By Cathy Jameson

I saw a young boy a few months ago at a picnic.  We’ve had some ‘in passing’ conversations since then – a quick hello, how are you doing, it’s nice to see you again kinds of small talk.  Ronan hasn’t been going to church with us lately, but, last week, the boy remembered seeing him at that picnic. 

While in the parking lot waiting for my daughter after a game one day last week, the boy, who’s about 7 years old, saw me and said hi.  He asked what we were doing, and I told him we were going to go home since we couldn’t stay for the next game.  “It would be too much for my son.”  He very quickly replied, “He’s the one who was in the yellow headphones who was in the wheelchair.” 

Taken aback, I said, “Wow, yes.  Good memory!”

I continued, “It’s actually a stroller that Ronan uses when he gets too tired to walk.  But, yeah, that’s my son.”  I then gave the boy a little more information about why Ronan had those yellow headphones and why he sometimes needs that stroller.  “When he was much younger, he could do things like other little boys could do.  But then, Ronan got sick.”  I shared just a few things that happened to Ronan then and added, “Ronan is non-speaking now.” 

The boy’s sister was with him and had tons of little kid questions, like Can he say anything?  How did he get sick?  Is he okay now?  Since I don’t know their family very well yet, I answered each question with very simple facts and also kept the conversation very G-rated, meaning no talking of vaccines.  The boy had stayed quiet while his sister and I were talking. 

The next day, I saw the boy again.  “Hey there!”  I happily greeted him.  His greeting had a different emotion than mine.  “I feel bad for Ronan,” he told me with sad eyes.  Completely taken by surprise, I said, “Oh!  Why, buddy?”  I had spared him lots of details, like that we saw Ronan decline most after vaccinations, but I could tell what little I did share the day before had really affected him. 

“Well, he…” the boy started, “…he can’t talk and do things by himself.  What if he wants to tell you something?”  I told him, “You’re right.  Ronan still can’t do some things, but remember when I said Ronan can communicate?  I shared that he can type, and he can use sign language, and he can write with a pencil, and he can show us things that he wants.”  Quietly, the boy nodded his head and said, “Y-e-s, I remember.”  Still, the boy’s eyes told me that he was quite moved knowing that my son couldn’t do things the boy could easily do. 

My next words needed to be encouraging. 

“Ronan is a pretty happy kid.  We keep him safe and as healthy as we can.  When Ronan pops into your mind, like it did just now, maybe you can say a little prayer for him.  Or maybe you can say a little prayer for the person who’s helping him.  When you see me without Ronan, it’s because he’s being taken care of by someone else.  It would be so neat if you could say a little prayer and ask God to bless Ronan or bless our helpers.  It’s because of our helpers that we’ve been able to keep Ronan happy and healthy, too, and I’m so grateful for them.” 

It was a big ask, but the little boy said he could say a prayer. 

Knowing I’d captured his full attention, I continued, “And maybe you can add a thankful prayer for what you get to do, too.  You get to do lots of pretty neat things, don’t you?  You get to go to school, and play with friends, and go outside and explore new places.  Don’t feel bad that Ronan can’t do that stuff, but be thankful that you can do what you want to.  I think that it’s a really good thing that you’re able to things.”  Without saying anything, he nodded.  Then as quietly as he had approached me, he turned to walk away and said, “Okay…bye, Mrs. Jameson.” 

I thought I sounded convincing, but time will tell if I helped turn this kid’s frown upside down.  I’ll look forward to our next meet up.  I’ll wonder if the boy will tell me that he thought to pray for my son.  I’ll hope that he’ll share that he’s gotten to do something amazing.  I’ll also say a little prayer myself.  I’ll pray that he’s one of the kids who, when he grows up, will make the world a better place for a child like mine. 

Cathy Jameson is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.

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

AofA is is now on a Sunday - Thursday content publishing schedule.  Many of you have contributed to our annual appeal. Thank you so much.

We've launched our annual fundraiser with a colossal, amazing, generous $10,000 matching gift from Laura Hayes. Please see her kind words below the jump. We use DonorBox for our online donations, and you can always send a check to Autism Age PO Box 110546, Trumbull, CT 06611. Donations are tax deductible - EIN is 47-1831987. Thank you. 

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The War on Ivermectin by Dr. Pierre Kory
Big Pharma and health agencies cry "Don't take ivermectin!" A media storm follows. Why then, does the science say the opposite?

Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming by Dr. Robert Malone
With contributions from eminent doctors, scientists, and experts in their fields, Lies My Gov't Told Me offers a comprehensive look at the coronavirus pandemic–where we are today, how we got here, and what's on the horizon.

Below is an important excerpt from Safeminds. As we age, as our children age, death will visit more frequently. Intellectually disabled or not,, the social differences of autism must affect the ability to process grief. How could they not? With thinking patterns that tend to black and white, and routine is paramount,  having a loved one disappear without context must be devastating. Some families might want to shield their loved one from grief by not including them in family burial rituals. With the best of intentions. Or because a person with autism could be distracting during services. True story, when my Dad died a month after Dan Olmsted in 2017, I brought my girls to his funeral at the National Cemetery on Cape Cod. He'd been cremated, and the box filled with his ashes sat on stone altar/table. My brother read his favorite poem (The Day is Done by Longfellow), military personnel were on hand, and a bugler played taps. And then? Gianna belted out GRANDPY IS IN THE BOX!!! I looked at my Mom, who was locked arm and arm in my brother for support. I mouthed, "I'm sorry." But you know what? Everyone gave a hearty laugh and bonded in the moment. I still use that phrase with my girls, "Grandpy died, and he went to heaven. Grandpy was in the box."  Meet them where they are.

Note: Dr. Ladapo's new book Transcend Fear A Blueprint for Mindful Leadership is available now, and currently #1 in its category. The good doctor can't win. Castigated for saying anything negative or not completely negative about the Covid vaccine. Don't punish progress.

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Dr. Joseph Ladapo on cardiac-related deaths from COVID vaccine: 'It's an enormous deal'

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo recommends that males under 40 years old should not get the COVID vaccine due to cardiac-related deaths on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'

Please consider a donation to our annual fundraiser this year with a colossal, amazing, generous matching $10,000 gift from Laura Hayes. We use DonorBox for our online donations, and you can always send a check to Autism Age PO Box 110546, Trumbull, CT 06611. Donations are tax deductible - EIN is 47-1831987. Thank you. 

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From Skyhorse Publishing, by Dr. Joseph Ladapo. A fascinating look into the life of a state surgeon general and how his public health decisions provide a blueprint for fearless leadership and better national health policy.

Fire safety and autism. Instant fear. I know that getting my 3 adult daughters out of the house quickly would be impossible. And they would never escape on their own. We could practice drills daily (we don't) and they would still perish. Sounds grim? It is. It's autism. We have working smoke detectors. We have a safety sticker on the front door for emergency personnel - fire, police, EMT. I have a standard fire extinguisher on my kitchen counter. It's bulky and in a nighttime fire would be useless, even though it's just down the hall in my small ranch house. These wee StaySafe bottles could mean the difference between getting out and perishing. I have two in my room in my nightstand, one on the mantle of my wood fireplace and one in my kitchen next to its clunky big brother.  Be aware, they are not childproof.  That's not an issue in my home, but could be in yours. They are 20% off for Amazon Prime members today, and AofA is an Amazon Affliate to share books and other products that might help our families.  

StaySafe 5-in-1 Fire Extinguisher | For Home, Kitchen, Car, Garage, Boat | The best small extinguisher that tackles 5 types of fire in seconds

Compact, lightweight recyclable plastic aerosol fire extinguisher and a more practical and solution compared to traditional metal canisters

Extinguishes 5 different types of fire: electrical, cooking oil, textiles, petrol/diesel and paper/card

Non-toxic, environmentally friendly fluid - safe for the user and the environment

Contains UL Recognized Component EX28800

Please consider a donation to our annual fundraiser this year with a colossal, amazing, generous matching $10,000 gift from Laura Hayes. We use DonorBox for our online donations, and you can always send a check to Autism Age PO Box 110546, Trumbull, CT 06611. Donations are tax deductible - EIN is 47-1831987. Thank you. 

Donate

From Skyhorse Publishing, by Dr. Joseph Ladapo. A fascinating look into the life of a state surgeon general and how his public health decisions provide a blueprint for fearless leadership and better national health policy.

