This is the best week to give thanks. Back in 2021, we shared the Handley family story of letterboarding as a means to finally, blissfully, exhaustedly, explosively, gratefully communicate. Below the intro to this new book is a March, 2021 post from JB we ran with a video that will warm your heart faster than a shot of Wild Turkey bourbon.

JB's book Underestimated gave rise to the Spellers movie. And now, Skyhorse has again shown its unending support for the autism community with a new book, The Spellers Guidebook.

However we can help our kids communicate is a blessing. There are many versions of letterboarding now.  Some of our kids use AAC, from the highest tech to the simple PECS. At the end of the day, ALL that matters is that we support people with autism to communicate by ANY means.

The Spellers Guidebook by Dawnmarie Gavin and Dana Johnson with foreword by J.B. Handley

A means by which thousands, and soon millions, of people are being freed from their lives of silence.
 
The Spellers Guidebook is the first of its kind—a comprehensive guidebook that every family should take along for their Spelling journey. From the moment you first learn about spelled communication through working with a practitioner, developing fluency, and everything in between, this book serves as a blueprint to follow while you build the skills to spell openly with your child.
 
The Spellers Guidebook is informative not only for parents and caregivers but for practitioners and professionals as well.

Here's JB post from March of 2021.

JB Handley and his son Jamison have written a book recounting how a method called Spelling2Communicate (not to be confused with facilitated communication) has given 18 year old Jamison a way to share his heart, his mind, his soul. Think of all of our kids who are pre-verbal - how smart they are. We know. We can see it in their receptive speech. We see it in their eyes. We also see the pleading look that says, "Help me."  Many of us have spent tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more, and devoted countless hours to our kids lives. Never satisfied with the grim prognoses of ignorant doctors and inside the box therapists, we've been ridiculed, written off and reviled for wanting MORE for our kids. What kind of more? How about the ability to ask for a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. A glass of orange juice instead of grape juice.  Communication. For Jamison and many others, Spelling2Communicate has worked. For others? Perhaps S2C or HALO from Soma have not been the best route to success. Watch the interview. We are approaching the April Fool's Month. It's time to turn our eyes from the pandemic BACK to autism and our ever growing needs. For Jamison? We say AMEN, young man. We are happy for you.  Amazon: Underestimated An Autism Miracle

We're used to being told that autism has no treatments or cures. We've taken beatings for decades regarding therapies and medical interventions, and guess what? Despite these beatings, our morale ALWAYS improves, because we never give up and rarely listen to so called "experts" like the nudniks at the American Speech Language and Hearing Association (ASHA.)   Experts in the case of "evidence based" science are often folks who have hit the jackpot known as Insurance Reimbursements for offering the therapies that universities have been paid to study and rubber stamp by industry. My daughters had school based speech therapy from age 3 through 22. Their therapists were lovely women ( we did not have a single male speech therapist in 57 cumulative school years.)  They meant well. They imparted what they were taught. They were kind. They tried. They made ZERO headway. I mean zero. Nothing the school SLPs did boosted my girls' ability to communicate or to make their needs known. Not even the exalted iPad - with the $300 apps one friend described as dropping 100 flashcards on the floor and expecting a sentence. Even worse with school based Occupational Therapy. Or as I call it, "The Pencil Holding Guild."  Not until we had a private therapist using reflex integration did we see benefits from OT.  Work she could NOT do in a school based setting.

JB Handley will tell you more about how the ASHA which is the organization that is supposed to champion communication, shuts it down.  His book, cowritten with his son Jamie, is our AofA Book Club book of the day. We're featuring books on our Instagram, and in our sidebar, which nobody sees any longer because we all read on mobile devices.

###

Excerpted from JB's blog, click to read the full post with video and much more ASHA tells 50 million nonspeakers, “you aren’t capable.”

September 17, 2022

PORTLAND, Oregon—We’re finishing up the filming for our new documentary, SPELLERS, a movie inspired by the book my son Jamie and I wrote in 2021 titled Underestimated: an Autism Miracle. Briefly, it's the story of the miraculous discovery my family made that our 17-year-old son Jamie was cognitively brilliant but “trapped” inside his own body. What freed him from this self-described “silent prison”? A communication method known as Spelling 2 Communicate, heretofore referred to as “S2C.” Here’s a great video primer on S2C:

Today, the miracle with Jamie continues unabated. Jamie no longer needs anyone to hold the keyboard for him. As you can see in the picture at the top of this post, Jamie is able to spell his thoughts and feelings independently, even with two cameramen filming his every move (well, you can’t actually see it yet, but trust me you will soon, that scene is in the movie!). At home, without the Hollywood klieg lights on, it gets even better: Jamie is now typing with two hands on a flat keyboard, communicating the way most of us do.

I’m guessing half the people reading this article don’t know what the ASHA acronym stands for (thanks for sticking with me!) so here you go: American Speech Language Hearing Association. Basically, it’s a trade group that represents more than 200,000 speech language pathologists, is based in Rockville, MD, and is run by a woman named Vicki Deal-Williams.

For those of you not in the autism world, Speech Language Pathologists (we call them “SLPs”) are a big deal. They work with our kids. They try to help them talk. Some of them are great, amazing people. And, those who call themselves SLPs only do so for one reason: they have received the accreditation of ASHA. These credentials allow them to refer to themselves as SLPs, and these hard-earned credentials are everything to them. Therefore, what ASHA says carries huge weight with them, and they sure don’t want their credential pulled by not marching to their tune.

And, in 2018, ASHA did something with their weight that has had a giant impact on the roughly 50 million nonspeakers in the world: they issued a proclamation stating that what my son was doing on a keyboard was a magic trick, was not coming from him, and that SLPs should run, not walk, away from ever using a letterboard and should actively discourage parents from trying S2C, too.... Read more here.

This video below from about one year ago, based on a study Eye-tracking reveals agency in assisted autistic communication Vikram K Jaswal 1 , Allison Wayne 2 , Hudson Golino 2.

As JB Handley and his son Jamison's book debuts next month, many naysayers will appear, some seeming to gloat over the impossibility of success for our pre/non-low verbal children, whether tots, teens or over 21. If that sounds jaded, I suppose it is. We're rarely allowed to bask in success.  No other lifelong, life threatening diagnosis gets this treatment. I heard a rumor that a major national autism group is lobbying to change April from Autism Awareness month to Autism Acceptance month. Check out the book Underestimated: An Autism Miracle from Skyhorse today.

Abstract

About one-third of autistic people have limited ability to use speech. Some have learned to communicate by pointing to letters of the alphabet. But this method is controversial because it requires the assistance of another person-someone who holds a letterboard in front of users and so could theoretically cue them to point to particular letters. Indeed, some scientists have dismissed the possibility that any nonspeaking autistic person who communicates with assistance could be conveying their own thoughts. In the study reported here, we used head-mounted eye-tracking to investigate communicative agency in a sample of nine nonspeaking autistic letterboard users. We measured the speed and accuracy with which they looked at and pointed to letters as they responded to novel questions. Participants pointed to about one letter per second, rarely made spelling errors, and visually fixated most letters about half a second before pointing to them. Additionally, their response times reflected planning and production processes characteristic of fluent spelling in non-autistic typists. These findings render a cueing account of participants' performance unlikely: The speed, accuracy, timing, and visual fixation patterns suggest that participants pointed to letters they selected themselves, not letters they were directed to by the assistant. The blanket dismissal of assisted autistic communication is therefore unwarranted.

###

Tonight! Monday, March 22, 2021 8:00pm Eastern Daylight time If you join the Facebook group of Dr. Teri and and Stu Warner, you can tune into a live interview with our favorite Batman of the autism warrior world, that would be Mr. JB Handley.   JB will share the story of his son Jamison, who has found his "voice" through Spelling2Communicate. 

Drs. Teri & Stu Warner and The Wellness Parenting Revolution

JB Handley and his son Jamison have written a book recounting how a method called Spelling2Com (not to be confused with facilitated communication) has given 18 year old Jamison a way to share his heart, his mind, his soul. Think of all of our kids who are preverbal - how smart they are. We know. We can see it in their receptive speech. We see it in their eyes. We also see the pleading look that says, "Help me."  Many of us have spent tens of thousands of dollars, maybe more, and devoted countless hours to our kids lives. Never satisfied with the grim prognoses of ignorant doctors and inside the box therapists, we've been ridiculed, written off and reviled for wanting MORE for our kids. What kind of more? How about the ability to ask for a chicken sandwich instead of a burger. A glass of orange juice instead of grape juice.  Communication. For Jamison and many others, Spelling2Communicate has worked. For others? Perhaps S2C or HALO from Soma have not been the best route to success. Watch the interview. We are approaching the April Fool's Month. It's time to turn our eyes from the pandemic BACK to autism and our ever growing needs. For Jamison? We say AMEN, young man. We are happy for you.  Amazon: Underestimated An Autism Miracle

Spring is the season for miracles and hope. No community has been DENIED hope and progress more than the pre-verbal with autism. Never stop seeking answers.  I saw my own daughters spell to communicate with Soma from HALO many years ago. I too was blown away. We were unable to maintain the work - but we will be starting again soon. We must. XOX  Kim

By JB Handley

I Was So Wrong About Autism. (Thank God!) 

PORTLAND, Oregon—Jamie is sitting at the desk in our home office, directly in front of a computer screen where Dana Johnson, an occupational therapist based in Florida, is guiding Jamie through a process she calls “self commands.” I’m sitting to Jamie’s right, laminated letterboard in hand, serving as Jamie’s “CRP,” an acronym familiar to the brave few undertaking a new communication method for nonspeakers with autism like Jamie known as Spelling 2 Communicate (“S2C”), which happens to be the subject of a new book co-written by me and Jamie that will be released next week by Skyhorse Publishing on March 23rd. (By the way, CRP stands for “Communication and Regulation Partner.”)

