By Anne Dachel

July 31, 2013, CNN Blog: Vaccines and autism

July 30, 2013, WJAC TV Johnstown, PA: National Autism Conference held at Penn State

July 30, 2013, ABC 7 Los Angeles: Virtual-reality therapy may help with autism

July 30, 2013, US News: Kids With Autism Benefit From Early Intervention, Regardless of Method

July 30, 2013, Fox News: More residential support needed for adults with autism

July 30, 2013, Salon.com: Our autism-phobia
 

By Nancy Bernaitotis

As is typical of our government, a ruling meant to protect Americans with disabilities (Olmstead v. L.C. 1999) is being misconstrued to the detriment of this population.  In Olmstead v. L.C., a ruling requires states to “eliminate unnecessary segregation of persons with disabilities and to ensure that persons with disabilities receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate for their needs.” 

In 2009, President Obama issued a proclamation launching the “Year of Community Living” and directed his Administration to redouble enforcement efforts.

The U.S. Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) lead by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) is charged with this enforcement. 

In May of 2013, Jeff Rosen, Chairperson of the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency charged with advising Congress and the executive branch on disability policy, wrote a letter to Shaun Donovan, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), interpreted the ruling to mean that individuals with disabilities move from provider-owned housing into their own homes or scattered-site housing and apartments, and urged HUD to issue “guidance to recipients of HUD funds on meeting the obligations of Olmstead and the integration mandate of the ADA.”  In his letter, Mr. Rosen seeks to define community living as “utilizing a definition that excludes gated communities, segregated farmsteads, clusters of group homes, settings that restrict personal choice and control, and other settings with the characteristics of an institution.”

The actual ruling, when construed correctly, is meant to keep individuals with disabilities out of nursing home facilities and institutional settings and placed in appropriate settings with appropriate supports.  By creating that definition of community living, the NCD is reducing options for appropriate housing while the disability numbers are skyrocketing.  There simply aren’t enough appropriate housing options or community supports to meet the needs.

The Agricultural Communities for Adults with Autism (ACAA) represents 35 existing or developing farmstead and community living options for adults with autism.  In March of 2013, they wrote a response to Mr. Rosen’s letter to HUD recognizing that the NCD is an advisory, rather than regulatory, body and challenging the NCD’s knowledge of their living models.  In their letter, they “strongly encourage HUD to reject the NCD’s request to issue rigid guidelines that limit (or eliminate) HUD program funding for agricultural or intentional communities and farmsteads for adults with autism and other developmental disabilities.  Our closure would likely result in more of the very same institutional or congregate care placement the NCD claims to abhor.” 

I, as the Executive Director of Good Works Farm, a farmstead community for adults with autism currently in development, also responded to Jeff Rosen:

Dear Mr. Rosen,
As the parent of a 15 year-old with autism, I am painfully aware of the challenges our children face as they enter adulthood, not the least of which is finding appropriate housing and employment.  Your letter to HUD urging the elimination of farmstead communities shows your complete and utter lack of understanding of the needs of this population.  Do you even have a child with autism?  I seriously doubt it because we need more choices, not less! 

By Teresa Conrick

I have been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Megan regressed into illness and then received an Autism diagnosis 18 years ago this coming September.  The memories of her infancy, vaccines, chronic infections, and then the DSM Autism diagnosis, play over and over in my mind ---- and in my heart.  Back then, I was mostly alone.  A marriage teetering and hidden family.  Nobody had a clue on how to help or what was really happening.  It was hell.  I didn't know all that I know now.
 
Things are quite different today as Autism is epidemic, yet still many people don't know how to help. I thought of that while driving recently on a 7 hour trip to Wisconsin and back in one day. More on that trip another time but nothing like blue skies, puffy white clouds and meandering cows to relax me.  But then there it was!  A black SUV with the bumper sticker - "AUTISM AWARENESS."  I began driving directly behind it for miles and kept thinking how the heck could no one be aware?  I decided to pass that SUV and let them see my bumper stickers -- "Think Autism, Think Cure",  "Age of Autism.com Supporter," "Callous Disregard-I Support Dr. Wakefield," and "The Canary Party." -- hoping for a toot or a friendly wave.  All I saw was a man and woman-- tired and barely talking.  There was no toot and it made me sad that they maybe were just starting this journey, with little knowledge and maybe little hope.  They exited off the highway, on to a different destination than me.
 
I am astonished that parents are still looking for AWARENESS and ACCEPTANCE when they could be looking for HOPE and TREATMENTS.  My solution -- I try to educate them, their families, friends, neighbors, at the store, at the park, through a mutual friend, etc. and especially here, at Age of Autism.  The truth is, I have been having a fantasy about this for awhile, that I need to share.  Maybe many of you have had it?  I want to win the lottery and I mean BIG!  Actually I need to win the lottery and here's why.
 
I need to win millions of dollars.  It's not for me, no,no-- though I would use it for the care of my daughters.  The fantasy is, I would quit my job for starters so I could take this money and really make an impact on this epidemic.
 
I would open hospitals, MEDICAL hospitals, not mental, to treat Autism and also PANDAS/PANS, as they are so related. Immune treatments, diet, pain management, etc. Too many of those diagnosed live daily in pain.  Meg has been one and I so empathize with other parents.  Our kids are very ill. 
 
Next, adult housing, for ALL symptoms and levels of functioning.  No more just for those who are able to work, in a city environment.  How about beautiful, in the country condos too, with organic farming and stores?  Post- age 21 classes on all different courses - all abilities. Day programs and residential communities that are safe havens and where parents can retire as well?  If you are ill in bed with arthritis pain or mitochondrial  exhaustion and seizures, you are cared for and not dumped because you are not working up to capacity.  No fear.  No abuse.

By Natalie Palumbo

I am 19 years old, about to start college out of state, and I am the younger sister to a 22 year old brother with low verbal autism.  I consider this my summer of freedom. I graduated high school completing two majors -- Visual Arts, and Graphic Technology & Animation.  I am excited to be going off to college in August to study my dream career at my dream school – Motion Design at Ringling College of Art and Design.

As excited as I am about going to college, I am worried about leaving my family. I have to keep safe and watch out for myself. If anything happens to me, their lives will be altered forever. I cannot let Anthony’s future be vulnerable to danger and uncertainty. I know I will miss my brother terribly. I am going to wake up to silence, and it will be unsettling to me. I am so used to the echolalia and background noise that it almost comes as a comfort. Hearing Anthony down the hall lets me know he’s okay. Now, I will have to call to check on him. Luckily, Anthony knows where I am going. He saw the college during Precollege 2012 and on Accepted Students’ Day 2013. Even though I know I will miss him, I am ready to submerge myself in my major, and make the most of this experience. I will be able to take this knowledge anywhere to use anytime -- even to advocate for Anthony and people like him.

My college roommate is very understanding about my concerns for my brother, and really hopes

to spend time with him. This kind of genuine compassion makes me want to cry. I am always looking for people willing to just let Anthony be Anthony, and not silently judge our family or tense up. They have been very hard to find. She reached out to me after I shared the link to the WLTX feature on Anthony and me from October 2012, and how I used art to communicate with him. I was nervous about posting the feature to the Ringling Precollege 2012 group – and even more nervous about posting the link to my Age of Autism PSA which placed 1st nationally in the Notre Dame High School National Film competition for spring 2013. I was really proud. Sharing the truth about my life is hard because I can never predict the reaction. I have faced more insensitivity than sensitivity. Anthony’s autism is such a big part of my life, it’s easier to share the truth than to try and hide it. Masking myself, or hiding behind a fantasy version of myself doesn’t help. The problems I face still exist, so hiding behind a lie is of no use to me. I would rather be honest and pursue something real that will make my life better. If the truth makes people want to pull away, I would rather know sooner than later. I want people in my life that are willing to accept Anthony and exercise patience. I have met a precious handful of people, and they know who they are. 

Please join us in welcoming Autism Free Brain to the AofA family.

"AutismFreeBrainTM is a non-profit organization established to generate support and funding for research of specific molecular mechanisms contributing to focal brain inflammation leading to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and how it may be diagnosed, treated, prevented and reversed.

AustimFreeBrainTM was initiated and is maintained by doctors, scientists, and families with ASD children hoping to enable an in-depth scientific and clinical exploration of the inflammatory cause of ASD primarily based on the findings of Professor Theo Theoharides, MS, PhD, MD working in Boston, MA. He has published evidence of increased levels of unique neuroinflammatory markers in the blood of young children with ASD, and proceeded to develop a novel, patented, formulation containing a highly pure chamomile extract of the flavonoid Luteolin, formulated in olive kernel oil to maximize oral absorption.  Two clinical trials and numerous anecdotal reports indicate significant benefit in attention and sociability with reversal of gastrointestinal and allergic ASD symptoms in over 50% of children and verbal gains in about 20% in 4-6 months."

By Cathy Jameson

“Wrong number,” I replied. 

Every few weeks someone calls the house looking for a woman named Rosa.  I can tell right away that it’s either a telemarketer or a collection agency.  Sometimes it’s a recording for Rosa to please call the 1-800 number back.  Other times when I’ve pick up the phone I recognize a fuzzy sound in my ear and think uh, oh.  The low sound with a bit of static muffles some of who I know is in the background.  It’s the distant chatter of hundreds of operators sitting in a call center.  That sound is a tell tale sign that comes with a knee-jerk reaction--don’t breathe; they’ll know I’m alive and will think they can start talking to me.  The lone operator assigned to track Rosa with my phone number is relentless despite the “wrong number” responses I’ve given in the past.  I’ve adopted a new strategy when I hear that muffled noise as I pick up the phone:  hang up quickly.  It saves me more time.

The last call I got caught me off guard though.  I answered the phone thinking it was a friend.  I waited a few seconds after I’d said hello and realized the call wasn’t for me.  It was for Rosa.  I decided not to hang up right away and answered again with a long, drawn out, “H-e-l-l-o???”  The collection agency was once more trying to get a hold of Rosa.  Using one of their underpaid, irritated automatons pretending to sound chipper I heard, “Good morning!  May I please speak to Rosa?”  I replied, “You have the wrong number,” and politely tried to hang up.  Cutting me off the operator said, “Ma’am, are you the lady of the house?”

I had to laugh.  Lady of the House.  What a catchy title!  It reeks of regality and privilege.  I pictured myself lounging, completely lazy and fully catered to by wait staff on a lovely afternoon.  I saw myself sitting poolside with a tasty adult beverage in hand.  What fun!  Too bad for me though.  It’s so not how I really am or really see myself, my situation or my home.  Frumpy, exhausting and a tad on the disorganized side describes me and what’s going on around me.  This was especially so on the morning of that call. 

If I were the Lady of the House I surely wouldn’t be answering my own phone.  I’d have someone else do that.  I certainly wouldn’t still be in my pajamas at 10am eating cereal with a plastic kid’s spoon.   I definitely wouldn’t have driven my children to school in those pajamas either.  But I did.
“Ma’am?” 

