Michael Savage is the number three rated syndicated talk show host in America, with eight million listeners a week. He directs his racist, red-meat rants at Democrats, minorities, civil libertarians, moderate Republicans, scientists, educators, and anyone else that displeases him. Savage recently commented that he “would hang every lawyer who went to Guantanamo Bay” to represent detainees. He repeatedly refers to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as “Mussolini”, and has warned that childrens’ minds “are being raped by a homosexual mafia.”
On the July 16 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is “[a] fraud, a racket.” Savage went on to say, “I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ” Savage concluded, “[I]f I behaved like a fool, my father called me a fool. And he said to me, ‘Don’t behave like a fool.’ The worst thing he said — ‘Don’t behave like a fool. Don’t be anybody’s dummy. Don’t sound like an idiot. Don’t act like a girl. Don’t cry.’ That’s what I was raised with. That’s what you should raise your children with. Stop with the sensitivity training. You’re turning your son into a girl, and you’re turning your nation into a nation of losers and beaten men. That’s why we have the politicians we have.”
This was not the first time that Savage, who holds master’s degrees in medical botany and medical anthropology, and a PhD in “nutritional ethnomedicine”, has shown his ignorance of autism. Last month, Dr. Savage, née Michael Weiner, said “In my day if a kid shot his mouth off in class we wasn’t called autistic, he was called a pain in the neck.” Autism, said Savage, is a racket for poor families to collect disability payments from the government. In Savage’s sad little world, there is no ASD or ADD: “To me, there is only one disease they all have - S.T.U.P.I.D.” The ignorance is not confined to autism - he once said that 99 percent of all depression “is rage turned inside.”
Either Savage skipped class the days his professors talked about “medicine”, or he’s an entertainer who doesn’t care who he hurts. I vote for the latter. Chances are, Savage knows that autism is a real disorder, with a strong genetic component, and that changes in diagnostic criteria have led to a spike in diagnoses over the last 20 years. But how boring is that? How many of his eight million listeners would sit through 15 minutes of their hero going all Dr. Phil, telling us that autistic children need understanding and accommodation? So much more entertaining to joke about smacking the handicapped.
The need to entertain first, then inform, has long been a favorite subject of media watchdogs and scholars. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, published 20 years ago, Neil Postman showed us how mass media, primarily television, convert otherwise serious conversations into entertainment. Treating autism as entertainment, whether it’s calling the disorder a scam, or peeking into alternative medical clinics to see what some parents do to their kids, preempts serious discussion. Shocking, unverified anecdotes are elevated over dry scientific consensus. Preposterous medical claims are presented for their shock value, with little effort given to refutation. Over time, the public loses its appreciation for serious issues, as once serious issues morph into entertainment.
There’s a great comment by Dr.JohnDo, written in response to Action Investigator Steve Wilson’s pseudoscience reporting on vaccines and autism:
Steve, just out of curiosity, did you receive vaccines? And if you did, why did you not develop autism? And if you don’t have autism, and all your vaccinated friends don’t have autism, and the vast majority of those who you know who went to school and were vaccinated don’t have autism, is there some massive resistance thats out there, or should we question the alleged causal relationship. Do you know the difference between ethyl mercury and methyl mercury in terms of its pharmacokinetics (biological effects) and poisoning potential, as that has significance to the discussion? This concept, as well as 11 other articles that you said did not exist investigating any possible causal relationship between vaccines and autism where reviewed by the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics which showed that the relationship does not exist. Is there a science reporter who may be able to put some of this in better perspective? I’m going to e-mail the article to you, please let me know what you think. I too am a parent of an autistic 2 year old and have the same vested interest in coming to the true mechanism and treatment. And while a quick and simple explanation to a complicated, multifactoral and likely genetic disorder is very appealing, I would serve my son and my other two kids far better by finding the truth and not sacrifice the known benefits that modern medicine has given western civilization by significantly decreasing Hepatitis A and B, smallpox, measles, polio, rubella, diphtheria, rotovirus, mumps, typhoid, Haemophilus, and tetanus among others saving more lives worldwide then any other medical advance in history. I get concerned when a careful scientific consensus that has been made is ignored and turned into a pop culture debate ignoring the valid scientific conclusions in favor of inconclusive anecdotal evidence, poor understanding of science, and implausible conspiracy theories.
