Anne Dachel

Autism In Australia: A Morass of Thoughts

Abadnonned schoolWow. I know one commenter who will have a field day with the range of thoughts out of Australia regarding the increase in autism.

By Anne Dachel

Australia can’t figure out what to do about all the autism. One report puts their autism rate at one in every 25 children, another at one in 23.

Experts are in denial. It’s either over-diagnosing or more of the “better diagnosing” that we’ll always hearing about. Either way, it’s NOT MORE AUTISM. Nothing to worry about.

On November 12th there was a story out of Australia about closing special schools and mainstreaming disabled students by being “inclusive.”

I’m sure this was motivated by the soaring number of special needs children they have to educate.

ABC News: If special schools close, students with disability need more inclusive mainstream education, experts say

In its final report handed down in September, the disability royal commission called for the phasing out of segregated education by 2051.

It's a call that has sparked deep debate.

Even the six commissioners disagree. Only three — including the two who live with disability — recommended phasing special schools out. The other three did not think a total phasing out of special schools was necessary.

"There has to be a bigger investment in our [mainstream] education system. And this is an opportunity to do that, for it to be better for all."

Of course the real problem is something that barely got a mention.

Since 2015, the number of students with disability enrolled in Australian public schools has increased by 29 per cent, according to the Australian Education Union's 2023 For Every Child report.

Continue reading "Autism In Australia: A Morass of Thoughts" »


Shocking Special Ed Numbers Most Ignore

Abadnonned schoolNote: Schools are running on fumes. Teacher shortages. Classrooms of kids unable to learn traditionally. Behaviors escalating. Do we solve ANY problems, ever?

By Anne Dachel

Here in America we seem to be just fine with ever-increasing numbers of disabled children. There are lots of stories in the news about new autism therapy centers opening across the country.

We champion neurodiversity, celebrate autism awareness and we want to be sensory-friendly.

Most of all, numbers never bother us.

We’re told all the time about MORE special needs children, and we never ask where they’re all coming from. That would not be caring.

Officially 15 percent of students in the U.S. have special needs.

I really wonder how they came up with that average since we’re regularly told about much higher numbers.

A story just out from Hampshire Co, WV raises a number of questions.

Nov 10, 2023, The 74: West Virginia Declares Emergency in Hampshire County Schools Special Ed 

The district will be required to address a number of problems, including a lacking graduation rate for students in special education.

The West Virginia Board of Education declared a state of emergency in Hampshire County Schools special education program after nearly three years of shortcomings for vulnerable students.

Continue reading "Shocking Special Ed Numbers Most Ignore" »


Why We Still Publish? "Let's Celebrate the Uniqueness of Autism!"

Autism Reality"We really just want to make sure people celebrate the uniqueness of autism and the beauty of autism and understand more about it."

Autism has been whitewashed beyond hope. But those of us with children with the diagnosis know the dark truth. Teachers know. Adult providers turn individuals in need away... because they know. And doctors and pharma know. Age of Autism has always, and will always shout the truth. Just as long as we can. Please consider a donation to our annual matching gift campaign. Unlike autism numbers, we've stalled a bit and need your help. Thank you.

###

By Anne Dachel

There was outrageous autism coverage from Fox31 in Denver on Nov 12th.

It was dismissive and insulting. I know too many people struggling with children severely disabled with autism. This coverage makes no mention of any of that.

CDC data suggests rise in autism diagnoses in children 

 Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests an increase in the prevalence of autism in children.

Suggests? We’ve have 20+ years of soaring, unexplainable increases in autism.

 About one in 36 children were identified with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in 2020, according to the CDC. This is up from one in 44 in 2018 and one in 150 in 2000. It also shows prevalence among different groups of individuals is now relatively similar. 

The reporter on the video calls the one in 36 rate “new data.” That rate came out in March, 2023.

Dr. Amanda Kelly is the president and CEO of Firefly Autism, an organization in Colorado that provides support and services to those with autism and their families. 

“We really just want to make sure people celebrate the uniqueness of autism and the beauty of autism and understand more about it,” Kelly said.

Continue reading "Why We Still Publish? "Let's Celebrate the Uniqueness of Autism!"" »


Downplaying Autism Down Under

Tis but a flesh woundBy Anne Dachel

The Sydney Morning Herald
 published a desperate piece on Nov 12th trying to downplay the current rate of autism among children in Australia.  I say desperate because as the number of children with ASD continues to soar, it has to be explained away. The rate can’t be real.

Deny, Deny, Deny

This is why we regularly see mainstream publications telling us that autism isn’t really growing, and if it is, it’s linked to the parents. A story in Psychology Today in May 2023 is typical.  Here Cara Goodwin, Ph.D explained that all the autism we’re seeing today is the result of greater awareness, changing diagnostic criteria, increased availability of services, increase in parental age, and more premature babies. These reasons have been used each and every time the autism rate took another leap higher over the past 20+ years.

Now the Morning Herald gives us another reason to dismiss the autism increases:

Nov 12, 2023, The unique factor that could explain why autism rates in Australia are growing faster than the global average

Autism rates in Australian children are among the highest in the world, leading a senior researcher to suggest the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) could be driving steeper than average growth in diagnoses.

Continue reading "Downplaying Autism Down Under" »


The Scary Autism Numbers That Never Scare

Halloween-jack-o-lantern-ANote: While making holiday events inclusive IS a good thing, what we REALLY need is programming and housing for onslaught of autistic adults.  Society has opened independent, assisted living, dementia and Alzheimer's living quarters.  We WILL need a version for autism - staffed by very large, very strong men mostly. Surely someone will monetize the misery?

By Anne Dachel

On October 23rd there was a nice human interest piece about making Halloween “autism-friendly.” The coverage was from PHL17.

The news anchor interviewed the principal of an autism academy in Woodbury, NJ, and in the course her of talk about ways to ‘limit sensory triggers’ on Halloween, she noted that educators are now seeing ‘one in 10 individuals’ who have autism.

There was no follow-up. The news anchor merely noted that “It’s super wide spread.”

Officially only 3 percent of U.S. children have autism. In California and Florida however,  it’s already around 5 percent. 

So in New Jersey, 10 percent of children have autism. I guess no number is too much when it comes to autism.

The coverage was from PHL17: Ways to Make Halloween Autism-Friendly

Continue reading "The Scary Autism Numbers That Never Scare" »


Correct As Usual King Friday

Neighborhood of make believe
"Correct as usual, King Friday."  Welcome to the neighborhood of make believe.

By Anne Dachel

It’s all just make believe

When it comes to autism, we all have to pretend.

I say that about every aspect of the disorder. Whatever we see happening right before our eyes, we have to tell ourselves it isn’t real.

A once rare disorder is now so common that just about everyone knows someone or is related to someone with an autistic child. In the face of this, we’re continually told that it’s always been this way.

Autism has always affected one in every 150 children, one in every 92 boys (2007),

…one in every 88 children, one in every 54 boys (2012),

…one in every 59 children, one in every 36 boys (2018),

…one in every 44 children, one in every 27 boys (2021),

…and now one in every 36 children, one in every 22 boys (2023).

(I left out several of the official increases, but you get the idea. Every time the autism rate increased, it was never a real increase. It was always dismissed as “better diagnosing.” I’m confident that the next increase, probably something like one in every 30 kids, will be due to MORE “better diagnosing.”)

Pretending that the numbers are nothing to worry about it only one aspect.

Continue reading "Correct As Usual King Friday" »


The Dirty Thirty

30 puzzleNote: Anne has a great report. But I gotta tell you, seeing Autism Science Foundation and Alison Singer's name, dare I say it, triggered me to a time when they so actively worked against our kids. Decide for yourself.

By Anne Dachel

There was a study on autism published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) on October 2nd.
It was all about the discovery that over 30 percent of kids who had an autism diagnosis at age 2 or 3, were no longer considered autistic by the time they were 6.

Fox News said this:

A significant share of kids with autism tend to "outgrow" the disorder within a few years of diagnosis, a new study has found.

Researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital followed 213 children who were diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) as toddlers (between 12 and 36 months of age).

By the time they were 5 to 7 years old, nearly four out of 10 (37%) of the children no longer met the criteria for an autism diagnosis, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Female children were more likely to no longer meet the criteria, as were those with "higher baseline adaptive skills," according to the study findings.

This study got a lot of coverage in the mainstream news. It was reassuring that maybe autism numbers weren’t something to worry about after all.

Continue reading "The Dirty Thirty" »


60,000 on Autism Waitlist in Canada


Abadnonned schoolBy Anne Dachel

Over the past two decades we’ve adjusted to more and more children diagnosed with autism. Several generations have grown up with autism as a fact of life.

There are no congressional committees looking into the autism numbers like they did at the beginning of the 21st century. Medical experts and health authorities have absolutely no interest in what makes a child autistic.

The huge portion of the population of children with autism is aging into adulthood and that will be increasingly a crisis everywhere, but I can guarantee that the issues will be more funding and more services without any real concern over the fact that autism is now an adult disorder too.

The epidemic shows no signs of leveling off so the need to provide for more children with autism will continue, along with adults. I don’t know how governments will handle this.

Recently unbelievable numbers were in the news in Canada.

In Ontario, parents are demanding Premier Doug Ford’s government do something to address the 60,000 children on a wait list for autism services.

October 16, 2023, Toronto City News: Parents call for change as waitlist for autism services grows to 60,000 in Ontario

Parents of children with autism protested at Queen's Park to draw attention to delays in therapy and problems in special education affecting autistic children. As Tina Yazdani reports, the waitlist to access core autism services has grown to 60,000.

In 2019 when the Ford government took over, there were 23,000 children on a waiting list for services. Now the numbers have essentially tripled, despite the promise to eliminate the wait time.

Children today in Ontario can expect a five to seven year wait for any services after being diagnosed.

The government has doubled funding to over $483 million (U.S), but that will only cover core services for 10,000 children, according to the Toronto City News..

One parents quoted in the news coverage said this: “We have to decide as a society, do we care? Can we come out and support other parents whose children are disabled? This can happen to any of us.”

These will increasingly be the questions we all face.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

 

Wuhan bioweapons cover

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Vax Unvax DebutJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


Rivers of Ribbons

8D177021-4677-4E51-8CA2-DF5AD9BA5CD2Note:  Cancer hospitals. Smile for the camera! Dialysis centers (have popped up on every corner.) Say SUGAH for the camera!  Autism schools, programs, classrooms. Three cheers for us!

By Anne Dachel

Back on December 7, 2021, a story was published on a site called, Research Outreach. The title was Inclusion at a crossroads: Special education in Ireland

It was a look at various ways of providing special education servcies to students: inclusion in  mainstream classes, special classes and special schools.

In this piece were some stunning statistics that didn’t seem alarming at all to those involved in this collaborative work.

Special education in Ireland has undergone dramatic changes over the last 30 years. As well as changes to funding models and a rise in the number of special education teaching posts, there have been increases in the number of students with additional learning needs and/or disabilities attending mainstream schools, as well as the number of special classes in mainstream schools. The number of special schools has also grown.

Continue reading "Rivers of Ribbons" »


The Epidemic Roils On

IncreaseBy Anne Dachel

The Latest on Autism from Dr. Walter Zahorodny at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

First the background:

In June, 2022, Age of Autism published an interview of Dr. Walter Zahorodny from Rutgers University by Wayne Rohde.

Autism Prevalence Since 2000

Dr. Zahorodny is the top expert on the U.S. autism rate and he’s been at it for over 20 years.

I transcribed part of the interview for the article. Zahorodny gave listeners some startling information.

While officially autism affects 2.3 percent of children, according to the CDC, Zahorodny cited findings of ever greater numbers.

Here in Zahorodny’s own words:

San Diego, California, four percent.

Newark, New Jersey, five percent. 

Toms River, New Jersey, seven percent.

One in five towns in New Jersey, in our region, have a rate of five percent or higher….

We have already in Newark and in Toms River eight to 12 percent of boys in the public education system [that] have a lifelong disability or most likely a lifelong disability.

 In Ocean County in 2016, while the overall New Jersey estimate was 3.2 percent, we found that the prevalence of autism was already over five percent in Ocean County. 

I’m not an economist, but do you choose to project five percent or 10 percent as a realistic metric for how many people will need significant, maybe lifetime support?

We could really identify no specific reason why autism prevalence increased, not only in New Jersey, but in every other state in the Network.

And it increased for boys and for girls. It increased for white, black, Hispanic, Asian children. It increased across every state.

In the world of the prevalence estimates of the ADDM Network, we’ve only seen increases.

Throughout that DSM-IV period, only increases. When we shifted to the DSM-5 definition, we also only see increases. …somewhere in the range of one in five children have some learning issue, problem or deficit. The most quickly expanding group is those children with autism. Next most frequently occurring are children with ADHD.

Zahorodny acknowledged that people in power don’t care.

Politicians are not responding because I think they have accepted for the most part the red herring interpretation that autism has always been around.

Zahorodny said that at the CDC, ‘they’re not really concerned with autism prevalence.’  So, the increases are REAL, according to a top scientist, but again, no one cares. Zahorodny called for action.

I guess if I were to do one thing, it would be to identify the environment trigger that can be changed.If we don’t stop this epidemic of autism, Zahorodny warned us:

When we say that five percent of the children in our region have autism, I think that’s a fair metric for anticipating the future scope or perimeters of care for adults, adolescents and  adults.  …

You’re planning for at least five percent of the population to be disabled [with autism].

THE LATEST HAPPENING

Rutgers and Zahorodny have released a new study in which they claim to still be undercounting the autism numbers big time. Incredibly, there is no alarm shown. There never is.

Oct 4, 2023, Study Finds: 1 In 4 Teens May Have An Undiagnosed Case Of Autism, Study Reveals

NEWARK, N.J. — A startling number of autistic teens may be living with their developmental disability in silence, according to new findings. Study authors from Rutgers University report that roughly a quarter of 16-year-olds with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in the state of New Jersey still haven’t received a formal diagnosis….

This latest project made use of a method known as active multiple-source surveillance in order to gather what its authors call the best-ever dataset pertaining to ASD prevalence among adolescents in the northeastern New Jersey region.

“We think this is the largest ever study of ASD in this age group, and we hope it helps schools, health care providers and others with information that leads to better understanding and services,” says Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and lead author of the study, in a university release.

All in all, the study reports 1.77 percent of 16-year-olds in northeastern New Jersey have ASD.

However, the disorder affects more teen boys than girls, more Caucasians than African-Americans or Hispanics, and more high-income adolescents than their low-income peers.

Moreover, researchers report that one in four adolescents with ASD had not been diagnosed and that three in five adolescents with autism also had one or more neuropsychiatric conditions — in most cases attention deficient hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)….

Zahorodny is talking about real increases in autism.

“This confirms what other studies have found about the relative occurrence of autism by sex, race and socioeconomic status in childhood, and it almost certainly reflects true incidence patterns rather than better diagnosis rates among groups that get more frequent and better medical care,” Prof. Zahorodny explains. “Our study didn’t examine why prevalence rates vary, but other studies suggest a complex interaction of genes and environment.”

Study authors believe that this work’s most important finding may be the identification of a significant number of undiagnosed autism cases, especially among so many young people and adolescents with mild forms of impairment. The observed high percentage of adolescents with ASD who also have another neuropsychiatric disorder also holds major implications moving forward....

While this project was the second of its kind conducted by this research group aimed at analyzing the same group of people, Prof. Zahorodny hopes it won’t be the last.

“We would love to continue studying this same cohort going forward because we know so much less about autism in adulthood,” the study author concludes. “Continuing to follow this group of more than 500 people could greatly add to what is known about ASD and how it is characterized in adulthood, which will, ultimately, lead to the identification of interventions which maximize well-being.”

Unfortunately Dr. Zahorodny doesn’t speculate on what the ‘complex interaction of genes and environment’ causing autism might be. A vague reference to the environment at the end of the article is all that is allowed, I’m sure. That can be easily forgotten.

The only response that’s really called for here is EARLY DIAGNOSING/EARLY INTERVENTION. That’s all  we can really do now.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.


How Much Can Education Budgets Bear?

Abadnonned schoolSome days, readers might wonder why we continue to share the dire news from The United Kingdom and Ireland about the crushing expenses of special education.  Anne Dachel tracks these stories, as a warning for all of us, no matter where we live.  Special Education used to be a tiny part of budgets, but as pediatric health has been devastated over the last 30+ years, SpEd is taking over schools. It's not just autism.  Children are simply not able to learn and attend a school day as there once were. And that's the big question we've been asking for so long. WHAT has happened to children? The answer used to be, "Provide special education." IDEA was a blessing to families with disabled kids. Today? It rages out of control and one has to ask how schools are expected to keep up while ensuring education to all?

###

By Anne Dachel

The pace of special education is bankrupting districts like BristolThe city of Bristol in southwest England has a problem. Just when it seemed like councils in England had bottomless cashboxes to spend on special needs students, it looks like they don’t.

The school budget in Bristol, a city of half a million residents, will be $71 million in the red by this coming March. AND if things don’t improve, predictions are the deficit could reach $155 million in five years.

Sept 29, 2023, Bristol Post: Schools budget deficit could hit £58m [$71M] by March due to rising special needs demand

In the next few days Bristol City Council will start consulting parents on changes to the education budget

The schools budget in Bristol could face a whopping £58-million black hole by next March due to rising demand for special needs education. Without taking action to cut costs, the deficit in Bristol City Council’s schools budget is forecast to reach £127 million [$155M] by 2028.

 AND the national government has allowed local councils to go into debt over special ed costs.

City Hall chiefs have just three years to balance the books in the dedicated schools grant budget, as councils are normally banned from spending more than budgeted for and carrying deficits. But the government has given councils special permission until March 2026.

There was a meeting about this, but the public wasn’t allowed to watch.

Headteachers discussed the cost pressures with council bosses during a schools forum meeting on Tuesday, September 26. These meetings are normally broadcast on the council’s website for members of the public and press to watch, however this one was not.

As expected, this article tells us that there are MORE SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS. Two terms are used that should be cause for concern. It isn’t just kids with special education needs, it’s “high needs” and the “complexity” of the needs

A report to the schools forum said: “The main drivers of forecast overspend remain high-needs top up and placements costs, resulting from increasing EHCPs [education health and care plans] and complexity of children with special educational needs. The unmitigated deficit forecast position at the end of 2023/24 could reach £58,170,000.

Schools need to come up with a plan to improve their “long-term financial sustainability.”

“Education and financial services are working closely with the sector to explore options to bring school finance back to sustainable footing. All schools forecasting a deficit have been notified of the need to produce a robust plan to demonstrate and secure their long-term financial sustainability.”

Council staff have met with headteachers and governors to “explore affordable solutions”. …

The cost is unsustainable

At the end of the last financial year, the dedicated schools grant budget had spent £15 million [$18M] more than was budgeted for, leaving a cumulative deficit of £40 million [$49M].

Spending on the high needs block takes up about a fifth of the total DSG budget, which is £420 million this year.

It’s unclear whether the government will extend its special permission allowing councils to run deficits in their schools budget, known as a statutory instrument. Earlier this year, one council accountant warned that if Bristol doesn’t balance the books by then, and the statutory instrument wasn’t extended, the “council will run out of money”.

Green Councillor Tony Dyer said many councils were facing the same problems. Speaking during an audit committee on Monday, September 25, he said: “It’s a similar situation for pretty much every other local authority. If the government does not continue the [statutory instrument] provision, there may be some major problems right across the country.”

Unstoppable into 

The number of parents in Bristol requesting an education health and care needs assessment has risen dramatically over the past few years. In 2019, the council received 626 requests, rising to 728 in 2020, 850 in 2021 and 1,001 in 2022.

Any “sustainability” plan they come up with isn’t going to work.

The last paragraph said it all. More and more disabled kids are flooding schools. That is the real problem, the one no one wants to face.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Wuhan bioweapons cover

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Vax Unvax DebutJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


You'll Get Nothing And You'll Hate It.