Mother of autistic fan temporarily banned by BYU speaks out about son being wrongly accused of shouting slurs. In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, she says her son became a scapegoat. Now she’s calling for kindness.

Autistic and Intellectually disabled people face discrimination and potentially life changing/threatening interactions because of their social differences. The case below was not borne out to be true. What if the spectator HAD shouted out the N word to a player? What if he watched movies and listened to music that use the term freely without an obviously disclaimer?  Using a slur would still be wrong, but could you say he or she was really at fault? It's tough to explain nuance to people who think in a concrete way. Is a word "good" or "bad?"  We KNOW our children can make gaffes. As kids, they will get a scolding. As adults, they may be harmed. Thank you to Judith Zimmerman for sharing this article on Twitter yesterday.

By Courtney Tanner

Mother of autistic fan temporarily banned by BYU speaks out about son being wrongly accused of shouting slurs. In a statement to The Salt Lake Tribune, she says her son became a scapegoat. Now she’s calling for kindness.

A mother says her autistic son became a “scapegoat in a hurried attempt to calm the firestorm” after he was accused — wrongly — of yelling a racial slur at a Duke volleyball player.

For the first time, she is sharing her family’s perspective on what unfolded during the Aug. 26 match at Brigham Young University through a written statement to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Ultimately, the mother believes, the incident reflects bias in multiple forms — in how Duke player Rachel Richardson has been treated and also her son, who she said has physical and developmental challenges. Both, she says, are marginalized in different ways.

Who defines "misinformation"

Note: Doctors like Andrew Wakefield and Bob Sears blazed this trail of tears whereby medical professionals can lose their licenses for doing their job.  California used measles and autism as the groundwork for draconian control and paybacks all in the name of public health.  From The Defender at Children's Health Defense:

Doctors File First Lawsuit Challenging California Law That Seeks to Punish Physicians for COVID ‘Misinformation’

Two doctors on Tuesday became the first to file a federal lawsuit to stop a new California law that subjects the state’s doctors to discipline, including the suspension of their medical licenses, for sharing “misinformation” or “disinformation” about COVID-19 with their patients.

Dr. Mark McDonald, a Los Angeles psychiatrist, and Dr. Jeff Barke, an Orange County primary care physician and founding member of America’s Frontline Doctors, filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The lawsuit names 12 members of the Medical Board of California and California Attorney General Robert Bonta.

The plaintiffs also filed papers seeking a preliminary injunction to protect their free speech rights as the case unfolds.

Barke told The Defender:

“[This new law] puts patients at risk. Requiring physicians to consider the state’s narrative when making a medical decision, is bad medicine and dangerous. Consensus in science only occurs when dissenting opinions are censored.”

Commenting on the lawsuit, Mary Holland, president and general counsel for Children’s Health Defense, said, “California’s new law is a clear violation of the First Amendment. It’s startling that the legislature and the governor would even attempt to pass such legislation.”  Read more at The Defender, and please share.

Recommended books:

A Letter To Liberals

The War on Ivermectin

The Wuhan Cover-up

Profile Pic on the Autism Ages Insta

By Cathy Jameson

Kim shared that Age of Autism has an Instagram page.  How exciting!  I used to post on Instagram, but I’ve gotten too busy to keep up with my personal page.  I am so glad Kim has time to manage each of our AofA social media pages with fresh content.  If she ever needed new photos to post on AofA’s new page, I think these are insta-worthy.  I like that each of them comes with a story—some yet to be written down. 

Several Christmases ago, we had a terrible bowling incident.  These next two photos document a more recent bowling game that came with no injuries.  

Ronan’s siblings took those bowling pictures of us.  The kids give me such a hard time when I sneak the camera out at Mass to take photos.  I know it’s not the most reverent thing to do, but….look at that photo of Ronan reading along!  I love that I can snap his progress in church, one of my favorite places to be.  

Sometimes it’s the little things that make my heart melt.  Other times, it’s the very big things that have me beaming.

AofA is is now on a Sunday - Thursday publishing schedule. Thank you.

We've launched our annual fundraiser with a colossal, amazing, generous $10,000 matching gift from Laura Hayes. Please see her kind words below the jump. We use DonorBox for our online donations, and you can always send a check to Autism Age PO Box 110546, Trumbull, CT 06611. Donations are tax deductible - EIN is 47-1831987. Thank you. 

Donate

Yesterday was the start of the solemn Jewish holiday of Atonement, Yom Kippur. When Dan Olmsted was alive, we wrestled with the intent and appropriateness of bringing the Holocaust into any of our writing. Today, to do so if often met with swift reprisal. At the start of the lockdown, there was worry how people with special needs would or would not be treated. And terror at the thought of our kids alone in a hospital. Vera Sherav was herself a child doomed by Nazi Germany, and who escaped death. Below is a press release from Vera and Scott Schara, co-founder and president of Our Amazing Grace’s Light Shines On, Inc., an organization created in memory of his daughter, Grace, a 19-year-old girl with Down Syndrome who lost her life at the hands of medical personnel at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (Ascension) in Appleton, Wis., on Oct. 13, 2021. Two people of deep faith. Different. And yet, joined by a common decency and urgency. Shalom.

HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR SAYS COMPARISONS TO COVID AGENDA COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED 

FREEDOM, WISCONSIN, October 5, 2022 — As was the case in World War II, a coordinated effort using physicians, nurses, scientists, and media propaganda, the world today adopted Nazi-style methods to control billions of people, according to Vera Sharav, a Holocaust survivor who was rescued from a concentration camp in Ukraine when she was a young girl. She is a public advocate for human rights, and the founder and president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection (AHRP) which serves as an information resource and public interest watchdog organization whose goal is to unlock the walls of secrecy in biomedical research and bring accountability to that endeavor.

 Public health officials influenced medical examiners to falsify death certificates at the behest of the CDC. The new rules stated if a person tested positive for COVID-19 and died, it was classified as a COVID death. The departure from traditional protocols of death determination certainly played a role in the mounting deaths being attributed to the virus rather than the true cause of death. This is the type of control the authoritarians seek, through fear and propaganda, Sharav warns.

“People have been programmed through an education system that teaches people to defer to authority. Deferring to authority and obeying what is dictated by authority, is collaborating in one’s enslavement,” she said.

 Reflecting upon history, one can easily see the control measures enacted worldwide in the behavior of the authorities in mid-1930s Nazi Germany. 

 “The Holocaust didn’t begin in the gas chambers,” Sharav said. “It developed in phases – 9 years of incremental phases during which people lost their rights – their legal rights, their civil rights, and human rights. It happened in stages because Hitler wanted to see if anyone would object. So the problem, really, with a holocaust, is with the onlookers who obey orders blindly and they keep escalating and escalating the human rights violations until you’ve got genocide on your hands,” Sharav explained.

Have you used Cannabis products for your loved one with autism, or yourself?

From Safeminds:

Cannabis-Based Medicinal Products Reported to Improve General Health-Related Quality of Life for Adults with ASD

October 03, 2022
Treatment Found Beneficial for Managing Anxiety Levels and Aiding Sleep Disturbances

For years, cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) have been considered promising treatments for managing symptoms and comorbidities related to autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, there has been very little evidence to back up this claim. For the first time, a team of British scientists assessed changes to health-related quality of life indicators and recorded the incidence of adverse events in adult patients with ASD treated with CBMPs. The study’s design included identifying participants treated with CBMPs from the UK Medical Cannabis Registry (UKMCR). The participant’s primary outcomes were then measured by Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), Single-Item Sleep Quality Scale (SQS), 5-level version of the EQ-5D (EQ-5D-5L). The research team took outcome measurements at 1, 3, and 6 months and compared them with the participant’s baseline. Adverse events were also recorded and analyzed. In total, 74 adult patients with ASD were included in this research. The mean age of participants was 32.7 years. Overall, the current study linked CBMPs use with statistically significant improvements in managing anxiety levels and aiding in sleep quality. Interestingly, the patients saw generalized anxiety benefits at the 1 and 3-month measurements, but the same beneficial findings were not present at the 6-month marker. The authors believe this result could be due to a limitation in the study design, since there was a reduction in the number of participants that were followed up at 6 months. Therefore, they view this finding as insignificant. The study also discovered an associated improvement in self-reported sleep quality among participants during each of the three measurement markers. Of particular significance, a reduction in concomitant medication use during the treatment was identified. In total, 33.3% of patients stopped taking benzodiazepines during the study, and there was a 25% reduction in neuroleptic prescribing. Adverse events were reported by 18.9% of patients. No life-threatening or disabling adverse events were recognized, and most adverse events were considered mild or moderate. The authors believe their findings are not conclusive but provide scientific justification for further evaluation.  Read more at Safeminds HERE.

