Amy Wallace gives “lessons from the field” to health journalists

7 Sep

In a recent article on the University of Southern California’s site Reporting on Health, Amy Wallace gives lessons learned in her activities covering the vaccine/autism discussion. The site, part of the Annenberg School for Communication, hosts her piece, Covering Vaccines.

Amy Wallace wrote a piece for Wired Magazine last year, An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All. As you might imagine, this piece was not well accepted by parts of the autism, nor the self-styled “vaccine safety” communities. Ms. Wallace first had to endure the negative responses of those communities online, with emails such as an essay Paul Offit Rapes (intellectually) Amy Wallace and Wired Magazine as well as blog posts depicting her sitting down to a thanksgiving feast consisting of roast human baby.

She, her publisher and Dr. Paul Offit were also subjected to a lawsuit by Barbara Fisher of the self-named “National Vaccine Informational Center” over a statement by Dr. Offit quoted in the piece:

Paul Offit has a slightly nasal voice and a forceful delivery that conspire to make him sound remarkably like Hawkeye Pierce, the cantankerous doctor played by Alan Alda on the TV series M*A*S*H. As a young man, Offit was a big fan of the show (though he felt then, and does now, that Hawkeye was “much cooler than me”). Offit is quick-witted, funny, and — despite a generally mild-mannered mien — sometimes so assertive as to seem brash. “Scientists, bound only by reason, are society’s true anarchists,” he has written — and he clearly sees himself as one. “Kaflooey theories” make him crazy, especially if they catch on. Fisher, who has long been the media’s go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call “parents’ rights,” makes him particularly nuts, as in “You just want to scream.” The reason? “She lies,” he says flatly.

“Barbara Loe Fisher inflames people against me. And wrongly. I’m in this for the same reason she is. I care about kids. Does she think Merck is paying me to speak about vaccines? Is that the logic?” he asks, exasperated. (Merck is doing no such thing). But when it comes to mandating vaccinations, Offit says, Fisher is right about him: He is an adamant supporter.

The phrase “she lies” was singled out in the lawsuit, which was dismissed on its merits.

The article brings the story to health journalists, who are being educated in the manner in which some groups use in response to articles with which they disagree. Such responses as those levied against Ms. Wallace do not further the needs of disabled children or adults, in this readers opinion.

A busy week in vaccine-injury news: the Cedillo appeal

4 Sep

The past week has had three somewhat major news events in the world of vaccine injury: the denial of the Cedillo appeal, the award of damages in the UK for an MMR case and the damages award in the Hannah Poling case. I thought I would write about them all, but the Cedillo appeal part is already long so I will leave the other subjects for another time.

The Cedillo Appeal

Kev blogged the denial as Cedillo appeal denied. I had blogged the hearing in June as Another appeal heard in the Autism Omnibus, then blogged the actual audio from the hearing as Audio of the Cedillo appeal part 1 and Audio of the Cedillo appeal part 2.

The arugument used in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding for MMR causing autism is basically the model that grew out of the work of Andrew Wakefield: that measles virus (MV) from vaccines persisted in the body, particularly in the digestive tract. Wakefield’s theory involved the MV infection causing intestinal permeability which allowed substances to “leak” out into the system (the “leaky gut” hypothesis). The Cedllio’s attorneys argued that the measles virus itself traveled to the brain, causing inflammation and autism.

This is not the first appeal for the Cedillo family, or for the test cases in the Omnibus. It is likely the last, however. The next step would be the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court would be unlikely to hear an appeal. The Supreme Court does not hear all the cases submitted, instead choosing to hear mostly cases which clarify points of law. The Cedillo appeal so far has not been about the laws for the most part but about the procedure of the case. One exception is the question of whether the correct standard was applied to reviewing the admissibility of the evidence. The Court used the Daubert standard, which the Cedillo’s attorneys argued was incorrect. This is not the first time the Court used Daubert, and it is not the first time the appeals court upheld it.

The other arguments made include whether the testimony and reports of Dr. Stephen Bustin should have been allowed. Dr. Bustin’s reports were obtained very shortly before the hearing and were based on closed documents from a U.K. proceeding on MMR and autism. The Cedillo’s attorneys argued that they were unable to prepare a counter argument to Dr. Bustin on short notice and that since they did not have access to the underlying data and documents. In a civil court, these arguments would have carried much weight. However, in the vaccine court, much flexibility is allowed. In this case, the Special Master allowed the evidence to be heard, and gave the Cedillo’s attorneys over a year to obtain the background data from the UK and mount a counter argument.

