Where are the Clowns?
The onslaught has begun and we are very poorly prepared. The 1990 birth cohort turns twenty one this year. They are over four million strong in the US and we can expect 20,000 to 40,000 of them to have an autism spectrum disorder. 1990 was about the time incidence rates began to surge. CDC no longer reports classical autism separately from the higher functioning Asperger’s Syndrome but we can safely assume we are now adding large numbers of young men and women to our society who cannot manage without significant assistance. Many of them are living with families who are or soon will be no longer able to cope. They are increasingly spilling out into the public domain in serious need of institutional care; thousands this year, thousands more next year, and the next, and the next until we either find a cure or remove the cause.
We’ve wasted much of the twenty year warning we had. We pretended the increase wasn’t real, that it was simply a matter of better diagnostics, awareness, and change in definition. The children were there all along. We just didn’t notice them, or they were misdiagnosed. The kindergarten teachers noticed them though. They saw something beginning about 1995 they hadn’t seen before. It was hard to miss.
We tried to blame it on genes and poured millions into research looking for the culprit. But of course genetics can’t explain a pandemic. They may be able to tell us who is most at risk. They will never tell us what the cause is and unless gene therapy is the answer they are unlikely to give much insight into possible cures.
The great unanswered question, unasked really except by parents of affected children, has been where are the adults with autism? Well get ready. Here they come by the thousands. Over the coming decade there will be hundreds of thousands. We are going to end up with millions of these people among us.
So what are we doing about it? Shooting the messenger mostly. Andrew Wakefield, the British researcher who called for a serious inquiry into a possible link between the MMR vaccine and autism has been hounded out of England by a professional and journalistic lynch mob. Jenny McCarthy is routinely ridiculed by the sneering class for using her celebrity status to publicly question vaccine safety. Bill Gates has been on a media campaign to promote third world vaccination programs and calls parents “child killers” for no greater sin than opting for alternative schedules. Parents have long grown accustomed to patronizing attitudes from neurologists, psychiatrists, gastroenterologists, pediatricians, and public health officials; everybody they have turned to for help. No treatment is worth pursuing, except maybe sedatives. No precaution is tolerable. No question is allowed. Nobody knows or cares what causes autism so long as it isn’t the vaccines. Why? Because if it is caused by an environmental insult or insults childhood and prenatal vaccines are the obvious place to look.
So here we are. We have already paid a horrible price and it is about to get worse; much worse. Last night I was watching one of those crime shows on TV. It wasn’t very good and I was about to turn it off when they began to profile the serial killer. They decided he had autism. I continued watching. The portrayal of autism was worse than irresponsible. I thought maybe the idle speculation about autism in the West Virginia shooting had shamed the media into being more careful. I guess not. Heavens knows when an adult with autism really will commit some heinous crime. When it happens we can’t count on many friends.
Where are the adults with autism? Don’t bother, they’re here.
Norm Roberts is a retired business analyst living in Plano, Texas. His 9 year old grandson has autism.
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
@John Gibson
John just because some idiot told you had Aspergers 5 years ago does not mean it is true. What did he base that on? His vast experience with Aspergers? Other than comic relief your comment has no basis in reality (Yes I am laughing outloud, at YOU and your idiot Doctor.) Did you pay this clown for that diagnosis? If you did, and I suspect you did go and get your money back.
@ John Fryer Chemist I know you have an education and you are retired so get on your computer and use it all day. Start with embryology, neuroectoderm and the blood brain barrier and its significance(when does it close)Read about cell differentiation and tolerance and when it starts and ends.
Then read about the immune system the relationship between the mother and the unborn and the placenta and IgG,IgM,IgE and IgA and their relation to disease and breast milk .
Then read about mast cells, macrophages T cells and B cells peyers patches and the genes that control their activities and the operating and repressor protiens that control the genes and the hormones that activate these proteins and the feed back mechanisms
Then read about the gut brain axis and how it is affected by viruses and bacteria. look up peyers patches and what affects it and the role it plays in food allergiers and how it is affected by disease. Read about where all of the hormones are created and the role the mucosa plays in our normal development and sleep hormones like seratonin and ghrelin that affect memory and learning and how viruses affect them.