Over the course of 2021 and 2022, Edward amassed evidence from the insurance industry, funeral home industry, and government databases that excessive deaths among working-age Americans have increased in 2021 versus 2020...

As of 2021, SIDS has a parent, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Seemingly healthy adults dying, and

DonorBox Donation Link. Thank you.

obituaries that spout platitudes like, "died peacefully in his sleep." At 42. We invite you to pre-order Cause Unknown, debuting in December from Skyhorse Publishing and Children's Health Defense.  The book cover is a live link. 

LinkIn.Bio is magic, that's what it is....  Happy to report we had almost 100 new followers on Insta last week.  Welcome! Old dog here learned how to use LinkIn.Bio to connect you to books and more.  When you see LinkIn.Bio on the post, that means if you click Linkin.Bio below our name, you'll see all of the photos that are connected to a URL, and when you click THAT photo, you'll be magically whisked to another website. Take a look, buy a book! A knowledge rainbow.

We're using the name Autism Ages rather than Age of Autism. Autism Ages is the official name of the non-profit founded by Dan Olmsted.  Age of Autism is our blog. You can use the QR code to find us, or the link below. We're trying to keep one step ahead of the you know whats. Each version of AofA has different content. Please follow and like us for messages throughout the week.  Thanks. 

Instagram.com/autismages/

Twitter.com/ageofautism

Facebook.com/AgeofAutism

AofA Recommended reading:

Would it be jumping to conclusions to scream IT'S ABOUT MONEY NOT HEALTH!!!??? Every time a patients enters a doctor's office it's another opportunity to sell prescribe a drug, or force administer a vaccine, or cajole into order a diagnostic test. Those machines don't pay for themselves, and the expiration dates aren't getting any younger. American women should be able to choose their level of reproductive healthcare without shame. This IS 2022 after all.

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From Children's Health Defense. Prenatal Care, American Style — A Trojan Horse for Harmful Interventions?

The United States’ disgraceful infant and maternal mortality rates — higher than in any other wealthy nation — raise questions about what to do to lessen the risk of complications during delivery and postpartum.

In this regard, government health agencies often highlight the importance of prenatal care.

In fact, increasing “early and adequate prenatal care” is a core objective of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030 goal related to pregnancy and childbirth — an objective achieved for three out of four American women, with only 6% of women who give birth receiving little or no prenatal care.

“Adequate,” in the U.S. context, means as many as 15 prenatal visits. But does this barrage of prenatal attention actually improve maternal and infant outcomes?

Or — as Harvard researchers implied in an article published in 2020, in the prestigious journal Health Affairs — is it counterproductive overkill?

In many European nations, women may attend half as many prenatal visits, yet infant and maternal mortality rates are far lower.

In 2016, researchers who assessed pregnancy outcomes by number of prenatal visits observed that while prenatal care “is widely accepted as an important public health intervention … its efficacy remains largely unstudied and unproven.” Read more at The Defender.

Over the course of 2021 and 2022, Edward amassed evidence from the insurance industry, funeral home industry, and government databases that excessive deaths among working-age Americans have increased in 2021 versus 2020...

As of 2021, SIDS has a parent, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. Seemingly healthy adults dying, and

DonorBox Donation Link. Thank you.

obituaries that spout platitudes like, "died peacefully in his sleep." At 42. We invite you to pre-order Cause Unknown, debuting in December from Skyhorse Publishing and Children's Health Defense.  The book cover is a live link. 

Note: Today we're launching or annual fundraiser with a colossal, amazing, generous matching gift from Laura Hayes. Laura and her husband will match $10,000 between now and the end of November. Please see her kind words below. We use DonorBox for our online donations, and you can always send a check to Autism Age PO Box 110546, Trumbull, CT 06611. Donations are tax deductible - EIN is 47-1831987. Thank you. 

Donate


Dear AoA Friends and Readers,

NOTE: Our Typepad platform had tech issues yesterday. If this post looks wonky, that's why, and we'll fix it as soon as able.  Thanks.

By Cathy Jameson

I had a different idea for this week’s Sunday post, but after scrolling through FB on Friday evening I changed topics.  

Joshua Coleman has been an advocate in our community for several years.  Dad to a son with vaccine injury, he took his advocacy, and his talents, to the streets with V is for Vaccine.

When able, Josh records his efforts and quickly shares what he’s learned with other.  I’ve always appreciated that about him.  While I stay home taking care of my family, Josh and hundreds of other advocates have shown up.  To the state capitol.  To Disneyland.  To Broadway.  To the races, national conventions, and more.  I’ve gotten to watch a few events as they were livestreamed.  Standing in solidarity, sometimes in silence, it’s incredible to see.

When I’ve missed a livestream, I can’t wait to watch the recorded video later to see who was there, to hear what was said, and to also thank God for the bravery of those present.  Some of those videos can be found here. Parents For Healthcare Rights - YouTube If you're Joshua Coleman, your photos and videos are very creative and informative.  They feature parents, supporters and the public.  They have been shot at small events and at blockbuster venues.  Those who partake in the rallies have made local headlines and have even found their way onto news segments in mainstream news. 

Uploading videos to the YouTube platform is commonplace, unless you're someone like Joshua Coleman though.  Before his work is completely removed, head over to his channel and watch what he and groups like V is for Vaccine have done.  Josh has reported that his videos are now slowly being taken down.  If you appreciate what you see, tell him thank you.  And please consider supporting the incredible efforts these parents are doing on behalf of so many.

Cathy Jameson is a Contributing Editor for Age of Autism.

Good Saturday! We're making some updates and additions to AofA  next week. More details on Monday. In the meantime, we're growing our Instagram account, as another way to reach families. We're using Autism Ages rather than Age of Autism. Autism Ages is the official name of the non-profit founded by Dan Olmsted.  Age of Autism is our blog, then we have Facebook and Twitter. Autism Ages is our name on Instagram. You can use the QR code to find us, or the link below. We're trying to keep one step ahead of the you know whats. Each version of AofA has different content. Please follow and like us for messages throughout the week.  Thanks. 

Instagram.com/autismages/

Twitter.com/ageofautism

Facebook.com/AgeofAutism

AofA Recommended reading:

Today's content is brought to you by Children's Health Defense. Subscribe to The Defender, sign up for text alerts and more.

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A federally funded study released Tuesday reported a “positive association” between “vaccine-related aluminum exposure” and “persistent asthma” in children 24-59 months old.

Overall, kids in the study who received 3 milligrams or more of vaccine-related aluminum had at least a 36% higher risk of developing persistent asthma than kids who got less than 3, the study’s lead author, Dr. Matthew F. Daley, told The Associated Press.

Daley was quick to urge caution in the interpretation of the results, telling STAT, “I’m still going to advocate for vaccines as strongly as I did before we had these findings.”

The study was published in the medical journal Academic Pediatrics. In addition to Daley, the authors included Dr. Frank DeStefano and other current and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) staff.

The authors were careful to not suggest a causal relationship between vaccine-related aluminum and asthma and noted that “additional investigation of this hypothesis appears warranted.”  Read the full article at The Defender.

Recommended reading:

AAP, The American Academy of Pediatricians says it's OK for kids with lice to remain in school. Sending them home promotes stigma and shame. Meanwhile, 100% healthy, robust, disease and presumably vermin free school children have been expelled from school and officially castigated as dangerous threats to other students across the nation for lack of one or more pediatric vaccines. What a lousy idea. The jokes just write themselves. Unfortunately, the joke is on our kids.

Children's TV used to tackle tough topics and teach kids that there was a way to get through embarrassing situations without the rest of the world having to pretend they were normal.  The PBS classic based on Marc Brown's Arthur books was a leader. They had an episodes about bed wetting, asthma, chicken pox (!) and a classic about lice. Oh, and in case you haven't checked on leprosy recently, CDC has rebranded it as Hansen's disease (not to be confused with a crush on the 90s Tween boy band) and says it's A-OK to go to work or school with active leprosy under treatment.