Back to the phone call.  “Are you the lady of the house?”  I paused long enough to envision myself this time being pampered in a mansion sitting atop an impeccably landscaped lawn at the edge of the ocean.  Stammering I said, “Lady of the house?!  Nope, but thanks for that thought.  You have the wrong number.” 

This call was turning out to be entertaining.  I didn’t want to hang up as quickly as I usually do, so I added, “Rosa doesn’t live here.”

I stayed on the line wondering what would come next.  Clearly tired of making calls for someone else, the operator sighed and asked again, “So, you’re not Rosa?  We need her to contact us about her account.  Do you know where she is? ”

“Nope,” I sputtered as I crunched through my gluten-free Koala Krisps hoping to at least finish breakfast before it was lunchtime.

The disgruntled debt collector pressed, “Do you have the authority to make decisions for the household?”

I almost choked on the next spoonful. Obviously the operator clearly hadn’t heard that Rosa isn’t here, nor was she ever, and I don’t give a lick about her debt since I have enough of my own to worry about.  “Okay, I’m going to hang up now.  You have the wrong number….”

“But, do you have authority to make decisions…”

Click.

By Dan Olmsted


The death of my treasured colleague Helen Thomas last week reminded me of her very useful comment that if you want to be loved, don’t go into journalism.
 
Not that I needed much reminding. Recently I’ve read that “lying is in Dan’s nature” (I read that on Age of Autism, because I published it), that I’m “a pimp,” that my correspondent “never would have thought a ‘Buddhist’ capable of such vile bullying tactics,” and that AOA’s “articles never embrace the real issues. Ever.”
 
And these are my friends! From the other camp, I’ve learned that AOA is a “wretched hive of scum, anti-vaccinationism, and autism ‘biomed’ quackery.” And that I am Number 306 in the Encyclopedia of American Loons, because “Although real experts think autism is a genetic disorder and that reported increases are due to changes in diagnostic practices, Olmsted thinks (well, because he thinks so) the (probably non-existent) increases are due to environmental factors and that the genetics is mostly secondary. He has been described as a serious case of confirmation bias.”
 
And that I am a “Moonie blogger.” And that Mark Blaxill “can tell Dan Olmstead [sic] how many breaths he can take per minute” because he is shoveling money at me at an astounding rate. And that I made my name, such as it is, when I “wrote a series about a discredited hypothesis linking vaccination to autism.”

And that my Amish reporting is a “fraud,” and my work “a steaming, stinking pile of rotting feces.”

Earlier this year, a supposed “friendly” named Barry Segal added a minor note to this symphony of opprobrium, telling me and several others, “You guys are out for personal gain, devious and won’t accomplish anything.”

At least I was in distinguished company. Among those whom Barry labeled as “out for personal gain,” devious, and unable to accomplish anything: Mary Holland, Lou Conte, Kim Mack Rosenberg, Kim Stagliano, John Gilmore. “P.S.,” he added as he pulled back funding he had promised in writing, “I had a great dinner with Jake Crosby after the hearings.”

You really know how to hurt a guy, Barry.

Now, Barry is one of those people who thinks the autism advocacy community is a bunch of bumblers that either can’t or won’t make the fact that vaccines cause autism the core belief of every politician and public health official and journalist in the land. Today. The person who called me a Buddhist bully is one of his best buds and attacks relentlessly if anyone forgets to say “vaccines cause autism” once per every three words.

He already had excommunicated Katie Wright for not being tough enough, showing an exquisite lack of comprehension by copying his and her e-mails without authorization to, among other stray addressees, The New York Times – yes, The New York Times.

Barry thinks raising money for Andy Wakefield’s defamation suit is throwing good money after bad. And he says he doesn’t know which side Robert Kennedy Jr. is on.

Bobby Kennedy might really be on the other side -- now that is rad, dude! It takes some fresh out-of-the-box thinking to come up with that one, the kind of new idea we've all needed for a long time now.

Barry elaborated on his Kennedy critique in a comment on Age of Autism: “He’s worse than his uncles; one took advantage of an 18 years old (virgin) intern and the other got drunk and drove his car into the river. His grandfather was no angel.” (What is it with the sexography?)

Thank you to our friends at Thinking Moms' Revolution for this guest bog - I mean blog post From Ginger Taylor, Canary Party Director.  Ginger - able to dissect merde-du-taureau in faster than most of us can whip up a supplement smoothie.  Read her 60+ studies that show a vaccine/autism link, despite media crackdown to the contrary.

Thank you, TMR and Ginger.

By Anne Dachel

July 26, 2013, Salt Lake Desert News: My view: Stericycle should stop incinerating

July 25, 2013, Puget Sound Business Journal: Seattle Children's receives $7 million for adult autism program

July 25, 2013, Health AIM: Autism Risk May Be Predicted By Placenta Creases

July 24, 2013, USA Today: Autism study indicates new approach to treat condition

By John Stone

I always supposed that the concept of agency capture, in which government agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control or the Food and Drug Administration are taken over by the culture industries from which they were meant to be independent, was a bad thing. I understood that the usual posture of such bodies was simply to pretend that it was not happening and that there were regulations in place that were actively protecting the public interest (despite appearances). That was until I encountered  the website of Dorit Rubenstein Reiss and her unpublished paper (most of her papers appear to be unpublished) ‘The Benefits of Capture’.  According to Reiss  :

“Observers of the administrative state warn against “capture” of administrative agencies and lament its disastrous effects. This article suggests that the term “capture”, applied to a close relationship between industry and regulator, is not useful—by stigmatizing that relationship, judging it as problematic from the start, it hides its potential benefits. The literature on “capture” highlights its negative results—lax enforcement of regulation; weak regulations; illicit benefits going to industry. This picture, however, is incomplete and in substantial tension with another current strand of literature which encourages collaboration between industry and regulator. The collaboration literature draws on the fact that industry input into the regulatory process has important benefits for the regulatory state. Industry usually has information no one else has, and has more incentive to give that information to a friendly regulator. Furthermore, working with industry can substantially improve the impact of regulation; voluntary compliance is cheaper and can be more effective than enforced compliance, and industry can help regulators minimize negative unintended consequences. This paper suggests that instead of engaging in name-calling, we should focus on identifying when a close industry-regulator relationship will work in the public interest, and when it is likely to undermine it. That is an empirical question.”

Dorit Reiss, associate law professor Hastings campus University of California, first came to my notice the other week commenting on Rabbi Handler’s article about vaccination in the Jewish Press. I was fascinated to see how all my comments (and those of other contributors to Age of Autism) seemed to be swiftly removed after I challenged her on certain points. Then I discovered that she had responded in Harvard Law Review to Mary Holland, advocating that parents of unvaccinated children should be made liable for infection.  Barely a month ago probably no one in the field of vaccine safety advocacy had ever heard of Dorit Reiss now she seems to be everywhere, and passionate proponent of the vaccine industrial machine in all its guises and rampant institutional ambition.

The bottom line to all this, of course, is where is she coming from, to which there is an answer. Reiss is on the Parent Advisory Board of ‘Voices for Vaccines’ , the Scientific Advisory Board of which includes Alan R Hinman, Paul A Offit, Stanley A Plotkin and Deborah L Wexler . The website states that Voices for Vaccines was re-launched in 2013 and is “an administrative project” of the Task Force for Global Health. The Wiki entry for Task Force reads :

“The Task Force for Global Health, is a non profit organization affiliated with Emory University. The organization was co-founded by global health pioneer and former CDC Director, Dr. William Foege and two of his former CDC colleagues, Carol Walters and Bill Watson. It was founded in 1984 as the Task Force for Child Survival. The Task Force was initially tapped to serve as a Secretariat for a consortium of global health organizations: UNICEF, WHO, The Rockefeller Foundation, The United Nations Development Programme, and the World Bank. These organizations sought Task Force support for a collaborative effort to improve child wellness and survival strategies. With the Task Force as Secretariat for the network, they resolved to work together to develop and implement a plan for global immunization efforts and measures to promote and maintain healthy children and families.

“Over its 28 year history, The Task Force has expanded the role of neutral convener and collaborator to address a broader range of global health challenges. In doing so, the organization changed its name to The Task Force for Global Health in 2009. Today, The Task Force has programs in three critical sectors of global health: Health System Strengthening, Immunization and Vaccines (the Task Force Center for Vaccine Equity), and neglected tropical diseases. In each sector, The Task Force works with partners and communities around the world to provide resources to improve global health for those in need. The organization works in 91 countries, collaborating with organizations such as WHO, as well as partnerships with industry to provide much needed medicines and communities to educate about disease prevention.

“The Task Force for Global Health is a nonprofit, public health organization, recognized as a 501(c)(3) corporation. The organization is based in Decatur, Georgia, near our partners at CDC, The Carter Center, CARE, and Emory University Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health.”

By Anne Dachel

You can't have missed the latest media feeding frenzy over Jenny McCarthy's position on 'The View' starting in September. The message is: Someone who's publicly stated she believes vaccines caused her son's autism can't be allowed to have access to large audiences. She's a threat to our children's health.
 
Members of the press can't say enough bad stuff about Jenny McCarthy, but no one mentions that in 2008, at the Green Our Vaccines Rally in Washington, DC,  in her opening remarks, Jenny stated, "This is not an anti-vaccine rally. This is not an anti-vaccine group. We are an intelligent group of parents that acknowledges that vaccines have saved many lives. What we are saying is that the number of vaccines given and the [toxic] ingredients ...need to be removed immediately, after we saw the devastating effects they took on our children."
 
How threatening is that? It sounds pretty reasonable. Let's honestly address the growing concerns parents and doctors have over the ever-increasing vaccine schedule.
 
No matter, there can be no dissent. The message must remain unchanged: Vaccines are safe. Vaccines save lives. If we deviate from that mantra, parents will stop vaccinating and children will die of vaccine preventable diseases.
 
It's been difficult to keep up with the barrage of opinion stories slamming 'The View' for their foolhardy decision to hire McCarthy. If a person is new to this issue, it might seem like the press is right. All the science is in. We've got to stop talking about vaccines and autism because nothing new can be said.
 
The truth is we've never gotten honest and thorough coverage of this controversy. Never. What we have now is the media advocating for censorship.
 
On July 17, the New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan wrote the piece, Just the Facts - No 'False Balance' Wanted Here, which openly called for UNBALANCED coverage of the vaccine-autism issue. She stated that when one side of an issue represents "an established truth," there's no need to have equal coverage.
 
I guess Margaret Sullivan gets to decide what is "an established truth" and obviously, it's whatever our pharmaceutical controlled heath officials say is true.
 
What angers me, a veteran of covering how that media reports on autism and autism and vaccines, is the total failure of members of press to know what they're talking about. Story after story all saying the same thing. Not one of these reporters can state, "I've personally researched this extensively, interviewed people, read opinions on both sides of this debate, and come to the conclusion that THERE IS NO SAFETY ISSUE WITH VACCINATION. THERE IS NO LINK TO AUTISM.
 
