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April 21, 2007 at 06:34:58
Autism in the News: Virginia Tech by Anne McElroy Dachel Page 1 of 1 page(s) |
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Autism in the News: Virginia Tech Normally autism is local news, a walk to raise awareness, a parent support group meeting or about how autism is affecting our schools. Suddenly that’s changed. In many reports about the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech where 32 people were killed, we’re being told that the gunman had been diagnosed as autistic. The Houston Chronicle reported, “Cho Seung-Hui was a worry to his family because he did not speak much as a child, and after the family emigrated to the United States doctors thought he might be autistic.” We were also told in the Chronicle that while “autistic individuals often have difficulty communicating, the diagnosis would not necessarily explain his violence.” On San Francisco’s ABC 7 TV website the same information was given and we were told, “Neither school officials, who have his educational records, nor police who have his medical records, have mentioned such a diagnosis.” Cho was called “clearly psychotic and delusional” by experts in these articles. Other stories noting the gunman’s autism diagnosis didn’t tell us that having autism wouldn’t necessarily result in a shooting rampage. 
AutismLink and Autism Center of Pittsburgh Director Cindy Waeltermann issued a statement concerning the revelation that Cho Seung-Hui had autism. She said, "While the entire autism community in Pittsburgh and across the nation are devastated by the recent events at Virginia Tech, we would like to caution the public not to stigmatize children or individuals with autism…. The act of one individual should not reflect upon the entire autistic population It is unfair to blame Cho's actions on autism when he was clearly psychologically impaired and likely had another disorder in addition to his autism.”
This front page coverage of autism won’t be around for long. Back in January, a 16 year old Lincoln-Sudbury High School student in Massachusetts was charged with killing another student with a knife and we were told that this boy had autism. The Boston Globe noted that the accused boy had an “alleged interest in violence and long history of psychological problems… along with Asperger Syndrome, a mild form of autism.” The Asperger’s diagnosis got lots of coverage at the time.
Other than these sensational stories involving shocking tragedies, autism is normally relegated to the back page in the news. Autism is never covered in depth and for the most part, the media has failed to recognize the reality of the autism epidemic.
Members of the press are usually uninformed, misinformed, or under-informed when it comes to autism. The uninformed news people are those who willingly report that autism affects one in every 150 children in the U.S. but at the same time they ignore the dramatic increase from one in 10,000 in the 1970s. They completely miss the obvious and alarming fact that one in every 150 adults doesn’t have autism.
They also don’t speculate about the cause of autism. The misinformed reporters tell us that autism only seems to have increased everywhere among our children. They happily tell us that all the kids with autism are the result of “better diagnosing” and “greater awareness” on the part of doctors. These reporters get information off the official autism website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and are quick to repeat that “several studies have looked at whether there is a relationship between vaccines and autism and that the weight of the evidence indicates that vaccines are not associated with autism.”
The CDC facts become the last word on autism and these reporters completely omit the volumes of scientific research linking the mercury used as a preservative in vaccinations to autism. Those under-informed in the press will report that the rate of autism has dramatically increased in recent years. They’ll tell us about the huge financial burden on our schools because of the skyrocketing number of autistic students. While they do note the controversy involving vaccines and autism, they leave autism as a puzzle that we just don’t understand.
The debate is never fully investigated. The background on the vaccine preservative thimerosal is never examined. In Cindy Waeltermann’s commentary she also tells us that “it is time to recognize autism for the epidemic it is." That probably won’t happen anytime soon however. The press knows that the cause of autism is an explosive controversy and they have avoided taking this on whenever possible. To call autism an epidemic would mean they’d have to explore possible reasons for the exploding numbers. News about autism will be continuing however, but it won’t be because isolated incidences of violence.
My guess is that the sheer numbers and the problems they represent as this generation of autistic children ages into adulthood will put autism back on the front page, Within the next five years we’ll be facing the first wave of young autistic adults requiring our support and care. The headlines about autism will likely read something like, “Huge increase in disability claims threatens Social Security Program.” These eighteen year olds with autism will be going on disability at the same time the first of the baby boom generation is retiring and this will continue year after year. The public will probably have lots of questions about autism then. Most of all they’ll want to know why the press failed to sound any alarm over the numbers and why they never asked for real answers.