On the desk in front of Jamie sit three objects: a roll of scotch tape, a watch, and a pair of sunglasses. They are evenly spaced out and the directive for Jamie is really simple: using the letterboard, tell your dad which object you will be picking up, and then do so. My job is also very clear: beyond repeating what Jamie spelled—and he spelled “I will pick up the watch”—say and do absolutely nothing. Just sit there. And, so I do. Jamie sits there. Dana sits there (on the screen). Minutes go by. Jamie appears no closer to completing his declared task. He tries to get me to tickle him. Finally, Dana adds the first verbal command of this exercise: “Jamie, eyes on it.” Jamie looks down, reaches out his hand, and picks up the watch. We all celebrate!

It’s fair by now if you’re feeling confused as hell, especially if you’re the parent of a nonspeaking child with autism. A year ago, I certainly would have been confused. The last year has been, beyond an insane whirlwind, the most joyous and unexpectedly miraculous time of my life, my wife’s life, and, more than anyone else’s life, Jamie’s.

In December 2019, I got an unexpected text from an autism mom based in Philadelphia—Honey Rinicella—with a remarkable story to tell about her son Vince, another non speaker with autism, slightly older than Jamie. It turn out that Vince, over the course of the few months, has emerged from his silent prison through the letterboard to reveal a highly intelligent, warm, caring, thoughtful soul. As Honey explained to me at the time, “We thought the height of his cognition was ‘I want juice’ and now this!” What is “this” exactly, I ask? Honey delivers the goods. A recent lesson Vince had with his S2C practitioner included the following back and forth, the all caps is Vince’s answer to the question posed by his S2C teacher, meticulously spelled out on a letterboard:

If you’re struggling to understand what’s going on, I get it. Reading Vince’s complex language for the first time 15 months ago triggered a serious case of cognitive dissonance in me, and I did my best to try and explain away what I was reading as some wonderful quirk about Vince that everyone had somehow missed, but this couldn’t possibly extrapolate to my son Jamie, could it?  Read more at JB's blog HERE.

Friends, JB Handley is one of my career Godfathers. Many years ago he made me an offer I could not refuse. Start a blog for autism. That blog called Rescue Post grew into Age of Autism 14 years ago. JB has been a booming voice for people with autism. He co-founded Generation Rescue and has never backed down from the truth of what happened to his son Jamsion. Jamison is a lot like many of our children. Some call him "non-verbal." Some assume he is low IQ . For a long time, I have said that we need to use autism and its many stupid definitions (yes, I said stupid) as a credit card for services. I still believe that. My daughters also test with low IQ - and therefore qualify for services and supports here in Connecticut. And believe you me, I  need those services for them. But my daughters, like Jamison Handley, are not really intellectually disabled. Their intelligence and ability to SHOW it are held captive within autism. I see my Bella very much in Jamison's story. I have read JB's newest book, Underestimated: An Autism Miracle. Coming this Spring from Skyhorse Publishing. I saw Bella on every page. JB and Jamison  share how a therapy called Spell2Communicate (thanks R!) finally opened the channels. Two of my daughters saw Soma, twice, many years ago. While S2C is not Soma's HALO program, it is similar, and I can tell you that what my girls produced was nothing short of astounding and gut wrenching.

I'm going to talk to JB about ways to bring what he has learned closer to the AofA community. Maybe a Zoom event would be fun. 

You can pre-order the book now. Stay tuned for much more info.  From Amazon:

In Underestimated: An Autism Miracle, Generation Rescue’s cofounder J.B. Handley and his teenage son Jamison tell the remarkable story of Jamison’s journey to find a method of communication that allowed him to show the world that he was a brilliant, wise, generous, and complex individual who had been misunderstood and underestimated by everyone in his life.

Jamison’s emergence at the age of seventeen from his self-described “prison of silence” took place over a profoundly emotional and dramatic twelve-month period that is retold from his father’s perspective. The book reads like a spy thriller while allowing the reader to share in the complex emotions of both exhilaration and anguish that accompany Jamison’s journey for him and his family. Once Jamison’s extraordinary story has been told, Jamison takes over the narrative to share the story from his perspective, allowing the world to hear from someone who many had dismissed and cast aside as incapable.

Note: We are surprised yet pleased to see a mainstream site (NewsOK from Oklahoma) allowing this book review/editorial. I laughed when the ad that popped up was for flu shots at Yale New Haven. Good grief. The Bots sure are smart!  So is Dr. Steven Lantier. Let's hope he doesn't lose his job over writing this editorial.

###

Dr. Steven Lantier
Published 12/10/18, NewsOK.com

Read more here.

By J.B. Handley

In 2015, Oregon’s Health Authority (the state version of the CDC) published a table for school-required vaccinations that included detail about the “crude herd immunity threshold” that the published science showed was required for each vaccine in order for “the herd” (in this case, children in school) to be protected. Mumps and Rubella? 85%. Diphtheria? 85%. Polio? 50%. That’s not a typo, the threshold for polio is a 50% vaccination rate. What about Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B? They have no threshold, there’s just a little asterisk in the table next to each of them. And, why no threshold? Because the communicability for Hepatitis A and Hepatitis B is so low there is no percentage required or known, a child is more than welcome to attend school with an active Hepatitis B infection. The singular disease with a threshold over 90%? Measles.

An Op-Ed yesterday in the L.A. Times compelled me to respond. Mostly, I ignore the L.A. Times. Today, the newspaper is owned by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, a billionaire who made his money in the pharmaceutical industry. The separation of Pharma and media has never been less honored than at the L.A. Times, and their articles about “anti-vaxxers” consistently reveal an extreme bias. The newspaper happens to be based in one of three states that don’t allow schoolchildren vaccine exemptions to attend school, the other two being Mississippi and West Virginia (draw your own conclusions). There’s a new drumbeat in California, no doubt anticipating new legislation: California’s doctors aren’t responsible enough to be entrusted with writing medical exemptions for children, the state needs to take over this duty. The slippery slope of freedoms lost continues.

The only thing I know about Patrice Apodaca is that she used to be an LA Times staff writer. Her Op-Ed, titled, “Medical exemptions threatening herd immunity,” is a wonderful example of what happens when you combine extreme hysteria with wanton ignorance. Well-meaning parents turn on well-meaning parents. Ms. Apodaca is scared that the world is about to fall apart. She writes, “Even with that law now established [making vaccines mandatory in California], we see how fragile remains the effort to keep herd immunity intact.” Legislators pass useless laws. Children get sicker.

Ms. Apodaca tells us that California’s vaccination rates had dropped to a “dangerous” level of 90.4% in the 2014-15 school year, right before SB277 was passed to make vaccines mandatory in California. Of course, the number 90.4% by itself is meaningless. If we’re talking about Hepatitis B, Hepatitis A, Polio, Diphtheria, Mumps, or Rubella, that vaccination rate is more than adequate to keep those infectious diseases at bay, at least according to the Oregon Health Authority, who got their information from our national health authority, the CDC.

Most parents are shocked to learn that as late as 1986 we only had three licensed vaccines in the United States: MMR, Polio, and DTP. What were the vaccination rates for those three vaccines that year (1986)? 61%, 53%, and 63%, respectively. Just let that sink in for a moment. Were children dying in the streets in 1986? Did we “return to the dark ages” as many vaccine marketers tell us we will if parents exempt their children from any vaccines? I think you know the answer. Today, we have eleven licensed vaccines given 36 times to children before their fifth birthday. Many vaccines required for school aren’t even given to children in other first world countries—the U.K doesn’t give chicken pox, Denmark doesn’t give Hepatitis B, most don’t give the flu vaccine, the list is very long—but why let the facts confuse?

By Brian Nomi

How to End the Autism Epidemic was released on September 19, 2018.  It's gotten a very high number of reviews, 256 of them as of today, two weeks after release. 

Nineteen of these reviews are critical of the book:  One-star out of five.  That is fine, if someone does not like the book, that person is welcome to post a negative review and make his or her thoughts known. 

The very interesting thing about the criticisms of Handley is that several of them, about half, claim to be written by people with autism.  For example, Carola E. Wilhelmon claims to be on the spectrum, and states that " It is true that I haven't read the book," but that "eugenics of autistic people is going to be the next suggested step."  Mizanthrope states that " I am Autistic. I was Autistic before I was vaccinated. I'd get vaccinated again."  And then Janejira Damron claims to be on the autism spectrum, and writes " The real tragedy is the fact people believe these lies and teach their kids to view themselves as damaged and in need of correction."

Several attacks state that Handley must hate people with autism, because he is against autism.  One critic with the strange name of " Amazon Customer" writes:  "Autism isn't bad. Autistic people are valuable and worthwhile."   This is a theme carried out in many of the other negative reviews.  It's very strange, because anyone who has read Handley's book must see the love shining through clearly between JB and his son who has autism.  The stories of JB retiring from his job to devote himself to helping his son, the story about how JB's son nearly broke his hand from hitting himself in the head, and the story about JB taking his son into the outdoors where he is happiest, and swimming for the fun of it.  Nobody can read the book and think that JB hates his son or thinks his son is not valuable or worthwhile.

You read that correctly. 7,300 copies of JB Handley's best seller How to End the Autism Epidemic from Chelsea Green Publishing are now in the offices of every single legislator in the United States of America. Robert Kennedy Jr. is fiercely devoted to pediatric health and wellness.  He knows that the autism epidemic is devastating lives. Parents. Siblings. School systems. Soon adult programs and social security. And most of all - most important - those beautiful children, teens and adults WITH autism for whom live is often difficult beyond compare.

7,300 copies. One of those copies went to the office of Senator Richard Pan in California, vaccination bully and official legislative tool (interpret as you see fit) of the Pharmaceutical industry to demolish vaccine exemptions.  He won't read the book. Few will. But they have young staffers in childbearing years. Many of their siblings surely have autism. Even if they only read the back cover and skim the book, the seeds of knowledge will have been planted. Whether they bloom remains to be seen.  The thinkers will understand.

If you haven't purchased a copy, please consider doing so. Buy How To End the Autism Epidemic And leave a review at Amazon. That's very important to an author. A real, "I read this book and here's what I think," review.  Some of our readers disagree vehemently with part of the book. And that is OK.  We encourage all of our readers to share their thoughts.