From the AAP Newsletter:

ITASCA, IL--The American Academy of Pediatrics has updated guidance on diagnosing and treating head lice for the first time since 2015, noting that infestations are neither a health hazard nor sign of poor hygiene but can result in significant stigma and psychological stress.

The clinical report, “Head Lice,” published in the October 2022 Pediatrics (published online Sept. 26), describes new medications for treatment and provides an algorithm for management of affected patients and clarification on diagnosis and treatment.

“Head lice are an unpleasant part of the human experience, but they can be successfully managed and are no reason for a child to miss school,” said Dawn Nolt, MD, MPH, FAAP, lead author of the report, written by the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, Committee on Practice and Ambulatory Medicine, and Section on Dermatology.

As we enter Fall, there’s a push for Covid vaccine boosters, and the Flu shot is back. Below is an excerpt from The Daily Sceptic as one expert makes a plea for a safety review.  Measure twice, cut once, or not at all.

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Leading doctors have joined a call to suspend all COVID-19 mRNA vaccines until serious side-effects are fully investigated and the raw trial data from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trial are released for independent analysis to help determine the true benefits and potential harms for different age groups.

Writing in the peer-reviewed Journal of Insulin Resistance, one of the U.K.’s most eminent Consultant Cardiologists Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who was one of the first to take two doses of the vaccine and promote it on Good Morning Britain on TV, says that since the rollout of the vaccine the evidence of its effectiveness and true rates of adverse events has changed.

In a two-part research paper entitled “Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine”, real-world data reveal that in the non-elderly population the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one death from COVID-19 runs into thousands and that re-analysis of randomised controlled trial data (that first led to approval of the vaccines for Pfizer and Moderna) suggests a greater risk of suffering a serious adverse event from the vaccine than being hospitalised with COVID-19.

Dr. Malhotra writes: “Pharmacovigilance systems and real-world safety data, coupled with plausible mechanisms of harm, are deeply concerning, especially in relation to cardiovascular safety.”

Mirroring a potential signal from the Pfizer Phase 3 clinical trial, a significant rise in cardiac arrest calls to ambulances in England was seen in 2021 (an extra 14,000 compared to 2020) with similar data emerging from Israel in the 16-39 year old age group where there was a 25% increase in heart attacks or cardiac arrests associated with the Pfizer vaccine administration but not associated with COVID-19.

Read the full article at DailySceptic.org.

Click through the covers to read more & place an order. Your purchase helps support our mission. Thank God hardcover and paperback books have not completely disappeared, the gas engine of the reading world. Read. Cherish. Share. Thank you.

We are proud to partner with Skyhorse Publishing and Children's Health Defense Books. Your purchase supports our mission. If you are an author and would like us to feature your book, contact Kim Rossi at AutismAges@gmail.com. Thank you.

A fascinating look into the life of a state surgeon general and how his public health decisions provide a blueprint for fearless leadership and better national health policy.

Cure has been a dirty word in autism for decades. We've been carefully taught that there is no cure for autism. Treatments are only therapeutic and rarely medical. And to want a cure is to hate your child. We've seen a similar conflict during the Covid years. If you're an old timer in the biomedical autism world, you'll remember that Lupron was suggested as a treatment for high mercury to lower aggression and some of the worst autism symptoms.  In 2010, Disability Scoop called it a "Chemical castration drug,"and said What’s more they are highlighting the risks that Lupron can bring patients including heart problems, stunted growth and impotence..."  Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to most of us, The Kaiser Family Foundation gushed over the use of  Lupron as a godsend for the mental health of transgender adolescents: ...in 2008 that the Endocrine Society approved puberty suppressors as a treatment for transgender adolescents as young as 12 years old. The Society..declared that the intervention appears to be safe and effective. In 2011 the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), also issued Standards of Care for the treatment of patients with gender dysphoria, which include puberty suppression. There are few reported side effects to this off-label use of sex hormone suppressors.

Now look at this parallel with Covid and Dr. Meryl Nass - who was sanctioned for treating patients.

How a false hydroxychloroquine narrative was created, and much more

By Dr. Meryl Nass

It is remarkable that a large series of events taking place over the past months produced a unified message about hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), and produced similar policies about the drug in the US, Canada, Australia, NZ and western Europe. The message is that generic, inexpensive hydroxychloroquine (costing only $1.00 to produce a full course) is dangerous and should not be used to treat a potentially fatal disease, Covid-19, for which there are no (other) reliable treatments.

Hydroxychloroquine has been used safely for 65 years in many millions of patients. And so the message was crafted that the drug is safe for its other uses, but dangerous when used for Covid-19. It doesn't make sense, but it seems to have worked. Read the full article here.

Click through the covers to read more & place an order. Your purchase helps support our mission. Thank God hardcover and paperback books have not completely disappeared, the gas engine of the reading world. Read. Cherish. Share. Thank you.

Update: Meloni has claimed victory. In 2018, measles were part of the global health campaign. in 2021, The Green Pass divided Italians. In summer 2021, Fratelli d'Italia party leader Georgia Meloni spoke out against the Green Pass. Yesterday, Italy voted, Meloni was on the ballot. John's 2018 post follows the CNN quote below. John Stone wrote "Smart Power": Reasons for Disaffection in Italy, and the Destruction of the Post-War Liberal Order.

Italians were voting Sunday in national elections in which the far-right Brothers of Italy party -- led by Giorgia Meloni -- appears poised to make big gains after the collapse of two governments since the last election. Source: CNN Italy expected to look right as voters head to polls in national election.

by John Stone

The term "smart power" was new to me when I encountered it recently in a British Medical Journal blog as part of the new-speak vocabulary of J Stephen Morrison 'senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and director of its Global Health Policy Center".  Morrison's article is interesting both because it discloses explicitly how 9/11 was made an opportunity  to draw health into the global security agenda of the United States while failing to understand how such a move might result in the shattering of "consensus" and the post war "Western post-war liberal order": "smart power" even if it is smart is not "liberal" and will not lead to consensus. But it also spells out that the global vaccine program has become a covert instrument of US power. If Morrison by any chance laments the passing of the centre-left government in Italy, then perhaps the White House putting Italy and its health minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, in charge of global vaccine strategy was an error

Click through the covers to read more & place an order. Your purchase helps support our mission. Thank God hardcover and paperback books have not completely disappeared, the gas engine of the reading world. Read. Cherish. Share. Thank you.

By Cathy Jameson

This weekend, Ronan's younger brother toured a college with my husband.  A fun guys' weekend away, the campus they were checking out has almost everything on the checklist—the major he's interested in, internship possibilities, (somewhat) affordable tuition, ideal location, and just a bit of a drive away while also being kind of close to home.  One thing would be missing though...Ronan.  

As Willem was packing his overnight bag, I asked, "Got everything?"  

He quickly said, "No, I need Ronan.  I want him to be able to come with us and also to stay with me when I live there."  

Cue the tears. 

Ronan's big sister, Fiona, has shared with us that she’s missed Ronan quite a bit since she's been away at college.  We hardly got to see her when covid restrictions were in full swing on her campus her first year away.  Thankfully, she was able to come home for every break, plus some bonus long weekends, during last school year.  Every single time she came home, she jumped right back in to help her brother. 

That, in turn, always helped me.  

With how giving of her time she was long before going away to school, I encouraged Fiona to apply for a scholarship that crossed my newsfeed.  She and I had worked hard to secure others successfully, so I was excited that she wanted to submit an essay for this one.  It would be a much, much tougher topic than some of the ones she'd written about before, but I knew she'd be up for the challenge.  

The topic?  Autism

The essay?  That second prompt:  

• Tell us about a time that you have had to overcome an obstacle as a person with autism that other people would not have had to face.
• Explain how your loved one’s autism has affected you and how you have adapted to help them.
• Answer this question: What do you feel is the biggest obstacle holding back people with autism today?

Could she do it?  Yes! 

After she sat down to write it, I got a text asking for me to read it over. 

We sent a few messages back and forth over the next few hours as she edited.

Books are old friends, new friends, guides, comfort, sustenance. Some are easier to read than others. We're sharing books from experts whose work is sometimes shrouded in controversy and recently, censored. Once published, a book lives as long as it sits on a shelf, ready for the next reader. Click through the covers to read more & choose your format . Your purchase helps support our mission.  Thank you.