Wilson wrongly reports that there are no peer-reviewed studies disputing the link between vaccines and autism. In fact, there are at least 11.
Wilson ignored the increase in autism diagnoses, despite the fact that most of today’s five year olds have been exposed to far less vaccine antigens and thimerosal than children born ten years ago.
Wilson wrongly assumes that autism rates are “skyrocketing” without explanation or evidence.
Wilson erroneously cites a four-year-old error-riddled UPI story as a “study”, to tell viewers that the Amish don’t vaccinate, and that autism is rare in that population. Nothing if further from the truth.
But Steve Wilson’s greatest mistake is closing himself off to the scientific consensus. This is not journalism - it’s hackery. A real journalist would carefully consider both sides of the story, and weigh evidence using best available sources before coming down on one side of the other. So far, Wilson shows no such interest. Instead of answering questions, such as the ones asked here, Wilson suggests that people who think vaccines don’t cause autism are no different than politicians who say there is no recession.
Orac notes that some medical bloggers caught wind of Wilson “investigation” more than six weeks ago, before Jenny McCarthy’s Green Our Vaccines rally. “He never responded, and now I know why,” says Orac. Wilson isn’t interested in an informed, skeptical point of view. It’s just not scary enough.
More toxic vaccine reporting, this time from the Action News Investigators (cue whooshing sound) at WXYZ in Detroit. Reporter Steve Wilson, who we are told has been following the vaccine story “from the start”, uncritically repeats a dozen spurious anti-vaccine talking points because, hey, real science is hard.
But before we get into Wilson’s report, let’s skip to the final 30 seconds of the video, when a well-coiffed Channel 7 anchor tells us:
“When it comes to children, parents should always be on the lookout, ask questions, and know what’s going on.”
We’ll come back to that in a moment.
If a reporter can’t get his facts straight, then he shouldn’t do the story. Better to stay silent and let more knowledgeable voices be heard. It’s one thing when the local wantwit is jabbering over his Blatz at Dar’s Bay View Inn, quite another when an “action investigator” tells 100,000-plus viewers that vaccines might cause autism, offering as evidence long-debunked urban myths, junk science, and celebrity endorsements. The difference is size of audience, and the audience’s trust in the speaker.
Of course, mistakes happen, as when an an overworked investigator type with a looming deadline and thin gruel for background, one who hasn’t been covering his topic “from the start”, stumbles over some technical issues and leaves a false impression. That’s when media outlets run “corrections”. If WXYZ owns up to all of Wilson’s stumbles, it will have to pre-empt an entire evening of network programming.
It’s specially important that misleading and inaccurate reporting is corrected when the topic relates to human health. The mainstream scientific community has seen no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism, yet the myth persists, as does the fear media mongering that discourages parents from protecting their children against deadly infectious diseases. Media have a special obligation to present medical information in an accurate, clear manner, because…
“When it comes to children, parents should always be on the lookout, ask questions, and know what’s going on.”
For better or worse, some parents turn to local news celebrities to “know what’s going on.” Local news celebrities know this.
So what’s going on in the anti-vaccine movement? A clue to the ensuing awfulness of Wilson’s report comes in the first few sentences:
It’s the controversy that won’t go away. Is the skyrocketing rate of Autism (sic) in children due in any way to the mercury long contained in childhood vaccines? It’s an issue our chief investigative reporter Steve Wilson has stayed with from the start…and Steve will science ever answer this one?
This is what journalists call the “lead”. It tells the “news consumer” the gist of the story, including its rationale. A really great lead will also hook the reader, enticing her to read on. Wilson’s lead is self-prophecy - the controversy won’t go away because WXYZ is here to make sure it doesn’t. There are plenty of reasons why a station should cover vaccines - doing it to hear yourself talk is not one of them.
