Last Week’s Top Posts

After a lot of hesitation about riding his new bike, Charlie hoisted himself up, put his left foot on the left pedal, put his right foot on, and zoomed off with Jim easily catching up—that’s the image in my mind after a full week here.

• Parents Going Back to School
  Some parents of autistic children are returning to the classroom to study with a view towards helping their kids as they grow up.
• We Go to the Met
  Charlie and I spend a Saturday in Manhattan.
• So Much For Autism Awareness
  Robert Goldberg, the vice president of The Center for Medicine in the Public Interest in New York City writes about why Autism Awareness Month has become “not a noble search for a cure, but an annual war on the bookshelves, as scientists and activists – often with no medical proof – battle over lifesaving vaccines.”
• Eats, Shops, and Gives…..
  Another fund-raising event from mega-autism-organization Autism Speaks.
• Mother Guilt Returns
  A mother participates in a study on maternal antibodies and worries that she has “brain-eating blood” that “attacked” her son.
• Another Way to Access the Candidates: The Vaccine-Autism Question
  Senator Obama is quoted at a Pennsylvania rally saying that he is “suspicious” that the “skyrocketing” autism rate might connected to vaccines.
• The Case of Hannah Poling Again
  From the April 22 Scientific American: ““….. scientifically, from the documents presented in the vaccine court, the Polings did not make a case that deserved compensation.”
• Autism and Cancer
  To illustrate what some term an “autism epidemic” (including three presidential candidates), people regularly compare the prevalence rate of children diagnosed with autism to that of children diagnosed with childhood cancer (1.5 per 10,000 children) or to the rate of children who have three diseases, “pediatric cancer, diabetes, and AIDS combined.”
• Obama and Clinton, Autism and Disability
  While the presidential candidates’ views on vaccine and autism have become a sort of barometer for their views on science, it’s necessary also to consider their views on disability—on education, special education, employment, health care—more generally.
• Brain Tune-Up
  Researchers in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science at the University of Missouri are using neurofeedback to “retrain” autistic children’s brains.
• Power Plants and Autism Rates in Texas
  A study published in the journal Health and Place makes a correlation between rates of autism and the proximity of schools in Texas to power plants.
• Politicking, Pandering, and Paranoia
  On the paranoid style in American science, in American politics, and discussions about autism.