The Cedillo’s attorneys did not attempt to obtain the background data for the Bustin testimony in year that followed the hearing. Yes, it isn’t that they were unsuccessful, they didn’t try to obtain it. They stated that their consultants in the UK advised them that it was unlikely that they would be able to obtain the documents without the permission of the experts. However, Dr. Bustin gave his permission.

From the appeals court decision:

Petitioners considered making such a re-quest from the UK court, but never did so. They contend that British counsel informed them that it was unlikely that the UK court would permit disclosure of the expert reports without the consent of the experts, which peti-tioners stated that they could not obtain. But Dr. Bustin did consent to the release of his reports. Once his consent for the release of his reports had been obtained by the government, there is no reason why the data underlying his reports could not also have been requested

Dr. Bustin’s testimony focused on a critical part of the argument used to claim that MMR causes autism: the claimed presence of measles virus in the bodies of autistics like Miss Cedillo. Dr. Bustin is arguably the worlds top expert on PCR, the method used by the Unigenetics Laboratory to test tissue samples for measles virus. Dr. Bustin discussed at length multiple reasons why the Unigenetics Laboratory results were not reliable.

A few points to be made here.

(1) The Cedillo’s attorneys presented an expert (Dr. Kennedy) to claim that the Unigenetics laboratory was reliable. Dr. Kennedy also had worked on the UK litigation and Dr. Kennedy’s underlying data were also under seal in that litigation. In other words, the Cedillo’s attorney’s were asking that the Special Master apply one standard to the government’s witness (rejecting his report without the underlying data) while applying the exact opposite standard to their own witness (Dr. Kennedy, who also didn’t have the underlying data).

(2) Michelle Cedillo was one of three “test cases” used to test the question of “general causation”. The other two children used as test cases did not have evidence of persistent measles virus in their bodies.

There is only one paper with reliable data showing the presence of measles virus in the tissues of an autistic child. This paper came out after the Cedillo hearing. The paper: Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study. In that study they found measles virus in one autistic child, and in one non-autistic “control”. The Cedillo’s attorney’s argued that this was “significant new evidence” that showed the reliability of the Unigenetics laboratory.

I found it very odd that a paper titled “Lack of association between Mealses Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy” would be used as evidence for an association between measles virus vaccine and autism. But the argument is that this paper validates the Unigenetics laboratory as being able to produce reliable results. The argument is not valid, and the court did not agree with it. The work done by Unigenetics on Miss Cedillo was performed in 2002. The research on the paper was performed much later, after significant criticism was already levied against Unigenetics. Quite simply put, it is possible that Unigenetics “cleaned up its act” by the time of the recent paper.

(3) It was noted that the arguments about Dr. Bustin’s testimony were essentially moot, as the Special Master would have come to the same decision without his testimony.

(4) It was also noted that the appeals court had already decided on Dr. Bustin’s testimony in an appeal mounted by the attorneys for the Hazelhurst family (another of the Omnibus test cases).

The Cedillo’s attorneys further argued that it was unfair that evidence was brought in from the other “test case” hearings (Hazelhurst and Snyder). The appeals ruling noted that the Cedillo hearing was not a stand-alone proceeding. As a test case in an Omnibus Proceeding, evidence from all the test cases would be used to answer the question of general causation. I was surprised at the time of the appeal that the Cedillo’s attorneys were arguing that they were not actively monitoring the other test case hearings. What, in the end, is the point of an Omnibus Proceeding or a “petitioners steering committee” of the petitioners are not acting in some way as a group?

The Cedillo’s attorneys argued that the Special Master did not give enough weight to Miss Cedillo’s doctor, Dr. Krigsman, who stated that her condition was caused by MMR. The fact is that the Special Master rejected Dr. Krigsman’s argument with good cause:

He [the special master] also concluded that Dr. Krigsman’s opinion should be rejected because 1) he relied on the discredited Unigenetics testing in forming his opinion, 2) he misunderstood Michelle’s medical history and his testimony was inconsistent with her medical records, and 3) his conclusion that Michelle suffered from chronic gastrointestinal inflammation was substantially out-weighed by Michelle’s medical records and the testimony of the government’s experts.