Anne McElroy Dachel Chippewa Falls, WI Member: A-CHAMP(Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning)
http://www.a-champ.org National Autism Association (NAA)http://www.nationalautismassociation.org
Mother of a son with autism, teacher, member of the National Autism Assoc.
and ACHAMP (Advocates for Children's Health Affected by Mercury Poisoning)
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.
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| 6 comments |
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Bullying and autism
Ironically, I think it was NBC that recently had a special report about how much kids with Asperger's are picked on and bullied in most schools. They highlighted one school that has started a special program to try to eliminate such bullying. Obviously, kids are innately inclined to pick on anyone who is "different." We should assume that a kid with Asperger's or another form of autism is being bullied and harrassed until proven otherwise. And we should understand that severe bullying of a vulnerable young person can create a psychotic reaction eventually. It's not the autism that made a kid like Cho mad. It's the intense and overwhelming pressure from his peers in reaction to his "oddness" that drove him insane. by Evelyn Uyemura (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 8 comments) on Saturday, Apr 21, 2007 at 10:53:49 AM  (0+)
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Here we go again...
...putting a human face on a mass murdering monster. it really makes me want to puke. by Pappy (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 11 diaries, 860 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Apr 21, 2007 at 11:56:50 AM (0+)
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Rebut
As an autistic person myself, I find this article very offensive. Your outdated use of the disproven mercury theory, which implies that we are damaged goods, your 'epidemic' style language, your mentions of 'sounding the alarm' over us, are all insulting to the autistic community. Most autistics don't require support, they get jobs and pay taxes like the rest of the population. The servere cases, where the individuals cannot talk, read or move and/or are mentally challenged, are in the minority, and are probably caused by other problems, servere senory dysfunction or other genetic syndromes. While the autistic community is against a cure for autism, we are not in any way against curing these co morbid conditions. You also fail to mention brilliant individuals in your article that are diagnosed autistic, such as the Nobel prize winner Veron Smith, who clearly is not damaged and is a brilliant example of the value autism has in society. Please think carefully before you, intentionally or not, insult a group of thinking, feeling people with your 'terrible epidemic' metaphors. by Denise (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Saturday, Apr 21, 2007 at 12:56:32 PM (0+)
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Comeuppance
I don't know why anybody would trust any so-called science coming out of the American governmental-industrial complex. America has two priorities that trump truth and honesty: profit and reassurance. America just isn't interested in the truth if it challenges profits. Hence, the global warming disinformation, the vaccine-induced autism disinformation, the Vioxx cover-up, and before that, the nicotine and cancer disinformation. Furthermore, America is not interested in the truth about the relative harm of the war on drugs, or in the damage being done by the war in Iraq as long as there is a profit to be made there. And America has no need for truth that challenges comforting, parochial dogma. It is not interested in the truth on evolution, teen pregnancy or the promises of stem cell research because it challenges religious dogma. Or the secular dogma that America is great and the envy of the world, or that terrorists hate American freedom. This culture abandoned truth a long time ago for baser values. It also abandoned kindness, but that is a separate issue. It is my opinion that America has created its own dismal future in which there will be much sobbing, and that this fate that awaits is both inescapable and condign. America has been the world's bully for decades now, picking fights, giving orders and acting like a spoiled rich kid. It appears to be poised to start receiving its comeuppance. Think of it as a well-deserved time out for bad behavior, or jail time for a crime committed. I would be disappointed in the cosmos if it let Americans get away with what we/they have become unpunished. by Yaybob (12 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments) on Saturday, Apr 21, 2007 at 1:38:09 PM (0+)
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Lousy timing to bring the subject up.
