Dachel Media Update: Does Neurotribes Concept Help or Hinder
March 8, 2016, Exit133: “NeuroTribes”: The Past and Future of Autism Best-selling Author Steve Silberman Gives a Public Talk
On March 24 Tacoma audiences can hear from Silberman about NeuroTribes, and learn about the growing movement of “neurodiversity” activists, who see autism as a natural and celebrated human difference—a disability, rather than a disease or disorder of modern times.
Silberman will deliver the Keck Neuroscience Lecture on Thursday, March 24, from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., including time for questions from the audience. The free event will be in the Tahoma Room, Commencement Hall. No tickets are required, and everyone is welcome. A map of campus is below. ...
The San Francisco Chronicle said of the book: “To read NeuroTribes is to realize how much autistic people have enriched the scope of human knowledge and diversity, and how impoverished the world would be without them.”
“Epic and often shocking,” wrote the Chicago Tribune. “A rallying call to respect difference,” said Science magazine.
This is total denial. It's clear that autism will be allowed to destroy our country and we'll just watch it happen, at the same time deluding ourselves into believing that it's normal and acceptable.
How can this coverage possibly have anything relevance to the lives of Michelle Cedillo or Brandon Guppy? Or the hundreds of thousands of struggling families out there?
Describing a serious neurological condition like autism as "a natural and celebrated human difference" defies all reason.
Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.
That's why new names for autism are emerging. Naming each symptom, non verbal, etc. Accepting autism as "diverse" goes hand in hand with denying autism altogether. Soon autism will not exist, just a cluster of individual diagnoses. Then no more epidemic, no more tragedy, no more reason to find a cause.
Posted by: Cynthia Cournoyer | March 10, 2016 at 03:00 PM
Bob,
In the past several years, the South American vaccine campaign has ramped up to extensive coverage from scant coverage not too long ago. I think what we're seeing with GBS being attributed to Zika is that the vaccine industry learned from what happened here when they admitted to the public that flu vaccine causes GBS. They lost a lot of customers for life. Now invading, I mean servicing, South America, they aren't going to make that mistake again.
What intrigues me about this Zika thing though, if it is a thing, is that flu vaccine is known to decrease the body's ability to fight other viral illnesses for a period of time after innoculation. This is well described in the mainstream scientific literature. So, if a person, say a pregnant woman, gets a flu shot and the next day she gets bitten by a Zika carrying mosquito, is her immune system unable to protect her from the Zika because of the flu vaccine she got yesterday? In other words, is this Zika crisis, if it is a crisis, being caused by the flu and maybe other vaccines?
Posted by: Linda1 | March 09, 2016 at 06:34 PM
And what is wrong with the health officials of the Brazilian government?
I mean; did they think the third time was a charm for the Urabe strain MMR?
And we all know that they decided to vaccinate with the DTaP all pregnant women, just started that push a year and half ago.
I had a DPT shot - I thought it was just a tetanus shot back in 1984. I lost my baby at 4 and 1/2 weeks -- three weeks before that --I had the tetanus shot.
Did not Brazil go all in for doing just that? And now we have the zika virus.
Posted by: Benedetta | March 09, 2016 at 06:03 PM
Bob Moffit:
You know a great deal of science.
Yes, they are finding zika virus in the brains of the kids with small heads, and it must be true cause I heard it on the news last night. Don't trust the news - geesh. Then they said and they are finding that the zika virus is linked to Guillain–Barré syndrome too.
Now I am telling you that the first time I heard of Guillain Barre' back in 1978 connected with the series of three swine flu shot. They were massive out breaks of Guillain-Barre' which was very much linked to a vaccine.
So I have reasons to think the wool is being pulled over our eyes.long with it Gullian Bairre'
Posted by: Benedetta | March 09, 2016 at 05:59 PM
@ Benedetta
"Mississippi parents could not refuse any vaccines, for any reason. Not for religious, philosophical, or even medically."
I don't live in Mississippi .. but .. I do see hope.
Consider .. an odd thing happened just a few days ago .. in NYS .. waiting in my doctor's office for my wife .. I read a rather recently posted .. type-written notice (paraphrasing):
"TO ALL PATIENTS: This office no longer administers flu injections .. "free" flu injections are easily available for patients at CVS and other local drug stores".
What an odd statement .. especially by this particular doctor .. who for 35 years .. would not let his patients leave his office .. including my wife and myself .. until he asked each and every patient if they wanted a flu "vaccine" .. not a flu "injection".
Which leads me to believe he still administers the nasal flu vaccine .. but .. no longer administers the flu "vaccine" by "injection". What happened?
I suspect he has abandoned the annual flu "injection" because his patients have reported so many "adverse reactions" to it .. he no longer wants to be held responsible.
Consider .. as I understand it .. the annual flu vaccine receives the most "reported" adverse reaction complaints .. especially GBS .. which is usually dismissed as a "non-serious .. temporary condition" .. which only in extremely RARE instances .. cause serious .. life-threatening problems".
I say "usually dismissed as non-serious" until recently .. when it was SUDDENLY revealed by world health officials that GBS .. inflammation of the brain .. is a very SERIOUS neurological condition .. when caused by the Zika virus.