Then the anchor sinks the hook with a question: “Steve, will science ever answer this one?” I have another question - “Steve, if you knew the first think about science, then you would know better than to include that question in your script - right?” As a wise old professor once said “If you’re looking for information, study science; if you’re looking for truth, study philosophy.” Science, the omniscent spirit summoned by vapid news anchors, has spoken: there is no known connection between vaccines and autism. No overwhelming evidence, no intriguing clues. Just anecdotes, and bad science, and more anecdotes, and misinformed celebrities.
Wilson’s token skeptic is Dr. Renee Jenkins, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who sleepily tells us “I don’t think anybody is saying you want to inject mercury.” “Why would I allow it to happen?” asked Wilson off camera. “Well, for routine vaccinations, we don’t allow it to happen,” is Dr. Jenkins’ sensible reply.
What Wilson, who has been following vaccines since he overhead wise old Dr. Jenner talking about cowpox over a glass of buttermilk, fails to mention is that most children born since 2002 will never receive a thimerosal containing vaccine (TCV) before the age of three. In fact, children born in the 90s were exposed to far more antigens, thimerosal, and Hootie and the Blowfish lyrics than today’s five year olds. So much for the vaccine-autism connection. But our intrepid action news investigator won’t let real evidence get in the way of a scary story, so he digs deep into his “Vaccines/Autism” file and repeats the biggest myths of all. PalMd and Orac weigh in.
Stevens tells us, with no attribution or context, that children are still at risk of autism because there’s still mercury in some vaccines “…there’s still as much as ever in 11 vaccines including most flu vaccines injected into pregnant women and kids, and some of them younger than 9 get two doses in a season,” he says. “And also high levels of mercury from Thimerosal in tetanus shots and the boosters routinely injected into 11-year-olds…and also in some meningitis and diphtheria-tetanus formulas, too. ”
Context would help. Prior to 2000, about 98 percent of children born in the US received at least one TCV before the age of three. Today, less than 30 percent do. If thimerosal caused autism, and less children were exposed to thimerosal, then wouldn’t we expect to see a decline in autism?
Not content with context-free accusations, Stevens tells us that a congressional committee that studied the matter has already concluded: “Thimerosal…is directly related to the Autism epidemic.” A Congressional investigation is not the same as a scientific study. Guess they don’t teach that in hot-shot investigator school.
Of course no lame vaccine news coverage is complete without citing the UPI “study” which shows that the Lancaster County Amish don’t vaccinate, and autism is rare in that community. I was waiting for this one. The “Amish Anomaly” canard comes from Dan Olmsted, an ex-UPI reporter who didn’t bother to call or visit the Clinic of Special Children in Strasburg, PA, until after his story ran. Not only so the Amish vaccinate, but the clinic treats kids who show symptoms of autism.
I hope WXYZ makes an honest effort to correct the many errors in this story, and then train its crack investigative skills on the untold story of autism - the medical fraud that accompanies promises of autism recovery - chelation, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, special diets, infrared detox booths. The NIH is again proposing a clinical study to settle once and for all whether chelation cures autism. There is no evidence that it does, and no reason to believe it would. But the autism debates long ago transcended the field of science, so now we have politicians and Hollywood celebrities telling us what is real. Doesn’t that sound like a better story?
The low point of last week’s Green Our Vaccines rally in Washington, DC, came early in the day, before the 2,000 or so anti-vaccine parents began their one-mile walk down Constitution Avenue to the Capitol grounds.
Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey had just spoken with the media, then walked down the line of marchers, stopping to say a few words. McCarthy gave a brief, energetic pep talk, thanking everyone for coming, then handed the loudspeaker to her boyfriend. Carrey, appearing uncomfortable, told the crowd “You are a shining example of unconditional love.”
“Thank you, Jim!” shouted someone unfamiliar with the word “irony”.