I've never heard reporters discussing what Wakefield wrote in Callous Disregard, what David Kirby wrote in Evidence of Harm, what Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill wrote in Age of Autism, what Louis Habakus and Mary Holland wrote in Vaccine Epidemic, or what Stephanie Cave, MD wrote in What Your Doctor May Not Have Told You About Your Child's Vaccinations.
 
Let's face it, the reporters on the following list aren't really informed on this subject. If they were, I doubt if they'd be so willing to put their professional reputations on the line like this.
 
This is just a small sample of what's out there right now. This isn't legitimate journalism. It's fraud and more and more of us recognize it for what it is.

By Anne Dachel

July 24, 2013, Chillicothe (OH) Gazette: Vaccinations remain a good idea

July 24, 2013, Forbes: Mercury And Autism Not Linked, Again

July 24, 2013, Fox News: Novel screening technique uses movement to diagnose and treat autism

By Barbara Loe Fisher

In a July 24, 2013 written and video commentary by Barbara Loe Fisher posted with references on NVIC.org, she analyzes more than two dozen articles published in major print and broadcast media outlets that attacked ABC’s July 15 hiring of Jenny McCarthy to be a co-host with Barbara Walters on ‘The View.’ Fisher said: 

“Now that it looks like ABC-TV executives are backing Barbara Walters’ hire of celebrity Jenny McCarthy to join the popular daytime talk show The View, the blood spilled on the ground of the Fourth Estate during 10 hot days in July is beginning to dry. It was fascinating to watch the well-orchestrated response by online mainstream media, which took on the frenzy of an old fashioned witch hunt to burn a heretic at the stake.”

Reviewing 29 articles published in major print and broadcast media outlets  between July 9 and July 18, 2013 with 19 of them written by males, it became obvious that some of them are really upset about “blonde” girls expressing politically incorrect opinions about vaccine side effects, a topic that has become the biggest taboo talk in America. Several media outlets used her gender to take the first punch with headlines such as “Putting Jenny McCarthy on the View: Good Sex Over Bad Science” and “ View’ Host Jenny McCarthy’s Vaccine-Autism Claims: Beauty vs. Science.”

“The Pretty Idiot” or A Threat to the Survival of Mankind?

Some tried to bash McCarthy’s brain by focusing on her body. Cat calls like “buxom physique: - “blonde bombshell” - “sex symbol” – “object of teenage boys fantasies” – “ bleached blonde hair” - “pulchritudinous” – “ the pretty idiot” - “Playboy Playmate of the Year”– and so on were effortlessly tossed into the story.

Managing Editor’s Note: If you haven’t yet, please sign the Change.org petition on behalf of Jenny McCarthy. Below, unedited, are the first 150+ comments from parents and supporters of Jenny McCarthy. A great reflection on our community!

“vaccines cause autism”

“I'm tired of all the lies in mainstream media and I'm a champion of free speech, leave Jenny and all the other parents alone!!”

“Tired of hearing from Big Pharma!! Vaccines gave my son Autism, go Jenny go!”

“Censoring Jenny McCarthy won't stop the science from proving her right.”
 
“With no known cause, no causes should be ruled out”

“Because Jenny Mccarthy has had to face a lot of adversity but has still managed to support a community of sick children. She is a decent individual trying hard to do the right thing.”

“I looked at the studies, my child's lab work, and worked with doctors familiar with biomedical treatment for vaccine injuries. Whether or not people agree with me or not, its my opinion that vaccines caused my child's issues. Why can't Jenny have an opinion about what caused *her* child's autism? What country is this??”

“My 3 1/2 year old son is Autistic. He is Amazing and my Hero. He has a immune defiency issue that he was was not born with, but did acquire. Something caused his immune system to crash which started our journey with Autism. I believe he was over vaccinated while his immune system was in a state of chaos. Been working on "fixing" his body and recover from his Autism diagnosis.”
 
“I believe in freedom of speech and a woman's right to WORK.”

“Because I KNOW these aggressive toxins in vaccines caused my sons autism”

“Our stories of vaccine injury and recovery are almost identical, however, my daughter is 15 years old and I am not famous.”

“The vicious attacks on a reasonable, thoughtful and smart woman that have been mounted by commercial interests are truly frightening, even more so if they succeed.”

By Anne Dachel

July 24, 2013, 6ABC Indianapolis: Local theater hosts special movie days for kids with autism

July 23, 2013 NPR: A Scientist Debunks The 'Magic' Of Vitamins And Supplements

July 23, 2013, Science Daily: No Link Between Prenatal Mercury Exposure and Autism-Like Behaviors Found
 
July 23, 2013, The Toronto Star: Jenny McCarthy's new View job protested by Toronto Public Health
 
July 22, 2013, National Post: Toronto Public Health wants actress Jenny McCarthy kicked off The View over anti-vaccination advocacy

July 22, 2013, Niagara Falls Review: Toronto Public Health says 'The View' no place for Jenny McCarthy
 
July 19, 2013, UK Daily Mail: Charles in NHS homeopathy row: Prince holds secret meeting with Health Secretary to lobby for treatment denounced by top doctors as 'witchcraft'

By Jay S. Gordon (not the physician in CA)

Introduction

If Autism is caused by vaccines, then conventional logic would dictate -- everyone who receives a vaccine -- would end up autistic. And that's the premise for why the vaccine schedule is still in place and won't be changing anytime soon. Today, it's not just "get pregnant and get tested" for the half dozen genetic problems. Unfortunately, there is a very, very scary waiting game...WILL MY CHILD BE AUTISTIC?

I was taught, back in the 70's, in high school science class, that a baby's nervous system and brain are NOT fully developed at birth. Which is why, and anyone who has had a baby already knows, their eyes don't open much and they sleep all the time. It takes an additional 3 months before a child becomes -- let's just call it -- alert. By the way, humans are not the only animal in nature where additional gestation is needed outside the uterus.

So what are we doing vaccinating babies at such a young age? Well, the answer is simple. 1) By 6 months of age, all of mommy's immune goodies that were passed to your child, are all but gone -- unless you breast feed, then it's probably a bit longer. 2) With so many double income families, day care centers are much more commonplace, so the risk of being exposed to illness is greater.

Autism Spectrum Disorders have no boundaries. So what makes "random" parents, who have nothing genetically in common, have children with an Autism Spectrum Disorder? And, why is the rate increasing? I have an idea on why the disorder is "random and increasing" and I'd like to share my thoughts.

About my children

I have three children -- a girl and two boys. Both boys have an "Autism Diagnosis". My advice for parents-to-be who choose to vaccinate -- buy a great video camera and take as much video as possible -- just in case something happens, you might be able to chronologically prove that vaccines were the cause.

I believe my sons autism started right after his first inoculation of 4 vaccines -- at around 3 months of age. Suddenly, he stopped eating and had to be fed while sleeping. He also started crying, whenever we'd try to sing to him. It took us a long time to figure this out, but the reason was simple; he was used to our voices as "talking voices," and when we sang -- our voices changed and he did not like that. (I know this might be hard to understand, if you have no exposure to it; autistic children's latitudes are very narrow.) Five years later, we still have to help him eat some of the food from each meal and only recently, after much therapy, has he started to ask for food when hungry or better yet, go and get it himself.

By Anne Dachel

July 23, 2013, 9 News Denver, CO: Full vaccine schedule safe for kids, no link to autism

July 22, 2013, UK Guardian: Big pharma mobilising patients in battle over drugs trials data

July 22, 2013, Sacramento Bee: Report: One of every 90 Sacramento students has autism

By Zack Peter

As soon as I found out that my baby brother Ethan was diagnosed with autism eight years ago, I knew I was on a mission. No matter what, I was going to be Ethan’s soldier. I was going to defend him, fight for him, love him, and do everything in my power to save him from this cloud of autism. I was going to make sure he had the opportunity to live to his fullest potential. After all, I was his big brother, protecting and guiding him was my job.

Now here we are, Ethan is eleven and growing so fast. And the reality is: Ethan still has autism. And with everything that has happened with my family in the past few years, Ethan isn’t where I expected him to be.

“I feel guilty,” I said while out to lunch with my best-friend.
“What do you feel guilty about?”
“I don’t know…”

For the next couple of days, I just kept asking myself, Why do I feel guilty? The question was beginning to haunt me more than the guilt itself. And after a little reflection, I realized that I had subconsciously blamed myself for Ethan’s autism. Which may sound a little crazy—it is. But the way I looked at it, Ethan was my baby brother. I remember him perfectly fine, developing well. Then his sparkle dulled and he was label “autistic.” I was supposed to protect him. I was supposed to make sure nothing bad ever happened to him, and this bitch named Autism came into the picture and took over. It flicked him off like a light switch. Why didn’t I protect him? And most importantly, why haven’t I been protecting him lately? 

I blamed myself for Ethan’s recent regression. I blamed myself for living my own life, instead of dedicating more time to him. I blamed myself for helping other families and letting my own family fall back.

But then I had to ask myself: Was I the cause of Ethan’s autism? No. At ten/eleven years old, was there anything I could have done to prevent Ethan from developing autism? No. Am I the real reason for Ethan’s recent regression? No. As a young adult still figuring things out for myself, do I deserve to live my own life? Yes. Is it wrong that I’ve been able to help other families? No. Could I have done more? Maybe?

But if I really could have done more, I would have done more. I would never give up on my brother. That’s a fact. So why blame myself for things I couldn’t control? Why hold myself accountable for things I have no power over? I am a firm believe in Everything happens for a reason. So sure, things may suck at the moment. Ethan may not be where I would like him to be right now. But I still have hope. I still know that one day, I will sit down with Ethan and he’ll tell me all about how his day was. All about that bitch that broke his heart. All about how hilarious I was on my show, because let’s be honest, I’m pretty freakin’ funny. I look forward to laughing with Ethan again. To being in sync with him and having the sibling bond I know we’ll have one day.

Editor's Note: This Facebook post, by a man who goes by Autistic Living, is reprinted with his permission.

I may make a lot of jokes, say outrageous things, and avoid the touchy-feely stuff as much as possible............ but it DOES hit me. Usually when I least expect it.

A few days ago I picked up a new toolbox through some masterful ebay bidding. The owner was PISSED, because it was a $13,000 toolbox. I won the auction at barely a fraction of that.

I thought I was buying a used toolbox, which at the price I paid was still an amazing deal.

When my neighbor and I arrived at the place to pick it up, there it was. The plastic film is still on it. It had never been used.

So tonight, sitting in the garage only a few moments ago I thought "I need to put a few coats of wax on this thing."

Snap-on tool boxes are not painted, but "powder coated". It's shiny and looks like regular paint, but the application process is different. I've owned their stuff before, and always waxed them with regular wax I use on my truck. But because this one is basically new, I thought I would research it a bit more and figure out the best wax to use for the finish.

Google, google, google, and I arrive at a message board for motor-heads.

I found a thread on waxing professional tool boxes. I read through the posts, la la la, looking for some opinions on wax.

