GreaterGoodMovie.org

Much research has shown that a mother that has a chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disease has a much greater risk of having a child with autism.

The most recent study (link below) found that the children of mothers who have lupus, an autoimmune disease, are twice as likely to have autism as children of mothers without lupus.

The researchers investigated all sorts of medications the mothers received during pregnancy - but not vaccinations - and found there was no connection between the medication and development of autism.

But is there a connection between autoimmune disease and vaccination?

 Let's expand the controversy to include autoimmune disease.  It's hardly "better diagnosing."

KPIC CBS 4, Roseburg, OR

The Oregon Health Authority is reminding parents that 'Exclusion Day' is fast approaching.

Every child attending school, both public and private, including programs like Head Start, must have immunization records submitted to the school by Wednesday, February 19.

There is an exception for people with a religious or medical exemption.

The following is the full release from the Oregon Health Authority:

School Exclusion Day is Wednesday, February 19

Parents must provide schools and child care facilities with children's immunization records

The Oregon Immunization Program wants parents to know that children will not be able to attend school or child care starting Feb. 19 if their records on file show missing immunizations. State law requires that all children in public and private schools, preschools, Head Start, and certified child care facilities have up-to-date documentation on their immunizations, or have a religious or medical exemption.

Personally I'd just get the religious exemption.  I don't know of a religion that permits parents to put their children's health at risk when they know they're in harms way.

Comment:

It would be nice if someone would point out that vaccine makers have little incentive to produce truly safe vaccines. Vaccines, like any medical product, carry risks. Since 1986, vaccines makers have been protected by federal law. Neither the industry nor the doctor who administers the vaccine has any liability.

Instead families of injury victims have to appeal to a federal program where they're up against government lawyers defending a government program using government money. Few people ever win their case.

Parents need to educate themselves when it comes to vaccine risks. SEE the National Vaccine Information Center. http://www.nvic.org/

Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism

San Jose Mercury News

When Scott Badesch, president of the Autism Society of America, visited San Jose last week, he addressed a crowd of concerned autism parents gathered at the Morgan Autism Center in San Jose. The first wave of children with the autism epidemic has started to age out of the school system, Badesch said, and is entering an antiquated and fragmented adult housing and care system wholly unprepared to handle the vast numbers of affected individuals and their often complex and intensive needs.

We must respond to the dearth of options for autistic adults with proposals for efficient and effective new housing and program solutions, he added.

. . . Demand for adult autism program options is soaring, he added, but scant are the facilities or staff to serve them.

Adult autism programs across the Bay Area are beset by waiting lists, short-staffed and running out of space.

In the 1980s, when California made the decision to begin shuttering developmental centers--including the Agnews Developmental Center in Santa Clara--that had housed the developmentally disabled when institutionalization was the societal norm, no one could possibly have foreseen the coming explosion in cases of autism.

From the Department of Developmental Services, which has kept careful records regarding residents with developmental disabilities, we see that rates of substantially disabling autism alone, not including milder forms of the disorder, have soared more than 2,000 percent since the 1980s. That means that for every one Californian with substantial autism in 1985 (when autism by any name was largely unheard of), we have more than 20 today. . . .

"Of course, no one wants to return to institutionalizing dependent adults," Boardman says, "but we must provide as an alternative a menu of strong community-based alternatives, and we're systematically failing to do that."  . . .

We will need dozens of day programs where adults with autism can find community, meaningful work and daily activities. But in the Bay Area, this requires real estate and staff, both of which are financially out of reach for even the best intentioned and most efficient of programs.

With autism rates now reaching 1 in 88--or according to the latest Center for Disease Control statistics, 1 in 50--autism is affecting us all. We invite you to learn more about our Autism and Developmental Disabilities: Adult Housing and Lifespan Care Solutions Initiative at sfautismsociety.org.

Comment:

This article makes no sense. For years, health have denied that autism was a problem. The epidemic increase in the disorder was merely the result of better diagnosing of a disorder that's always been around. One in 50/one in 88 Americans have always had autism---they just called it something else.

WHY IS THERE A PROBLEM???

No one at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has ever called autism a crisis.

No one in authority has ever been worried that the autism rate is always based on studies of CHILDREN.

No one has ever been able to show us a comparable rate among adults.

Where are the 50, 60, and 70 year olds with autism with the same symptoms that we see in our children?

Why can't autistic young adults go where autistic adults have always gone?

Maybe when we're all paying for this disaster we'll finally honestly and thoroughly recognize what's making our children so sick.

Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism

York (PA) Dispatch  

For something as simple as a comic book, Dover resident Dave Kot's work has planted a lot of seeds.

The organization he founded, Autism at Face Value, recently released the first comic to feature an autistic superhero.

When the comic hit store shelves around York on Dec. 24, it sold out in less than a week.

Since then, he said, local middle schools have requested copies to use for social skills courses for students with special needs. Doctor want copies to put in their waiting rooms, he said. . . .

Kot writes the script, and the scene he is proudest of comes when the main character, Michael, goes to his middle school for the first time. The experience turns his world -- and the comic panel -- upside down.

