McCarthy was at the latest TACA bunfight recently and took to the stage to give the crowd some of her patented Sale Increasing Controversial Big Fat Mouth. Her victim was a long time favourite of American news, Barbara Walters (whos now deceased sister was born ‘developmentally disabled).
About 3:15 today at the picnic on main stage jenny mccarthy in the most lisa ackerman style of feisty adorable commented that barabara walters said our kids CANT EVER GET BETTER and called her a bitch and said something about naysayers can stick her microphone up their BUTTS!
PRICELESS. This is perfect way to get sensationalistic 6:00 news attention to get this aired NOW!!!!!!!
Isn’t that lovely? I hope all those who were puzzled by the series of posts on here decrying Mccarthy’s self-appointed role as autism advocate can begin to appreciate why I – and plenty of others – feel as we do. That McCarthy is doing no favours to the autism community with this sort of behaviour. of course, some people, even within TACA realize this probably isn’t the best course of action:
What Jenny said at the picnic was for the benefit for TACA families, not for the 6 o’clock news or Entertainment Tonight. Jenny is doing a beautiful job of being our spokesperson, so let’s let her publicist and TACA’s publicist handle the media for right now. I know it was exciting stuff but let’s let this issue rest for now.
Well, no, actually. I don’t want to let the issue rest. This person has appointed herself spokesperson not just for TACA but apparently for autism itself. She needs to back off, grow up and start thinking about her actions for those of us without a celebrity income. Calling someone ‘a bitch’ at en event that you _know_ will be covered by the media is a stupid thing to do and gives the general public the idea that we’re all as childish as Jenny McCarthy. I would like once again to distance myself from this person publicly.
In the meantime, please enjoy this blog entry I found today. I don’t know who it is but I liked it.
Left Brain Right Brain 
I cannot see her reaching her full potential and living life to its fullest as heavily afflicted as she is.
I don’t see why she couldn’t reach her full potential. Everybody can reach their full potential. Not everybody’s potential is the same as everyone else’s.
Kid’s are getting better now, because of the earlier interventions. Pediatricians are now educated in spotting the disorder, and advising parents where to get help.
Outcomes will improve, and there’s a recent paper that suggests outcomes for autistics born between 1974 and 1984 have already improved. Could it be because of early diagnosis and treatment? It’s plausible, but the evidence is not convincing. I think outcomes will improve primarily because of the broadening of the spectrum and because institutionalization continues to fall out of favor.
As you can see, the neurodiverse world is raging with anger because the Mercury crowd has a celebrities to champion their cause.
This actually brings up an interesting question–when will JM address mercury? I have heard her talk about yeast, diet, etc., but she has avoided one of the key parts of the TACA approach: chelation.
666 is being hysterically hyperbolic again.
OLD Newsflash: There are those involved the neurodiverse community who have used biomedical treatments for apparent physical maladies. Some have even had the experience of their kids asking to be taken off their particular meds (even the kind touted by the jenny & the biomeddlers) and some kids have asked to stop seeing their BMDs (Brave Maverick Doctors).
Joseph, we do many things to increase or ensure our children’s potential. We send them to school. We get them medical treatment and the necessary drugs when they are sick. We vaccinate our kids against diseases. If they develop cancer we have then undergo operations and chemo/radiation therapy. If they should lose limbs we would get them prosthetics or wheelchairs. We get them glasses, if their eyesight is poor. We send them to occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc.
We try to protct them, and if they become afflicted in any way we try to remove that affliction or at least give them the means of dealing with it. We don’t say, My child has reached his full potential without trying to remove or by pass any barriers which impede him.
Autism is a huge barrier for my daughter. It may be much less of a barrier for some, and others may be high enough on the spectrum that they consider their autism beneficial. In my daughter’s case and many others removing the barrier would allow her to soar.
999: right, right, right . . .
OLD Newsflash: The neurodiverse world (read: Asperger’s) believes that their experiences are true for all kids.
I chose to believe that early intervention does make a difference. I also think that children being diagnosed today have milder forms of PDD and that their progress will be much greater than past experience will indicate.
_”OLD Newsflash: The neurodiverse world (read: Asperger’s) believes that their experiences are true for all kids.”_
Got any evidence of this 666? I’ve not encountered this kind of monolithic thinking, nor have I seen neurodiverse proponents being AS only — not remotely.