Ralphie
Ralphi deserves a chance to thrive

Years ago, when Caddy Shack came out, one of the oft quoted lines was Judge Smails saying to his son Spaulding, "You'll get nothing, and you'll like it." Well autism families are certainly getting nothing. The like part speaks for itself. And so does our Anne Dachel, who continues to expose the hidden truth about the autism epidemic. It's devouring school budgets and devastating families with little to no abatement. It's a Cat 5 hurricane and gaining wind speed. Look at this darling boy. Now tell his Mum he has no placement. She's on her own.

###

By Anne Dachel

There are so many stories from England about the education system failing an individual special needs child, but there’s always more to them. The boy or girl in the story who is excluded from school or does not have a place because there is no more room represents countless children in a similar situation.

A story from Lincolnshire is just one example.

Lincoln mum outraged as son with autism is denied place at specialist schoolwas published on September 20th.  Here a three year old with autism and a list of other problems and his mother wait for a school place.

A Lincoln mum believes her family has been failed by the local council after her son was denied a place at a specialist education school.

Sharnie Philpot, 30, said she was "floored" after hearing that Lincolnshire County Council would not be offering her son Ralphi a space in a specialist environment.

At the age of just three years old, Ralphi has already been diagnosed with Autism, Global Development Delay (GDD) and is currently under assessment for Pica - an eating disorder where someone eats things not usually considered food.

After being assessed by an educational psychologist, who drafted an Educational Health and Care Plan (EHCP), it was found that Ralphi experiences high levels of anxiety in his current nursery setting.

The assessment also emphasised his need for full-time, one-on-one support, including during breaks and lunchtimes.

Sharnie continued: "We now have to wait up to 24 months for a tribunal which now leaves Ralphi with no place in the education system.

Of course Ralphi’s situation is the result of a school system overrun with disabled children and they’re simply running out of room, despite more and more money being poured into the problem.

So many stories tell us that this is happening across the U.K., but that’s not an answer. Just because it’s a universal problem doesn’t solve anything.

"Lincolnshire, like all other areas of the country, continues to see increasing demand for special school places. In light of that, the council is investing £100m [$122M] in local special schools, which is creating over 500 additional places."

Regrettably, the challenges faced by Ralphi are not isolated to Lincolnshire; children with special needs across the UK have encountered similar difficulties in recent years.

At the heart of the issue is AUTISM

Jake Runacres, Policy and Parliamentary Officer at the National Autistic Society, added: "The SEND system is simply not working for autistic children.

"Families are facing lengthy battles to get the right support for their children, and our research shows that many autistic pupils are being failed by a woeful lack of appropriate school places.

"Nearly three-quarters of autistic children and young people are educated in mainstream schools, so increasing the number of schools specifically for children with SEND is not enough on its own to fix the problem.

Autism advocates in Britain are at the heart of the problem. They look at autism as part of neurodiversity that we simply need to accommodate.

"Every teacher needs to understand autism, and every autistic child needs to get the right support at school. That’s why we’re calling on the government to launch an autism school places taskforce to ensure the right school places and support are available for autistic pupils.

"We won’t accept a world where autistic children miss out on an education, and families are left exhausted and on the brink of crisis."…

"Our survey of parents of disabled children found that only one in three disabled children has the correct level of support from their education setting; only one in seven families had the correct level of support from social care and only one in five has the correct level of support from health services."

Having autism is fine. We just need to do more for those affected.

The truth is autism has paralyzed us; we can’t do anything to stop it from capturing more and more children. Our only recourse is to add more special places.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Wuhan bioweapons cover

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Vax Unvax DebutJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


Irish Autism Charity AS I AM Ignores Autism Epidemic Reality

Head up assNote: Yesterday, Anne Dachel wrote about a family in Ireland struggling to care for their son with autism. We Are Tired. We Are Broken. THIS is the autism reality most families live. If you have a loved one with autism - no matter the level - who can live independently without any worry strictly related to their autism - you might just have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  I will tell you that autism is CRUSHING aging parents. And siblings.  Example: A young man who works at my daughters' day program told me yesterday that his 21 year old brother with autism is in in college and he WORRIES EVERY MINUTE OF THE DAY about him because he has no safety instincts. In August, we had a Mom at the end of her rope, and her hopes that the world would ever care for let alone help her adult daughter, shoot both her daughter and herself. This is why we still publish AofA.

By Anne Dachel

Ireland: AS I AM autism charity ignores autism epidemic

After recent stories revealing the utter desperation of parents with autistic children in Ireland, I was surprised to see an article that seemed oblivious to what’s happening in that country.

Sept 10, 2023, “Dublin mum behind autism fundraiser The Sparkle Ball is fighting back against 'no services, no help and no support’”

She has three children as well as her step-son Michael, who works tirelessly alongside her to raise funds and awareness for people with autism, raising €224,000 to date

Dublin mum and autism advocate Ciara Jones is in the process of organising the biggest iteration of her glamorous event The Sparkle Ball for Autism to date.

Not only is this event an excuse to get dressed up and enjoy an evening of great food and entertainment, it's an event with heart, as every penny raised goes into funding services for autistic people in Ireland via the charity AsIAm.

Her teenage son Gavin is autistic, and is the driving force behind her family's fight for better services and understanding.

Ciara has been on what she describes as a "never ending" career break since 2018 so she can dedicate more time to her family, and her advocacy work has gone from strength to strength since.

She has three children as well as her step-son Michael, who works tirelessly alongside her to raise funds and awareness for autistic people. To date, Ciara and Michael have raised an incredible €224,000 [$240K} after founding Ireland's biggest Family 5km Run, which is now in its 5th year. …

Michael, as well as being a barrister, has dedicated his life to the autism community of Ireland, and also holds the roll of Head of Community Support at AsIAm.

Her fundraising was a natural part of advocating for her own child's best interests due to a lack of governmentally provided services, with an annual parachute jump, 5km family run and the Sparkle Ball all raising funds for the deserving charity AsIAm each year.

 “I knew straight away after reading about AsIAm that they were going to be the charity we were going to support. They are phenomenal, and have grown themselves at a vast rate," she said.

"Founder and CEO Adam Harris started off with a vision, that people would better understand and accept, and create a more inclusive society in which autistic people can live their best lives. He now has 30 people working in AsIAm, with 50% of them being neurodivergent which is incredible. "

In truth, As I Am is nothing more than the Irish version of Autism Speaks here in the U.S. They have a lot of fund raisers but they actually have no impact on what the autism epidemic is doing to children in that country.

If you go to their website they make it clear that autism is just part of the neurodiversity all around us. We just need to accept and accommodate those affected.

AS I AM

Autism is a lifelong, developmental disability or difference which relates to how a person communicates and interacts with others, and how they experience the world around them. Autism is a part of the broader neurodiversity family of differences or disabilities which encompasses people with conditions or differences such as ADHD, Dyslexia and Dyspraxia, Epilepsy, Tourette’s Syndrome and Dyscalculia. …

While autistic people are born autistic, it is not something that parents learn when their child is born. As a child grows up, they may begin to communicate differently to other people, find day-to-day situations stressful or overwhelming and rely on structure and routine in order to manage. This in turn may lead to a person receiving an autism diagnosis. …

It is also important to remember that autism is genetic, which means that there are a great many undiagnosed autistic parents of autistic children. Sometimes these parents don’t see signs of their child’s autism because it is how they themselves interact, communicate and understand the world. 

As I Am totally rejects the idea that vaccines cause autism.

No – it’s been widely disproven that vaccines cause autism in young children’s brains. The Royal College of Physicians in Ireland have conducted an in-depth study on the possible risks of vaccination and found this to be a myth with no medical basis.

Accredited international medical professionals have carried out similar reviews investigating whether there is a connection between autism and vaccines and their results have repeatedly found no link.

As I Am seems content with exploding numbers of children with autism on waitlists for school places and services. As I Am must assume that no rate is ever too much. One in every 21 children, one in every 13 boys has autism in Ireland. That’s going to take a lot of awareness and accommodations.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Wuhan bioweapons cover

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Vax Unvax DebutJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


We Are Broken. We Are Tired. The Autism Parents' Lament.

Sharon and Pat Autism HoldBy Anne Dachel

As you read this, keep in mind that officially one in every 21 children, one in every 13 boys in Ireland has an autism diagnosis
.  (SEE: Cork Independent )

Just like in the U.S., where one in every 22 children in California has autism and one in every 20 in Florida, Ireland’s numbers raise no alarm. The reality that those rates are only going to increase in the coming years is of no concern to officials.

Coincidentally over a three day period I found four stories in the Irish press. They’re all about parents desperately trying to get support and services for their AUTISTIC CHILREN.

I think they’re also about the complete and utter failure of anyone in the government or the medical profession to recognize autism as an epidemic that threatens the future of Ireland.

Keep in mind as you read these stories that, just like in America, the public in Ireland has been taught that all the autism is nothing new; this kind of child has always been around. We didn’t recognize the problem.

Schools

Two of these stories are about special schools.

Sept 10, 2023, Irish Examiner: Cork special school yet to open already has waiting list

Mother of boy with additional needs cannot secure school place 

The East Cork Community Special School is set to open in Carrigtwohill in November. 

It will do so with 18 primary and secondary-level students.

The Department of Education told the Irish Examiner that there is already a waiting list for the school.

A spokeswoman for the Cork Education and Training Board said: “Cork Education and Training Board is working to a date of Monday, November 6 as the opening day for East Cork Community Special School.

“A principal for the school was appointed this week and Cork ETB is currently in the process of recruiting other staff.”

The school is for students, aged 4 to 18, who have a diagnosis of autism and complex learning needs and for students with complex learning needs, who require the support of a special school setting, according to Cork ETB.

The mother of a 15-year-old boy who has recently been diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability says her son has returned to a unit in a mainstream school elsewhere in east Cork on a part-time basis.

He also has a diagnosis of autism and ADHD and is attached to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and the East Cork Disability Network services.

During the last academic year, he could not cope in mainstream school as he is not on the same level as his peers either emotionally or socially.

Local Fine Gael councillor Anthony Barry said he is not surprised that there is already a waiting list for places in the new school. …

The spokeswoman added: “It is envisaged that the new special school will continue to grow and expand to support additional students over time.”

In addition, 388 new special classes have been sanctioned by the NCSE for the 2023/24 school year, she said….

A similar story came from Dublin.

Sept 8, 2023, Irish Times: New special school opens in south Dublin: ‘It’s very emotional. We never thought it would happen’

Miriam Kenny never thought her son Jonathan (11) would get a chance to go to school in his own neighbourhood.

They live in the affluent suburb of Templeogue in South Dublin. Yet, for all its advantages, the area has suffered from acute shortages of special education places.

Many children with complex conditions have been rejected by their local schools and forced to travel outside their communities and across the city to access an education that meets their needs.

This week, however, Miriam and Jonathan were able to walk to school at the newly-opened Libermann Spiritan School, a special school established on the grounds of the Spiritan-run Templeogue College.

The school has enrolled 24 pupils this week; it will grow to 30 next month. Subject to expansion plans, it could provide education for more than 150 students with special needs.

“We’re delighted,” says Kenny, whose son is autistic and needs a special school place. “It’s a very emotional and exciting day. I cried a lot. We never thought it would happen. Our son will be able to walk to school and be part of his local community. It’s something I hope many other children who need the extra support of a special school in the area will benefit from.”…

 “The opening of this Libermann Spiritan School in Templeogue represents a key milestone as we continue to engage with the Department of Education and National Council for Special Education to maximise opportunities that may exist for the provision of education to children with special needs in all our schools.”…

“We’ve been campaigning since 2018 for local autistic children to be able to access appropriate educational placements in their local area, so this is incredible for them,” she says….

The failure of schools to provide for so many children with autism is only the beginning.

(See my recent story on the lack of adult care.)

As more and more of these children age out of school with nowhere to go, adult services will be overwhelmed. There will never be a supply of residential places to meet the demand.

We can already see that happening in the other stories I found.

No One to Help

Sept 10, 2023, Independent: ‘I love my son but I’m scared of him… we are prisoners in our own home’ – mother of severely autistic boy (9) who needs urgent care

Audrey Dore-Geraghty loves her nine-year-old son Harrison, but she is also frightened of him.

He is severely autistic, as well as potentially schizophrenic, and is so unmanageable right now that the Wexford-based family is in “crisis”, according to his mother.

This follows years of “systematic neglect” by the health services. Ms Dore-Geraghty says her family is at “breaking point”, with no State support to deal with her increasingly volatile son. His behaviour is so violent that the mother of three is currently staying elsewhere with her younger children, while her husband and his father remain with Harrison in the family home.

The couple hope his behaviour stabilises to the point where the family all feel safe sleeping under the same roof again soon. But unless Harrison receives the urgent help he needs, his future is bleak, Ms Dore-Geraghty believes….

“I am at a family member’s place with my six-year-old son and 13-week-old daughter. I have been going to see Harrison every day with the other children, but that’s because my husband and his father are there. If I was on my own, I would be terrified he would attack me, but I’m mostly concerned for the other two kids. My husband can restrain him, [but] I can’t anymore.”

​Harrison Geraghty-Anthony was diagnosed with autism shortly before he turned three. Over the next couple of years his parents, who are dentists, made attempts to access State supports. They found services so lacking they paid for private therapy. Then Dublin-based, they sent Harrison to an autism-specialised pre-school, where he was a “huge challenge” to staff, according to his mother….

Harrison got a place in the autism unit at Kilrane National School in Rosslare. Audrey praised the school and its staff but it wasn’t long before his behaviour became so problematic that he had to be kept almost completely segregated.

It became clear to his parents that unless his behaviour improved, he would be unable to stay at the school. Unable to find a psychiatrist who would treat Harrison in the short term, the couple were forced to look abroad. They found a Spanish psychiatrist and the medication she prescribed helped….

CHI attempted to refer Harrison to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (Camhs) in Wexford, as well as a children’s disability service, but neither could accept him as he does not have a “verified intellectual disability”. As a consequence, he cannot access local psychiatric services.

“At a minimum, we require urgent respite services,” his mother added. “Urgent for the sake of the younger children’s lives and our mental health. We are all prisoners in our own home and the other children are suffering terribly. We are scared in our own home of our nine-year-old, who we know is only going to get bigger and stronger.”

When asked a series of questions about the concerns outlined by Harrison’s mother, a spokesperson for HSE/South East Community Healthcare said it was aware of the child’s case but could not comment specifically.

They said: “At this time, our staff and the families we support are coping with waiting times and staffing shortages which mean that often our service falls short of what people and families expect, and what our staff would want to deliver. Because of a limited pool of qualified and experienced staff, many of our teams are working with fewer members than they need… [We] regret where there is an extensive waiting time for an assessment or for supports and therapies that would help children and their family.”

Finally a story about desperate parents and a lack of summertime support programs. These children have severe autism.

‘We are Broken’

Sept 9, 2023, (Ireland) Independent: ‘We are broken, we are tired’ – Stark report outlines how families of children with special needs are left to fend for themselves

A lack of appropriate services and supports for children with special educational or acute needs is forcing parents to delay urgent self-care and medical appointments, with some left relying on anti-depressants.

More than 20 families have spoken about their experiences of daily struggles to support children with autism or intellectual disabilities this summer without access to vital services and structures….

“As a family, we are broken, we are tired,” said one mother of a nine-year-old girl who is autistic with a moderate-to-severe intellectual disability.

“Myself and my husband both work full-time in order to pay the mortgage but I don’t think we can continue. We are barely functioning in work and the strain of our home life is starting to affect our productivity in work.

“[My daughter] is constantly screaming. Not just shouting — I mean banshee-type screaming. She’s hurting herself by punching, pinching and throwing herself against walls and furniture and she’s attacking her family. She has regressed in every sense of the word.”…

The Department of Education said “children with the most complex special educational needs, especially in special schools, should have access to a school-based summer programme”, so it has tried to expand this.

It said 42,000 children participated in summer programmes last year, a 300pc increase compared to 2019, and efforts are being made to increase this further.

One Government source said they would like to see more schools provide summer programmes, but it is not possible to compel them.

“We have doubled funding to €40m [$43M] but unfortunately we cannot turn around and demand they open, because contractually they are not obliged to,” the source said….

Unfortunately, as the years progress we don't see a future where we can continue to live with the current lack of supports.

Has it always been like this in Ireland? Why aren’t increases in funding ever enough to solve the problem? Why is no ever worried about the future?

Autism has clearly captured Ireland. They have surrendered. They have no will to fight back. I’m sure the one in 21 rate for autism in Ireland from 2022 that I cited at the top of this story will be worse in a year or two. And I’m sure they’ll all be fine with it.

There is absolutely NO ONE who cares why this is happening.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Wuhan bioweapons cover

The Wuhan Cover-Up: And the Terrifying Bioweapons Arms Race (Children’s Health Defense) 

“Gain-of-function” experiments are often conducted to deliberately develop highly virulent, easily transmissible pathogens for the stated purpose of developing preemptive vaccines for animal viruses before they jump to humans. More insidious is the “dual use” nature of this research, specifically directed toward bioweapons development. The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks set in motion a plan to transform the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), under the direction of Dr. Anthony Fauci, into a de facto Defense Department agency.

Vax Unvax DebutJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


Students with Complex Special Education Needs Present Emergency

Abadnonned schoolBy Anne Dachel

I’m stunned by the stories below. All five are from the past week. Four are from the U.S. and one is from the U.K.

What they all have in common is what they reveal about collapse of special education and the role autism has to play.

Here’s what they tell us.

Tunbridge Wells, England: “Proposed SEN school could help alleviate local need

The Witherslack Group is set to open a specialist education school only 4.5 miles from Tunbridge Wells….

The education provider has applied to refurbish the site in Hildenborough and the new school will cater to children aged eight to 18.

The Group provides specialist education and care for young people with a range of special needs, including autistic spectrum conditions, Asperger’s Syndrome, speech, language and communication needs, and other complex learning needs.

The demand for specialist schools has clearly been fuelled by the increase in children needing SEN support, says a specialist advisor for buying and selling businesses, Christie & Co….

Government statistics have confirmed that an increasing number of children require a place at a specialist SEN school. Kent County Council is forecasting a £12.5 million [$16M] overspend in recruitment in this area.

Continue reading "Students with Complex Special Education Needs Present Emergency" »


Most People Want To Do The Right Thing


No act of kindness“Most people want to do the right thing”

A fellow advocate in the autism community made a interesting comment to me recently in the course of our conversation. He said, “Most people want to do the right thing.”

It made me stop and think about stories I see in the news.

He is so right. Modern society has to deal with the huge change that has taken place incrementally over the last 20 years. Today, large numbers of people are affected by neurological disorders.

This is especially true for our children. We can no longer expect that a child who is born healthy and starts out thriving will stay that way. It is now expected that this child could be developing normally and then lose learned skills, ending up with one or more of a myriad of neurological conditions.

It’s now acceptable that 1 in 5 children in the U.S. will have learning and attention issues such as dyslexia and ADHD. One in 36 can be expected to have autism. (If you live in California, it’s one in 22. If you live in Florida, it’s one in 20.)

No one in charge is worried, nor do they expect things to improve. This is now what we have to live with.

And yes, as my friend said, “Most people want to do the right thing.”

So the result, in a society where people want to help those in need, we provide accommodations.

This is why so much coverage is in the news focused on neurodiversity and inclusion. Businesses and community services are getting autism training because clearly they’re going to be dealing with affected people.

So many places hold diversity celebrations and sensory-friendly events because this population is too big to ignore.

I found a very touching story that shows this. It was from Peterborough, England.

This BBC News piece was entitled, “Dad's bid to make Peterborough an autism-friendly city.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-66740456.amp

A father who wants to help make a city one of the most autistic-friendly places in the UK is creating a network of signs to help non-speaking children communicate in public spaces.

