(Note) We need no double dog dare, as Carol has offered. Have we failed? Been curtailed? Taken 100 wrong turns at Albuquerque? Followed the leader du jour hoping for the cure du jour? I offer no answers. Just a similar exhaustion. Occasional exasperation, freely admitted. We exist. That's dare enough.  KIM

By Carol Fruscella

"Secrecy is the enemy of the truth"... Oliver Stone. He said that to the Congress within the past week. He and others asked that after 60 years that the JFK assassination hearings should be reopened. 

In a few hours it will be the 25th anniversary of the first rally in DC for Autism Awareness. "Hear Their Silence". Much like Mr. Stone... I am still waiting for the truth. 

Over a decade ago a man by the name of William Thompson came forward and reported that "Documents had been shredded."

(insert crickets) 

For two decades I have struggled with not making MORE of an impact. I was young and naive. I was soooooo naive. The autism community was on a path then... a treatment... maybe even... a cure... for autism IF autism would be detected soon enough. 

(insert crickets)

For years I had a front row seat... then a side row seat... and a far theater backrow seat to the circus... maybe better said... to the powers that be, in DC. It mattered not who held the office of President. Neither a Democrat nor a Republican could overstep Anthony Fauci. Tony testified before Congress that vaccines had no links to autism. I watched the hearings. I watched many hearings. I have watched IACC do nothing. 

Millions upon millions... upon millions... of dollars spent. No "markers" found. Not one genetic link... and vaccines have not caused one in every 10 African American children to now be DX with... autism. Maybe... maybe not. NO ONE KNOWS! 

If a child has a reaction to penicillin... that drug is never administered again. If a child reacts to a vaccine... "nothing to see here... let's double down and give the same vax again and for the luck of it all... let's add a few more." 

Lunacy... I have watched and witnessed lunacy. 

Hey... how has the BLUE lightbulb event that Autism Speaks started change anything? 

I have attended more IEP's and ETR's and back in the day... MFE's before they were ETR's... than I have children that I personally gave birth to. I have been on boards. I have served a community while trying to save my own children. I did my job... as unpaid and unpromoted as it was. I have been mocked and misquoted. 

Should I be honored that an autism web page showed homage to something I wrote a few decades ago that was paraphrased and re-written and co-authored a decade later. No... I am frankly horrified. 

As a mom... and I was always a mom first... that met the next mom... I am ashamed. I am embarrassed. Frankly more horrified that maybe... just maybe... IF nothing was said and no rallies or events ever happened... MAYBE... we might be more on the winning side of treatments, insurance costs, housing, care plans, day habs, and total community involvement than where we are now. 

On the eve of the 25th anniversary of going to DC... to originally tell and show DC something that I knew they did not realize... the realization that some activists were always paid. Sadly, several parents along this journey figured out how to be paid or supported spokes people and STILL we as a cause and community are now in worse shape as a community than EVER.  

The saddest realization for me happened over a decade ago. One of my children had a classroom aide because my local school never had a child like that before to serve. That child was treated as a king in a small local school district that could find no other placement for him. If that child would have been born 15 to 20 years later... there is no classroom, better said full inclusion with so called typical peers. There are now classrooms to support that with limited or no inclusion. Today he never would have been mainstreamed. I am literally living beside the evidence of that. At age 19, the young man can hardly read or write. "We" just accept it. The autism Dx is now passed from grade to grade... because that child cannot learn due to his or her autism. 

Oh yes, we tried back then... a quarter of a century ago... each in our own ways. Sadly, many parents for... "Oh, look at just how impacted my child is." Hello... every child Dx has issues! This was never a race to win of who had the most impacted child... or now... 25 years later... impacted adult. 

How does one file for a full and proper divorce from a community? 

I double dog dare the "Age of Autism" to share this 25-year reflection.  

I am ashamed and embarrassed. I am horrified to the cost of all the children Dx in doctors' offices currently as my thoughts were read.

I entered this community as One out of every 500 children born. I exit... stage right... To one out of every 10 in any subset. In 25 more years, who will be left to reflect on this post?

Secrecy has always been the enemy of truth... lies... partial truths... and out right tall tales... that have never undermined any other cause as much as in the case of autism... Carol J. Fruscella... April 7th, 2025.