Archive by Author

Pirates

12 Sep

  “Now this” I inform my son who is busy helping to get himself dressed, “is a pirate jumper.” I cover up one eye and then mime “jumper” for him as I do so. He doesn’t reply, but places his arms through the sleeves and then makes a good attempt at yanking the body of the jumper down. I carry on nattering to him.

 “Do you like your pirate jumper?” (hand taps heart area, hand over eye, tap arms). “Pirates say ‘shiver me timbers'” (hand over eye, shake shoulders, forearm on top of fore arm, the last one being improvised) He grabs my hand and places it onto his trousers that are lying on the floor.

 “You can put those trousers on yourself” I tell him, miming “you” and “trousers” as I do so. He stands up and immediately places both legs in the same hole, struggling and falling over.

 “Nearly”, I tell him.” “Sit down and try again.”

 He remains standing, trying to pull the waistband up, not realising why he’s finding it difficult.

    “Sit down” I tell him, adding the sign this time. He carries on with his endeavours. I’m torn between wanting to help him and wanting him to learn how to get himself dressed without any help. He appears about to tear the material on his trousers without any help. I make one last attempt to get him to sit down and the problem is solved when he falls back onto his bed and rather angrily takes his trousers off himself. The next try is rather more successful.

 “You’re going to nursery this morning” I tell him as we walk down the stairs to wait for the bus. “The bus will be here soon. Bus for nursery” (hands mime big steering wheel, hand up to face and round in circles to show the nursery).  He keeps quiet then starts humming a song about rabbits and their dastardly attempts to munch a plot of carrots.

 “Do you sing that song at nursery?” Again there is no reply. The bus turns up and he gets on it happily enough. I hope that the home school book will have enough information in it to help me talk and sign to him about what he’s done.

 Five hours later and we’re walking to the playground. He understands the sign for that now, thanks to “Something Special” doing a show about it the other day. As we’re approaching the park it occurs to me that I’m not sure where the entrance is, since we usually go to a different one. I confidently walk up to where I think it is and realise that the gate’s on another side, which means backtracking.

 “Wrong way” I tell Tom and his brother, who is sat in the buggy, though with designs on escaping the second my back is turned. “We go round”.

 This is not in Tom’s plan. We were going to the playground and now we are going AWAY from the playground. Not good. Not good at all. He says nothing but insteads sinks to the ground, tears streaming down his face.

 “We’re going to the playground” I try and reassure him. “We have to go to the gate.”

 His sobs become louder. I move to pick him up and he struggles, refusing to be carried or persuaded to walk. I look at him in despair.

 “Think!” I say to myself. “What would Mr Tumble do?”

 I kneel down besides him, my hands wiping at his face and hug him tightly. He cries for a bit more then wipes his face on my shirt. His hands move up to my chin and he starts moving it up and down, then starts to pull at my hair. One hand then moves up towards his own face and he covers his eye.

 “Are you a pirate?” I ask him, covering my own eye. He repeats the pirate sign several times.

 “Pirates say? …” I ask him

 He shakes a bit from side to side, then places one forearm on the other.

 Five minutes late my fearsome little pirate is battling  the slides.

I need your help readers

11 Sep

As you may (or may not) have noticed, my output on this blog has lessened over the last few weeks. There are lots of reasons for this – I’m working a lot more in the evenings for example – but for a variety of reasons I simply can’t blog as much as I used to.

However, I do not want to either stop blogging or stop _this_ blog. So what I am proposing is that Left Brain/Right Brain undergoes a bit of a change. Not in focus so much but more in style, content and – above all – writers.

I want to make this blog a multi-author blog. That is the first change. I want to ask you, dear readers, if you would like to consider becoming bloggers? I am not asking for any kind of commitment in terms of time or regularity but it never escapes my attention that there are some pretty damn smart people who comment on my blog (and no doubt lurk too) but who don’t own a blog themselves. I would love to see your thoughts expanded into semi-regular blog entries. I’m also aware that there are people who already have a blog but who don’t post very much – maybe you would rather move your efforts to a team based blog?

