By Anne Dachel

Last week the World Mercury Project reported on the special education epidemic happening around the world in Part 4 of their series.

https://worldmercuryproject.org/.../part-4-the-special-ed-epidemic-uncovering-the-ans...

“In this four-part series, World Mercury Project's partner, Focus for Health (FFH), examined the special education epidemic, its crippling effects ...”

The WMP’s evidence that increasingly students in our schools today can’t learn or behave as children always have should be cause for follow-up by the national press, one would think, but sadly it’s probably not going to happen. In fact, they’ll do just the opposite.

Sunday, May 13^th the Washington Post addressed this critical topic. The headline said it all: Veteran policymaker says 80 percent of special-ed kids don’t need that label

The Post, like every other mainstream news source out there, has never addressed the explosion in special needs students as a crisis. The truth is, it’s been completely ignored. Staten Island may have 24 percent of its students in special education, 22 percent in Racine, WI, 20 percent in Wahkiakum, WA, but still, it’s no cause for concern.

However, when an impressive group like the World Mercury Project, led by well-known environmentalist Robert Kennedy, Jr., calls what’s happening in special ed an epidemic, it’s  definitely going to draw more attention to the topic. The public might ask where the big name sources in print and broadcast news have been. Why have they said absolutely nothing about this?

The truth is, just like with the horrific increases in autism over the last two decades, the job of the media seems to be to first ignore the situation, and when finally forced to talk about it, deny anything is wrong.

This is exactly what the Post did in their story. The author of the piece, Jay Mathews, is the education columnist for the Post where he’s been working for nearly 50 years. Mathews interviewed Kalman R. “Buzzy” Hettleman who served two terms on the Baltimore school board and was deputy mayor of Baltimore and Maryland secretary of human resources. Surely these two people should be able to tell us what’s going on.

By Anne Dachel

A story from New Jersey this week is proof, once again, that experts who actually admit something is wrong—that the unending autism rate increase might be a real increase, will never demand we stop it from getting worse.

Tracy Kettering PhD BCBA-D wrote the piece in the New Jersey Courier Post on May 9^th entitled, New autism rates surprising? Not to us.  

The numbers don't surprise her

Kettering has a doctoral degree in special education and behavior analysis from Ohio State University, and she is the Director of the Applied Behavior Analysis Center of Excellence at Bancroft. She’s an expert on autism and she's not bothered by yet another increase in the autism rate nationally or at home in New Jersey, where it's now ONE IN EVERY 34 CHILDREN, ONE IN EVERY 22 BOYS.

While Kettering did attribute the new rate to “diagnostic improvements,” she hinted that there might be something else going on.

“And let’s be honest: With all the remarkable research being conducted throughout the country, we still don’t know what causes autism, and it’s possible there also could be a true increase in prevalence of autism – not just better diagnostics.”

Kettering talked at length about the need to provide services and early diagnosing.  Other states have to “be prepared for these increases”…because things are only going to get worse.

 “What we do know is that autism cases continue to grow – and have continued that upward trend for decades. “

“It also means demand will be greater than ever for well-trained, highly educated, caring clinical staff, special educators and direct-support staff who provide the critical day-to-day support to support the children and adults served.”

My questions for all the experts like Kettering who acknowledge that THE INCREASE MIGHT BE REAL are these: When will the numbers be alarming? How bad do things have to get?

Although Kettering sounded satisfied that experts are hard at work on autism, I have to ask, what has the “remarkable research” on autism actually gained for us? ASD is still a complete mystery to every health official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In fact, no one at the CDC would ever concur with her that “there could be a true increase.” Each and every new rate announcement, including the latest one, has come with the caveat that there is no evidence that more children actually have autism. The new numbers were attributed to an increase in recognizing autism in black and Hispanic children.

My final question for Kettering is specifically this: What will you be saying when the rate in New Jersey is one in every 10 children? No one is saying that it's not coming. 

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

SPECIAL ED PERCENTAGE

National official average is 13 percent.

Hazelton, PA: 15 percent of students are sped.

Sioux Falls, SD: 15 percent of students are sped.

Worthington, MN: 15 percent of the students are sped.

By Anne Dachel

Mark [Blaxill] stated ‘You can’t make America great with all these sick children and more coming’. Trump shook his head and agreed.”

Andrew Wakefield: [Talking about his conversation with Donald Trump] "We went on to discuss the issue of the autism crisis in this country which is set to affect one in two children by 2032 according to the CDC's own data if nothing is done, if nothing changes. That's 80 percent of the boys in this country. There is a national crisis.”

Andrew Buncombe reports for the British newspaper, The Independent, and he is out to discredit Andrew Wakefield because Wakefield has refused to back down from his claim of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and bowel disease in children.

Buncombe isn’t interested in Wakefield’s research. I’m sure he’s never bothered to read Callous Disregard,   the book in which Wakefield explained how he became involved in the most heated issue in pediatric medicine and what he learned about the MMR vaccine.

Buncombe’s real interest is discrediting ANYONE who dares to question the ever-expanding, unchecked vaccine schedule. He couldn’t care less about what autism is doing to millions of children around the world, in fact, autism is barely mentioned in his reporting. 

(On a personal note, having spent a summer in the hospital in Rugby, England after a car accident, I am aware that a surgeon in Britain is addressed as “Mr.” Dr. Wakefield in these stories is referred to as “Mr. Wakefield,” but I suspect that it’s done more to discredit him than to acknowledge his prominence as a surgeon in gastroenterology. No one in the media is interested in his findings as a GI doctor.)

Here are some of Buncombe’s latest reports. Judge for yourself what his real agenda is.

May 6, 2018, UK Independent: How a Muslim community overcame disinformation linking vaccines to autism

…When health officials in Minnesota were confronted by the biggest outbreak of measles in decades, they knew that earning the community’s trust would be crucial.

The section of the community most affected by the outbreak that eventually infected 79 people, the same as for the whole of the US in any average year, were Somali Americans. The vast majority were children under 10 who had not been vaccinated.

The state’s Somali Americans used to vaccinate their children more than other Minnesotans, but the rate fell, between 2004 and 2014, from 92 per cent to 40 per cent. Officials have linked this to visits paid to the community by anti-vaccine activist Andrew Wakefield and other campaigners, whose influence still reverberates.….

“I think that before Andrew visited the Two Cities, Somali parents vaccinated their kids at around 90 per cent. But right now it’s 40, and that shows the fear’s impact and because of that you see a measles outbreak in the state of Minnesota.”

May 5, 2018, UK Independent: Trump claims vaccines and autism are linked but his own experts vehemently disagree

By Anne Dachel

One of my favorite quotes about the media is this one from the movie, Argo: “If you want to sell a lie, get the press to sell it for you.”

This is exactly what’s happened.

There have been decades of decline in the health of children—developmentally, behaviorally, physically—and the press has reported on it all. It’s been endless, even tedious. We’ve been fed a steady diet of autism increases that should have stopped us all dead in our tracks, but officials have never been sure if higher rates mean more kids have autism. Autism has merely been a “concern” to the guardians of our health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  There is no need for worry, and that’s how the press spins it.

But it’s clearly more than just autism happening to more and more kids. Mental health is now a major focus of schools everywhere. Social—emotional learning is right up there with math and reading. Keeping kids calm is as important as final exams. The special needs student today is more likely to have behavioral problems than just learning difficulties.

Add to that the stunning numbers of kids with chronic health problems that schools are forced to deal with--asthma, allergies, seizures, diabetes, bowel disease. In-school clinics are becoming standard in lots of places because the need is there.

So why is this happening? Why are children today so unwell? No one is really sure, and no one really wants to find out. Awareness, acceptance, and accommodation are the only things we really care about. I know this for a fact because I’ve been following these stories specifically for a year and half and NO ONE EVER DEMANDS THAT WE FIND OUT WHAT’S GOING ON.

NOTE: Maybe Bruce Springsteen will write a song about the boys with autism who can't find work in the closed factories... and who might never have their hearts broken by a Jersey girl. Born in the USA has become frightening as more families are learning their child has a diagnosis. We are in an emergency situation.

U.S. autism rate now one in every 59 eight year olds in America. In New Jersey, it's one in every 34 children, one in every 22 boys.

By Anne Dachel

The numbers are from 2014. Dare we suspect that they are even worse today? Is anyone alarmed because the New Jersey rate is so much higher than the national average?  What if the Garden State has the most accurate count of kids? 

The go-to guy on autism in New Jersey is Dr. Walter Zahorodny. His remarks in the press on the horrific rate in New Jersey are incomprehensible. 

Six years ago he admitted the possibility of a connection between vaccines and autism.

I wrote this for Age of Autism:

Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, directed the autism study. (Photo: Photo courtesy of Nick Romanenko)

Finally, there's Dr. Walter Zahorodny, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark and he was the lead researcher on the New Jersey portion of a CDC rate study.  He was interviewed for Philly.com in March, 2014 about the update in the autism rate to one in every 68 children.  Zahorodny said, 'It's a true increase. It's a change of great magnitude. It's silly to go on debating that.'  Furthermore, he said the numbers are going to get even worse.

Back in April, 2012, Zahorodny was featured on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC radio.

During the interview, the host brought up research on the possible causes for autism and he made this comment: "I guess we know what they aren't, for instance, childhood vaccines, right?”

This was Zahorodny's stunning response: "Vaccines don't play a significant role in autism increasing. Some small number of children probably do have autism because of an adverse vaccine reaction, but they don't make for the overall rise. Similarly, thimerosal, the additive in vaccines which was almost entirely out of the picture by 2000, which was when our children in the '08 study were born. So these kids, which would have seen declining autism prevalence if thimerosal was an important risk factor, not increasing prevalence. So I rule those two things out. There are other factors that would be more likely at play-demographical factors related to parents' age and other factors linked to that."

So a "small number of children" have autism because of their vaccines.  Shouldn't we all be concerned? 

While Zahorondny's claim that thimerosal was removed by 2000 is clearly wrong, his admission that yes, some kids really do become autistic after vaccinations, was alarming.

So how much of the rate increase is because of the vaccines children receive?

So now it’s 2018 and the numbers have once again taken a jump leap forward.

 Since NJ has the highest rate in the country, Zahorodny is being quoted in national coverage. He makes it clear that it isn’t just BETTER DIAGNOSING. The numbers show no sign of slowing down. He finds that worrisome...

By Anne Dachel

How fitting that the people who run the ever-expanding vaccine schedule (the one rife with charges of fraud, collusion and cover-up) also get to keep track of the autism numbers.

The rate is up again, but there’s no need to worry. It’s just more of the “better diagnosing” that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been famous for, for the last twenty years.

Notice the piece below by Ari Ne’eman in which he is adamant: THERE IS NO EPIDEMIC. It’s all just better recognition of a disorder that’s always affected a significant number of people.

The only malfeasance here is society’s failure to something about all the autism plaguing adults. We’ve ignored them for far too long. It’s time to right that wrong and find the undiagnosed/misdiagnosed in the adult population, according to Ne’eman.

Good luck with that. They tried it in Britain in 2011. Using survey questions, researchers surmised that autism affects adults at the same rate as children. Finding middle aged adults who would rather stay home and read a book than go to a party was supposed to be equivalent to masses of hand—flapping, head—banging, non—verbal six-year-olds.

April 28, 2018, Vox: The CDC just announced 1 in 59 children are autistic. Here’s why that’s not evidence of an epidemic. By Ari Ne'eman

Especially within minority groups, parents and doctors are getting better at identifying the condition.

The Centers for Disease Control this week released the latest autism prevalence numbers, which suggest that approximately 1 in 59 children are autistic. …

There is no autism epidemic, however. The numbers are likely changing due to improved diagnosis and services, more inclusive diagnostic criteria and reduced stigma rather than a change in the actual number of autistic people. …

By Anne Dachel

Here is yet another look at the fall of education in America (and everywhere else in the English speaking world).