Dan Harris, from Peterborough, whose son Joshie is autistic, has secured funding for 100 picture boards in the city. They help people to communicate through images. He said: "We no longer want autism to be hidden." "This is a proof of concept. There are about 3,000 autistic people in Peterborough and it's important that the needs of that community are met." He said he wanted to see the boards introduced across Britain and in other countries. Mr Harris, who is also founder of the charity Neurodiversity in Business, which campaigns for more awareness, said: "This board is incredibly important because it doesn't just help non-speaking people communicate, but it also promotes discussions." He said, "Autism acceptance can only be preceded by autism awareness". The boards cost £6,000 [$7,400] and are funded through a combination of the charity and the local councillor grants.

A person can’t help but admire a dad who is so dedicated to helping the disabled.

Several things in this story also reinforce the idea that autism is here to stay.

The dad calls for “autism acceptance” and “autism awareness.” He founded a charity called “Neurodiversity.”

According to this story, autism isn’t an epidemic of recent origin; it’s something that we don’t question. It’s now a given.

But all the kind intentions can’t change the reality that no society can function with increasing numbers of dependent citizens who will never pay into social services but will live off of them for the rest of their lives.

No one is ever out there raising an alarm over the autism numbers. It would make a person seem uncaring and callous. Maybe that’s why no one brings up the subject.

Personally, I can see where this is going, and when the accepted rate is one in 20 in every state, I hope all the people who want to do the right thing will finally ask the right question.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

8B2845B0-4115-41FE-9F71-71012383949FJoin us in congratulating Dr. Brian Hooker and Robert Kennedy, Jr. and the Children's Health Defense imprint on the huge news that Vax Unvax Let The Science Speak was #11 on the New York Times non-fiction best sellers list this week.  This is important because it tells those who feel they shouldn't question science, "Hey, it's OK to read, and learn and make your own decisions."  It's currently 124 on ALL of Amazon books.  Buy a copy HERE


Two Kinds of Kids: Neurotypical, Neurodiverse

Brain colorsBy Anne Dachel

The latest fad in reporting on autism is to include it in an array of neurological disorders and call it all neurodiversity.

Neurodiversity doesn’t sound so bad. It’s just a lot of differences. It includes kids with autism, ADD, ADHD, OCD, dyslexia, global developmental disorder (GDD) and more.

Neurodiversity is a fact of life in America, especially when it comes to children. So many children today have some developmental problem that labels don’t raise eyebrows.

These children are the norm. They don’t have disorders, just differences. We don’t ask why a particular child ends up with a diagnosis. There’s lots of company sharing the condition, especially in our schools.

On September 1, 2023, The Buffalo (NY) News published the piece, Hard transitions': Buffalo Schools' special education faces backlash over late-summer changes for students with autism.

It was all about how changes to Buffalo schools would affect severely autistic kids.

For several years, classes for students with autism and sensory needs in kindergarten through fourth grade contained six students, one teacher and one paraprofessional – referred to as 6:1:1 classes.

This year, these classes have been eliminated and students previously enrolled will now attend classes comprising eight students, one teacher and one paraprofessional (8:1:1) – in different schools, in some cases – in order to “maximize resources and provide continuity for these students with their peers in grades five through 12,” Hammond said in an email.

While the focus of the story was the class changes, what stunned me were the stats on autism in Buffalo.

Students with disabilities account for 18% of Buffalo’s 30,000 students, according to 2022 state data, and other special education classrooms for students without an autism diagnosis may include those with behavior and emotional needs.

The district will enroll 438 students with autism in kindergarten through fourth grade for the 2023-24 school year, Hammond said, an increase of 103 over the previous year.

That last sentence deserves some explanation. Why the huge increase? Should we expect these additions every year?

Here again a story about a change in the special education program is really a story about autism.

A story in Fortune Magazine, also on September 1st, warned that schools have to learn to accommodate all the students with autism. The piece was entitled, “Autism diagnoses are on the rise. School policy must change to safeguard tomorrow’s workforce.”

As awareness of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased in recent years, the number of children diagnosed with the condition has risen dramatically. In 2002, one in every 150 eight-year-old children received the diagnosis. In 2020, the figure was one in every 36, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s an increase of more than 300%.

This was written by Alexander Lopez, an associate professor of occupational therapy at New York Institute of Technology, and he was highly critical of how schools deal with autistic students.

While the medical community understands autism much better now, the understanding “is not yet translated to U.S. school systems.”

Lopez continued:

Educational strategies to help students with ASD have remained largely unchanged for decades. Without significant improvements in policy and practice, an entire generation of children may lose the opportunity to become independent, productive members of society….

We need changes at the state and federal levels to ensure that appropriate ASD intervention continues beyond preschool. K-12 schools should be required to have occupational therapists or other autism specialists on staff.

Lopez is promoting his profession while denying the stunning increase in autism is real.

Lopez also has the rates wrong. He said in 2002, the autism rate was one in 150 and 2020 it was one in 36.

Actually in 2002, the rate was one in 250 eight year olds, and in 2020, it was one in 54. In 2023, it became one in 36.

It really doesn’t matter; the numbers mean nothing to anyone.

Finally on September 3rd Forbes ran the hit piece, “What is Wrong With Our Schools?”

by Nancy Doyle, who describes herself as the Founder of Genius Within, a company specializing in neurodiversity and disability inclusion at work.

According to Doyle, schools have not adjusted to neurodivergent students.

Mainstream education was invented in the industrial revolution, to prepare workers for the modern age. We needed a population that was literate, numerate, able to sit still and concentrate for hours at a time, performing fine motor control in loud, busy environments.

Those who couldn’t cope with these newly vaunted skills were labelled dyslexic, dyscalculic, ADHD, dyspraxic and/or autistic respectively.

Since the Industrial Revolution happened in the 19th century and all the conditions she named are  much more recent inventions, her theory makes no sense.

I’m not really sure what her point was in the story, but it’s under the heading: DIVERSITY, EQUITY & INCLUSION.

Doyle uses the terms “neurodivergent” and “neurodivergence” and criticizes schools for being restrictive.

There are few institutions in modern society where the consequence of non-compliance is restriction of freedom and isolation units: schools have more in common with prisons. You can get fired from a job for not performing, but it is not legal to detain you.

All three of these stories ignore reality: CHILDREN TODAY ARE NEUROLOGICALLY DAMAGED AND SCHOOLS HAVE TO DEAL WITH THEM.

In Buffalo, they’re left to deal with jaw-dropping autism increases among their students.

Fortune Magazine acknowledges the increases in autism then immediately pretends they’re not real.

Forbes rewrites history theorizing that students have always been “neurodivergent.”

Why so many children cannot function normally is never the focus. Schools are chastised for failing to provide for them. We have turned the abnormal into the normal

This is a farce. Pretending that we just need to be inclusive and all our problems will go away is not reality.

In the story from Buffalo, parents describe what their autistic children are like.

Kate Nowadly’s 5-year-old son with autism is nonverbal, with a tendency to run or climb anything in sight.

Marissa and Nathan Mieth said their son, Anthony, an elementary school student with autism, can throw tantrums and push over tables if his routine is disrupted.

This is the behavior that Nancy Doyle refers to as diversity. These are students that can only function in small groups with constant supervision. Our schools are overwhelmed with a disabled population that was not here 20 or 30 years ago, and no one is willing to recognize it.

###

From Skyhorse Publishing

The War On Ivermectin Yellow Cover
The War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic

#1 Seller in Forensic Medicine

By Pierre Kory Dr. (Author), Jenna McCarthy (Author)

Big Pharma and health agencies cry, “Don’t take ivermectin!” A media storm follows. Why then, does the science say the opposite?” Ivermectin is a dirty word in the media. It doesn’t work. It’s a deadly horse dewormer. Prescribe or promote it and you’ll be called a right-wing quack, be banned from social media, or lose your license to practice medicine. And yet, entire countries wiped out the virus with it, and more than ninety-five studies now show it to be unequivocally effective in preventing and treating Covid-19. If it didn’t work, why was there a coordinated global campaign to cancel it? What’s the truth about this decades-old, Nobel Prize-winning medication? The War on Ivermectin is the personal and professional narrative of Dr. Pierre Kory and his crusade to recommend a safe, inexpensive, generic medicine as the key to ending the pandemic.


Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

The Studies the CDC Refuses to Do

This book is based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each study is analyzed, and health differences among infants, children, and adults who have been vaccinated and those who have not are presented and put in context. Readers will find information on:

The infant/child vaccination schedule
Thimerosal in vaccines
Live virus vaccines
The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine
Vaccination and Gulf War illness
Influenza (flu) vaccines
Hepatitis B vaccination
The COVID-19 vaccine
Vaccines during pregnancy

Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


Autism Is A Category 5 in Florida

Hurricane puzzleHere's a question for candidate Ron DeSantis. What are you going to do about the tidal flood of autism in your state?  Children are surging into the system. Meanwhile there are more than 23,000 adults WAITING FOR SERVICES. Florida is a desert for adults with autism.

###

By Anne Dachel

Aug 25th there was a stunning piece in the Boca Raton (FL) Tribune.

The title wasn’t all that noteworthy, ABA Centers of Florida Opens Flagship Autism Care Center in Boca Raton.   

There was a group photo of the ABA team all smiling, and the story promoted the benefits of ABA autism therapy.

Tucked in the middle was this stunning statement:

“Nearly 5% of children in Florida have autism and we understand that when we make an impact in those kiddos’ lives, we make an impact in their siblings’ lives, in their parents’ lives, in their teachers’ lives. ...

Why are Florida’s numbers so high when the U.S. rate is one in 36? It’s not relevant. No one is interested in where autism is coming from. That was said in passing. It’s certainly good for business if you're providing ABA services. And, now Florida is on a par with California where autism affects one in 22, one in 14 boys. Of course it could go higher like Ireland where the autism rate is one in 21 or N. Ireland where it's one in 20.

Those numbers don't bother anyone either.

###

From Skyhorse Publishing

The War On Ivermectin Yellow Cover
The War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic

#1 Seller in Forensic Medicine

By Pierre Kory Dr. (Author), Jenna McCarthy (Author)

Big Pharma and health agencies cry, “Don’t take ivermectin!” A media storm follows. Why then, does the science say the opposite?” Ivermectin is a dirty word in the media. It doesn’t work. It’s a deadly horse dewormer. Prescribe or promote it and you’ll be called a right-wing quack, be banned from social media, or lose your license to practice medicine. And yet, entire countries wiped out the virus with it, and more than ninety-five studies now show it to be unequivocally effective in preventing and treating Covid-19. If it didn’t work, why was there a coordinated global campaign to cancel it? What’s the truth about this decades-old, Nobel Prize-winning medication? The War on Ivermectin is the personal and professional narrative of Dr. Pierre Kory and his crusade to recommend a safe, inexpensive, generic medicine as the key to ending the pandemic.


Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)


We Need Early Prevention Not Just Intervention

What ifBy  Anne Dachel

You wonder if these behaviors are caused by the MMR vaccines she had recently.

There was an amazing opinion piece by Sandi Squicquero in the Greeley (CO) Tribune on Aug 27th. The title was, The impacts of Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Squicquero described a scenario familiar to uncountable numbers of parents of autistic children.

The birth of a child is a miraculous event.  Parents look forward to it with excitement and anticipation.

The day finally arrives and after the delivery Mom lovingly counts all of the fingers and toes and says a prayer of thanks that he or she is healthy.  Soon Mother and baby are being discharged to return home.

The nursery has been ready for months, decorated in nursery rhymes or fairy tale images.  Dad is excited, sibling’s are waiting at home to see this bundle of joy.

All is right with the universe.

Then she talked about thing not going right.

Before you know it you are celebrating your sweet’s second birthday. You  notice that your child has been having difficulty with language, her social skills are impaired and she is stimming, (repetitive action or movements such as rocking or spinning).

What she said next was almost a passing comment of no real significance, but in truth, it was a jaw-dropping statement.

You wonder if these behaviors are caused by the MMR vaccines she had recently. You consult with your family physician and after months of tests, you are told that your child has Autism Spectrum Disorder.

It is an emotionally crushing statement for parents to hear.

There was no follow-up to the MMR statement. It was just a random thought, but so true for a multitude of children. And maybe it wasn’t the MMR vaccines. Maybe it was the flu shot or any of a number of combinations of vaccines given at those “well baby checks.”

 Squicquero went on to talk about autism, saying, “Most of us will be touched by someone who has autism…”

That’s now a given. Twenty-five years ago few people knew anything about autism; now we all know children with the disorder. Everywhere people are being trained to deal with autistic individuals. Autism is now a fact of life for Americans.

Autism now affects 1 out of 36 children in the U.S. ages 3-17, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Diagnosis focuses on a variety of behavior characteristics in a child such as marked impairment in nonverbal behaviors, failure to develop social relationships, a delay or total lack of the development of spoken language, and difficulty with sensory issues.

Most of us will be touched by someone who has autism. Perhaps we are living with a family member, working with an employee or we are involved with someone on another level.

Will we understand their needs?

People with ASD have problems with social interaction, communication and restricted or repetitive behaviors. Diagnosing ASD can be difficult as there is no medical test like a blood test to diagnose the disorder. Doctors look at the child’s developmental history and behavior to make a diagnosis….

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM5 describes three levels of ASD that are legitimate to the medical community.  They describe them as Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3. …

The most important thing for people to focus on is awareness, prevention, cure and funding.

Squicquero said it’s important to focus on “prevention” among other things. Of course that can never happen.

Autism is a mystery, a puzzle with no known cause, cure or prevention, and that’s the way, officially, it’s going to stay.

Interestingly Squicquero talked about COST. Notice the difference between the BILLIONS autism cost the U.S. in 2022 and the paltry MILLIONS spent by NIH on dead-end autism research.

Autism cost the nation more than $350 billion in 2022, according to the CDC. Research funding in 2022 was $306 million, according to the National Institute of Health.

And those costs are unstoppable, because, as Squicquero notes,Autism is on the rise.”

Autism is on the rise and though research shows there is a genetic predisposition, the causes and cure still elude researchers.  Early intervention is the key.

Squicquero ended with a timid call for “early intervention.” That will become impossible as more and more and more kids are diagnosed. There simply will be too many disabled children to provide for. Many places today have waiting lists that are years long just to get a diagnosis.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

###

From Skyhorse Publishing

The War On Ivermectin Yellow Cover
The War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic

#1 Seller in Forensic Medicine

By Pierre Kory Dr. (Author), Jenna McCarthy (Author)

Big Pharma and health agencies cry, “Don’t take ivermectin!” A media storm follows. Why then, does the science say the opposite?” Ivermectin is a dirty word in the media. It doesn’t work. It’s a deadly horse dewormer. Prescribe or promote it and you’ll be called a right-wing quack, be banned from social media, or lose your license to practice medicine. And yet, entire countries wiped out the virus with it, and more than ninety-five studies now show it to be unequivocally effective in preventing and treating Covid-19. If it didn’t work, why was there a coordinated global campaign to cancel it? What’s the truth about this decades-old, Nobel Prize-winning medication? The War on Ivermectin is the personal and professional narrative of Dr. Pierre Kory and his crusade to recommend a safe, inexpensive, generic medicine as the key to ending the pandemic.


Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)


Heaven Help Us

Pink-cross-with-heartBy Anne Dachel

Aug 20, 2023, Get Religion published an article entitled, Are congregations ready to help carry the unique spiritual burden of autism? by Terry Mattingly.

 It basically called for churches to accommodate people with autism.

But in a few sanctuaries linked to ancient traditions, worship leaders are trying something different. In some Eucharistic services, they are offering autistic worshippers an atmosphere that is more calm and less intense.

“Autistic Priest”

One spokesperson for the autism community is Father Matthew Schneider. He was diagnosed with autism as an adult.

"If you look at many church services from the point of view of highly sensitive people – especially autistic children – there is too much noise, too many lights," said Father Matthew Schneider, known to online Catholics as @AutisticPriest. "We can turn down the lights. We can turn down the volume. We can do a few things to accept these families and let them feel more comfortable."…

Here’s more on his background. He is focused “autistics” and the practice of their faith.

Father Matthew Schneider Navigating Life As Priest On The Autism Spectrum

Father Matthew P. Schneider has over 65,000 followers between Twitter and Instagram and is completing a doctorate in moral theology and is in the final edit for a book on autistic prayer.

Shortly after his ordination in his early thirties Matthew was diagnosed with autism. This diagnosis gave him insight for his vocation in the priesthood.

Mattingly makes an urgent call for churches to address the needs of people with autism.

Continue reading "Heaven Help Us" »


"What RFK Gets Wrong"... Lazy AI Headlines or is Journalism Simply MIA?

Rita Skeeter with penNote: Yesterday, The Kennedy Beacon, a Substack publication from the AmericanValues24 SuperPac reported that during his recent Tucker Carlson interview, Kennedy reported that a mentally ill person intruded into his California home and was able to get to the second floor.  Kennedy was turned down for Secret Service protection by Homeland Security, despite his unique place in American tragedy and history. CNN reported I(see below) that Kennedy's dismay at being turned down by Homeland Security was unwarranted. Apparantly granting protection would be tacit admission that Kennedy is a viable candidate with a chance of winning. How is it anyone's job other than the voters to make this decision? President Obama had protection as a candidate because as a black man, he faced a unique danger. Hard to argue with that. Kennedy's father, a Civil Rights leader, was assassinated. Kennedy's Uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated. Yet "Kennedy just doesn't meet the criteria."

CNN Facts First: Kennedy’s suggestion that he is being treated differently than every other presidential candidate since 1968 is baseless. In reality, the vast majority of candidates in modern presidential primaries never receive Secret Service protection because they are not deemed “major” candidates – and it would be nearly unprecedented for even a major candidate to receive protection this early in a campaign if they did not already have it on account of currently or previously serving in the White House. A CNN review of presidential campaigns dating back to 1980 found that only then-Senator Barack Obama, who faced unique threats as a Black man with a realistic chance to become president, was granted Secret Service protection as early in a campaign as Kennedy is seeking it.

It's almost as if.... nah, couldn't be.

###

By Anne Dachel

I reported on the Aug 10th story on FactCheck : What RFK Jr Gets Wrong About Autism by Kate Yandell.  My post from yesterday: Candidate Kennedy and The Really Big Lie About Autism

On the Aug 11, 2023 we find the piece, What RFK Jr. Gets Wrong About Autism by Pravin Jadhav

Same title....Coincidence?

Here’s how Yandell starts her piece:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a variety of incorrect or misleading claims about vaccines, COVID-19 and other health-related topics, as we discuss in other articles in this series. But his views on vaccines rose to prominence when he began to advance the thoroughly debunked idea that they cause autism — and he is repeating his claims about autism as a presidential candidate.

The prevalence of children identified as having autism has risen in recent decades, but changes in awareness of the neurodevelopmental disorder and how it is defined play a major role in this increase, as we have written before. There may be some true increase in autism, but there’s no evidence that vaccines are a cause.

Jadhav started this way:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made numerous inaccurate and misleading claims about vaccines, COVID-19, and other health-related topics. His infamous claim that vaccines cause autism has been thoroughly debunked, yet he continues to repeat it during his presidential campaign. While there has been a rise in diagnosed cases of autism in recent decades, this can be largely attributed to increased awareness and changes in how the disorder is defined.

Continue reading ""What RFK Gets Wrong"... Lazy AI Headlines or is Journalism Simply MIA?" »


Candidate Kennedy and The Really Big Lie About Autism

Big lieNote: Robert Kennedy, Jr. has been a "friend of ours," to use the vernacular, for more than a decade. We sat agog as he spoke about vaccine injury and the cover ups lead by Dr. Paul Offit at an Autism One Conference. (Who remembers?) That said, we can not and do not endorse candidates, because we are a non-profit. Also, we know that our readers span the full political spectrum, and bring valid, important points of view to our comments. I am actively looking for content from Ron DeSantis and other candidates to share with readers. Autism is so far down the list of topics I think the high price of crinoline underskirts is ranked higher.  This is a sin. Autism is going to wreak havoc on our political, financial, social and family systems as the epidemic rages and ages on. Cheerful, yes?