What I would really like is to get a team of say 20 people blogging which would assure that there was at least one post per day made.

You will not be censored in any way but your subjects should be about your experience with autism, your familial experience with autism or your professional experience with autism. If you write about these subjects I would only tolerate ‘acceptance’ led posts (not to say every post you make must be about acceptance but you know what I’m talking about).

I would also like to see autism science posts and posts exposing autism related quackery.I would expect these posts to be well referenced.

You can post under your real name, or a pseudonym (or both!) – you don’t even need to tell me who you are. I don’t care. I’m interested in what you say, not who you are.

I guess I would like to see this site become more of an ezine/magazine rather than a blog.

If you’re interested, let me know, either in the comments section or by email (kevleitch@gmail.com).

JB Handley’s Emerging Hypothesis

9 Sep

The Handley’s are now proud parents to a third child. Many congratulations to them. I hope their daughter gives them as much pride and happiness as my two have given me over the years.

Of course, for JB, its all about the autism. And so, he details the steps the family took to ‘ensure’ this third child wasn’t autistic. Its, um, interesting reading.

First Brad reminisces about whats on the GR site:

It’s probably worth taking a quick step back. The Generation Rescue website spells out pretty accurately how we feel about the cause of
autism:

We believe these neurological disorders (“NDs”) are environmental illnesses caused by an overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and
bacteria. Proper treatment of our children, known as “biomedical intervention”, is leading to recovery for thousands.

Yeah, you do _now_ – it used to be:

It’s nothing more than mercury poisoning

And whilst Brad was happy to carry this simple message to the TV masses, he’s seemingly less happy to go back on and say, well no, I was wrong actually. Its in fact ‘overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and bacteria’. And as for ‘leading to recovery for thousands’…heh yeah, whatever.

But anyway, back to the Emerging Hypothesis of preventing autism. What has JB Handley come up with?

we began to develop a plan to prepare for life before and after birth that we believed would reduce the chances for another autistic child.

And what does this plan entail?

Early Preparation for Mom (prior to conception):

– Switching to a gluten/casein free diet
– Eating organic foods and avoiding all artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives
– Limiting sugar
– Focusing on gut health through a combination of anti-fungal treatment, beneficial bacteria re-population, and digestive enzymes
– Detoxifying the body through a combination of chelation and natural detoxification techniques like FIR sauna, NDF Plus, Zeolites, etc.
– Adding a pre-natal vitamin and B-12

During pregnancy:

– Maintaining all dietary approaches listed above
– Avoiding all vaccines
– Avoiding any environmental risks like lead paint, home construction, cleaners and solvents, chemicals, etc.
– Avoiding antibiotics except in life-or-death situations
– Avoiding x-rays and sonograms, unless high-risk birth issues exist
– Continuing supplementation of pre-natal vitamins, probiotics, digestive enzymes, and B-12
– Proper supplementation of mom’s methylation cycle based on genetics

After birth:

– Maintaining all dietary approaches and supplements listed above while breastfeeding
– Holding off on introducing solid-foods until at least 6 months
– Avoiding antibiotics for breastfeeding mom and baby except in life-or-death situations
– Avoiding any environmental risks like lead paint, home construction, cleaners and solvents, chemicals, etc.
– Supplementing baby with infant-safe probiotics
– Avoiding all vaccines for at least the first 2 years of life, and then taking extraordinary caution
– At the right time (typically 6 months or older), adding proper methylation cycle support
– At the right time, proper supplementation of Omega3-6-9
– Providing natural detoxification through things like Epsom salt baths

So mum has to go through an extremely rigorous program. What does dad have to do?

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Fuck all.

Children are, it seems, conceived solely by the female and thus the male’s biology plays no part. Or maybe JB just couldn’t stomach the thought that men’s sperm might play a role.

OK now, back on real street, lets look at a few things.