Vaccines are the greatest medical discovery of the last 200 years. They have saved millions of lives around the world, and have flushed smallpox down the memory hole. The case against vaccines is based on a shared mass delusion whose moment in the sun cannot end too soon.
The eventual demise of the anti-vaccine movement will not end well for Mr. Carrey, whose physical comedy translates wonderfully into any language. McCarthy, whose toxic D-list soft-porn comedienne shtick has made her immune to disgrace, will mutate into a less virulent form of celebrity, attaching herself to mall openings in Fargo. Carrey’s fall will be much, much harder.
But Jim Carrey and the anti-vaccine movement are safe as long as the news media remain willfully blind to the science that McCarthy has claimed as her own. On the Capitol grounds, she claimed that scientists once assured us that cigarettes are good for us, “proof” that she knows more about immunology, toxicology, neurology and epidemiology than those pesky, E-list scientists.
Reporters yawned. Diane Sawyer gushed. A tiny-minority of parents cheered their hero and cursed a medical miracle.
Arrogance, it is said, is a kingdom without a crown. McCarthy and her acolytes, drunk on imaginary power, challenged reporters to investigate the “autism epidemic”, and to expose a purported decades-long conspiracy to hide the deliberate poisoning of a millions. One of these days a reputable journalist will take McCarthy up on her challenge. And that reporter will learn that vaccines do not contain anti-freeze or aborted fetal tissue, as McCarthy and her minions claim. The reporter will learn that “dose makes the poison”; that vaccines are not toxic; and that although thimerosal has been gone from scheduled pediatric vaccines since 2002, the rate of autism among today’s three to five year olds has not declined.
And if we’re really, really lucky, the reporter will write that D-list Hollywood celebrities are not a reliable source for medical advice.
The UK’s Daily Mail goes where no major American media outlet has dared to go:The Great Autism Rip-Off … How a Huge Industry Feeds on Parents Desperate to Cure Their Children.
There is little hope given to parents of children with autism. Mainstream medicine offers no explanation for the cause of this life-long learning disability, thought to affect one in 100, and there are no effective treatments.
Perhaps the most cruel characteristic of the condition, which impairs communication development and ability to relate to others, is that children often develop normally until about two years of age, when they suddenly ‘regress’, becoming mute, withdrawn, refusing to make eye contact and prone to tantrums.
Many never take part in mainstream education and some require full-time care, even as adults.
In the absence of solutions, desperate parents are increasingly turning to the world of alternative medicine in their search for a cure.
In this burgeoning market, private doctors and clinics have sprung up across the UK claiming they can treat or even ‘reverse’ the disorder.
Recent research published in the Journal Of Developmental And Behavioural Paediatrics found that a third of parents of autistic children have tried unproven ‘alternative’ treatments.
Worryingly, the study claims one in ten has used what the experts class as ‘a potentially harmful approach’
The annual AutismOne conference is part trade fair, part revival meeting. This year’s event featured comedienne and Autism mom Jenny McCarthy, and dozens of autism “researchers” whose words are apparently digested salt free by the 2,000 parents who gathered at the Westin O’Hare Hotel in Chicago. Dozens of vendors filled one large meeting room and lined the carpeted hallways. Dietary supplements, gluten free snacks, hyperbaric chambers, homeopathic clinics, testing labs. One vendor’s display read “No More Guilty Parenting”, which could have doubled as the convention’s theme. Guilt is like oxygen to the alt-med autism cure culture; it hangs in the air like an invisible draft from Bruno Bettelheim’s refrigerator. You could feel the chill in every corner of the Westin O’Hare’s spacious convention facility. Guilt, and hope that the most widely accepted science on autism is wrong, that autism can be reversed, that recovery from autism happens all the time, and it can happen for you.