You know there will be 1 star smearviews....   But not 7,300 of them!  KIM


#theautismbook #readthebook

By Julie Obradovic

There are moments when the magnitude of something that has happened in my life rise up and unexpectedly grab me by the throat. The favorite song of a friend who died too young. The smell of my grandmother’s perfume on a letter she wrote. The voicemail my Godmother left that I’ve never erased. The favorite t-shirt of my five year old son, and the memory of him it.

He’s 20 now.

These are the moments when life takes hold and won’t let go, even if only for a second, reminding you of how fragile it is, how special it is, and how quickly it goes. Reminding you of the best and the worst, the happiest and the saddest, the most joyful, and yes, the most painful.

The challenge of it all is how to make it less painful, and in my experience, that’s with a lot of prayer, a lot of writing, a lot of crying, a lot of running, a lot of family, and a lot of friendship. One day after years of moving forward, one step, one day at a time, you suddenly realize, hey...that doesn’t really hurt like it used to...or sometimes not even at all.

For the truly tragic things we experience, however, I’m not so sure those ever really go away.

Like so many people, I have experienced a lot of pain. Lost dreams, lost love, and recently a lost marriage shattered the image of the life I had once envisioned. Some losses I own, some just happened, and others were stolen. I accept what I am responsible for, and I’d like to think I have forgiven those who have stolen from me in one way or another, but every so often, I realize….

I have not.

Well, at least one of them I have not. The loss of my daughter to regressive autism.The most painful and difficult loss I have ever experienced and hopefully ever will.

From the time she slipped away beginning around 8 months of age until only a few years ago, I lived in a low level chronic state of anxiety, anger, regret, and guilt. I was often overwhelmed by her needs and more so why she had them to begin with, and I largely put the blame for all of it on my own shoulders.

I wasn’t a good enough mother. I didn’t ask the right questions...do the right research...see the right doctors...do the right therapies...do enough therapies. I was the reason it happened, and I was the reason it wasn’t better. ALL the way better. Not some of the way. Not a little bit better.

Better.

We got more than most, and for that I am forever grateful. But make no mistake, I wanted more. I still do.

 

It's DEBUT DAY for JB Handley's new book, How to End the Autism Epidemic. Check out the Amazon stats from last evening.  Order your copy today!  Don't forget to use Amazon Smile to support Age of Autism.

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing (September 19, 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1603588248
• ISBN-13: 978-1603588249
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Medical Books > Basic Sciences > Immunology
  • #1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Medicine
  • #1 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Children's Health > Autism & Asperger's Syndrome

 

Congratulations to "Jersey Girl" who has just won a signed, first edition of JB Handley's new book!  The pre-orders are selling like crazy and you bet there will be a second printing.

Friends, this books is already burning up Amazon.

Join us as we help launch JB Handley's new book, How To End the Autism Epidemic.

Grab a MEME  a Google docs and share!  Follow progress on JB's Facebook author page. Pre-order your copy today here.

Friends, this books is already burning up Amazon. the publisher Chelsea Green has ordered a HUGE first printing and it's selling out. JB just got his first published copies and has offered one to an Age of Autism reader! Leave a comment with your email in the email in the comment form to enter!   This will be a great read and a collectable gem too. GOOD LUCK! 

Join us as we help launch JB Handley's new book, How To End the Autism Epidemic.

Grab a MEME  a Google docs and share!  Follow progress on JB's Facebook author page. Pre-order your copy today here.

Join us as we help launch JB Handley's new book, How To End the Autism Epidemic. Publisher Chelsea Green reports that pre-order sales have been brisk to date. Debut is just a few weeks away.  Grab a MEME  a Google docs and share!  Follow progress on JB's Facebook author page. Pre-order your copy today here.

Good morning family and friends. GR founder and Age of Autism founding Editor JB Handley has written a striking book called "How to End the Autism Epidemic," that we think will reach the moveable middle - those parents, grandparents, providers who have a niggling feeling "something" is going with our children, but haven't yet come to terms with possibility of vaccination as a cause. These folks are legion in numbers. They are smart, curious, concerned - but haven't taken the direct body blows that so many of us have with our kids in terms of critical health and developmental status. These are not the full pro-vaxxers in the media and on social media who will not budge. Nor as they they full anti-vaxxers who believe no one should ever accept any vaccination and want a complete moratorium. Both sides are entitled to their spaces on the bell curve. 

Many loyal, appreciated AofA readers are staunchly against all vaccination, and we are happy to educate our readers with their knowledge and promote and share their work, views, etc.  We acknowledge that MOST of the nation simply is not there.  Folks will not leap from "Wait, there's a problem," to "OK, let's end the program."   That said, we can speak to the moveable middle and push them toward vaccine choice, safety, full denial for their families if they so choose - and away from mandates, punitive laws and piling on more vaccines. 

Make sure you check out his blog:  J.B. Handley is the father of a beautiful child with Autism. He and his wife co-founded Generation Rescue, a national autism charity, in 2005. He spent his career in the private equity industry and received his undergraduate degree with honors from Stanford University in 1991.

His first book, "How to End the Autism Epidemic," will be published in September 2018 by Chelsea Green Publishing and is available for pre-order on Amazon.

 

 

JB Handley is on a tear. And that's great, unless he has you in his sights.  We invite you to bookmark his blog here. And make sure you order his debut book, How to End the Autism Epidemic today, available next month from Chelsea Green Publishing.

###

A vaccine-industry insider has created an imaginary world where the next outbreak is imminent if we don't do something and—Gasp!—his idea dovetails perfectly with the aim of vaccine makers: remove all vaccine exemptions from parents and make vaccination mandatory for school attendance. In trying to create this imaginary world, however, Dr. Hotez has exposed himself to the scrutiny he deserves for a sloppy, scientifically unsound hoax of a paper.

HOUSTON, Texas —There's a new scaremonger in town, and his name is Dr. Peter Hotez. With a resume so jam-packed with vaccine industry conflicts —including patents he holds on experimental vaccines —Dr. Hotez should be the last person any journalists would trust or quote on the topic of vaccinations, but quite the opposite is true in our Pharma-funded mainstream media. It's as if Joe Camel himself were standing up and trying to convince the world that second-hand smoke is no big thing, yet here we are.

The Boy Who Cried, "Zika!"

If you're unfamiliar with Dr. Hotez, he was the go-to scaremonger the media relied upon when they were trying to convince everyone that Zika was about to take over the United States, just listen to Dr. Hotez turn up the panic meter:

Parents of vaccine-injured children "hate their kids"

Like any shill for vaccine makers, Dr. Hotez is equally loud on the topic of vaccines and autism, and is often the go-to quote in the media whenever the discussion of vaccines and autism comes up. Speaking before a packed house of vaccine industry insiders at Duke University earlier this year, Dr. Hotez provided his take on vaccine rights groups that have cropped up in every state, made up largely of parents of vaccine-injured children with autism:

“Anti-vaccine organizations camouflage themselves as a political group, but I call them for what they really are: a hate group. They are a hate group that hates their family and hates their children.”

Really, he really said that!  Read much more here.

JB Handley talks about his family's journey of  vaccine injury, regression and autism on the Pat Miller program on WOWO, Ft. Wayne Indiana.  It may be your family's journey too. We encourage you to pre-order his book, How To End the Autism Epidemic," due this fall from Chelsea Green Publishing.

Huge congratulations to JB Handley on his forthcoming book, How to End the Autism Epidemic from Chelsea Green Publishing. It's already #1 in the disability parenting category on Amazon - a full 2 months before it's ready to ship! Pre-orders are HUGE for any book and this shows that JB's "brand" stands out from the rest - and that the autism community trusts him as a source of in your face, accurate, real deal information. Order your copy today!  Congrats, JB!

In How to End the Autism Epidemic, Generation Rescue’s co-founder J.B. Handley offers a compelling, science-based explanation of what’s causing the autism epidemic, the lies that enable its perpetuation, and the steps we must take as parents and as a society in order to end it.

While many parents have heard the rhetoric that vaccines are safe and effective and that the science is settled about the relationship between vaccines and autism, few realize that in the 1960s, American children received three vaccines compared to the thirty-eight they receive today. Or that when parents are told that the odds of an adverse reaction are “one in a million,” the odds are actually one in fifty. Or that in the 1980s, the rate of autism was one in ten thousand children. Today it’s one in thirty-six.

Parents, educators, and social service professionals around the country are sounding an alarm that we are in the midst of a devastating public health crisis―one that corresponds in lockstep with an ever-growing vaccine schedule.

Why do our public health officials refuse to investigate this properly―or even acknowledge it?

In How to End the Autism Epidemic, Handley confronts and dismantles the most common lies about vaccines and autism. He then lays out, in detail, what the truth actually is: new published science links the aluminium adjuvant used in vaccines to immune activation events in the brains of infants, triggering autism; and there is a clear legal basis for the statement that vaccines cause autism, including previously undisclosed depositions of prominent autism scientists under oath.

While Handley’s argument is unsparing, his position is ultimately moderate and constructive: we must continue to investigate the safety of vaccines, we must adopt a position of informed consent, and every individual vaccine must be considered on its own merits. This issue is far from settled. By refusing to engage with parents and other stakeholders in a meaningful way, our public health officials destroy the public trust and enable the suffering of countless children and families.

You simply must listen to or watch this episode of The High Wire with Del Bigtree featuring Mark Blaxill, JB Handley, Robert Kennedy Jr  and Dr. Brian Hooker. The damn has a crack. And while American children become sicker and less able to accomplish neurotypical development, the pharma/govt cabal is jamming as many fingers into the dike e as possible. The truth, like water, wears away even rock. Thank you to everyone who fights for our kids' health. Our adult kids. Our teens. Our toddlers and babies. And the unborn. This epidemic can not continue unabated without responsibility and yes - reparations.

From Mark Blaxill:

CA autism data has been consistent for years, goes back a long time and has gone from basically zero to over 1%. Generally speaking the CA cases have excluded mild and high functioning diagnoses. 

1. There’s no evidence that CA is unusual. Other states have higher numbers. Including Asperger cases some have much higher rates. 
2. As we know, the major inflection point is around 1990. But the earlier, lower rates began kicking up around 1980 and then the high rates accelerated again around 2007.

