I dare u say i make all this about myself i have been raising this child from day one in GOOD and BAD times and sorry if i say he has made me a better PARENT!! not person he is autistic and his IQ beats the IQ of a lot of people that think they know autism and how can u say he is suffering have u ever met him?? he wakes up with a smile on his face he plays basketball and goes to school and goes on vaccations like every other kid, and of course autistic children will sadly die and it is horrible when parents dont find the strenght to do so and there should be more support but look also at the numbers of normal children that wander of, drown in a pool and get raped and killed what were they lost too??

it is amazing how people make it sound like autism is a deadsentence for ur child and ur family, but nobody ever sees the positive in autism, hhmmm if i wanted to complain i would be like, i have 4 kids one with autism, one with aspergers symptoms, my husband is deployed to iraq and i have to go once a week for nerveblock shots which mean i am getting long needles put in my spine to avoid surgery. BUT i would rather say how my 8 year old autistic son made me a better and more patient parent, how he teaches my kids to be better sieblings and how we are so much more excited about progress our kids make, my 16 year old daughter and 12 year old son take care of him when i cant and are WANTING to teach and play with him,, they defend him when he has a tantrum at walmart and people stop and stare. so for a change stop thinking that ur children r punished and understand that they enjoy life as well just in a different way!!

it is a tragedy to "lose" a child to autism, double tragic to lose an autistic child due to neglect and triple tragic to lose him to psychiatric drugs...

Trica Wilson:

What?

Calling attention to a childhood illness is some how a bad thing?

How often in modern history has attention been drawn to a disease, and when attention is drawn - has not some pretty good treatment followed?

Tricia Wilson said-

"Please STOP using autism as an excuse to make your troubles seem different than anyone else's. Stuff like this just mars the efforts of the disability community in its struggle to gain respect and dignity."

Tricia, please understand that there are thousands upon thousands of families who have one child or more who are in physical and emotional pain. THEY need respect and dignity and appropriate care, understanding, compassion, financial support and HELP for their medical/safety needs.

This is an acute crisis that will soon be a chronic issue as the numbers have increased wildly in the past years. Are we to be silent and not try to prevent injuries and death? Shouldn't these families know we grieve for them as if they were are own children? That should be a priority to "gain respect and dignity" in any community.

Folks on the autism spectrum deserve so much better than this very public homage to human suffering bearing its name.

A life lost is always sad, but awful stuff happens every day to all kinds of people. The tragedies related to autism are no greater or more painful than any one else's.
I’m a parent of a young adult on the spectrum. I get how hard it is sometimes and how isolating it can be, but in the end, we all bleed, we all grieve, we all suffer. Labels are not necessary.

Please STOP using autism as an excuse to make your troubles seem different than anyone else's. Stuff like this just mars the efforts of the disability community in its struggle to gain respect and dignity. We’re are out here in the margins because some individuals just can’t let go of the notion of “differentness” being a problem. Let’s not spend time publicly proliferating that by calling attention to all the broken pieces. We ALL have broken pieces.

There's a profound sadness when reading these reports, something that cannot be described.

I can't help but pray for those families involved and hope that they all find healing.

Dadadvocate,

I agree that working for change by addressing the issues that may lead to the death of a child or adult with autism is important. And there are plenty of places on the net doing that. AOA for one. NAA, GR, and Autism One- also all great organizations geting the word out on what anyone can get involved with to effect the change we need to help our disabled loved ones. Like the Awaare program you mention.

Lives lost to autism blog is a much needed and overdue place to see and learn about the tragedies unfolding daily around the nation and the world involving autism.

A place to pay homage to lives lost.

People may think it is morbid to do so. I disagree.

We should never forget a single person who lost their life who was also affected by autism. In order to move forward as you suggest we need to focus on what is going wrong. Where the problems lie. The details.

How can we prevent future tragedies?

Too many times we hear in the media about children dying from vaccine preventable diseases. When children with autism perish very little time and attention is given to their suffering and what their lives were like.

I applaude the creators of Liveslosttoautism blog.

A site like this is important. However it ignores the fact that many people all across the country are working hard on issues related to safety, including Police and other First Responders. It is critical that all of this horror gets channeled toward a positive outcome and emphasizes prevention via support and education, including educating judicial officials to throw the book at those who abuse and kill people with autism.

As a long time advocate on these issues, I urge the blogger, whomever they may be, to get more organized and focused and reach out to organizations like this one:
http://www.awaare.org/

Outrage without focused policy prescriptions is wasted energy. Literally hundreds of people nationally are working on these issues, from ASA's Safe and Sound effort to Autism Speak's Autism Safety Project. Both efforts (and many others) have tons of partners dedicated to eliminating these stories forever. While a stand alone blog may garner attention, there is no substitute for policy trench work...so I encourage the author to formally reach out and link up with organizations like those above. That's how real change can happen.