Then read about the life cycles of all of the viruses in the vaccines that they have give us along with all of the contaminates like SV40(simian virus 40- there were 39 retroviruses transmitted prior this is the most infamous as it has been linked to EVERY BRAIN CANCER/TUMOR- in the last 40 years) and read about gentecially engineered vaccines from multiple species and foisted on immature children.
After you start with that John then come back and tell us what you learned about Aspergers and Autism.
Since you are retired I will let you come and work in my autism clinic as a volunteer. I am starting a free autism clinic in Santa Ana California within the next two months and you will have scratched the surface with your new knowledge base and you will be fit to donate your time.
Thank you and I look forward to meeting you
VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM
Posted by: Willie | February 24, 2011 at 12:59 PM
John Gibson, Stick around a little longer and take a look at the archives of Age of Autism. You will be amazed at what you will learn. Like you, I just THOUGHT I was born a weird kid who was extremely shy , blushed easily, laughed inappropriately, had an odd tic of the jaw, liked to be alone, etc etc. Then, some years back it dawned on me that the series of injections given to me in about 1949 must have been gamma glubulin with high levels of ethylmercury. It also explained the head banging and facial rash I had as a small child. (signs of mercury toxicity)
Remember- You too must have received 3 or 4 doses of DPT with high levels of mercury. And maybe you too got gamma globulin or stepped on a nail and got a tetanus toxoid injection with more mercury. The list of possible mercury exposures is very long.
But starting in about 1985, US kids got a whole lot MORE mercury in their vaccines, along with aluminium, which makes mercury more toxic. Meanwhile the fish that mothers and children ate had become more toxic with mercury. So those kids were not as LUCKY as you and I were !!
Stick around John, Everyone is welcome here who is prepared to think and listen to others and to learn. We only want the truth and autism and is a topic which many of us have been learning about for many years.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | February 23, 2011 at 01:53 PM
Aspergers is one of five development disorders.
Autism is another.
They have specific differences in many instances and may attract different educational opportunities.
I find it hard that doctors should diagnose this for the first time in people that are adults or even into retirment almost.
I know they haven't a clue about how many are autism or aspergers or less idea of its cause but diagnosing old people with a developmental disorder strikes me as amusing and makes me wonder if the doctor has not got some disorder.
I am well into retirement and can imagine an epitaph on my grave.
100 and just got a "development" disorder that took his brain and life away.
Shouldn't the correct term be a degenerative disorder at these ages?
I suspect we are talking PC's again.
Posted by: John Fryer Chemist | February 23, 2011 at 05:32 AM
Josie
Good point
Genes are NORMAL
But if people believe in this they read to much of the press or watch too much TV.
When adults never vaccinated get autism et al suddenly after vaccines in adulthood then its time to listen.
If we believe that one in a thousand side effects from vaccines is normal then ok lets take the risk but surely we should over compensate for those harmed even if some are trying it on.
People with tubes stuck into them or falling unconscious without warning etc are illnesses possibly with us for generations but are increasing and we do deserve to know what the cause is. Or causes.
Too many excuses and not enough facing the facts.
Posted by: John Fryer Chemist | February 23, 2011 at 05:15 AM
Kim
Dont be so rude to John.
Thats my name to.
I would like to know why he was diagnosed so late.
What was he like before.
Does he live in big towns where mercury emissions are high or near crematoriums etc etc?
The doctors like to give the 3 million plus different names to keep numbers down.
If you just call it neurological illness you are looking at maybe 33 per cent.
Don't want to get John worried but is it early Alzheimers?
Doctors never call a spade a spade and for cancer this is well known.
Certainly for some Alzheimers I know it was the wife that knew and the husband thought it normal to be rude to his wife and all the rest of the world.
It is high time we litened and learned that brain destroying chemicals increasing more than 20 tons a day can cause a wide variety of neurological illnesses.
The clue is to look at the medicines and drugs given and I promise though not a doctor I can predict that what they give him will do him no good.
I once objected to a trial in the UK of a drug for AD and whether from me or because they shared my view this drug was stopped DEAD in ats tracks and maybe because as I said its strange that 25 per cent in your trials are dead inside 3 months.