###

By Anne Dachel

Robert Kennedy, Jr. is a clear threat to the status quo in Washington and elsewhere. There are massive numbers of corporate leaders who don’t want Kennedy’s views made public. Most critical to lots of people is silencing what he has to say about vaccines and autism.

I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that there are endless articles currently in the news about events and places now declaring themselves “autism-friendly” or “sensory-friendly.”

Walmart has joined the growing list of stores, theaters and attractions that offer "sensory-friendly" back-to-school shopping hours for families with autism spectrum disorder or other “neurodivergent” conditions.

The Smithsonian Institution, along with the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City now provide sensory-friendly times.

AMC Theatres around the U.S. offer a regular schedule of sensory-friendly films. This year the White House held its first-ever sensory-friendly Easter Egg Roll.

In Corpus Christi, Texas a barbershop advertises “sensory-friendly services” for customers, much to the relief, we’re told, of autism parents. Cooper City, Florida and Killarney, Ireland announced they are officially “autism-friendly” cities. Many, many others are joining their ranks.

This is intentional. The ideal way to downplay autism is to dress it up as a normal condition that we’re finally accommodating, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing now more than ever.

OVER THE YEARS I’ve written dozens of times about what I call the REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM, namely that there has been no increase in autism.

Whatever the current official rate, it’s the same across the population. It’s always been this prevalent. More kids with autism are always the result of greater awareness, better diagnosing.

That lie has to work. Everything depends on it.

Continue reading "Candidate Kennedy and The Really Big Lie About Autism" »


The Expenses Of Autism Roll In

Raking in the moneyNew song! It's starts like this: "Boom boom bump! Boom boom bump! Boom boom bump! Boom boom bump!  ABA's the thing science says it can bring kids forward from their aut-is-m. You need 20 hours a week. The cost makes us shriek. We can not provide for all who seek. Singing "We will, we will BANKRUPT YOU!" Ok, so I'm not a lyricist. But you get the point. Apologies to Freddie... Mercury (hey oh!)  ABA is the exalted "science based" treatment for autism. But it's pricey! From what I am seeing, a lot of mediocre colleges are churning out BCBAs at a quick pace. Students know they can make far more as a BCBA than social worker. Below, Anne Dachel highlights just two stories  of how the world is starting to go broke on autism. It's going to get much worse. It's no bed of roses.

By Anne Dachel

Two recent stories are a serious cause for alarm.

Aug 11, 2023, Fox 59, Indianapolis: Proposal could cut Indiana Medicaid reimbursement rates for autism therapy for kids   

While health officials, doctors and overwhelmingly the media tell us that all the autistic kids everywhere are nothing new, statistics prove them horribly wrong.

Here’s what’s happening in Indiana.

…Last year, Indiana Medicaid programs provided 6,200 kids with what’s known as “Applied Behavior Analysis Therapy,” or “ABA” for short.

Tuesday, the Family and Social Services Administration (FSSA) alerted ABA providers across the state it would propose a standard reimbursement rate for care administered by an RBT of $55 per hour. However, several providers say the average market rate is closer to $100 per hour, which means the proposal could cut funding by almost half across the board.

Our entire clinic is Medicaid families who depend on these services,” said Courtney Hodge, the owner of Shine Pediatric Therapy.

Hodge said since the clinic opened in October 2022, 38 of 40 families served have used Medicaid vouchers. Hodge said she fears proposed cuts to Medicaid reimbursement rates could mean decreased staffing, training and personalized care for kids.

ABA therapy, we’re told, costs $100 an hour. And funding would be cut by half. Medicaid pays for low income families. How would they afford the cost of ABA?

Here’s the sobering reality for Indiana and, I’m sure, everywhere else.

However, the FSSA [IN Family and Social Services Administration] argues that the current reimbursement rate is unsustainable. The agency said Medicaid programs spent $420M on ABA alone in 2022, and that over the last three years, ABA expenses increased by more than 50 percent each year.

Another story, this one from Fairfield, Texas, gives a chilling statistic about ABA therapy for autistic children.

On Aug 6, 2023, the Freestone County Times, in Fairfield, TX, published an op ed piece by a psychologist who’s worried about losing funding for ABA therapy. She notes, Between 2010 and 2020, demand for ABA services grew over 4,000%.

WHY? Why was there such a staggering increase in demand? We’re not told because the ABA provider wasn’t interest in where these kids are coming from.

I think we need to get used to the word unsustainable. We’re going to be hearing it a lot.

###

Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.

 


Age of Autism is Aging

Autism RealityNote: we mean the ENTIRE age of autism. Not just us. Though we're getting older too. To quote Fleetwood Mac.

By Anne Dachel

Remember the REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM is that it’s nothing new. No matter what the latest rate is, it’s always been that across the population. Autism has never been anything to worry about despite being a condition with none known cause, cure or prevention.

We’ve been trained to be aware of autism, to accept autism and now celebrate it as just another part of all the neurodiversity all around us.

Despite the surreal spin on autism currently, the truth will come out. There’s no way to avoid it.

We’re barely able to deal with growing numbers of children with autism. Now imagine the not too distance future when millions of these children with autism become young adults with autism with no place to go.

Back in 1975 IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, extended special education services to age 21. Some states are already moving that to age 22. In 2014 the U.K. went to age 25. Having disabled young adults in school with teenagers is happening simply because they don’t have enough programs for them when they leave school.

This is nothing but kicking the can down the road a little. The dark future is still there, ready to overpower us.

Continue reading "Age of Autism is Aging " »


Like Pearls Before Swine and H1N1 and Pandemic Flu

Groundhog day clockBy Anne Dachel

There were precursors to the COVID Pandemic.

Lest we forget, COVID wasn’t the first international health emergency. Going back a decade or two, we can remember the alarm that was raised over swine flu and bird flu.

In  both cases, vaccines would be the answer.

In 2009, it was the Swine Flu or H1N1.

May 15, 2009, CNN: More Than 100,000 Americans May Have Swine Flu: CDC

While the official tally of confirmed U.S. swine flu cases topped 4,700 on Friday, experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now estimate the true number of infections at more than 100,000 nationwide.

Also on Friday, health officials announced two new deaths linked to the H1N1 virus, bringing the nationwide total to five….

But in a troubling sign that the swine flu outbreak has yet to run its current course in the United States, three New York City public schools were closed Thursday after dozens of flu-like infections surfaced and an assistant principal was in critical condition on a ventilator, according to published reports….

Vaccine manufacturers and other health experts met Thursday at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to plot potential strategies to combat the swine flu virus.

Continue reading "Like Pearls Before Swine and H1N1 and Pandemic Flu" »


When Will Congress Hold Hearings on Our UAP? Unrelenting Autism Prevalence.

Alien puzzleBy Anne Dachel

Is anyone going to be held accountable for 20+ years of non-stop increases in the autism rate with no credible explanation for why these numbers never stop going up? 

I really want to know.

No member of the media will ever bring this up.

So why don’t we ask people running for elected office about the always expanding rate of autism?

Shouldn’t every candidate be concerned about something impacting so many children and their families, especially those running for the office of President of the United States?

Here’s what’s been happening to autism over the last 20 years.

(FYI, Asperger Syndrome, or mild autism, was added in 1994, so “widening the definition” hardly applies.)

In 2002 the rate was one in every 250 children.

In 2004 it was one in 166 children, one in 102 boys.

In 2007 it was one in 150 children, one in 92 boys.

In 2009 it was one in 110 children, one in 68 boys.

In 2012 it was one in 88 children, one in 54 boys.

In 2014 it was one in 68 children, one in 42 boys.

In 2018 it was one in 59 children, one in 36 boys.

In 2020 it was one in 54 children, one in 33 boys.

In 2021 it was one in 44 children, one in 27 boys.

In 2023 it is one in 36 children, one in 22 boys.

Reports from other places are truly shocking. 

California: One in 22 children, one in 14 boys.    

Ireland: One in 21 children, one in 13 boys

Northern Ireland: One in 20 children, one in 12 boys.

Throughout all these increases, no federal health official has ever referred to autism as a CRISIS. ‘Serious public health concern’ is the strongest language I seen when it comes to autism.

Continue reading "When Will Congress Hold Hearings on Our UAP? Unrelenting Autism Prevalence." »


Sudden Onset Self-Injury and Autism - The Dark Reality

WeepHis name is Connor. His name is every boy and girl name you can dream up. Grandmother feels "She is failing him..."  She isn't.  But we know who did. We know who continues to fail all the Connors of the world. Yesterday, I toured a group day program. If it was a kennel, you'd think twice. Dark secrets are everywhere.  It's up to US to disinfect them with harsh light.  This is why we exist.  Anne Dachel immerses herself in this darkness EVERY DAY. It's like being an FBI profiler for the worse crimes.  Kim

By Anne Dachel

A story from East Peoria, Illinois really impacted me recently. On July 19th I saw the headline, Family still faces tough choices to help 10-year-old boy with autism, self-harming

View the video here.

This is what the video said:

News 25: We told the Goodwin family’s story back in April when 10 year old Connor started self-harming for reasons they can’t understand. They’re trying to chase down the cause of his behavior, trying different methods and medications to keep him safe.

Now they believe he needs a live-in care facility, and it’s another challenge to find one to fit his needs in the state of Illinois.

Grandmother: “We just feel like we are failing him 100 percent, but we don’t know what to do.”

News 25: This has been Carol Goodwin’s life recently. Her 10 year old grandson Connor has autism. He was doing well for most of his life, even attending school .

In just over a year, he started hitting himself on the head leading to bruises and cuts on his face. …

Connor is essentially in need of 24/7 care. His family is looking for a facility that can take him in, but keep finding dead ends in Illinois.

Grandmother: “…They’re full.”

Chuck Hartseil, Consultant, Advocate: “Central Illinois really does not have many residential facilities available within it.”

News 25: It’s at least a six month process to apply to a facility and a long road if you need to seek help outside Illinois. Options are limited in order to get that care funded by the state….

Grandmother: “He can’t be the first one. And if he is, let’s do something to make sure he’s the only one, because if there’s more children out there doing this, then the parents are feeling what we are feeling, absolutely worthless to this child.”

WHAT HAPPNED TO CONNOR?

He was doing well? He was attending school?

WHY did Connor suddenly reverse and can no longer go to school and is now continuously hitting himself?

With no answers, the parent’s only recourse is to institutionalize this little boy.

How is the medical community trying to help him?  We’re not told.

This is the tragedy of our time, and it’s only going to continue.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

###

Order today, from Skyhorse Publishing.

Wuhan Cover Up Book CoverThe Wuhan Cover Up How Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense)

The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks—facilitated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—set in motion a plan to transform the NIAID into a de facto Defense Department agency.

While Dr. Fauci zealously funded and pursued gain-of-function research, concern grew among some scientists and government officials about the potential for accidental or deliberate release of weaponized viruses from labs that might trigger worldwide pandemics. A moratorium was placed on this research, but true to form, Dr. Fauci found ways to continue unperturbed—outsourcing some of the most controversial experiments offshore to China and providing federal funding to Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV's) leading researchers for gain-of-function studies in partnership with the Chinese military and the Chinese Communist Party.

Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


911 What Is Your Autmergency?

Police autismOn July 20th I found this story from Spartanburg, NC: Autism crisis intervention training held for law enforcement in the Upstate

It’s about training local police to deal with autistic people.

This is a pretty typical story. EVERYONE EVERYWHERE seems to be getting schooled in people on the spectrum. (This would seem to be totally UNNECESSARY if, as we’re told over and over, autism has always been here; we just called it something else.)

HOWEVER we live in a world where the autism rate is ALWAYS INCREASING, so we need to pay attention to it.

We’re told ASD is more common than childhood cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.

Right now one in every 36 children has autism, unless of course you live in California where it’s one in every 22, OR in Ireland where it’s one in every 21, OR in Northern Ireland where it’s one in every 20 children.  Everyone accepts that these numbers are only temporary.

The biennial announcement of an ever-increasing rate of autism never worries anyone. Those numbers can just keep going up FOREVER it seems. 

We’re told by experts that no matter what the rate we see in children, it can be applied across the population, AND it’s always been like this.

Notice on the video the instructor says this:

 “About 30 to 50 percent of our folks on the autism spectrum don’t speak but communicate in other ways.”

IF autism has been this common throughout human history…

… why does anyone need training in how to deal with autistic individuals?

… how could we have missed 30 to 50 percent of autistic people NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK, as we’re told here?

(Officially the percentage of autistic people who are nonverbal is 25 to 35 percent, according to NIH.)

... wouldn’t schools have established programs for teaching autistic students, especially since we’ve had IDEA for almost 50 years and autistic students would have had to be in school?

… wouldn’t doctors have long ago figured out just what the exact autism rate is?

…wouldn’t police, fire and emergency personnel be old hands at dealing with autistic behaviors?

THE FACT THAT ANY OF THIS IS HAPPENING is proof that autism is a manmade condition that continues to worsen because we refuse to acknowledge what’s happening.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

###

Order today, from Skyhorse Publishing.

Wuhan Cover Up Book CoverThe Wuhan Cover Up How Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense)

The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks—facilitated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—set in motion a plan to transform the NIAID into a de facto Defense Department agency.

While Dr. Fauci zealously funded and pursued gain-of-function research, concern grew among some scientists and government officials about the potential for accidental or deliberate release of weaponized viruses from labs that might trigger worldwide pandemics. A moratorium was placed on this research, but true to form, Dr. Fauci found ways to continue unperturbed—outsourcing some of the most controversial experiments offshore to China and providing federal funding to Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV's) leading researchers for gain-of-function studies in partnership with the Chinese military and the Chinese Communist Party.

Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


Neurodiversity in a World of Disability

Cui bono
By Anne Dachel

I recently posted 15 stories on Loss of Brain Trust from over three days, July 10th to 12th, and all were about places becoming “sensory friendly” and “neurodiverse.”

They were cheery pieces from the U.S., Ireland, the U.K., about a restaurant, a library, a water park, a hospital, a summer camp, a store and lots of other places, ALL providing accommodations for autism and the other neurological conditions kids are living with today. Everyone was extremely happy about it.

It’s clear; autism is no longer seen as a disability. Kids with autism are just differently-abled and we need to provide for them. Then everything will be fine.

That’s the message

All I could think, seeing these stories, was that there is a master plan here.

IMAGINE that you produced a medical product that was universally accepted as beneficial AND essential, but this product also had serious, pervasive side effects, including one that was highly visible.

WHAT would you do, especially if you didn’t want there to be widespread recognition of the damage?

HOW would you continue marketing the product and keep the profits coming while downplaying the injury?

---------------

FIRST OF ALL, you’d get total control of the narrative.

Continue reading "Neurodiversity in a World of Disability" »


2016 Race Foreshadowed 2024 Hopes

Trump Kennedy "The science is settled.." is doublespeak for "The checks have cleared."  Once  slated to work together, now opponents in the 2024 Presidential race.

By Anne Dachel

This is the story of how our children ended up being sacrificial lambs on the high altar of corporate profit and greed.

I remember back in 2017 the big news was that President Trump asked Robert Kennedy, Jr. to head a vaccine safety commission. That sounded hopeful to many of us.

Here is an example of how it was reported.

Jan 10, 2017, NBC News: Anti-Vaccine Activist Says Trump Asked Him to Head Commission on Vaccine Safety

VIDEO: A member of the Kennedy political dynasty who favors fringe theories on vaccinations over mainstream medical practices says he would lead a new vaccine safety commission under Donald Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. meeting with the President-elect today even as a spokesperson for Trump tells NBC News, “He’s exploring the possibility of forming a committee on autism,” but adds, “No decisions have been made at this time.”

KENNEDY: President-elect Trump has some doubts about the current vaccine policy. He has questions about it. He said his opinion doesn’t matter, but the science does matter.

NBC: That science [is] already settled with every major medical association in agreement, doctors debunking a study that years ago falsely claimed a link between vaccines and autism.

Continue reading "2016 Race Foreshadowed 2024 Hopes" »


Autism Is Rapacious and Will Bankrupt Education, Social Security and Families

Autism money magnetCheery, yes? And true.

By Anne Dachel

I’m starting to see stories in the news that are a preview of how everything will eventually collapse. This is inevitable.  We can’t have this level of disability among our kids everywhere and not have the cost eventually bankrupt us.

Loss of Brain Trust is about what’s happening in our schools. You can’t have tens of thousands of kids on waitlists for ASD diagnoses, you can’t be building whole schools for autistic students, you can’t have counties in England going into huge deficit spending because of the cost of special education, and you can’t have autism rates at 5 percent of students (like in CA, NI, and Ireland) and not have it permanently change society.

I have long said that it won’t be until the COST OF AUTISM buries us that we’ll finally honestly address the CAUSE OF AUTISM.

Imagine what will happen  in the next few years as more and more and more disabled kids leave school with no place to go. Imagine what will happen as aging parents can no longer care for these adult children.

In 2014 the U.K. officially extended special education to age 25. I’m guessing that was done because there is simply nothing for all these disabled young adults after leaving school. It was Britain’s attempt to kick can down the road.

While I’m mostly focused on EDUCATION on Loss of Brain Trust, I can’t help but notice the stories about ADULT SERVICES and that growing crisis. THIS IS WHAT WILL COLLAPSE THE HOUSE OF LIES ABOUT AUTISM.

We’ve bought into the REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM—that there has always been autism everywhere like we see in our children, we just didn’t notice, or we just called it something else.

It’s the perpetual official explanation every time the rate leaps upward.

Of course if that were true, we would have experience dealing with autism. We’ve had IDEA for almost 50 years now, so we would have had these kids in school, even if we didn’t call their disability AUTISM.

QUESTION: If autism has always been here, why do we have to train health care staff, EMTs, police, fire fighters, and teachers etc. to deal with autism?

That question is not allowed.

BUT what can’t be avoided is the coming cost of ADULT CARE. Right now, parents have to shoulder the burden of cost and care for all these autistic children. Right now, autism coverage is mostly about school age children.

ADD on to that the cost of adult services and care. I’m starting to look for these stories as well.

There was a sobering story on July 10th from Longmont, Colorado about a 13 year old with severe autism

CBS Colorado News: Dad abandons son with autism at Longmont hospital and human service workers refuse to take custody

A 13-year-old boy with Autism has been forced to live at UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital in Longmont for three weeks after his dad abandoned him and human service workers told hospital employees it would take months to secure placement for the boy due to a lack of resources….

Madlynn Ruble with the Colorado Department of Human Services said while the state is working to increase residential treatment, it lacks options for children with highly complex medical and behavioral health needs, due in part to a lack of providers.

When I saw the Colorado story, I immediately remembered something similar from Canada that I wrote about ten years ago.

May 3, 2013, Age of Autism Heartbreaking Story: Adult Son with Autism Left to State

It was a story about parents who turned their autistic son, who functioned on the level of a two year old, over to social services because they could no longer care for him.

IF autism has always been here, why aren’t there places for these disabled adults? Why do parents have to drop their children off?

WHY can’t young autistic adults go where autistic adults have always gone?

WHAT does that tell us about autism?

Here’s further proof that society is not prepared for the tsunami of autism that’s coming.

In Sherbrooke, Quebec, they’ve opening a home for autistic adults who have “lighter needs” and don’t require 24/7 care.

On July 5, 2023, in the U.K., a report was published about changes that have to happen in order to care for autistic adults.

On 5 July, a new report called Supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people in England – commissioned from Housing LIN by the Learning Disability and Autism Housing Network, a coalition of more than 20 housing associations – was published with the aim of providing data, information and insight about supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

The research provides a comprehensive evidence base of the scale, scope, cost and future need of supported housing. The report sets out clear recommendations that the network firmly believes will help address many of these issues. …

More funding needed

“Our call to government is to support new provision by increasing the level of capital funding and reforming the outdated rent standard that has stifled new public funded provision”

Over 80% of the supported housing provision in this sector is provided by housing associations.

The majority of tenants living in supported housing have significant support needs, with over 43% of people receiving over 100 hours a week of care and support.