Then I read those words, that flipped a switch in me that put me where I am now. Probably in one of these most depressed moods I've been in, in a very long time. Here are the words:

By Anne Dachel

July 21, 2013, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Mentally troubled students overwhelm schools

July 20, 2013, UK Telegraph: A bitter pill for Glaxo in China--Sir Andrew Witty is preparing to admit failings following bribery allegations against GSK

July 19, 2013, UK Telegraph: GSK chief Andrew Witty set to admit China 'scam'

July 19, 2013, Wall Street Journal: Fifteen Years After Autism Panic, a Plague of Measles Erupts

July 19, 2013, Forbes: Autistic People More Likely To Keep Jobs When ...

July 19, 2013, St. Louis Dispatch: Editorial: As whooping cough returns, trust science, not opinion

By Teresa Conrick

The research on maternal antibodies as a cause of some cases of autism continues to grow. From TIME this week: "Mother’s Antibodies May Explain a Quarter of Autism Cases"

In a study published in Translational Psychiatry, researchers report that 23% of all cases of autism may result from the presence of maternal antibodies that interfere with fetal brain development during pregnancy. The work builds on a 2008 study from the same scientists that first described the group of antibodies in mothers-to-be.

This is interesting and important work as we continue to see autism as a disorder with roots to the immune system. It did make me wonder if it was possible that the maternal immune activation discussed here as a cause in 23% of the cases could correlate to immune activation created artifically by influenza vaccination. It seemed a valid point and one worth investigating especially when I saw this, also in that TIME article:

The antibodies belong to a class of compounds called autoantibodies, which are immune cells that the body makes to target — often mistakenly — its own cells. Scientists do not know why or when the mothers produce these antibodies, which appear to monkey with normal nerve development in the fetal brain by interfering with their growth, migration and genetic replication. It is possible that infections during pregnancy — a known risk factor for autism —can prompt the immune system to produce them. Exposure to toxic chemicals can also cause immune defenders to mistake healthy cells for invaders, Van de Water notes.


Note the last two sentences - the first related to infection in pregnancy and the second to toxic chemicals.

Can infection in pregnancy cause autism? I wondered about that and did some background reading and wrote this article in January, "Can Influenza Vaccines Cause Maternal Immune Activation Linked To Autism?

Mothers who get the flu while pregnant could risk affecting their baby's brain, which might lead to 'infantile autism' in their child.

A Danish study shows that children were slightly more likely to be diagnosed with the condition before the age of three if their mother had the flu.

Researchers claim that when the mother's immune system is triggered - for example, when they have an influenza virus - it is possible that the foetus' developing brain could be affected.
But they have clarified that pregnant women and mothers should not be concerned by the findings, as only a tiny portion of those who had influenza gave birth to children with 'infantile autism' and that the research was so limited and early that no concrete findings had been discovered."

Interesting.  So why is it then that in 1918, the Great Influenza Epidemic swept the world, but yet autism was not identified nor described until Dr. Leo Kanner diagnosed it with those first eleven children born in the 1930's?:

“Since 1938 , there have come to our attention a number of children whose condition differs so markedly and uniquely from anything reported so far that each case merits—and, I hope will eventually receive—a detailed consideration of its fascinating peculiarities...."

So let's look at the mechanism described:

"..the pro-inflammatory cytokine interleukin 6, which is known to induce placental inflammatory processes46 and has been shown to mediate the neurodevelopmental effects of gestational inflammation.47 It is possible that such inflammatory processes could be related to the production of maternal antibodies that recognize fetal antigens through maternal-fetal cross talk48 or that maternal antibody to antigen interactions may precipitate inflammation-induced neurodevelopmental alterations similarly to bacterial or viral challenge."

We have a special treat for readers this week. Our friends at HandHold Adaptive (a local Connecticut company founded by an autism Dad and Uncle) are giving us TWO free downloads of a pre-release version of iPrompts PRO, HandHold Adaptive's latest suite of apps. iPrompts PRO combines iPrompts (visual supports), StoryMaker (Social Stories) and SpeechPrompts (prosody exercises) into one powerful, research-based app.

Leave a comment to enter. Check out the HandHold Adaptive website to learn more. Good luck!

By Cathy Jameson

The most terrifying night of my life was the night my son Ronan wandered from our home.  Knowing that he has a “taste” for the great outdoors now, I’m more hyper-vigilant than ever to keep Ronan safe.  To do that, I check every lock, window and door of our home multiple times a day.  I check, recheck and check them over and over again.  Ronan does this, too but for a different reason.  Just as many times as I glance up to make sure that the alarm units are activated and that the out-of-reach swing locks are locked, Ronan also looks up.  But he’s not looking to see if the locks are locked; he’s looking to see if they are unlocked.  Despite his delays and limitations, Ronan is incredibly smart.  Nothing gets past the kid.  Nothing.

I try to stay educated on wandering initiatives and what other families are doing about it.  I do this because we face a potentially grave situation should Ronan leave the house again.  So, when I heard that Wendy Fournier would be speaking as part of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) panel on the subject of wandering at the July 9^th meeting, I made sure to tune in. 

Wandering, also known as elopement, fleeing, bolting or running, is a common behavior or response for some people on the autism spectrum.  The IACC has discussed it for some years now.  Not surprisingly, the more they sit and talk about autism and wandering, the higher the fatal incidents seem to be.  I believe that it’s time to end discussions about wandering and really act on it. 

With another panel on the committee’s agenda, I’d hoped the presentation and commentary on this increasingly fatal issue would be powerful.  Wendy Fournier stepped up and provided just that.  Wendy, President and founding member of the National Autism Association (NAA), and the entire NAA group has done a great deal of work to bring wandering awareness to the public’s attention.  They have worked tirelessly to also do something else:  to prevent wandering. 

While listening to Wendy speak about this very important topic, I went from cheering her on to breaking down in tears.  Each night this week, I’ve been trying to re-watch the archived video as well as read through the slides Wendy used because I wanted to highlight her presentation.  I can’t get through it though.  Sitting alone in my office as I slowly click from one slide to the next and see the images of those we’ve lost too soon was too much.   I’ve sat frozen at the computer night after night unable to see, think or write.  Each child, each story and each unfortunate death was emotionally overwhelming and brought me back to that dark, winter night when I temporarily lost Ronan.  Tying to take notes through the tears wasn’t working.  I just couldn’t finish it.

By Dan Olmsted

Back when Time magazine was a cultural touchstone, a critic named Woolcott Gibbs wrote a parody of its staccato, object-first style that included this immortal line: "Backwards ran sentences until reeled the mind. Where it ends, knows God."

I thought of that for some quirky reason this week as I watched the screeching hysteria around Jenny McCarthy's appointment to The View. Backwards ran logic until reeled the mind! Claim taken as fact is link between vaccines and autism has been debunked, disproved, discredited or whatever other "D" word was being offered up.

Idea then follows that since it's been discredited, it's dangerous to otherwise say. Killing babies is Jenny! And therefore, modus ponens style, censored must she be. 

That's back-asswards. As John Stone put it here this week, Jenny is not wrong. Vaccines do cause autism. That's beyond D-E-N-I-A-L. Furthermore, in my view, based on my own reporting, vaccines and vaccine-type mercury are deeply implicated in the roots and rise of the autism epidemic. They are driving the autism epidemic. Anyone who doubts it ought to look at "How Mercury Triggered the Age of Autism," a short video on this page.

THIS discredit!




Also, check out the video above. It's a first try at a weekly video component to my Weekly Wrap. Thanks, Dan Burns, for getting it up and going. Next time, I won't sit in front of a sunny window.

Hey, a start it is. Where it all ends, knows God. Meanwhile, to Jenny, Godspeed!

--
Dan Olmsted is Editor of Age of Autism

By Anne Dachel

July 19, 2013, Augusta (GA) Chronicle: Back freedom of opinion

July 18, 2013, Boston Globe: ABC's 'The View' gives Jenny McCarthy a platform for crackpot autism theories

July 18, 2013, Clinical Psychiatry News: Stringent DSM-5 criteria may affect prevalence rates of autism spectrum disorders

July 18, 2013, LewRockwell.com: Great Books Exposing Modern Medicine

July 18, 2013, Indianapolis Recorder: Autism challenge growing in Black community

July 17, 2013, New York Times: Just the Facts - No 'False Balance' Wanted Here

July 17, 2013, Huffington: Jenny McCarthy's Got the Wrong View on Vaccinations

July 17, 2013, NorthJersey.com: Commentary: ABC needs to offer answers in McCarthy controversy over autism

July 17, 2013, TIME Magazine: Sick Before Their Time: More Kids Diagnosed With Adult Diseases
 

By Anne Dachel

July 10, 2013, the story, The Measles Scare and CDC Politics,  in The Jewish Press caught my attention.  It was by Rabbi William Handler.  Handler wrote,
 
"At the instigation of the Federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), a number of prominent Jewish pediatricians have stepped forward to warn the Jewish community that they must immediately subject their children to the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) 3-in-1 combination vaccine.
 
"The reason given is that there have been a number of measles cases in the Jewish community, and, therefore, parents must immediately protect their children.
 
"I propose to give an alternative view, based on five years of research into the vaccine industry and the practices of the DOHMH and the CDC."
 
Of course I was interested in someone who'd actually looked into what New York and CDC officials are up to.  Rabbi Handler had done some very impressive research.  He knows about the web of conflicts and  money that influence what our health officials tell us.  Most of all, he knows about the scandalous record of vaccine safety in the U.S.  
 
"During the 1980's, the vaccine industry succeeded in passing a law that made it impossible for vaccine-injured children to sue the vaccine manufacturers. Instead, the Government set up a 'Vaccine Court' to hear cases and pay compensation from Federal Government taxpayer money.
 
"Billions of dollars have been paid out for serious vaccine injuries, ranging from paralysis to mental retardation and, yes-Autism Spectrum Disorder...."
 
"Unlike the general impression, the CDC is a heavily-politicized organization."

"McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism."[1] The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1956 and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents."

By JB Handley

What do Dr. Bernadine Healy, Don Imus, Donald Trump, Doug Flutie, Gary Cole, Ed Asner, Charlie Sheen, Holly Robinson Peet, Deirdre Imus, Bob Wright, Aidan Quinn,  Andrew Wakefield, and Jenny McCarthy all have in common?

Of course, we all know the answer: they have publicly expressed concerns about the relationship between vaccines and autism.

If you just started reading newspapers this week, you may not realize all the company Jenny has in a controversy that's far from over. Wasn't it just a few short months ago that a congressional panel was hammering CDC employees in a hearing about this very same link? Where are all the articles calling for all these powerful elected officials to step down?

Pharma's PR play book is an impressive piece of work, and it was rolled out for all of us to see this week. Here's how it works:

- Every Child By Two, a Pharma front group, leads the charge. ECBT's funding comes from 2 sources: Wyeth and Sanofi (any reporter could easily confirm this by reading their 990, but they don't.) They appear to be a responsible advocate for vaccinating because they were founded by Rosalyn Carter thirty years ago, so the group is a great way for Pharma to hide behind something credible-sounding. ECBT takes charge of press briefings, etc.