Months and months of stories have shown what should be obvious to all: our schools are noticeably different from what they were fifteen and twenty years ago, and certainly a world away from schools thirty and forty years ago.

What is undeniable is the fact that schools have to provide for more and more students who can’t learn or behave normally, and the demands for accommodations keep increasing.

So why isn’t this a critical issue?

How can “experts” make absurd claims that dismiss what’s happening and they’re never challenged?

Why is the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allowed to produce the science that supposedly shows the explosion in social/emotional/behavioral problems is due to an increased number of parents abusing their own children and inflicting “adverse childhood experiences” on them?

Why are we just supposed to accept the claim that one in every five children now has a mental illness?

Why has there been a coincidental increase in students with a whole host of chronic health conditions?

Why doesn’t Education Secretary Betsy DeVos say anything about the increase in special education students, the millions being spent to address mental health issues in school districts, and why teachers still have to be trained to teach kids with challenging behavior?

Since January 2017 I’ve been gathering stories about kids in schools. Here is what I’ve put out on Age of Autism. They’re just a sample from a whole lot more, well over 3,000 in my files. Stories are never about declining numbers or situations getting better. I can’t imagine what I’ll find a year from now.
 

April 18, 2018, Tell a lie enough times, and it becomes the truth…ESPECIALLY IF PEOPLE WANT TO BELIEVE IT! http://www.ageofautism.com/2018/04/tell-a-lie-enough-times-and-it-becomes-the-truthespecially-if-people-want-to-believe-it.html

April 12, 2018, Nothing To See Here http://www.ageofautism.com/2018/04/nothing-to-see-here.html

March 27, 2018, ABCs Are Becoming IEPs in Education as Mental Health Issues Beset Districts http://www.ageofautism.com/2018/03/abcs-are-becoming-ieps-in-education-as-mental-health-issues-beset-districts.html

March 22, 2018, Schools Becoming the New Mental Health Institutions  http://www.ageofautism.com/2018/03/schools-becoming-the-new-mental-health-institutions.html

By Anne Dachel

During the last decades ago, as autism became an ever—increasing diagnosis, taking giant steps in the rate every two years or so, people wanted to know where it was coming from. Experts didn’t have a clue, but they did have guesses and lots of dead—end studies to support them. The two most often cited were BETTER DIAGNOSING, and GENETICS, although either one made any sense.

First of all, IF all the children with autism were nothing new, then we should have been able to find comparable rates among all ages of adults, and no one has ever done that.

Second, a dramatic change in genetics in a generation or two is simply impossible.

Never mind. The only task for the medical community and health officials was to pretend NOTHING WAS WRONG. The fact that 30 percent of parents reported that their child was normal and then dramatically lost learned skills and regressed into autism was never a concern.

To further muddy the waters, lots of time, money and expertise was spent making meaningless associations between autism and bad parents—especially BAD MOMS (very similar to the old “refrigerator mom” theory): old moms, moms who marry old dads, fat moms, drinking moms, moms on anti-depressants, smoking moms, moms who have babies too close together, moms who have preemies, pregnant moms who don’t get enough vitamin D, and moms who live too close to freeways.

MOST OF ALL, experts were out to kill the claim that vaccines were the cause. Endless dollars went into disproving any link between our ever—expanding vaccine schedule and the development of autism.

And it worked. Today, if a child loses the ability to talk or interact after previously meeting every milestone, resulting in an autism diagnosing—it’s just what happens. It’s all so confusing. It’s why we use a puzzle piece. Autism will remain a mystery.

Simple truth: No official knows anything for sure about autism. We don’t even have new official rate. AND NO MATTER WHAT THE RATE, no one in charge will ever admit that an increase means that more kids have autism.

SO is it one in 36 CHILDREN? http://www.ageofautism.com/2017/12/autism-1-in-36-asd-rate-set-a-new-record-high-in-2016.html

Or is it one in 68 CHILDREN, as unconcerned reporters blithely tell us every day?

Or is it one in 45 CHILDREN, as we were told by officials in 2014?

Or is it one in 38 CHILDREN, as Autism Speaks found in their Korean study in 2011?

IT DOESN’T MATTER. Numbers will NEVER MATTER when it comes to autism. There will ALWAYS be some explanation. There has to be because IF all the kids with autism are a new phenomenon, then we would have to do something. We would have move mountains to STOP IT. No one in authority wants to look at autism like this, so we do nothing.

NOW THE NEWEST EPIDEMIC

By Anne Dachel

Numbers mean nothing. Cost is meaningless. NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS GET IN SCHOOLS, THERE WILL NEVER BE A REAL PROBLEM. Behavior is out-of-control. Special education is exploding at the seams. Mental health concerns are a more critical topic than academics in our schools. STILL, everything is fine. Experts are working on it. We’ll survive this.

Here are around 70 stories from the last two weeks. They’re from all over—the U.S., Canada, and Britain. They’re about schools adding sensory rooms so kids can calm down and make it through the school day, about more and more schools spending vast sums on mental health services, about schools in Britain so overwhelmed that there aren’t enough places for all the disabled students, and about increasing incidents of out-of-control kids in the elementary schools attacking teachers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has their own study from 1998 to show that the changes in kids’ health and behavior are the result of bad parents who expose them to trauma at home. This is what teachers are being taught everywhere. I’m sure it will work. The press is already reporting on it as dogma. Schools need to take over and counter what parents are doing. Teachers have learned to ask, “What happened to this student” and not, “Why did the student do this?” Every mom and dad whose child has behavior issues should hang their heads in shame.

March 25, 2018, (UK) Maidenhead Advertiser: New Dorney school creates safe learning space for children in care

… The head of a new school for young people in care says it aims to put each child at the centre of everything it does.

Stephen Rodgers is head of education at the Eton Dorney Residential School, which has room to house six young people and 18 day spaces for 10 to 18-year-olds. …

Inside, Natalie showed off the sensory room, which is used if a child is anxious and is a place to reassure them.

“These children can be in the care system for a number of reasons including learning and behavioural difficulties,” said Natalie. “ …

By Anne Dachel

Over the last 15 months I’ve collected around 4,000 stories on the decline of children’s health and behavior and what it’s doing to schools around the world. The February 14^th shooting in Parkland, Florida is just one factor forcing educators to address mental/behavioral health problems. State legislatures are okaying millions of dollars to address mental health in schools, and districts are adding more experts to help with the social/emotional needs of students.

Educators are struggling and they’re scared of a student population unlike any they’ve had in the past.

Incredibly we’re not seeing any panic over what’s happening. In fact, our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has assured us that THEY KNOW WHY childhood is dramatically different: bad parents are raising children in abusive homes. There is a massive effort to educate teachers about what Adverse Childhood Experiences are doing.  Below is just a sample of what’s out there.

When children can’t learn, pay attention, or behave in school, teachers are told, “Instead of saying what's wrong with you, why can't you just sit still and pay attention? We say: what happened to you?”  

Parents now have a lot to answer for.

Mar 18, 2018, Wakefield, RI, Narragansett Times: Town council, school committee negotiate budget

… Among those identified needs that would be included in a budget with a 2.93 percent PTT are the addition of a family community engagement (FCE) teacher, a SKHS career pathway/ internship teacher, a social emotional learning (SEL) teacher and a teacher assistant (TA) with a chauffeur license who could help transport families to IEP and 504 meetings.

School committee member Kate Macinanti pointed out that each of those positions would benefit students’ mental health. 

Note: Here are some of Anne's collected media stories about the changes in schooling in the First World. We had a 16 year old female make a credible threat in my town on the day of the Walk Out. A boy shot two students this week in what was called by morning cable news "school based domestic violence," and the Austin Bomber turns out to be a white, 23 year old Conservative Christian male.   Hardly out of school.

By Anne Dachel

How come schools all over the world are making dramatic changes in order to address mental health/behavioral problems in children, without anyone asking why?

Lame excuses about BAD PARENTS/BAD HOME LIFE are being talked about without challenge, as if homes in the past nurtured kids and there was nothing like this.

The situation is bad..........the cause is somehow social. Imagine if someone started talking about the ENVIRONMENT. Routine exposure to known neurotoxins isn't  even considered. So let them spend vast sums to hire more experts and address social emotional issues ....all the while things get worse and worse.

HOW long can we blame the parents?  Look at the EXPLOSION IN SPED PART I also attached. IF YOU SCROLL down, it starts at the end of 2016 and continues through the first couple of months of 2017.... I'm now on EXPLOSION IN SPED PART VII. Over and over......thousands of stories over the past year attest to the end of childhood as we've known it. How can this not be a crisis?

Columbus, MS: 9 year old shoots and kills 14 year old sister.  Pediatrician calls this trauma…it has lasting impact on children.

Charlotte, NC: County to add more mental health therapists and social workers

Attleboro, MA: School population declines while there is ‘growth of social and emotional issues and increased special needs.’

By Anne Dachel

We’ve been told for the last twenty-five years that all the kids everywhere with autism were nothing new, that all the features of autism—being nonverbal, stimming, obsessing, having  anxiety and meltdowns, and wandering—are just things that come with the diagnosis. We only needed to be aware and to accept. The dramatic change in the behavior of children, referred to as autism, has never been called “a crisis” by any U.S. health official. EVER.

Suddenly things are different. 

There are now so many children in our schools who simply can’t function like kids have always been expected to function. There are lots of labels and lots of accommodations being made to help these students get through the day at school. Autism has to take a backseat to the big percentages of kids who need special help. We’re told in news stories that research shows one in 5 or even one in 4 students has a mental health problem.  NOW it’s a crisis. We need more money to help these kids.

20 percent? 25 percent?

How is that possible? Is the same true for adults? Does the one in 4/one in 5 rate apply to teachers, doctors, police officers? It’s an incredibly scary world out there.

If this is what’s happening just to our children, why aren’t we doing something to stop it? Why isn’t all this the equivalent of a four alarm fire to school officials and the medical community?

Incredibly, there are two reasons that we’re given for all of this: too much social media and bad parents who traumatize their children.

Just like we learn to accept more and more and more children with autism, mental health issues are now a normal and acceptable part of childhood as well. Here are recent stories that prove my point. Schools have to do something, and they are. They’re hiring more counselors, they’re allying themselves with local mental health facilities, and they’re adding more police presence in schools. Since no one is doing anything to address the root cause of all this, it must mean that they probably expect things will get worse.

Feb 18, 2018, Williamsport (PA) Sun—Gazette: Out and About

Dr. Kathleen Lynne Lane will headline Bloomsburg University’s McDowell Institute Speaker Series on Monday and Tuesday.

Lane, a professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Kansas, will focus the series on the social, emotional and behavioral wellness of children who may experience non-academic barriers to learning such as adverse childhood experiences or trauma.

… Her research delivers valuable information for teachers in pre-kindergarten through high school settings using three-tiered methods to screen for the development of learning and behavioral challenges and respond to existing learning challenges.

Feb 18, 2018, Salisbury (NC) Post: Take a deep breath: Koontz launches resiliency program to help kids cope with stress

NOTE: Instead of closing factories and carnival lights, perhaps Bruce Springsteen will start singing about opening autism schools and sleepless nights.

By Anne Dachel

Wake up, New Jersey! Seriously! When the autism rate finally reaches one in 10 or one in 5, and maybe someone asks WHY, we’ll look back on stories like this one from My Central Jersey and ask why no one ever noticed the numbers continually increasing.

THIS IS HOW HOPELESS IT IS.

This is a feel good story designed to accustom us to more and more disabled children. It’s about spreading joy and helping special needs kids, which sounds good. It also has HORRIFIC AUTISM NUMBERS.