Over 83% of supported housing tenants require higher levels of ‘specified’ housing benefit and over 58% live in specialised supported housing – which is exempt from the Rent Standard – where there are high levels of care and support and limited or no public capital subsidy.

Demand exceeding supply

Housing LIN estimate that more than 1,800 additional homes are needed each year over the next 15 years – that’s 27,000 individuals – which will require over £340m [$438M] per year of private and public funding. It is clear that even with increased grant funding, the sector requires significant input from private finance and needs to develop a model that supports new provision with private finance that is sustainable, reasonable and provides good-quality, secure housing for people.

The reality is that demand from individuals, their families and commissioners is exceeding supply and if we are going to respond to this need with quality housing and viable funding, things need to significantly change. Our call to government is to support new provision by increasing the level of capital funding and reforming the outdated Rent Standard that has stifled new public funded provision.

Also on July 10, 2023, there was a similar story about the need for adult care.

The Guardian: ‘We were inundated’: creating pioneering homes for autistic young adults

With growing numbers of parents increasingly unable to find suitable, safe and secure residential accommodation for their young adult children – and cash-strapped councils having to pay exorbitant costs when already expensive placements break down – the two are coming together to forge a solution. …

Another parent who is also working on a proposal for their council, who asked not to be named, said: “The current situation [in my area] is unbelievably bad for profoundly autistic adults. We’ve got no choice but to create something ourselves.

"There is no money available and everyone we speak to tells of atrocities of autistic folk being placed in unsuitable settings which then break down and end up costing millions in psychiatric care – plus all the trauma associated with that. We’re not prepared to let our child go down that route,” they added.

Fraser Hardie, the chair of the Autism Centre of Excellence in Cambridge, said: “There is a crisis playing out in this country if you’re autistic. In my county, there are between 30 to 50 children who will need this care in the next five years – and literally nothing for them.”

In 2021 the Health Foundation estimated that turning around the crisis in adult social care would cost at least £7.6bn [$9.8B] in 2022 to 2023, and £9bn [$12B] in 2024 to 2025. …

“This is an area which is generating very significant financial pressure for both adults and children’s social care services. The growing volume of children and young people with complex needs is outstripping the ability to commission arrangements.”

There’s more

July 10, 2023, (UK) THIS: LDA Network reveals need for over £300m [$386M] a year to be invested in supported housing in England https://thiis.co.uk/lda-network-reveals-need-for-over-300m-a-year-to-be-invested-in-supported-housing-in-england/

New research by the Learning Disability and Autism (LDA) Housing Network has called for £304m [$391M] of private and public funding each year, over the next 15 years, to deliver the increasing demand in supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people.

July 11, 2023, Learning Disability Today: New research predicts massive shortage of supported housing

New research on the future needs of supported housing for people with a learning disability shows that there will be a shortfall of between 27,000 to 34,500 by 2037.

The report, Supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people in England, was launched by Learning Disability and Autism Housing Network and Housing LIN….

Ian Copeman, Business Director at Housing LIN, said: “We are delighted to have worked with the LDAHN to undertake this research into the scale, scope and cost of supported housing for people with learning disabilities and autistic people. We regularly work with local authorities, NHS organisations and housing providers to widen the housing options available to people with learning disabilities and autistic people. We look forward to the work of the LDAHN and their partners leading to more people having their own home.”...

April 21, 2023, Los Angeles, Spectrum News: Apartment complex for neurodiverse individuals breaks ground in LA

BEVERLYWOOD, Calif. — It’s a question that haunts many parents of children with intellectual disabilities: Where will they live after I’m gone?

A new housing development in the center of Los Angeles will soon provide an answer with the nation’s first residential complex for people with autism, ADHD and other neurodiversities.

 “Unfortunately for this growing population, after high school there are often limited options for learning, employment and housing,” said Eric Schwartz, father of an adult son with an intellectual disability and board member of the charitable nonprofit Cornerstone Housing, which is developing The Village apartment complex in Beverlywood….

According to the California Department of Developmental Services, 75% of adults with developmental disabilities live with aging family members or caregivers. About 70,000 teens with autism turn 18 each year, according to the Autism Institute at Drexel University, but once they become adults, they are often unable to find well-paying jobs and support themselves.

The idea behind the Village is to create “a nurturing neighborhood where kindred spirits can encourage, comfort and support one another, make lasting friendships, become independent, empowered and confident,” Schwartz said. “A place where support is readily available. A place where size and scale allow services to be delivered effectively and efficiently.”

In the works for over 20 years, the Village will have 64 apartments when construction is complete, as well as 10,000 square feet of retail on the ground floor. Individuals who live in the building will receive skills training and job placement opportunities and be provided with meals, activity rooms, exercise classes and transit access in a building that is staffed 24 hours a day with security. …

March 2, 2023, CBS New York: Westchester County convent to be converted into housing for adults on the autism spectrum

TUCKAHOE, N.Y. -- A much-needed home for adults who are on the autism spectrum is in the works in Westchester County.

State numbers show the number of people diagnosed is increasing every year.

Government services usually end by the age of 21, and this is one model that could help ease the transition to adulthood.

Kristin Thatcher was smiling from ear-to-ear as she talked about her Staten Island apartment, part of a former convent building that was converted a few years ago for adults on the autism spectrum.

She says she told Cardinal Dolan she doesn't belong in a group home and that she needed her own independent living space when she comes home from work….

"Right now in New York state, there is a tsunami of adults with autism who need housing. They are on waiting lists, isolated and afraid as their parents age and their future is uncertain," said Donna Maxon with ArchCare.

ArchCare, the health care system of the Archdiocese of New York, this week announced it's transforming another convent -- the one at Immaculate Conception Church in Tuckahoe. There will be nine living units, each equipped with a kitchen and bathroom. Applications must be mailed by March 31….

The building is expected to open in 2024.

Members of the media blather on and on about autism awareness, acceptance, and now more and more about NEURODIVERSITY and INCLUSION, all the while pretending that vast numbers of autistic children are nothing new. But in the real world the clock is ticking.

In 2023 the CDC study released their first ever study on profound autism.

The report found that the percentage of 8-year-old children with profound autism among those with autism was 26.7 percent. 

This is the future. The massive cost of special education is nothing when compared to the never-ending price tag for lifetime care for autistic adults. Coming up with housing for high functioning autistic adults who do well with minimal support may make everyone feel proactive and caring, but it’s not reality. There are many thousands of autistic Americans who will live long lives totally dependent on social services and ultimately the taxpayers.

The pretense that all this is nothing new is simply a myth. If we don’t stop the lie, we have no  future.

Anne Dachel Is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

###

Order today, from Skyhorse Publishing.


Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


Age of Autism (And All the LIES That Followed)

LiesBy Anne Dachel

In 2011, the book, The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic, by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill was published.

Back in 2011 when this book came out, the official autism rate was one in every 110 U.S. children. We’d seen that number dramatically increase before. It was one in 150 in 2009, and by 2012, it would be one in every 88 kids. And it really wasn’t a big news story when in March 2023, it became one in every 36. (And if you live in California, it’s one in every 22.)

How prophetic for Dan and Mark to name their book, Age of Autism, because we truly do live in an age when autism is everywhere, accepted as a fact of life.

Over the last two decades I’ve covered how autism is presented in the media. The main message about autism has been that it’s a mystery, but it’s nothing to worry about. The only point everyone agrees on when it comes it autism is that there is no link to the ever-increasing battery of vaccines children are required to get in order to go to school. 

Beyond that, it’s anyone’s guess. Experts have been scratching their collective heads for decades now, at the same time no U.S. official has ever used the word “CRISIS” when speaking about autism. (I’m sure that order was right from the top.)

For years, we were told that autism was a mysterious condition that experts were working on diligently, despite never coming up with any real findings on this disorder.

NOW with almost all of us related to someone with autism in our immediate or extended families, there’s a new message in town: autism is not a disability.

I’ve been seeing it in so many recent stories.

July 6, 2023, Psychology Today: Is Autism a Superpower? By Jessica Penot LPC

 

It is important to understand the beauty and complexity of autistic strengths.

These were listed as key points in the article:

Many autism advocates describe autism as a superpower.

Autistic people are unique and diverse. Autism can be a superpower, but it can come with struggles.

Accepting autism as a different way of being that is diverse and beautiful is the goal.

The absurd piece made a passing reference “profound deficits” in some people, but mostly autism is an asset. The author tells us that she is herself autistic, but hardly the head-banging, hand-flapping, nonverbal, non-potty trained variety.

Autism can be a superpower and if you have superpowers or gifts, celebrate them. Even if the gifts are small, they are worth celebrating. As we move forward in our understanding of autism, it is important to remember that it is both a blessing and a disability. Those of us with autism are different and there is infinite beauty in our variation. Sometimes this variation can look like a superpower and sometimes it can look like a disability. We are all unique. That is the story we need to tell. As Devon Price states, "My point is to say that Autism is a way of being, neither inferior nor superior to neurotypical ways of being."

I’m sure most parents whose lives are consumed caring for a severely autistic child wonder if this lady has ever looked at the other end of the spectrum.

Then there was the story on July 6, 2023, about Dr. Stephen Mark Shore from Adelphi University in New York. The title was Society must stop seeing autism as a handicap, says expert.

It seems we have to rethink autism.

According to Dr. Shore:

In a world where society still sees autism as a handicap, knowing and understanding the disability can change this mindset, according to Dr. Stephen Mark Shore, Clinical Associate Professor, Adelphi University, New York.

Speaking on the second day of the three-day International Conference on Comprehensive Education (ICCE) for Children with Special Needs, at the Different Art Centre here on Thursday, he said that understanding the abilities of the autism-affected and guiding them according to their interests, would open up vast possibilities for them. Society needs to stop seeing them as lesser humans or disabled, he added.

“Autism is not a medical condition. Rather, we need to accept their differences and prepare a place for them in society. Autistic children have different abilities. They can be brought to the forefront of society by identifying these abilities and training them in a focused manner,” Dr. Shore said. …

Parents of differently abled children need to come together so as to devise projects for such children, and get them implemented through government intervention, said Anita Frey, Clinical Associate Professor at Adelphi University, New York. Participating in a discussion held as part of the conference, Ms. Frey spoke about the impact of family environment on the development of differently abled children and called for forming special teacher-parent associations for the parents of differently abled children in schools. Such organisations should jointly devise economic and social assistance schemes, she proposed.

On July 3, 2023, Geraldine Dawson had her views in Psychology Today. Dawson, if you recall, was the chief science officer at Autism Speaks for five years, where nothing was done to really address the autism epidemic, but I’m sure she was well paid for her time.

The title was Reshaping the Narrative About Autism—Asset framing defines autistic people by their assets, reshaping expectations. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-of-autism/202307/reshaping-the-narrative-about-autism

Here were Dawson’s key points:

Focusing on deficits is associated with stigma and diminishes our ability to see a person's capabilities.

Our words form a powerful narrative that can expand or minimize our expectations about a person’s abilities.

We can harness the power of asset-framing by defining autistic people by their assets before their challenges.

Strengths-based approaches are associated with better health and well-being, and higher self-confidence.

This is Dawson’s vision of autism:

Now let’s consider this area of research from an asset-framing point of view. As I mentioned, autistic people tend to focus more on individual features of the face. Interestingly, when this unique visual processing strategy is used in other contexts, such as solving visual puzzles, autistic people are superior to non-autistic people. For example, autistic people tend to score extremely high on the block design task, a visual-spatial task that is part of most IQ tests. As early as 9 months of age, infants who are later diagnosed with autism have been found to have superior visual search skills. Thus, the unique visual processing skills of autistic people are advantageous in certain contexts, and in fact, help explain why some autistic people do well in fields such as math and engineering. Once again, what is viewed as a deficit is often the flip side of a strength. …

How we describe people is important because our words form a powerful narrative that can either expand or minimize our expectations and beliefs about a person’s potential abilities, aspirations, and contributions to society. Let’s change the narrative about autism by applying asset-framing in our conversations, publications, and other settings, defining autistic people by their strengths before describing their challenges and difficulties.

The truth is, whatever is causing autism is something we just don’t want to deal with. Autism isn’t going away; we have to learn to live with it.

So there’s a new narrative about autism out there: It’s time to be inclusive. Remember, we’re all differently-abled.

Autism Friendly

That’s why there are now lots of stories out there about businesses, organizations, services and even whole cities becoming autism certified.

You can see all the stories I’ve posted on Loss of Brain Trust

about places doing this. All the folks at these places have been trained to deal with people on the spectrum. It’s good for business and it shows just how pervasive a once rare disorder has become.

Age of Autism (LIES)

With autism being seen today a naturally occurring part of childhood, something to be celebrated every April and a fact of life for anyone dealing with kids, it’s important that we dismiss those with any real concerns about autism.

There are certain things we don’t want to talk about, certain questions we can’t ask because, remember, this is the Age of Autism (LIES).

HERE ARE THE LIES:

Higher autism rates don’t mean there’s more autism.

No one is allowed to ask when the increases will stop. In truth we just have to expect that one in every 36 children with autism is only temporary. By next year things will probably be worse, but remember, it’s all better and better diagnosing.

Children are born with autism, therefore early diagnosing is important.

We never bring up the fact that, as NIH reports on their website, “32% of children on the autism spectrum experience skill loss, known as autistic regression.” So normally developing kids, potty-trained and talking who suddenly lose learned skills are not worth looking at.

Autistic kids don’t have a disability. They’re ‘differently abled,’ in the words of Dr. Stephen Shore.

As we pretend that autism is just an “inability at social interaction and a lack of communication skills,” we don’t mention the fact that 25 to 30 percent of kids with autism are considered nonverbal. We don’t want to talk about this because it would be hard to explain how generations of parents, doctors and teachers could have missed all these non-speaking children.

The rate for eight year olds is the same for everyone across the population.

When we claim that autism has always been this prevalent, we never want to actually look for the adults with autism demonstrating the same signs we see in our children. No study has ever been able to find them, but take our word for it, they’re out there.

These lies have worked for years. Health officials have them well-memorized. Doctors are taught them in med school. The media faithfully and endlessly tell everyone.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

###

Order today, from Skyhorse Publishing.

Wuhan Cover Up Book CoverThe Wuhan Cover Up How Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense)

The Wuhan Cover-Up pulls back the curtain on how the US government's increase in biosecurity spending after the 2001 terror attacks—facilitated by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)—set in motion a plan to transform the NIAID into a de facto Defense Department agency.

While Dr. Fauci zealously funded and pursued gain-of-function research, concern grew among some scientists and government officials about the potential for accidental or deliberate release of weaponized viruses from labs that might trigger worldwide pandemics. A moratorium was placed on this research, but true to form, Dr. Fauci found ways to continue unperturbed—outsourcing some of the most controversial experiments offshore to China and providing federal funding to Wuhan Institute of Virology's (WIV's) leading researchers for gain-of-function studies in partnership with the Chinese military and the Chinese Communist Party.

Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


Club Random with Bill Maher Excerpts with RFK Jr

Type WriterAnne Dachel has made an unofficial transcription of salient points from Robert Kennedy Jr.'s interview with Bill Maher under the assumption the YouTube video will be pulled down at any moment.

By Anne Dachel

The following is a part of the two hour conversation between entertainer Bill Maher and presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. The first hour of the talk was about Kennedy’s position on vaccines and failure of our government to ensure this product is safe. He explained that vaccine makers were given immunity from liability in 1986 BECAUSE vaccines were “unavoidable unsafe,” and some people were going to be injured. He said that because of “corporate capture,” there was no real oversight from our federal health agencies. Pharma literally has oversight over itself. He stated that results from the CDC’s own study showed that vaccine injury was NOT one in a million, as we were often told, but one in 37. He cited a 2000 study from Johns Hopkins that showed that vaccines ARE NOT responsible for a huge drop in deaths from infectious disease. It was instead better nutrition and improved  sanitation. He asked the question: If the explosion in the autism rate from one in 10,000 to one in every 34 children today is NOT linked to coincidental tripling of the vaccine schedule, then, what is the cause? He once again pointed out that officials have never done vaccine safety trials, yet he has over 450 studies that DO SHOW A LINK between vaccines and autism.

June 25, 2023 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | Club Random with Bill Maher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0dQD1Z6j60

Go to 20:33

Maher: If you're going to make this campaign happen, the one thing that they're never going to stop talking about is vaccines. 60 Minutes quoted me saying in 2009 or something, I wouldn’t get a flu shot. You came out of the gate at 20 percent because there’s just a lot more people in this country who are on to that kind of thing. And how medical science, conventional, is wrong and gets things wrong, including about COVID. You’re going to have to get past this issue if you’re going to go anywhere. I think your idea of connecting the pharmaceutical industry, and that certainly had to do with how COVID was handled, with the bigger issue of how corporate America having too much of a stranglehold on this country. That is a great issue. It’s a little not obvious, so you’re going to have to explain it to people.

Continue reading "Club Random with Bill Maher Excerpts with RFK Jr" »


There Are None So Double Blind As Those Who Will Not...

Hide under deskLast week, our Anne Dachel prepared a list of questions to pose to VIDS - Vaccine Injury Deniers - as a follow up to Robert Kennedy's podcast with Joe Rogan. You can read it along with a transcript here.

###

By Anne Dachel

‘We Don’t Have Any’         

When Robert Kennedy, Jr. was interviewed by Joe Rogan on June 15, 2023, he pointed out glaring malfeasance on the part of U.S. health officials.

WHERE ARE THE VACCINE SAFETY STUDIES?

Kennedy said:

And that’s the problem with not doing real placebo controlled trials.

None of the vaccines are subjected to true placebo controlled trials.  It is the only medical product that is exempt prior to licensure.

I said this for many, many years: Not one of these 72 vaccines has ever been tested pre-licensing in a placebo controlled trial where you’re looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated kids, looking for health outcomes. Never been done.

Tony Fauci was saying, [Kennedy’s] lying. He’s not telling the truth.  This is vaccine misinformation.

I said to him, “Tony, you’ve been telling people I’m a liar when I say no vaccine has ever been,  none of the mandated  vaccines…none of them have ever been tested in a placebo-controlled trial safety test prior to licensing.”

And I said, “Can you show me one vaccine that has been subject to a safety test. Show me one study that shows that.”

He made this show of looking through… They had brought in from NIH, this big tray full of file folders, and he made a show of looking through that at the time. He couldn’t find whatever he was looking for.

Then he said, “It’s back at NIH in Bethesda, and I’ll sent it to you.”

Well, he never did.

So Aaron and I sued him, sued HHS and said, “Show us one study that’s ever been done on pre-licensing safety testing for vaccines.”

After a year of stonewalling, they finally gave us a letter and said, “We don’t have any.”

They literally don’t have any.

So nobody knows what the risk profiles for these products are. So they’re telling people they avert more harm than they cause, but there’s no science behind that statement. It’s just a guess work.

Joe Rogan challenged vaccine defender Dr. Peter Hotez to come on camera and debate vaccine safety with Kennedy.

THAT’S WHAT’S MISSING

The most important question that everyone needs to ask, that has to be answered, is simple:

Where are the double blind studies demonstrating that each vaccine is safe for children?

This is the norm in drug development. One group gets the actual product and another group gets  a placebo, neither group knowing which one they receive. Researchers then study the side effects to see if there’s a problem. In the case of vaccines, something mandated for children to be able to attend school, this is critical.

If health agencies really had piles of these studies, the debate would be over. They could shut Kennedy down immediately. YES, VACCINES ARE SAFE. THESE STUDIES PROVE IT.

SO WHERE ARE THOSE STUDIES?

This report from 2017 explains how “double blind tests” really work. In the case of the HPV vaccine, researchers included toxins in the placebo group, namely ALUMINUM.

Of the 16 HPV vaccine randomized trials, only two used an inert saline placebo. Ten of the sixteen compared the HPV vaccine against a neurotoxic aluminum adjuvant, and four trials used an already-approved aluminum-containing vaccine as the comparison.