Financial planning for a lifetime of care is a burden few understand outside our community. We don't get a roadmap of how to help and support our loved ones.  Rich, poor or in between, we'll have to make decisions. CTFSN is a Connecticut-based special needs organization. The seminar is from a Northwestern Mutual special needs financial planner, and the info will be applicable across the country. There are so many questions and pitfalls regarding finances before and after our children turn 18.  Kim

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Special Needs Trusts or Able Accounts?
Financial Planning Workshop
Hosted by CTFSN
October 12th, 2022 | 12 :30 PM
Via Zoom
Financial Planning for the future of your child. Stephen Ehrens, CPA and Wealth Advisor from Northwestern Mutual will discuss, Estate planning considerations, Special Needs Trusts, Wills, Benefits, i.e. SSI and Medicaid, Insurance and Investments. Also, how an “ABLE Account”, will provide a tax-sheltered vehicle for your child.

Featured Speaker:
Stephen Ehrens CPA, Wealth Management Advisor for Northwestern Mutual. Specializes in financial planning for
families with children with special needs and disabilities.  To learn more about Stephen, please visit:
www.stephen.ehrens.com

Please email Eric.Goldsmith@nm.com for the Zoom Link and for materials after the webinar.

To do list:  Buy fresh fruit and toilet paper. Schedule oil change. Plan the next 60 years of life for Mia, Gianna and Isabella.

No sweat.

I saw this online workshop from Empowering Ability on Facebook, and thought it's worth sharing. As ever, I think that the autism community will find some (maybe a good deal) of planning for special needs will not work for us. Rather than be a complete Debbie Downer, I'm trying to look forward with hope and confidence that my adult daughters will have a fulfilling life.

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Click Hear to Learn More from Empowering Ability

What you’ll discover in this (free) 'Life Plan Workshop':

1) Understand the REAL reasons why you're feeling stuck so that... you can move past the fears that are stopping your loved one from living their own adult life.

2) Discover "Awesome Ordinary" life possibilities so that... your loved one can have more opportunities to build more relationships, contribute in the community, gain employment, and create a home of their own.

3) Learn the 7-step proven planning pathway so that... you have clarity on the exact steps to take to support your loved one to get off the "Special Needs" path and live an "Awesome Ordinary" adult life!

**You will get this live training, plus bonus tools and resources! You'll also get access to the live training replays.

Children's Health Defense was deplatformed from Facebook and Instagram, a blow to their ability to communicate with readers around the globe. Please sign up for The Defender daily email so that you keep abreast of their work.  President Biden declared that the Pandemic is over on 60 Minutes this week. He also declared a long winter of sickness and death for the unvaccinated last year, in a grim prediction that fizzled.  CHD covers the story:

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Biden Declares ‘Pandemic Is Over,’ Prompting Calls for End to ‘Absurd’ Vaccine Mandates, Federal Health Emergency

President Joe Biden’s Sept. 18 statement that the COVID-19 pandemic is “over” prompted questions about why his administration hasn’t ended the federal public health emergency and how the government or employers can continue to mandate Emergency Use Authorized vaccines.

In an interview aired Sept. 18 on “60 Minutes,” President Joe Biden declared the COVID-19 “pandemic is over,” in the first such statement by a prominent political figure in the U.S.

Biden made the comment from the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which is being held for the first time since 2019... Read more at The Defender.

In his remarks, Biden, using the auto show as a point of reference, stated:

“We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lotta work on it … but the pandemic is over.

“If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape. And so I think it’s changing. And I think this is a perfect example of it.”

Sponsored Content:

The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense) Available for pre-order now. 

We're on Insta, for now.  Please follow us. We're there with the Autism Ages name and a different profile pic. You can surmise why. Our Twitter has over 30,000 followers, but we've been placed in "sensitive content" mode, so our Tweets come with a warning label. We'll be promoting new books, old books we love and more on Insta. As well as excerpting and linking over to this, the flagship AofA. Social media, mobile devices have changed how and where we read. Add a bolus dose of censorship and it's a challenge to find and keep friends and readers near.  Thanks.  Kim

https://www.instagram.com/autismages/

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

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

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

September 17, 2022

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

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

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

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

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

By Cathy Jameson

I had the radio on as I drove into town by myself the other day.  Catching up on some morning news, I was quite pleased to hear the radio announcer share that, “Most Americans have turned the page on the COVID pandemic...”  I wanted to high five someone after hearing that.  Another tidbit from the poll was also encouraging. “The public’s perception of personal risk also is a low point, and people are starting to pick and choose more where they deem it necessary to take precautions like masking.” 

Good for them, I thought.

People, lots of people, dropped the masks many months ago.  I know a few who still, maybe out of an abundance of caution, have kept theirs on.  Last week, when an issue popped up that needed medical attention, I made an appointment with our doctor’s office and was sternly reminded to, ‘Bring your mask!!  It’s required to wear one!’  I had bought several washable, fabric-styled ones during the lockdown but could not honestly remember where I’d put them.  I put them away so long ago.  The only time we’ve been asked to wear one lately has been at a doctor’s office. 

Thankfully, we haven’t had the need to go to the doctor too many times. 

The radio announcer continued to another segment after reporting on the Axios.  The weather forecast would be next.  Once on the air, the meteorologist bellowed, “Across the arena, we’ll see some clear skies and lower temperatures!” 

Across the arena. 

Arena?  I’d never heard that term used to describe where I live.  But with that recent poll, and with the ever-constant news of the ever-available boosters, it did feel like I was in some sort of game.  It’s not like the Game of Life I was in, but more like The Hunger Games. 

I love the Game of Life and always look forward to when the kids want to play it.  I don’t love The Hunger Games so much.  When the series came out, I shied away from it.  My fifth child was born the year the first book was released.  I was too busy to read it or get caught up in the hype.  Years later, when the movies came out, I decided to watch them.  I had limited knowledge of the storyline still but knew that it was a sort of survival story. 

Wow, it was more than that.

A video circulated on Twitter this week, said to be the home of a 12 year old boy, destroyed in an outburst, purportedly because his mother took away his phone. One would surmise that taking away the phone was a consequence of some other action. When I read the comments, I was heartsick. Most blamed MOM for not having control of her son. The leap to blaming Mom made me Tweet a show of empathy for her.  Additional comments refute the story, and a screen shot shows the Mom saying her son is 15, mentally ill, and off his medications,  6' tall and 200 lbs. The pre-pubescent Hulk. Holy cow. No matter the final facts, as Anne Dachel catalogs in her site Loss of Brain Trust, the American boy is is real trouble.

Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).  Anne Dachel Loss of Brain Trust.com

Addressing mental health needs is as overtaking academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories on Loss of Brain Trust are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.

Raging children are a daily occurrence for many in the autism community. My daughters do not rage and destroy large swaths of the house. For this, I am grateful. I have many friends whose homes had holes in the walls, bedrooms with nothing but a mattress on the floor, and broken windows. We need training to protect ourselves from our own kids, and that's a rotten thing to have to say, but the truth.

How can "the village" short circuit this youngster's rage so that he does not worsen as he enters manhood? My main thought was that this is a school shooter developing. That's how we have to think in the USA these days. "

I hope the boy gets real help, not just medication. I wish Mom a clear path forward and gentle hands to guide her. She must be well and truly exhausted. From this we know.

Sponsored Content:

The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense) Available for pre-order now. 

Note: Everyone in the disabilities community needs to ask friends, family, teachers, providers to send an urgent message to STOP USING ELECTRIC SHOCK on humans, often children with autism.  We've written about The Rotenberg Center many times over the years. Talk about a small world, my father played golf with Judge Ernie in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Word on the course was that he, like Judge Smails from Caddyshack, favored "the foot wedge."  (Golf talk for cheated.) Kids and adults with severe autism should never have to suffer this old, barbaric "treatment."

From The ARC:

Legislation is moving through Congress RIGHT NOW that could stop the abuse and torture of people with disabilities through electro-shock devices. This bill must pass by September 30—and your messages to Congress can help end this barbaric and inhumane practice.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

Alongside experts and other disability rights organizations, The Arc has advocated to prevent people with disabilities from being tortured by shock devices at the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC), an institution in Massachusetts for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

JRC is the only place in the country where staff members administer shocks to people with disabilities for perceived misbehavior, despite a well-established body of evidence proving that there are alternative methods for behavioral supports that do not include excessive force, pain, and fear.