How is it possible to write like this, My Central Jersey? How dare you tell us that New Jersey has such an ever-increasing autism rate, far exceeding the national rate, WITH NO EXPLANATION! So in two more years, when the New Jersey rate is one in 28, will you be reporting that so casually too? Will autism ever matter in New Jersey?

***Mar 3, 2018, My Central Jersey: Somerset Hills YMCA, Rutgers athletes team up to spread joy

On Feb. 24, Somerset Hills YMCA, a branch of Somerset County YMCA, hosted its 13th annual Saturdays in Motion (SIM) Rutgers Day, in which 25 Scarlet Knights volunteered to support children with special needs. …

Today, more than ever, children living with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) need services and support. According to the CDC’s 2016 Community Report on Autism, the diagnosis rate of ASD in New Jersey is one in 41, compared with the national rate of one in 68. The New Jersey rate marks an increase of 12 percent from the previous one in 45 statistic released in 2014.
 
As a charitable organization, Somerset County YMCA seeks to provide everyone with the opportunity to learn grow and thrive by providing programs, like SIM, that meet community needs where other services fall short.

Note: My Dad grew up in the height of the depression.  He was in first grade in 1929. His Dad was an immigrant cobbler from Italy. He had nine brothers and sisters - hungry brothers and sisters.  And yet, he and his peers saved the world in World War II. Since Columbine, school shootings have been in relatively well to do districts, by kids whose lives may not have been 'easy,' but who weren't living in shelters wondering where there next meal would come from.  And they had copious medical care... Oh... wait.  Kim

By Anne Dachel

Spreading the latest REALLY BIG LIE about childhood disorders: THE FILM ‘RESILIENCE’

The masterminds of fraud and cover-up, the medical establishment and health officials, have devised the perfect explanation for the decline our children’s health and behavior: ALL THE BAD THINGS PARENTS HAVE ALLOWED TO HAPPEN TO THEM AT HOME. News reports are filled with the newly coined terms, “Adverse Childhood Experiences” (ACEs) and “toxic stress,” and they point accusing fingers at moms and dads everywhere.

Now there’s a supporting documentary called ‘Resilience’ that’s circulating internationally. (Trailer) Educators, parents and medical professionals are urged to view it in order to understand the “new science” on childhood behavior problems. It’s being taken seriously and countless news reports link the explosion in mental health problems in children and behavior issues at school to CHILDHOOD TRAUMA.

Somehow children today have to live in such negative circumstances that their emotional and mental health is alarmingly different from previous generations.  The child in the 21^st century suffers more than children who were raised during the Industrial Revolution, Great Depression, world wars, or de jure segregation in the South.

One of the ACEs they’re talking about is poverty, although no one can dispute that being poor is nothing new in childhood. 

How did children survive these all these experiences in the past and somehow function without all kinds of accommodations?

We are not allowed to ask.
The same people who convinced us that all the autism overwhelming our children is the result of better diagnosing/no real increase are now successfully selling the latest REALLY BIG LIE. Here are examples of how the documentary is being promoted.

Feb 23, 2018, (UK) Orkney Orcadian: Childhood experiences documentary shown in Orkney  Resilience, a groundbreaking documentary on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) is available for public screenings in communities throughout Orkney, starting in St Margaret’s Hope next Wednesday evening.

Following a showing of the documentary last May, six Third Sector organisations formed an ACEs collective to look at how this new science can contribute to improving health outcomes and life circumstances for children, families and communities here in Orkney.

Local campaigner Kevin Denvir said: “There is a strong body of evidence emerging that confirms the experience a child has at home with parents is the strongest predictor of future health, happiness and success. Parenting, it transpires, has a bigger bearing on the well-being of our children than the school they go to, the incomes we have, the holidays they go on, the clubs they attend, those extra lessons or even possessions! A child’s emotional intelligence and sense of security is clearly linked to the quality of their relationship with their parents or key caregivers.

“Over 20 years ago a research study of over 17000 mainly middle class Americans, by Vince Felliti and Rob Anda, came up with the phrase Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). …

 “The Orkney ACEs collective bought the public performance licence rights for the film and intend to show it throughout Orkney over the coming months. It is hoped by raising public awareness and understanding of this new science we can better support people who have experienced ACEs and provide more effective help when and where it is needed.” …

Feb 23, 2018, Catholic Herald, Diocese of Superior Herald: Viewing of ‘Resilience’

The Cathedral of Christ the King, Superior, will host a viewing of the film “Resilience” at 6 p.m. Monday, March 5, in Kress Hall. The film is a one-hour documentary that chronicles the birth of a new movement among pediatricians, therapists, educators and communities, who are using cutting-edge brain science to disrupt cycles of violence, addiction and disease.

By Anne Dachel

This Week, Feb 11-17 

We have more shocking stories that testify to what’s happening to our children. Schools are now focused on behavior/trauma/mental health issues. They’re trying to explain all this as the result of bad parenting/social media, but suddenly the concerns of autism parents—sensory issues, social skills, self-harm, anxiety, melt-downs—are the concerns of the parents of the general school population. After the heinous shooting in Florida, how can we continue to turn a blind eye?

Feb 11, 2018, (Israel) Haaretz News: Educational Psychologists in Israel Sound Alarm as Demand Rises Among Students

“Though educational psychologists are responsible both for treating children and advising parents, teachers and principals, most of their time is devoted to advising rather than treating individual children, due to their excess workloads. …”

Feb 11, 2018, (Australia) Victoria, Border Mail: Rutherglen high joins Victorian Doctors in Schools Program

“STUDENTS at Rutherglen High School will be able to access a GP on campus thanks to the Doctors in Schools program. …

“Equally crucial are the kinds of services available – Mr Rogers said research had shown as many as 40 per cent of students across the state had used the program to seek treatment for mental health issues.”

Feb 11, 2018, WDAY—TV, Fargo, ND: South side growth requires new look at Fargo school enrollment

The early childhood special education program, located at Agassiz School and Madison Elementary School, must deal with an increase in children ages 3 through 5 who are diagnosed with special needs.

"That is front and center our most urgent facility need right now," Johnson said.

Feb 11, 2018, Atlanta Black Star: Report: Flint Sees 75 Percent Drop In School Reading Proficiency In Wake of Water Crisis

The city of Flint is in crisis mode yet again, except this time, there’s no water involved — at least not directly.

Just as Gov. Rick Snyder failed to inform thousands of residents they were being poisoned via lead-tainted drinking water, he also failed in his mission to improve the city’s reading proficiency. A Detroit Free Press report found that the city’s third-grade reading proficiency took a nearly three–quarter nosedive, falling from 41.8 percent in 2014 to a measley 10.7 percent in 2017. …

Feb 11, 2018, (UK) The Isle of Thanet News: Children’s Mental Health Week: How one Thanet counsellor uses ‘Sunbeams’ to help youngsters explore feelings

By Anne Dachel

A story from Australia makes it clear that vaccines will maintain the sacred place in medicine with our children as the sacrificial lambs.

Feb 12, 2018, Australia SBS News: I'd choose autism: Labor MP backs vaccines

Labor MP Emma Husar says she'd choose autism over nursing a child with an illness that could have been prevented through vaccination. 

Emma Husar is particularly offended when she hears people link vaccinations and autism.

The federal Labor MP is the mother of an autistic child. She also nursed her comatose sister through meningococcal disease, she told parliament on Monday.

"Let me tell you, I would take the autistic child every day over the one that almost died from an almost now-preventable disease through vaccines," Ms Husar said supporting a government proposal to change No Jab No Pay rules.

Consider what Husar is talking about: EVEN IF there is a link, we should still vaccinate. This is the true believer. This is also someone who is making the choice for those dependent on government welfare money.  This is not informed consent—it’s medical tyranny.

By Anne Dachel

Please notice the statistics on disabilities among children today. They’re stupefying. Ten percent, twenty percent, fifty percent, and still no asks why this is happening. Schools are making dramatic changes to help students who can’t function like we’ve always thought kids could, without questions.

When you read, “It is estimated one in ten young people is living with a diagnosable mental health issue,” any rational person has to ask, WHY? What brought about such a dramatic and sudden change?

There’s no real concern about what’s causing this. Even the British royal family—Prince William, his wife, Catherine, and Prince Harry—are only advocating for awareness and services for mental health issues in children.

I honestly believe some of these high estimates of disabilities—a half of kids, two-thirds—are absurd,  I think it's intended to muddy the water to the point that no one knows what's going on—it's just that things are really bad. 

 We’re being conditioned to more acceptance (after all, we’ve somehow adjusted to two percent of kids with autism). All we need is AWARENESS and SERVICES—just like with autism, and everything will be fine. IF there were something seriously wrong, SOMEONE SOMEWHERE would be telling us. Officials would be concerned. Legislators would be calling for answers. BUT that’s not happening, so everything’s just fine.

Or is it?

(And notice that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is right there, promoting the idea that all the emotional/behavioral problems at school, COME FROM HOME: trauma, adverse childhood experiences, toxic stress.)

We can blame outside forces, namely parents/bad home environment, and especially moms who drank while pregnant, along with social media.

Feb 4, 2018, (UK) Sunday Express: School, and not social media, is 'by far the biggest concern' for stressed children

TWO-thirds of children are stressed about life at secondary school while only a tenth are worried about social media. A survey has also discovered that a third of pupils are unhappy at home with a quarter concerned about their weight.

It is also disturbing that increasing numbers of children at nursery and primary school level are being treated at hospital for self-harming. …

By Anne Dachel

This past week, in the midst of my search for the latest story on the explosion in special education in countries around the world, I found this stunning piece from the New York Times on February 6^th. The title said it all, Far More U.S. Children than Previously Thought May Have Fetal Alcohol Disorders.  

Before I get into the details of the story, let me just say, I could have predicted this was coming. It is one more attempt to blame parents for the disorders now plaguing our children and overwhelming schools.

I’ve compiled a year’s worth of stories on the explosion in special needs kids in schools worldwide, especially the ones who have mental/behavioral health issues. “Better diagnosing” and “greater awareness” will be a hard sell on this one (although a number of stories talk about less stigma more openness about mental illness.)

Something is clearly affecting large numbers of kids. We’re being saturated with news reports on the changes in our schools because of the students who cannot learn in a traditional classroom setting. (I’ve written volumes about the coverage over the last year: more special education services, sensory rooms, flexible seating, more therapists, behavior coaches and school psychologists, yoga, school suspensions, and isolation rooms.)

Educators and medical experts have explanations and none of them have to do with toxic exposures damaging children. Most often cited as the reason for the dysfunctional school population is trauma, also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)—the bad things that happen to kids at home: abuse, neglect, addicted/mentally ill parents, even a death in the family or parents who divorce.

(There is also blame placed on too much social media, lack of sleep, and bullying.)

NOW enter the latest villain: THE DRINKING MOM!

By Anne Dachel

This week’s update: The decline of modern education

INCREMENTALLY, it’s happening everywhere. Our schools are dealing with more and more problems. Collectively, it’s being described as behavioral/social—emotional issues. Incredibly, there is no demand for answers. This is just the way kids are today. Sure, it might have been entirely different back when you were young, but times change—learn to deal with it.

Blame is vaguely laid on social media/Adverse Childhood Experiences, in other words, Smart Phones and bad parents are behind all this.

Look here at one week in the news. We’re supposed to blindly accept that our children are disabled. Mental illness concerns are rampant in schools. One article cites the National Institute of Mental Health saying, “Among adolescents, an estimated 49.5 percent between the ages 13 to 18 have a mental disorder, according to NIMH.”

Excuse me, HALF OF CHILDREN HAVE A MENTAL ILLNESS?

(This is contradicted by the repeated claim in the press that ONE IN FIVE KIDS are mentally ill.) However, I checked this 49.5 figure and yes, that’s the claim.

