It’s the countdown to the end of 2008 and here is some of what was going on at the beginning of the year:
The trial of Dr. Karen McCarron began on January 7th. On January 16th, McCarron was ruled guilty on all counts. On April 1st, she was sentenced to 36 years in prison for the May 13th suffocation of her then 3-year-old daughter, Katherine “Katie” McCarron.
January also saw the publication of further evidence refuting a link between vaccines and autism, with the publication in the Archives of General Psychiatry on the decline in thimerosal exposure and the continue increase …read more

According to Access Hollywood, an autistic boy plays the autistic child in ABC’s comedic legal drama “Eli Stone,” scheduled to premier tonight. This is an interesting development, to have an autistic child playing an autistic child: People have often questioned and criticized the accuracy and authenticity of actors and actresses playing autistic characters, as Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man and Sigourney Weaver in Snow Cake.

It is, though, all the more unfortunate that a vaccine—via a fictional substance called “mercuritol“—is said to be why William, in the child in “Eli Stone,” has autism. Will a future episode make mention of,or even …read more

Autism is very real for me as it is, I think I can assume, for most of you reading this, whether you are autistic or you’re the parent, teacher, friend, grandparent, sister, brother, aunt, doctor, or otherwise know someone who has autism. Indeed, being my son’s parent has required me to think about some very real things as honestly as I can, from acknowledging that it’s best for his school programs to become more and more directed to vocational training and daily life skills—from saying that he “aggressed” a teacher—- to planning for the future by preparing a special needs …read more