Firstly, this child is a third born female. Sibling risk of recurrence for autism with the previous birth of any child with autism is thought to be about 4.5% (the numbers are higher for families with a firstborn female with autism or more than one child with autism). That’s right, about 4.5%. That means that there is an approximately 95.5% chance, based on the available science, that a third child born into a family with one autistic child who is not a firstborn male, will not be autistic. Let’s say that again – a 95.5 % chance for non-autistic (maybe even higher if the child is female). From a purely statistical perspective, that’s a very high probability for a non-autistic child. (Source).

If this daughter _doesn’t_ end up being autistic, what do you think is more likely to be the reason? The +95% chance it wouldn’t have happened anyway? Or JB’s course of mummy purification?

Leave a message for Andrew Wakefield

9 Sep

DAN/ARI are asking people to leave messages for Andrew Wakefield. Below is mine:

Now that the scientific evidence as presented by Stephen Bustin at the OAP has finally displayed to the world how utterly wrong you are about measles in the guts of autistic kids, when do you plan to issue an apology to all the children you and your colleagues needlessly scoped?

When do you plan to issue an apology to all the parents who believed you and who subject their children to outlandish autism ‘treatments’ that have resulted in both death and hospitalisation?

When do you plan to offer an apology to all the people who are now living in a UK where herd immunity teeters on a knife edge and the numbers of people hospitalised by measles grows every year?

You have been proven scientifically wrong ‘Dr’ Wakefield. Are you also without morals too?

I urge you to go an leave yours too and pass on the link to people you know:

Go here and click the link at the top of the page.

The Myth of Recovery

1 Sep

Back in August of last year I wrote a blog entry about the Generation Rescue ‘recovery’ stories and how true recovery actually accounted for 5% of the stories on their website which I upgraded in May of this year when they redesigned their website. Their true recovery figure now stands at 7%. I even recounted how I sent my own daughters details to them under an assumed name using the exact truth about her state and condition which they duly published.

I was interested to come across some more fascinating dialogue between members of the Yahoo ABMD group – a group which believe mercury caused their kids autism and Biomed can help them. This is one of the oldest and most well regarded (amongst the mercury militia anyway) Yahoo groups.

The conversation began thusly:

From: Eva family
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:29 AM

the other thing that troubles me about all the “autism doctors” is that
no one seems to do any studies based on their patients. Some doctors
must have dozens of patients but there seems to be no published work
correlating their levels of minerals, reactions to diets, success of
treatments

…………

But in general J McC, Yasko etc, Buttar, the zeolite-people earn lots of
money and publish nothing except opinions………..followed by
anecdotal acclaim from those for whom they work and silent despair from
those for whom they don’t.

Being an experienced reader of the material on these groups, I silently commiserated with this poster as I waited for the inevitable flame fest. But it never happened. Here are some of th responses this post received from other ABMD members:

From: Laura K. Fischer
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 4:34 PM

Sally, this has always been a concern of mine also, I honestly don’t know whether some of these alternative doctors have any better of a percentage record in improvements then say some of the better mainstream neurologists prescribing meds or even in comparison to kids who only do therapy and educational intervention. Although I recognize that part of my skepticism probably stems from the fact that most of the kids I personally know who have done a lot of biomedical treatment (those in my local community) don’t seem to have improved any more rapidly than those who did not, there are a couple who are even worse off. There is no clear advantage that I have witnessed with my own eyes and it may be that it is because there is a tendency for many of these families to have used a couple of the same DAN doctors in this region, I recognize that this could be a contributor. But I do share your concern with this….Laura

From: Lawrence G. Leichtman, MD
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:40 PM

I have followed about 100 children with autism doing biomed. I have never seen a single “recovered” child if by recovered you mean normal though 8 of
the children were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors. I have wseen about 10-15% improved kids, some slightly and 10% of kids who were
actually worse from biomed. Of my patients using Yasko prescribed treatment alone I have seen 0 improvment out of 12 patients. I still don’t know what
works or why and this is after 10 years of doing this.