One fascinating observation is that as of yesterday, California Autism Prevalence Trends from 1931 to 2014 and Comparison to National ASD Data from IDEA and ADDM has had 25,000 downloads of the article since last week.

JB Handley has written a fantastic new book that debuts this Fall from Chelsea Green Publishing titled How to End the Autism Epidemic.  We ask you to buy a pre-order copy to support JB's tireless work for our children. Thanks. 

 

Note: As only JB Handley can write it.....

“A cornerstone of the neurodiversity movement is the assertion that autism is an exclusively genetic condition. This position is no longer tenable in the face of statistical and epidemiological analysis.” - Twilah Hiari, Neurodiversity is Dead. Now What?

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, Vermont —Last week, my publisher, Chelsea Green Publishing, revealed the news that my new book, How to End the Autism Epidemic, would not only be released on September 19th, but that it was also #1 on Amazon.com in a number of categories, including both the "Autism and Asperger's" and  "Vaccination" categories. You'd think my book, which provides a clear, unequivocal, and science-based explanation for how, exactly, vaccines are triggering the autism epidemic would be heavily criticized by the vaccine industry and all its minions. And, at the right time, I'm sure it will. What I didn't expect was the shocking response to my book from a faction of the autism community often referred to as "the neurodiverse." 

In an immediate fury, Chelsea Green's Facebook post about my book was bombarded by neurodiverse advocates, claiming the book is "ableist" (basically, bigotry towards those who are disabled), that it advocates "eugenics" and "genocide", "promotes hate," and that clearly I, the author, must "hate my own child." 

As the parent of a beautiful child with autism still struggling with what is, at times, a devastating disability, I found the comments of the neurodiverse to be shockingly brutal and gut-wrenchingly nasty, while also being categorically untrue. Since my book hasn't been released yet, of course none of these commenters know exactly what my book says, but I can assure everyone that it's neither hate-filled (except perhaps towards the CDC), nor does it advocate eugenics or genocide as a way to deal with the autism epidemic.

The neurodiverse took exception to calling autism an "epidemic" and wanting to "end" it which, if you subscribe to the neurodiverse view of the world that some do, effectively threatens everything they believe, and can be viewed as a form of intolerance. Let me explain with a little background.

Neurodiversity: A great idea (at first) for respecting neurological differences

Read more here.

This post by JB Handley is no longer available on the Medium.com site. However, the WayBack Machine has crawled and archived it.  Ain't technology grand? Medium site. Small tolerance for content that doesn't appease the pharma gods. Thanks to Adriana G. for finding this post on WayBack. K


Did Chinese scientists find autism’s missing puzzle piece?

BY J.B. HANDLEY February 22, 2017

Scientists appear to be far closer to explaining the mechanisms of action within the body that cause autism. Most of the research that has created this understanding has been published in the last 36 months, and largely from international scientists in Canada, France, Israel, and China. Four clear, replicable, and related discoveries explaining how autism is triggered are forming an undeniably clear picture of autism’s causation, and possibly ways to alleviate the symptoms, too.

PASADENA, California — When Caltech scientist Dr. Paul Patterson passed away in 2014, I had little appreciation that he had triggered a chain of events over the course of his career that may now provide a clear and unambiguous explanation of how and why my son developed autism back in 2004. Knowing exactly how my son’s autism was caused is incredibly important to my wife and I, because the more information we have about causation, the more chance we have to do something about it, and perhaps recover my son from an affliction now impacting 1 in 48 American kids.

What you’re about to read is the product of more than two dozen very recent peer-reviewed published scientific studies, with really no original thought by me. I’m a businessman and a father, but what follows is a “grand theory of autism” so complete and well-supported that I think it deserves the attention of every member of the autism community. When the totality of this explanation became clear to me, not only did my jaw hit the floor, but I was immediately consumed with thoughts about how this clear explanation might impact the way we treat our son’s autism, and I hope it does the same for you and perhaps your doctor as well. What I’m certain of is that this “grand theory” needs to be heavily debated, and I hope by putting it in the public realm I help move it along that path. (I’m indebted to an anonymous scientist who runs a website called Vaccine Papers, where many of these insights came from. I will quote VP throughout this piece, referring to VP as “VP.” I highly recommend you read the totality of his website, where the explanations are far more scientific than what you will read here.)

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the final piece of this puzzle came from China. I’ve listened closely to the stories of American scientists wanting to study autism and complaining that any studies that are even remotely controversial are nearly impossible to fund or get approved. As you will see, Chinese scientists do not appear to have that same constraint. In a way, many American, Canadian, and French scientists have pioneered a pretty clear picture of how autism is caused, and the Chinese helped tie it all together. That’s at least my interpretation, please make your own judgment.

Discovery #1: “Maternal Immune Activation” can cause autism

Caltech’s Dr. Paul Patterson

While Dr. Patterson’s passing wasn't something I was aware of at the time, it was certainly recognized by the scientific community, of which his obituary from Caltech explains in great detail. Dr. Patterson’s “research focused on interactions between the nervous and immune systems — a connection that was not universally acknowledged in the early days of neuroscience” explains his obituary, “he became intrigued by epidemiological studies that had linked a severe viral or bacterial infection during pregnancy with the increased risk of a woman giving birth to a child with a neurodevelopmental disorder such as schizophrenia or autism. Patterson and his coworkers reproduced this human effect in mice using a viral mimic that triggers an infection-like immune response in the mother, producing in the offspring the core behavioral symptoms associated with autism and schizophrenia.”

In 2006, Dr. Patterson introduced his complex understanding of the interaction between the immune system and neurodevelopment through an excellent article in the Engineering & Science journal, titled Pregnancy, Immunity, Schizophrenia, and Autism. I hope you’ll take the time to read this for yourself, Dr. Patterson does a great job of explaining his discovery to the uninitiated, it’s really a seminal work. Here’s a quote:

“As we learn more about the connections between the brain and the immune system, we find that these seemingly independent networks of cells are, in fact, continually talking to each other. As an adult, the activation of your immune system causes many striking changes in your behavior — increased sleep, loss of appetite, less social interaction — and, of course, headaches. Conversely, stress in your life (as perceived by your brain) can influence immune function — the brain regulates immune organs, such as the spleen, via the autonomic nervous system.

Recent evidence shows that this brain-immune conversation actually starts during the development of the embryo, where the state of the mother’s immune system can alter the growth of cells in the fetal brain. As we shall see, such alterations can lead to an increased risk of schizophrenia or autism in the offspring.”

Are you with me so far? Basically, what Dr. Patterson is saying is that if a pregnant mother gets sick (virus, bacteria) while pregnant — an event that “activates” her immune system — that activation can impact the neurodevelopment (how exactly the brain is constructed) of her fetus, potentially leading to neurological problems after birth. Dr. Patterson took this explanation a step further, explaining that the brains of people with autism reflect the immune system activation that took place, even decades later, as he cites valuable work being done at Johns Hopkins:

Read the rest here at The WayBack Machine.

Note: JB Handley is writing a book that delves into the astonishing science that proves the dangers of using aluminum as an adjuvant in vaccines. Science moves forward - one hopes.  As mercury as been removed from the bulk of the pediatric vaccine schedule, this equally nefarious metal has been added.  We know for a fact that our children are facing a very different childhood experience.  The CDC term "adverse childhood events" is new to the pediatric lexicon. However, while CDC considers outside events only, we need to look at what is going into our children. As so many of us, including JB, founder of Generation Rescue, have been saying for more than a decade. Thank you, JB.

From JB:

NOTE: We've excerpted this from JB Handley's Medium.com blog. 

Five clear, replicable, and related discoveries explaining how autism is triggered have formed an undeniably clear picture of autism’s causation, and possibly ways to alleviate the symptoms, too. Most of the research that has created this understanding has been published in the last 36 months, and largely from international scientists in the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Israel, and China. The U.S. media? Silent.

STAFFORDSHIRE, England — Of course there’s great irony that scientists emanating from Great Britian may have provided a final piece of data explaining how, exactly, autism is being triggered in at least some children. Students of this debate know that in 1998 another British doctor — Dr. Andrew Wakefield — sounded an alarm based on a case series report he and twelve of his colleagues published describing a novel bowel condition in children with autism. In the case of Dr. Wakefield and his colleagues, they chose to disclose in their study that the majority of the parents of the children in their study had reported regression into autism after a single vaccine: the MMR.

Dr. Wakefield’s recommendation for how to deal with the regression into autism some parents saw after the MMR was pretty modest: he recommended the MMR vaccine be broken up into three separate shots. Wait until you hear what a different British scientist, this one the world’s leading expert on the neurotoxicity of aluminum, just said last week about children’s vaccines.

Read the full piece here.

 

NOTE: Thanks to JB Handley for this great post on Medium.com.  Bookmark his site and make sure to read his work regularly!

CHIPPEWA FALLS, WI — Anne Dachel is a relentless advocate for the health of America’s children. The mother of an adult son on the autism spectrum, Anne has been a teacher for three decades and has seen the stunning increase in the number of sick children (both mentally and physically) in America’s schools. She writes:

“We keep looking for ways to explain what’s happening to our children, while we pretend nothing has changed. I’ve heard lots of teachers say things like, ‘they come with so many issues from home,’ ‘they used to be kept at home,’ and ‘they used to be in institutions.’

The truth is, kids today live in a chemical soup. Toxins are everywhere. They breathe toxins, eat toxins, and have toxins injected into their bodies. It’s amazing they’re doing as well as they are.

When you look at the number of chronically sick kids that fill our schools, is it such a stretch to realize that their developmental health (social and behavioral) has been equally impaired?”

Anne relentlessly audits the media and how they report on the epidemic rise in autism and other neurological disorders. Her book, The Big Autism Cover-Up: How and Why the Media Is Lying to the American Public is an excellent critique of the mainstream media’s handling of the autism epidemic.

13% of Children are in Special Education!

Read more here.

Thanks to JB Handley for allowing us to excerpt this important post. If you have friends whose kids are nearing age 11, make sure they read up on Gardasil and Cevarix vaccines.

By JB Handley

PORTLAND, Oregon — I have no financial reason to write this article. I’m just a dad. My son was injured by a vaccine, so I’ve spent more than ten years becoming an expert on a topic I never planned to know much about. My only audience for this article is other parents.