_”…believe that early intervention…”_
NO ONE HERE IS ARGUING AGAINST ANY KIDS GETTING EARLY, SUITABLE HELP AS-NEEDED.
Ian,
I don’t know if this is drawing to fine of a line, or creating a line that hurts people’s feelings or whatever, but autism is NOT the same thing as mental retardation. A person can have one and not the other. A person can have both.
I think you are describing that your daughter has both.
I have autism (there really isn’t a good precise measurement for how “autistic” any person is, but I have the traits of autism, but no mental retardation – or intellectual disability, or whatever). MY ASD kid has ASD and also some learning disablity/intellectual disability and some learning “gifts,” too, and a fabulous personality (way better than mine, if I may say so.)
To me, what you want to rid your child is MR. If your child only had autism and no MR, s/he might be in a lot of emotional pain, under a lot of stress, but he’d be more able to defend himself against the world that much of the time is unsafe for any kind of disabled person (and it’s unsafe for people who have the “misfortune” of getting old).
A biomedical cure for MR is not out there. Parents of MR kids are not “hating the MR” as far as I know. They deal with it (maybe improve it a lot) through education, not through, or not mainly through idiotic dog training techniques (ABA) that are not mainly directed at educating the mind, but training the body to “act” in some way with a minimal interaction with the brain and the heart.
Education does **not** I repeat **not** “Move a child along the spectrum”. This is really just a stupid idea. The child can get older and learn things, but he doesn’t “move” on the spectrum. There isn’t a way to even measure such a thing. If you have a person who seems to be “functioning” very well, living on his own, driving a car, got friends… all of that could disappear with enough stress. The person could lose all those abilities, perhaps temporarily perhaps not, by abuse or extreme stress.
You can also take an adult who is very “low functioning” in a high stress environment (say an institution) and give him enough understanding (not reinforcements, doggy treats, or shrill and saccharine, “Oh! What a good! Boy! You! Are!” rewards) and accomodations, maybe and appropriate help, and he could suddenly move “up the spectrum” or “to the left” or whatever stupid figure of speech people use to describe a change of ability and emtional state or ???
In this world, for the foreseeable future, we will have disabled people. The answer is not to put all the pressure on the disabled people to carry their own weight, or to become normal, or put pressure on moms to abort their possibly potentially disabled babies, the answer is to train the normal people that the disabled are here and we need to treat them as equals and not like trash.
most of those who claim their children are ‘cured’ seem to have children ‘cured’ according to the schoolsystem – which will choose the least restrictive – which directly translates to the cheapest method. ie, if the kid can get by without services, we won’t give them to him/her. Unless of course, you are fortunate enough to live in a district that doesn’t subscribe to such nonsense, or have the money for private schooling and care.
basically ‘cured’ means no longer apparently developmentally delayed rather than no longer autistic. It’s a bunch of hogwash. I firmly believe if someone was truly ‘cured’ they weren’t autistic to begin with, but had something else, with similar symptoms.
_”As you can see, the neurodiverse world is raging with anger because the Mercury crowd has a celebrities to champion their cause”_
Are you joking? I, and others, have just spent the last couple of weeks blogging about how we are unhappy about celebrities being involved just because they’re celebrities. Please tell me you read what people write before you place these silly comments.
Just to preempt your next comment, I’ve also written blog posts expressing unhappiness with celebs who espouse what might be thought of as ‘ND’ beliefs (Sigourney Weaver etc).
Of course if you actually read before ranting you’d know that.
I’m going to suggest something to you Siggy. Take a break from commenting on blogs. You are getting ranty and ridiculous. You have developed a habit of disappearing from a thread where you can’t answer the questions put to you (such as the statistical difference between 1% and 1%) and then popping up with the same old rant a week or so later.
Come back by all means, but please – try and start making a bit more sense when you do. You’re beginning to sound like a watered down John Best right now.
I also think that children being diagnosed today have milder forms of PDD and that their progress will be much greater than past experience will indicate.
Predicting the past isn’t a very special gift.
Anyone who has been watching at all closely has noticed that the fewer of the new clients tracked by the CDDS have severe behaviors or cognitive impairments.
666sigma – when Kev doesn’t like what you say, you’ll be supressed (moderated) then banned!
No Century, when I don’t like what you have to say then I’ll debate it. When you get abusive and stupid or I lose patience with you then I’ll enforce a break on you – like I recently enforced a 24 hour break on you.