The response from Leichtman is a bombshell. If you do not recall the name, he is the doctor who was quoted in Dan Olmsted’s Age of Autism pieces as treating Amish kids (who never have autism – heh). According to his (anecdotal) opinion he has never seen a recovered child out of the 100 he has seen who have been doing biomed, even amongst those whose DAN! claimed they were recovered. Fascinating.

From: Gina Mouser
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 7:45 PM

We were seeing a very famous DAN dr. who told us that of all the 5000 plus
patients that the DAN doctor was treating, my son was the ONLY one that is
not improving.

Go figure..

Gina

This shed’s some light on the way DAN! quacks falsely inflate their patients parents with hope or a ‘convincing’ explanation. Except, judging by the tone of this email, this mum isn’t convinced.

One of the responders went on to question why Dr Leichtman was a member of the ABMD board if he didn’t believe in biomed. He reiterated his position and confirmed his belief that DAN! docs either lie or are mistaken:

I have seen positive results 10 to 15 percent is still better than 0. I just don’t believe in the total recovery claims as several of my patients were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors but they weren’t.

The original poster chimed back in later….

In the UK in education we have something called “value added” — this is the amount that a school has done for a child over and above what might have been expected by simple development. I would like to autistic children measured and placed at a point on a graph as they come into a
doctor (this is already done as I understand it) and then measured again after set periods. Over time that would set baselines and it would be
possible to see which doctors/treatments were giving “value added”.

I don’t understand why no one is doing this. Surely anyone genuinely “recovering” children would be all over us with data, analysis etc — so
that their achievements could be recognised, replicated and they (the doctor) could receive universal praise.

Quite. A point some of us have been making for quite some time.

Then of course, someone finally did play the PharmaShill card at Dr leichtman:

From: Marisha Taylor
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:12 PM

I think the “confusion” is coming from you trying to turn the outcome of the study to what “you” want it to be. You & the pharmaceutical
guys would get along great -how much are they paying you on the side? Thank God you are having problems getting it published – there is no
more space for flawed studies.

The most fascinating thing about this post was the speed and weight of the responses telling her to shut up. Not what I would be expecting at all.

As part of the responses Dr Leichtman dropped his second bombshell:

I don’t even understand what you are asking. Neurotypical is average for a child their age not with sensory issues, not with hyperactivity, not with behavioral disorders. I do not include those that I really don’t believe nor does my neurodevelopmentalist believe has autism despite coming in with that diagnosis. *I see plenty of children who come in with the diagnosis who don’t have it in the first place* so improvement or not may not be valid for their issues.

This was unbelievable stuff. Straight ‘from the horses mouth’ was the seconding of the opinions that a lot of us had held for years. That some ‘recovered’ kids were never really truly autistic to begin with. I would love to know if Leichtman ever saw the Berle’s.

Anyway, as I mentioned, when Leichtman was accused of being a Big Pharma shill, the entire group sprang to his defense, including Holly Bortfield, a well known mercury mom.

From: Holly Bortfeld
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Cc: *******@aol.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:24 PM

Wow, time to back off Marisha. Dr. L is a valued member of this list and you are out of line.

Bortfeld is a fascinating case. Later on in this discussion she says:

I know people who did only a few things and their kid is recovered and I know people who did EVERYTHING and their kid is still severe. While I do know some, they are very few in comparison, kids that are recovered. That sucks.

…………

I am thrilled for them, but my kid isn’t one of them (recovered) despite having the best of the DAN docs, virtually unlimited therapies and the “best” of everything, regardless of money, he’s still screwed up at 12 years old.

‘Screwed up’? Nice. This post was in response to the owner of the ABMD group’s post when she said:

I believe (and I’ am very cynical at this point) that most stories of “recovery” are the result of a misdiagnosis, or a mispresentation of
the facts for some financial gain.

Wow. Just….wow. These are incredible things for a ‘mercury militia’ group to be saying. If you only heard Gen Rescue etc you’d believe Brad’s oft-repeated claim of thousands of recovered kids. Its amazing to know that people of the same essential belief differ so wildly.