The Cedillo’s attorneys argued that sufficient weight was not given to Miss Cedillo’s other physicians whom, they assert, associated her condition with the MMR vaccine:

Petitioners cited nine notations in Michelle’s records from eight individuals, including four physicians who treated Michelle and four non-physicians who exam-ined Michelle, in which the treating physicians mentioned her vaccinations, as support for the proposition that these individuals concluded that her autism was caused by her MMR vaccine.

The appeals court disagreed:

The Special Master did not err in failing to afford sig-nificant weight to the opinions of Michelle’s treating physicians. As the Special Master observed in his deci-sion, in seven of the nine notations, the physician was simply indicating an awareness of a temporal, not causal, relationship between the fever Michelle experienced after her MMR vaccine and the emergence of her autistic symptoms sometime thereafter. Initial Decision, slip op. at 100. In one of the other notations, the physician sim-ply noted that an exemption for Michelle from vaccination requirements could be arranged. In the other notation, the physician speculated that Michelle’s fevers might have caused her neurological abnormalities. However, he expressly stated that it would be “difficult to say” whether this was “a post-immunization phenomenon, or a separate occurrence.” Id. at 100. Thus, “none of the treating physicians concluded that the MMR vaccine caused Michelle’s autism.” Final Decision, 89 Fed. Cl. at 176. The Special Master

In the end, the appeals court decision takes on the arguments by the Cedillo’s attorneys point by point and refutes them. The closest the Cedillo’s attorneys got to making a point stick was in the case of Dr. Bustin’s testimony, which the appeals court stated:

We agree with petitioners that the government’s fail-ure to produce or even to request the documentation underlying Dr. Bustin’s reports is troubling, but we think that in the circumstances of this case, that failure does not justify reversal.

The fact of the matter is, the petitioners in general, and the Cedillo’s in specific, did not have a good case for MMR causing autism. The mechanism they proposed was not sound, the data they had was poor and incomplete and the experts speaking for the government were excellent and refuted the petitioner’s arguments. The Omnibus cases were, as the Special Masters noted, not close.

Damages awarded in the Poling case?

3 Sep

A document has recently been posted the Court of Federal Claims website, describing an award in a vaccine injury case. The document is redacted, but the following paragraph indicates to me that this involves the case of Hannah Poling:

Respondent has conceded that petitioners are entitled to compensation due to the significant aggravation of Child’s pre-existing mitochondrial disorder based on an MMR vaccine Table presumptive injury of encephalopathy, which eventually manifested as a chronic encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder and a complex partial seizure disorder as a sequela.

The amount involves 4 parts: (1) a payment of about US$1.5M for life care, future earnings and pain-and-suffering, (2) a lump sum payment of about US$140,000 for past unreimbursable expenses, (3) a lump sum payment of about $7,800 to cover a medicaid lien and (4) an undisclosed amount to purchase an annuity to cover items in the life care plan.

The award amount seems larger than typical to me. I don’t put this out as a criticism. Rather the opposite. If we as a people are going to compensate those injured by vaccines, as we should, we should compensate highly. We can not fully compensate a person or a family for injury. For example, the cap on pain and suffering damages has not been increased in the roughly 25 years that the vaccine program has been in place.

It is not easy to write this piece, and I hesitate to publish it. Assuming this document refers to the Poling family, they chose to redact information.

I will end with this statement from the Special Master who wrote the decision:

Based on the persuasive factors supporting petitioner’s vaccine claim and respondent’s election not to challenge petitioner’s claim, the undersigned finds that petitioner is entitled to compensation under the Vaccine Program. Accordingly, a determination of damages is appropriate.

A reminder for neurodiversity

2 Sep

Its been awhile since I blogged about neurodiversity and why it matters to me as a concept. Two recent events in my own life has made me more aware of that than usual.

In the first event, which concerns me directly, I have had to have a change in the medication I take that helps me regulate the manic depression (bipolar) I am diagnosed with. Nobody knows why I need to adjust my medication, only that it needs adjusting and so I shall shortly have Lamotrigine added to the medication regime I have to take.

How does that remind me about neurodiversity? It reminds me that the basic tenets of neurodiversity – respect for the individual differences those with different neurological makeups have – are my best way of being able to move forward in this world. More on this later.

In the second event, which occurred to some of my new family two days ago, myself, my partner and her two daughters – of whom the eldest (she is 4) is autistic – were shopping. Lily began to have a meltdown, a not unknown event in supermarkets for her and one for which we have a carefully worked out strategy. However, this time our strategy was rudely interrupted when a young woman began to shake her head, gawp openly at Lily and make tutting noises. She obviously felt Lily was a naughty child, rather than an autie child.

My partner and I decided that we had had enough of people judging Lily and so remonstrated with this woman. We both explained that Lily was autistic and unable at the age of four to regulate herself in high impact environments but we had to eat and anyway why should we exclude Lily from coming out with us as a family?

The woman waved her hand at us both in a casual dismissal and said we weren’t ‘controlling’ her properly. I smiled through gritted teeth and asked her what she knew about autism. She refused to answer. I asked her again and she walked off with another casual wave of dismissal. My partner’s by now angry shout of ‘shes autistic and a little girl, she can’t help herself’ following her down the aisle.

Of course, this isn’t the first time either one of us have been exposed to such ignorance and I doubt it will be the last. I’m also sure that many parents and autistic people reading this will be familiar with ‘the look’ that can come from such ignorant people who believe they have a divine right to judge others. But it again reminded me of neurodiversity and why I believe in its most basic tenet.

My partner said to me later that what had upset her so much was that Lily (and you can substitute her name for your own or your child’s) would be – to a certain degree either a lot or some – be dependant on the good will of society as she grew up.

People like the woman in Sainsburys are the ‘anti-neurodiversity’. They believe we can and should judge immediately, based on no other evidence than what we see and hear right in front of us. To me, neurodiversity should sit and think, consider the possibilities and act accordingly, based on a desire to help society in the belief that society should do the same for us.

By specifying a desire to include those with differing neurological disorders/disabilities/differences, neurodiversity helps me to feel secure in the world. It also means that I can feel secure in the world my children will inherit.

MMR vaccine damaged man

30 Aug

Jackie Fletcher is well known to many – she routinely insists the MMR jab is dangerous despite reams of evidence to the contrary. However, a panel in the UK has found that her son, Robert, was damaged by the MMR vaccine he was administered.

I nearly didn’t blog about this. Why? Well, this blogs predominant focus is autism and Robert did not and does not have autism. The panel in this case found that the MMR caused seizures and mental retardation. Its difficult therefore to get a ‘hook’ into this story. As Mike Fitzpatrick is quoted as saying in the Daily Mail:

It is a very important principle that parents should be compensated in cases of this kind…

and he’s absolutely right. Thats why the Vaccine Damage Payment Unit exists in the UK.

Like any other form of medical procedure, vaccines are not 100% safe. I can’t recall anyone anywhere ever making that claim. What they _are_ however, is very safe indeed. Robert Fletcher was injured and has been compensated. I might even agree with his mum that the amount is ‘derisory’. Robert will need full time care all of his life and £90,000 ($140,000) is nowhere near enough. However, campaigners uninterested in Robert’s day to day needs say that:

Campaigner Polly Tommey, who edits the magazine The Autism File and believes her son Billy is autistic because of MMR, says: ‘This is fantastic news. Now doctors can’t tell me that the MMR is safe.

‘This payout is evidence that it is not safe. It’s interesting that they will look at epilepsy and not autism, and you have to ask why.

‘Is it because the compensation would be billions?’

I very much doubt that any doctor, anywhere has ever told any recipient anywhere that any vaccine is 100% safe. If they did, they were liars.

However, this payment, far from being ‘evidence that it is not safe’ (a bizarre claim) is more like a recognition that the Vaccine Damage Payment system is working as it should. A man was vaccine damaged and was compensated as a result.

As for the claim that ‘they’ will not look at autism, this is simply incorrect. Robert, does not have autism and therefore it would be impossible in this case to look at autism. I would imagine if someone with autism was adjudged to be damaged by their MMR vaccine, Ms Tommey might have a point. As that has not happened, she does not. This kind of fear-mongering by the likes of Tommey is no doubt why the panel made the clear point:

We would stress that this decision is fact-specific and it should not be seen as a precedent for any other case.

In particular, it has no relevance to the issue… as to whether there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

And Fletcher goes on to claim:

Claims for autism are not considered. There are 120 MMR cases waiting to be heard, but none is for autism…

So why should that be? Why is autism apparently ‘excluded’?

Its because the science – both epidemiological and clinical clearly shows that MMR does not cause autism. And that is not the odd paper here and there. We are talking about overwhelming science that shows that the whole autism/MMR connection is simply false and was built up by one man too stupid to admit his clear errors and a mass media keen to build sensation out of this same man’s ego.

Tommey, Fletcher and all others who believe that there’s some kind of conspiracy afoot to block autism from MMR causation cases need to understand the science involved and that unless some new science is forthcoming that establishes MMR as a causative agent in regards to autism then the simple fact of applying for compensation listing the MMR as a cause of their child’s autism is _always_ going to be an immediate strikeout.

Campaigners need to start seeing this event for what it _really_ is – compensation for a vaccine damaged man – and not as what it isn’t – evidence that MMR is inherently unsafe or that theres some mysterious conspiracy to prevent autism from being linked to MMR.

Cedillo appeal denied

27 Aug

In conclusion, we have carefully reviewed the decision of the Special Master and we find that it is rationally supported by the evidence, well-articulated, and reason-able. We therefore affirm the denial of the Cedillos’ petition for compensation.

Nobody should take any pleasure from this decision. If the Cedillo’s happen to read this I would urge them to step away from the quackery. It is doing nobody any good.

More details here.

Quick Q&A with APC study lead author

26 Aug

I recently blogged about a study that linked APC dysfunction with autism and learning disability. Two questions interested me so I wrote to lead author Michele Jacob to ask them.

Hi Dr Jacob,

My name is Kevin Leitch, I own and edit a popular blog on autism and am also father to an autistic daughter.

I found your recent study very interesting and had questions that I’d like to ask you and hopefully you’d give me permission to discuss your answer on the blog?

My questions are –

1) is there any set of circumstance in which APC dysfunction can occur ‘in the wild’ e.g. could a child be given something that then ‘turned’ them into an autistic person by negatively affecting APC function?

2) If there *is* , is there a way that this dysfunction might be reversed or at least modified somewhat?

My own take on this is that the answer to both questions would be ‘no’ but I have no understanding of APC function and a laymans understanding of genes in general.

Many thanks in advance for both your fascinating study and any time you can offer me in answering my questions.

She responded:

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for discussing our work in your blog. I am delighted our work interests you.

I think the short answer to both questions is no. The only way to cause APC dysfunction is via gene mutations. It’s function can be modified, enhanced or reduced, by signaling events in cells, but these changes are not large enough to have effects on behavior.

Loss of function mutations in the APC gene are inherited or occur sporadically. The symptoms associated with the sporadic mutations will depend on the cell type. APC is present in all cells of the body and it has several functions that are critical at different stages of development.

My lab is continuing to define the role of APC in the nervous system. Our goal is to define changes caused by APC dysfunction that lead to learning deficits and autistic-like behaviors.

Hope this information clears up your questions.

My best regards to you and your daughter.

So why did I ask these questions? Well, its been my experience that the antivax crowd leap on any science that seems to have an outcome that is linked to autism, to either trash it or link vaccines to it. I’m hoping Dr Jacob’s answers lead away from the possibility of linking autism to vaccines via APC dysfunction.

Autism and learning disabilities connected to APC protein

25 Aug

‘What the hell does that mean?’ I hear you cry.

OK, so the way I understand it, APC is a protien which plays an important role in helping synapses grow properly. If synapses – which are the bits that transfer data from neuron to neuron – don’t grow properly then data doesn’t get passed properly. This particular protien – APC – is responsible for the synapse function for learning and memory.

In the in vivo study, the team blocked APC function and found that synaptic levels of the cell adhesion proteins neuroligin and neurexin dropped considerably. Without normal levels of these proteins, synapses were less mature both structurally and functionally. Mutations in the genes for neuroligin and neurexin are associated with autism in humans, but until now, little was known about the mechanisms responsible for localizing these proteins at the synapse. “Our laboratory study is the first to show that APC is needed to recruit neuroligin and neurexin to the synapse. This finding provides new insights into the mechanisms required for proper synapse function as well as molecular changes at the synapse that likely contribute to autistic behaviors and learning deficits in people with APC loss of function gene mutations,” said [lead author, Michele H. ] Jacob.

Source. Insert mine.

Right, so – again as I understand it – when the authors blocked APC function, they found that levels of the proteins neuroligin and neurexin dropped. So what…? Well, without these two proteins at normal levels, synapses grew improperly. So what…? Turns out that scientists already know that mutuations in the genes for neuroligin and neurexin are associated with autism. Aha.