One does not have to be a scientist to understand that using aluminum-containing placebos is likely to muddy the comparison between the treatment and control groups. Critics of the HPV vaccine have pointed to the aluminum adjuvant as the most likely cause of adverse reactions, and some researchers have questioned the safety of using aluminum adjuvants in vaccines at all, due to their probable role as a contributor to chronic illness. The aluminum-containing placebos appeared to provoke numerous adverse reactions among the presumably unwitting patients who received them, allowing the pharma researchers to mask the cascade of similar adverse reactions among the groups that received the vaccines. Although both placebo and study groups suffered numerous adverse events in these studies, there were minimal differences between the two groups.

The similar adverse outcomes in both groups allowed industry researchers and government regulators to claim that the vaccines were perfectly safe, despite manifold disturbing reactions. The Mexican researchers’ meta-review confirms the difficulty of ascertaining vaccine-attributable differences from this mess; the researchers identified only a few indications of “significantly increased systemic adverse events in the HPV vaccine group vs. the control group” across the 16 pre-licensure trials.

If this is the kind of “science” officials have to show vaccine safety, it is obvious why Dr. Hotez is won’t come on with Kennedy. And no wonder the pharma shills in the media are telling Hotez to run away and hide.

On June 24th, the New York Intelligencer published, Anti-Vaxxers Don’t Want a Debate; They Want a Spectacle, by Sarah Jones.   Ms Jones, like everyone else in the mainstream media, assumes there’s no question that vaccines are safe. There no need to be fair and balanced.

Jones’ choice of descriptive words made it clear who was the good guy and who was the baddie. She wrote:

With the presidential candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine opponent, and the popularity of vaccine-hostile commentators like Joe Rogan,

Dr. Peter Hotez, a highly regarded Texas-based vaccine scientist.

Most of all, Jones endorsed Hotez’s refusal to debate with Kennedy.  It’s just too dangerous.

Whatever the personal cost, Hotez is right to refuse a debate, many experts say, because doing so would provide anti-vaxxers like Kennedy with an opportunity to spread their baseless views even further. A debate may also validate the harassment that Hotez has faced.

Jones went on to cite experts who opposed giving the anti-vaccine group any public platform. All they have are lies so there’s no reason to talk to them.

Jones is not the only one in the media saying Hotez can’t risk talking to Kennedy.

On June 24th, t the Houston Chronicle run a story with the headline, Why Hotez is right not to debate RFK Jr.

Time Magazine said this: Hotez is right not to take the bait. Rogan is unqualified to moderate such a debate, and has himself peddled disinformation about vaccines. Debating anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists like RFK Jr. is a fool’s errand, which always backfires, as history has demonstrated repeatedly. These debates give the false impression that there are “two equivalent sides,” and therefore can cause real public health damage.

Members of the media aren’t really interested in this topic. None of them have ever researched evidence in both sides or the glaring conflicts of interest rife in our federal health agencies. None would dare question any aspect of the mantra, VACCINES ARE SAFE; VACCINES SAVE LIVES. That’s why they ignore every one of Kennedy’s claims about vaccine dangers.

It’s so much easier to start out coverage calling Kennedy names and reminding everyone that there are no problems with vaccines, all the experts say so.

NBC News: Kennedy, a once-fringe anti-vaccine activist, has received a warm embrace from some of the most popular alternative media figures. …

An NBC News review found nine videos posted on YouTube this year that are still up in which Kennedy shares medical misinformation related to vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic. …

WHO said Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective and called for countries to vaccinate at least 70% of their populations.

TIME: Joe Rogan, America’s most popular podcaster, recently called for Professor Peter Hotez, an internationally recognized pediatric infectious disease doctor and vaccine scientist, to come on his podcast to debate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.), a prolific spreader of medical disinformation.

CNBC:  Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist who’s now running for president, 

Forbes: One of the more vocal figures misinforming the public has been Kennedy. He went on Rogan’s show recently to once again back Covid-19 vaccine conspiracy theories. Kennedy also reiterated the debunked notion that there’s a link between childhood vaccines and autism. 

Vanity Fair described Kennedy as a “raging anti-vaxxer.”

ON June 23rd, the New York Times run this headline on an opinion piece:  It’s Not Possible to ‘Win’ an Argument With Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claiming it’s too dangerous to debate Kennedy.

Los Angeles Times: Kennedy has now paddled back into the American political discourse by announcing his candidacy for president in April on the Democratic ticket. His family connection appears to have brought attention to his campaign; the question is whether the dazzlement of the Kennedy name will be sufficient to blind voters to his history of promoting spectacularly dangerous health policies through misrepresentations and outright lies. …

The dangers from Kennedy’s campaign should be clear. One is that a Kennedy candidacy that gains any real traction alone will increase the political credibility of anti-vax claptrap, which already has more than enough.

What’s missing in all of this is the overwhelming evidence that we are a nation of the sick and disabled. Over half of Americans are chronically ill. Every couple of years CDC officials announce another breath-taking increase in the autism rate, now conservatively at one in every 36 kids (except if you live in California where it’s one in every 22 kids officially).

Our schools are filled with kids who can’t learn or behave as children have always been expected to, yet we’re told it’s all normal and acceptable. Robert Kennedy Jr.’s real crime here is that he’s pointing out what’s happening. That is simply not allowed.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Vax Unvax Book Cover Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak (Children’s Health Defense) Hardcover – Illustrated, August 15, 2023 by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Author), Brian Hooker (Author)

Based on over one hundred studies in the peer-reviewed literature that consider vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations. Each of these studies is analyzed and put in context of the difference in health outcomes of vaccinated versus unvaccinated infants, children, and adults. Given the massive push to vaccinate the entire global population, this book is timely and necessary for individuals to make informed choices for themselves and their families.


Tucker Carlson June 22 2023 on the Hatred of Candidate Kennedy

Old tv static
Anne Dachel has transcribed Tucker Carlson's  Tucker on Twitter June 22, 2023 comments on Candidate Kennedy and Dr. Peter Hotez for posterity. Posterity in this case is not "future generations," but anyone who tries to find the YouTube video, which will surely be taken down soon. Isn't Anne Dachel the GREATEST?

June 22, 2023, Tucker Carlson 6/22/23 Ep. 6

There’s never been a candidate for President the media hated more Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

You thought that title belonged to Donald Trump. Of course, it must. But go check the coverage.

Trump got a gentle scalp massage by comparison when he announced.

When Trump rolled out his presidential campaign in 2015, the New York Times waited until the 17th paragraph of the story to attack him. But as well known as he is, the paper said at the time, Trump is also widely disliked. Then they cited a pool to back it up. That was the attack on Trump. 

Eight years later, the Times attacked Bobby Kennedy in the very first sentence of the story. “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced a presidential campaign on Wednesday built on re-litigating COVID-19 shutdowns and shaking Americans’ faith in science.”

Shaking American’s faith in science. Imagine if you’re an ordinary New York Times subscriber reading that over your pre-war rent controlled duplex on Columbus Avenue.

You’d think Bobby Kennedy just declared war on the Enlightenment. “My fellow Americans, I have come to shake your faith in science. Join me as I drag our nation back to the medieval period.” You’d be appalled.

Continue reading "Tucker Carlson June 22 2023 on the Hatred of Candidate Kennedy" »


CDC Chief Walensky Trivializes VAERS

CDC Taylor Green
Exchange between Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

WATCH: Full exchange between Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky.

Dr. Walensky: "I'd be happy to have our staff educate your staff."

Rep. Green: "I don't want my staff educated. You should educate the American people about what you've done."

This brings back memories of former CDC head, Dr. Julie Gerberding  (SEE 3.25 on VIDEO from Mar 29, 2008 with Sanjay Gupta). One thing is ALWAYS FOR SURE, the head of the CDC will defend vaccines and never honestly address the damage they cause.

C-Span Video With Dr. Walensky and Rep Marjorie Taylor Green  Notice how Dr. Walensky trivializes VAERS reports with her example of getting ‘hit by a truck,’ while she completely ignores Rep. Taylor Greene’s comments about myocarditis, deaths, miscarriages and stillbirths associated with the COVID19 vaccine.

It’s all meaningless however. After 20 years of watching hearings where officials are called to testify, I can say without a moment’s hesitation that everyone just goes home afterwards. There will be no press coverage. No further inquiry. Walensky knows this, and it probably accounts for her very smug smile at the end.

June 13, 2023, Exchange between Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky

Rep. Taylor Greene: Dr. Walensky, you’re coming to the end of your tenure as the CDC director which you stated in January of 2021.

We heard you say today that the COVID19 vaccines are safe and effective.  

But what I’d like to talk to you today about is the 1.5 million VAERS reports that also reported 35,000 deaths associated with the COVID19 vaccine. This has been what many Americans feel like a largely ignored issue. They feel like the CDC has completely ignored the reports. They feel like you, as the CDC director, have completely ignored their reports, and I’d like to talk about that a little bit.

In 2020—it was late 2020—when Pfizer’s COVID19 vaccine was approved, and COVID19 vaccines were the second highest reported. That was over 10,000.

Continue reading "CDC Chief Walensky Trivializes VAERS" »


Follow Up Questions to Skeptics and Transcript of Candidate Kennedy's Interview with Joe Rogan

QuestionsOur Media Editor Anne Dachel is amazing. She transcribed relevant vaccine safety portions of the Joe Rogan Spotify interview with Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy Jr,. She also created a list of follow up questions for skeptics.

#1999 - Robert Kennedy, Jr. • The Joe Rogan Experience (spotify.com)

By Anne Dachel

ANYONE who attacks Robert Kennedy, Jr. and dismisses him as anti-vaccine and dangerous, should have to response to the following questions concerning what Kennedy revealed during his interview with Joe Rogan.

HOW do you explain the government’s denial of any connection between vaccines and autism, and yet in cases like Sarah Bridges, her son was awarded $20 million dollars for vaccine-induced autism in federal court?

WHY do our health agencies rely on vaccine promoters to prove vaccine safety?

WHY does the government selectively ignore critical vaccine research that challenges their safety claims, like in the case of Dr. Thomas Burbacher’s macaque monkey study?

WHY didn’t health officials publicly disclose findings clearly linking vaccines to autism revealed at a secret meeting in 2000 at a Methodist retreat center in Norcross, GA?

WHY is every child mandated to be vaccinated when manufacturers and the Supreme Court state that vaccines are “unavoidably unsafe”?

WHY do health officials declare vaccines to be safe and effective when there were never double blind studies on any of them during licensure?

WHY aren’t parents told that vaccine makers have no liability for the products they’re selling?

WHY is there no interest in what’s causing the exponential increase in autism that top experts like Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto say is a true epidemic of disabled children.

WHY are we exposing children to neurotoxic vaccine adjuvants like aluminum?

WHY are over half of children in America chronically ill, when 40 years ago, it was only six percent?

WHY are our children the most vaccinated and the most chronically ill kids in the world?

WHY aren’t health officials answerable on any of these questions?

#1999 - Robert Kennedy, Jr. • The Joe Rogan Experience (spotify.com)

By Anne Dachel

This is a remarkable interview by Joe Rogan
.

Robert Kennedy, Jr. explains how he became aware of the background of our unsafe, unchecked vaccine schedule and the alarming side effects connected to it.

If even a fraction of the information Kennedy cites here is true, this is the biggest scandal in public health care in history.

Kennedy methodically presents the web of corruption, collusion and cover-up that is simply indefensible. He talks about the phony science that has been used by compromised health officials to promote vaccines as safe and effective AND the total lack of ANY genuine research on vaccine side effects.

Kennedy describes his personal encounters with vaccine promoters like Paul Offit, Peter Hotez  and Tony Fauci, people well ensconced with Big Pharma.

He cites 1986 as the year that started the chronic disease epidemic in America because of the passage of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act that year. This removed any liability for damages on the part of the vaccine makers, and the childhood schedule exploded in the following years.

Kennedy talks about a lot of familiar events in the history of vaccine damage cover-up, including the secret 2000 meeting of health officials and Big Pharma at Simpsonwood in Norcross, Georgia where they discussed the clear link they were seeing between vaccines and autism, and his bombshell story, Deadly Immunity published in 2005 in Salon and Rolling Stone, and later retracted under pressure from the vaccine makers.

So why aren’t the vaccine promoters and insiders willing to debate Kennedy on his issues?

 Where is their data that disprove his claims? As Kennedy reveals, Paul Offit and Tony Fauci promised to send him the safety “studies” on vaccines, but both men failed to do so. 

IF there are no double blind safety studies on ANY VACCINES, why should Americans allow their children to be industry guinea pigs?

This eye-opening talk needs to be the major focus of anyone running for office. What are elected officials going to do to stop the chronic illness epidemic that Kennedy succinctly ties to the mandated vaccine schedule? How long will our federal health agencies be run at the behest of the industry they’re supposed to oversee?

11:45

Kennedy: So these women start showing up at every lecture I give, public lectures. They would come and sit in the front seat, occupy the front, they’d come early and occupy the front row, and then afterwards they’d stay late. They would ask to talk to me.

They would say to me in a very respectful—and by the way, these women all looked kind of similar. They were very pulled together. They were women in childbearing years.

As it turns out, they were all the mothers of intellectually disabled children, and they believed that their children had been injured by the vaccines, by mercury in the vaccines.

They would say to me in a kind of respectful but vaguely scolding way, if you’re really interested in mercury contamination exposures to children, you need to look at the vaccines.

This was something I didn’t want to do.

First of all, I’m not a public health person. I wanted to do environmental stuff.

Second of all, I’ve been involved, since I was a little kid, in the whole area of intellectual disabilities…. My aunt had been intellectually disabled, my Aunt Rosemary. Eunice Shriver who is my godmother founded Special Olympics in 1969

My family had written a lot of the legislation that protected people and gave rights to people with intellectual disabilities.

…Public Health authorities were saying that these women were crazy. But they didn’t look crazy to me, and they were rational. They weren’t excitable. And they had done their research

And I was like, I should be listening to these people, even if they’re wrong. Someone needs to listen to them. …

I had seen so many times when the scientists were wrong and the commercial fishermen were right about what was happening in the Hudson River. …

If a woman tells you something about her child, you should listen.

One of these women came to my home… and her name was Sarah Bridges. She was a psychologist from Minnesota.  ...She took out of the trunk of her car, a pile of scientific studies that was 18 inches thick. She put it on my front porch, my stoop, and then she rang the bell.

And then she pointed to that pile. She said, “I’m not leaving here until you read those.”

As it turns out, her son, Porter Bridges, had been a perfectly healthy kid, got a battery of vaccines when he was two, and lost the ability to speak. He lost his toilet training. He began head banging and engaging in other stereotypical behavior like stimming, hand flapping, toe walking and got an autism diagnosis. The Vaccine Court had awarded her $20 million for acknowledging that the child had gotten autism from the vaccines. She didn’t want it to happen to other kids.

I sat down with this pile of studies. I’m used to reading science. I’ve very comfortable it. I wanted to be a scientist when I was a little kid. My legal career has been about science.

Virtually all the cases, hundreds and hundreds of cases involve some scientific controversy, so I’m comfortable with reading science. I know how to read it critically. I know how to look for the flaws in it, how to attribute weight to the various studies.

I sat down while she was there, and I read through the abstracts of these studies, one after the other. Before I was six inches down in that pile, I recognized that there was this huge delta between what the public health agencies were saying, were telling us about vaccine safety and what the actual peer-reviewed published science was saying.

Then I took the next step. I started calling people, high level public officials. I had access to everyone. I called Frances Collins. I called Marie McCormick who ran the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences. I called Kathleen Stratton at the National Academy of Sciences. It was a chief staffer, and I was asking her about these studies. I realized, during these conversations, that none of these people had read any of the science. They were just repeating things that they had been told about the science.

They kept saying to me, I can’t answer that detailed question. You need to talk to Paul Offit.

Paul Offit is a vaccine developer who made a $186 million deal with Merck on the rotavirus vaccine. It was odd to me that government regulators were saying you should talk to somebody in the industry.

I used to talk to EPA people all the time, asking them, what does this provision mean in the permit, why did you put it in there.  And if they said to me, I don’t know, what don’ t you go talk to the coal industry or this lobbyist from the coal industry, and he will tell you what we’re doing, I would have been very puzzled and indignant.

It was weird to me that the top regulators in the country were telling me, go talk to somebody who’s an industry insider because we don’t understand the science.

When I talked to him, I caught him in a lie. And both of us knew he was lying, and that both of us knew that he was lying.

Rogan: What was the lie?

Kennedy: I asked him this question: Why is it that CDC and every state regulator recommends that pregnant women do not eat tuna fish to avoid the mercury, but that CDC is recommending mercury-containing flu shots with a huge bolus dose of mercury. I mean massive doses to pregnant women in every trimester of pregnancy?

And he said to me, “Well Bobby, …there’s two kinds of mercury. There’s a good mercury, and there’s a bad mercury.”

And I knew there’s a different kind of mercury in the vaccines. It’s ethylmercury in the vaccines and methylmercury in the fish. But I know a lot about mercury. I’ve been suing people. When you sue somebody, you get a PhD in that. You know more than anybody in the world. You have to, or you’re not going to win your lawsuit. So I knew a lot about mercury.

I knew that his argument was not with me but it was with the periodic tables, because there’s no such thing as a good mercury.

And I also knew the history of why he was saying that. Mercury was added to vaccines in a form called thimerosal in 1932. Eli Lilly, which was the manufacturer—people knew then…mercury is a thousand times more neurotoxic than lead.

You would never shoot lead into your baby.

Rogan: Why was thimerosal introduced?

Kennedy: It was allegedly introduced as a preservative … It wasn’t a good preservative.

What NIH admitted to me in 2016, the real reason it was there was as an adjuvant.  An adjuvant is a toxic material that they add to dead virus vaccines to amplify the immune response. …Regulators expressed a preference for dead virus vaccines.

A dead virus vaccine however, will not produce a durable or robust immune response enough to get a license. The way you get a license for a vaccine showing that you got an antibody response for a certain amount of time, and that is a strong antibody response. But the dead virus vaccine won’t produce that.

But vaccinologists figured out that if you added something tremendously toxic to the vaccine, that your body confuses that toxic product, you add it with the dead antigen, which is the viral particle. Your body confuses that toxin with the viral particle and gets frightened and mounts huge, humongous immune response. The next time it sees that virus, the immune response is there.

At that point vaccinologists went around searching around the world trying to find the most horrendously toxic materials to add to vaccines.

There’s a mantra in vaccinology that the more toxic the adjuvant, the more robust the immune response. That’s why toxicologists and vaccinologists don’t get along with each other.

Because the toxicologists would say to the vaccinologists, I understand it gives you an immune response, but then what is the fate of that in your body? Where is it going? Is it being excreted? Is it being lodged in the brain? Is it penetrating the blood brain barrier?

The vaccinologists could not answer those questions and did not want to, so they basically moved the toxicologists out of these—the whole vaccine universe.

So when it was added in 1932, the industry said, Eli Lilly said…

Because everybody was saying, how can you put mercury into a child? Who would do that?

They said, it’s a different kind of mercury. It’s ethylmercury, and ethylmercury is excreted very quickly. …

They had no science to say that, but that’s what they were saying for years.

THEN in 2003, a CDC scientist Pichichero did a study where he gave tuna sandwiches that were mercury contaminated to children and then measured their blood. The mercury from the tuna sandwich was there, half life, 64 days later. So it was still there 64 days.

Then he injected the children with mercury from a vaccine, and that mercury disappeared from their blood within a week.

This kind of confirmed what Eli Lilly had said in 1932—Oh, it disappears really quickly from the body. That was published in the Lancet or Pediatrics. 

But immediately the journal began getting letters from people including this famous scientist called Dr.  Boyd  Haley, who was the chair of the chemistry department, University of Kentucky.

He said, “What happened to the mercury?” Pichichero couldn’t find it in the children’s urine or in their feces or hair or sweat or nails. So where is it?