- Behind the scenes, ECBT and Paul Offit--who has had his career funded and his millions made by Merck--call every reporter on the planet to arrange a well-coordinated barrage of negative articles.  See:

• Offit Cashes In: Closing the Books on the Vaccine Profits of a Merck-Made Millionaire
• The Offit Index: Tracking a Patent Owner’s Ongoing Financial Interest in One Vaccine’s Sales
• Voting Himself Rich: CDC Vaccine Adviser Made $29 Million Or More After Using Role to Create Market
• Counting Offit’s Millions: More on How Merck’s Rotateq Vaccine Made Paul Offit Wealthy

- The writers and quote-makers are called in on all fronts:

1. Pharma-whore writers who are literally on Pharma's payroll

2. Pharma-benefitting writers (think Seth Mnookin) who have benefitted greatly from Pharma's largesse (speaking fees, etc)

3. Orac-types who work in medical facilities that rely on Pharma's funding

4. And, finally, publications that receive a majority of their ad dollars from Pharma

- Then, Pharma's army of paid trolls start dominating the comment boards to make it appear like the public is equally outraged

By Anne Dachel
 
On May 20, 2013, I watched a disturbing video from Canadian TV News
about a single mother of four adopted special needs children (2 have autism). The Dept. Youth Protection in Quebec suddenly seized her nonverbal 8 year old son who is still in diapers and 12 year old daughter while they were at school last Sept.  Both children have multiple health issues related to their disabilities. 
 
Her 8 year old son was taken into custody by 3 DYP workers on Sept 13, 2012 and placed in foster care but returned to her one month later.   A Quebec judge had ruled that they had no justification for taking him in the first place.  After that, the mother took the three children and moved an hour away in Ontario to protect them and get better services. (She's about one mile from the Quebec border now.)  Then in March 2013, the Quebec DYP workers came to her home in Ontario at 6:30 in the evening and took her 8 year old back into custody and removed him to Quebec.  She was never shown any authorization. 
 
I wrote this story last week.
 
I've been in almost daily contact with the mother who's still living in Ontario with her two older children and she's told me about even more about the egregious action being taken against her two younger children.
 
I asked her for an update:
 
Have you been allowed any contact with your children?
 
I was allowed to go to Quebec to accompany the children to their doctor visits.  I was also allowed 2 ten minute supervised phone calls per week to my 12 year old daughter.  During one phone call, I allowed my 17 year old daughter to talk to her sister briefly.  This was not permitted and the phone call was immediately ended.  As a result, I lost the right to call her and I was told that I could no longer attend doctor visits.  However, my daughter's doctor sent me a letter telling me it was imperative that someone who knew her health history be at the next appointment.  When I got to the hospital, I was allowed to see my daughter, but then I was told I had to leave.
 
I had been allowed see my 8 year old son at his doctor's visits.   It is considered a "medical right" that I be involved in my children's health care because I am their legal mother.  This is especially important because my son is autistic and non-verbal so he can't tell me how he's doing.  Both his doctor and I became very concerned about changes in his behavior since being placed in foster care.  He began suddenly hitting himself repeatedly on his hands as if he's punishing himself for something.  He's done this in front of the doctor and myself and others.  His doctor, Chantel Giguere, wrote a letter to the DYP about this and nothing happened.  Barbara Webster, a nurse who is involved with my son, wrote a 24 page report about the care both of my children have received.  (Both the doctor and the nurse have come forward to speak about what's happening to these children.)   Webster contacted various officials and suddenly I learned my son had been moved to a different foster home and I was told it was because of "administrative purposes." 
 
I'm equally concerned about what's happening to my 12 year old daughter in foster care.  She is a "Little Person" and is only 3 feet tall.  She's living in a foster home with 9 other children, and several of them are boys between 12 and 16.  My daughter is left home in the care of these boys.  Several times she's said, "Mommy, they babysit me."
 
I'm also worried about my daughter's weight.  She gained almost 3 pounds in just a little o ver two weeks after school ended. This is really important because she is a "Little Person."  All her life we watched her weight closely. Yearly, she has never gained more than 1 pound because she grows only 1 centimeter. Now that she is 12 her height will not change since her spinal fusion.
  
This mother's case sadly is not an isolated one in Canada. 

By Lyn Redwood

I want to personally thank everyone who responded to the SafeMinds action alert to submit written public comments to the IACC regarding their child’s medical conditions this past month. And a huge thanks to Eileen Nicole Simon, Jill Rubio, Albert Enayati, Jeanna Reed, Nicholas, Carolyn, and Andrew Gammicchia, Brooke Potthast, Clinton Potocki on behalf of Dawn Loughborough, and Wendy Fournier who came in person to share directly with the committee their struggles to get appropriate medical care for their children and recommendations for what can be done to make things better. 

Historically, medical problems in children with autism have been completely denied by the medical establishment and the IACC committee. And, although the response from the committee after the panel discussion regarding co-morbidities was lackluster, the outcome at the very end of the day when discussion finally took place resulted in a unanimous vote by the committee to create a working group to focus on these conditions.

This was not the first time that the IACC has heard of co-morbidities. Parents have been meeting with Tom Insel and his staff as far back as 2002 telling him our stories of sick children and recovery with appropriate medical treatments. But just because we said autistic children had multiple underlying debilitating medical conditions didn’t make it so. Many impassioned discussions (like the one below pulled from IACC transcripts in 2009) couldn’t bring the committee around. The sad fact is that government moves at a snail’s pace, but passionate participants can speed up progress and make a positive difference for all those who can’t be there to speak for themselves.

Ms. Redwood: “For those of you who don't know me, I am one of the public members of IACC. And I just wanted to share with you a story about a little girl in Georgia who was 12 years old. She was being taken care of by her grandparents and they could no longer control her behaviors and she was admitted to a state psychiatric institute. And within a matter of months, she deteriorated. She became very ill. She writhed in her bed all night long. She vomited and by the morning she was dead. When an autopsy was done, this little girl was obstructed and she had infarcted her bowel. And that was never treated and never acknowledged. And I am sharing this story with you because I feel so strongly that these children have many, many underlying medical problems that are being completely overlooked because the focus has been on the brain and not the body. And I think it is an area where we can make so much difference. There is not any amount of behavioral therapy, or speech therapy, or assisted communication devices that is going to help with a child who is impacted and has infarcted their bowel. And we are missing so many opportunities to improve the health of these children. Oftentimes when we these underlying medical conditions are addressed and treated, their behaviors get better. Some kids have even lost their diagnosis. So we know they have immune system abnormalities. We know they have ulcerative colitis. They have metabolic stress. They have low levels of glutathione. They are under methylated. And there is so little focus on addressing those medical issues. We have protocols in place now for treating inflammatory bowel disease. But it is not anything that is even considered. And I know {another IACC member] mentioned yesterday that the pediatricians are so stressed, they don't have time to really look at these children medically and it is an area where we could make a tremendous amount of improvement and it is not anything that requires a genetic test or an MRI or anything except a good physical exam and some laboratory work. So I just want to put in a plug to please look at the children's bodies as well as their brains.”

After the comment above a developmental pediatrician on the IACC took “offense to this description of children with autism as being ill and sick” and I was actually accused by a Federal member of the IACC in a handwritten note passed to another committee member of “pushing autism as a multi-system disorder in order to feed into the vaccine injury awards”
See Dr. Story Landis Resigns from IACC.

Managing Editor's Note: The concerted media campaign to discredit Jenny McCarthy has been a thing to behold, hasn't it?  Even if you know nothing about autism and vaccine policy in America, you can tell that there are a whole lot of people who are trying to impede the career of petite, blonde single mother who might say something that would encourage free thought by other parents.  The Church of Immaculate Vaccination deacons (media "journalists"/PR team) must have gotten the same directive in a tape that self-destructed in a show of smoke. "Tell the average American Jenny is dangerous." The are on an evangelistic crusade to shut Jenny down.  Salon.com has some particularly vile commenters who know nothing about Jenny McCarthy or autism for that matter.  I took a screen shot of one comment directed at our own Anne Dachel (pardon the language in it) to show readers the outrageous level of vitrol Jenny elicits. Why the code red level of fear? Did someone say "hate speech?"  KS



By Anne Dachel

July 17, 2013, Fox News: Jenny McCarthy's hiring on 'The View' prompts backlash, boycott calls

July 16, 2013, Salon.com:  Dear ABC: Putting Jenny McCarthy on "The View" will kill children

July 16, 2013, KOMO News Seattle: Local doc hopes McCarthy keeps mum about medicine on 'The View'

July 16, 2013, National Geographic: One Thing We Know About Autism: Vaccines Aren't to Blame

July 16, 2013, Forbes: What Jenny McCarthy Should Do Before Her Debut On 'The View'

July 16, 2013, First Coast News (FL): McCarthy's 'View' on vaccines

July 16, 2013, USA Today: McCarthy's view on vaccines stirs 'View' controversy

By Nancy Hokkanen

Online comments by vaccine injury denialists often seem plucked from George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, a dystopian allegory in which “some animals are more equal than others.” At the websites of magazines struggling to regain lost market share, the human counterparts of porcine characters Napoleon and Squealer can be found denying medical facts and urging others to discriminate against the vaccine-injured population.

As soon as TV’s “The View” announced that celebrity author Jenny McCarthy might be hired as a co-host (now official), corporate media and internet trolls attempted anew to devalue her in the public eye. Years ago McCarthy stated that her son reacted adversely to the MMR vaccine; after a bout of seizures the boy was revived by medics, and treated by physicians over the years with positive results.

McCarthy is president of Generation Rescue, an advocacy group started by parent volunteers to educate families about safe and effective biomedical autism treatments. Oddly, if you Google “Generation Rescue,” the first title to pop up is a sponsored link from the faux research group Autism Science Foundation. On July 9 ASF reported the groundbreaking news that “Mothers Who Have Children with ASD Show Significantly Higher Levels of Fatigue.”

At the U.S. News & World Report site, assistant opinion editor Pat Garofalo minced no words in his article “Keep Jenny McCarthy’s Vaccine and Autism Pseudoscience Off ‘The View.’” Staff at that publication have backpedaled hard from articles by former health editor Bernadine Healy, M.D., who advocated vaccine program transparency. A former director at the Red Cross and National Institutes of Health, Dr. Healy stated before her 2011 passing, “There are unanswered questions about vaccine safety. We need studies on vaccinated populations based on various schedules and doses as well as individual patient susceptibilities that we are continuing to learn about.”

At the pop-up-laden website of The Atlantic is a piece of work by associate history professor David M. Perry: “Destabilizing the Jenny McCarthy Public-Health Industrial Complex: Giving the anti-vaccine advocate a platform is dangerous.” The article is a cut-and-paste rehash of misinformed generalizations, delivered in loaded semantics. Though Perry’s child has Down syndrome, he attempts to speak for the entire illness-ravaged autism community by saying “they do not need McCarthy’s organization to ‘rescue’ them.”