I don't know why you are trying to draw attention to Cho's Autism diagnosis. I know you are using the opportunity to platform your ideas of the mercury/vaccination debate and point out the fact that there may be a crisis at schooling funding-wise and whathaveyou. But why bring up Cho's Autism. Cho did not commit these crimes because he was Autistic anymore than he did because he was Korean. Why did he do what he did? Because he was CRAZY! Yes I know not PC - mentally unstable, suffering from mental illness, paranoid delusion, paranoid psychotic....CRAZY! Do you think it is at all possible that having mentioned again about his Autism that society as a whole who are (by and large) ignorant of Autism (and therefore more likely to form negative opinions on all aspects of sufferers of Autism) may equate CRAZY people doing horrible, unpredictable things to Autistic people. I do! This effects myself and my son as diagnosed Autistics and should be a concern for your own son. I don't believe articles like this do Autistic people any good and I have no idea why you would do it. I don't mind you fighting for Autistic rights or recognition. I think it is commendable. Why choose such a way to do it though? by Ross Lumbus (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Saturday, Apr 21, 2007 at 9:36:47 PM (0+)
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Understanding Autism
Any scientist will tell you that a genetic epidemic, by definition, is biologically impossible. The Autism Epidemic is not genetically based nor transmitted by human to human virus. If it were, we would have to assume that the human genome mutated suddenly in 1998-90. In addition no new virus or infection is capable of appearing simultaneously in all populations worldwide overnight.......a viral infection, by definition, needs to travel, host to host, as any virologist will tell you. The CDC studies which claim that no epidemic exists are based on faulty epidemiology which rests on the claim that Autism has been under-diagnosed in years past. Yet no one has yet identified a "hidden horde" of elderly autistic. The scientists working at the CDC unfortunately have financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The rise in autism exploded when the vaccine schedule doubled. The combined vaccine load for 18 month children has never been studied, so it is impossible for anyone to claim that vaccines are exonerated. Similarly, no FDA safety study has been done on injected ethylmercury into small infants. We cannot assume that the ethylmercury exposure in combination with the vaccine load is safe unless and until an FDA study and approval process has been set in place. > Autism is now the fastest growing and largest epidemic in the US outrunning the reach and growth rates of any other disease. No basic research is being funded because the lobbying power of Pharma will overtake any politician. The legislative and funding system is based on mutually assured earmarks attached to legislation. The political process will never be an effective way to secure research dollars free of funding bias. The political/pharma connection prevents research to avoid impending vaccine litigation. Parents are convinced through first hand experience that the temporal proximity of vaccine load relative to body weight has created immune dysregulation which has a profound effect on brain development. As of 2007 there are 3 million men and women in the US who face this sequence every day of their lives. Far from being “anecdotal” evidence, this is now an epidemiological phenomenon greater than any double blind study. Pediaticians are also on the front lines and see it every day. But they choose to understand it as an anomaly and not a cause/effect relationship. The doctors are dependant on CDC, IOM and Journal of Pediatrics (which does not have ONE SINGLE paper published, EVER, on mmr and vaccine injury). click here This represents a stunning lacuna in pediatric research. So the science needs to be collected in one place, described, footnoted and given to every pediatrician in the country. (see "Changing the Course of Autism" which redacts all the scientific papers published on Autism.....will be out on Amazon in July). When vaccine proponents wave the greater good of herd immunity they fail to address another epidemic, now in full swing for 19 years (1988-2007) with no abatement in the tide of rising rates. We have to start talking about herd immunity against autism. It took 57,000 American men to die in Vietnam between 1964-1978 (9 years) before the tide was turned by "informed consent". By contrast: As many as 1.5 million Americans have some form of autism, including milder variants, and the number is rising. Epidemiologists estimate the number of autistic children in the US could reach 4 million in the next decade.[30] (http://recordwustl.edu/news/page/normal/5290.html) Parents have been actively engaged in this epidemic for 19 years; as importantly their voices are greatly empowered by the internet, yet NOT ONE academic, governmental, or pediatric publication acknowledges autism as an epidemic with environmental triggers. Doctors continue to make these statements: "To say that there’s a lot doctors don’t know about these conditions is “an understatement,” says Dr. Leonard Rappaport, director of the Developmental Medicine Center at Children’s Hospital Boston. “Most things we don’t know,” he says. Rappaport suspects there may be a true rise in ASDs, though he says it’s not at all clear why or to what extent " (http://www.msnbc.msncom/id/6947652/page/2/ ). Rappaport at Children's Hospital, Boston "suspects" there may be a true rise in ASD's. This is an amazing medical observation in 2007. The medical community is behind the curve given the parental experience over 19 years and 1.5 million cases of autism These same doctors and pharmaceutical multi-nationals claim they can't even afford to stock and administer mercury free shots, even when the patient is willing to pay the extra price. I had to fly to England last August to obtain a DPT booster free of Thimerosal (from the NHS). In addition my "informed consent"has not convinced my primary care physician to offer a single measles vaccine for my granddaughter or a mercury free flu shot for my pregnant daughter. I am forced to leave the country to exercise my "informed consent". Informed consent turned the tide of the Vietnam war in 9 years but has not even dented medical practice in 19 years. by Dixwell (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments) on Sunday, Apr 22, 2007 at 10:38:32 AM (0+)
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