASD.
The government perpetrates non-detectable, virulent, stealth pathogens on the population by way of mosquito vectors, primary aerosol, chemtrails, vaccines and possibly the food chain, and then you're put through a medical merry-go-round of disease specialists that know little or nothing about Mycoplasma ideology and do not have access to the necessary diagnostics for detection. The pharmaceutical companies and the warlocks in Washington and Wall Street are laughing all the way to the bank as they profit hundreds of billions of dollars on humanity's suffering while fulfilling their agenda of population control.
I am sure most people don't hear this treatment protocol, thusly I post.
Posted by: Kathy Blanco | November 21, 2009 at 04:49 PM
Liz,
I too, have a daughter who was diagnosed with ASD at age 3. I was told that I should apply for special financial assistance, as she would be in diapers for many years. I was told by her kindergarten teacher that she needed to be able to say her address, so that if she got lost, she would be able to ask for help. This woman wanted to teach her the address by rote. She used to have frequent temper tantrums, did not interact with the children at her daycare, and ignored her teachers.
Now, she is doing great in Grade 7. She just got 90% on her math test, and 75% on her science test on ecosystems. She knows the difference between a predator, a consumer and a producer. She has friends, she has traveled to Europe with her family, and she's a wonderful and happy child.
But, she hasn't been seen by a DAN doctor, she hasn't been taking all kinds of supplements, she hasn't had chelation or any other unproven treatment. You can attribute your daughter's progress to biomed, but I can only attribute my daughter's to maturation, excellent teaching and lots of loving. (She's never had ABA, BTW).
That's the problem with ASD. The course of development is not linear, not easily predicted and it's impossible to clearly ascribe improvements to any specific treatment. That's why we need placebo controlled studies. But there aren't any for all the stuff your DAN dispenses, (at a healthy profit for himself, no doubt!) - Talk about your conflict of interest.
Posted by: Sarah | November 21, 2009 at 04:38 PM
Here are my comments friends:
Dear tribune editors,
I'd like to make a few comments about your recent article on how dangerous alternative treatments for Autism are. First, do you know that the drug Risperdal is often prescribed to children with Autism, despite the fact that no studies have been to to assess the long term safety of using such medication on children? And, it turns out 3% of all boys that use Risperdal grow irreversable lactating breasts (http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5038367n). Where is your report on the dangerous risk of Risperdal to Autistic children, or do you just reserve those for treatments with which parents are actually comfortable?
Why are you so willing to dismiss the accounts of tens of thousands of parents who report our children making drastic improvements on the DAN Protocol? Do you think the American Academy of Pediatrics knows more about Autism than any parent or DAN doctor? PEDIATRICIANS DO NOT TREAT AUTISM. Seriously, call your regional neighbors, the American Academy of Pediatrics and ask them yourselves. So, when you interview any pediatrician about Autism understand that you are talking with a person claiming to be an expert regarding a condition he or she does not treat. How does not treating a condition account for expertise? Yet, nobody asks these questions, rather you just interview them as if they know anything about how Autism manifests in individuals.
Here is an example of how the AAP's lack of experience with Autism has harmed my son. When my son was 3 he had a high functioning form of Autism. There was talk among his therapists that he was possibly a genius. Then at 4 years old my son's entire personality changed. He became violent, had tantrums, and cried as if in constant pain. For three years I brought this up to his pediatricians and got the response, "Oh, that's just the Autism. That's just how they are sometimes, not much you can do." My son went from high functioning autism at 3 to severe and back in diapers by 7. It was the most helpless feeling you can imagine, watching your child deteriorate like that. One of my son's therapists, not a medical doctor mind you, suggested that I ask for an EEG because she thought he was having seizures. When my son was evaluated the EEG light up like 4th of July, indicating that he was having Petite Mal seizures 24 hours a day.
So, let me ask you this, when couldn't my son's pediatricians recognize for three years that he needed a Neuro consult, especially since 25% of Autistics have seizures? BECAUSE PEDIATRICIANS DO NOT TREAT AUTISM, THEREFORE HOW CAN THEY KNOW THE WAYS IN WHICH IT CAN UNIQUELY MANIFEST IN INDIVIDUALS?