Most commenters at The Atlantic critical of McCarthy display a lack of scientific rigor, offering emotional opinion as if it were axiomatic instead of providing valid independent evidence. Amongst the clichés, fearmongering, baiting and hating was the predictable call for censorship – ironically from a book author. Stacy Mintzer Herlihy, who with multimillionaire vaccine industrialist Dr. Paul Offit co-wrote Your Baby’s Best Shot: Why Vaccines Are Safe and Save Lives, declared that “[a] small subset of people are utterly immune to reason. Booing them off the stage is a perfectly reasonable tactic.”

Another commenter, “Kfredrick72,” wrote with chilling detachment, “And let’s face it, a tiny percentage of the population IS adversely affected by vaccinations, not so much autism but other complications. That in no way means we shouldn’t be using them. The benefits clearly outweigh the risks.”

There it is – that utilitarian public health meme designed to shut down vaccine safety discussion. But if one pauses to think, one realizes that the stark assertion carries unpleasant ethical implications.

Do vaccines’ benefits outweigh risks? For people who create vaccine policy or do not question it, the answer is yes. For those seemingly unharmed by vaccines or statistics wonks, maybe. For the uncounted victims of vaccine adverse reactions, no.

Such inconsistency is also the hobgoblin of vaccine policy messaging and decisionmaking:

• The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines risk as “possibility of loss or injury”; the definition of safe is “free from harm or risk; unhurt.”
• The U.S. Centers for Disease Control insists that the agency’s vaccine schedule for infants and children is safe, though some are injured. "Serious side effects following vaccination… are very rare and doctors and clinic staff are trained to deal with them."
• The CDC had the Institute of Medicine convene a committee to study the childhood vaccine schedule; it "expressed support for the childhood immunization schedule as a tool to protect against vaccine preventable diseases," yet urges further safety study… but not a vaccinated/unvaccinated study.
• The U.S. Supreme Court has declared that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe.”
• The National Vaccine Safety Compensation Program has paid out $2 billion in vaccine injury claims, with 80% of cases filed thrown out.
• Since 1990, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has received over 200,000 reports.
• The American Academy of Pediatrics seems to think that risk/benefit education only means warning about risks from NOT vaccinating.

Congrats to Sandi Saponaro - our winner.

Every so often I get an email that really grabs my attention and boy, did the email from QR Code ID stop me in my tracks. They make a scan code that you can read with a phone app or enter on their website - that has your child's safety information in case of wandering or another separation incident. Genius or what?  The custom scan code costs $29 dollars a year (a year!) to keep "live" and you can order all sorts of items with the code on it at their shop.

Erin and Bruce Wilson have kindly agreed to give one lucky AofA reader a free code for a six months and two free T-shirts.

Please take a look at the QR Code ID website which explains the product and browse the store. 

From their site:

About: Bruce & Erin Wilson

"Our Son might run so Child Safety is a big concern"

We have started QR Code iD to help people that face the same fears we do. We are the proud parents of two children: our witty daughter Grace, and energetic son Jay who has moderate to severe Autism.

Jay's language is poor, so with the many other worries that go along with having a special needs child, we are afraid of what will happen to him if he runs off. QR Code iD stems from our desire to protect Jay.

By Anne Dachel

July 15, 2013, The Boston Globe: ABC's hiring of Jenny McCarthy: a decision that could cost lives - MD Mama 

July 14, 2013, The Times of Zambia: Are Vaccines Causing More Harm Than Good? 

 

 

By Sarah Stockwell

Military families with a child with autism are used to fighting. The servicemembers fight on the battlefield when deployed and the spouses, with constant military moves in and out of states and school districts fight for their childrens’ right to an appropriate education as well as the daily battle to raise a child in a world they are ill-equipped for and vice versa. One fight that military families with children with autism should not have to face however is the battle to ensure their children receive appropriate medical care. There are estimated to be over 20,000 military children with autism.

One such fight is gearing up in the military community right now. Tricare, the military healthcare provider has made drastic changes to the way it provides ABA therapy for military dependents with autism spectrum disorders and these changes are due to take effect on the 25th of July.
Military families have been campaigning for years to improve access to autism therapies for their children and until now, have been making progress. There was a semi-victory in this respect for coverage for retiree families and wounded warriors, when a ‘pilot program’ was included in the recent NDAA. Shortly after Tricare announced (later than was originally required) the details of this pilot program in June, advocates in the community noticed that Tricare had made unannounced, extensive changes to the eligibility criteria and method of access for ABA under Tricare, which would apply to the children of both active duty troops, retirees and wounded warriors.

A small smattering of the changes –

•    Children will need to receive ADOS-2 and Vineland-II to ‘confirm’ their diagnosis of autism (after obtaining a DSM-IV diagnosis) for eligibility of ABA therapy and Vineland will need to be repeated every 180 days, ADOS-2 each year.

•    Children older than 16 require a ‘waiver’ to be granted ABA services, effectively imposing an age limit on the provision.

•    ABA will only be authorized for 2 years, one year at a time. Once the 2 years are complete, a waiver is required to continue treatment.

•    Vineland and ADOS are required to show ‘progress’ and the absence of progress, as measured by these tests, is a criteria for discharge from therapy.

•    BCBAs and BCBA-Ds are required to supervise the program. BCaBAs are now demoted to technician level therapists and cannot supervise programs.

Some might argue that ‘at least the military get something’ in terms of insurance and yes, that is true. Or at least it was.  Because of these changes, many children may be denied services for a multitude of reasons, some of which are outlined.

-    High-functioning children will be at risk, because their Vineland and ADOS scores might not be significantly impaired enough. This also includes children like my own son, who has progressed from moderate/severe autism to a high functioning child, BECAUSE of the intervention he’s received. He has progressed enormously, but he still has autism. He still has challenges that need intervention.

-    Children over the age of 16 will lose coverage without a waiver. There is no data that supports the lack of efficacy of ABA in children over 16.

Our friends at NAA have a new grant program called "Give A Voice."  If you can help fund hte program, please consider making a donation. If you need an iPad for your son or daughter, the application period is open. 

From NAA:

The intent of this program is to provide communication devices to individuals with autism who are non-verbal or minimally verbal, and whose communication challenges put them at increased risk of injury or harm.

We have very limited funding to begin this program and will provide communication devices to only fifty applicants during this initial round.  Every application will be carefully reviewed and all information submitted will be verified by NAA staff.   This program is intended for families who are in dire need of financial assistance and are otherwise unable to attain a communication device.

NAA’s Give A Voice Program will provide qualifying individuals with an assistive communication device including:

• A 16GB Apple® iPad® Mini (WiFi version)
• AppleCare+ Protection Plan
• Proloquo2Go Augmentative and Alternative Communication Software app
• Gripcase Protective Case with Stand – generously donated by Gripcase USA.

Grant applications must be postmarked by July 31, 2013.

For full program details and eligibility requirements, click here to download our Give A Voice Grant Application.

Funding is desperately needed for this program.
To make a tax-deductible donation, please click here.

 

Congrats to Jill Rubolino on her new blog "The Autism Bureau." Here's an excerpt from her first post. Add her to your bookmarked favorites.
 
iacc......ick
 
maiden voyage....our trip to give a whopping three minutes of public comment at this past iacc meeting. as usual, we mistakenly thought we should be nervous, until we got there. then we quickly realized, pretty much nothing to be nervous about except maybe the possibility of jumping across the table and throat punching someone until her airway collapsed. alas, we are not murderers like some people in the room. pathetic was the response to the public comments, some of them pleading for help. I think the fabulous Kelly Peters sums it up with this fb post:
 
Let's objectively look at objectives. Let's plan a meeting to plan the plan about the plans. Let's regroup and recap and examine the reviewed data in four months. Let's schedule a committee review about the separate meeting of the committee subgroups. Let's re-evaluate the same shit we have blathered about for the past few years and did nothing about.....
 
Let's gather again and blow some more smoke up America’s ass....
 
two rays of light...Wendy Fournier and Lyn Redwood...thank you for making us feel like, for a second, we weren’t sitting in the third ring of hell by injecting some much needed reality into the day...and for your tireless work. i couldn’t move forward without recognizing the unbelievable display of restraint you both demonstrate and, in retrospect, the realization that all along you have endured this gross display negligence while keeping your commitment to the truth....and to our children....who are suffering. all i can offer is my deepest thanks. and i’m sure there are some warriors out there that are rolling their eyes right now mumbling the proverbial ‘this is just a normal tuesday for us’ and looking down at our disgust for the status quo with a judging ‘don’t you think we would have fixed this by now!?’ attitude. oh well. if you wanna be a hater, stand in line bitches. if I lose any sleep over your opinion of me, i’ll be sure to send you a frickin memo. until then, realize that the travesty of justice is big enough for all of us. that whole posturing within our community bullshit is just that, bullshit. spending my life working with physicians whose egos were bigger than their frontal lobes enables me to see past those who talk the talk but can’t walk the walk. look around...at 1.5 million kids with autism, there’s enough more important shit to talk about. hence, i digress.

By Anne Dachel

July 15, 2013, KATC  Acadiana-Lafayette, LA: Autism Awareness and Safety Seminar for 1st Responders and Law Enforcement 

July 14, 2013, The Tennessean: Early intervention improves outcomes for kids with autism  

July 14, 2013,  San Francisco Chronicle: Groundbreaking autism research studies from UC Davis Mind Institute

July 14, 2013, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Autism Society of America conference ends with focus on adults with autism

July 13, 2013, Seattle Times: Children's hospital bus ads expose a dialogue about autism 

July 12, 2013: The Province Vancouver BC:  Scientists find more genes possibly linked to autism with advanced sequencing tool 

July 12, 2013, Daily News & Analysis: Full genome sequencing can help identify autism risk 

July 12, 2013, WSJ: Autism Epidemic Linked to Epidemic of Vaccine Induced Diabetes 

July 12, 2013, ABC2 Baltimore: New online tutorial helps parents & doctors spot autism signs early

July 12, 2013, US News: Jenny McCarthy's Pseudoscience Has No Place on 'The View' 

July 11, 2013, Eurekalert.org:  Autism Speaks collaborative releases first full genome sequencing for autism

July 11, 2013, US News: 3 more Broadway shows slated to autism-friendly

July 11, 2013, San Francisco Chronicle: Housing, support for individuals with autism: Is there enough to go around?

On July 14, 2003, Dr. Bernard Rimland, the man who changed the paradigm of autism, from the archaic and psychiatric, refrigerator families to instead children, who regressed into a medically treatable neurobehavioral illness -- wrote these words:

July 14, 2003

STATEMENT BY BERNARD RIMLAND, PH.D.
Director, Autism Research Institute
Editor, Autism Research Review International
Founder, Autism Society of America

THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC IS REAL, AND EXCESSIVE VACCINATIONS ARE THE CAUSE

The vaccine manufacturers, the Center for Disease Control, the FDA, and the various medical associations have failed miserably in their duty to protect our children. Rather than acknowledge their role in  creating the immense, catastrophic rise in autism, these organizations have resorted to denial and obfuscation. They stand to lose their credibility, and billions of dollars in liability suits will soon reach the courts.