The HPV vaccine (of which Gardasil is one brand name) is being aggressively pushed on teenage girls and boys here in the U.S. In fact, there are many state legislators who are trying to make HPV Vaccines mandatory for children to attend school, a push that was recently successful in Rhode Island:

RI requires all 7th grade students to be vaccinated for HPV

“Despite a challenge from opponents earlier this year, it’s mandatory in the state of Rhode Island for all incoming seventh grade students to receive the HPV vaccine.”

Meanwhile, most Americans are in the dark that a brushfire is burning in countries all over the world, including Japan (where HPV vaccine uptake rates are down to 1%), Denmark (near 10%), Colombia (near 5%), Ireland, Sweden, Spain, New Zealand, France, Canada, and India where the startling rate of vaccine injury and questionable risk-benefit is fueling repeated national controversies.

Why does Gardasil matter so much in the U.S.? Here’s an article from Bloomberg Business from 2 months ago that might give you a clue:

Merck Beats Estimates as Sales of Gardasil Vaccine Surge

“Merck & Co.’s third-quarter profit topped analysts’ estimates, helped by better-than-expected sales of the vaccine Gardasil…”

Read JB's full post here.

From JB Handley on Medium.com- "7 Reasons why CDC Employees Should Be Crying in the Hallways."

PORTLAND, Oregon — Question: The day after Donald Trump’s unexpected win in the presidential election last week, how many government agencies had reports in the media of their employees “crying in the hallways”?

Answer:

Exactly one. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based in Atlanta, GA.

As a long-time critic of the CDC, I was pretty shocked to see this headline last week, courtesy of Atlanta’s NPR radio station, 90.1 WABE:

Atlanta CDC Employees Express Anxiety Over Trump’s Win

Employees at the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say the mood in their office is somber. The…
news.wabe.org

The story detailed the climate at CDC the day after the election:

“At the General Muir deli across the street from the CDC, a few employees talked to WABE, asking that their names not be used. One microbiologist said her colleagues were crying in the hallways.”

“It’s really sad,” she said. “It’s depressing. I’m eating a bagel to try and be happy.”

The average voter — even a Trump supporter — probably has no idea why CDC employees might be “crying in the hallways,” while the average autism parent (meaning those of us who have children with autism) like me understands it perfectly. Frankly, it’s pretty hard for me to write about the CDC without shaking with at least a little bit of rage. On the off chance this is your first time considering this topic, I’ll steady my hands and explain it to you:

Source: learntherisk.org

The CDC is in charge of recommending the vaccination schedule for U.S. children, which has grown from 5 total doses in the 1960s to more than 70 today.
   
The CDC is ALSO in charge of monitoring vaccine safety for those more than 70 doses.
   
In an ironic twist (at least for parents like me), the CDC is ALSO in charge of tracking the number of children with Autism in the U.S., a number that has grown from 1 in 10,000 in the 1980s to 1 in 68 today.

For many autism parents, the CDC being in charge of both implementing the vaccine schedule and monitoring the safety of vaccines has always felt like an extreme conflict of interest.

And, we were never alone in that feeling.

10 years ago, two members of Congress, Representatives Dave Weldon and Carolyn Maloney, tried to pass a bill to separate vaccine safety from the CDC: Read more here.

PORTLAND, Oregon — First, a disclaimer: I’m not a doctor, and the final decision about vaccinating your child should take place between you and your healthcare provider. I’m not giving you medical advice; I’m stating my opinion.

I am a dad. And, I write this without benefitting in anyway from what is said here. I have no book to peddle, no profits to protect, and there’s no doubt that writing this will result in some amount of hate directed in my general direction for challenging a popular narrative that vaccines are only safe and effective and should be administered the same way to all children without consideration for the unique biology of each and every child. So be it.

About the title

How could this be the only vaccine guide you’ll ever need? Like the old adage about teaching someone to fish, I believe my words will help you to do two things that can put you in control of the vaccine decision for your child and family:

1. Do your own research. Understand the risks and benefits of everything you are putting into your child.

 

Every single person is different. There is no part of medicine where “one size fits all” is a good idea.

If you understand the harm vaccines can cause in some children and the benefits they provide, you won’t be intimidated by any pressure or judgment being placed on you by others.

2. Find a healthcare provider who doesn’t believe “one size fits all” when it comes to vaccines

The relationship between you and a doctor when it comes to vaccines is critical. There is a lot of shame and intimidation used in the healthcare profession to goad parents into vaccinating. This is wrong on so many levels, and there are also many healthcare providers who don’t believe one size fits all, who do believe every child is different, and who work with parents to provide the best plan for each child. Find that doctor. (And if someone shames you or tries to coerce you, run away fast!) They exist in every region of the country — network with parents until you find one. They might be a naturopath, a D.O., or a chiropractor, just find one!

 

That was easy, right? Do those two things (your own research, find a great healthcare provider) and you will be in great shape.

So you know, I did neither of those things when I had young kids in the early 2000s. I did no research. I went with the local pediatrician everyone else seemed to use. I regret those choices deeply, which is why I’m writing this to you right now*.

(*like tens of thousands of other American parents, I watched my son decline into Autism after following the vaccine schedule perfectly.)

I’m going to do 2 more things with this post to hopefully get you on your way to a better understanding of vaccines:

1. I’ll share with you ten truths about vaccinations that most people — and especially new parents — don’t typically know
2. I will go through every vaccine currently recommended for American children by the CDC and give you my opinion on their risk vs. benefit

Ten truths about vaccines most people don’t know

Read more at Medium.com

By J.B. Handley

Back in September, I wrote an AoA post where I expressed my support of Donald Trump for President for one simple reason: he stands with my son in telling the truth about what has been done to our children and the reality of the Autism epidemic.

A funny thing happens when you support a guy like Donald Trump: many of those closest to you think you’ve flipped a switch, and that your support must also mean you support every single thing that Donald Trump says and does.

To repeat what I said in September: I’m a single-issue voter, and I really mean that. I’m blind to every other policy issue and decision. Wall with Mexico? Tough talk with other countries? Xenophobic profiling? I simply don’t care. While I may not personally agree with some of Trump’s ideas or views (and I have faith that the most radical ones are unlikely to ever happen), none of them are as important to me as the over 1 million American children (and many more worldwide) who have had their lives destroyed by an out-of-control vaccine industry.

I voted for Barack Obama. Twice. I’d argue that anyone who joins me in being a single-issue voter must agree that Barack Obama has failed our kids 100%. Under his reign, things for our community and our children have only gotten worse.

Back in September, I assumed like most that Trump’s candidacy was a long shot. Like you, I squealed with delight when Trump brought up the truth about our kids in widely watched national debates. But, I figured it was just a moment in time.

How times have changed! And, I’m curious if we’ve all really internalized what’s happening here: the guy who is more than likely to be the Republican nominee for President speaks with an honesty about what has been done to our children that was nearly banned from national TV just a few years ago!!

Can we take a moment and remember just how powerful and on point some of the things Trump has said really are? Consider this:

“I’ve seen it,” he said at the second main-stage GOP debate on

“You take this little beautiful baby, and you pump — it looks just like it’s meant for a horse," he said of vaccines.

 

"We’ve had so many instances ... a child went to have the vaccine, got very, very sick, and now is autistic."

The GOP front-runner said he still supported certain vaccines, but in smaller doses over a longer period of time. Under current procedures, he said it's dangerous for the public. “Autism has become an epidemic, he said. “It has gotten totally out of control.”

Re-reading his quotes, it takes my breath away. Trump said those things with 30 million people watching!

So, as Trump heads towards a near-guaranteed Republican nomination (obviously anything can happen in politics, but it’s looking more certain by the day), I want to ask all of you a question: where is our community on Trump? Can we put our respective voter cards in a drawer aligning us with a single political party and all come together and endorse Trump? Can AoA, SafeMinds, Focus for Health, NAA, TTMR, Autism One, Generation Rescue, and all the other wonderful Autism organizations out there come together and support Trump for a single reason? Doesn’t Trump need our support? Don’t you think that Pharma is about to turn up the heat on Trump? (My personal guess is they finally roll out Bill Gates: Billionaire vs. richer billionaire.)

While I’m on the topic of Trump, in case anyone is listening, I wanted to offer up my own opinions about policy and legislative initiatives that I hope the Trump camp will consider to constructively untangle the Autism mess:

Science:

Order real science to be done by the NIH on both vaccinated versus unvaccinated children and animal models to test the hypothesis that the change in the rate of Autism has been caused by the growing vaccine schedule.

Thanks to JB Handley for this important article - please share.  You can read the entire article at Medium.com  An Angry Father’s Guide to Vaccine-Autism Science (understanding “distracting research”)

PORTLAND, Oregon — We autism parents are being browbeaten by a mantra from the mainstream media and health authorities spoken so loudly and repeated so often that it seems it simply must be true, namely:

    “It’s been asked and answered, vaccines do not cause autism.”

The science has been done. Deal with it. Case closed.

How do you fight against something repeated by so many seemingly respectable and informed people? Ben Carson just said it yesterday:

    Because we live in a society where almost everybody gets vaccines, they make that false correlation. There’ve been multitudinous scientific studies that have demonstrated that there’s no correlation. It’s sort of like if all of a sudden everybody had to eat carrots, and we say that every week you have to eat a dozen carrots, and then somebody would be saying, ‘You know, that’s what’s causing the autism.’ They’re all eating the carrots, and this certain percentage has autism.

(And, yes, he just compared getting vaccinated to eating a carrot.)
He’d probably prefer the carrot.

If a doctor running for President is saying it, it must be true! Right?

Well, no, wrong actually. If any interested party would devote 30 minutes of their life to looking at the actual details of the “multitudinous” science done to date, they’d understand the truth, too.

If I told you that none of the studies used to “prove” vaccines don’t cause autism come remotely close to asking the right questions about cause and effect or even consider the proper control groups to get to an answer, would you believe me?