If someone gets truly abusive – such as John Best for example, then they’ll be banned.
Ms Clark while mental retardation is not listed as an autistic trait, it is the factor which clinically separates low and high-functioning children.
What separates children with autism and mental retardation from children with say Down’s syndrome is that the children with Downs want to participate, they want to learn. The children with autism are indifferent.
My view of my daughter’s autism is that it is genetic. If there was an environmental; insult it was prenatal. I believe it was caused either by incorrect protein synthesis, or more probably the wrong genes switching on at the wrong time and/or for an incorrect amount of time. I think this happened to all autistics, it simply happened for a longer time, or to a greater extent for my daughter. You may view her mental retardation as a comorbid condition, I view it as a sign of her greater affliction.
My daughter suffered server mental regression between 24 and thirty months of age coincident with that was her withdrawl inot herself as well as the start of her sterotypic behaviors. This is not when her disorder started. I’ve stated before how much I wish I had the list of traits to look for at 12 months and the amazing number she had. At that time she definitely could have been termed a high-functioning autistic. However the disorder progressed further in her case resulting in her low-functioning status.
My daughter has had enough evaluations and tests. This isn’t simple mental retardation masquerading as autism. Never has it been a borderline Autism/PDD-NOS call. No professiional examing her would give a diagnosis other than low-functioning autism. We overlook many of her traits now because we have become so used to them, but people who see her for the first time sure notice.
Parents, and I am generalizing here, with low-functioning children see theri children’s challenges as so much greater than high-functioning children they wish one of the groups would be given a different diagnosis. The definition of autism has been greatly expanded resulting in a greater proportion of the pppulation being labeled autistic. Where did this rise come from? Everything I’ve read indicates the rise is primarily in the numbers of high-functioning autistics.
It’s not that high an low-functioning are not both on the spectrium. Neither has been misdiagnosed. It is that the spectrum is so wide that it has become meaningless. So much so that there is a rift among parents oflow-functioning and high-functioning children. If I read between the lines of your mail, you don’t want to count my daughter as autistic. I don’t consider high-functioning children as non-autistic, but I do consider them diffreent enough that they or my daughter need a supplemental diagnosis to better define their conditions.
Cure? If we could get her to the high-functioning side we would consider it a cure. Even if that takes many more yearts than the ten that have passed since her birth would prefer the quick fix.
Finally, I have probably given the imprssion tht my daughter has not progressed at all mentally. That is not true. Her receptive language skill is much greater than one would expect.
Ian MacGregor,
Never once did it pass through my mind that your daughter wasn’t autistic as any autistic ever was. My point was, that what you “hate” about your child is not the autism but the MR.
I have a real hard time with the idea of dividing autism into High and Low, because my kid doesn’t really fit either, and there actually is an official term “middle functioning” it just doesn’t get used often.
It’s pretty easy to make a case for the fact that it’s harder to live in the skin of a “high functioning” autistic than a low functioning autistic. Between me and my ASD kid, it’s me who’s had serious problems with depression and anxiety (even a panic attack). The ASD kid’s life is fairly placid even though we have dealt with and do deal with serious concomittant medical problems (not autism, but perhaps the genes that are causing the physical problems are connected to the ones that made the kid LD and autistic.
You say that if you could remove your daughter’s learning disability/mental disability you would consider her cured. (I suppose then she would be like me.)
Then you don’t hate the autism, you hate the MR.
Not that hating the MR is going to do her a bit of good, but understanding it and leveraging her abilities and talents will help her. That’s what I have done with my kid, while applying much “balm of acceptance”.
Ms Clark. I have the opportuninty to view many austictic and Down’s syndrome every week. I see these kids engaged with their parents, platying little games. I see children who have gone from not wanting to participate at all, to being eager to spend time with their coaches. That I cannot establish this relationship with my daughter is what I find heartbreaking
You cannot separate my daughters MR, and by MR I mean her lack of acquision of language and numeracy, from her disinterest due to her autism.
I don’t view my daughter as stupid in the least. I see her autism as stopping her from learning. As I think I stated before, her apathy also means that she doesn’t have the foundation on which further knowlege is builtI stress her MR to show that autism is more than social ineptness. I am socially inept.
Separating her MR from her autism would be like not considering a bullet as the primary cause of a fatal wound.
I don’t think you want to see that her MR problems are a part of her autism, but separate from it. Do you know any children wtih Rhett’s? You may know that Rett’s causes autistic like symptoms, and also physical problems as well. You also know that it afflicts people to different extents.