But back to Bortfeld’s screwed up non-recovered son. Her stance is peculiar given that, back in 2001, she was part of a discussion on the ABMD list during which she said:

Each time we deal with one of his medical problems, the features that gave him the autism label reduce. So in my mind, if we heal enough of his body, the autism dx won’t apply anymore. He went from severe (62 on the CARS) to mild (29 on the CARS) with diet and secretin. The last CARS they ran on him was a 22 so that technically doesn’t even qualify him for the autism label anymore (CARS is from 30-60) but I keep the label for services.

So which is true? That her son is ‘still screwed up’ and isn’t recovered? Or, back in 2001, that he doesn’t qualify for the autism label anymore? Interesting confirmation that Rescue Angels falsely hang on to diagnosis just to receive services as well.

I talked recently about denial. Is this discussion evidence of the rift in the mercury militia between those who have moved past most of their denial and those who can’t? Is it evidence that DAN! doctors know exactly how to play on the hopes and fears of these parents? I think so.

Kev Tumblr

30 Aug

I’ve signed up for a new service which is a bit like a multi-media linkblog. If you’re interested it has an RSS feed of my entries. Bear in mind though it may get pretty random on occassions.

Rescue Post Retracts

29 Aug

The Rescue Post has seen sense and retracted its post that destroyed the confidentiality of children, so – as per my promise in my post – I’ve retracted my post which highlighted their irresponsible actions.

Starting Something

26 Aug

Sometimes, you start something and it captures part of a mood/vogue and whilst zeitgeist might be too strong a word, there is an obvious and immediate resonance with people. I’ve been lucky enough to be a part of two such things. One was the Autism Hub. The other was a simple video of Meg I shot on a chilly spring day in 2006 and posted a few weeks later with a song by Christina Aguilera as its sound track.

The song ‘Beautiful’ was specifically chosen because I believe that my daughter is beautiful. I also believe that that fact that she is autistic helps contribute to that beauty. It was also meant as an ‘answer’ to those who wish to destroy any positive feeling my daughter might have about herself as an autistic child. She is beautiful in every single way.

Since I posted it, it has brought me into contact with a large number of parents and siblings as well as autistic people who believe, as I do, that its actually OK that our kids are autistic. Its not great and its not bad. Its just OK. Not in the sense of ‘rating’ a persons properties but in the sense that autism is part of who she is, like dark hair, blue eyes, big smile, chubby cheeks and a penchant for terrible boy bands. None of these things are great either. They just are. I wouldn’t love her less or more if she were blonde, brown eyed, sallow cheeked and have a penchant for Machine Head. Autism is part of the mix that makes Megan Megan.

I want to post some of the (over three hundred) comments that are on the YouTube page for the video. I want to do that to show to you that there are plenty of glass-half-full people out there. But first, the video itself.

1) This one made me cry, too, out of total joy. These videos make me so emotional because there is nothing else out there like this. All we see, every day, is things like Autism Every Day. So to finally see the joy, the love, the affirmation…it’s very overwhelming. Thanks.

2) love everywhere!

3) My son has Autism and I agree with your statement…beautiful! I am tired of the doom and gloom out look so many people have.

4) just beautiful. my sister loves to jump as well and she is 7

5) i just wanted to say that i love your video…my son loves to bounce/jump and this touches my heart…

6) This video image stayed with me for days.. I had to come back to it. Thanks! I havea 4 year old with autism. Sometimes it helps just to see the beauty in things

7) This is a great video, my son is 14 and he has autism and I show him the video and He will love to have one to jump. Thanks for sharing this moment of joy.

8) She is such a cutie! We have a 14 year old son with autism. He struggles so much to fit into our world. Our trampoline is his sancuary … he can jump for hours … the joy in his face like your little girl … I can look at him for hours. Thanks for posting this picture of autism.

9) Love is a beautiful thing and I know your daughter must feel filled with love especially when she see’s this beautiful tribute to her!
Stacey (a daddy’s girl too!)

10) She is so stunning 🙂 My daughter is 3 with mod-sev classic autism her name is Sharlet and we adore her. Megan is just so pretty!

