A constant theme in 2008 was the rebranding of autism, as Orac at Respectful Insolence referred to how the likes of David Kirby have been constantly saying that “autism isn’t autism”—-it’s “mercury poisoning,” “vaccine-aggravated mitochondrial disorder,” “mercury-induced neurological disorder,” etc., etc.
(April being Autism Awareness Month—-does your child know about this—let’s not get into what such “rebranding” would do to the month…….)
The notorious Judge Rotenburg Center in Canton, Massachusetts uses electroshock “treatment” on some its residents, some of whom are autistic. In April, one of its staff was charged with rape, assault, and battery of another staff member—-more about the very, …read more

Coming your way………Causecast, “a powerful online social medium that connects nonprofits, leaders, brands and individuals to those who want to make a positive impact on the world,” according to a press release. Already a Featured Leader is Generation Rescue board member Jenny McCarthy who has “long been a vigilant fighter in the search for a cure for autism”: A year or so is a “long” time?—sorry, being a teacher and translator of Latin and ancient Greek who is married to an American historian, I have a slightly different definition of “long.”
I do know, I’m in it for the long run with Charlie, and …read more

Seems a band called Elbow has won the Nationwide Mercury Prize—-a “staple of UK music accolade-giving since 1992“—-for its album The Seldom Seen Kid. Considering the attention devoted by some “autism activists” (Safe Minds etc.) to the belief that vaccines or something in vaccines, like the mercury-based preservative thimerosal, can be linked to autism, there would indeed be some competition for, I don’t know, “most mad about mercury” and “best talking about detoxing autism.” Jenny McCarthy—now starting up a lifestyle line of non-toxic products—would be a fair contender, as would Evidence of Harm author David Kirby who has again …read more

It’s not unfitting that a week in which a new study further disputing the MMR vaccine-autism link appeared would end with the publication of a book with no less a title than Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure, and by no less an author than Dr. Paul Offit, chief of Infectious Diseases, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. In the words of Orac of Respectful Insolence, Dr. Offit is the “Dark Lord of Vaccination” himself, and the special target, now for some time, of the ire, …read more

Never in my life have I entertained thoughts of being a lawyer: A doctor, yes, at one time, and some other much-less-lucrative pursuits. The closest I got to law school was a summer job when I was in grad school; the law schools career development director hired me to read stacks of surveys from alumni/ae and write up a summary report. “Litigation” was the specialty most frequently checked: Double no thanks, I thought, as I entered data into the computer.
Time passes, one stops working odd and temp jobs, one gets married, has a baby, gets a full-time job, the child …read more

What causes autism is a question to be answered by science, or so one would think rather than by, for instance, any legal decisions or court cases. Just in the past year, there have been more and more studies refuting a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and also between thimerosal and rising autism rates. More and more studies are being done that point to a complex web of genetic factors in autism. Nonetheless, legal decisions in cases involving an autistic child and claims of injury by a vaccine, as in the cases of Michelle Cedillo (whose case was …read more