It’s the same with autism. Indeed the damage done tp the brain of a Rhett’s child is much the same as that done to an autistic child. No one searches for causes other than Rhett’s for the child’s MR problems. Now you can tell the parents of girl with Rhett’s that they should not want a cure, that it would “harm “their daughter. But what would tell the parents of a son, bearing in mind the disease is 100% fatal in boys.
My daughter was all smiles tonight. She’s having a wonderful week. Indeed its getting hard to complain about her condition, when her smiles warms my heart so. I think she’s a terrific kid as she is. I am however very fretful about her future.
I have a four year old autistic son ,it is extremely stressfull. I bet that no one is considering that she might be under a lot of stess and pressure ,and may be very defensive. I know i get angry at some of these stupid doctors or anyone at that matter who tries to tell me what or who my son is. All I am saying is that society needs to cut her a break, all of you who have a child with autisim should be understanding not being critical and judgemental she just a mom dealing with a devastating disorder cut her some slack people!!
Mr. MacGregor,
You said that you would consider your child cured if the MR was gone. I put it to you that if the MR was gone she might be like me (with an Asperger’s dx). If you could remove just the autism and leave the MR (not possible, I realize) then you might have a more socially aware child who would still be disabled.
I put it to you that autism TENDS to make people very curious and sort of puts a demand in their heads (mine, too) to gather facts. Now maybe your daughter is gathering scent facts, or maybe she’s just unusual and not as driven to gather facts, and maybe that has to do with the MR… I don’t know.
The point is, if you can’t separate your daughters (or my ASD kid’s) MR/learning disability from the autism, neither can you separate the Autism/MR/LD from your daughter. Period. You can imagine what she’d be like if she was different, but given that people like your daughter have always been, as far back as folks have been noting such things… then why should people like her not be alive now? And why wish that you had gotten a different kid and not that one?
Genetics is a roll of the dice. I got two kids, one pretty much above average on lots of measurements, and one pretty much below average on lots of measurements, with a few high measurements, too, and a fanastic personality that can’t be “measured”, in my opinion.
I don’t think I’ve been “punished” by having either kind of kid, and I think both kids are a blessing, in the sense that they make me very happy to know them, not in the sense that their attributes were picked out by a God and delivered to the kid for any reason. Again, genes are a roll of the dice. The people we pick with whom to have kids are the result of a roll of the dice, and so is everyone else.
Let’s keep it that way instead of trying to make everyone the same… lets go for neuro-diversity, instead of neuro-uniformity.
Addedendum:
Mr. MacGregor, Rett **is not** 100% fatal in boys.
And yes, I know a bit about Rett, you might introduce yourself to the blogger Kassiane some time she can tell you a lot more about it, she has the Rett mutation MeCP2.
http://autismdiva.blogspot.com/2006/05/alison-tepper-singer-and-rett-girls.html
Autistic mom, in May of this year, Jenny didn’t have an autistic kid she had a psychically gifted Crystal kid who was part of some kind of borg-like multi-being consciousness. Then he was autistic, just in time for the book about autism. If she could have marketed a book and marketed the kid as a “crystal” I have **no** doubt that she would have.
All moms are under stress at times, and maybe her stress was amplified by her lousy lifestyle choices… like smoking when she was pregnant, and others. I’m not feeling sorry for her a bit.
Autistic Mom,
Nobody is saying that raising an autistic child isn’t stressful. raising any kid is stressful. Jenny has more resources than most to alleviate that stress. she can hire nannies, cooks and maids but she wants us lay people to sympathize with her plight. she is profitting in a big way from autism by selling her book. it is hard for me to identify with her when it feels like just one more person trying to profit from the autism community. For years i have felt like all these people selling cures, therapies, supplements, books, training semiars, conferences and the like just see us autism families as targets and they want their pound of flesh. it gets exhausting after years and years. people who want to profit off of others challenges.
Kev, I just read your absurd comments:
“You are getting ranty and ridiculous. You have developed a habit of disappearing from a thread where you can’t answer the questions put to you (such as the statistical difference between 1% and 1%) and then popping up with the same old rant a week or so later.”
Huh?
First, let’s face it. Your universe is pissed off (as exemplified by the multiple derogatory posts about Jenny McCarthy on this blog) that the Mercury Moms have a celebrity to rally behind. You’ve got who? What makes matters worse is that her child is improving so you cling to that indigo or crystal bullshit with all your might. All of the insults won’t force her child to fit your vision of autism.