A panel discussion on Autism and the Media drew one of two invited Chicago Tribune reporters, Julie Deardorff; along with Peoria new anchor Jen Christensen; and Ashley Reynolds, a journalism student from KOMU-TV in Columbia, MO. Three editors from AgeOfAutism.com, a fringe anti-vaccine website hosted the discussion. Here’s a portion:
I also attended a Q&A with Dr. Jon Poling, MD, PhD, and his wife, Terry. The Polings have been on a media blitzkrieg since March when they were identified as test case petitioners in the Vaccine Omnibus hearings. The details of the case are shrouded in speculation, since the Polings have not publicly released their daughter’s relevant medical records. I asked the Polings if they plan to release those records soon. Terry Poling said she and her husband would not discuss their daughter’s case as long as there was ongoing litigation.
Soon after I asked my question, a hotel security official asked me to turn off my video camera. At the conclusion of the Q&A, 15 minutes later, I was surrounded by hotel security and escorted out of the building. I had registered six weeks earlier as media, and received a confirming email. I was handed a press pass and told to fill it out myself at the registration desk Friday morning, after being told the computer system was down and my name could not be pulled up. But the conference organizers were having none of it, although by now Westin security no doubt realizes I was totally truthful and cooperative, even turning over my driver’s license for photocopying.
But I had committed an unpardonable sin in AutismCureLand. I asked a question that could be answered. The case against vaccines is made in the shadows, in restricted venues such as AutismOne and on fringe websites and internet chatrooms. Anti-vaccine activists speak in generalities, relying on the conditional and subjunctive tense to avoid confronting what modern man has known for centuries: that we’re better off listening to best available evidence rather than dogma and fear. I was asking for evidence. Shame on me.
On my way out, an AutismOne organizer told me “This is supposed to be a positive thing, and you’re making it negative.” It was his parting shot as I was led out the door, into the parking lot, where the air was warm.
Two Chicago Tribune reporters, Rex Huppke and Julie Deardorff, are listed as panelists at the AutismOne conference this Saturday. Huppke wrote The Story of Jamie, a heartbreaking and moving profile of an autistic man who excels at powerlifting:
During his first lift at the Illinois State Games in June, Jamie had lost his composure when the judges’ lights turned out to be white instead of the familiar green. It ruined the rest of his performance. If he failed this first lift, a similar meltdown could follow.
Jamie approached the rack, fixed his shoulders under the bar and assumed the starting position. On command, he bent his knees and began to squat, head up, eyes focused forward. He flexed his legs at the next command, driving himself to an upright position, then dropped the bar back onto the rack with a clang.
The three judges illuminated two white lights and one red. Two out of three meant a good lift.
Jamie’s hands shot up in the air. This time he had been coached to understand that there would be no green lights, that white meant good.
He knew he had done it.
His second squat was flawless, so was the third.
Each time Jamie came to the stage, his confidence seemed higher. He steamrolled through three sets of bench press, pumping his fist harder after each good lift.
The crowd loved him. After each round he turned to them, put his hands flat together in front of his chest and bowed like a warrior.
The final competition was the dead lift. The bar rested on the ground—260 pounds awaited.
Standing upright, Jamie spread his feet wide. He squatted down, back at a 45-degree angle to the floor, butt thrust out, long fingers wrapped tight around the shiny silver bar.
His eyes moved past the crowd in front of him and on to a green Special Olympics logo on the wall at the front of the gym.
A judge said, “Lift!”
Jamie’s mouth opened in a near-perfect circle as he slowly pulled the bar up. He scowled like one of the pro wrestlers he idolized.
As his hips straightened and the bar moved past his knees, he released a guttural RAHHHHHHH!
You really need to read the whole piece. Jamie is an antidote to the fear and prejudice peddled by anti-vaccine activists. Huppke’s profile teaches us how accommodation and understanding have helped Jamie to find a place in the world. It’s a story of hope, and renewal, and recovery from the low expectations that have been foisted on the Jamies of the world by the autism cure industry.
So I called the Tribune reporters last week, and spoke briefly with Rex Huppke, to get an idea of what he might talk about. He said he hadn’t had time to prepare for panel, and asked me when it was being held. Here’s the abstract, time, and list of panelists from AutismOne.com.