11) Beautiful job, Mom. Megan is beautiful! Her eyes are stunning! The truth is..she knows the “truth” more than most us. She is helping out the universe. Thank you! Your video opened up my Heart! Keep em coming!

12) Beautiful video! I’ve noticed that the most successful people are the ones whose parents instilled confidence in them from the earliest age. It’s obvious that Megan is very loved and appreciated.

13) What a beautiful daughter you have. How wonderful it must be to get completely lost in simple things, like bouncing on a trampoline. People with autism don’t live in a world of their own, they just experience and interpret the world in a different way to us.

14) She’s beautiful and precious. Enjoy every minute.

15) I am a high functioning autistic and have a little brother who is also autistic.
You have a gift in her, What most see as a disorder can one day be a blessing.

16) Truly beautiful. I absolutely love when parents accept Autism not as a tragic disorder, but as a simple difference in thought processes that makes a beautiful creation. The only loss remorseful parents face is what COULD have been a “flawless” child, but we all need to realize children like yours aren’t flawed. There splendidly and wonderfully perfect.

17) Beautiful-Christina Aguilera-From the “Stripped” album. I love this video, the song is perfect, she really is. My cousin and another cousins son both have autism. They are amazing kids.

18) She is precious. And I’m so happy that you see her as the beautifuk, positive, amazing child that she absolutely must be. Thank you for posting this video.

19) Autism is beautiful,they notice things we take for granted everyday.

20) I dont see a girl with autism. All I see is a beautiful little girl doing what kids do best, and thats having fun.

21) I am a teacher who works with children with autism. I love what I do and I love my students. Your video made me cry. Thank you for sharing this special video!

22) PRICELESS! BEAUTIFUL video on a lifelong condition, true angels amongst us. Blessings.

23) she has the most BEAUTIFUL eyes
you are really lucky to have such a wonderful and charming daughter *my favourite comment, we are lucky for ALL our kids*

24) you guys have a beautiful little girl. she is a blessing

25) that gave me goosebumps that was beautiful i can really feel the love xx congratulations on your blessing

26) I love this 🙂 My sons autistic, and its a very interesting world when you lookat it through the eyes of an autistic child

27) This brought me to tears.
What a wonder this world is.

28) *Meg’s celeb signing*:
To live is to bubble
Meg, you’ve clinched it.
Bounce on you fab little star.

Donna Williams

29) This is beautiful, she has the most precious face. Thanks for pointing out the beauty of these children.

30) Either you get it or you don’t…as for me, tears of joy to you KevLeitch. Getting chills from watching this vid….

31) I loved the video. The look in her eyes in the end of the video reminded me of our son Cooper who also has autism.

32) She is very beautiful, and with lovely blue eyes. I bet she will develop an special ability. Good luck!

33) Your daughter is beautiful…her eyes are breath taking.
I loved your message, No tragedy, no train wrecks, no loss…

34) Thank you for sharing it was great. I hope videos like this can help people see how special this kids are.

35) amazin video very powerfull. i work with autistic children they are amazin people.

36) What a beautiful clip, a rarity on Youtube, and very moving. You must be so proud to have her as your daughter.

37) my little brother is autistic, and he is beautiful too. A lovely video, thanks for sharing it

38) these children are the reason why i get up and go to work every single day for the last 4 years…they are all a truly a gift from god …no matter what part of the spectrum they are on…i love them all

39) hi i can relate to the video my grandson is 9 and so beautiful as well,oliver is in his own world most of the time,does not have much speech but my heart swells with pride at the smallest achievment,you see to oliver he has amountain to climb every step of the way,he is loved and cherished by us all.He has taught us so much.god bless the wonderful children your video spoke volumes thankyou

40) How old is she? Like 9? And she loves to jump on the trampoline and has autism? You do have a beautiful daughter. I’m 21 years old and I have autism as well.

41) Awesome, this is exactly how I feel about my two Autistic sons. They are awesome boys and I am very proud of their achievements.

42) this was beautiful. there’s nothing wring with autism it’s bueatiful. and u voiced that in this video really well.