All the best
Posted by: John Fryer Chemist | February 23, 2011 at 05:09 AM
My son is another adult with "autism" at the age of 36. Ten years ago a geneticist reported that his genome was "normal". Yes, we believe that he had some susceptibility to vaccines and the MMR was the last straw that took away his speech after running 3 days of 104 fever. Later, in the care of strangers, he was treated with all sort of psychiatric drugs and vaccinated regularly as the "standard of care" demands, from each and all he had severe adverse effects. He is back in my care and drug-free, still not himself, but at least he is calm.
Posted by: josie muller | February 22, 2011 at 10:18 PM
There are enough of these children to fill 35 large universities, for about 55 years, (with the need of other staff...)
if they stop doing what they are doing today.
Posted by: cmo | February 22, 2011 at 03:25 PM
Just saw this and I am stunned. Trudeau's own wife Jane Pauley just read you won't believe this,
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Spotlight_1&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=27127&lstid=604
"Pauley was, understandably, unprepared. She describes the unusual circumstances of her diagnosis. The story begins in June 2000 with chronic recurrent idiopathic urticaria edema - in other words, hives. Her skin erupted; doctors believe that the steroids used to treat her hives kick-started her bipolar disorder, which she may or may not have been genetically vulnerable to all along."
Posted by: Nora | February 22, 2011 at 03:14 PM
my letter to Mr. Trudeau.
Mr. Trudeau,
Your comic strip Characterization about Jenny McCarthy was offensive on many levels. Your suggestion, that a playboy model cannot be a spokesperson for the debate about vaccines and autism, is pure an utter sexism. My daughter, who is now a dentist, was approached by playboy in college to be a playboy model and she contemplated accepting the offer. She ultimately decided not to, because of those like you that pigeonhole women. My daughter enjoys being sexy and smart. Who knows, maybe Marilyn Monroe would be alive today if she were not treated as purely a sexual object by men like yourself. Unfortunately, Jenny McCarthy is now your target of sexism. It is shameful. Shameful that Jenny McCarthy should have to endure this singling out on many grounds, but particularly on Sunday she was dealing with her son being ill and ultimately being rushed to the hospital on Monday with a seizure. Try walking a mile in those sexy legs Mr. Trudeau, before you even dare criticize this woman’s character and understanding of her son’s illness.
Before you venture further into this debate, I would like you to look up a vaccine called Proquad it was one of the last vaccines my grandson received in his first year of life. Do some research and then get back to me. It was removed from the market a year after my grandson received it. It was just recently brought back and Kaiser did a study on it. There recommendation was if you have any fears of seizures don’t give your child this vaccine!
Oh and in addition, you have really not been funny since the Vietnam War ended. You see when you were young you had something to fight about and against. Now, you are comfortable and Jenny is doing the fighting, because she is young and has something to fight about and against. Jenny is doing what you used to do.
Posted by: Nora | February 22, 2011 at 02:38 PM
John, what a rude entrance into our site from you. Most of our kids wouldn't last 5 hours alone, let alone 55 years - they have severe life altering autism, not Asperger's that could go undetected for so long.
We wish you well. And we will continue to pursue treatment and cure so that when our children are able to read, go online, type a comment at site for the first time, they do so in a manner that doesn't make the community cringe and turn away.
Kim
Posted by: Stagmom | February 22, 2011 at 02:03 PM
"Where are the adults..." I'm 60 and was diagnosed with Asperger's 5 years ago. It went a long way to explain "why I'm the way I am." The adults are here, but have been classified as nerd, geeks, weirdos, etc. Vaccines have nothing at all to do with it (I had childhood measles, mumps and Rubella, not the shot.)Genetics is the cause. There is NO CURE! You can't cure the way the brain develops. It just is. Everyone here is sorely in need of education into Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. None of you, particularly the author, has a clue. So admit your ignorance and learn about it.
Posted by: John William Gibson | February 22, 2011 at 01:26 PM
Norm,
Thank you for this brilliant article. Sadly, I know that this is the issue that will debunk all the lies we've had to live with for years. Every time I watch a child have a meltdown and require several adults to control it, I imagine that child at 25 doing the same thing. It's so frightening to think about. We have been lied to for so many years. Autism's never been a crisis and never officially recognized as an epidemic. And not one of the experts who happily tell us that there's been no real increase has ever had to find where all the misdiagnosed/undiagnosed autistic adults are.