NIH actually commissioned a study, because at that point they were really trying to figure out whether this was dangerous. They commissioned a very famous scientist called Thomas Burbacher at the University of Washington, Seattle to do a study with monkeys, macaques.

And he did the same study Pichichero, but he did something you can’t do with children. He then killed the monkeys, and then he looked for the mercury.

What he found was the mercury, yes, it left their blood immediately, the ethylmercury from the vaccines was gone from their blood in a week, and the methylmercury from the tuna fish was there two months later.

But when he sacrificed the monkeys and did postmortems, he found that the mercury had not left their body. Instead, the reason it was disappearing from their blood is because ethylmercury crosses the blood brain barrier much easier than methylmercury.

The ethylmercury from the vaccines was going directly to the brains of these animals and was lodging there and causing severe inflammation.

We now know it’s there 20 years later.

So when I’m on the phone with Offit, and I said—he said the ethylmercury is excreted quickly, I said, “How do you know that?”

He said, “Because of the Pichichero study. Because the study by Pichichero found that it was excreted quick in a week.

And I said, “But you’re familiar with the Burbacher study that showed it’s gone to the brain?”

And there was dead silence on the phone.

And then he said to me, “Well, you’re right. It’s not that study. It’s a whole mosaic of studies.”

And I said, “Can you cite any of them for me?”

And he said, “I’ll send them to you.” And he never did. And that was the last I heard from him. 

So at that point, I knew there was something wrong. And then someone handed me a transcript of a secret meeting that took place in 1999. It might have been 2000.

It was called the Simpsonwood Meeting. And what happened is—

The history is that in 1986. I’ll go back a little further.  In 1979, 80—when I was a kid, I only had three vaccines.

My kids got 72 vaccines. That’s what you need now to get through school. 72 vaccines doses of 16 vaccines.

It started changing in the 80s and 90s.

In 1979, they brought on a vaccine called the diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine.

That vaccine was very dangerous.  It was killing or giving severe brain damage to one in 300 kids. It was pulled in the United States. It was pulled in Europe.

But Bill Gates still gives it to 161 million African children every year.

Rogan: The same vaccine?

Kennedy: The same vaccine. And to south Asian kids.

We now know what that does because the Danish government did a study in 2017 that showed that African kids, and that’s published in a journal called, Biopharma. It was done by the leading deities of African vaccinology, all of them pro vaccine people. …

They went to Africa… They had 30 years of data.

And Gates had gone to the Danish government and said, “Give us money because we’ve saved millions of lives with this vaccine in Africa.”

And the Danish government said, “Can you show us the data?”

And he couldn’t.

So they went to Guinea-Bissau, which is a country in the west of Africa,

The Danes for 30 years had been paying for these very advanced health clinics.  The clinics were weighing every child at three months and at six months.

In the 80s, they began giving the DTP vaccine at the first visit, the three month visit….

As it turns out, they had 30 years of data where half the kids were vaccinated and half the kids were not between two months and five months of age.

It was a perfect natural experiment.

And they went in there, and they looked at 30 years of data, and they found that girls who got that vaccine, the DTP vaccine, were over 10 times more likely to die over the next three months than children who did not. And they weren’t dying of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis. They were protected against those by the vaccine.

They were dying of anemia… but mainly they were dying of pneumonia. And what the researchers said is that the vaccine is almost certainly killing more children than diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis prior to the vaccine because it was protecting them against the targeted illnesses, but it had  ruined their immune systems. They could not defend themselves against these other minor infections.

And nobody noticed for 30 years that is was the vaccinated children who were disproportionately dying.

And that’s the problem with not doing real placebo controlled trials.

None of the vaccines are subjected to true placebo controlled trials.  It is the only medical product that is exempt prior to licensure.

The DTP vaccine, when it was pulled in this country, was pulled because so many people were suing the drug companies.

Wyeth, which is now Pfizer, the primary manufacturer, they went to the Reagan Administration in 1986, and they said, “You need to give us full immunity from liability for all vaccines, or we’re getting out of the business.

“We’re losing $20 in downstream liability for every dollar we’re making in profits.”

And Reagan said to them, “Well, why don’t you make a vaccine safe?”

And they said, “Because vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.”

That’s the phrase they use, and that phrase is in the statute.

It’s also in the Bruesewitz Case, which is the Supreme Court decision upholding that statute.  

So anybody who tells you vaccines are safe and effective, the industry itself got immunity from liability by convincing the President and Congress that vaccines are unavoidably unsafe.

Rogan: The argument against that would obviously be: They’ve prevented disease that would have killed untold numbers of children.

Kennedy: Exactly. And that vaccine injuries are very rare. That is the argument that is used against them. And both of those arguments, in CDC’s own studies, have been severely challenged.

The CDC did a study in 2010. It was Harvard scientists who looked at one of the HMOs…and they were testing a machine counting system…

Fewer than one in a hundred vaccine injuries are ever reported. …

They developed a system of machine counting, so it doesn’t rely on voluntary reporting. 

What you do is look at all the vaccine records per population and all of the medical claims, the subsequent medical claims, and you do machine counting, cluster analysis.

And CDC had asked this team to design a machine counting system because their VAERS system was so heavily criticized by everybody. …Congress had told them you have to accurately count vaccine injuries, and they weren’t doing it.

So when they did it, when they actually looked, they found that it’s not one in a million. One in every 37 kids had potential vaccine claims.  

You can’t tell whether any of those claims were actually from the vaccine. It’s machine counting, so it’s statistical. But you can say that the number of injuries was much higher than anybody was admitting.

Then in the year 2000, CDC did a study with Johns Hopkins because there was this emerging claim that vaccines had saved millions and millions of lives around the world. …

This is the principle effort by CDC to actually verify that claim. They looked at the history of each vaccine and health claims.

There was this huge decline in mortalities from infectious disease that took place in the 20th century—an 80 percent drop in deaths from infectious disease. And what caused that?

Was it vaccines?

And what they said was, no. It had almost nothing to do with vaccines. The real drop happened because of better housing, sanitation, chlorine, sewage treatment, mainly nutrition.  Nutrition is absolutely critical to building immune systems.

What was really killing these children was malnutrition. It was the infectious disease that was kind of knocking them off at the end. But the real cause of death was malnutrition and collapsed immune system. And that is what the Guyer study showed.

This was the only time CDC ever looked at this. It was published in Pediatrics. It’s CDC and Johns Hopkins in the year 2000.

I believe the study is true, and it’s borne out by many, many others. …

They passed the Vaccine Act in 1986, and the Vaccine Act gave immunity from liability to all vaccine companies for any injury. No matter how negligent you are, no matter how reckless your conduct, no matter how toxic the ingredient, how shoddily tested or manufactured the product, no matter how grievous your injury, your vaccine company, you cannot be sued.

So this was a huge gift for this industry because the biggest cost for every medical product is downstream liabilities.

And all of a sudden, those have disappeared. You not only have taken away that cost, and incentivizing  production of many new vaccines, you’re also disincentivizing, you’re removing the incentive to make them safe because no matter how dangerous they are, they can’t be sued.

You may say, if they’re really dangerous, nobody’s going to buy them.

But the problem with that is, nobody has a choice. They not only got rid of the downstream liability, but they don’t have any advertising or marketing costs because the federal government is ordering …76 million kids to take the product a year.

IF you can get that on the schedule, it’s like printing a billion dollars for them. And so there was a gold rush.

And the other thing is they are exempt from pre-licensing testing. They don’t have to be tested. And they’re not.

I said this for many, many years: Not one of these 72 vaccines has ever been tested pre-licensing in a placebo controlled trial where you’re looking at vaccinated vs unvaccinated kids, looking for health outcomes. Never been done.

Tony Fauci was saying, he’s lying. He’s not telling the truth.  This is vaccine misinformation.

In 2016, Donald Trump asked me to run a vaccine safety commission. I agreed to do it. He then order Fauci and Collins to be with me … I had meetings with all these guys.

I actually went into that meeting with Fauci with three people. One was Del Bigtree, another one was Aaron Siri, the attorney. Another one was Lyn Redwood, who is a very, very famous nurse practitioner, public health official in Georgia. 

During that meeting there was a referee from the White House. I said to Fauci, I give kind of a lecture showing what we knew. I said to him in the middle of it—by the way, he’s known my family forever. My uncle was chair of the health committee, writing his salary every year….

I said to him, “Tony, you’ve been telling people I’m a liar when I say no vaccine has ever been,  none of the mandated  vaccines…none of them have ever been tested in a placebo-controlled trial safety test prior to licensing.”

And I said, “Can you show me one vaccine that has been subject to a safety test. Show me one study that shows that.

He made this show of looking through… They had brought in from NIH, this big tray full of file folders, and he made a show of looking through that at the time. He couldn’t find whatever he was looking for.

Then he said, “It’s back at NIH in Bethesda, and I’ll sent it to you.”

Well, he never did.

So Aaron and I sued him, sued HHS and said, “Show us one study that’s ever been done on pre-licensing safety testing for vaccines.”

After a year of stonewalling, they finally gave us a letter and said, “We don’t have any.”

They literally don’t have any.

So nobody knows what the risk profiles for these products are. So they’re telling people they avert more harm than they cause, but there’s no science behind that statement. It’s just a guess work.

Rogan: But it’s an amazingly effective narrative. And that narrative, the way it’s spread through this country. Like I said, it’s gotten me and I think it’s gotten a lot of people. And I think people are terrified of being called an anti-vaxxer. It’s a very dismissive pejorative, a very bad term. …

It’s kind of amazing what they’d done, especially in a world where we’re very aware of the side effects that were hidden from the public with other drugs.

Maybe it has to do with protecting children because good parents want to trust science and they want to think that medical science is the reason people live so well today, and a lot of that’s true.  But they want to think that it’s all connected.

So if they say you’re supposed to get 72 shots…

Kennedy: …You’re absolutely right about the opioids. There are many, many other examples, but the opioids is a good one because if anybody goes and looks at that Netflix documentary, Dopesick …

That documentary shows how all of these subtle forces that lead to agency capture and this corrupt collusion between the industry and the regulators.

It was the regulator who agreed, the FDA who agreed to put on the label it’s safe and effective and it’s not addictive….

You had the entire medical community who said, oh, we must be wrong because FDA says it’s safe and effective.

You can imagine if they did that for vaccines, and then you saw what they did in COVID. They had to continually change the goalposts.  .. And everybody would just go on with the next claim without ever saying, wait a minute, why should we trust you now? …

Rogan: But it seems to be the same pattern over and over again. It’s just bizarre that it takes so long to get the narrative out to people. When you get a corporation, any corporation, any group of people who can make money unchecked, it seems to be a normal human characteristic that they do that. When they’re unregulated or unchecked, when someone’s not watching them, or the people that are watching them are compromised, and then we’re literally funding media. So you’re funding all these shows

52:46

The vaccine schedule, immediately after they passed the Vaccine Act, exploded because all these companies were rushing to get new vaccines onto the schedule. Many for diseases that weren’t even casually contagious, like hepatitis B. You get hepatitis B from sharing needles or from going to a really seasoned prostitute or from homosexual compulsive behavior. …

Why would you give it to a one day old baby or a three hour old baby?...

Originally what happened was Merck and CDC designed this for prostitutes and male homosexuals, promiscuous male homosexuals, and they couldn’t sell it.

So all these crazy diseases, rotavirus, were put on the schedule and they starting seeing all this explosion in chronic disease, and particularly autism.

Congress said to EPA, what year did the autism epidemic begin?

And EPA is a captured agency, but it’s captured by the coal industry and the oil and the pesticide industry, but not by the Pharma, because it doesn’t regulate Pharma. So it actually did real science, and it said 1989 is the year the epidemic began. It’s a red line.

And 1989 was the year the vaccine schedule exploded. That doesn’t mean that’s a correlation, it does not mean causation, but it is something that should be looked at.

NIH decided to look at it because woman were saying it was the vaccine again and again and again and again and again and again.  

Women were coming with the same story: “I had a perfectly healthy two year old, exceeded all his miles stones. I gave them on their second birthday or 18th month wellness visit, the full battery of six or eight vaccines, and that child spiked a fever that night, has a seizure and over the next three months loses their language, loses their capacity to make eye contact, to finger point. Social interactions and language disappear.

And it happened so many times that NIH was saying, we got to look to see if it’s the vaccines. …

So CDC hired a Belgian epidemiologist named Thomas Verstraeten, and they opened up the Vaccine Safety Data Link, which is the biggest database for vaccines for HMOs.

All the top HMOs have all their records in there, so they have all your vaccination records and all your health claims, so you can do these kinds of cluster analyses.

Verstraeten went in there, and he looked at one thing: He looked at children who got the hepatitis B vaccine within their first month of life and compared those health outcomes in children who did not. In other words, children who got it after 30 days or didn’t get it at all. That was the second cohort.

What he found in his first run through the data is there was an 1135% greater or elevated risk for an autism diagnosis among the kids who’d gotten it in their first 30 days.

At that point, they knew what caused the autism epidemic because a relative risk, it’s called a relative risk of 11.35. A relative risk of two is considered proof of causation, as long as there’s biological plausibility.

The relative risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for 20 years and getting lung cancer is ten. This was 11.35.

So there was a panic throughout the industry as people heard about this study.

CDC wanted to do a meeting with all big parjarams of the industry. And they didn’t want to do it on CDC campus because then they thought it would be subject to a Freedom of Information Law request. They wanted to do it, keep it secret.

So [in 2000] they found this retreat center, a Methodist retreat center in Norcross, Georgia called Simpsonwood, and they assembled, I think there was 72 people there, and they were from WHO, CDC, NIH, FDA, and all the vaccine companies and all the big academics—the people who basically develop vaccines in the academic institutions. They were all there.

And they spend the first day, they give them all a copy of the Verstraeten study, but they have to give it all back because they don’t want it out there.

And then they have a day of talking about it where they’re all saying, holy cow, this is real.  The lawyers are going to come after us. We’re all in trouble.

And then they spend the second day talking about how to hide it.

Rogan: How do you know this?

Kennedy: Because somebody made a recording of it. And I got a hold of the transcripts, and I published excerpts from those transcripts in Rolling Stone [Deadly Immunity, 2005].

Anyone can go and read these now on our website. It’s called Simpsonwood. You can read through the whole things or you can read my Rolling Stone article.

When I read then I was like, I got to drop everything and do something about this. And I published this article in Rolling Stone and I was kind of shocked by just to power of the reaction against it. People coming after Rolling Stone and Salon which also published it, and were just bulldozed by these hate reactions. And then Salon, six years later—

There were four or five corrections in the article in the next week. All of those corrections were made by the editors of Salon and Rolling Stone.

And six years later, Salon, under pressure from the pharmaceutical industry, takes it down and says we found mistakes in it. But they never found mistakes in it. I’ve said repeatedly to them, show me one mistake in that published piece, show me one. 

And they have not been able to do it.

And they also forgot that the four mistakes that they found… were all made by them. They edited my 16,000 word piece down to a 3,000 word piece. And then they were doing that they made some errors.

So what you had after that is this explosion in chronic disease… In the 1960s when I was a kid, six percent of Americans had chronic disease.

 What do I mean by chronic disease? Basically three categories, plus obesity.

One: neurological disorders, ADD, ADHD, speech delay, language delay, tics, Tourette ’s syndrome. narcolepsy,  ASD, autism.

Autism went from one in 10,000 in my generation, it’s still one in 10,000…

In my kids’ age, now one in every 34 kids has autism. Half of those are full blown.

Rogan: What’s the conventional explanation for that?

Kennedy: There’s no real explanation. They try to say, well we’re just noticing it more, which is ridiculous because, first of all there’s all kinds of studies that say, really good studies like Irva Hertz-Picciotto’s. Very famous scientist, epidemiologist, statistician who was commissioned by the California State Legislature to answer that question. She’s at the MIND Institute at UC Davis.

And she came back and said, no, the epidemic is real. It’s not better diagnostics or changing diagnostic criteria.

Any real scientist now, even the big backers like Paul Offit, I don’t think even he will say that.

Nobody from CDC is actually going to stand up and say that. They certainly won’t debate the point.

But even more so, if it’s NOT AN EPIDEMIC, WHERE ARE THE ONE IN 34 sixty-nine year old men who are wearing helmets and are non-toilet trained?

If you’ve got autism, you live forever. It doesn’t affect life span. These kids are going to be around forever. But there’s nobody my age who looks like that.

So if it was really better recognition, you’d see it in every ago group, not just in children.

NOT ONLY THAT, BUT IT CHANGES EVERY YEAR. IT GETS WORSE AND WORSE EVERY YEAR. So they can’t keep saying, oh, we’re just noticing it for the first time.

Rogan: How does it get worse every year?

Kennedy: The CDC releases new data…it’s the monitoring system. There’s been all kinds of scandals with that because the CDC tries to manipulate… and there’s all kinds of whistleblowers from different states who say that they’re pressured to not report cases and that kind of thing.

But the CDC releases new data every year. Every year it gets worse. 

It’s now one in every 22 boys.

Rogan: Has the rate of vaccinations changed?

Kennedy: The rates of vaccinations have gone up.

Mercury has been removed from a lot of the vaccines, but there’s aluminum in those vaccines which operates on the same biological pathways and does the same kind of damage. It’s extremely neurotoxic. And then there’s other things, lots of other toxins in the vaccines.

There’s hundreds and hundreds of scientific studies and nobody ever reports them.

I did a book in which I had 450 studies that are digested in that book, that I summarize and cite and 1,400 references. And everybody will say, there’s  no study that shows autism and vaccines are connected. Oh, that’s crazy.

That’s people who are not looking at science.

Rogan: But they want to say that.

Kennedy: It’s part of their religion. And the heretics have to be burned at the stake, have to be humiliated, silenced, and destroyed. …

The same is true in science. You don’t trust the experts. …

The second category is autoimmune diseases. All those neurological diseases exploded in 1989, as I say. Autism exponentially explodes

The autoimmune diseases like diabetes juvenile diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, Crone’s Disease—I didn’t know any of these diseases when I was a kid

They were so rare. I didn’t know anybody who had peanut allergy

Why do five of my seven kids have allergies?

And of course we know why. Aluminum adjuvants give you allergies. They’re designed create a hyper immune response to foreign particles.

And the last category is the allergic diseases: peanuts allergies, food allergies, eczema.

I never knew anybody with eczema when I was a kid. Asthma, I knew people with asthma. It wasn’t one in every four black kids, like it is today.

We went from six percent of Americans having chronic disease, by 1986, we’re starting to add the vaccines, 11.8 percent of kids now, so it’s doubled.

2006, 54 percent. These are kids who are permanently disabled. They have to be on medication their whole lives.

We have the sickest generation in history. There’s no other country in the world that has this kind of chronic disease epidemic. Of course this is one of the reasons we had the highest death rate during COVID. Because we have the highest chronic disease burden in the world.

It’s not just the vaccines, and I have never said that.  Our children are swimming around in a toxic soup.

What we can say, most of it started in 1989. There’s a finite number of culprits you can point to and say—it has to come from a toxic exposure because genes don’t cause epidemics. They can provide a vulnerability, but you need a toxic exposure.

 But what is it?


Real Anthony Fauci Number 1 memeThe Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health (Children’s Health Defense)

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

#1 on AMAZON, and a NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, USA TODAY and PUBLISHERS WEEKLY NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Over 1,000,000 copies sold despite censorship, boycotts from bookstores and libraries, and hit pieces against the author. Wuhan Cover Up Book CoverThe Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense)
 
From the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Publishers Weekly bestselling author of The Real Anthony Fauci comes an explosive exposé of the cover-up behind the true origins of COVID-19.




Professor Mottron Disputes Northern Ireland Autism Rate

Abadnonned schoolBy Anne Dachel

A recent article from Northern Ireland got my attention.

The title was, Idea that 5% of all Northern Ireland's children are autistic is 'a fantasy' claims international expert.

Reporter Adam Kula focused on Professor Laurent Mottron from Montreal as an “international expert” who disputes the current autism rate in Northern Ireland: one in every 20 students.