As a full-time professional research scientist for 50 years, and as a researcher in the field of autism for 45 years, I have been shocked and chagrined by the medical establishment's ongoing efforts to trivialize the solid and compelling evidence that faulty vaccination policies are the root cause of the epidemic. There are many consistent  lines of evidence implicating vaccines, and no even marginally plausible alternative hypotheses.

As the number of childhood vaccines has increased 700%, from 3 in the `70s to 22 in 2000, the prevalence of autism has also showed a parallel increase of 700%.

 Late onset autism, (starting in the 2nd year), was almost unheard of  in the `50s, `60s, and `70s; today such cases outnumber early onset cases 5 to 1, the increase paralleling the increase in required vaccines.

Thousands of parents report - and demonstrate with home videos -- that their children were normal and responsive until suffering an adverse vaccine reaction. (The Autism Research Institute has been tracking such autism-related vaccination reactions since 1967.)

Mercury, one of the most toxic substances known, is used as a preservative in many vaccines. Some infants have had 125 times the maximum allowable limit of mercury injected directly into their bloodstreams, in one day, in vaccines. (People vary enormously in their sensitivity to mercury, because certain genes predispose to mercury sensitivity. The highly-touted New
England Journal of Medicine  Danish study failed to mention the very convenient fact that none of the Danish children had prior exposure to mercury, since Denmark, unlike the U.S. had, banned mercury from childhood vaccines in 1992, the year before the birth year of the children in the study.)

There are numerous scientific studies showing large differences in clinical laboratory measures of blood, urine and biopsies which compare autistic children with normal controls. Such findings, pointing directly to vaccines as the cause of the group differences, are conveniently overlooked by those attempting to conceal the strong connection between the autism epidemic and excessive use of unsafe vaccines.

The truth must - and will - emerge. It is long overdue.

Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.
Director, Autism Research Institute
Editor, Autism Research Review International
Founder, Autism Society of America

I received that statement in an email from Dr. Rimland.  I had never met him personally but he had read a post from me as many of us, parents, were in yahoo groups back in the late 90's and into the new millennium. We were searching for answers on how to help our very sick kids who had been diagnosed with the DSM word – AUTISM.  I had shared how my daughter, Megan, born in 1993, had begun to speak and then gradually stopped before her 2nd birthday.  She also had many illnesses and behavioral changes: throwing up, diarrhea, rashes, fevers, banging her head, no eye contact, appeared deaf, happy to sad, outgoing to shy, began obsessive behaviors and then  -- was gone – but to the doctors - it was simply an autism diagnosis.

By Cathy Jameson

Last week, after listening to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee’s (IACC) meeting—but minus those in attendance who tirelessly offered their insight and efforts to treat and prevent the ever-growing autism epidemic, I walked away quite upset.  I shouldn’t have expected much, I know.  But, if you’ll remember I’m a dreamer.  I’m a hoper.  Most importantly, I’m a Mom who wants the help others avoid the negative side of autism—the kind that severely affects my son. 

So, against my better judgment, I gave the IACC another chance.  And why shouldn’t I; they claim they exist to help.  The IACC is “…a Federal advisory committee that coordinates all efforts within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) concerning autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Through its inclusion of both Federal and public members, the IACC helps to ensure that a wide range of ideas and perspectives are represented and discussed in a public forum.” 

The IACC was established in 2006 when the autism rate was 1 in 110.  It came about with the enactment of the Combating Autism Act.  The key word in that sentence: combat.  Unless they’re using a different dictionary, combat means to fight against or to do away with.  With that in mind, you’d expect the agency, would actually work toward not just addressing but doing something about autism and its rising rate. 

Instead, meeting after meeting, and for far too long now, it feels like the IACC is still merely just talking about autism.  Anyone can have a conversation about autism.  I do on a daily basis.  But when I talk about it, I’m giving tips to parents on how to prevent it.  I’m sharing ideas with a therapist on how to treat it.  I’m also participating in action alerts on how to support practical changes to make affected children’s lives better.  I’m sharing real experiences peppered with practical solutions.

When I talk about autism I’m not tiptoeing around hoping no one will notice how much it’s been ignored.  I’m not suggesting wasting valuable dollars on more uninformative research.  I’m not citing inaccurate statistics, skewed by fraudulent individuals who are doing their damndest to cover up an epidemic that didn’t have to be.  I’m not dismissing the pleas being voiced by thousands of frustrated parents.  I’m not writing off the useful answers, advice and professional opinions of those in the trenches who truly know autism.  And I’m not creating more committees and subcommittees to talk about unnecessary data about autism.  I, unlike the IACC, am making an effort to combat autism.  They, for reasons that I am unsure, are not.  

You’d expect the experts who sit around the IACC table to do more than just consider what their invited guests and speakers have offered.  You’d hope the people who sit on such a committee could be the ones who’d crack the whip.  You’d even expect them to get something done.  In searching for why they haven’t, I gave a hard look at the IACC’s mission and at who they’ve chosen to sit around the table.  In doing this, I discovered I have less respect, expectations and hope for the committee.  Why?  After Wednesday’s deplorable meeting, I realized that the IACC doesn’t exist to prevent autism like I’d initially thought. 

By Dan Olmsted

IN DEFENSE OF JENNY: Nice to see that Jenny McCarthy may land a spot on The View. Not so nice to see the same slithering "Science Says Vaccines Are Safe" crowd from Salon, Slate, Discover, etc., emerge from their respective rocks to attack her. As I've said many times, based on my own reporting, it is quite clear that vaccines are the driver of the autism epidemic. As I've also said, it's not just vaccines, it's not just mercury, and it's not just autism. Go Jenny!

GROUND CONTROL TO VICP: Have you noticed how quickly, thoroughly, openly, and fearlessly the investigation into the crash-landing in San Francisco has proceeded? Amazing what a zero-defects approach to consumer safety will do. Can you imagine the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program opening its files, fast-tracking injury claims, funding or backing studies like vax-no vax?

HYSTERICAL: In our book The Age of Autism -- Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-made Epidemic, Mark Blaxill and I propose, apparently for the first time, that many of Freud's seminal case studies around 1900 were not suffering from neurosis or OCD brought on by emotional trauma. Instead, they were mercury poisoned by exposure to medical compounds. 

You can read all about it in Chapter 2. While this may seem like ancient history, it actually points to a fundamental misdirection by psychiatry, which built its rickety psychodynamic edifice on a misdiagnosis of toxic exposure. When autism, triggered by the commercialization of ethylmercury, was first reported in 1943, the intellectual conditions were ripe to mistake it for parental coldness and neglect. This rest is history -- actually, tragedy, tragedy that keeps repeating itself. (See Chapters 5 and 6. See DSM-V. See Tom Insel and the IACC)

Parents are still getting the blame, sometimes in whisper campaigns ("they must be unhinged, hysterical to keep blaming vaccines") and more often in bogus genetic theories that place the blame inside the family circle, rather than outside in iatrogenic and environmental triggers that can be prevented and treated.

Just this week, a book review in The New York Times began this way: 

"Freud’s famous case studies, like Dora, the Wolf Man, Little Hans and the Rat Man, are psychoanalytic readings, suspenseful detective stories and elliptical narratives that have all the drama and contradictions of modernist fiction. Not only is Freud a powerful writer, but his methodology and insights also have a lot in common with literary criticism and novelistic architecture. His patient portraits showcase his skills both as a critic, intent on deconstructing his subjects’ lives, and as a masterly storyteller, adept at using unreliable narrators to explore the mysteries of love and sex and death. It’s no coincidence that he liked to write about characters from Shakespeare, Goethe, Ibsen and Sophocles (yes, Oedipus), or that he paid so much attention to the language and imagery employed by his patients."

Well, yes, it does read a lot like fiction, because it is. Take Dora -- her supposed psychogenic troubles were actually physical and mental symptoms of mercury exposure from her father's treatment for syphilis, we argue. She acted as his home nurse. The Wolf Man, we discovered, told an interviewer all about how mercury as a stomach treatment had destroyed his bowels; Freud seems to have ignored or missed that glaring clue, and claimed it was a symptom of hysteria. Little Hans -- worm treatment. The Rat Man -- a father with syphilis.

By Anne Dachel

Read Anne's comments after the jump.

July 11, 2013, Pittsburgh Post Gazette: Autism conference begins in city

July 11, 2013, (UK)  CommunityCare.com: Autism in the elderly too often ignored, warns charity

July 11, 2013, Washington Post: Lawyer: N.Y. terror suspect teen has autism, is mixed up 

July 11, 2013, CBS Sacramento: Missing Person: El Dorado Deputies Seek Developmentally Disabled Woman

LJ Goes, Journal Entry,  July 10, 2013

Noah has been taken off all anti-inflammatory meds due to unexplained welts and rashes all over his body. Creases of his thighs, behind his knees, his face, calves and ankles.

Noah is resisting ABA training at home. Many hits kicks and punches. Hair pulled. Shirts ripped.

Pinched Liam today to try to get him to play Spill the Beans which really means stim on the beans.

After spending 3 hours this morning scouring carpets with a comb to make sure I have gotten every last piece of clay (his PICA has returned so he is trying to eat clay and plastic) I apparently missed a golf ball sized dollop in his sister's room. Praying so hard he didn't eat any.

Tried to elope from the car 14 times, an improvement from Monday, which was 21 times.

Mom is visiting and asked me to please sit down and just chat for 5 minutes. Please. Told me about an amazing table her neighbor got for 1,100.00 that is just fantastic. The leaf comes right out, and there is a huge amazing storage box at the bottom. She's never seen anything like it.

Realize this lost time will cost me the 3 Illinois vaccine exemptions I was supposed to send off to moms who need help for their kids with autism.

Maybe tomorrow.

My beautiful daughter, who has appeared in a documentary herself and has had many opportunities to be in front of a camera, has become smitten with Emma from Kitties Mama. She is an adorable little girl who does make up tutorials, but also, her family's life is chronicled in a vlog. My daughter doesn't realize the vicarious nature of her love for this family and says not once, not twice, but 11 times: DO you think when Noah is better we will go on vacations like they do? Will we decorate like that for Christmas when Noah is better? Will we have parties and food like that when Noah is better? Look at her brothers? They all have so much fun together...maybe...when Noah is better, etc. When this then that.

By Molly Clarke

Autism, even in high-functioning individuals, can be a debilitating condition. For parents, having a child with autism poses a unique set of challenges. Unfortunately, a common challenge for parents of children with autism is financial instability. Specialty medical care, assistive technology, and educational needs can quickly become expensive.

If you are the parent of child with autism and find that you are having a difficult time making ends meet, you may qualify for Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits on your child’s behalf. The following article will provide you with the information needed to collect disability benefits for your son or daughter.

Social Security Disability Benefit Programs

The Social Security Administration provides benefits to disabled individuals through two separate programs—SSDI and SSI.