Saturday, May 24, 9:00 am – 11:00 am
Autism and the Media
As the gravest health story of our time plays out parents are puzzled at the lack of investigative reporting. This expert panel has provided groundbreaking coverage of autism and will help bring into focus the process which has allowed them to excel in their coverage. The panel will also look at the changing landscape of media and its importance in breaking and reporting news stories.
Mark Blaxill - Age of Autism
Jen Christensen - News Anchor Mom
Julie Deardorff - Chicago Tribune
Rex Huppke - Chicago Tribune
Dan Olmsted - Age of Autism
Ashley Reynolds - KOMU / Missouri School of Journalism
Kim Stagliano - Age of Autism
__________________________________________
Here’ s my message to the two Chicago Tribune reporters who are, apparently, obligated to explain themselves to the editor of Age of Autism.
I feel the need to give you a friendly heads up about AutismOne and some of your fellow panelists. The meeting abstract tells us that autism is “the gravest health story of our time”. If you ask why, Blaxill, Olmsted, and Stagliano will tell you that we are in the middle of an autism epidemic. Be very skeptical. True, diagnoses of autism have been climbing for 20 years, and public awareness has grown, but that is hardly evidence for an epidemic. The diagnostic manual that doctors use to identify autism has been revised three times in 20 years, and each time the criteria for autism has broadened. Asperger’s Syndrome is currently listed as an autism spectrum disorder, but was not included 20 years ago. Comedian Dan Ackroyd, who has Asperger’s, did not receive an autism spectrum diagnosis until he was well into adulthood. Similarly, children once diagnosed with mental retardation are called autistic these days. Diagnoses are also driven by greater public awareness, increased social services, and doctors who are just plain getting better at recognizing the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders.
If the definition for “legally blind” was changed from 20/200 vision to 20/100, the number of blind Americans who skyrocket, but that would hardly constitute an epidemic.
Calling for more investigative reporting into an epidemic that doesn’t exist is probably not the wisest message for the anti-vaccine panelists. It is precisely because of a lack of investigation, and public exposure, that the vaccine-autism urban myth has enjoyed such a long life. Of course, what the panelists mean by “investigative reporting” is credulous parroting of anti-vaccine talking points. You will he hearing plenty of these Saturday. Here are just a few:
The explosion in autism exactly mirrors the explosion in the number of required childhood vaccines
Most of the diseases that vaccines supposedly protect us from are harmless, or extinct (measles, chicken pox, polio, mumps)
The FDA, CDC, American Academy of Pediatrics, drug makers, and major media outlets have conspired for years to hide from the public the real truth about the cause of autism.
The dozens of peer-reviewed studies that fail to show a link between vaccines and autism can’t be trusted because the scientists have been bought off by vaccine makers who use their money and influence to suppress the truth.
The Amish don’t vaccinate, and autism is rare in that community, yet the federal government refuses to study the reasons, or to compare the autism rates between vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.
And finally an introduction to some of your fellow panelists:
Mark Blaxill is a board member of Safe Minds, a fringe anti-vaccine group that still insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that the mercury-based preservative once used in scheduled childhood vaccines causes autism. You can read his thoughts at AgeOfAutism.com . Last week, he criticized a health clinic in Lancaster County, PA, for increasing the vaccination rates among Amish and Mennonite children. Blaxill is not a doctor, but is quoted as saying that he is smarter than any medical doctor when it comes to vaccinations and autism.
Dan Olmsted is a former UPI reporter who wrote, in the fall of 2005, that autism is rare among the Amish of Lancaster County, PA, and that they vaccinate at rates far below the general population. But Olmsted failed to check in with with Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg. The clinic treats dozens of Amish and Mennonite children who display symptoms of autism, and it holds a weekly vaccination clinic.