Mottron dismissed the rate as ‘fantasy’ and called it the result of “over-diagnosis,” and he said, ‘The definition of autism may get too vague to be meaningful, trivializing the condition.’

This of course is surprising since we’ve all been forced-fed the claim that all ever-increasing  autism is always the result of BETTER DIAGNOSING/GREATER AWARENESS. It seems the experts are still getting it wrong.

HOLD ON. There are those who dispute the idea that we’re watering down the definition of autism.

The piece cited Jill Escher, the president of the National Council on Severe Autism, who challenged Mottron on the validity of the one in 20 rate for autism. She said, ‘It boggles my mind that it is not the subject of the highest possible alarm and inquiry.’

Reporter Kula raised the question of the disparity between the rate in Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

This story first reared its head on May 24, when by Mark Baker, head of the Controlled Schools’ Support Council (CSSC), gave evidence to the House of Commons' Northern Ireland Affairs Committee.

"One in 20 children in Northern Ireland of school age has a diagnosis of autism," he told MPs.

"[It is] one in 57 in the rest of the UK. The need in Northern Ireland is significantly different."

To put that in perspective, that would mean 5% of Northern Irish children are diagnosed with autism, compared with 1.8% in the rest of the UK.

I immediately thought of all the articles I’ve posted on Loss of Brain Trust  that clearly show a massive failure throughout the UK to get these kids assessed.

One in 57 in England, Scotland and Wales is the direct result of waitlists extending for years just to get an assessment of a disability like autism.

Here is a sample of stories about the waitlists for ASD diagnosis.

Continue reading "Professor Mottron Disputes Northern Ireland Autism Rate" »


The Staggering Costs of Autism

Abadnonned schoolBy Anne Dachel

Three years ago I wrote about Dr. Toby Rogers, a political economist who was making some scary predictions about what autism would eventually cost this country in two stories.

Dr. Rogers made dire predictions of what would happen by 2025:

The following comments are from a Mar 11, 2020 interview by Del Bigtree’s called, The True Cost of Autism with Dr. Toby Rogers

I was troubled by the fact that the CDC doesn’t have a good explanation for why autism rates go up 10 to 15 percent every year for almost forty years now….

“So I spent the next four years studying and reading everything that’s been written on the science of autism. I read every vaccine safety study that’s out there. …

“I was just stunned by what I found.

“In 2015, autism cost the United States $268 billion. …And they project that if autism continues at its current rate, that autism will cost the United States one trillion dollars by 2025.

“The first wave of vaccine injured kids are aging out of the school system and they need adult residential care.

“And there is no plan at the federal level or at the state level for how to manage this wave of autistic adults.

“Within six years, autism is going to cost the United States more than the U.S. Defense Department budget.

“This is a tsunami of costs that are already here, and yet, government isn’t talking about it. Politicians don’t talk about it. And they continue to be engaged in denial….

So right now in 2023, we should see signs of that coming tsunami, despite all the media hype about neurodiversity and autism awareness, acceptance and inclusion.

My site, Loss of Brain Trust, does just that.  The signs are everywhere.

Here is just a recent glimpse at the coming collapse. These numbers don’t lie.

Continue reading "The Staggering Costs of Autism" »


Sharyl Attkisson, Friend of Ours

Sharyl Attkisson 2By Anne Dachel

In my book, The Big Autism Cover-Up , I devoted a whole chapter to journalist Sharyl Attkisson.

In the early 2000s Sharyl did groundbreaking stories on the rise of autism and the link to vaccines. These were on CBS, back when CBS was a legitimate news outlet. She reported on thimerosal use in vaccines, the MMR vaccine, the conflicts of interest of health officials, Brian Hooker’s revelations about a CDC whistleblower and the Hannah Poling decision, where the U.S. government conceded a case involving vaccines and the development of autism.

(See coverage links at the bottom.)

On May 28, 2023, Sharyl published a new piece entitled Prevalence of autism: 1 in 35 eight-year-olds

Here Sharyl is focused on the latest jaw-dropping numbers, something NO ONE in our public health agencies ever is.

According to CDC, one in 35 eight-year-olds in the US had an autism-related brain disorder in 2020...and the true number is even worse today, three years after the data that was analyzed. Even more concerning, the numbers are higher among children under age eight. And autism occurs at a significantly higher rate in American boys than in girls.

In 2000, many experts declared an emergency when the rate had suddenly spiked to one in 150 children.  …

The new rate was dismissed once again by health experts as merely being better recognize of a condition that’s always been around. It got almost no coverage in the mainstream press, and no one was publicly talking about why the rate never stops increasing.

Sharyl continued:

CDC concludes the shocking prevalence shows the need to spend more resources identifying and treating autism. Oddly, nothing is said about the need to identify what's causing the epidemic so it can be prevented in the first place.

She went right to the issue officials never stop denying:

Countless studies, government court documents, and medical experts have linked vaccines to autism in children with biologic or genetic susceptibilities. The autism epidemic coincides with the time that the government tripled the childhood vaccine schedule in the 90s. Additionally, during the same time period, other immune-related disorders have also spiked in children. That includes Crohn's disease, POTS, allergies and asthma, skin allergies and rashes, juvenile diabetes, celiac and more.

She made the stunning claim that YES, vaccines do cause autism AND YES, the government knows there is link and has covered it up for decades.

Some government officials have repeatedly stated there is no evidence of a link between vaccines and autism, or that the theory has been "debunked." However, court documents show the government secretly acknowledged such injuries two decades ago, and the government's own top medical expert eventually said he had been wrong and that vaccines do "rarely" cause autism, after all. He signed an affidavit saying the Dept. of Justice fired him as an expert witness when he told them vaccines can cause autism, and covered up his opinion.

WHO was this expert government witness who has been silenced?

Continue reading "Sharyl Attkisson, Friend of Ours" »


Certified Autism Centers

What the heckCertifiedAutismCenter.com is provided by the International Board of Credentialing and Continuing Education Standards (IBCCES), the industry leader in training and certification in autism and other cognitive disorders.

IBCCES has provided certification and training to licensed healthcare professionals and educators across the globe since 2001.

IBCCES works with our advisory board to ensure our content is up-to-date and includes a variety of approaches and best practices from multiple disciplines. Our board is composed of neurologists, special education administrators, speech language pathologists, BCBAs, individuals on the spectrum, and other experts in their field. Learn more about us at ibcces.org.


By Anne Dachel

“Certified Autism Centers”

What are they all about?

In case you’re not familiar with this term, it’s now it’s showing up all over. As my posts on Loss of Brain Trust show, businesses around the globe are now out to become official “Certified Autism Center,” AKA CAD.  This means that people in individual businesses have been trained to deal with members of the public who are on the autism spectrum.

If enough businesses get certified, whole cities can be “Certified Autism Centers.”

To become a certified autism center, 80% of a business's staff need to take a 30-minute online training course that helps staff understand how to communicate with those who have autism.

It can cost up to $10,000 to get this distinction, as the story from Benson, AZ shows, but it does make good business sense. 

More and more kids are diagnosed with autism. Although no one is alarmed about the numbers, one in every 36 kids, one in every 22 boys officially has autism. So it’s time to recognize the potential here.

The 17 stories I posted calmly tell us the jaw-dropping stats:

With 1 in 6 people having a sensory need or Sensitivity and 1 in 36 children diagnosed with autism in the United States the demand for more trained and certified healthcare options like Adlera Lab is at an all-time high.

Continue reading "Certified Autism Centers" »


From 1 in 166 to 1 in 36 With Nary A Blink

Abadnonned schoolBy Anne Dachel

Back in 2004, the autism rate was one in every 166 kids. That was pretty serious since back then, autism was still a relatively unknown condition that was just starting to make the news.

I’m sure no one 20 years ago could have imagined that the autism rate would eventually become one in every 36 kids or one in every 22 in California, like it is currently.

Increases in autism are never cause for alarm.

Having more and more disabled kids is celebrated and called NEURODIVERSITY. Loss of Brain Trust keeps the tally on what’s happening.

Recently I found this story from Northern Ireland,

May 18, 2023, BBC News: Autism: Highest rate on record of NI children with diagnosis

One in 20 schoolchildren in Northern Ireland has a diagnosis of autism, according to figures published by the Department of Health (DoH)

It is the highest prevalence rate on record, and more than four times as many as 15 years ago.

The department cautioned against comparing years due to changes in the way data has been collected since 2019.

It said there were 15,212 children aged 4-16 identified with autism in 2022/23. That is compared to 14,019 children in 2021/22.

In 2008/09 about 3,300 children had a diagnosis of autism, about 1.2% of the school age population.

The department said the Autism Act 2011 and an accompanying increase in awareness could be partly responsible for the rise....

About four in five of children with autism have some form of special educational needs (SEN) and more than half have a statement.

One would expect some alarm over these jaw-dropping numbers, but no, we told it’s something to celebrate by a school principal.

"Schools are getting really quite adept at picking up where there is neurodiversity in their classrooms," she told BBC News NI….

"There is an acknowledgement that autistic children and any other neurodivergent students are an accepted part of our classrooms now, and it should be a celebrated part of our classrooms.

"Schools have to start changing their provision internally and becoming more inclusive."

Things aren’t stopping here. It seems there is no end in sight to what we see as normal and acceptable in the developmental health of children.

A further example comes from Newcastle, England.

Continue reading "From 1 in 166 to 1 in 36 With Nary A Blink" »


ABC News' "Editorial Judgment" Equals Censorship for RFK Jr


90CE409A-AA01-498A-A419-18DAD87A3AF5ABC News' Linsey Davis interviews Presidential Candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. and admits that ABC cherry picked content. Every candidate should have his or her voice heard, regardless of topic. Anne Dachel transcribed the interview below. As ever, we cover candidates, we do not endorse them.

###

We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy 0D075334-10F8-4DA7-8655-7B3BFA7B925E made false claims about the COVID19 vaccines. Data shows that the COVID19 vaccines prevented millions of hospitalizations and death from the disease.

He also made misleading claims about the relationship between vaccination and autism. Research shows that vaccines and the ingredients used for the vaccines do not cause autism, including multiple studies involving more than a million children and major medical associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the advocacy group Autism Speaks.

We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.

We thank Mr. Kennedy for the conversation.

 ###

By Anne Dachel

April 27, 2023, Linsey Davis interviewed Robert Kennedy, Jr. on ABC

RFK Jr. on presidential run: 'I feel like my country was being taken away from me' https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/rfk-jr-presidential-run-feel-country-98922268

ABC News’ Linsey Davis sat down with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his decision to run for the 2024 Democratic nomination, and questions his stances on vaccines and courting of conservatives.

Linsey Davis: …Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. recently announced he’ll run against Biden. And he may have some supporters on his side.

A new Fox News poll shows some 19 percent of likely Democratic voters say that they’d like to see RFK, Jr. win the nomination.

RFK, Jr. is one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.

But can a Kennedy break through in 2024?

Will RFK, Jr’s controversial stance limit his appeal?

Continue reading "ABC News' "Editorial Judgment" Equals Censorship for RFK Jr" »


Sticks and Stones Aren't Working for Bickerton

CensorNote:  As we enter the 2024 Presidential election season, we will cover information about every candidate, such as it is relevant to our community. We do not endorse candidates. You can speak your opinion in our comments to your heart's content. In a society that DEMANDS blind acceptance of every....single....thing one can dream up, only one topic/thought can be ridiculed.

###

By Anne Dachel

Is Newsweek joining the ranks of ABC News in deciding that Robert Kennedy Jr.’s views shouldn’t be heard?

While ABC News openly admitted censoring Kennedy’s remarks about the vaccine makers and dangerous vaccine side effects during a recent interview by Linsey Davis, Newsweek was more subtle in their coverage.

Newsweek’s James Bickerton didn’t actually interview Kennedy. Instead he set out to discredit him for his position on vaccines, and he included numerous experts and others who called Kennedy “dangerous” for peddling “false information.”

At the end Bickerton also insinuated that giving Kennedy a public voice might lead to more people questioning vaccine safety. He had experts raising a alarm about the danger of letting Kennedy speak.

Reporters like Bickerton are a clear sign of the end of free speech and a free press in America. The corporate controlled media will decide what we’re allowed to hear. That is the hallmark of the totalitarian state.

May 1, 2023, Newsweek: published a piece with the title, Robert F. Kennedy Jr is Riding a Tidal Wave of Anti-Vaccine Resentment by James Bickerton.

Included is a one minute clip of Kennedy’s recent announcement of his candidacy for President in Boston:

My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening out to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country, to commoditize our children, our purple mountains majesty, to poison our children and our people with chemical and pharmaceutical drugs, to strip mine our assets, to hollow out the middle class and keep us in a constant state of war.

Continue reading "Sticks and Stones Aren't Working for Bickerton" »


Dr. Allen Frances is Sorry, Sorry, Sorry

My badBy Anne Dachel

Thirteen years ago, Aug 9, 2011, I wrote the piece, Allen Frances, Thomas Insel and the Black & White Rise of Autism (It's Fashionable?) for Age of Autism. It was all about how Dr. Allen Frances regretted being the chairman of the committee that added Asperger's to the DSM IV in 1994. He claimed that broadening the definition for autism is what’s behind the “epidemic” increase in Autism. In his exact words, “There is no epidemic.”

Here’s what I wrote in 2011:

…Recently a story also appeared in the Gulf Times, Qatar’s only English language newspaper, titled, The real reasons for the autism 'epidemic.’ 

It was written by Allen Frances, MD.  Frances was chair of the DSM-IV Task Force and he’s with the department of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, NC.

DSM stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, and while many of us wonder why our children’s neurological problem, namely autism, is in a manual about mental illness, that’s where the criteria for diagnosing autism is found.

Continue reading "Dr. Allen Frances is Sorry, Sorry, Sorry" »


It’s Not So Bad

43BC43CE-6136-44BA-B768-85E0F5CA77DBDecorum prevents me from writing what we are all thinking. Until April, then all bets are off. Gloves too.

By Anne Dachel

Autism one in 36 (one in 22 boys) It’s all good

By now anyone who’s interested has seen the latest upswing in the autism rate. As usual, the underlying message is, it’s nothing to worry about.

No one ever talks about more kids actually having autism. That’s long been THE REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM, something I’ve expressly written about over the years.

Here once again are references to greater awareness, along with diagnosing delays due to COVID, more girls being detected, more minority children now being diagnosed, and “demographic differences”—although none of this could explain the latest leap from one in 44 to one in 36.

USA Today quoted Dr. Andy Shihchief science officer of Autism Speaks, who conveniently took credit for the new numbers.

Shih: ‘This increase is really fueled by us doing a much better job in identifying minority children with autism.’

I will give USA Today’s Karen Weintraub credit for also citing Dr. Walter Zahorodny in her story.

Continue reading "It’s Not So Bad" »


Pull Out Those Old Excuses

Old newsAutism is back in the news. Not sure what agenda this information advances. Feel free to speculate. Thanks to Anne Dachel for keeping on top of the sky high pile of bullshit.

###
By Anne Dachel 


More autism is nothing new. It’s what’s expected. That’s the response by everyone to new research out of Rutgers in New Jersey. Here’s what we’re being told:

New York Post: Why autism rates have skyrocketed in the NYC metro area: study 

Autism rates in the Big Apple have ballooned at a baffling rate.

Instances of Autism Spectrum Disorder have tripled in the New York-New Jersey metro area — from 1% of the population in 2000 to 3% in 2016.

That’s largely due to a growing number of diagnoses of children without intellectual disabilities, said researchers at Rutgers, in a new study published Thursday in the journal Pediatrics.

They identified 4,661 8-year-olds with ASD in the metro area. The majority did not have intellectual disabilities (59.3%) and were therefore less likely to be previously identified.

Instances of Autism Spectrum Disorder have tripled in the New York-New Jersey metro area — from 1%f the population in 2000 to 3% in 2016, the study found.Getty Images

But earlier, more accurate diagnoses don’t completely explain the upwards trend, which was based on estimates from the CDC.

Continue reading "Pull Out Those Old Excuses" »


New Year, Same Problem with Overwhelming Special Education Needs

Abadnonned schoolAs we start a new year, I have to think back over the past six years and wonder where all this is going.

I started compiling the stories on Loss Of Brain Trust  in January, 2017, and since then I have amassed well over 7,000 reports covering the decline of children’s developmental health everywhere.

Nowhere is this more evident than in our schools, especially schools in the U.K. and in Ireland. The majority of the stories on kids who can’t learn and function normally come from these countries. The same issues are now showing up in the American press, and I’m sure this kind of  coverage will increase here too.

We are constantly told two things: there are MORE disabled students in school who need costly services and the disabilities they have are MORE complex, MORE severe. That is something that needs further explanation. Why are more and more kids unable to function and learn normally?

This should be the logical follow-up to any of these stories, but incredibly it’s not talked about.

Just how long countries can keep increasing funding and providing more services is the big unknown, but clearly this will lead to the collapse of education as we know it.

Over the past month I’ve been labeling certain stories with the image of CRISIS because of the stunning statistics involved.

These are the statistics we have to learn to live with.

Continue reading "New Year, Same Problem with Overwhelming Special Education Needs" »


A Cornucopia of Disabled Children Threatens UK Education Systems

Cornucopia handsCornucopia means "horn of plenty," and is associated with abundance. In this case, too many children with disabilities. Building more schools, while necessary, is not the answer.

By Anne Dachel

Visit Anne's site, Loss of Brain Trust

It’s Time to get really worried about what’s happening to our children, especially if you live in Britain or Ireland. As much as experts and officials want to dismiss any problems with comfortable phrases like, “better diagnosing,” “no real increase,” and “neurodiversity,” statistics don’t lie. Ever-increasing numbers of disabled kids are going to bankrupt the system.

Here’s a sample from the past week:

Kansas: One in every six students receives special education services.

Liverpool, England: “A report in Spring said more than 4,000 children in Liverpool have educational health care plans (EHCPs), an increase of 46% since 2019.”

Oxfordshire, England: ‘The council highlighted the nationwide issues in this area, including forecasts that show Oxfordshire will have a £47.3 million [$56M] SEND deficit by March 2023.”

Dudley, England: “Dudley Council is hosting two information sessions about its £15millon [$18M] investment in the Pens Meadow [special] School to be built on the site of the former Pensnett High School.”

Continue reading "A Cornucopia of Disabled Children Threatens UK Education Systems" »


Difference or Disease?

GaslightingIn the 2010s, autism was rebranded as neurodiversity. Ari Ne'eman was the darling of the decade. In the 2020s, gender identity is the new kid on the block that we must accept. The autism puzzle piece has been replaced by a rainbow infinity symbol, which implies sexuality.  Anne Dachel shares a "disease or difference" story below. It's semantics. EVERYthing is a disease today, right? Except autism. And yet, schools tell a different story.

By Anne Dachel

Loss of Brain Trust update.  ’

On November 12, 2022, a story came out from KCRW radio in Santa Monica about autism. The title was Autism is a different way of being, not a disease.

I’m sure many parents with children on the spectrum can only sigh reading this. “A different way of being” is an effective red herring. It promotes acceptance. Just agree that all the autism out there is a good thing, and we can all enjoy life.

Of course we also have to agree that autism is nothing new.

The article asked the question: So does the increase in autism diagnosis mean that autism is on the rise?  

Unfortunately the question is never answered in the story.

Meanwhile more autism is in the news, especially in the schools in the U.K. The stories are not about neurodiversity and autism acceptance. They’re about the disaster unfolding in British schools. Inflation costs are a nightmare for schools and predicted to get worse.

I keep going back to the story I put out here last week. On November 5, 2022, Schools Week ran the story, SEND [Special Education Needs and Disabilities] isn’t on the precipice – it’s tipped over the edge.   

It was about how bad the picture is for schools in the U.K. The predicted special ed budget deficit will be $2.7B by March, 2025. The piece talked about the “phenomenal rise” in special education students and the role autism has played in this disaster.

Continue reading "Difference or Disease?" »