This practice is painful and traumatizing to residents, and The Arc has been fighting for decades to stop it.

Take action now to help end this abuse once and for all, because people with disabilities deserve to live free from torture and fear!

Sponsored Content:

The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19 (Children’s Health Defense) Available for pre-order now. 

Paper! Paper! Paper! Files! Reports! Forms! Applications! Re-applications! Lost Paper! More Paper! Many years ago, someone I used to know said I was lazy and not contributing because I didn't have a real job. AofA is certainly real. And the paperwork required and generated by my three daughters with autism could choke a herd of hungry goats. It's bad during the school years as IEPs and interim meetings and reports pile to the ceiling. If you think it ends upon graduation, I hate to give you a paper cut, but nope, it just changes. If your child receives state or Federal programming, the paperwork accelerates. Mountains of medical records, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), the Medicaid Waiver, Day program paperwork, Guardianship reports, Able account management, employment assistance, every aspect of life makes paper! And emails.

Miss a deadline? Not good. Your loved one can be dropped from an important program without your even knowing it. And no one tells you how to navigate the system. NO ONE. I know families who have every IEP in neat binders through the schools years. Scanning digital files has made record keeping a bit easier. Just don't let your hard drive crash.  Do you have a system? 

Just in case you didn't have enough to worry about, this report shared by Safeminds.org hammers home our fears. Fears that are very much founded in reality. We half joke that we can never die. If only we could find a miraculous way to live just one day longer than our children in their golden years. Maybe holograms will be affordable.

Grief Symptoms Are Often Prolonged and Onset of Symptoms Delayed in Those with ID

Losing a loved one is one of the most painful and distressing experiences that people encounter. Most individuals experience a typical bereavement period where they face feelings of sorrow, numbness, and anger. Gradually, these emotions fade. However, for some individuals, these feelings of loss are debilitating, long-lasting, and do not improve over time. This agonizing condition is known as complicated grief (CG). A new systematic literature review has investigated how this phenomenon affects individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID). The review’s key finding indicates that CG is prevalent in people with ID and is even more frequent in these individuals compared to the general population (33% vs. 9.8%). The review’s authors highlight that CG is a clinically significant condition within the ID population and suggest that doctors should be aware of the diagnosis. The study also discovered that grief symptoms for those with ID are often prolonged, and the onset of symptoms can be delayed. Consequently, due to these factors, CG is likely to be missed or misdiagnosed. Additionally, the review discovered that people with ID experience both traumatic grief and separation distress symptoms. However, separation distress symptoms are more frequent, highlighting possible vulnerabilities to attachment difficulties. Ultimately, the review calls for the development of valid and reliable CG assessment/screening tools for people with ID. These tools will allow for the accurate identification of CG cases and are crucial for developing appropriate treatment in this particular population. 

Anne Dachel transcribed a chilling report from California on the perils adults with disabilities and their families face. Competing interests are everywhere. Control of budgets, often well into 6 figures, comes into play. If you have applied for Guardianship or Conservatorship, you know the agony of the process. This story delves into how wrong the process can go.

California state agency failing people with disabilities | abc10.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeRWe863oOs

ABC 10 Sacramento

Andie Judson Deborah Findley Tom Coleman

Aug 31, 2022,

Deborah Findley’s son, Andrew, grew up with serious health problems, including autism, Lyme disease, and other conditions. Now 21, he is severely disabled and requires 24-hour care.

When he turned 18, his mother was advised to seek a conservatorship for him. That’s a way for someone to assume legal guardianship over an adult incapable of caring for themselves. Being his conservator would allow her to make medical decisions on his behalf, along with other choices regarding his care.

But when she and her husband petitioned the court to become Andrew’s conservators, they got a nasty surprise.

California’s Department of Developmental Services filed a competing petition. The department said that DDS should be Andrew’s conservator because of alleged abuse by his parents. The judge followed the agency’s recommendation and Andrew’s parents were shut out of his care.

Those who never get to learn history are doomed to re-live it. Robert Kennedy's bold, new book takes the reader to Wuhan. You can pre-order it. We'll update you regularly between now and the December publication date.

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

In my daughters’ Day Service Program, this is DSP Appreciation Week. A DSP is a Day Service Provider, akin to a paraprofessional at school. They are the 1:1 staff who are with our adult children at their programs. Those who have a program. Their work is hard. Their pay is low.  Here in expensive Fairfield County Connecticut, the rate is $17.53 an hour.  Hiring is extremely difficult. as you can imagine. Many programs are turning down the severely behavioral individuals because they are A) difficult to staff and B) not profitable. They are autistic. Once a student ages out of school at age 22, there is NO LEGAL MANDATE to provide any services or supports.  No IDEA. No FAPE.  I'm bringing breakfast for the staff on Thursday. I wish I could do more. I need every one of them. Today, tomorrow and long after I'm gone.

Below is my comment on Facebook in response to the post by their post.  I hope I made my point to “everyone” who reads it. Looks up at corner office…

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Dr. Tom Frieden urged Americans to get their bivalent Covid vaccine and booster yesterday on Twitter. I kindly let him and his followers know about Wayne Rohde's 15 week class starting this week through IPAK-EDU on the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program.  This is the program that absolves corporations whose products harm Americans during a Pandemic. You can take the course both live and in a recorded version.

 IPAK-EDU on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program used for emergency authorized biologics.

In this course, students will learn the structure, function and defects of the programs in the US created by Congress to award compensation to adults and children potentially and actually harmed or killed by vaccines. We will review a variety of important topics, review case histories. This course is for parents and lawyers new to US vaccine injury compensation programs.

Read the course description and register here.

Taught by Wayne Rohde, author of Vaccine Court, this class is available through The Online private University, IPAK-EDU.  Many of us KNOW what these programs are - but we don't know the details of their inception and execution.  The knowledge can boost your conversations with, trolls, BOTS, family and friends - just THINK of the Thanksgiving table arguments you can start! You might just get the whole pumpkin pie to yourself. XOX

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Read More and Register HERE.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program & Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program

15-week, 1 hour course, both live and on demand

• reading list will be provided 2 weeks prior to each week’s topic of discussion.
• Q&A will be reserved for the last 15 minutes of each class
• Weekly topics can be changed, added or removed by class suggestion.

Email: wrohde@comcast.net

Course Objectives

By Cathy Jameson

I’d just had a short conversation with a young girl who’s in grade school.  A typically happy child, I was sad to see that her usual smile had been replaced.  She’d shared that she’d been disappointed about something and then looked up at me. 

“Mrs. Jameson?” she quietly paused.  “Everything changed.  Why did it have to change?”

Compared to last year, things had changed.  I thought for the better.  In her young mind, though, there’d been too many changes and in a short amount of time.  It was too much for her.  It confused her, it saddened her, and I could see a physical change in her because of it. 

For many districts last year, when the 2021 school year began, students were social distancing, sneeze guards were being used in classrooms, and masks were required by all.  Students and faculty tippy toed into that school year, trying not to breathe too big a sigh of relief.   But for many, it was progress just being in the building.  And full-time, too!  Some teachers were still limited in what materials they could use to teach lessons (i.e., math manipulatives, science lab equipment, shared art supplies), but they, being naturally creative, made things work.   

Other places were not so fortunate. 

Some schools remain closed.  Or were only open part-time.  Or were only open for small groups of students at a time.  Or had kept the intense restrictions that other localities had long removed.  Children, including the ones not affected by those latter protocols, were understandably confused.  The adults were making decisions that didn’t make sense.  My own children have expressed how awful that time was for them. 

“One week we did things a new way, the next week we had to do something else.  They’d tell us to hang on, only one more month, maybe, and then we’d be back to normal.  But that month would go by, and we’d still be waiting for things to go back to normal…or at least to get better. 

It never felt like it would ever get better.”

Source www.nine.com.au/

"All people with autism are smart and deserve respect even if they cannot communicate." Charles Mury

Many individuals with autism are using a letterboard to communicate with heart swelling success. This story from Australia profiles the meteoric success of using a keyboard for a young man who was "assumed" to have the intellect of a Kindergartener.   The professionals in Speech, Occupation Therapy and Behavior could be doing so much more - work that would change the course of a life.  We MUST press schools to presume competence.  Charles is quoted: All people with autism are smart and deserve respect even if they cannot communicate".  Parents can not do everything.  We are only human.  But we never give up. Congratulations to Charles Mury and his diligent Mom.