43) thnx for being allowed to watch. that was beautiful. i’ll show it to my little boy. he’s diagnosed AS and loves the trampoline too

44) god bless you, those of us given a child with autism, my son is 13, are given a wonderful gift its an honour to have them

45) I have 2 sons with autism. I challenge ANYONE to watch this fantastic video and not get a tear in their eye- or lump in their throat. This is fantastic. Your daughter is BEAUTIFUL; and so are my boys.

46) That brought me to tears. Great song choice. My daughter is so sweet & funny (ASD) and going to Kindergarten this year

47) You have a wonderful daughter. My son is autistic and cannot speak. Enjoy every moment you have with her.

48) I am an autistic adult. It’s a truly beautiful thing to see a video that does not portray autism as an apocalyptic thing. I applaud you. I cried while watching this video. All the best for you and your daughter.

49) thank you so much for sharing this with us. this is probably one of the few videos I have seen that reflects autism in a more positive light. to many people in this world treat it as an awful epidemic but if there is one thing I have learned from growing up with not one but three autistic brothers it is that autism can be more of a blessing than a curse.

50) Thanks for the video. I have an autistic son … and treasuring the positive things about autism is what makes our lives enjoyable. It’s nice to just slow things down and just be … in stead of always trying to “do”.

Lots of people ‘get it’. Nice to know eh?

Acceptance not denial

22 Aug

Acceptance. It is a word that some use to describe their relationship with the reality of their children, or their own, autism. We accept the fact our daughter is autistic.

For people who claim to ‘fight autism’ this acceptance is a weak passivity. An act of giving in.

This, of course, is rubbish. Those who have accepted the reality of their own or their children’s autism know that the work starts right there. We do not attempt to carry on deluding ourselves and using quack treatments such as chelation etc as shields against the reality of who our kids really are.

Parents like Brad Handley of Generation Rescue claim at one point in time that:

“autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning…..The whole notion of autism is mythical. It didn’t exist before thimerosal in vaccines”

Source

and then later say:

The argument is being spun by focusing exclusively on a single ingredient used in vaccines, Thimerosal (which is made from mercury), while forgetting to mention a number of key points about the differences between the vaccine schedule of 20 years ago and today….Thimerosal is only one of the possible ways that the vaccine schedule could be the primary trigger behind the autism epidemic…

Source

are simply in denial. When their first belief is established to be untrue, they simply move on to another belief.

From the videos I posted a link to above, Brad is asked:

Q: This therapy (chelation) is it something he (Jamie) will be on the rest of his life?

Brad’s answer is:

A: Absolutely not. Its at maximum a two year process. Probably less.

As of next month, Jamie Handley will have been undergoing various treatments for three years. His story is not, as far as I can tell, listed anywhere as a ‘recovery’ story. He is still autistic.

Brad has made no effort to go back onto TV and explain this inconsistency. This is because he cannot. It is not explainable. I will be honest. Brad and I regularly exchange verbal barbs but I often feel sorry for the Handley’s. Because of their inability to accept the reality of their sons autism they have been unable to move on. They have instead – as I think is the case with a lot of the autism/vaccine parents – sublimated their failure to ‘cure/recover’ their kids in a proxy-fight with the ND’s, the CDC, the FDA – whatever.

I read a lot of blogs from the likes of Wade, Ginger, Kim Stagliano etc and whilst I often read about their anger and I often read about their love for their kids, I never ever read about them being happy. Do they love their kids? Of course they do. Do they enjoy their time with their autistic kids? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

There is a curious emphasis in a lot of these blog posts. Take Kim Stagliano’s most infamous blog entry – The Crappy Life of the Autism Mom – in which she says:

Recovering your kids doesn’t mean denying their value as people. To the contrary, it means we are willing to devote our lives, our savings, our sanity to their improved health, development and well being.

The jarring difference between stating that she is not denying their value and describing her life as their mum as crappy never occurs to her. It is also sad beyond belief that Stagliano feels that the measure of a persons value is the suffering of their parents.