"It forces readers to literally look at somebody with autism differently than they may have expected," he said.  . . .

"We want to do more with them down the road," he said. "They're really nice people

An autistic cartoon character? Why is autism so popular? Why doesn't anyone see this as a crisis?

It's because autism is something we're having to learn to deal with. It is a new phenomenon in human history and it affects CHILDREN to an overwhelming degree. We have to learn to deal with it because it's everywhere.

It's here. No official can tell us why at the same time no one is worried. We must recognize and accommodate this new disability.

Movies, visits to Santa, story time at the library, restaurants---all these places are learning to handle children with autism. They have to. They have no choice. Autism is here to stay.

WPTV Boca Raton, FL

Zach is one of the 150 adults with disabilities under the watchful eye of the Jewish Association for Residential Care (JARC) in Boca Raton. About 50 of those clients, like Zach, are on the autism spectrum. . . .

"This year there will be approximately 250,000 adults with autism graduating from high school," said Dr. Debra Hallow, JARC's executive director. "What happens next?"

What happens next is a huge health policy question where care, compassion, costs and the strain of finances collide. People with autism growing out of their teen years will often need lifetime care and supervision. . . .

"Children with autism grow up to be adults with autism, and programs like ours focus on endless possibilities," said Hallow.

Why are stories about ADULTS WITH AUTISM invariably about PEOPLE IN THEIR 20s?

MY COMMENT:

Something is very wrong with this picture. We're told 250,000 adults with autism will be graduating from high school this year. We're left with the question, 'What happens next?' Why can't anyone show us the 40, 50, 60, and 70 year olds with autism? Why is the autism rate (one in every 50 or one in every 88, depending on which official study you care to believe) always based on studies of children?

Why can't young adults go where adults with autism have always gone?

When will autism become enough of a crisis that we honestly and thoroughly address what's happening to our children?

What will happen when the cost of autism simply overwhelms us?

Philly.com

Stricter new criteria for autism may change how frequently the condition is diagnosed, a new study suggests.

The study estimates that if the new diagnostic guidelines had been in place in 2008, they would have lowered the prevalence of the disorder in a nationally representative database to one in 100 children.

The most recent estimate of autism prevalence from this database, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is one in 88 children with the diagnosis.

Researchers say it's hard to tell how quickly the new guidelines will be put into practice. But some fear this change to how the condition is diagnosed may mask true increases in the number of children who develop symptoms that have been consistent with the disorder.

"The trend in the incidence of autism spectrum disorders has been one of pretty steady increases. Whether the switch to DSM-5 would offset that yearly increase remains to be seen," said study author Matthew Maenner, an epidemiologist with the CDC.

But advocates for children with autism say the ramifications of the new guidelines go beyond research. They say they're starting to see signs that children are being reclassified under the new criteria and that some may be losing access to needed services as a result. . . . .

Researchers caution that it's still not clear how the changes will play out in the real world. Doctors, for example, could change how they look for symptoms to better fit the new criteria. It's also possible that kids who don't qualify for an autism diagnosis could receive a new designation -- something called social communication disorder.

The latter is what seems to be happening, said Michael Rosanoff, associate director of public health research at Autism Speaks, a nonprofit advocacy group.

Autism Speaks is surveying parents to find out how the changes are affecting their children. Though the results are still early, and it's not a scientifically rigorous sample, he said they are seeing indications that children are being reclassified using the new criteria.

"What we've seen from the first 600 persons participating in the survey, is that there is a percentage of individuals being asked to be re-evaluated by school districts or insurers using DSM-5 criteria," he said.

About one-third of those who were reclassified said they had lost access to services.

"Our sense, from our survey and previous studies that have been published, is that individuals who are losing their autism diagnosis are getting a diagnosis of social communication disorder. The concern is there are no clinical guidelines for how to treat social communication disorder," Rosanoff said, which means that kids who get the diagnosis may not qualify for any services to treat it.

"We're concerned about this," he said.

Although I've tried, I'm unable to post on this.

Los Angeles Times

The old line about a lie traveling halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on certainly applies to the supposed link between autism and the MMR (measles/mumps/rubella) vaccine-- in spades.

Aaron Carroll, the pediatrician and medical policy expert who pointed us toward the map of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks we reported on Monday, delivers the indispensable background on the autism-MMR link in this video. For its clarity and directness, it's a must-see.

As Carroll reports, the supposed link dates back to an article published in 1998 in the British medical journal the Lancet. "This was not a randomized control trial or even a scientific study," he notes. "It was merely a description of a small group of children" -- 12 children, of whom nine were said by their parents to show signs of autism. Eight of that group were said to have first shown the symptoms shortly after receiving the vaccine.

VIDEO:  BLAMING IT ALL ON WAKEFIELD.

Aaron Carroll, MD blames Wakefield's article in the Lancet 16 years ago for the hottest controversy in in pediatric medicine. He uses every lie that's out there.

I posted these two comments. I'm still waiting for them to show up......