Ashley Reynolds is an undergraduate journalism student at the University of Missouri Columbia School of Journalism. Last December she produced a 14-part television news series, Combating Autism from Within, that was so biased and misinformed that it prompted a protest from medical doctors at the medical college. One of Reynold’s on-air “experts” was a radiologist who has claimed that the World Health Organization relies on vaccines to sterilize women in Third World Countries, as part of a conspiracy with Bill Gates and the Rockefeller Foundation to depopulate the world. Reynold’s failed to disclose her “expert’s” unusual viewpoint in her story, even though she was informed of it a month before.
All three of these “experts” have one thing in common: they start with what they think they already know, then work backwards from there, cherry picking evidence, quote mining, and ignoring data that doesn’t fit. It’s the opposite of how an investigative journalist works, and it’s the exact opposite of how scientists think.
The Director of Greek Life at George Washington University was only trying to help when he recently sent this email to GWU students. Short version: it’s time we set aside our hard-earned critical thinking skills and get jiggy with Jenny!
Dear Friends,
A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to meet with Jenny McCarthy to talk about her interest in autism awareness and plans for her rally at the Capitol on June 4th. Contrary to her public persona, she is actually a very loving and concerned mother, who has had to deal with a very challenging situation where her son, Evan, was diagnosed as autistic. Through her first hand experiences, she has learned a lot, and met many other families with autistic children.
Jenny’s experience with Evan resulted in adapting many natural remedies to relieve him of most of his symptoms of autism. She attributes his autism to a genetic issue that was triggered by external toxins, and stresses placed on him by an aggressive vaccine schedule. While her approach is controversial, her experiences show a potential effect.
In her message to you below, Jenny is asking for your help to represent families with autistic children at a rally on June 4th at the Capitol. While her primary focus is on vaccines, she is also pushing for additional research on autism and alternative treatments, as well as raising the cause for families with financial issues related to insurance coverage.
If you would like to help, please register through the website listed in her message below. In addition, I am looking for one or two students to serve as coordinators for these volunteers. These coordinators would work with Jenny’s staff to distribute the pictures of the children and keep the volunteers organized. There is also an opportunity to meet Jenny and Jim following the rally.
Please let me know if you have any questions, or if you are interested in being a volunteer coordinator.
Thanks,
Dean Harwood
Director of Greek Life/
Assistant Director of the Student Activities Center
The George Washington University
800 21st Street, NW, Suite 436
Washington, DC 20052
Here is Jenny McMeasles McCarthy’s message to the Greeks:
On June 4th, 2008, Jim Carrey and I are organizing a march/rally in Washington DC to raise Autism awareness. Our mission is to get rid of environmental toxins that have gotten way out of hand. We are rallying because the toxins need to be taken out of vaccines. We are marching for a change in the vaccine schedule, and we are giving thousands of families living with and treating autistic children a chance to be heard!
Families with autistic children bear a great financial and emotional strain. Unfortunately, due to the lack of compensation from insurance companies and the high costs of special foods (GF/CF), medicines, supplements, hospital visits, etc. many families cannot afford to travel to DC to represent their child. We need your help in gathering students, fraternities, sororities and other organizations to march on behalf of the families that cannot be there to represent their child.
We are going to have those that do participate, hold pictures of the child whose family could not attend.
One of the sponsoring organizations, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA), provides information, resources, and support to families affected by autism. For families who have just received the autism diagnosis, TACA aims to speed up the cycle time from the autism diagnosis to effective treatments.
Go to www.tacanow.org and register for FREE to attend the rally!
Please, spread the word and help the defenseless children who are the future of America.
- Jenny McCarthy
Mr. Harwood’s call to action couldn’t be more irresponsible. Jenny McCarthy, armed with her celebrity and a Google PhD, will be telling Americans once again that vaccines cause autism, which is as good as saying “don’t vaccinate your kids.” She’s also pushes special diets as a cure for autism, another baseless claim. Given the destructive nature of McCarthy’s mission, Harwood’s email couldn’t be more misguided if he was inviting students to Walk For Hamas.
There is another problem with McCarthy, and Harwood isn’t the only one who doesn’t see it. The entire autism cure industry, with its focus on conspiracy and blame and false hope, is an unfortunate distraction at a time when families urgently need services, and researchers need funding and clear direction. Going ga-ga over celebrities and hitting the send button is easy. Doing the real work is hard. Here’s hoping Mr. Harwood retracts his crush email, and soon.