Regarding your bullshit about me disappearing when I can’t answer a question. If you feel I ran from a question, it is most likely because I don’t spend 8-10 hours a day blogging about the same topic incessantly. I may waste too much time, but not nearly as much as most people on your blog.
I will answer any question you feel I ran from. You can even make one up. But if I were you, I would stay away from the math questions because you are obviously innumerate. No offense. Just an observation. Maybe one of your Aspie friends can stand in for you, but they won’t fare any better.
I will answer any question you feel I ran from.
I’ll bite. I’ve asked you this a couple times. Explain to me why I should seriously consider just-so stories about how a diet or an anti-fungal or some detox can cause recovery, and at the same time not seriously consider just-so stories from Michael Menkin about how his thought screen helmet has caused autistic kids to talk or to do well in school. He even claims to have documentation on the kids’ improvement.
“Your universe is pissed off (as exemplified by the multiple derogatory posts about Jenny McCarthy on this blog) that the Mercury Moms have a celebrity to rally behind. You’ve got who?”
Scientists.
Your universe is pissed off (as exemplified by the multiple derogatory posts about Jenny McCarthy on this blog) that the Mercury Moms have a celebrity to rally behind.
Interesting that you admit that the message is pro-mercury from Jenny. When has she mentioned mercury or chelation?
So, if this really is part of her message, I am pissed off. I am pissed off at the stealth tactics of discussing antifungals and diet as a lure to bring people into the “mercury” camp.
If she is the spokesperson for the mercury moms, let her come out and say it. Since she fronts for TACA, Jenny should as a responsible human address the mercury question quickly and decisively.
She didn’t. I hate speculation on motives, but I will state that if people got angry at Barbara Walters this time, imagine what would have happened if Jenny was an open mercury supporter. Barbara Walters’ questions would have had a few more, well, barbs, don’t you think?
Excuse me, but maybe next time I get pulled over for speeding, I should try to pity-party the cop by saying, “Please officer, cut me some slack. I have a kid with autism!” I’m so tired of the “let’s cut Jenny some slack, she’s an autism mom” BS. Guess what – she craps and picks her nose just like everyone else.
Why should we “cut her some slack?” I don’t have people making exceptions for me just because I have an autistic kid. If she wants to play out her life in public, as she’s chosen, then she should be prepared to take everything that comes with it.
I’ll say it again – if this is the type of celebrity that you want to claim as yours in your little childish pissing match (“We’ve got Jenny! Who do you have? Huh?”), then you can have her. It’s nothing to be proud of from what I’ve seen.
Excuse me, but maybe next time I get pulled over for speeding, I should try to pity-party the cop by saying, “Please officer, cut me some slack. I have a kid with autism!” I’m so tired of the “let’s cut Jenny some slack, she’s an autism mom” BS. Guess what – she goes to the bathroom and picks her nose just like everyone else.
Why should we “cut her some slack?” I don’t have people making exceptions for me just because I have an autistic kid. If she wants to play out her life in public, as she’s chosen, then she should be prepared to take everything that comes with it.
I’ll say it again – if this is the type of celebrity that you want to claim as yours in your little childish pissing match (“We’ve got Jenny! Who do you have? Huh?”), then you can have her. It’s nothing to be proud of from what I’ve seen.
“Interesting that you admit that the message is pro-mercury from Jenny.”
When did I say that?
” . . . if this is the type of celebrity that you want to claim as yours in your little childish pissing match”
Remember, it is your childish pissing match too. It takes two. The rage regarding Jenny McCarthy that I spoke of is exemplified by the previous post from Gonzo.
In my opinion, the focus should be how well her child is doing and what she did to turnaround her child’s development. I’ve read a few comments from people suggesting that her child might not even be autistic. She’s just trying to make money.
Regan, science is not on your side.
Science might have shown that MMR and thimerosal have not caused autism (any more than any other vaccine), but that’s about it.
I don’t dispute Jenny McCarthy’s son’s diagnosis, but I do hope she understands that as he gets older and his environment and people round him change, that he may face new challenges. It doesn’t mean that his life will be terrible and that he’ll never learn or never develop, but if she realises that he may continue to look at things from a different angle to other people and that might affect how other people view him and that he might continue to have difficulties with movement, with co-ordination, that he might have different sensory experiences for example then that will help him (and her) so much. I know that with both my son and myself that whilst there are undeniably difficulties that we both face that the right environment and the right understanding can go a long way towards helping us and helping to realise that those things that make us different do not always mean those things that make us struggle.