Of course, the truth is that any decent parent will devote their lives, savings and sanity to their kids well being. That is not a situation that is the sole province of autism or even disability. Just parenting. However, I think that as well as lives, money and sanity, a parent should also invest respect and reality. Sublimating a continued tilting at the windmill of your child’s condition into an increasingly dirty and violent fight against a giant conspiracy is sad. Not sad in a sneering way but genuinely sad. It must be so miserable to be simply unable to accept the reality of the nature of your child.

This inability manifests itself in some strange ways. There have been a spate of articles fairly recently which examine the possibility that older parents are more likely to have autistic kids, or that autism might be due to a ‘corrupted’ (in the medical sense) gene. The outbursts these research papers have generated on EoH are amazing:

You forgot to mention that we’re damn old TESTOSTERONE-laden refrigerator mutant moms……………Here’s more from Autism Speaks funded research. So now the theory is it’s you damn old moms with your refrigerator mutant genes that causes autism. You are such horrible people. Tsk-tsk. Clearly, you aren’t feeling guilty enough, no matter how misplaced.

Any hypothesis which mentions or refers to parents is given equally short shrift. It doesn’t take much to work out why. Even when there is no hint of ‘blame’ (as in dear old Bettlehiem) to parents, any intimation that the genetic/physical make up of parents might have something to do with causes is pounced on and denounced in increasingly hysterical overtones.

Personally I don’t see the issue. Does it matter? No, not to me. But it seems to these parents that the idea that they might carry some responsibility for the fact their kids are autistic fills them with an utter horror. Even to the point that they have to delude themselves.

Take the cases of Erik Nanstiel’s daughter and John Best’s son. Here are two fathers who regularly sing the praises of their children’s doctors (the Geier’s and Andy Cutler respectively) and yet…

When we look back at everything we pay out of pocket… and for everything we pay as a co-pay… it’s several THOUSAND a year.

Why are we still doing biomed after six long years? Because we’ve seen our daughter go from failing-to-thrive to a pretty healthy kid. From a kid who couldn’t balance her copper and zinc… who had lead and mercury through the roof, with very little glutathione… who had constant diarrhea and wouldn’t sleep at night… and terrible eyesight…

to a kid with darn-near normal mineral levels, whose heavy metals have been more than half depleted, is thriving on a good nutritional program… and whose glutathione levels are now higher than daddy’s… is sleeping wonderfully through the night and has seen a 60% improvement in her eyeglass prescription.

She’s also nearly lost her tactile-defensiveness, loves attention (much more than before), stims a LOT less… is beginning to potty train and needs less “prompting” from us for life skills that she’s learning (like using silverware at meal time and dressing/undressing, etc.)

She is still considered low-functioning…

Like Brad and I, Erik and I have also had our fair share of verbal jousts but when I read this I want to weep. How can a man who so obviously adores his daughter fail to see that which is right in front of his face? They’ve been doing biomed for six years and his daughter is still low functioning (Erik’s words). The improvements he describes have little to no bearing on autism.

I waste no pity on John Best but once again, his denial is as plain as the autistic son in front of him:

I’ve done 55 rounds of chelation safely following the advice of Andy Cutler. My son keeps improving. I advise everyone that contacts me through GR to read what Cutler has to say and consider his protocol over what some DAN doc’s say. He has answered all of my questions at no cost and this chelation for a severely autistic child is working.

Whereas today, John made a post on EoH that stated:

In the time it took me to type my last reply, my son smeared feces all over himself and his room again. I’ve long since lost track of how many hundreds of times this has happened.

By the standards of Kim Stagliano – smearing (A Crappy Life remember) equals not cured. How exactly is the chelation working for John’s son? Or is it merely a panacea for the denial that ails his dad?

Is the Huffington Post starting to ‘get it’?

18 Aug

First we have Arthur Allen as a regular blogger and now Ralph James Savarese. Maybe we might one day have (gasp!) an autistic blogger writing about autism. Until we do, this is a step in the right direction.

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