There is no credible evidence that mercury causes autism. It doesn’t matter if the mercury comes for vaccines, coal fired power plants, forest fires, or UFO tailpipe exhaust. What mercury can cause is mercury poisoning, which is nasty and horrible, but the symptoms are distinct from autism and not easily confused. Unless you’re an anti-vaccine activist who wants to pull a fast one on deadline-stressed reporters.
So if you’re a news editor or reporter in the Lone Star State, beware of a much publicized epidemiological study of coal-fired power plants and autism. Some parents of autistic children gathered in front of the Dallas federal court house last week to call attention to the study led by Raymond Palmer, PhD, associate professor of family and community medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Palmer reports that community autism prevalence is reduced by 1 percent to 2 percent with each 10 miles of distance from the pollution source. Unfortunately, Palmer’s study is yet one more example of a biased researcher cherry picking data to “prove” a hypothesis. An honest scientist looks for data to “test” the hypothesis.
This was Palmer’s second bite at the apple - his 2006 study on the same topic was widely criticized for failing to control for confounds such as urbanicity. His second attempt fell short, and you can read why here and here.
But junk science is to some people what bloated carrion is to a jackal, and fringe websites, and at least one law firm, are slavering over Palmer’s population study.
Epidemiological studies have not been kind to the anti-vaccine movement. Thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, has been absent from scheduled childhood vaccines long enough that today’s 3-5 years old should be autism free, if a certain hypothesis was valid. Other epidemiological studies in Europe and elsewhere have failed to confirm a link between vaccines and autism.
But no matter. Vaccine hysteria pays fealty to science, but its true master is public relations. Websites such as AgeOfAutism.com regularly exhort its readers to bombard media outlets with spurious studies and unverifiable anecdotes, all aimed at getting journalists on their side. Sometimes it works. The latest call to action is aimed at four Texas media outlets who ran their own stories on reaction to the Palmer study: the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, WFAA-TV, KVTV, and KDAF.
The media needs to hear from parents! If all these news sources receive emails from parents living everywhere in the U.S. and beyond telling them about the heavy metal levels in children with autism, pointing out the changes that occur after chelation and other bio-medical treatment, they may write more. We need to make it clear that something terrible is happening to our children but that there is hope. We can stop the exposure to toxins and we can recover these kids.
There is no credible evidence that children with autism have more heavy metals than their neurotypical peers. There are no peer reviewed studies that show chelation is an effective treatment for autism, and no good reason to suppose it would be.
By all means keep writing about autism. Tell the world about these children, their challenges, and the wonderful gifts they bring. And when reporting on the science, call a pediatric neurologist at the nearest medical college, or an immunologist, or the American Academy of Pediatrics. And when readers tell you they cured their kids with a special diet or a swim with the dolphins, show some skepticism. Purity of motive does not confer accuracy - dirt shows up on the cleanest cotton.
Something terrible happens to children with autism each time a credulous reporter repeats unverifiable and deliberately misleading stories about these kids. There is hope, but it has nothing to do with quack medical treatments and improbable conspiracy theories. Because when you get down to it, kids are kids, even ones with autism. And the best hope for any child with a disability is accommodation and acceptance.
This is encouraging. Slate Senior Editor Emily Bazelon interviews Dr. Sydney Spiesel. Here’s part of the exchange:
Bazelon: “One of the reasons people cite for opting out is the fear of autism. Is there any evidence that is a legitimate concern?”
Spiesel: There are actually two concerns. One is thimerosal, and the other is measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. The MMR vaccine concerns were based on what turned out to be very bad research. And there’s a lot of evidence that neither the MMR vaccine, nor thimerosal, nor the number of vaccines a children receives at one time has any role to play in autism. In fact there are some good immunological reasons that most people don’t know about that bunching some vaccines together increases the response.”