•    SSDI, or Social Security Disability Insurance, is a program that provides financial assistance to disabled workers and their families. Because eligibility for SSDI is determined based on an applicant’s taxes and work history, children and young adults don’t typically qualify for SSDI payments. If a child’s parent or guardian already receives their own SSDI payments, the child may qualify for dependent benefits under his or her parent’s record. For more information about dependent, or auxiliary benefits, click here. (http://www.disability-benefits-help.org/glossary/auxiliary-benefits)

•    SSI stands for Supplemental Security Income. This program provides benefits to elderly or disabled individuals who earn very little income. Eligibility for SSI is determined by financial need rather than work history. For this reason, SSI is often the best option for disabled children and young adults.  The SSA evaluates an applicant’s income and financial resources to determine eligibility for SSI. In the case of a child, his or her parent’s income will be evaluated. This process is called parental deeming.

If your child is under the age of 18, lives at home, or lives at school but is still subject to parental control, the parent’s income will be subject to the deeming process. Stepparents’ income is also considered here.

Learn more about the technical eligibility for SSI, here.

Autism and Social Security Disability Benefits

By Anne Dachel

Read Anne's comments after the jump.

July 10, 2013, (South Africa) Africa.com: Could Mom cause autism?

July 10, 2013, KIMT TV 3, Mason City, IA: Autism Center Now a Reality in North Iowa

July 9, 2013, TIME Magazine: Mother's Antibodies May Explain a Quarter of Autism Cases

July 9, 2013, US News: Mother's Immune System Might Play Role in Certain Cases of Autism

By William Walsh and Dan E. Burns

“It’s becoming quite clear to more and more of us that autism is not genetic, but epigenetic.” So says William J. Walsh, who received a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Iowa State University and is an expert in nutritional medicine. In the 1970s, he collaborated with the renowned Dr. Carl Pfeiffer, a pioneer in schizophrenia research, and went on to develop nutrient protocols to normalize brain chemistry in patients with behavioral and personality disorders, ADHD, schizophrenia, and autism. Walsh’s new book, Nutrient Power, is subtitled Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain.

I asked Bill what has happened in autism research since the late 1980s when he became associated with Dr. Rimland, founder of the Autism Research Institute. Here’s what he told me.

BILL: “When I first connected with Bernie, a wonderful inspiring man, he realized that I’d seen more autistic patients than anybody in the world, eventually six thousand five hundred. More importantly, I had the world’s biggest chemistry database for autism. I’d already organized a prison volunteer program to study the biology of prisoners and ex-offenders, researching the causes of their violent behavior. And the first thing Bernie and I realized was that autistic children – ASD spectrum kids – have far more severe chemistry, lab results farther outside the normal range, than criminals.

“Bernie asked me to come to some of his think tanks and give information. No one was surprised when I reported that ASD kids had B6 deficiency and elevated toxic metals, especially mercury, cadmium, and lead, plus high copper and low zinc. The surprise was that more than 95% of kids who had autism were undermethylated. Following that think tank, Jon Pangborn launched a study of how disruptions in the methylation cycle are consistent with ASD symptoms. Eminent methylation scientists Jill James and Richard Deth took up the challenge. We now know that undermethylation is a distinctive feature of ASD.”

Dan: Why did you develop the Epigenetic Theory?

BILL: “In the history of science, progress has often been hastened by the development of theories that attempt to explain the mechanisms of poorly understood phenomena. Then, over time, as new information comes in, the model can be honed and improved. We needed a new theory to account for the effect of environmental toxins on gene expression. That’s why I developed the epigenetic theory of autism.”

DAN: What’s the difference between genetics and epigenetics? My understanding is that genetic theories of autism have not been very helpful to date.

BILL: “That’s right. Genetic therapies – trying to change DNA that’s gone awry in kids, with Down Syndrome, for example – have been a washout. They haven’t led to much of anything. But the early research on altering epigenetic deviations has been really promising. And I think that’s the hope for the future.”

DAN: So what is epigenetics?

“Epigenetics is the natural process of gene regulation that is established in the early days of gestation in the womb. A severe environmental insult later in life can either turn off a necessary gene or turn on a damaging gene, resulting in a disorder that can persist for years.

“We know that autism runs in families but violates classical laws of genetics. We know that in identical twins, if one of them develops autism, it’s more than sixty percent likely that the other will too. However, it’s not a hundred percent; so it’s not the DNA, not the genome. That means that environmental insults must be involved.”

DAN: How can environmental insults lead to autism without altering the genome?

BILL: “A gene has only one job, and that’s to make a protein. We have identical DNA and identical genes – the same cookbook – in every cell of our body, but every tissue in our body needs a different combination of proteins. How to make that happen? Methyl groups, which are basically groups of carbon atoms with some hydrogen attached, act like bookmarks. They tell our metabolism where to start reading the cookbook and where to stop. Methyl groups attach to certain parts of DNA to regulate whether a gene is turned on or turned off. So they program the DNA and determine which proteins are expressed in each tissue.”

Contest is CLOSED. Congrats to Sandy Saponaro.

Every so often I get an email that really grabs my attention and boy, did the email from QR Code ID stop me in my tracks. They make a scan code that you can read with a phone app or enter on their website - that has your child's safety information in case of wandering or another separation incident. Genius or what?  The custom scan code costs $29 dollars a year (a year!) to keep "live" and you can order all sorts of items with the code on it at their shop.

Erin and Bruce Wilson have kindly agreed to give one lucky AofA reader a free code for a six months and two free T-shirts.

Please take a look at the QR Code ID website which explains the product and browse the store.  Leave a comment to enter.  Good luck!  KIM

From their site:

About: Bruce & Erin Wilson

"Our Son might run so Child Safety is a big concern"

We have started QR Code iD to help people that face the same fears we do. We are the proud parents of two children: our witty daughter Grace, and energetic son Jay who has moderate to severe Autism.

Jay's language is poor, so with the many other worries that go along with having a special needs child, we are afraid of what will happen to him if he runs off. QR Code iD stems from our desire to protect Jay.

By Katie Wright

Dr. Tim Buie gave an incredible and impassioned presentation on the pervasiveness and severity of GI disorders among the ASD population. Buie provided devastating video footage of young ASD adults with pre GI treatment engaging in aggressive and self-injurious behavior. He spoke about how vastly under diagnosed this problem is and how the manifestations of pain are largely treated as troublesome behaviors, treated with anti-psychotics. Over and over Buie detailed classic signs of GI pain in the severely affected and minimally verbal ASD population:

1)    Strange posturing, laying on table and chairs
2)    Self injurious behavior
3)    Aggressive behavior, biting and scratching
4)    Food refusal
5)    The obvious: constipation and diarrhea

Buie estimated that over 50% of ASD children have GI disorders yet only small percentages actually receive treatment. Even today as the AAP accepts that GI disease among ASD children is real, most pediatricians and pediatric GIs do cannot recognize the signs of GI pain nor correctly diagnose the problem.

Immediately afterwards Dr. Buie Dr. Lee Wachtel of Kennedy Kreiger gave a talk that was as bizarre as it was disturbing. Watchel theorizes that a number of symptoms commonly found in ASD people are actually a psychiatric disorder called “catatonia.”

What are the symptoms of catatonia?

1)    Strange posturing
2)    Self injurious behavior
3)    Food refusal
4)    Constipation

Guess what the treatment for “catatonia” is? ECT -ElectroConvulsive Therapy. (Yup, shock treatment.)

I mean really, the woman was sitting through Buie’s presentation but is so determined to proceed with her wacky theories and barbaric treatment she just blocked it all out?

Kennedy Krieger’s autism unit is entirely psychiatric. No GI experts, no immunological clinicians, and no discussion of possible celiac or debilitating food allergies, nothing about regression…..It is all in your head, baby.

By Anne Dachel

Read Anne's comments after the jump.

July 8, 2013, Seattle Times: Autism ads raise ire, pulled off buses

July 8, 2013, KPTV Kelso, WA: Police: 18-year-old sexually abused autistic girl

July 8, 2013, Staten Island Advance: Autistic teen in critical condition after being struck on Staten Island Expressway

July 8, 2013, PARADE Magazine: Jenny McCarthy Reportedly in 'Serious Talks' to Join The View

July 7, 2013, US News: Struggles With Motor Skills Compound Social Problems in Autism - US News and World Report

 

Managing Editor's Note:  My daughter Bella is pre-verbal. She has a few sounds. A few words. Her inability to speak is dangerous to her well being. It frustrates her to pieces. It is behind many of her behaviors. As I am typing this, she is grabbing my arm and moaning, trying to tell me something. She has a GoTalk and an iPad - neither of which replace a VOICE.  Humans evolved "higher" than animals so that we could communicate. I want the American media to say, "What the freak happened to this child's brain that wiped out her ability for form mouth movements that lead to sounds that lead to speech?" And the kids below.

By Anne Dachel

Say “non-verbal” twenty times.

I was reading several stories recently and I noticed a passing remark about an autistic child being “non-verbal.” NON-VERBAL means they don’t speak. Does that bother anyone? Evidently not, since the non-verbal phrase wasn’t a focus or a cause for concern. Non-verbal is just the way a particular child is.

So when did being NON-VERBAL become acceptable? I don’t remember ever hearing about children NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK when I was a kid. Even children who were developmentally disabled (or as they were called “mentally retarded”) could talk. I’m sure there were children who didn’t speak, but they were rare. I would have been very interested in seeing someone like this. Now they’re everywhere and no one is asking why.
This is frightening. We’re conditioned to children like this, thanks to stories like these. Every one of these stories brings up the issue in a very matter-of-fact way. I stopped when I found 20 stories from the last month. It didn’t take me long and I had lots to choose from.

June 5, 2013, CBS Los Angeles: Man, 19, With Special Form Of Autism Finds New Way To Express Himself

"Los Angeles teenager with non-verbal autism is making use of modern technology to find his voice."

June 7, 2013, Chicago Tribune: Database allows residents to share extra information during 911 calls

"If a family member or baby sitter calls 911, a dispatcher will see what James and his family look like and immediately learn that the teen is nonverbal and has strong allergies to peanuts and penicillin."

June 8, 2013, KATU Portland, OR: Young Autistic Boy Needs More Treatment

"Sammy is currently nonverbal and needs about 40 hours per week of intensive therapy to (hopefully) bring him up to par with his peers by Kindergarten, or as close as possible."

June 14, 2013, WLTX-TV Columbia SC: Kershaw County Missing Child Found Dead

"He says he was found in the pool of a home a quarter of a mile down the road from Pine Grove. He says the child was autistic and non-verbal."

June 16, 2013, The Knoxville (KT) Focus: Overcoming obstacles in motherhood and business, Troy Ball connects with Helen Ross McNabb

"Coulton, her second son, is also non-verbal and is confined to a wheelchair and lives with autism."

June 17, 2013, Jacksonville (NC) Daily News: Bill to help with care for autistic children

"She ran through the house calling his name but the non-verbal Giles could not answer."

June 19, 2013, Fort Wayne (IN) News Sentinel: Children with autism dare to dream
"Brooks is normally nonverbal."

June 20, 2013, News12, The Bronx, NY: Carmen Luchesse claims 4-year-old autistic son assaulted at Birch Family Services in Riverdale

"According to Carmen Luchesse, a teacher’s assistant at Birch Family Services in Riverdale beat her non-verbal son, Jovanni Gomez."