If I told you that every time someone like Richard Pan of California or Ben Carson or Bob Wright of Autism Speaks references the “science”, they are just promulgating a lie, would you be skeptical enough of their collective motivations to consider that I might have a fair point?
Backstory: manufacturing doubt

Modern history is replete with examples of the true causation of man-made calamities being obscured and contested for decades by experts producing “science” to support their predetermined conclusions. This “manufacturing of doubt” — an explicit and well-understood process — is not only delaying justice for millions of children around the world, but it’s also falsely reassuring parents right now that vaccines are playing no role whatsoever in permanently damaging the neurology of America’s kids.

Tobacco and lung cancer, coal smoke and acid rain, CFCs and the ozone layer, and global warming are all recent examples of the very same phenomenon: relatively obvious scientific truths (today) had to endure decades of contention from “scientists” publishing “science” that was, at the very least, artfully contrived, and, at worse, downright fraudulent. (You could argue that the “WMD” fiasco justifying the invasion of Iraq was an offshoot of this same phenomenon.)

By J.B. Handley

It’s really not that hard: there is a guy running for President who has a viable chance at the Republican nomination who is telling the truth about what happened to my son and several million other children around the world. He is telling this truth despite the unbelievable influence and pressure of the pharmaceutical industry. He is telling the truth despite the fact that the CDC, IOM, AAP, and many others have all buried their heads in the sand and gone into damage control. He is telling the truth despite the fact that even Autism Speaks has bailed on this issue. And, with 23 million people watching, Donald Trump did not mince his words when given the chance to tell the truth about our kids:

“Autism has become an epidemic.  25 years ago, 35 years ago, you look at the statistics, not even close.  It has gotten totally out of control.  I am totally in favor of vaccines, but I want smaller doses over a longer period of time.  Because you take a baby in--and I've seen it…I had my children taken care of over a long period of time, over a two or three year period of time--same exact amount.You take this little, beautiful baby and you pump--I mean it looks like it's meant for a horse, not for a child, we've had so many instances, people who work for me.  Just the other day, two years old, two and a half years old, the child, the beautiful child went to have the vaccine and came back an a week later, got a tremendous fever, got very very sick, now is autistic.  I only say--I'm in favor of vaccines, do them over a longer period of time--same amount, just in little sections."

AoA has always been a terrible forum for politics, and rightly so: we Autism parents come from very diverse backgrounds and the chances of us agreeing on something as complex as politics is virtually nil.

But, I will make the point to you anyway: Donald Trump is the best thing that has happened to our kids in a very long time and I hope we can all lay down our issues and stand with him.

By JB Handley

Senate Bill 442, since defeated in Oregon, had some high-powered supporters. Oregon activists recently unearthed the testimony of Dr. Paul Offit, a resident of Pennsylvania, who put together an extraordinary letter.

It’s worth noting that Paul Offit is one of the primary architects of the thinking and logic behind the nationwide attempts to end vaccine exemptions, its remarkable to see how he actually thinks.

Some of our favorite quotes:

“We control what we order by picking and choosing what is in our favorite version of a Starbucks Grande. So, it is only natural that we would want to control vaccines and, indeed, the thought that someone is telling us we need to give our children vaccines appears to run counter.”

“Many people work tirelessly to fill this gap and explain the science, but sadly, those against vaccines also work tirelessly. They work tirelessly to keep the fear alive promoting disproven theories, such as vaccines cause autism, vaccines contain harmful ingredients, babies get too many vaccines, etc.”

“The viruses and bacteria that cause these diseases are the appropriate target of these fears. Indeed, still today in parts of Africa, some families do not name their babies until the fear of loss to measles has passed. In this country, parents benefit from living without that fear; unfortunately, vaccines do not.”

“Not only do we know the exact date, but we also know they were exposed to a quantity that was “just right” – not too much (to make them sick) and not too little (to keep them susceptible). How many other parental decisions afford us that control?”

“Of course, the conversation always returns to the notion of being forced to give our children vaccines which feels out of our control, but the truth of the matter is, deciding to vaccinate our babies according to the recommended schedule puts us in the driver’s seat.”

Full text:

February 25, 2015

RE: Oregon Bill SB0442 to eliminate philosophical belief exemptions from vaccinations

Ah Spring. Texas bluebonnets are blooming. Snow is finally melting in the Northeast. And like Spring 2014, 13, 12, 11 and so on, there has been a logical progression of coverage designed, orchestrated, call it what you will, to make sure to protect the vaccination program. As if government usage mandates and production injury liability protection (courtesy of Uncle Sam) is not enough of an industry bonanza.  We've seen versions of this progression in the past. This year the full court press is even fuller - with an actual disease outbreak (measles, no deaths) and dozens of bills tightening/changing vaccine exemptions appearing in state after state as if by magic wand.  Perhaps from the Magic Kingdom! Paul Offit has released a book about the religion of medicine and how superior it is to the religion of religion called "Bad Faith." The New York Times thought it was a "Bad Book" and panned it soundly. Of note is that in 2014, Dr. Julie Gerberding, once head of the CDC, in charge of the nation's vaccine program and who became President of Merck's vaccine division upon leaving her government job,  became the EVP of Strategic Communications, Global Public Policy and Population Health.   The title alone sounds like  a role in a James Bond movie - Vaxxy Galore perhaps?  And PBS brought back an updated version of Frontline's THE VACCINE WAR which first ran in 2010.  We at AofA received an email from Frontline, asking us to help promote the program, Tweet during it etc.  I was at the New York City debut of Trace Amounts and missed Frontline. Shucks....  Here's a post JB Handley wrote after the first version of Frontline appeared in 2010.  KS

By J.B. Handley
 
The “hungry lie” on autism is both maddeningly simple and simply maddening and goes something like this: “It’s been asked and answered, vaccines don’t cause autism.”
 
As I’ve written about repeatedly, this is a huge lie, a critical lie, and a very “hungry” lie, because it constantly needs to be fed. Thanks to Frontline’s recent show, “the Vaccine War,” many more people will be confronted with this lie and have to sort through the rhetoric to figure out what is actually true.
 
Jon Palferman, who produced Frontline’s “The Vaccine War,” is different from many of the other feeders of the hungry lie in one important way: he spent nearly 2 hours sitting in my office debating and learning more about this very topic. I am certain that he fully and completely understands that only a single vaccine on the US vaccine schedule has actually been studied for its relationship to autism. I’m also certain he realizes many public health officials make bold and untrue statements all the time to reassure the public that “vaccines” have been studied and rendered “safe.”
 
To me, this makes Mr. Palferman’s recent public comment all the more unconscionable. On Frontline’s website, as a response to Dr. Jay Gordon’s searing critique of Frontline’s decision to not air any of Dr. Gordon’s taped interview, Mr. Palferman issued the following statement:
 
“Many thanks for your feedback on the program. FRONTLINE went to considerable lengths to include a wide range of viewpoints, even in the face of very strong scientific evidence against the hypothesized autism link to MMR and thimerosal. Despite the consistent negative epidemiology and the definitive verdict of the federal vaccine court, we included views from people who wanted more and different studies. The program also gave a great deal of time to the arguments of vaccine hesitant parents who think the CDC schedule is bloated. The companion FRONTLINE website contains full interviews with different stakeholders, including Dr Robert Sears, who promotes an alternative spread out vaccine schedule. The website also hosts a robust public conversation where a full range of viewpoints are being aired and engaged.”
 
Let me repeat for you the part of Mr. Palferman’s statement that shows he did spend 2 hours with me, but wanted to defend his position anyway:
 
“the hypothesized autism link to MMR and thimerosal”
 
You see, Mr. Palferman fully gets that no one has shown “vaccines don’t cause autism,” because I personally hammered home the point to him until he finally got it. So, he’s smart enough not to fully repeat the simple hungry lie that “vaccines” have been studied and at least tells the truth that ONLY thimerosal and the MMR have been looked at.

By J.B. Handley

Studies of the Amish and Homefirst communities of children have proven very revealing: children who do not receive vaccines appear to have significantly lower rates of Autism. Of course, these observations remain anecdotal, so they have yet to enter into the mainstream debate about whether or not vaccines cause Autism.

Chances that someone is able to get an IRB to actually do a valid study of these populations? Remote.

The drumbeat by our community to have a real study done of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children makes all the sense in the world except for one problem: if the rate between the two groups is dramatically different, how do you respond to that information from a policy perspective? Stop giving all vaccines to all children? It’s a vexing issue for even the more moderate members of this debate: those who view vaccinations as important but also recognize they are a medical procedure that comes with risks.

Enter Dr. Paul Thomas, an outspoken pediatrician from Portland, OR who entered the national debate with his participation in the recent fight to keep vaccine exemptions in Oregon, a fight that Dr. Thomas and others recently won.

I was struck by this recent blog post that mentioned Dr. Thomas and his practice:

“Dr. Paul Thomas, a Portland-based pediatrician, claims that he has 1,500 children in his pediatric practice who never received the Hepatitis B shot and had the MMR shot delayed until they were older (age 3). Based on an Autism rate of 1 in 68, 22 children in this group should have Autism. He claims there are zero cases of Autism and he thinks a modified vaccination schedule is the reason. What an extraordinary claim! Shouldn’t Oregon investigate the veracity of his claim?”

Indeed, what if it really was this easy? Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely believe that vaccines do far more damage than just Autism. At the same time, vaccines have shown the ability to prevent deadly disease, and I think the only way to move towards a real solution is to find some middle ground on our national vaccine policy.

TESTIMONY: Senate Committee on Health Care, State of Oregon, SB 442

February 18, 2015, 3pm

Respectfully Submitted: Jonathan B. Handley, Portland, OR

I was born in 1969. My father worked for the U.S. Government and I spent my childhood living in foreign countries, including the third world. Specifically, I was born in Singapore, then lived in Laos, Mexico, Korea, Japan, India, and the Philippines.

By my sixth birthday, I received a grand total of 5 vaccines (Oral Polio, Measles, DPT, Oral Polio, and Typhoid). I still have my shot records and would be happy to share with the committee.

In 1983, attached as Exhibit A, the 1983 immunization schedule for children by the age of 6 recommended 10 vaccines (DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, MMR, DTP, Oral Polio, DTP, Oral Polio).