My son's development stalled because he was having undiagnosed seizures for years and this was only resolved when I figured out what to do. So the next time you write an article that implies we parents put our children in harms way with treatments why don't you also turn the lense on the American Academy of Pediatrics, who is MIA regarding this condition which affects 1 in 58 boys!
autismmomrising.blogspot.com
Posted by: Autism Mom Rising | November 21, 2009 at 03:58 PM
I cringe when I hear some parents, who are clearly brainwashed from big pharm. and doctors such as Offit and others, claim that biomed is not for their child. These are also parents who must not believe in recovery. They mindlessly buy into articles such as this. One has to wonder when the hell ALL parents will wake up and realize that vaccine damage is real and treament is necessary!
Posted by: recovery is real | November 21, 2009 at 03:52 PM
Liz Parker - amazing job - thank you, and God bless you and your daughter.
Posted by: Angela | November 21, 2009 at 03:13 PM
I would like to ask these pediatricians who make these public statements about what treatments do and don't work in Autism the following questions: HOW DO YOU KNOW WHAT DOESN'T WORK IN AUTISM WHEN PEDIATRICIANS DON'T TREAT AUTISM? Then, why are you claiming expertise on a condition which you do not treat?
Posted by: AnaB | November 21, 2009 at 03:06 PM
I am very frustrated by the article but for some reason I can not bring myself to write to them. The article raises two positive points. The Admission that Autism is on the rise and 75% of all families dealing with Autism try biomedical treatments. I would bet 99% were not defeated by efficacy but Price. Sad state of affairs.
Chicago Tribune is about to be history. I just can not shake the the thought that they are writing now out of desperation for ratings. I will not contribute to such a poorly written one sided flawed article.
I do agree with your facebook Comment Kim. Simple & Direct... Enough Said.
Posted by: Tanners Dad | November 21, 2009 at 02:58 PM
My comment to the Tribune:
These exact therapies have recovered my son. He was diagnosed with moderate autism just two short years ago. The mainstream medical establishment said there was nothing I could do, that there was no cure. They recommended some speech therapy. I was given nothing to walk away with including hope by his neurologist, his pediatrician, his speech therapist, his psychologist assigned to us for diagnosis, his allergist, and his gastroenterologist. Thankfully, a group of parents and doctors had formed the Defeat Autism Now (DAN!) protocol that we implemented the day he was diagnosed. We noticed a completely different child emerging as we went along. Diet, supplements, and detoxification has brought a child from having autism to living undetected in the neurotypical world. It may not work for everyone, but it works. To say it is a waste of time is criminal. I can tell you this....if you have a child with autism, they probably won't recover without biomedical treatment. If you have a child with autism, they might recover or come close to it with biomedical treatment. Which one do you think you should choose?
Posted by: Nicole | November 21, 2009 at 02:45 PM
I was just going to post our history and struggle...But I can do better.
I was watching the footage of Aly Fournier, just now. As I was watching, my daughter stopped playing and came to watch the footage with me. She asked, "Who is that girl?" I responded, "That is Aly." She queried, "Well, what's her last name?" I replied, "Her last name is Fournier. Aly Fournier is learning her letters in a therapy session." She then paused to watch a moment more and said, "She is Autism, too. What's her middle name?" Through my smile and mist of tears, I suggested, "I'm not sure, honey, maybe we can get together when we are in NH at Christmas and you can ask her yourself." She smiled her glorious smile and said, "I'd like that."
She has "severe autism," she was never supposed to use functional two-word sentences, let alone reason, logic, and speak like a "typical" child! And she is right - she IS Autism. Unexpected, unchartable, indominable, and exceptional...
Vaccine damaged at 14 weeks, my daughter's development faltered, her health became fragile, her neuro-development faltered, and her future went from bright to uncertain.
By the time she was two years old, my beautiful little girl carried the dire label, "severely autistic."
