Dachel Media Update: Disability, Difference or Indifference?
By Anne Dachel
Read Anne's commentary and view the links after the jump. The Dachel Media Update is sponsored by Aperture International.
Nov 3, 2015, Fort Worth Star Ledger: ‘Sesame Street’ shows how autism should be portrayed
Nov 3, 2015, UK Independent: Samuel Johnson Prize 2015: History of autism is first popular science winner of non-fiction book award
Nov 3, 2015, MD Magazine: One in Five Pediatricians Say Goodbye to Families Who Refuse Vaccines
The Muppets have welcomed Julia, a girl with autism
Portrayal is neither negative nor as a disabling idiosyncrasy
Accepts core symptoms as just differences
And that’s what is so important. The show teaches children about autistic traits but portrays them as a celebration of uniqueness.
Autism is not a problem that needs to be fixed; it is a difference that needs to be understood.
"How autism should be portrayed"? ....Really? That's fine if you're talking only about those on the high functioning end of autism, those who can possibly be able to live an independent, successful life.
"Celebration of uniqueness" and "a difference that needs to be understood" has no place when talking about those on the severe end of the spectrum.
Just like Steve Silberman's recent fame over NeuroTribes, they pretend the really impaired kids don't exist.
A book that documents the controversial history and science of autism has won this year’s Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, the first time in his 17-year history that the award has gone to a popular science book.
Sesame Street’s new character Julia, who has autism and Steve Silberman’s book, NeuroTribes, are getting a lot of attention and praise in the media. Both of them are used to convince us that autism is a normal and acceptable part of being human. All we need to do is recognize it.
Vaccination is a hot topic of controversy, to say the very least. But if patients refuse to get vaccinated against preventable diseases such as measles and mumps, some doctors will go as far as to dismiss the families from their practices.
Doctors forcing medical care on their patients: It is absolute medical tyranny when a product can be mandated on the population, when the participants have no liability, and when officials refuse to provide informed consent.
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Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism and author of The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public, which is on sale now from Skyhorse Publishing.
To Margaret- If you react badly to many medications, try getting yourself tested for G6PD deficiency. Many people in my husbands family, my husband and one of our grandchilddren have this deficiency. It is actually fairly common and is usually found in people who have ancestry from the Mediterranean area- and eastwards to the east of India, where this genetic deficiency peters out. The obvious thing one notices is that they are always complaining that medicines "dont suit them". If you have G6PD, there is a long list of medicines and other products that you need to avoid. And thanks for the great term "Stalinization of medicine" We need to use these terms sometimes, to make people wake up and start thinking, instead of accepting this disgraceful system in which doctors think they own our bodies.
Posted by: Cherry Misra | November 07, 2015 at 11:02 AM
Oh, the terror of being thrown out of a medical practice. Not. I got kicked out of one practice for refusing to be overmedicated. (I don't react normally to medication and often enough neither do my adult children.) My current doctor doesn't have these issues. Sooner or later arrogance is going to hit medical prostitutes, er physicians, in the pocketbook and they will change their tune. There are other medical providers out there who will pick up the 20% of the population who won't comply with the Stalinization of medicine.
Posted by: Margaret | November 06, 2015 at 01:35 PM
Who cares? Children probably only rarely require a Pediatrician. A regular GP is more than adequate. My friend's kids have one due to one of them having a kidney problem from birth. The Ped always pimps the vaccines and those children don't seem very healthy.
Posted by: Forget Peds | November 05, 2015 at 11:30 PM
We had been going to the same local pediatrics clinic since my 12 year old was born.
When I took him to his pre-7th physical, I was given the "boot" lecture that if he didn't get up to date on his shots (he was only due his DTaP), "we wouldn't be having this conversation in the future." Isn't that a form of discrimination that the clinic may be liable for? So sick kids are welcome, but a healthy kid with no recent vaccinations is not? Wow. We've not been back, and if I can help it, will never set foot inside for any reason.
Posted by: Michael S. | November 05, 2015 at 11:08 PM