Dr. Carroll trivializes and misrepresents this issue. He happily ignores the thousands of parents who gave birth to a healthy, thriving baby who watched helplessly as their child got sick, lost learned skills, and regressed into autism following routine vaccinations.

He's sure there is no link and he can cite the studies showing that prove it. He doesn't mention that each of these studies has been shown to have ties to the vaccine makers.

Carroll pretends that they've actually done a comparison study of fully vaccinated and never vaccinated children, something that has never happened. (And if it had, you can be sure that CNN, NBC, and ABC would be showing us all the never-vaccinated kids with autism.)

Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism

The mercury-laced vaccine preservative thimerosal has nothing to do with the MMR, but lots of studies say it's not safe when injected into children.

Carroll says thimerosal has been out of infant vaccines since 2003. That's not true. MERCURY is still in most of the flu vaccine manufactured and babies as young as six months of age get this vaccine. So do pregnant women at all stages of pregnancy. This mercury easily passes the placental barrier and enters the developing fetus.

Most concerning of all is the fact that the drug Company Eli Lilly invented thimerosal in 1930. They tested it on 22 people who were already dying of meningitis. Everyone was dead of meningitis by the end of the study, but Eli Lilly said thimerosal was safe. After the creation of the FDA, they just accepted thimerosal use and they've never studied it for safety.

Anne Dachel, Media editor: Age of Autism

AutismDailyNewscast.com

I realized it was time to teach Ben the underbelly of language when he came home from middle school and asked me if "p***y" was a bad word. It seems several of his classmates asked him if he knew a word that started with "p" and was another word for "cat." Of course, he fell for the joke and got in trouble for spewing a most unacceptable word in class."

Emma then goes on to say that she would eventually have to teach Ben these words and that she was dreading the task.

We were eager to learn more about Emma and her son Ben and how she came to the decision that she needed to teach him how to swear.

We asked Emma what the early years were like for her and Ben. She told us that Ben was diagnosed with moderate autism in 1996 aged 2.

Emma explains: "Getting services for him was more difficult than it is now and the process was exhausting."

Here's an interesting story of a parent helping her autistic son succeed in society. It's a positive piece and this young man is now at a community college with a 3.0 grade average. I found it on Google News.

HERE'S WHAT AUTISM DAILY NEWSCAST IS ALL ABOUT ACCORDING TO THEIR SITE:

Autism Daily Newscast reports daily events of interest and importance to those on the autism spectrum and those that love them. Our main focus is on the current issues around research and technology. Our goal is to provide useful and valuable information that is written in an easy to understand format.

Other topics include health, education, careers and interesting life style events. In addition, we review the latest gadgets and products that might be useful to those on the autism spectrum. We attempt to identify the pros and cons from this perspective and the publish the results.

We launched late October, 2012 with the intention of putting up one good news article each week and by June we were publishing daily. Slowly we grew our writers until we had a good solid team. On the first day of Spring, 2013 we launched our Facebook Page and on July 5th our Twitter page went live. For the second half of 2013, our objective is to publish important news articles three times or more a day.

Also on the site for Autism Daily Newscast is this:

What are the causes of Autism?

Scientists have yet to discover a cause for autism, though there are several theories. Most would agree that there is some genetic component, though the increasing rates of the disorder suggest that there must be some environmental factors as well. Some parents, including actress Jenny McCarthy, have felt that childhood vaccinations triggered their child's autism, but this theory has been disproved. Studies have suggested links to environmental toxins, but no definitive cause has been discovered yet.

I couldn't help but think of Age of Autism's mission statement:

Welcome to Age of Autism, the Daily Web Newspaper of the Autism Epidemic.

We are published to give voice to those who believe autism is an environmentally induced illness, that it is treatable, and that children can recover. For the most part, the major media in the United States aren't interested in that point of view, they won't investigate the causes and possible biomedical treatments of autism independently, and they don't listen to the most important people - the parents, many of whom have witnessed autistic regression and medical illness after vaccinations. We do all those things, and more.

We believe that autism is the defining disorder of our age, man-made and therefore preventable, and that it points to the truth about other problems that beset us, from ADD to asthma to Alzheimer's. We address those issues as well, along with exposing the special interests, bureaucratic inertia, and medical malfeasance that perpetuate denial and suffering.

Since beginning in November 2007, we've run hundreds of posts and thousands of reader comments and received millions of hits by people who share our mission. We are here to stay.

Autism Daily Newscast doesn't look at autism as a crisis and an epidemic like we do at Age of Autism. Most important of all, they announce on their site that the link between vaccines and autism is merely a disproven theory. Only a few parents, led by Jenny McCarthy, feel this way. Despite not knowing what the cause is, they're sure it's not vaccines.

Clearly they're willing to ignore Hannah Poling, the Pace Law Review story of the 83 compensated cases of vaccine-induced autism, Dr. Bernadine Healy, the mounting science on our side,and the failure of officials to call for a vaxed/unvaxed study.

It seems that the purpose of Autism Daily Newscast is to pretend that all the autism is normal and acceptable.