In 2015, attached as Exhibit B, by the age of 6, the CDC now recommends 37 vaccines for children before the age of 6. (Hep B, Hep B, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Flu, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Rotavirus, DTaP, Hib, PCV, IPV, Flu, MMR, Varicella, Hep A, Hep B, DTaP, Hib, PCV, Flu, Hep A, DTaP, IPV, Flu, Flu, Flu, Flu, Flu, MMR, Varicella). Because this is so confusing, I’ve attached the CDC schedule with my handwritten notes to count the total vaccines.

(Excerpted from Medium.com.)

By J.B. Handley

Last night on CNBC, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) made it clear that vaccines should be a parents choice, that he spaced out shots for his own children (thereby not following our government’s Centers for Disease Control’s recommended timetable for vaccinating), and that his children specifically skipped or delayed the Hepatitis B vaccine.

For me, it was quite a shock to see his interview as I had just finished writing and posting a blog piece entitled, “An Angry Father’s Guide to the Measles Vaccine” and feeling a bit exposed about broadcasting my position to the world—when I see a sitting Senator saying many of the same things!

From CNBC:

Paul specifically took issue with the Hepatitis B vaccine being given to newborns, and the fact that multiple vaccines are given at the same time.

Senator Paul’s actual words:

The Hepatitis B vaccine is now given to newborns. We sometimes give 5 or 6 vaccines at one time. I chose to have mine delayed. I don’t want the government telling me I have to give my child Hepatitis B vaccine which is transmitted by sexually transmitted disease and/or blood transfusion. . . . I had mine staggered over several months. I’ve heard of many cases of walking, talking normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines. …I think they’re a good thing, but I think the parents should have some input. The state doesn’t own your children. The parents own the children and it is an issue of freedom.

Read the full post at Medium.com.

By J.B. Handley

The nadir for me came on January 6, 2011, when Anderson Cooper interviewed Dr. Andrew Wakefield live on national television. It was an absurd and painful moment. Anderson Cooper, a journalist I had generally respected, treated Andy like a common criminal. Andy, who admirably stood his ground, did himself no favors by appearing to be standing in a cave somewhere in Jamaica…

I remember feeling nauseous after watching the interview, and thinking that Pharma had finally won and that the movement to tell the truth about what was being done to our kids had just been setback by a decade or two and that we’d certainly see vaccination rates jump back to historical highs.

And I was dead wrong.

Fast forward almost exactly four years and guess what? Andy Wakefield, Jenny McCarthy and our whole community are getting dragged through the mud by the mainstream media once again, this time because measles are lurking down in Disneyland and everyone is pissed off. Or at least that’s what you’d think if you only read mainstream media publications.

Would you believe me if I told you that the Disneyland measles outbreak benefits our community, movement, and kids?

Just nine months ago, a Harris poll survey reported some astonishing news: 33 percent of parents of children under the age of 18 believe “vaccinations can cause autism.”

Ironically, the group that commissioned this survey, the National Consumers League, is very pro-vaccine, and so they positioned the results to mean that “One third of American parents mistakenly link vaccines to autism.”

I laugh when I read interpretations like this. It’s sort of like some of the other silly headlines I have read over the years (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Richer, better educated parents avoiding vaccinations.”

“Trump mistakenly says too many shots causing Autism.”

“Hollywood elite avoiding vaccines, endangering kids.”

You have to wonder sometimes who is behind the marketing of the vaccine program as most of the initiatives they have created have a meaningful backfire effect (anyone remember Amanda Peet calling us, ironically, parasites?), which is really the point of this article: why does PR like the Disneyland measles outbreak actually benefit our community when the people pushing the campaign are clearly trying to put an end to us?

By J.B. Handley

Author’s Note: I wrote this article 5 years ago to refute the absurd folklore that the Autism epidemic was solely the result of “better diagnosis.” This trick has been oft-repeated since then and is now being used by many to try and counter the argument that many parents avoiding the MMR are trying to avoid Autism, which seems a reasonable calibration of the risk-reward involved with the MMR shot. In the “better diagnosis” dreamworld, there isn’t really an Autism epidemic, and therefore parents need not worry, MMR can’t cause something that isn’t there. This ridiculous pronouncement can be refuted with some very simple math, which I have updated below for the newer prevalence numbers.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

- Mark Twain

In America’s health care debate, Republicans seem to have the upper hand by using a tried and true PR strategy: confuse the living hell out of everyone and shout really loud while doing it. The same can be said for the ridiculously confusing debate over how many people do, and as importantly did, have autism.

Are prevalence rates of autism actually on the rise? If they are, the environment is playing a role, and the crazy parents on this site may actually be on to something. If they’re not, well, this is much ado about nothing. Autism has always been with us, let’s learn to accept our children as they are and bend society to accommodate this very large group of people who have always been with us but only recently acknowledged.

A movie on a Monday? Why not? Pass the popcorn and enjoy Autism Yesterday, one of the first documentaries in our community.  We first shared this 26 minute gem with you in 2009. The message is more important than ever.

"AUTISM YESTERDAY" Autism is Reversible from JB Handley on Vimeo.

By J.B. Handley

I’m pleased as punch that a member of the CDC Matrix has stepped out and admitted what so many of us have known for years: the CDC cooked data to make the relationship between vaccines and autism go away.

For those of you disappointed that we aren’t yet hearing about this story in the mainstream media, I have some simple advice for Dr. Thompson and his lawyers, PR advisors, and whomever else is now providing him with counsel: speak up!

As much as Drs. Wakefield and Hooker are heroes of our community, and deservedly so, they’re also the farthest thing from objective as far as a mainstream journalist is concerned, and having their names all over this story does not help it take flight. This is a story about Dr. William Thompson and the CDC. Period.

Meanwhile, at least for the moment, CNN’s iReport is back up and Natural News is doing a great job covering the story, too.

JB Handley is.... JB Handley. ;)

"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

DONATE HERE.

By J.B. Handley

“In a complex system, however, mistakes are not measured in degrees but in whole orders of magnitude.”

-                Nate Silver, The Signal and the Noise

In the above quote, author Nate Silver is discussing the fact that Moody’s and S&P--the pre-eminent financial ratings agencies in the world-- underestimated the default risk of CDO funds by a factor of over 200, facilitating the implosion of the housing bubble and a worldwide recession.

Put another way, the financial experts at S&P and Moody’s predicted that certain financial instruments would have a default rate of just 0.12 percent (just over one tenth of one percent), when the actual default rate turned out to be 28%.

How could so many smart people be so stupid?

This question lies at the heart of a battle and debate that so many of us are currently fighting—is it possible that our health authorities, in an attempt to prevent every infectious disease they could through the use of vaccines, ended up creating a whole different set of problematic health outcomes in our children?

Here are the facts we know to be true:

-  Vaccines can cause immune system, brain, gut, and other neurological damage. There is simply no dispute about the ability of vaccine’s to injure some portion of the children who receive them.

-  The number of vaccines given has risen dramatically since the mid-1980s, from 10 or less to nearly 40, and the majority of vaccines are given during the first 2 years of a child’s life.

-  There has been an explosion in autism, ADHD, food allergies, and so many other auto-immune disorders during this same period of time

-  There has never been any testing for the cross-reactivity of vaccines or any monitoring of the potential damage that layering on so many new vaccines to the US immunization schedule might be doing to our children—it has been an experiment of unprecedented scale.

Dr. Donald Miller, University of Washington, corroborates many of these points:

The [vaccine] schedule states, "Your child can safely receive all vaccines recommended for a particular age during one visit." Public health officials, however, have not proven that it is indeed safe to inject this many vaccines into infants. What's more, they cannot explain why, concurrent with an increasing number of vaccinations, there has been an explosion of neurologic and immune system disorders in our nation's children. 

Fifty years ago, when the immunization schedule contained only four vaccines (for diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and smallpox), autism was virtually unknown. First discovered in 1943, this most devastating malady in what is now a spectrum of pervasive developmental disorders afflicted less than 1 in 10,000 children. Today, one in every 68 American families has an autistic child. Other, less severe developmental disorders, rarely seen before the vaccine era, have also reached epidemic proportions. Four million American children have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. One in six American children are now classified as "Learning Disabled."

Our children are also experiencing an epidemic of autoimmune disorders — Type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and bowel disorders. There has been a 17-fold increase in Type I diabetes, from 1 in 7,100 children in the 1950s to 1 in 400 now. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis afflicts 300,000 American children. Twenty-five years ago this disease was so rare that public health officials did not keep any statistics on it. There has been a 4-fold increase in asthma, and bowel disorders in children are much more common now than they were 50 years ago.

*       *       *

In a system with this much complexity, as Nate Silver has explained, the chance to make a huge predictive error grows exponentially, and I personally believe that’s what has happened with our kids. In trying to do the right thing, our health officials may have created a world far worse than they ever knew possible, and 1 in 84 children (and so many more with other conditions like ADHD, deadly food allergies, etc.) are perhaps paying a huge price for their mistakes.

By J.B. Handley

In the activism world, there are times when I have really felt like I’ve said everything I can possibly say on the topic of autism. When those feelings arise, I usually take a break and shut my mouth for a while. Thinking about AoA’s recent 5^th Birthday, and coming up on 8 years since my wife and I founded Generation Rescue, the same thoughts keep running through my head:

“Are we still really arguing about this? Are we still really ruining all these kids’ lives? When, dear God, is this nightmare going to end?”

In honor of 8 years of activism, I wanted to share the complete transcript of an interview I gave to PBS, a snippet of which they aired in a documentary called The Vaccine Wars. In many ways, this interview sapped my activism energy, at least for a period of time, because I really got the chance to say everything I wanted to say!

I hope you enjoy:

A businessman whose son was diagnosed with autism, Handley co-founded with his wife the Web site Generation Rescue. It's an autism advocacy site and has been highly effective in organizing a community of parents concerned about an autism-vaccine link. This is the edited transcript of an interview conducted on Jan. 29, 2010.

How did your life change when you discovered your son had autism?