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A New South Wales student who was once unable to communicate has earned a prestigious education award.

Charles Mury was among an elite group of 40 selected to receive a minister's award for excellence, open to students across the state's public education system.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said Charles was the first ever recipient on the autism spectrum.

He was diagnosed with autism before he turned three and years of therapy followed.

At 16, Charles he was regarded as having the academic ability of a kindergarten student.

"The level of communication was highly limited, only some gestures of what he wanted and what he needed," father Chris Mury said.

Charles' mother, Melanie, said process had been "glacial" before her son had a breakthrough 18 months ago, which experts said was triggered by the emotion of his grandmother's funeral.

"We had a very long meltdown and in desperation I said to him 'help us help you'," Melanie said.

"(I gave him) pen, paper, and we had our very first conversation."

From that point on, Charles' words and ideas have flowed and flourished, with the help of his teachers at Metford's Hunter River Community School.

Now at the age of 18, Charles has finally found his voice with the help of a computer.

"Communication has changed my life for the best. It has saved my life," he told NBN News.

"All people with autism are smart and deserve respect even if they cannot communicate."

  Read the full news report & watch the video here.

By John Stone

“Prayers for Elizabeth and her family and all concerned. Lets pray for wisdom and divine intelligence in the transition underway.” (Catherine Austin Fitts)

This is from a letter I wrote to BMJ on-line concerning informed  consent in October 2020:

…I have viewed with concern the idea floated in The Times by Heidi Larson of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine that the Queen could be called on to boost trust in coronavirus vaccine … Would such a promotional exercise really be an appropriate place to start in accepting any of the new products, either for her or for us?

Surely it is imperative that any individual choices are made on the basis of fully informed consent and not collective or political pressure, and this tolerance of individual autonomy is recognised for all vaccines. The recent Cumberlege review has recognised in principle where such pressures could lead… and it is hard to see why vaccines should be exempt. Nor should anyone be labelled an “anti-vaxxer”, least of all by the Prime Minister, because they do not jump into line…

Sadly, less than two years later with both the Queen and her consort - who were generally held to be devotees of homeopathy - are no longer with us, we can safely say we have witnessed one of the ugliest, most inappropriate and manipulative episodes in the history of humanity. In fact, nobody could ever have given informed consent because not only had the products not been adequately trialled, no one really knew what was in them.

Much concern must now focus on her successor King Charles: the United Kingdom is supposed to be a constitutional monarchy and the monarch above politics yet Charles has been a proponent of World Economic Forum policy and prominently helped launch the so-called Great Reset. This engages with policies which have never been democratically discussed or openly spoken about -  which pose a threat to the life, liberty and wealth of ordinary people -  and even if they had been they ought to lie outside a constitutional monarch’s remit. Notably, it involves the transference of wealth from ordinary people to a super-class encapsulated in the statement “You’ll own nothing and be happy”. Much of this transference has already happened with Covid lockdowns.

When neither mainstream politicians or media will talk about these matters it is time for the public at large to ask questions.

Anne Dachel has covered the skyrocketing rates of students in special education for more than a decade. On her site Loss of Brain Trust she's catalogs thousands of articles from around the world.  Age of Autism was founded by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill as a blog to explore the autism epidemic in a then new way, as a man-made epidemic. Fifteen years later, the numbers have not abated. Children are chronically ill and the normal milestones of childhood development have been left behind.  Pediatrics has presided over a new normal of sickness and delayed (if ever accomplished) development. Perhaps you see this change in your work, among your friends children, and of course, many of us see it in our own homes.

Children's Health Defense has launched a publishing arm that will print and e-publish books mainstream publishers have shunned  for more than twenty years. We invite you to download and share The Sickest Generation: The Facts Behind the Children’s Health Crisis and Why It Needs to End

Children are the key to a successful future and a prosperous nation, yet American children have never been sicker with a vast array of chronic illnesses.

In 2011 54% of children had at least one of 20 chronic health conditions;

Life expectancy is falling and infant mortality is rising. U.S. children are 76% more likely to die before their first birthday than infants in other wealthy countries;

A study conducted from 2001-2004 found that half of U.S. youth (ages 13-18) had been diagnosed with at least one mental, emotional, and/or behavioral disorder;

Top military leaders report seven in ten young Americans aged 17-24 are unfit to serve in the U.S. military because of obesity, asthma, hearing and eyesight problems and mental illness.

This is a heck of an article at Safeminds. How many of us begged, borrowed and bankrupted ourselves to get the EVIDENCE BASED ABA therapy that Pediatricians recommended. 20 hours a week. 30 hours a week. School services. It should come as no surprise that the GOLD standard is actually made of gold. Disgusting as ever. Jaded? You betcha.

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Some Claim the Pressure of Billing Hours is Degrading the Quality of ABA Services

The role of private equity companies is to invest money for wealthy individuals, university endowments, and pension funds. These firms intend to make more money for their clients through private investments than what could be made by investing in the stock market. In 2015, private investments in behavioral health totaled $120 million. According to industry analysis, five years later, that amount had grown to $1.2 billion.

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) has long been considered the gold standard for autism treatment. The therapy is considered such a staple that every state mandates its coverage. In the past decade, there has been a rapid increase in private equity firms investing in ABA providers. With 1 in 44 children on the spectrum and the promise of state-mandated insurance reimbursement, ABA therapy has become a lucrative market for these investors.

However, many question whether this infusion of private equity funds is good for ABA. Since big business has become involved with ABA, families and clinicians are starting to be disillusioned with the therapy and the industry supporting it. Both parties point to financial investors’ fixation on profit and say it has degraded the quality of services that many children receive. Parents complain that ABA, which should be tailored to each child, has become “cookie cutter.” This one-size-fits-all approach allows bigger providers to save money on time-intensive assessments by using treatment plans that were simply copied from other clients. But that reuse goes against the highly individualized treatment plans that ABA is supposed to deliver. One clinician said that time-saving practices made her feel like a “billing machine, trying to make as much money for private equity as possible.” A former ABA provider employee shed more light on this practice and said that private-equity-owned companies would set billing quotas, reward top billers with bonuses, and question any holes in their schedules.

About 9 months ago, the President of the United States issued a stark, morose message to Americans, casting us into two groups. Not Democrat and Republican, as one might expect. But vaccinated and unvaccinated.

“For unvaccinated, we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death… for themselves, their families and the hospitals they’ll soon overwhelm,” Biden continued. “But there’s good news. If you’re vaccinated, and you have your booster shot, you’re protected from severe illness and death, period.”

In the Age of Autism Community, we believe in medical freedom and choice for readers and for your children. We have readers who were compelled to take the Covid vaccine, and readers who will never take one. All welcome. We know that President Biden's words did not come true, neither the praise nor the punishment.

Today, in the colder climates, we are looking at a Winter of severe prices and struggle.  Autism families are not exempt from the vagaries of the economy, in fact, I think we are hit harder than most. Autistic adults who rely on Supplemental Security Income live below the poverty line unless someone (raise your hand with me) subsidizes them. Inflation is catastrophic for the autistic.

 AofA is "Headquartered" (yes, you may chortle) in Connecticut. We're in the region called New England, and our weather has cold, snowy and icy winters. We're also one of the oldest regions in the country; our homes are ancient by standards in most other areas of the country and converting to natural gas is often expensive and impossible. According to Massachusetts statistics, 48% of residents heat their homes with fuel oil, electricity, propane and wood, with fuel oil having the largest share behind natural gas. I decided to look at the price of fuel oil in my area. The last time we saw such high prices was in 2014. A fuel oil tank holds 275 gallons. A full tank fill this week will cost $1262.25. Usage averages 10 gallons a DAY in the dead of winter. That's less than a month of fuel. One thousand two hundred and sixty two dollars a month. The average Social Security benefit for the elderly is just over $1500. The highest SSI benefit is just over $800. 

We need you to know about this 15 week University level course beginning on September 13 from IPAK-EDU on the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program used for emergency authorized biologics.

In this course, students will learn the structure, function and defects of the programs in the US created by Congress to award compensation to adults and children potentially and actually harmed or killed by vaccines. We will review a variety of important topics, review case histories. This course is for parents and lawyers new to US vaccine injury compensation programs.