"According the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health, mental illnesses are common, and include many different conditions that vary in degree of severity, ranging from mild to moderate to severe. National survey data estimates that 49.5 percent of children between the ages of 13 and 18 had any mental disorder–and among them, more than 22 percent had a severe impairment.”

 What I fear from all this is that the real neurological issues affecting our children will be eliminated under the term MENTAL ILLNESS. If every other child is “mentally ill,” the ones with autism, severe ADHD, OCD, and a host of developmental problems won’t matter. Our children won’t matter at all.

It’s constant indoctrination. Mental illness is now a normal and acceptable part of childhood. We just need services. So what if it’s autism? It’s just one of the things plaguing us everywhere.

Jan 28, 2018, (UK) Dumbarton and Vale of Leven Reporter: Mental health association calls on government to mark Year of Young People

SCOTTISH Association for Mental Health has called on the Scottish Government to mark the Year of Young People by creating a programme to train all school staff in mental health.

A survey of more than 3,000 school staff respondents in Scotland found more than two-thirds of teachers do not feel they have received sufficient training in mental health to allow them to carry out their role properly—…

Jan 28, 2018, Statford (CT) Daily Voice: Norwalk Teacher Raising Money To Buy Sensory Chairs For Students

Note: We're pleased to see Anne Dachel's work recognized by Weston A. Price Foundation. A 12 year old girl shot and killed two other students yesterday in Los Angeles. America is in a crisis never before imagined. We used to think war was about killing adult men. Our children are broken.

January 26, 2018 By Kendall Nelson

For years I have been working within the vaccine awareness community as an activist for health freedom, hoping to improve the lives of children. In doing so, I have met many heroes—men and women who are not afraid to address the shortcomings of vaccination despite the personal and professional repercussions that sometimes follow. These people are doctors, scientists and parents of injured children who share current vaccine news and studies, as well as ideas. One of these heroes and thought leaders is Anne Dachel from Age of Autism who for the past few months has provided our community with over two thousand news articles written about what she calls “The Decline of the Modern Student.”

SOMETHING IS HORRIBLY WRONG
“Evidence that something is horribly wrong with today’s children is worldwide and it’s growing. U.S. health officials have been silent on these issues for years, but I see a change happening. Actually, it’s been several years in the making, but it’s just now in the news everywhere,” says Dachel. Recent headlines read, “Special Needs Student Population Still Rising,” “Suspension Rates on the Rise,” “Handcuffing of Kids with Disabilities ‘Excessive Force,’ Judge Rules” and “Suicide Rates for Teenage Girls at All-Time High.”

Stress, mental illness, anxiety, depression, and learning disorders—they are plaguing our children at ever-increasing levels. Schools are having trouble accommodating these students while suffering endlessly with discipline issues, violence, expulsions, stressed-out teachers and budget shortfalls. According to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, up to 15-20 percent of children and adolescents aged three to eighteen are inhibited by mental problems such as anxiety, depression and behavioral issues, while the use of antidepressants by young people aged fifteen to nineteen rose 44 percent among boys between the years 2004 to 2013, and by 48 percent among girls in the same period. Similarly, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) here in the U.S. says one in five American children currently has or had a “seriously debilitating mental disorder.”  Read more here.

By Anne Dachel

RECENTLY, I interviewed a friend who both works in a big city public school system AND is the mother of a son with autism soon to be aging out of school.

Questions:

ABOUT YOUR WORK AT SCHOOL:

1. As someone with over 10 years experience in special education at a school in a large metropolitan area, what changes have you personally seen?

I have seen a dramatic increase in students with severe emotional-behavioral disorders.  Many are violent, many are anxious and unable to focus or even sit still, and some seem to have no empathy or moral compass at all.  We still see kids with typical autism traits, and other disabilities.  But now it seems there are far more students with emotional instability.

2. What types of behavior are most concerning for you as a teacher?

The explosive violence and emotional meltdowns that seem to come out of nowhere.While there have always been students who struggle with emotional regulation, it has now become so common that every classroom has one or two (or more) students who need constant monitoring.  We have an on-call crisis intervention team that is summoned to de-escalate kids on a daily basis.  The other students are regularly rushed out of the classroom to protect them from being harmed, which completely disrupts any attempts to teach or maintain a schedule.

3. How are all these issues impacting teachers? What have you observed?

There is extreme fatigue and growing despair among teachers I have talked to.  We find ourselves comparing bruises and horror stories over lunch, rather than talking about curriculum or our personal lives.  Within the first two months of school this year, our program had to add staff to 8 different classroomsin order to handle the out-of-control students. We are constantly devising new strategies to deal with the ever-changing and increasingly violent behaviors, and the special education budget cannot cover all the needs.

4. Do you see more students with an autism diagnosis?

I think the number continues to rise, but that’s partially due to the fact that many children are being “pigeon holed” into autism diagnoses.  The staff wants to help these children, who clearly have issues.  But I see many kids now with a diagnosis of “autism” that barely resemble what we used to see in cases of classic autism.  Many are social, intelligent, and well-spoken.  They don’t have stereotypical or repetitive behaviors.  What they do have is extreme oppositional behavior, emotional instability, anxiety, rage, ADHD traits, depression, and violent outbursts.

ABOUT YOU AS A PARENT:

1. Explain your son’s situation.

My son is in a post-high school transition program for kids with disabilities.  This is his final year, so he’s part of that initial “tsunami” of vaccine-injured adults that will soon be exiting the public education system.  You have been talking about this tsunami for years, but I don’t think the state and federal human services departments have taken heed.  It’s going to be very ugly when there is no longer a place for all these kids to go.

When my son started in his transition program, there were 28 young adults attending his location.  I knew roughly half of the kids and their parents, since the program had two high schools that fed into it.  I was astounded when I realized that there were 7 kids (just among those I knew) whose parents reported they had sustained their disabilities from vaccines.I know there are likely other vaccine-injured students in the program, but even if not – we are talking about 25% disabled by vaccines! 

Note: Anne Dachel is compiling a litany of stories from around the world about the state of pediatric health and its impact on schools. Each day she's adds to her list like Madame Defarge knitting in Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. If only the article below were fictional. CDC has a new term to explain the severe changes in violence among children: Adverse Childhood Experiences.  

We just had another school shooting in America, 2 high school students were murdered in cold blood, others injured, none in that building will ever be the same.  Home life has always affected children! Nature versus nurture is real. It's a no brainer that every child deserves a "safe, stable, nurturing" home. Reality is that many children have and have always had terrible home lives.  Anne and I spoke about this today. How is it that children of the depression were not so violent? Children of color grew up with Jim Crow laws that denied them basic human dignity - and yet were not wreaking havoc in their schools requiring safe rooms, evacuations, counseling, medication even.  We played with toy guns and shot each other dead in our back yards while the smell of caps surrounded us. Today, angry, despairing boys are reaching for real guns and do not have the basic human impulse to tell themselves, "NO! THIS IS WRONG." Divorce and verbal abuse are to blame for this shift? So many adopted children (and their families) are suffering from reactive attachment disorder today, and yet kids had been adopted for decades without the heartache and violence of RAD. 

It's CDC's job to look at health within the nation. Somehow ACE as an answer feels similar to what we see in autism. Examine everything except the obvious problem. Blame anything that isn't related to a partner and profitable industry like pharmaceutical. Leave medications and vaccinations out of the equation.

I find it nearly impossible to believe that America has made no progress in school shooting violence since Columbine, Colorado.  There is more violence than ever.  Anne has a story below from Maine that talks about ACE.  I guess we should get used to hearing the term. It may become the new Refrigerator Mom theory. Blame the parents for the out of control violence in the classroom and schools.  It's much more than stress that's toxic in children's lives today. And it comes from the CDC.

From CDC:

Childhood experiences, both positive and negative, have a tremendous impact on future violence victimization and perpetration, and lifelong health and opportunity. As such, early experiences are an important public health issue. Much of the foundational research in this area has been referred to as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

Adverse Childhood Experiences have been linked to

• risky health behaviors,
• chronic health conditions,
• low life potential, and
• early death.

As the number of ACEs increases, so does the risk for these outcomes.

The wide-ranging health and social consequences of ACEs underscore the importance of preventing them before they happen. CDC promotes lifelong health and well-being through Essentials for Childhood – Assuring safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children. Essentials for Childhood can have a positive impact on a broad range of health problems and on the development of skills that will help children reach their full potential.

Jan 25, 2018, Bangor (ME) Daily News: These Down East schools want to fix rural education

 “It’s a growing movement, stemming from a Centers for Disease Control study that laid the groundwork for research into the toll adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, take on health and brain development.”

“When ACEs experts talk about trauma, they’re not just talking about poverty, but a range of childhood experiences that can lead to frequent, toxic stress. Those experiences include surviving or witnessing verbal or sexual abuse, going through periods of hunger, and having parents separate or divorce.”

“Some 31 percent of Washington County students recorded at least three adverse childhood experiences, according to the survey, the second highest rate among the state’s 16 counties. …”

Our Anne Dachel is cataloging the changes in schools from institutions of learning to.... institutions. Schools should not be war zones where teachers fear students. Nor should they be prisons where students fear teachers. The changes in behavior among "regular" ed students is as, or more, troubling than in the ever growing special ed population.  I have know several paraprofessionals who have been injured during the course of their work with students on the spectrum and who have had to take worker's comp as a result. I also know stories of kids being terribly harmed by staff - including my own daughter on her school bus 8 years ago. Children are in dire straits. Strait jacket straits. Wake up. We'll have many more stories from Anne. Her compendium grows daily as the reports pour in from local media. National media rarely covers these stories. But in the "it takes a village" world of TV and newspapers, the stories are non-stop. Lord save us all. How will these kids function as adults?

Jan 22, 2018, (Canada) CTV Kitchener: WRDSB teachers faced violence 1,300 times last year

The union representing public elementary school teachers in Waterloo Region says more resources are needed to halt a growing trend of classroom violence.

“We have teachers who are being bitten, who are being kicked, who are being punched on a daily basis,” Jeff Pelich, the vice-president of the local chapter of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, said Monday.

“It’s pretty bad, and it’s escalating.”

Statistics provided by the Waterloo Region District School Board show that there were approximately 1,300 incidents involving student-on-teacher violence in the last school year, up from about 900 the year before.

About two per cent of the 1,300 violent incidents resulted in one or more people needing medical attention, and one per cent led to a leave of absence. The school board says no injuries were reported in 75 per cent of the incidents.

Pelich says violent outbursts in classrooms affect not only the students and teachers directly involved, but also other students who witness the violence firsthand.

He says the problem comes down to a lack of educational assistants and other supports for students with special needs.

“When there is a child who’s presenting in a violent manner, there’s just no one there to help,” he said.

“The child (often) has significant mental health needs that are outside the scope of what teachers are trained to deal with.”

The solution, ETFO says, is for the province to make more funding available.

An additional $6.3 million was provided to the WRDSB this year for special education needs. The Ministry of Education says the money is enough for “about 74 teachers and education workers.”

According to the school board, violent incidents appear to be happening this year at about the same rate they did in 2016-17.

WRDSB spokesperson Nick Manning says issues of violence aren’t limited to special education, and school board data shows that they occur most often after lengthy breaks in the school year, “before we’ve really had an opportunity to put programming in place to support students who need it.”

By Anne Dachel

As we begin a new year, the stories continue. Schools everywhere in the English-speaking world are trying to deal with children with special needs. Regular education is looking more and more like special education. Accommodations for children who can’t learn typically, who can’t focus, and who can’t behave in a classroom are the order of the day. Schools are dealing with things as best they can. They’re trying a host of interventions and adjustments to help the situation, and that’s why we’re seeing so many stories about schools adding in-school mental health services, behavior coaches, sensory/de-escalation rooms, later starting times to reduce anxiety, therapy dogs, fidget toys, flexible seating, mindfulness calming practices 

Why are so many schools doing these things? Why now? How has education managed without them in the past? These are questions no one is asking. Instead, we’re solemnly told that new research shows that children who can’t function in school are that way because of “Adverse Childhood Experiences” (ACEs) or trauma inflicted on them AT HOME. Teachers are being trained to recognize trauma-injured children. It’s a neat little revival of the old “refrigerator mom” blame game that was used for years to explain autism in a child.

We’re also being told that bullying and the impact of social media is behind behavioral problems in kids today.

The truth is childhood has changed. Our kids are both chronically ill with a host of physical problems as well as learning and behavioral issues. The proof is there for all to see in countless reports everyday on Google News.

The stories I’ve included here are from a much larger collection, so this is but a glimpse and they should be scaring everyone.

This is now the new norm in schools.

Nov 27, 2017, (UK) Coventry Telegraph: Why this mum has decided to home-educate her autistic daughter –Eleven-year-old Emily says she found school confusing and overwhelming and would become angry and lash out                                                                                                                

It revealed a 57% increase in children with a statement, or equivalent, being educated at home.

There has also been a rise in the number of children with recognised needs, but without a school place.

Almost 1,000 children with this highest level of special needs are waiting for a place.

Nov 27, 2017, Youngstown (OH) Vindicator: Rich Center launches $6M campaign          

The Rich Center has provided hundreds of area families with education and treatment for children with autism, but it needs to expand its capacity to meet the growing need…

Nov 27, 2017, Edmond (OK) Trumpet:  Elementary Schoolteachers Flee Classroom Violence

While the problems with student violence are particularly bad in Harrisburg, this is a national problem. The National Center for Education Statistics released its 2016 Indicators of School Crime and Safety report, finding that “10 percent of elementary teachers and 9 percent of secondary teachers reported being threatened by a student from their school in 2011–12.”

Nov 27, 2017, KMA Radio, Des Moines: Study: Iowa kids face greater challenges than others

A new study finds Iowa children face more Adverse Childhood Experiences or ACEs than kids in many other states. ACEs might include the death of a parent, being a victim of violence, or living with someone with a drug or alcohol problem. …

ACEs can have serious, long-term impacts on a child’s health and well-being, Davis says, by contributing to high levels of toxic stress that derail healthy physical, social and emotional development.

By Anne Dachel

I’ve been writing about the end of the education system as we’ve always known it. I say that from the perspective of a teacher with decades of experience and as a mother in the autism community.

I follow the news on a daily basis, and the stories I include come from the English-speaking areas of the world, including the U.S., the U.K., Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

(See links to previous stories at the bottom of this piece.)

It doesn’t matter where you go, the stories are all the same—schools have to adjust to children who can’t behave or learn normally, all the while pretending nothing is different, everything’s all right.

My last update included stories through October. Let me give you examples of what’s been published over the last month.

Oct 31, 2017, (Australia) Townsville Bulletin: REVEALED: Worst behaved schools in Townsville

“NAUGHTY kids at a Townsville school are being disciplined at the rate of more than one per school day

“…Figures show 674 students were enrolled at that time, meaning 57.12 per cent of the students potentially faced disciplinary action. …

“Another school high up on the naughty list was Heatley Secondary College, where 45.13 per cent of students could have been suspended or expelled.”

Oct 31, 2017, UK Daily Mail: Surge in depression among teens: Mental illness rates are rising four times faster in young people than anyone else in the US, study finds

“Depression among teens rose at quadruple the rate of the general population from 2005 to 2015, according to the new research.”

 Nov 1, 2017, Oshawa Express (Ontario, Canada): Lack of funding, resources blamed for rise in classroom violence—Parents, teachers say children with special needs falling through the cracks

“With violence in the classroom purported to be on the rise, parents and teachers are pointing directly at a lack of funding and resources to children with special needs as the reason.”

Nov 1, 2017, Rochester (NY) Democrat & Chronicle: Some young learners are losing out

“The reality is costs are rising as is the number of children needing specialized services.”

Nov 1, 2017, (British Columbia) CBC: Clinic coming to school grounds of B.C. Interior high school

“A high school in Salmon Arm, B.C., will soon be the first in the Interior to have a clinic on school grounds to give students access to help for both physical and mental health issues.”

Nov 1, 2017, Grand Junction (CO) Daily Sentinel: Depression common for county’s teens

Data about emotional well-being, which was collected from 652 Mesa County teenagers for the 2015 Healthy Kids Colorado survey, showed that 40 percent of teenagers felt sad or hopeless almost every day for two weeks or more.

Nov 2, 2017, UK Ipswich Star: Cyber-bullying, self harm and lack of sleep among issues faced by Suffolk’s schoolchildren, report reveals

“‘We have made several recommendations to local schools and commissioners within Suffolk County Council and our local clinical commissioning groups. This includes engaging secondary schools on all aspects of the EWB2020.

“‘This must start with preparing schools to better manage the emotional wellbeing needs of children and young people by increasing funding of tier one support, improved workforce development within schools and ensuring young people are more aware of the support available to them. …’ “

Nov 2, 2017, Charlottesville (VA) Tomorrow: Greenbrier Elementary piloting social-emotional learning program

Greenbrier Elementary School in Charlottesville is piloting a program for the city school division that aims to support children who struggle to control their emotions and cause disruptions in class.

Nov 2, 2017, Canada, CBC: Post-secondary groups call for beefed-up mental health services for students

“…but increasing demand and a huge gap in government funding means post-secondary institutions can't always meet the needs of those suffering from a range of psychological issues — from anxiety and depression to more serious illnesses such as bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.”

By Anne Dachel

A study from the Washington School of Medicine in St. Louis has solved the mystery surrounding the decline in the health of America’s children and the explosion in behavioral/developmental disorders overwhelming our schools.

A report released on Oct 30, 2017 entitled, Early childhood adversities linked to health problems in tweens, teens   gave us the details of the study which has already been talked about in the media over the last several months.

Here the opening:

“Study is first to point to brain changes that underlie poor health in some children.”

“Brain Changes”

What that actually means is “adverse childhood events” (ACEs) cause brain damage in early childhood and this can result in all kinds of problems like “severe depression by their preteen and early teen years and …physical health problems, such as asthma and gastrointestinal disorders.”

ACEs are the things that happen to kids in their home environment and they ‘can have serious health consequences evident as early as the teen and preteen years,’ according to senior investigator and Washington University child psychiatrist Joan L. Luby, MD. 

We’re seeing more children with behavioral problems in schools and this could tell us why. Dr. Luby went on to say, ‘People exposed to adversity early in life experience changes in the volume of the inferior frontal gyrus that probably can make children more vulnerable to behavioral issues and bad decision-making. We suspect that such changes are associated with issues such as poor diet, risky and more dangerous behavior and generally not taking very good care of yourself, and overall, this contributes to poorer mental and physical health outcomes.’

We’ve seen huge increases in physical health problems in children that can’t be dismissed with the claim of “better diagnosing,” like they’ve done with autism, and what this study does is lay the blame for asthma, GI disease and more on childhood trauma. It’s a deceptively clever way to further marginalize anyone who says that the toxins our children are exposed to everywhere have any ill effects on them, and it puts parents on the defensive.

IF parents are poor or divorced, IF there’s been a death in the family, IF anyone has had mental health problems or addiction—any of these things could cause mental or physical illness in children.

Forget the toxic foods we feed children daily or the multiple toxics we routinely inject into their little bodies and developing brains. INSTEAD, IT’S “TOXIC STRESS” FROM HOME THAT’S HURTING THEM. (“Toxic stress” is another new term often used with “adverse childhood event,” so get used to them.)

Luby explained how the tables have been turned on us: ‘We know toxins in the environment can contribute to disease, but this study suggests that kids can experience physical and mental health problems from exposure to psychosocial toxins, too.’ 

Luby is going to continue to study these children AND to begin “a multidisciplinary study to follow pregnant women and their infants to see whether psychosocial stressors and adversity experienced during pregnancy and the first three years of a child’s life also affect brain development and overall health.”

We were told that these findings could "alter the way doctors and researchers think about the development of disease."  

I’m sure they will. They can just blame parents for whatever is wrong with their children. I’ve already been convinced because of the massive amount of news stories about how childhood trauma, stress, anxiety, and depression are affecting schools around the world.

We’ll be spending piles of money on more studies, programs, teacher workshops and services that focus on undoing the bad things parents are doing to their kids. All this is well coordinated with experts and sources around the world all saying the same thing. And no one will be allowed to argue that stress has always been around, and so has poverty. Everyone will jump on board with this neat, simple explanation for all our ills. I can’t wait to read about ACEs triggering autism.

Note: Our Media Editor Anne Dachel has been compiling an unending list of autism horror stories from around the world. The truth isn't just stranger than fiction, it's much more frightening.  These posts are meant to shed light on the severity of the problem families are facing. In this case, a violent 12 year old child whose mother is begging for a placement.  Families suffer in silence. Some parents snap and murder their children. 

We had another mass shooting in America yesterday, at a church outside of San Antonio. Last week a man rammed a truck into New Yorkers on a bike path. America has become either numb or blind to the violence. We tsk tsk and offer our "deepest condolences" are "saddened" by so many tragedies.  And nothing changes.  KIM

Nov 3, 2017, UK Mirror: 'He has given me black eyes and attacked me with a knife': Mum pleads for autistic 12-year-old son to be taken away"

The 12-year-old boy suffers from autism and his mum has had to call police to her home more than a dozen times because of his violent behaviour

A mum has launched a desperate appeal to have her son taken into care after she suffered several brutal assaults.

The 12-year-old boy suffers from autism and his mum has had to call police to her home more than a dozen times because of his violent behaviour.

She has been forced to barricade herself into her bedroom along with her three daughters.

The mum, who is not being named, told the Irish Mirror: "He has smashed up my windows and televisions several times.

"I have marks all over my body. I have to highlight this before my kids or me are dead."

NOTE: American parents don't seem to realize that they are being blamed for their kids mental health issues. Schools have gone from institutions of elementary and secondary learning to... institutions.  And soon, as this trend continues unabated by a realistic crisis response, we will have a return to institutionalization of Americans.  We are brain injuring kids at a breakneck speed.  Not just autism - mental illness, crippling anxiety, depression.  Parents haven't forgotten how to raise kids. Teachers haven't forgotten how to teach. The RAW MATERIAL - the kids - are  different. Institutions are coming. Mark my words.  Pharma and pediatricians are to blame first, I think. Then the food industry. Then technology and the trend away from a belly crawling infancy to seated 24/7 and standing too soon.  Anne is following the tragedy closely.  See her list of headlines at the end of this post. The facts are out there - Anne is connecting the dots. K

By Anne Dachel

Stress, mental illness, childhood trauma, anxiety, depression—they’re plaguing our children at ever-increasing levels. Schools are making a major effort to address the situation. I have seen literally HUNDREDS of stories from everywhere in the English speaking world in the last couple of months. Educators from pre-school to universities are talking about the emotional difficulties our children have to deal with. Schools are partnering with mental health clinics and hiring additional counselors, adding “calming rooms,” and holding workshops so teachers can understand that the student of the 21^st century is a very vulnerable individual. 

Teachers are struggling to deal with many students with serious behavior problems. There is strong criticism over the actions of schools where they physically restrain out-of-control students or lock them in seclusion rooms. In Britain, there have been huge increases in the number of students being permanently excluded because of assaults on other children and on teachers, even among preschool students.

Take a look at recent headlines and it’s clear we have resigned ourselves to accept that our children are in need of help. The Scandinavian publication Science Nordic flat-out said so in September in the story, Teachers can help nip mental illness in the bud. 

Many young people have mental issues.

The researchers found that having various anxiety problems were linked to a reduced health-related quality of life.

It’s important to redouble efforts to improve mental health and prevent mental illness by detecting adolescents with anxiety problems, conclude the researchers.

Up to 15–20 percent of children and adolescents aged three to 18 are inhibited by mental problems such as anxiety, depression and behavioural disorders, according to the Norwegian Institute of Public Health.

The use of antidepressants by young people aged 15 to 19 rose 44 percent among boys between the years 2004 to 2013 and by 48 percent among girls in the same period.

Researchers also found that “anxiety symptoms among adolescents often materialize at school,” and these symptoms include “obsessions/compulsions, social anxiety, panic disorder, agoraphobia, separation anxiety, physical injury fears, generalised anxiety, and posttraumatic stress.”

All these can also be “the start of mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety disorders, according to the researchers.”

The article advised teachers to be on the lookout for signs of anxiety disorders and to take steps to help kids deal with them.

Clearly schools are taking a decisive role in mental health areas today like never before.

Several news sites have openly claimed that the emotional, behavioral, and learning problems affecting so many children and causing such difficulties at school are the result of bad parenting, also known as childhood trauma.

Oct 16, 2017, Business Insider: Parents of unsuccessful kids could have these 6 things in common 

Raising children requires good parenting techniques as well as avoiding bad habits.  A positive body image help children develop socially. Quality time with kids also helps them in school. But just as important are avoiding mistakes that can curtail a child's social, physical, emotional and intellectual development. The following is a transcript of this video.

Parents of unsuccessful kids could have these 6 things in common.

They're authoritarian. Authoritarian parents discourage open communication. They make demands without explaining why. One study showed, when these parents checked children's homework it inhibited the child's overall school performance.

Parents who let kids watch TV when they're really young. Researchers said children who watched more TV were less likely to participate in class and had lower math scores. 

Parents who yell at their kids a lot. Shouting, cursing and insults can have the same negative effects as physical discipline.

They're helicopter parents. Over-controlling parents have been linked to higher levels of anxiety and depression in children. Researchers found these children were less open to new ideas and more self-conscious.

Parents who are emotionally distant. This can contribute to: behavioral problems, insecurity, and emotional difficulties.

Parents who spank their kids. First graders who already had behavioral problems were even more disruptive if their parents spanked them. Spanking has also been linked to mental health problems and cognitive difficulties.

And on Oct 4, 2017, in Little kids and 'toxic stress': we can solve this

By Anne Dachel

Re: Harvey Weinstein story

According to a number of stories in the news, Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein spent over 3 decades groping and assaulting and paying off women, and no one knew what was going on until the current story by Ronan Farrow came out in the New York Times and New Yorker.

Is that possible?

Not really. We're also hearing that a lot of people knew what was happening and did nothing about it.

There are several stories in the news right now that both raise serious questions about a massive cover-up and point out an eerie parallel with what we’ve seen done for years by the media

Slate.com tells us that the DA in Manhattan had a chance to go after Weinstein two and a half years ago. He didn’t.

(*I couldn’t help but think about how the William Thompson/CDC whistleblower story broke in 2014 and never saw the light of day in the media nor was it addressed by elected officials, even after Representative Bill Posey begged the House of Representatives to call a hearing and investigate the horrifying charges of fraud and cover-up of vaccine injury findings by U.S. health officials.)

Politico

 reported on “the news industry’s apparent failure to aggressively report on Weinstein’s decades-long ‘open secret.’”

And even though the New York Times published the recent story about Weinstein’s sexual antics, the Times is also charged with being part of the cover-up because they refused to publish a story about it by reporter Sharon Waxman over a decade ago.

(*Who can forgot how the media refused to report on the shocking revelation in 2011 that the federal government had been for decades paying off claims of vaccine injury resulting in autism, at the same time U.S. health officials adamantly denied any connection between their vaccines and autism.)

Note: We are running a contest to win a copy of Dr. Moskowitz's book Vaccines A Reappraisal from Skyhorse Publishing here at AofA. You can leave a comment on this post to enter. Richard Moskowitz, MD, is a family physician who received his BA from Harvard, Phi Beta Kappa, his MD from New York University, and a US Steel Fellowship in Philosophy at the University of Colorado. He has been in private practice since 1967. After studying herbs, Japanese acupuncture, and other holistic modalities, he has specialized in homeopathic medicine since 1974, and has written four previous books and over a hundred articles on homeopathy, midwifery, natural healing, and the philosophy of medicine. He resides in Boston, Massachusetts.

By Anne Dachel

It was my privilege to question Dr. Moskowitz,  author of Vaccines: A Reappraisal about his position on the vaccine debate,  the health of children, and where this is all headed.

His answers are fascinating. Moskowitz is a wise and courageous doctor who has spent decades opposing the dictates of the pharma-controlled mainstream medical community. His view of what makes us healthy is a refreshing change from what officials tell us.

In your fifty years of practice, how have your views on modern medicine changed?

For me, the big change was in medical school and during internship.  It's hard to boil it down to a phrase or two, but by the time I graduated from medical school I knew I couldn't bring myself to practice in the way I'd been taught, and I left medicine entirely for 3 years, doing graduate work in philosophy to try to understand what I'd just lived through, and finally interning because I needed to earn a living and support my family.  

When I started practicing, I was already determined not to give pharmaceutical drugs for long-term maintenance and to avoid elective surgery as long as possible; but I had no idea how to do that.  The medical system was all I knew.  There was no such thing as "alternative medicine" in those days; if anybody had suggested anything as outlandish as acupuncture or homeopathy, I doubt I would have taken it seriously.  I did begin dabbling in and eventually studying things like herbs, nutrition, lifestyle modification, and psychotherapy.

What really turned my head around was a home birth that I got talked into because I had a reputation for being a little weird and none of the OB's in town would touch it with a 10-foot pole.  It was a revelation for me, because I was no longer telling the woman what to do or how to live her life, but rather being a midwife, helping her to do what her body was already trying to do.  So I just sat down and paid attention like everybody else, and thank God, nothing went wrong; she taught me the whole course that day, without saying a word.  That was the first time I had a vision of how I could practice medicine in a way I could be proud of. 

That was how I became open to things like acupuncture and homeopathy.  So to answer your question, what changed wasn't the medical system or my views of it, but simply how I could relate to it, to the point that I've also learned to appreciate the many good things it has to offer.

As a doctor of natural medicine, you have a different view of healthcare. What are doctors doing wrong today regarding children’s health?

The medical system is based on achieving technical mastery over every aspect of the life process, on developing medical and surgical technologies to force the body to behave in the ways we've decided that it should, to raise or lower the blood pressure, for example, more or less at will, or to repair parts that are broken, and to remove organs and tissues that are diseased or already dead.  In themselves, some of these are magnificent achievements, and capable of much good or even saving life in situations of extreme or desperate need.

Note: The headline is a play on the  new TV show from abc - The Good Doctor. He's Doogie Houser with autism. Brilliant! Sees medicine in a different way! He's  a magical unicorn doctor!   Real doctors are at a loss as to how to help teens and  young adults with violent behaviors and other conditions of autism. We told you about the nation's first pediatric emergency psychiatric facility recently. It's in San Diego, California. The Golden State is tarnished by Dr. Richard Pan, the pediatician (sic - pediatrician plus politician) whose role it is to force vaccination on every child in the state, followed by adults no doubt. Several years ago, Alex Spourdalakis languished and suffered in a Chicago hospital for weeks and was then viciously murdered by his mother in what may or may not have been a "mercy at wits end" violent episode. How many AofA readers have children who have been out of control violent due to their pain and suffering of autism? Too many.  The article below is from Philadelphia, home of Dr. Paul Offit. The leader in vaccination mandates and injury denial. The irony is startling. Will HE take these patients into his practice?

By Anne Dachel

Sept 26, 2017, Philadelphia Inquirer: With nowhere else to go, patients with severe autism turn to hospitals for help

Teenagers and young adults with severe autism are spending weeks or even months in emergency rooms and acute-care hospitals, sometimes sedated, restrained, or confined to mesh-tented beds, a Kaiser Health News investigation shows.

These young people — who may shout for hours, bang their heads on walls, or lash out violently at home — are taken to the hospital after community social services and programs fall short and families call 911 for help, according to more than two dozen interviews with parents, advocates, and physicians in states from Maine to California.

There, they wait for beds in specialized programs that focus on treating people with autism and other developmental disabilities, or they return home once families recover from the crisis or find additional support. …

Nationally, the number of people with an autism diagnosis who were seen in hospital ERs nearly doubled from 81,628 in 2009 to 159,517 five years later, according to the latest available data from the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The number admitted also soared, from 13,903 in 2009 to 26,811 in 2014. …

“Classic autism with challenging behavior represents a large part of the autism spectrum, and nobody is telling their story,” said Parles, who has an adult son on the spectrum.

If more help were available, more families would be able to keep their kids at home safely, she said. …

NOTE:  I'm a fan of the PBS News Hour and watched just last night. I was surprised and glad to see that Judy Woodruff was on screen at age 71.  Her neck is wrinkled. Her eyes turn down a bit at the corners. Her dress fit her properly instead of a sausage casing as now worn by most female broadcasters. That said, PBS has been staunchly pro-vaccine and while paying lip service to vaccine safety and the general topic, comes down on the side of pharma and vaccines hard.

By Anne Dachel

Sept 26, 2017, PBS News Hour  

PBS anchor Judy Woodruff and reporter Lisa Stark covered vaccine exemptions in an 8 and a half minute segment entitled, Vermont’s rules on vaccines for school met with parents’ support and pushback. 

 And while the piece seemed to cover the issue from both sides, in truth, it was intended to convince viewers that exempting parents are lazy and their children are a threat to the health of every other child in school.

From the start, Woodruff slanted the coverage to support vaccinations. The measles outbreak at Disneyland was cited first thing, and we were told that that parents are “still pushing back” despite the removal of non-medical exemptions in California.  

We were shown a girl who was diagnosed with leukemia at age four and declared cancer-free by 2^nd grade.  Her mother, a doctor, was highly critical of exempting parents who would endanger her child’s immune compromised health. She said they shouldn't have a right to send their kids to school.

Another doctor was included who alleged that getting an exemption is easier for a parent than vaccinating a child. Finally one more doctor was cited who had worked to end Vermont’s philosophical exemption in 2015.

Two parents were included who claimed that they’d experienced vaccine injuries in their family, but the inference was that it was based on the opinion of mothers, not doctors.

By Anne Dachel

While so many parents have been diligently trying to get the message across to the world that injecting known toxins into babies and pregnant women is destroying children everywhere, the perpetrators of this crime against humanity have come up with their own version of reality.

The latest really big lie about the damage done to our kids

For the last several months I’ve been compiling stories about the disaster zones our schools are becoming. Out-of-control behavior now routinely seen in students is being dealt with desperate measures. Physical restraints and seclusion rooms are part of the typical school environment. “Behavior coaches” and off-duty police are regular members of the staff in elementary schools. “Sensory rooms” where students can calm down are an accepted part of schools. Special ed is not just about learning disabilities but also about “mental health problems.” Schools are linking up with local mental health agencies to try and address student behavior. Sped students are being excluded from schools across Britain and Ireland in soaring numbers, even down to pre-school aged children, because of behavior.

The evidence that something is horribly wrong with today’s children is worldwide and it’s growing. U.S. Health officials have been silent on these issues, but I see a change happening. Actually, it’s been several years in the making, but it’s just now in the news everywhere in our country.

WHY ARE OUR KIDS SO DYSFUNCTIONAL?  SIMPLE: They’ve experienced CHILDHOOD TRAUMA at the hands of their parents.

A story in the Worcester (MA) Telegram on Sept 19, 2017 explained it all and it’s a must-read for every parent. The title, “Effects of childhood trauma explored in Worcester talk” is really an accusation. The piece is all about how parents have traumatized their own children and schools have been left to deal with the damage.

Two experts gave this presentation at the Worcester Technical High School on Sept 19^th. 

Dr. Heather Forkey from the Division of Child Protection at UMass Memorial Medical Center and Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who was described as “a national leader in the emergent study on childhood trauma,” explained what researchers have discovered.

According to Drs. Forkey and Harris, childhood trauma – known as “adverse childhood experiences” or ACEs for short—is a really common occurrence and it can dramatically affect kids’ behavior, health, and learning. Experts have been studying this phenomenon for the past 20 years, and they are just now getting the word out. Harris is very optimistic that the movement across the country to address the effects of ACEs will benefit lots of injured kids.

When she was a new doctor, Harris was able to make the connection between conditions like  ADHD and asthma in children and adverse events from their lives at home. We’re told that “a landmark study” released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente in 1998 put all the pieces together for Harris.

The impact of childhood trauma is huge. “That study found that not only had two-thirds of the individuals included in the survey experienced at least one ACE, but that one in eight had endured four or more.”  And the carryover into the classroom is also common.

Our Anne Dachel is like Dickens' Madame Defarge, knitting a long long list of egregious actions within the ever exploding realm of special education. She has hundreds 0f stories of how school districts are being crushed by the epidemic of kids on IEPs and with serious emotional and mental challenges.  The result is often horrendous care for our children. Below is a sample of her compilation, about the hideous practices of restraint and seclusion.  Just last week on Facebook a friend discovered that her son's new school has a "calm" room. That's a euphemism for a seclusion room.

Sept 14, 2017, Newsweek: WHY ARE SCHOOLS LOCKING UP SO MANY OF OUR KIDS?

If parents were to lock their children in a confined space for a lengthy period of time, it is highly likely that those parents would be arrested for child abuse and their parental rights threatened. (In fact, this just happened in Arizona recently.)

If public schools do this, however, the outcome is quite different.

The use of physical restraints, locked “seclusion rooms,” and solitary confinement for children is rampant throughout the nation’s public schools.

In a comprehensive 2014 analysis by NPR and ProPublica, analysts found that “restraint and seclusion were used at least 267,000 times nationwide” in the 2011-2012 school year. Schools put children in seclusion rooms approximately 104,000 times in that one year.

PART TWO, Dara Berger

By Anne Dachel

Here Dara talks about the attitude of doctors toward these suffering children. In her words, they are “left for dead.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fundYMreGic

“The medical community is completely failing us parents.

“I can’t tell you how many of us feel like we are just left for dead. Left for dead like twice over.

“First you have the pediatrician that’s doing a lot of things wrong. They’re not recognizing all of the signs that we talked about: chronic constipation, reflux, constant ear infections—that something is wrong with the immune system. They keep giving us a prescription or a symptom suppressing drug which a lot of times creates even more problems and more havoc in our gut.

“Then the worst thing—and they keep giving more and more vaccines with no thought to—if a child has eczema, it used to be, like 20 years ago, they wouldn’t vaccinate that child. That was a contraindication on the vaccine insert that you don’t vaccinate a child whose immune system is not working properly.

By Anne Dachel

What you will never hear from mainstream doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when it comes to discussing AUTISM is the word PREVENTION.

According to all the officially accepted medical dogma out there, autism just happens, no one knows if there’s been a real increase, it’s probably highly genetic, and there’s nothing you can do to prevent your baby from being the next child on the spectrum.

Considering that autism now affects two percent of kids, that possibility should send shock waves through every new parent. And just because your baby starts out fine is no guarantee. Part of the mystery of autism is how normally developing children can inexplicably lose learned skills—even speech, and suddenly start lining up their toys, walking on their toes and flapping their hands endlessly.

Doctors have noticed that kids with autism often come with concomitant conditions like seizures, bowel disease, and serious allergies, but the debate is still ongoing as to the link to autism.

 The incredibly destructive impact of autism has been going on for decades and the medical community is still scratching their collective heads over it. You will never find anyone from the CDC who has ever called autism even a “crisis,” let alone a health care emergency. We’ve been so brainwashed by years of blue lights every April, that we celebrate autism as a normal and acceptable part of childhood today.

In the real world parents are scared.

There are kids with autism EVERYWHERE. You can’t get together with even six parents and not hear about whose child has

Dara and her husband Mark, son Dylan and daughter Jessica

the disorder.

But someone somewhere has to be able to tell us something about preventing autism.

That’s where Dara Silverman Berger’s wonderful book, How to Prevent Autism, takes center stage. 

It’s about hope. Hope that you won’t stand helplessly by as your child descends into the clutches of a neurological disorder that can rob them of a normal, healthy childhood and a bright independent future. No mainstream doctor can do this.

My son is 30 years old. I watched him change from a bright, happy baby to a child who didn’t speak and who looked in photos like he survived the fire bombing of Munich.

When John was finally diagnosed at age 7, after multiple attempts of labeling him, I was told, by a psychologist they brought in from Minneapolis, a hundred miles away, that autism “was such a RARE DISORDER, he was probably among only one or two other kids in my little town of 12,000 with the disorder.”

BIG SURPRISE. Autism is no longer rare in Chippewa Falls, or anywhere else. I can go into any of the grade schools or the high school here and find lots of kids on the spectrum.

Yet somehow we’re all supposed to believe that everything is fine. More and more and more kids with autism are really nothing new. It’s always been like this, we just called it something else.

To any thinking person, that is completely absurd.

We’ve had to train everyone who deals with CHILDREN about autism. There are NO NURSING HOMES FOR THE AUTISTIC ELDERLY. However, there are more and more schools exclusively for children on the spectrum. (They’re now building 19 for the most severe cases across Britain.)

Pediatricians do routine checks for autism at those well-baby visits (as they pump more and more vaccines into toddlers). And when the signs appear, all they can do is advise parents to check into early intervention and ABA therapy.

Polly Tommey and Anne Dachel

By Anne Dachel

On Aug 25, 2017, Polly Tommey and Anu Vaidya brought the ‘Vaxxed’ bus to Minnehaha Falls Regional Park near Minneapolis to talk with families of vaccine injured kids. Since I live about 100 miles east of the Twin Cities, I seized the opportunity to connect with members of the ‘Vaxxed’ team once again. (See Vaxxed - The Movie.)

These people are incredible.

After three weeks of showing ‘Vaxxed’ and recording stories in Australia and New Zealand, here they were up from Texas all the way to Minnesota. (And if you were following Polly, Anu, Dr. Brian Hooker, and Dr. Suzanne Humphries on their tour, you saw what crowds they drew in both countries.)

This was the first time I’d actually been aboard the ‘Vaxxed’ bus, although I’d seen so many videos of parents telling their heartbreaking stories sitting on the bus.

Everywhere you look, there are the names of the victims, thousands of them, inside and outside the bus. I sat in on interviews

Anne Dachel with Anu Vaidya

with parents on the bus, and I marveled at Polly’s ability to keep doing this. There’s a constant theme: healthy child was vaccinated and was never the same again.  

I asked Polly to update us on ‘Vaxxed.’  You can see her unstoppable dedication to telling the parents’ stories. (And I noticed Polly’s lunch was still sitting on the counter at 5 pm.)

Polly Tommey ‘Vaxxed’ Minneapolis, Aug 25, 2017

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW4-mS1VZuI

Polly: “Australia was a huge success, despite the ending—which shouldn't take away from the huge success of ‘Vaxxed’ going out, all the parents with their stories, the packed out venues.  Australia has a huge, huge strong team. The fact that the health minister, or whoever thought that I was a threat to Australia and banned me for three years—that’s irrelevant. Australia’s rising up and doing their thing. All good there.

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

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

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

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

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

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

13% of Children are in Special Education!

Read more here.

By Anne Dachel

For the last 10 years I've written often about "THE REALLY BIG LIE ABOUT AUTISM,"  which is that autism's always been here, we just called it something else.

There is also another REALLY BIG LIE, and that is that autism is not a disability, just a difference ...in how people see the world and interact.

This marginalizes autism to the realm of a curiosity, not a crisis. Look at these two stories from the UK. The first one about a mother with SEVEN DISABLED CHILDREN, SIX WITH ASD. She calls for awareness, acceptance and understanding. Autism happens--learn to live with it.

The second story is about three sisters with high functioning autism. They call autism a "superpower," not a disability.

These stories are more proof that the world will do nothing to address autism as a manmade condition that has crippled millions of children around the world. We will continue to celebrate autism, study it with no real purpose, and try to accommodate more and more disabled children until finallly we won't know what a normally functioning person is like. It's happening right now in schools around the world.

Aug 23, 2017, (UK) ITV.com: “They’re amazing, I’m so proud of them”: Mother of six autistic children blogs about her life"

Blog written by mother of seven, Vikie Shanks, an advocate for better awareness of autism and mental health. These are her views which she is sharing with ITV Central.

With seven children, six on the autistic spectrum, the seventh with severe dyslexia and the youngest two also with cerebral palsy, life was never going to be simple!

Rewarding, yes; straightforward, no. All of this hands-on experience has equipped me with an armoury of tools that I use. I now write books, give talks, and offer mentoring to help and educate as many people as possible. It’s my life’s mission!

By Anne Dachel

Below is a link to an interview by Helen Branswell of StatNews with Robert Kennedy, Jr. This interviewer was argumentative and out to discredit Kennedy. The narrow scope of the questions showed that. A legitimate journalist would have asked questions like this:

Is it true there is a claim from a CDC whistleblower that the government has destroyed research showing a link between vaccines and autism?

You allege that there are extensive conflicts of interests among our health officials that call their vaccine safety claims into question. Would you explain what you mean?

Why do you claim that the mercury in vaccines is dangerous when all the government's research shows it's safe?

Our friends at World Mercury Project told us today that Stat News failed to include important parts of the interview.

This is the FULL and correct transcript

STAT News published the Q & A (a close version) on their site but without the last part that included Kennedy's comments about the Institute of Medicine (IOM) findings:

https://www.statnews.com/2017/08/21/robert-kennedy-vaccines-question-answer/

But then they wrote a second article that editorialized the conversation here:

Here are the World Mercury Project posts on FB and Twitter. Please SHARE!!

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/WorldMercuryProject/ 

Link to WMP Tweet:

https://twitter.com/WorldMercury/status/899636319491698688

Read the interview, comment and judge for yourself. Was Ms. Branwell interviewing or impugning? A quick glance at who is Stat News rather tips their hand.  We wonder if Dan Olmsted would have known editor Rick Berke "back in the day?" In any case, they need some vaccine safety facts... STAT! Thank you to Mr. Kennedy for speaking with them. Couldn't have been pleasant.

STAT delivers fast, deep, and tough-minded journalism. We take you inside science labs and hospitals, biotech boardrooms, and political backrooms. We dissect crucial discoveries. We examine controversies and puncture hype. We hold individuals and institutions accountable. We introduce you to the power brokers and personalities who are driving a revolution in human health. These are the stories that matter to us all.

What’s STAT all about?
STAT is a national publication focused on finding and telling compelling stories about health, medicine, and scientific discovery. We produce daily news, investigative articles, and narrative projects in addition to multimedia features. We tell our stories from the places that matter to our readers — research labs, hospitals, executive suites, and political campaigns.

Listen HERE!

August 7, 2017, Don Imus interview with Dana Berger

Don: “So what do you do to make a living?”

Dara: “What do I do to make a living? I’m an author right now and a documentary film maker, and I’m a mom to my two kids.”

Don: “Ms Berger has written, How to Prevent Autism; Expert Advice from Medical Professionals. And one of the women in here, a Maureen McDonnell, I believe, was a nurse out at our ranch in New Mexico one summer, in fact, several summers.”

Dara: “She’s fabulous. …”

Don: “Before we talk about how to prevent autism, what do you think causes autism?”

Dara: “People have been studying this for years, integrative physicians and scientists, and what they’ve come up with is, it’s a total load theory.

“So basically, you have a child that’s born maybe not with the best micro biome, which is your good and bad bacteria that helps you build a healthy immune system, and then, of course, we all know that we’re living in a much more toxic world, so you start layering these contributors one after the other. Maybe it’s store bought formula with all kinds of chemicals and preservatives, GMO foods, and then we start seeing these soft signs, is what we call them.

Thank you to the Vaxxed team for this video.

By Anne Dachel

March 31, 2017, FL Pediatrician: ‘Kids Are Sicker Than Ever’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgmjie_GcUE

Dr. Cornelia Franz, a Florida pediatrician http://www.thefranzcenter.com/team/anne-j-downing/   with over 30 years experience, talked to Polly Tommey about the state of our children’s health. Hers is an extremely rare and courageous position in the medical community. While she does vaccinate patients, it’s on a very limited scale and based on what parents want for their children. While many might be critical of a doctor who gives any vaccines, Dr. Franz provides parents with an option that is almost non-existent anywhere else, and in her practice, there is real informed consent.

“I started out the same as everybody else: ‘You need your vaccines.’ When I started practice everybody only got two at a time. I actually began to see problems with it even early on because when I started practice, we used the original DTP. So kids on monitors, I noticed that they had increased alarms after vaccines. …

“As time went on, in the late 80s, they started to increase the number of vaccines, and I had a problem with that because giving just two at a time was hard enough, but now they wanted to give 4, 5, 6 at a time. I made the decision at that time that our practice would only give two at a time. So it was never more than two at a time.

“As more time went on, I started seeing truly vaccine injured kids.  I started seeing a lot of autistic children, and their parents all said the same thing. They said: My child was fine till they got this shot and then within a week, we lost him. …They quit having eye contact, they lost language. And I heard that so often, and so then I started doing research. And the more I started researching, the more I found that the ingredients were also toxic.

By Anne Dachel

Very strong words from Andrew Wakefield: "This vaccine will kill a number of children"

Here's another part of my talk with Andy. He doesn't mince words about what they know and who's culpable. Notice that the issue isn't vaccines and autism. It's about covering up deadly side effects from vaccination.

Q: Currently there is pressure on the Italian and French governments and in other places as well to mandate vaccines in those countries. Why don’t these governments recognize the possibility that a one-size-fits-every-child vaccine schedule puts large numbers of children at risk for neurological damage?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ9UlR_z2Yo&t=3s

Andy: “…Where have all the young men gone? The film title I’d come up with is, No Country for Young Men, ...but of course, where is a country for young anymore in the western world? We just talked about Italy and France and Germany and Poland and the mandatory vaccination laws that they are trying to pass now in Italy.”

Andy went on to explain how the vaccine proponents in Italy tried to pass mandated vaccines as “an emergency measure, so it would go through the Senate, and wouldn’t have to go back through the Parliament. …They have now sent the bill back to the Parliament to be voted on. …”

NOTE:  As we approach back to school, a new book from Skyhorse is hitting the stores and we hope you'll get a copy. Called Your Special Education Rights: What Your School District Isn't Telling You by Julie Swanson and Jen Laviano, an advocate/attorney team in Connecticut, the book helps parents and those across the table maximize efforts to best serve the students.  Don't go to your next IEP meeting without reading it!

Below, Anne Dachel interviews Dr. Andrew Wakefield on the inevitable and growing fallout of vaccine injury... children who need special education. And who will become adults who need far more than what is available in an average career.

By Anne Dachel

More from my talk with Dr. Wakefield

Andy, do you see this expansion of special education as directly related to the ever-increasing vaccine schedule? >

“…Given our experience of the last 25 years of development disorders of a much broader range, until proven otherwise, absolutely. …I believe that not only from a practical standpoint: what can we do about it, how can we investigate it, rule in or rule out that vaccines are causing this, but also based on my sincere belief, based upon my experience with autism, that vaccines can most certainly can do this kind of damage to a developing brain leading to the massive problem that we have now.”

How long can we sustain our current levels of prosperity and growth with more and more of our children disabled?   (Wakefield 3)

Andy explained that providing more money and services for disabled students doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. He mentioned that he observed at this son’s graduation from the University of Colorado in Boulder because the valedictorians were all three, girls.

Note: As summer draws to a close next month, Anne is focusing on Special Education and the toll it's taking on districts.

By Anne Dachel

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been researching the explosion in special education needs EVERYWHERE.

The percentage of kids receiving services for learning disorders is staggering. I can’t figure out why there is no alarm or even questions being asked.

Sioux Falls, SD: 15 percent of children are sped.

Baltimore, MD: 15 percent of children are sped.

Spokane, WA: 15 percent of children are sped.

Oakland, ME: 16.6 percent of children are sped.

Brooklyn, NY: 19 percent of children are sped.

Reading, PA: 19 percent of children are sped.

By Anne Dachel

How long can people keep pretending that nothing is wrong with the health of our children? 

Every day I find more stories of the end of childhood as we know it.

Here are some recent examples.

July 25, 2017, UK Daily Mirror: Inside the school for children excluded at SEVEN - including boy who nearly broke teacher's back 

…He is one of a growing number of young children who have been permanently excluded from primary schools because of their bad and often violent behaviour, left feeling isolated, unwanted and alone. …

Figures released by the Department of Education this month show that the number of children being excluded has risen every year for the last three. In 2015-16 around 35 children a day were expelled from schools in England, and a total of 1,185 children were excluded from primary school.

Of these 475 were under seven and 50 were four.

In this article, five of the six children talked about were boys. ADHD and autism were also mentioned.

Meanwhile, our schools are havens for the disabled.

July 25, 2017, The Conversation (Cambridge, MA): Helping your students with disabilities prepare for the future

A wide range of disabilities on college campuses

According to a 2016 report by the United States Department of Education, approximately 11 percent of all undergraduates report having a disability – up from 6 percent almost two decades prior. Since nearly two-thirds of all students who received special education services in high school did not self-disclose their disability to a college, the actual number of students with disabilities on campuses is likely much higher.

Most of these students have what are often called “nonvisible” disabilities, including learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and, increasingly, mental health disorders such as anxiety or depression.

Students with autism spectrum disorders are also more often attending college than a decade ago. And on some campuses, programs are emerging for students with intellectual disabilities.

Now some people might think of this as more inclusion of those previously excluded. Or, like myself, some may just figure that as more and more kids are found to have behavioral or learning problems, a number of them are likely to show up in college. 

By Anne Dachel

I talked to Andy Wakefield recently on Skype. I recorded his answers to seven questions regarding what’s happening to schools both here and in the UK.

I wanted to share this one because the topic is so current: the explosion in autism/sped in schools everywhere.

What Andy talked about was chilling, mostly because it wasn't opinion or theory, it's the state of things in education today. When I started looking into how kids are doing in school, I never thought I'd uncover the massive impact special needs students are having. (Finding a school district in the U.S. where 20-25 percent of students are sped is not an isolated phenomenon anymore.)

(And of course it's going beyond school, just as the story I wrote recently about the disappearance of men in the workforce.) 

Andy talked about the subtle impact of neurotoxins on children, a steady lessening of intelligence. So if we continue to "dumb down the children of a country," what will the world look like in 5, 10 or 20 more years? When are we going to wake up?

Here was my question: Do you feel that we’ve focused too narrowly on a link between vaccines and autism while ignoring other damaging effects of vaccination?

Andy:

“…The answer lies in the way in which medicine naturally takes place, the way in which diseases present to doctors. Medicine gives you the sharp end first.”

NOTE: Special Education woes have been in the news lately - especially in the UK.  Costs are soaring and the number of students needing special education is continuing to rise unabated.  Seems no one is brave enough to ask why this increase - why are children unable to learn by traditional methods?  Is there really a "broadening" of diagnostic criteria? Even so, if the children were able to learn, even misdiagnosed, wouldn't they simply learn and then place out of special education?

By Anne Dachel

*(It should be noted that in stories from the UK on the sped/autism increase/cost, I'm seeing the caveat telling readers that  there has been over-diagnosing going on.  AND numerous stories are covering the explosion in "permanent exclusions," AKA "kicking 'em out for good" for the sake of the other kids. PLUS a new provision in the school rules just announced means that schools don't have to recognize a medical diagnosis of autism, therefore it's up to the school to determine if a child is disabled. Expelling students and taking away diagnoses--that ought to cut down the numbers. Unfortunately it'll do nothing to address the problem.)

What will it take before SOMEONE IN BRITAIN SEES SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE DECLINE OF STUDENTS AND THE EXPLOSION IN AUTISM? Will the British refuse to do anything until their schools are bankrupt and every family has at least one disabled child? Is Britain going to vaccinate itself back into the Stone Age?

It's scary to see the denial. Instead of addressing this as a crisis of epic proportion, folks in the UK are simply learning to live with autism.

July 23, 2017, UK Sunday Times: Shops to fall silent for ‘autism hour’

The most ambitious project ever attempted to help people with autism will be launched this autumn, when shops and services across the UK will take steps to create a better environment for people with the condition and increase understanding.

The event, called Autism Hour, has been organised by the National Autistic Society (NAS). Businesses have pledged to turn down music and other background noise, such as non-essential announcements, for 60 minutes during the week commencing October 2, as well as dimming the lights, to help create a calmer and less overwhelming environment. Staff will also be supplied with information about autism.

July 23, 2017, UK Sunday Times: Dramatic rise in autism diagnoses hits taxpayers via summer tutors

 Providing extra education for autistic children during the summer school holidays cost the state €12.6m last year.

The Fight is on in Ireland

Autism/special ed numbers are exploding in Irish schools. Costs are enormous. Officials are scrambling for answers, but what they’re telling us is the same old, same old.

Good luck with that.

Reporter Carl O’Brien, in a truly hard-to-swallow piece, gives us lots of reasons for all the sped/autistic kids filling desks in Irish schools. After decades of neglect (since the beginning of Ireland, I guess), the government is finally doing something about disabled children.

July 22, 2017, Irish Times (Dublin): Why is the cost of special education soaring? Analysis: State is playing catch-up in education policy after years of neglect

Even though other countries had been providing this type of education for decades, the absence of any meaningful government policy meant thousands of vulnerable children were, in effect, left on a scrapheap.

Much has changed in recent decades. A series of landmark court cases taken by parents such as Marie O’Donoghue and Kathy Sinnott have helped prompt large-scale investment and rights-based legislation.

In the period since 2004, spending on special needs education has grown by 260 per cent. There are approximately 47,000 students in receipt of resource teaching (5.2 per cent of the school population) and an estimated 32,500 in receipt of care by special needs assistants (3.6 per cent of school population). This has increased from 3.5 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively in 2011.

Oh, so it wasn’t until 2004 that Ireland did anything about tens of thousands of disabled children.

So where were all these kids until 13 years ago?  O’Brien tells us that they were in institutions or kept at home. (This is a claim very commonly made in the U.S. also.) And he notes that the population of Ireland is increasing, so naturally there would be more sped students.

That last explanation could hardly explain why 25 percent of Irish schoolchildren are considered special ed currently or why sped spending has increased 260 percent in the same thirteen years, but it works for O’Brien. He reminds readers that they’re not alone, since both the UK and Holland have 26 percent of children with special needs. (Ireland is just keeping up with the neighbors.)

O’Brien saves the best explanation for last: OVER-DIAGNOSING.