When did I say that?
How can the “mercury” moms rally around someone who doesn’t support the “mercury” hypothesis?
People are taking JM’s support of “Biomed” to mean support for whatever they think “biomed” is. For many, that includes mercury.
Until JM clarifies her position, she is (as you say) a rallying point for the mercury moms. She is very likely increasing the number of kids who will be treated for fake mercury poisoning.
As a front for TACA, she is supporting the mercury nonsense unless she states otherwise. She apparently has been very careful to not state one way or another. Rather odd, don’t you think?
The rage regarding Jenny McCarthy that I spoke of is exemplified by the previous post from Gonzo.
I would hardly call that “rage” sigma! I was killing myself laughing while typing that and after reading your rant.
But you go ahead and believe whatever you want.
Siggy you just went ahead and proved my points perfectly my ranty young friend ;o)
I really strongly suggest giving yourself some time out, you are becoming an absurd caricature of yourself.
Gonzo, right, right, right . . .
Kev, you’re welcome. I am glad that I’m helping to relieve the stress in your life. Now, you still have time to back up those statements. I’m here.
So sigma, you tell me. Do you really think that Jenny’s calling Barbara “a bitch” out in public is respectable?
Gonzo, I don’t really care. It’s no big deal. I don’t think that much of Jenny McCarthy or Barbara Walters. Or Oprah or Larry King or any of the other Hollywood/TV schmucks.
The better question is why is it so important to you and so many others posting on this blog?
I do think that McCarthy has a good message about her son that has been lost in the whole causation debate. When she says that clearing up her child’s digestive system helped her child immensely, I believe her.
Kev, I’m still here for you, buddy. I hope you are busting a gut.
What exactly are you wanting me to back up Siggy? That I think you need to take a break? Just look at you son – you’re seething.
Kev,
Nope, I’m just enjoying people getting worked up over nothing. Nice try, though. Actually, it’s a pretty low grade tactic. You should know better.
Regarding “backing up,” you claimed I ran when I when I could not answer a question. You’re wrong. I just don’t waste as much time as your friends. I’m here now. I’ll respond to anything you would like, including any questions that you think I ran from. You’ve passed twice. Are you going to strike out?
I’ve read a few comments from people suggesting that her child might not even be autistic. She’s just trying to make money.
There are some messages suggesting that, because of the age 2 diagnosis, the child might either not have been on the spectrum or his outcome might have been unpredictable anyway (which is speculation consistent with the science.) Then there are messages suggesting that she’s just trying to make money with her book, given her odd change in belief systems.
I don’t believe anyone has suggested she made up the child’s diagnosis in order to make money, as you’re implying with your ridiculous straw-man, Sigma.
I do hope she understands that as he gets older and his environment and people round him change
I’m with bullet here, and the advise goes for Sigma. I’m not just speaking from personal experience, and you’ll probably hear the same thing not only from bullet but others like Joel Smith (who first had a diagnosis of autism and then a diagnosis of giftedness.) From the science, it appears to me that the phenomenon of loss of label in childhood is divorced from the phenomenon of good adult outcomes. Loss of label in childhood has been recently recognized to occur in children who are diagnosed very young. As they grow up, they appear to grow out of their autism, but is this going to be the case indefinitely? Note that since this is a recently recognized phenomenon, because early diagnoses are a relatively recent thing, nothing is known about the adult outcomes of children who lose their label at a young age.
666sigma: “I do think that McCarthy has a good message about her son that has been lost in the whole causation debate. When she says that clearing up her child’s digestive system helped her child immensely, I believe her.”
Of course you believe her. You’ve already demonstrated your willingness to accept anecdotes when they are in line with your own opinion or beliefs.
What’s odd is that you reserve your opinion or lend your support to those who believe autism is nothing more than mercury poisoning even though you don’t agree with that point of view.
Jenny isn’t claiming that “clearing up her child’s digestive system helped her child immensely.” She’s out there telling the world that she rescued her son from being autistic using various biomedical interventions. Can you see the difference and why that it might matter?
Sigma: You’ve ignored my question about 3 times now.