Everything changed from the day it happened. It was an immediate nightmare. It was 30 days of six, seven, eight hours of nonstop crying by both me and my wife. It was the painful realization that my son may not have the kind of life that I expected for him. And once the grief had passed just enough to get up off the floor, it was a mandate to do whatever I could do with the rest of my life to give him the best possible life.

How old was he when this happened?

He was just under 2 years old.

How did you discover this?

People sometimes talk about how these kids are diagnosed today at much higher rates, that we just have a more narrow filter, that parents are more paranoid.

You don't miss this. This wasn't something that was hard to figure out. The child stopped talking. He stopped socializing. He started doing extremely unusual behaviors that no other kid was doing -- running on walls, turning his eyes to the side, spinning around in circles, laughing for no reason. I mean, we watched our son decline into something we'd never seen before, and it didn't take us long, especially with the Internet, to go quickly look up some of these behaviors.

Did you know anything about autism at that time?

I didn't know the first thing about autism. I'd seen Rain Man like a lot of other people had, but when my wife first brought up the word, I knew that was something we didn't want for our son. But no, I didn't know the first thing about it.

How did you educate yourself?

My wife and I both, from the day we had concerns about Jamison, we were on the Web trying to understand what is wrong with our son. We got absolutely no help from the local pediatrician who told us everything would be fine and he would come around. But literally spending 20 minutes doing an evaluation, we knew we had a serious, serious problem on our hands. He was hitting every single metric for autism.

What was the medical dogma about autism in terms of the cause?

It was very simple, and it was very straightforward. He was diagnosed at two of the premier institutions on the West Coast: UC San Francisco and Oregon Health Sciences University. It was genetic. There's nothing we can do about it. It was lifelong. Institutionalization was likely, and we'd be lucky if he ever talked. It was a prognosis of doom that no parent could bear.

Why didn't you accept that?

By J.B. Handley

Can a website actually accumulate dust? If one could, I’d nominate VaccinateYourBaby.org as perhaps the web’s dustiest. Remember them? Waaay on back in 2008, actress Amanda Peet called non-vaccinating parents “parasites” and--in full retreat immediately after that PR disaster--did just enough interviews to not look like she was sprinting for the hills…and then sprinted for the hills! Nowadays, she does her work advocating with the United Nations for third world vaccination awareness, perhaps reasoning that Masai tribesman are less likely to send her nasty emails.

Peet’s aging pro-vaccine website links you to the VaccinateYourBaby YouTube Channel, where the last video was posted in 2011…and, as I’m writing this, has the following views for their 5 most recently posted videos: 67 (posted in 2011), 168 (2011), 216 (2011), and 38 (2011). Back in 2008, when the Amanda Peet campaign was rolled-out, the flagship video of Peet being interviewed has, today, 4 years later, a total of 11,965 views--not particularly robust when you consider that Jenny McCarthy, arguing the other side of the vaccine-autism debate, routinely garners hundreds of thousands of views for any number of interviews she gives (or, heck, 80,000 views for me here yelling at The Doctors.)

Before moving on to talk about the real topic of this post, I’d like to point out a few delicious ironies about all of this:

-                The Amanda Peet campaign was engineered by none other than the lord-vader-in-chief himself, Paul “Pharma Pimp” Offit. Peet’s brother-in-law worked at CHOP where Merck sponsors Offit’s activities, and Offit used his connection to Peet and his medical degree to hatch a brilliantly disastrous marketing campaign that nearly ruined Amanda Peet’s career. Good stuff!

-                Recently, Amanda Peet has told the story in interviews that her daughter, in 2010 (2 years after the VYB campaign), contracted whooping cough AFTER being vaccinated, and this series of events somehow made her even more pro-vaccine. Now, I’m certainly not going to celebrate a 2 year-old child contracting a very painful bacterial illness--I don’t wish that on anyone--but I will celebrate the lunacy of becoming more pro-vaccine after the vaccine doesn’t work for your own daughter!

Which brings us to Every Child By Two, the pharma front group that bankrolled the Vaccinate Your Baby campaign. If the VYB website looks dusty, Every Child By Two’s website looks like it was designed by a 10 year-old in 1994. If you click to the “news” section of the website, their last newsletter was issued in August, 2008, more than four years ago.

By the way, I wrote about Every Child By Two, waay back in August of 2008, the very same month of the last newsletter they ever wrote. As I clearly demonstrated back then, ECBT is really just a Wyeth vaccine division marketing organization:

“First, a little background. By nonprofit standards, ECBT is a rat-shit organization. With a grand total of 3 employees, a tiny office suite in a crummy Washington D.C. neighborhood, and an annual budget under $1 million, they are a blip on the radar screen. As usual, the devil is in the details… And, how much did Wyeth [the vaccine maker] give ECBT? 
Wyeth gave $350,769. That's 68% of their non-contract revenue and 48% of their total revenue. From one company. A vaccine manufacturer named Wyeth. And Craig Engesser, a Wyeth spokesperson, has been on the board of ECBT for as long as I can track it. He even served as the organization's treasurer!”

*       *       *

What’s different about ECBT in 2012 versus 2008 is that four years ago ECBT actually appeared to be doing something. They had Amanda Peet, they had a new marketing campaign, they had timely newsletters, and they had Pharma funding. Today, nearly everything looks like it’s stopped, like the money dried up, and everyone went home.

Unfortunately, 990 forms for non-profit organizations have a time delay. At present, I can only find financial information on ECBT through 2010, but I find their 990 forms for 2009 and 2010 raise all sorts of interesting and delicious questions. Consider:

-                The organization appears frozen in time after about August of 2008, yet Amy Pisani, the Executive Director, was still making $136,000 a year in 2010, two years later.

-                As of today, Amy Pisani no longer works out of Washington DC where ECBT still maintains a small office next door to the Vietnamese consulate office, but rather out of her house in Connecticut (which ECBT’s voicemail calls the “Connecticut Office”)

-                Their sources of funding have become even more clear and blatant. In 2010, they were: Wyeth vaccines ($307,000), Sanofi Vaccines ($245,171), and Public Health Solutions, aka The NY Dept of Health ($182,136).

Managing Editor's Note: JB wrote this post last January. We're running it as a follow up to Dr. Offit having been appointed to the IOM. 

By J.B. Handley

OK, let me be clear: I think Paul Offit is a blowhard liar, a vaccine profiteer and apologist, and every time he opens his mouth he disrespects my son. When the final chapter is finally written on this man-made autism epidemic, I will do everything within my power to ensure that Offit is remembered by history as one of the most sinister, dishonest, well-funded talking heads pharma ever produced, and that his efforts served to afflict so many children with autism who may otherwise have avoided it.

In one of the most absurd snowjobs ever put on the media, Offit, a doctor who has never seen a patient with autism, never treated autism, and never published a study about autism, is somehow considered to be an expert on autism. Given his status as a multi-millionaire vaccine patent holder who has had much of his career supported by Merck, this isn’t just absurd, it’s highway robbery, and yet the media persists, and rarely even mentions Offit’s Mount Everest-sized pile of conflicts.

In the latest example of Offit’s dishonesty, AOL recently published a two-person interview HERE with Offit and Geri Dawson, chief Science Officer at Autism Speaks.

In this interview, Offit commits what I consider to be the “Original Sin” of Autism, and something that should be condemned by every autism organization in the country, including Autism Speaks. To quote Paul Offit:

“It's not an actual epidemic. In the mid-1990s, the definition of autism was broadened to what is now called autism spectrum disorder. Much milder parts of the spectrum -- problems with speech, social interaction -- were brought into the spectrum. We also have more awareness, so we see it more often. And there is a financial impetus to include children in the wider definition so that their treatment will be covered by insurance. People say if you took the current criteria and went back 50 years, you'd see about as many children with autism then.”

(Photo is the gravestone of Miss Jessica Erickson who died following Gardasil vaccination. Her story "Guinea Pig" is one of the media articles mentioned below. We've been in contact with her family in the past, her Mom is a warrior in the name of her child.   And we show her gravestone not be macabre, but as a stark reminder that HPV vaccination is not without risk.)

By J.B. Handley

We all know that AoA is no place to discuss our politics. The parents reading this blog are unified in their commitment to one issue, and that’s autism.

At this point, I’m nearly a single-issue voter, and Michelle Bachmann has certainly done our community a huge favor by publicly discussing the well-known risks from receiving the Gardasil vaccine. Taken from a post back in December 2009, here are just a few of the hundreds of headlines out there about Gardasil:

October 29, 2007, UK Telegraph:
Cervical cancer drug Gardasil linked to deaths  
Fears have been raised over the safety of a cervical cancer vaccine which health officials plan to give all 12-year-old girls, after it was revealed that the drug has been linked to several deaths. Three young women are reported to have died days after the drug Gardasil was administered, while the jab is also suspected of triggering "adverse reactions" in 1,700 patients. The figures were uncovered by campaigners who made a freedom of information request in the US, where the vaccine was approved for use a year ago…
 

January 25, 2008, UK Daily Mail: 

Alert over jab for girls as two die following cervical cancer vaccination

A jab that could be given to hundreds of thousands of schoolgirls this autumn was at the centre at a safety scare last night following the deaths of two young women…

February 6, 2008, East Bay Express:

One Less

In early 2007, as the pharmaceutical giant Merck began promoting its new vaccine Gardasil as protection against cervical cancer, Brooke Petkevicius was a nineteen-year-old freshman at UC Berkeley. She had seen the ads for the vaccine, and discussed getting it with her mother, whose gynecologist also had recommended it. On March 12, Brooke received the first of three doses. Two weeks later, she dressed to go running with a friend. As they reached the elevator, Brooke suddenly collapsed against the wall and had a seizure.

June 30, 2008, WorldNet Daily

Death toll linked to Gardasil vaccine rises Complications include shock, 'foaming at mouth,' convulsions, coma  

"Given all the questions about Gardasil, the best public health policy would be to re-evaluate its safety and to prohibit its distribution to minors. In the least, governments should rethink any efforts to mandate or promote this vaccine for children,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. The organization's work uncovered reports of about one death each month since last fall, bringing the total death toll from the drug to at least 18 and as many as 20. There also were 140 "serious" reports of complications including about three dozen classified as life-threatening, 10 spontaneous abortions and half a dozen cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome.