World Autism Awareness Day: Autism Exists, Let's Celebrate? Even Though It's Killing our Children?

My regular readers already know how I feel about Autism Awarness Day/Month. Everyone is aware already, how about actually doing something about it? No... instead let's just wear blue and do nothing. Except, of course, give money to Autism Speaks. Their party budget is getting low and Geri Dawson has horses to feed.*

Anne Dachel makes the case yet again this year:

I have a hard time each year with AUTISM AWARENESS DAY/MONTH. This is the Fourth Annual International Autism Awareness Day. How long are we going to pretend that all this autism is normal and acceptable? Seriously, how bad do the numbers have to get?

A number of stories out in the news calling for the public to "celebrate" the day. Today is World Autism Awareness Day by Kristina Chew "Today, April 2, is the fourth annual World Autism Awareness Day, during which 'autism organizations around the world celebrate the day with unique fundraising and awareness-raising events.' "

Pueblo Chieftain: Blue balloons raise autism awareness, "The baby blue balloons that Jonah and his classmates at Beulah Heights Elementary School released were to celebrate the beginning of National Autism Awareness Month. The event is celebrated each April, while the World Autism Awareness Day is today."

Sioux Falls Argus Leader: 5 questions: Shedding light on autism, "The falls will be colored blue by lights in support of the Autism Speaks' global Light It Up Blue campaign to celebrate World Autism Awareness Day and Autism Awareness Month."

Lufkin Daily News: Peavy students working to raise autism awareness, "Because of the prominence of the disorder in boys, blue is the official color for autism awareness and the reason the entire Peavy campus was encouraged to don the color Friday to celebrate Autism Awareness Month."

Berkshires.com: Diversity Takes Center Stage in the Berkshires, "'We have so many people supporting this committee right now,' said MaryLee Daniels, director of the Berkshire office of the Department of Developmental Services, and committee member.

"BFAIR, BCArc, the list goes on as to how many organizations support this initiative. We especially want people to join us in celebrating three different months of diversity. Of course, last month was Black History month. This month is Developmental Disabilities month and next month is Autism Awareness month. We have so much to celebrate here."

What is there to celebrate?

Lots of stories are about lighting things up in blue for autism awareness. Lots of them talk about autism being a developmental disorder affecting one percent of children whose cause is unknown. This is done without any alarm or demand for answers. We have been conditioned to accept autism as the perpetual mystery.

As the parent of a son in his 20’s with autism, I’ve had several decades of experts knowing nothing about this disorder. Is this to be the epidemic without a cause?

Looming in the background is the reality of what autism is doing to us. As I listen to the dire predictions about the hard economic times we're in and the need for austerity, I have to ask how in the world we're going to address the needs of the generation of children with autism about to descend on America as adults.

Dr. Thomas Insel is the wet blanket in all this celebration, acceptance, and awareness of autism.

He's the head of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee created by Congress to deal with with the disorder and he says that 80 percent of Americans with autism are under the age of 18. He's warned us we have to prepare for a million dependent adults "who may be in need of significant services." The IACC now calls autism "a national health emergency."

Maybe a better name for April 2 is World Autism Emergency Day.

Anne Dachel
Media editor: Age of Autism

Anne is right. And I gotta wonder, exactly how long this PR BS is going to continue.

And the biomed community isn't even being remotely polite about this any more. These are the two images that are being passed around on facebook today:





Last year I began a new blog. Lives Lost to Autism. I got more than a little bit sick of the blatant fear mongering of death by diseases that are NOT killing Americans, like measles, while the deaths of our children caused by their autism go unlamented and ignored by health authorities.

Last year 10 children died of Pertussis and the response was a national campaign to get people vaccinated (both adults and children), new state vaccine mandates are being pushed through, and the press on it has been everywhere. Last year at least 27 children and adults died as a direct result of autism, and unless you are in the autism community, or one of these deaths happened in your town, you probably never knew it. Even then, it is always an isolated incident, yes? (There were 41 reported deaths following the pertussis vaccine last year, but that is a whole other story.)

And those 27 autism deaths are only the ones who came across my google alerts for "autism deaths" or "autism died" or "autism drowning." The test I use on how to include them is basically, "would this have happened to this this person was neurotypical?" Who knows how many more went unreported or didn't get picked up by google. I would love to quote an actual statistic on how often autism kills, or how their incidence of premature death compares to the general population, but no public health agency cares enough to track this.

But insurance companies, whose bottom lines are effected by deaths and actually need to know if autism is deadly, won't sell life insurance policies on children with autism younger than 10, because it is not a good risk for them. See the problem there?

Our precious ones drowned, were murdered by caretakers and loved ones, were shot by police, suffocated while being restrained, were hit by cars, burned to death in fires, died from neglect and were killed by seizures. A few of them even killed others during their own melt downs.

Bryan Nevins, age 20, died because, on a hot day, he could not simply open the door of a van and get out. His institutional caretaker was on her cell phone and forgot about him for five hours. She is in jail now.

Autism kills and our government could not give less of a damn.

Autism Speaks doesn't seem to want to make that point that autism kills more than whooping cough, because then the public might actually begin to see this as a public health emergency and demand results... and then were would AS be? The party financing would dry up. Better for them to let autism linger and keep sucking up cash from suckers as they pretend to do something about it. Autism Speaks has found quite the cash cow.

(Speaking of... Guidestar finally posted AS's 2009 tax returns... they took in 45.5 million, and less than a quarter of it went to grants to do what the purported purpose of the org is, "Autism Speaks (AS) funds research into the causes, prevention, treatment and cure for autism. AS raises public awareness about autism and its effects on individuals, families, and society. AS aims to bring the autism community together to urge government and the provate sector to take action to address this urgent global health crisis." Of the whole list, "autism awareness" is the only thing that I think they actually have accomplished since their inception.)

And HHS's admissions that yes, vaccines CAN AND DO CAUSE AUTISM would mean that HHS has been able to do something about this FOR YEARS and has not done it. It means that those vaccine cases can be avoided by screening for mitochondrial disorders, autoimmunity and toxicity, and treated early on if doctors were actually taught that "vaccine induced encephalopathy" exists and if recognized and treated immediately that it may minimize or even prevent many cases of autism from developing.

And that might also mean that the people who have been sitting on this information for years, and decades, might suffer some consequences.

But AS has decided to ignore HHS's own claims of vaccine autism causation and openly declared that everyone should stop talking about the vaccine autism link.

Better that we just "wear blue" because dealing with all that ugliness would just be too ugly.

This is my post on "Autism Awareness" from 2008 entitled, "Insensitive Jerk Makes a Good Point". Nick sees all the signs that tell him that Autism is everywhere, but tells him nothing about what to do about it. And this was three years ago. I should try to track Nick down and see if he has figured out what he can do about it yet.

HAPPY PHONY, BS, ARCHAIC, DESCRIPTION OF BEHAVIORS DIAGNOSIS THAT TELLS US NOTHING ABOUT WHAT IS GOING ON MEDICALLY SO WE CAN KEEP IGNORING THE TOXIC CAUSES OF WHATEVER THE HELL IT REALLY IS WHILE IT CONTINUES TO KILL PEOPLE CELEBRATION DAY!

Make sure you wear blue, write a check to AS, vaccinate your baby, give him a dose of Tylenol, feed him GMO's and then go back to sleep. They experts are handling it for you.


Insensitive Jerk Makes a Good Point
By Ginger Taylor, Adventures In Autism
APRIL 13, 2008

Last week Nick Jameson, college smart ass, wrote a piece on his reaction to the autism awareness campaign currently under way. One currently struggling with autism might be put off by his callousness until one remembers that he is only 22 and that we were all pretty much insensitive smart asses at 22.

I would encourage all to allow Nick a chance to grow and check back with him in 10 years or so when he is expecting his first child and see if maturity has tempered his stance.

But what is useful from Nick, random college punk, is this reaction:

For example, what is the purpose of putting up a billboard that is telling me a child is born with autism every 20 minutes? What can I possibly do other than sit in my car and mutter to myself, “Well that sucks.” Maybe if there was a cure or even ways to help prevent autism, it might make more sense to have a billboard. Then it would reinforce concepts in people’s head that they could apply later like “only you could prevent forest fires” or “don’t eat cheese before noon.” But frankly, all this billboard is really saying is, “Beware, autistic people are everywhere,” and I’m sure that isn’t the message they want to get across. We already know autism exists; give us something we can work with. If the autism front wants to put us through a year of sappy ads and TV specials, than at least make it worth the time and money and headache. Teach us something. I was on my way to New York City this weekend and every toll booth was littered with autism propaganda. Did I learn anything? No. There are more intelligent ways to get out a message to the public.

Does Nick know that there are successful treatments available? Does Nick know that there are some kids who are completely recover from autism? Does Nick know that there are things that he can do to prevent his own children (should he ever become soft hearted enough for a woman to agree to marry and/or procreate with him) from slipping in to autism?

Apparently not. And that is the fault of the media who won't report the whole story.

So our young Nick has made a great point. One that parents like me have been trying to make for years now. "Autism Exists" is a message that everyone got a few years back now. But the important message, "Autism is Treatable and Preventable" is one that the media will not share with him.

What is it going to take for them to tell the whole story?

In ten years, when Nick is expecting, will he have heard this message from the media? Or, like us, will he hear it from another parent on the playground after Nick Jr. is diagnosed with autism?

Addendum: Autism Speaks had a huge chance this month to get the treatment message out and yet again, they are screwing children by with holding the important message. They certainly have the cash to do it.

/End 2008 article

*Ok... I actually have no idea if Geri Dawson has horses, but I do know she lives on a ranch or a farm or something, so horses... not out of the question really.

The Rescue Post is now Age of Autism

The Rescue Post has joined forces with Dan Olmsted of UPI's The Age of Autism fame, to become AgeOfAutism.com

Put them on your favorites list because they will surely be a force to be reckoned with.

Autism: The Non Urgent Crisis.

I thought Anne Dachel's response to this piece deserved a good read.

Autism Center Helping Families Cope With Disorder
WISC, WI - Oct 11, 2007

The story on the new autism school called Common Threads gave us some disturbing information. We're told that one in every
150 children in the U.S. now has autism. WISC-TV calls autism "a crisis" yet they can give us no reason why so many children
are affected with this devastating disorder.

Associate Dean of Research for the Waisman Center Dr. Susan Ellis Weismerm tells us that "in the past 10 years, there has been
an explosion in autism research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and much of it is being done at the Waisman Center.

Actually, there's been an explosion in the number of children with autism from one in 10,000 in the 1970s to one in every one
150 kids today, including one in every 94 boys, but the Waisman Center has long told us that there is no "crisis" or any
increase in autism.

A Spectrum of Disputes - New York Times

What's happened according to the Waisman Center is "better diagnosing" by doctors and an expanded spectrum of autism disorders. In other words, we've always had so many kids with autism, they were mislabeled. The problem with that claim is that no one asks people who make that claim to prove it. Why isn't there even one study that can find the misdiagnosed/undiagnosed adults with autism at a rate of one in 150?

When we talk about autism, we're talking about kids with autism. The rate of one in 150 came from studies of eight year olds, not eighty year olds. That simple fact should be scaring us all. Most adults never knew anyone labeled autistic or who displayed autistic behavior when they were young, but anywhere you bring up the subject, people start talking about kids they know with autism.

Research has shown that eighty percent of Americans with autism are under the age of eighteen. That means that within the next five to ten years these autistic kids will be adults dependent on the taxpayers for their support and care. Imagine what it will be like when one in every 150 eighteen year olds isn't going to work, or to school, or into the military, but applying for Social Security Disability for life with autism.

Right now the impact of the autism epidemic is being felt in our schools. Boston Globe reporter Carey Goldberg for example, wrote the story on July 5th, With rise in autism, programs strained - The Boston Globe in which we were told, "Statewide, the number of schoolchildren diagnosed with autism has nearly doubled over the last five years, from 4,080 to 7,521, according to soon-to-be-published data from the Department of Education."

In Massachusetts, one in every 130 kids has autism officially. Goldberg wrote, "Autism programs are faced with enormous needs and no one feels like we have enough programs to meet the up-and-coming numbers of children," said Rita Gardner, executive director of Melmark, in Andover, which serves children in its school, in their homes, and in public schools. "I would argue that this is one of our biggest public health crises in this country.

"A few years ago, when state public health authorities began providing autism services to children under 3, they expected about 500 children to enroll. At last count, they are serving more than 1,100.

Goldberg also reported that educating all these disabled children costs the state over $3 million dollars a year. Does anyone seriously think that this is happening merely because doctors are better at diagnosing? The same autistic children who are bankrupting school districts and on endless waiting lists for services will be overwhelming Social Security in the next five to ten year.

These are the current statistics on autism in the U.S. based on Dept. Education figures. http://www.vaprojec t.org/autismasds tatistics. html The explosion in the autism rate is clearly evident. Now imagine a similar increase in the number of young adults applying for Social Security Disability. This is also a double blow. These disabled young people are meant to be the replacement work force to help support the retiring post WWII generation. Not only won't they be paying into Social Security, they'll be living off of it for the rest of their long lives.

Findings by Michael Ganz at Harvard makes a chilling prediction of the future cost to our society as more and more autistic kids become autistic adults. His findings are felt by others to be a gross underestimate of the eventual autism price tag.Autism Has High Costs to U.S. Society, press release of Tuesday ....
It can cost about $3.2 million to take care of an autistic person over his or her lifetime. Caring for all people with autism over their lifetimes costs an estimated $35 billion per year.

See other figures from Lifespire: http://www.a-champ.org/documents/Lifespire%20Costs%20rev.2-23-06.ppt.pdf

Lifespire puts lifetime cost for a single autistic person at $10.125 million.

For more information on the cost of autism, contact Robert Krakow <rkrakow@earthlink.net>

At the height of the polio epidemic in the 1950s, one in 3,000 Americans was affected. That was a national crisis. A major effort was made to address it. Autism affects far more people, but no one seems concerned about what's going to happen to all these children. The most important comparison to be made with polio is the fact that most of the victims of polio recovered and went on to lead productive lives. The same won't be said about the victims of the autism epidemic. They will need support and care for life.

The words of Laura Bono of the National Autism Association are a grim forecast for the future: "As those children reach adulthood, the U.S. is ill-equipped to care for them. Not only do we not have enough services for adults now, the light at the end of the tunnel is a train. Frankly, we don't know what we're going to do."

Anne McElroy Dachel
Chippewa Falls, WI USA

Why Are They Afraid to Look?

Why Are They Afraid to Look?
By Anne McElroy Dachel
amdachel@msn.com

Last week in Washington, DC, parents got a chance to present their side alleging that vaccines caused their child's autism. This is the most heated medical controversy in the nation and it has no signs of going away.

Part of the reason the debate is guaranteed to continue is because of what officials can't tell about us about autism. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has downplayed autism at every opportunity. It is infuriating to parents who have no reasonable explanation for why their child has autism and who are going broke paying for therapy and treatment to continually hear about what the CDC doesn't know. They don't know the cause or the cure for the disorder. They don't even know if there are more kids with autism, despite counting affected children for the last ten years. Federal officials are convinced of only one thing: Vaccines don't cause autism.

The CDC has their studies as proof of their claim, but these are rife with charges of manipulated data and conflicts of interest that reduce them to the "cigarette science" used to disprove that smoking caused lung cancer half a century ago. An official Institute of Medicine Report in 2004 settled nothing and the battle continues now in federal claims court in Washington, DC.

According to the media, the parents have no case and if they win, it won't be because they had any real proof of their claim, just that they managed to sway the minds of the three masters on the panel with their story of personal tragedy. For the public watching the coverage, it's unprecedented. The parents presented their case last week, but almost all the major news stories already had the verdict announced.

On Monday June 11th, NBC News had Pete Williams confusing the MMR vaccine with thimerosal-containing vaccines, yet adamant that "repeated studies have found no evidence linking autism to the vaccines."

Gardiner Harris at the New York Times that day also told us, "Every major study and scientific organization examining this issue has found no link between vaccination and autism but the parents and their advocates have persisted. " His story was picked up by other big city papers.

Newsday conclusively stated, "Large scientific studies have found no association between autism and vaccines containing thimerosal."

Tuesday, June 12th, ABC News earned the week's prize for saying that science doesn't support a link in more ways and with more experts than any other news source:

Dr. Susan Fisher-Hoch, professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Brownsville:

"Awarding a claim would fly in the face of reason and science."

Dr. Robert Schooley, professor of medicine and head of infectious diseases at the University of California at San Diego: If parents win it "would only further increase the cost of vaccines and lead to worsening of the public health."

Dr. Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute in Washington D.C.:

"Focusing on vaccines is really misplaced energy."