Her behavior was written off by our pediatrician as "autism;" she could not sleep more than an hour and change at a time, refused to eat most foods, begged for milk incessantly (and would bang her head if refused), shrieked for hours at a time, had non-stop, putrid diarrhea, sported a raised red, weeping, sometimes bloody rash on her bottom that would not respond to prescribed treatments, her preferred activities included bolting from home or our grasp into traffic and staring off into space through her fingers, she sported an Ethiopian pot-belly, mouthed everything and drooled incessantly, did not recognize the existence of her sister beyond cause and effect, her "words" were "maaaa," "mo," and "ba," and she did not like to be held or touched. I was told she'd never have functional language, or toilet train, and would require institutionalization well before middle school.
About this time, we had a "well child" visit where the pediatrician, literally, stayed arms-length away from my shrieking, slobbering, flailing little girl in a pantomime of checking ears, eyes, and throat - I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry as we were leaving with the form for the school district which declared her perfectly healthy.
Thank God and his angels for nudging me, repeatedly, toward a Defeat Autism Now pediatrician! Our first visit was a breath of fresh air - as my daughter bounced maniacally on a mini-trampoline, uttering shrieks of glee, I was addressed as an equal partner by a pediatrician (who not even a touch nonplussed by my daughter's out-of-control behavior); he actually HEARD my concerns and offered his concern and suggestions, along with the rationale behind each suggestion. We owe a debt to this doctor greater than mere professional fees - he saved our daughter's future.
Using our daughter's test results, he designed a bio-medical protocol tailored to her physical need, which slowly enabled her brain and body to function more appropriately. In short order, she was sleeping at night, consuming adequate nutrition (though it was liquified for years), the drooling stopped, she began to participate in therapies, her elopement reduced, she could tolerate being held, and much more.
My daughter just had her tenth birthday. But that milestone, double digits, was considerably less momentous than each of the HUNDREDS of baby-step benchmarks (thank you Partington and Sundberg for your ABLLS) we have celebrated over the last eight years. Like Aly, Kiera has clawed her way, inch-by-inch, tiny victory by tiny victory out of Autism's clenched fist with the invaluable assistance of a specially designed protocol, tailor-made for her unique needs by her Defeat Autism Now doctor, her therapy team, and her educators.
She was written-off in our Kindergarten planning meetings, where I was told, “WE determine what is adequate progress. ANY progress is adequate progress,” and I was unsuccessful at getting even ONE educationally-relevant, grade-appropriate goals listed for her to attain. I was informed, “Your daughter CANNOT learn, she is severely autistic.”
The journey has not been easy, nor has it been short - and it will not draw to an end for many years. Her ability to derive benefit from the intensive therapies she needs (to arrive where she is, today, and ensure her independent future) is entirely driven by the bio-medical interventions we embarked upon eight years ago and update and maintain even today. With this protocol in place, her progress in her specifically designed, intensive, Applied Behavioral Analysis/Verbal Behavior program (much like Aly’s footage) has been spectacular. Not only is my daughter speaking like a “typical” child, she is learning to eat independently, bathe herself, behave in a safe manner, make good choices, and much more. She is in fourth grade, attending a Montessori school with some in-class support; but is doing all of the schoolwork the “typical” children are doing, independently. She just received her report card – mostly B’s, one A, and all E’s (excellents) for citizenship.
So many of these children have been robbed of their childhoods – who are the Chicago Tribune and their cronies, to hijack the thunder of these children's successes and deprive their peers of their opportunity for independent and productive futures?
Liz Parker
Proud mom to three beautiful children, two of whom are overcoming damage done at the tip of a needle, in the name of "health care"
Posted by: Liz Parker | November 21, 2009 at 02:36 PM
I couldn't help noticing the ads for the GlaxoSmithKline product, Poligrip, that appear beside the online article "Autism treatments: Risky alternative therapies have little basis in science" by Trine Tsouderos and Patricia Callahan.