Think of their dilemma .. the guaranteed profits of those SELLING annual flu vaccines .. being held responsible for thousands of adverse reaction "claims" for causing GBS .. .. as opposed to .. the guaranteed profits of those SELLING a vaccine administered to prevent GBS caused by a mosquito carrying the ZIKA virus?
Admittedly .. I am an idiot when it comes to medical "science" .. but .. I suspect GBS would be the same .. whether caused by the flu vaccine administered by a doctor .. or .. by a mosquito?
To me .. the only difference is .. GBS caused by a "vaccine" may require financial compensation to the patient .. GBS caused by the "mosquito" can't.
It's probably just me .. but .. I none-the-less wonder why my doctor .. after 35 YEARS .. SUDDENLY .. stopped giving "flu injections"?
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 09, 2016 at 03:45 PM
Looking at the recent news:
Mississippi parents could not refuse any vaccines, for any reason. Not for religious, philosophical, or even medically.
Yes, that is right, not medically either because if a parent went to the doctor and points out the problem and the doctor agreed,even the doctor in Mississippi has no say other than writing a letter to the Mississippi health department people and guess what: These Mississippi health department people have been refusing the few requests that a busy doctor has sent them!
Recently: While parents watched from full and overflowing balconies; the Mississippi state government signed legislation that allows the doctor alone to make that decision.
And Trump not Cruz to my surprise -- won that state. And I wonder why the people of Mississippi won that state?
Posted by: Benedetta | March 09, 2016 at 09:56 AM
I just left this comment under Jonathan Rose's article (the full version on History News Network) but it might equally do for Mr Silberman:
-----------------
I recollect that when my son was first diagnosed (1995-6) one of the conversations that we had with the one of the diagnosticians was whether there had been any previous developmental quirks in the family - not at the level of extreme need mind you. In those days they were a bit more open about the fact that they were getting lots of cases not known a few years before. What they were telling me was that they thought there might be a genetic disposition but we were not talking about actual disablement (and patently we are not talking about disablement when it comes to someone like John Elder Robison). Of course, what they were not saying is what was different so that quirkiness was becoming in the new generation serious disablement requiring special facilities, new education units (for a disability which could not just be catered for in the old MLD/SLD schools), specialised officers etc. In 1996 Haringey had its first autism education officer for the borough, but the workload soon became too big: new units were having to be developed all over the place, I sat on committees....I think we have to look very carefully at the history of the 1990s.
In 2000 I tried to write an article for a national newspaper talking about local conditions. At first the health editor listened to me sympathetically: then someone at the National Autistic Society briefed against me and I was accused of lying
I have written quite a lot about the UK Adult Autism Survey - the frankly bizarre methodology speaks for itself, and indeed it was not only the methodolgy: every one of the 19 "cases" from which they somehow projected a national figure of 1% was capable of conducting a conversation and answering a questionnaire on the telephone. It is also important to point out how central this imposture became to US perceptions. It was published simultaneously with the US announcement that rate of autism had risen to the 1 % figure in children, and was subsequently repeatedly cited by Tom Insel as Director of the National Institute of Mental Health and chair of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.
If we were talking about people like John Elder Robison - a successful small businessman if I understand aright - we would not be talking about the costs of autism rising to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in the US.
Posted by: John Stone | March 09, 2016 at 07:22 AM
That an author of a book .. "NeuoTribes" .. that fraudulently claims autism should be embraced as a "natural and celebrated human difference" .. is a pretty good example of how "out of touch with the people" our country's elites have become.
Consider .. we are blessed to live in the United States .. once described as a "shinning city on a hill" .. yet .. today .. some estimate hundreds of thousands of people now reside in a "city that no longer shines" (cares) .. living their entire lives in quiet desperation .. their voices unheard .. their justified desperation rejected .. by the callous disregard of a celebrated author .. whose well-rewarded book goes to great lengths denying they even exist.
GO TRUMP
Posted by: Bob Moffit | March 09, 2016 at 06:47 AM
I tweeted once at Silberman about how his "theory" is harmful to severely impaired. He promptly blocked me. Occasionally I see his twitter handle pop up with the names of dorit reiss and liz ditz etc..in vaccine discussions. Kind of odd.
Posted by: Andrea | March 09, 2016 at 06:21 AM
It will hurt. Minimizing autism at the cost over a person's lifetime, both economically and emotionally is wrong. And if the rate continues we will not be able to even support an army and our nation will not survive.
Posted by: Go Trump! | March 08, 2016 at 09:19 PM
I know people who love the concept of neurotribes (several on the very mild end of Asperger's), and they don't reality to invade the lofty little world they've created in their minds. So let's compare all those individuals with autism who contributed so much to the betterment of society with those individuals who are nonverbal. Hmm, I don't know of one genius who has been officially and formally diagnosed with autism. I know lots of people who are nonverbal and not exactly having a great life. Given numbers like that, shouldn't we pay attention to those who are more vulnerable? I guess the answer is no
Posted by: Margaret | March 08, 2016 at 08:18 PM