Dr. David Witt, assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco:

"My personal opinion is that if there is a victory, it is a sad comment on how energy can be diverted from real health issues and causes, to faddish beliefs and diverted angst toward a handy target,"

Dr. Pascal James Imperato, chairman of preventive medicine and community health at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center:

"The scientific evidence to date does not support their claim."

If names of prominent institutions and well-credentialed experts could have settled the issue, that ABC News story would have done it. There didn't seem to be any scientist or doctor worth quoting on the parents' side, or maybe ABC News is so convinced about who's right that they didn't bother to look.

One has to wonder how the claims of 4,800 parents ever made it to federal court when it seems there is nothing to support their side.

As the week wore on, the coverage droned on. A Washington Post story on June 16th reported , "To date, no major studies have shown any connection between vaccines and autism, and the Institute of Medicine has rejected any causal relationship."

The Albuquerque Tribune reported, "Every major study and scientific organization examining this issue has found no link between vaccination and autism,"

The San Francisco Chronicle ran the story, The Truth About Autism in which we were told by Dr. Rahul K. Parikh that "large, well-conducted studies have shown no link between thimerosal and autism."

Sunday, June 17th, the Boston Herald published an editorial, Autism suit puts others at risk. There the unnamed writer dismissed the parents' case as absolutely without merit. "We are aware of nothing that justifies changing the conclusion of a special committee of the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, three years ago: 'The body of epidemiological evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism,' and ditto for vaccines containing the preservative in question, thimerosal. In plain English, children get autism at the same rate whether vaccinated or not, whether the vaccine contains thimerosal or not. The committee could find no evidence to support various postulated mechanisms by which autism might result from vaccination."

Monday, June 18th ABC Nightly News ran a story about how the autism controversy is affecting the Wright family. The founders of Autism Speaks and their daughter Katie epitomize how deep the divide is. ABC News of course had to note in the report that with regard to vaccines causing autism, "There is no scientific evidence that is the case. None."

Every time I hear that pronouncement I want to shout, "How can you defend injecting mercury into children when it was never tested and approved by the FDA before it was put into use?" I've asked that question of countless reporters and no one has ever answered it.

These news reports all week sounded like press releases for those with everything at stake in the fight and not objective journalism. Readers would sadly come up empty if they were to search for major stories quoting any of the expert witnesses for the parents. What's implied of course is that there were none. It seemed as if news outlets were beating themselves over the head trying to put the claim that vaccines cause autism on a par with the flat Earth theory.

It was never noted in these articles that if the parents were proved right and the explosion in the autism rate is connected to the coincidental increase in the childhood vaccine schedule, especially the increase in mercury-containing vaccines, this will go down as the worst medical mistake in history. The implications are enormous.

On June 15th, CBS News reporter Sharyl Attkisson posted an online article, Autism: Why The Debate Rages. She outlined the suspicions, the obfuscation, and the denials that parents have had to deal with in this issue. This argument is never going quietly away no matter how many newspapers and TV networks find willing experts to tell the public that injecting mercury into children hasn't hurt them.

This week David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm had a perfectly timed piece on the Huffington Post. In Tired of Autism Yet? he tells us this war will wage on until one side concedes and he proposes a logical way to settle things. This suggestion has come out before and it would seem a simple solution: Compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children of the same birth cohort who were born at the time of the greatest mercury exposure in the vaccine schedule.

Dan Olmsted has already shown us that it's possible. He found unvaccinated Amish and he found unvaccinated kids in a medical group in Chicago. He also found no autism in those groups and that may be why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't jumped at the chance to settle this heated issue once and for all.

David Kirby says he'd welcome such a study. "If the drug companies, and the Bush Administration, and Congress, and the public health establishment, are so very confident in the total safety of all childhood vaccines (and their components, including mercury), then why would they reasonably object to such a study." This may become the rallying cry of thousands of parents: "Why are they afraid to look?"

Parents of autistic children see officials paralyzed in addressing autism. They will only continue to demand this issue be dealt with openly and fairly. There is no patience left with those who can only come up with new ways of repeating the same tired claims that have been around for years.

Autism can't continue to be referred to as a some mystery or puzzle while we pretend that one in every 150 children has always had this disorder. It's bankrupting families and school districts. I personally know the autism controversy isn't going away because there are now far too many parents who are devoting their lives to public recognition of the disaster.