Read the course description and register here.

Taught by Wayne Rohde, author of Vaccine Court, this class is available through The Online private University, IPAK-EDU.  Many of us KNOW what these programs are - but we don't know the details of their inception and execution.  The knowledge can boost your conversations with, trolls, BOTS, family and friends - just THINK of the Thanksgiving table arguments you can start! You might just get the whole pumpkin pie to yourself. XOX

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Read More and Register HERE.

The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program & Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program

15-week, 1 hour course, both live and on demand

• reading list will be provided 2 weeks prior to each week’s topic of discussion.
• Q&A will be reserved for the last 15 minutes of each class
• Weekly topics can be changed, added or removed by class suggestion.

Email: wrohde@comcast.net

Course Objectives

• Understanding of Terms and Acronyms within Program.
• Basic understanding of legal recourse of injury prior to NVICP.
• Why did Congress pass NCVIA of 1986 and components of the Act?
• Early years of the NVICP and amendments to the Act.
• 1995 & 1997 – radical changes to the Program.
• Understanding of Congressional hearings.
• US Supreme Court rulings including Bruesewitz, Cloer and Whitecotton
• Courts use of Omnibus proceedings. Not just Autism.
• Mechanisms to add vaccines to the Program.
• What is the Advisory Commission for Childhood Vaccines (ACCV).
• Special Masters, DOJ attorneys, HHS, HRSA and the Federal Courts.
• The Vaccine Injury Trust Fund.
• Understanding of Table Injuries vs non-Table Injuries.
• How to prove causation.
• When did adult vaccines become part of the Program?
• How to access court decisions, appeals and opinions.
• Petitioner attorneys, fees and medical experts
• Compensation
• Data from court decisions
• The CounterMeasures Injury Compensation Program & COVID
• Basic review of The PREP Act and Public Health Emergency declarations

Week 1 – General Overview of the NVICP, the purpose and what did the Act establish. Brief review of why Congress passed the NCVIA.

We are not alone in the autismn community. Millions of fellow citizens are wide awake to the grossly diminished stage called childhood. These folks are our friends, even if most are not directly involved with autism. Please join Millions Against Medical Mandates for a plethora of information and support.

Dear MAMM Community, 

Why has the physical and mental health of our children continued to worsen? Why, for instance, were only 12% of our kids experiencing chronic illnesses in the 1980s and now well over half of them are suffering from one or more of these conditions including asthma, obesity, cancer, heart disease, autism, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune illnesses?  The idea that this is the “new normal” is a total “cop out” and blaming it on genetics is way too simplistic. 

In our feature article written by MAMM's Collaborative Communication Committee, Nate Doromal, he explores some areas steeped in science and common sense to find real answers to this critical question. 

We know that pHARMa (at best) only provides band-aid approaches to health problems.  Manufacturers of toxic chemicals could not care less about the damage they are causing to us and our children by permeating our air, food, and water with their poisons, and, unfortunately (as we saw with the COVID response), our public health system lacks depth of understanding and commitment to getting to the root cause and finding common sense solutions to address health issues.  The truth is, we (all of us) must face the task at hand.  Our children’s health and their future are up to us!

Speaking of solutions, make sure to watch The Toxic Truth About Food and What You can Do About It as well as Dr. Northrup's epic new video interview.

MAMM is dedicated to educating, equipping and empowering MILLIONS so together we can create a saner, freer and healthier future!  

Cathy has the long weekend off with her family.

By Cathy Jameson

My jaw dropped as I listened to a phone message that came in over a week ago.  It was from a woman who works at an agency that helps us secure services for Ronan. 

“Hi, Mrs. Jameson.  I’m So-and-So from the agency.  In reviewing Ronan’s renewal paperwork, I think I see an error.  I really need you to call me back as soon as you are able so I can go over it with you.  On the form, it looks like you indicated that Ronan was not living full-time in your home.  Instead, it looks like you indicated that he is living in prison.  We cannot continue services if he really is in prison…so, you really need to call me right away because we need to terminate services if his residency has changed.”

Stunned, I hung up the phone. 

Prison?  Are you kidding me?!  Here’s right here next to me!  What the heck did I check off on that form?? 

I’ve made mistakes before, but not one as bad as this one.  Looking at the clock, I realized it was too late to return the call and speak to Ms. So-and-So.  The office was already closed for the day.  I would be able to leave a message, though, and quickly did that. 

Hi, this is Cathy Jameson.  I just heard your message and can assure you that Ronan lives at home.  He has never been in nor has he ever lived in prison.  He lives full-time in our house and is right here next to me.  I’m not sure which box was checked off indicating otherwise, so please, please call me back as soon as you are able.  If I do not answer the home phone, please, please, please try my mobile phone…thank you.

After hanging up, I racked my brain trying to remember when it was that I filled out that paperwork.  It would’ve been months ago.  Think.  Think.  Think!  After a few minutes, I remembered.  I’d received a packet from their office back in the spring and recalled that it was pages and pages long.  I try to keep a copy of every form that we’re required to fill out, so went to my office to hunt down that copy.  Looking through the files, I thought, Wait a minute…I didn’t fill out that paperwork.  I called that information in! 

I had the option to either fill it out and mail it in or call the agency with the information.  Opting to call it in, I waited until all the kids were out of the house.  That way, I wouldn’t be interrupted while I was on the phone.  I remembered that I spoke to a young representative who went section by section with me – together, we updated Ronan’s stats, to include that he lived full-time at home with his family!  If someone on their end messed up my son’s benefits, I would be more livid than I already was.  I could do nothing more about it until I got a call back, so I tried to focus on what I needed to do next – pack for an end-of-the-summer quick trip to the beach. 

Friday morning while driving to Surfers' Healing (which is always one of the best weekends ever for our little family!) we had lots of time to talk in the car.  I told the kids about the phone call and how shocked I was to hear that they thought Ronan was a jailbird.  Can you imagine… Ronan behind bars!  We had a good laugh, but then things got a little bit serious. 

“Will he really lose his benefits, Mom?” one of the kids asked. 

I have been a Ray Bradbury devotee since I read my first short story in high school. Bradbury was the prolific science fiction author whose work captured the soul of humanity in every story. You might know him as the author of Something Wicked This Way Comes and Farenheit 451 (the temperature at which books burn) and other famous novels. In today's divisive political climate, both "sides" are claiming to be the Guy Montag, the rescuer of content.  Fahrenheit 451 is a 1953 dystopian novel by American writer Ray Bradbury. ...the novel presents a future American society where books are outlawed and "firemen" burn any that are found. The lead character, Guy Montag, is a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role of censoring literature and destroying knowledge, eventually quitting his job and committing himself to the preservation of literary and cultural writings.  (Source, Wiki)

Tomorrow's Child is about a couple who use the newest science available to birth their baby. A machine that takes the atoms of the baby in utero, scrambles them out, and reassembles them without mother having to go through the hardship of labor and delivery. Except.....  the machine, the trusted science of Dr. OBGYN, goes badly wrong, and Peter and Polly's baby is born as if in another dimension. Their son is a bright blue pyramid with squiggly tentacles.  The doctor explains the mishap in sterile, quiet tones. SCIENCE is God today, but whose science? And what has technology done for and to our children? 

The story was brought to life in Ray Bradbury Theatre in a rather stilted, odd version of Bradbury's beautifully written prose.  I recall reading the short story when I was about 20 years old.  I suppose I thought it was fanciful and dreadful, imagine having a blue pryamid instead of a flesh and blood human baby! Life has a sense of humor. My own daughters, beautiful humans, are like blue pyramids.  Round pegs in a world of square holes.

No one looks out for our kids' (young and old) safety like NAA>

The National Autism Association’s Big Red Safety Teacher Toolkit® is a free-of-charge safety toolkit for educators in need of wandering-prevention tools.

Please review all of the information below before submitting your application.

To apply for an NAA Big Red Safety Teacher Toolkit®, you must:

• Be a school administrator, teacher or aide working with individuals with an autism diagnosis.
• Be employed at a school within the U.S. and provide the school address for shipping. (Homeschool programs are not eligible for this toolkit, please apply for a Big Red Safety Box.)
• Agree to the terms and conditions stated in the application.
• Apply only once. Multiple requests cannot be processed, limit one toolkit per school.