Review of the Introduction of Age of Autism – the book.

23 Aug

So begins the Olmsted/Blaxill upcoming book ‘Age of Autism’.

…instead of taking Kanner’s word for it, [we decided] to learn about these previously anonymous families ourselves. We took clues from his extensive case descriptions and started uncovering the identities of the original families. Time and again, we connected the occupations of the parents to plausible toxic exposures and especially to a new mercury compound first used in the 1930s as a disinfectant for seeds, a treatment for lumber, and a preservative in vaccines. Yes, the parents’ professions were clues— but not to their obsessions or their marriages or their parenting or their genetic oddities; instead, they pointed to a strikingly consistent pattern of familial exposures to the same toxic substance.

(emphasis authors, inserts mine)

This is the paragraph that sets the authors hypothesis out. When we look at it carefully, we can see exactly what its purpose is – its purpose is to fit a set of preconceived ideas that revolve around one central disproven hypothesis – that mercury in vaccines (thiomersal/thimerosal) causes autism.

I haven’t yet read the rest of the book but I’m pretty sure what I’m going to find. To talk about that now would just be conjecture however, so lets stick to what we have here.

According to Olmsted and Blaxill, syphilis treatment, hysteria, mental illness and a variety of modern illnesses are all caused by mercury. I’m very much looking forward to reading this section too. Olmsted & Blaxill use Pink disease (a definite form of mercury poisoning which looks nothing like autism to ‘justify’ the inclusion of these illnesses in the Introduction.

Blaxill and Omsted detail how they went on to meet “Donald T.” one of Kanner’s original cases:

By any mea sure, he has fared astonishingly well. President of his college fraternity and later the Forest Kiwanis Club, a pillar of his Presbyterian church, he had a long career at the local bank, plays a competitive game of golf, and regularly travels the world. We learned how “Donald T.” went from being the first unmistakable case of autism to the first unmistakable case of recovery.

So on one hand we have the doom and gloom of Pink disease (a foreshadow of autism according to Blaxill & Olmsted) which killed hundreds and then actual autism which doesn’t seem that bad. I’ll be very interested to see how Blaxill & Olmsted narrate Donald T.’s ‘recovery’…or could it have been that Donald T. was in fact one of the first cases of autism who also either moved ‘off the spectrum’ (as a certain percentage of autistic people do) or…y’know…he simply progressed as he got older. My guess is that Blaxill & Olmsted will reveal that Donald T. had some kind of miraculous exposure to a chelating agent or multi vitamins or some form of extreme biomed. Lets see.

The whole Introduction is about 6,000 words long. I can’t possibly attempt to review the whole thing and I won’t attempt to review the whole book either. These are the sections of the Intro that caught my eye particularly. Maybe others who have access to the Intro will tackle more. One thing you can be sure of, LBRB will be here to catch and expose the errors.

We will support your foundations

23 Aug

I read a terrible, terrifying blog post post yesterday from Kim Stagliano on the Huffington Post. In it she describes how her daughter has suffered abuse at the hands of a support worker. The story is also coverered by the Connecticut Times.

Police said the girl’s parents were trying to figure out how their non-verbal daughter kept getting bruises and sprained fingers on her right hand when on May 19 they received a call from the nurse at Frenchtown Elementary School that their daughter had arrived at school that morning crying hysterically. The parents then demanded to see the video from their daughter’s school bus.

That video, which also had audio, showed Davila grabbing the girl’s hands and the girl then crying out in pain.

Police said they then obtained DVD copies of the bus videos for April 27, April 29 and May 19. On the 27th and the 19th the driver of the bus was Davila’s mother.

Police said the April 27 video shows Davila, during the bus ride from the school to the girl’s home, putting her hands in the area of the girl’s hands. With each movement the girl’s cries get louder, police said.

This is one of my darkest fears. That my non-verbal daughter or my step-daughter, both autistic, should suffer abuse and not have the language skills to communicate their ordeal. Or even if they did have language skills that they were too terrified to speak out.

On this issue we – the whole autism community can easily stand as one. Whats happened to Kim Stagliano’s daughter is beyond appalling. She writes on the HuffPo of shaking the foundations of those who have hurt, or allowed to hurt, her daughter. I fully agree with her statement and as the title of this blog post implies, I will support her foundations in whatever way I can.

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