No one has ever had to show us where the autism generation will end up when they reach adulthood either. THERE IS NOTHING FOR THEM. THIS DISASTER WILL BE DUMPED ON THE STATES. Federal officials will, I'm sure, still be scratching their collective heads and Congress will maybe look into it. Autism will become an economic nightmare for the country. When that happens, the epidemic will finally receive that attention it deserves and which it never got when it was only a health care issue. Our job is to make sure that these autistic adults are seen as VICTIMS OF OVERSIGHT CORRUPTION AND FAILURE. OTHERWISE, THEY'LL BE RESENTED AS AN UNFAIR BURDEN INFLICTED ON SOCIETY BY PARENTS WHO WERE TOO OLD TO HAVE CHILDREN OR WHO PASSED ON BAD GENES. Finally, if we don’t do everything to recognize the cause and STOP THE EPIDEMIC, autism will destroy us.
Anne Dachel
Posted by: Anne McElroy Dachel | February 22, 2011 at 12:57 PM
"I may be wrong .. but .. I see Gary Trudeau's unwarranted attack on Jenny McCarthy as an act of sheer desperation borne out of ignorance."
I see it as something other than ignorance:
http://TrudeauInstitute.org/dynamicPages/home.cfm?id=1&navTable=tier1nav
Check out the Honarary Trustees
Posted by: samaxtics | February 22, 2011 at 10:56 AM
The shooting at Virgnia Tech? That happened in Blacksburg Va. not in the state of West Virginia.
Posted by: Andrea | February 22, 2011 at 10:55 AM
"Where are the adults with autism? Don’t bother, they’re here." In fact, some of them ARE already here. I have a 23 year old son on the autism spectrum. Thank you for drawing attention to the challenge. Some of us parents are creating solutions for our adult children on the autism spectrum. That is why I volunteer my time with nonPareil Institute (www.npitx.org), where we are training adults on the autism spectrum for the possibility of employment. We are also seeking to address the housing issue for our loved ones so they can live and work in communities that will address their long-term needs. We need to get the message out: our children WILL grow up, and we need to focus on solutions.
Posted by: Vicki Hill | February 22, 2011 at 10:50 AM
Perfect, poignant song to describe our emotions--anger and regret and "maybe next year"-a bit late.
And yet, what choice do we have but to keep up the fight.
Thanks, Maurine
Posted by: Maurine meleck | February 22, 2011 at 08:04 AM
CDC no longer reports classical autism separately from the higher functioning Asperger’s Syndrome
---------------------
Told you rates are dropping.
Posted by: Media Scholar | February 22, 2011 at 06:58 AM
"Parents have long grown accustomed to patronizing attitudes from neurologists, psychiatrists, gastroenterologists, pediatricians, and public health officials; everybody they have turned to for help."
Unfortunately, the widespread "patronizing attitudes" by those mentioned above are too often described as a "scientific consensus" by mainstream media .. yet .. in spite of it all .. the number of parents who believe there is a link between vaccines and autism continues to rise .. now hovering somewhere close to 51%.
In fact .. the majority of that 51% are reportedly highly educated and financially secure. Which probably explains why the "patronizing" has failed to sway them.
I may be wrong .. but .. I see Gary Trudeau's unwarranted attack on Jenny McCarthy as an act of sheer desperation borne out of ignorance.
DESPERATE to stem the rising numbers of parents suddenly hesitant to vaccinate their child according to recommended policies and schedules
IGNORANT of the fact that Jenny .. first and foremost a mom of a child with autism .. who vaccinated her child .. represents TENS OF THOUSANDS of parents who did likewise .. with the same inexplicable results.
Shame on Mr. Trudeau .. but .. hopefully .. he will hear loud and clear from those tens of thousands who found his cheap shot attempt to generate laughs at the expense of a mom and her child with autism despicable.
Posted by: Bob Moffitt | February 22, 2011 at 06:50 AM