That’s how autism is referred to in a  story in yesterday’s Philadelphia Examiner about “assembling your medical team” including osteopathic physicians. There’s mention of finding “relief from autism” via homeopathic methods, and autism is discussed as if it were a disease like cancer—which autism is indeed not.
And no, after 11-plus years raising my autistic son, no way do I feel that it’s been some “horror” I wish to run away from, or that I ever need “relief from autism.” Sure I do (as one new story today puts it) “worry about everything,” but, really, it’s all better with Charlie.

There are a lot of experimental and “alternative” treatments out there for autism, one of which is stem cell therapy. There are currently no clinical trials underway in the US for using stem cell therapy for autism and the treatment is not allowed in the US. A family wishing to pursue this therapy would have to travel outside the US, to Mexico, China, and Costa Rica (you can read here about one Florida’s family who is pursuing this therapy for their son, Matthew). Pure Pedantry comments on “stem cell tourism” and notes the lack of oversight about this treatment, and …read more

Do I even need to say that?—-after all, it’s no longer the days of the refrigerator mother theory of autism popularized by self-styled early child development expert Bruno Bettelhaim. But then one encounters this headline: 

Autism Caused by Uninformed Parents

in the National Expositor, which is not directly blaming bad parents for causing autism. It’s blaming parents for taking one particular bad action that “causes” a child to become autistic—for having them vaccinated—specifically for having them “injected” with a mercury-based substance in vaccines. 

…[Methyl] mercury is injected directly into the bodies of children where it causes severe neurological damage. And yes, it does …read more