Speaking of "basis in science", GSK is the maker of the British MMR vaccine (now the center of the controversy over the British autism rate of 1/38 boys) and the Engerix B Hepatitis B vaccine (found to have a 74% increased risk of inducing central nervous system demyelinating diseases, here http://www.neurology.org/cgi/content/abstract/72/10/873 ). Poligrip is now the subject of lawsuits for zinc poisoning and neuropathy-- a common effect of metal poisoning also found in children with autism who received mercury-containing flu shots.
I can understand the Trib-- like so many papers these days-- trying to save itself by courting pharma ad revenues, but it's journalistic whoring nevertheless. This article has too many lies and mischaracterizations to count in the time I'm willing to devote to the exercise. You'll be hearing from hundreds of other parents who will no doubt do a breakdown.
Autism in the U.S. is 1/91-- 1/58 boys-- and the rise cannot be explained by genetics or the supposed sudden increased brilliance of the medical profession in recognizing it. Something's going on in the environment and investigations of vaccines are a legitimate direction since, to date, only ONE vaccine ingredient of dozens and only ONE vaccine among scores have even been researched in connection with autism-- and badly at that: http://www.fourteenstudies.org
The Tribune is simply making itself filthier on its way down and out.
Posted by: Gatogorra | November 21, 2009 at 01:47 PM
Your article 'Autism treatments: Risky alternative therapies have little basis in science' is greatly misleading, poorly researched, and comes off as a 'hit piece' on the biomedical movement. It is wholly one sided and I believe your point is to further label autism parents as 'nuts, desperate, unable to think for themselves,.... ". You pick the word.
I personally am a autism parent. My husband and I are educated, grounded people that believe our son has a right to be healthy. He has significant health issues that were blamed on autism behaviors. Since starting biomedical treatments almost 5 years ago he has improved significantly in area of bowel and immune function. Say what you will about treatments for our children but know that while you continue to spread hate, we continue to spread hope. Our children have a right to good health and improvement. You watch a child suffer with severe bowel disease every single day of their life and then we'll talk...until then you know nothing about these children.
Kecia Johndrow
Posted by: Kecia | November 21, 2009 at 01:00 PM
When you write your emails, be sure to make mention of the two prominant GlaxoSmithKline ads for Poligrip next to to the online article. Poligrip is the denture adhesive and there are lawsuits against the company for neuropathy and other adverse effects due to zinc poisoning for which there are no product warnings:
http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/denture-cream-3412/
Posted by: Gatogorra | November 21, 2009 at 12:55 PM
To the authors of the upcoming article on Autism treatment;
I am the mother of two children, my younger son regressed into Autism between 15 - 18 months. Immediately following my son's diagnosis at 21 months we set up 30hrs a week of behavioral therapy as the Developmental Pediatrician, who diagnosed my son prescribed. We followed this plan for a full year and my son made almost no progress. At this juncture we continued with our aggressive behavioral therapy plan but added Bio medical treatment and then my son started to get better. The healthier my child became, the more able he was to attend to his speech, occupational therapy, special ed instruction. The two treatments are working together beautifully for him. They are also absolutely bankrupting us, but that's for another article. Funny enough, the two bio medical interventions that have made the greatest difference for my son are really quite mainstream, Vancomycin for Clostridia and Lamictal for Absence Seizures. However, after endless appointments with mainstream physicians who just assumed his symptoms were part of his Autism, we began working with a DAN doctor who was able to order the right tests, make appropriate diagnoses and get treatment started. And that has made all the difference. Those of us in the Autism community who have seen our children get better in front of our eyes through bio medical treatment share our stories and support other parents in trying these interventions because we want parents to have information, they can then make their own choices. Our agenda is to make children feel better, to be able to participate more fully in life. I fail to see why that is so threatening to people. The cliche that we are desperate, unhinged parents willing to try any wacky suggestion, really doesn't fit. It devalues us as a group, makes us easier to marginalize. But, the only thing that is accomplished in doing that, is continuing to reduce access to information for other parents of Autistic kids. Thankyou, Alison MacNeil
Posted by: alison macneil | November 21, 2009 at 12:31 PM