Siggy, I’ll wait for you to stop running from Joseph before I’ll make you stop running from me ;o)
The better question is why is it so important to you and so many others posting on this blog?
Because we’re having a discussion. It’s about Jenny McCarthy (see the headline above if you got lost in the comments). Of course, if you don’t like the discussion yourself, you’re always free to go to another blog and make comments elsewhere. Just as I am and just as everyone else is.
It’s a really, really big Internet.
But then again – I don’t really care. It’s no big deal. Right?
Of course, you still have yet to answer Joseph’s question. 😉
FWIW, I agree with bullet and Joseph. I’ve seen some kids that have been diagnosed as autistic, but only because they just barely fit the criteria. I have to wonder how many kids are being diagnosed at an early age that will outgrow the label.
Sure, putting the kids through a regimen of OT or speech therapies when they’re two (or less) could help some of the milder forms of autism. But that leaves you wondering – was it really the right diagnosis? Or was it something else? It almost seems, in some cases, as if younger kids (2 1/2 or younger) are being diagnosed with autism “just in case.” And could that explain the higher frequency of autism in kids these days?
Joseph, and I have told you many times that it is your choice. You don’t have to believe. I believe her story.
However, there are many comments on this board saying that biomed is pure rubbish. The same is true of ABA. Of course, you will say that’s another strawman and I will go and read another bzallion posts saying it doesn’t work.
Casein changes my child’s behavior. We know another boy locally whose Mother says the exact same thing. Even Christschool of YouTube fame took his son off casein and he said it made a difference and you know how anti-DAN! and anti-biomed he is.
McCarthy did not chelate her son. From what I know, she did not do anything harmful or dangerous. She basically cleaned up his digestive tract.
From the school to the therapists to the neurologist (who doesn’t believe in bio-med), our child’s development over the past year has been viewed as remarkable. I can assure you that the neurologist would tell you that the diagnosis was not “just in case.” The diagnosis was at 3 years and 2 1/2 months.
BTW, I also agree with Bullet’s comments.
Kev, you are still running. No shock.
BTW, the science says that you were never intended to drink cow’s milk or eat processed grains. Them’s the facts. So common sense tells you that cutting them out of your diet can’t do any harm.
666Sigma:
I really don’t understand quite whom you are arguing with. It’s not a novel idea to remove offending foods from children’s diets. Some people are fine with cow’s milk, for many others it’s problematic and that is very old news. Up until the 50s/60s infants and young children in the US were usually given goat milk instead of cow’s milk. The spectrum child in our family was first diagnosed with certain health issues, long before receiving an ASD diagnosis and was found to be “allergic” to sugars, including lactose at a very young age. So, not only did this child not have dairy, the child also did not like wheat/carbs. It turns-out the kid, through lab findings and his/her own preferences, essentially followed GFCF/Atkins-like diet for at least three years before being diagnosed on the spectrum.
It requires no great skill to give children food that agrees with them and refrain from giving food that is disagreeable. No one needs anyone from DAN! or TACA to explain this to them.
I don’t see anyone here, of the regular posters, stating that one should feed their children foods to which they have sensitivities, so I’m perplexed as to why you keep arguing your point.
In other words, Sigma, you choose to believe Jenny McCarthy because her beliefs confirm your preconceptions, where you probably would not believe Michael Menkin’s, simply because his do not. It doesn’t really have to do with any correlation of methodology to recovery or improvement. Additionally, it evidently wouldn’t have to do with Michael Menkin having unusual beliefs.
BTW, the science says that you were never intended to drink cow’s milk or eat processed grains. Them’s the facts. So common sense tells you that cutting them out of your diet can’t do any harm.
Define ‘intended’. I don’t believe that we were ‘intended’ to do anything: we evolved for no particular reason. Milk and processed grains became part of our adult diet relatively recently in our evolution, and we certainly can live quite healthily without them – although cutting them out of your diet can do harm if you don’t find suitable replacement foods. Why cut out food groups without good reason, though? (obviously some people are allergic/intolerant to these foods, but I see no reason why others should exclude them).
By the way, the great majority of biomed treatments for autism are much more recent than humans adding grains and dairy to our adult diets. Does that mean that we ‘were never intended’ to e.g. take vitamin supplements 😉
_Kev, you are still running. No shock.”_
Not running son, just waiting. I know how little time you spend on this blog so I don’t want to overwhelm you ;o)
When you’re done here, I’ll step in.