That was the idea of the book. One of my favoriate book series is Harry
Potter, so I like both points of view.

Yet you have your son. It's not all bad.

Jeff

I've got it around here somewhere.  As I recall the author had a sibling
that had autism.  An interesting perspective, however I thought the
writing seemed geared more towards children rather than adults. As in
the difference between R. L Stine vs Stephen King or the Hardy Boys vs
Sherlock Holmes so to speak.
I'm the custodial parent and father of a 17 year old boy, whom I had to
have a talk with last night about not grabbing his cute TSS/Wraparounds
a.s.  I gotta give him credit, he sure does have good taste when it
comes to the ladies.  He knows what he wants and isn't afraid to grab it
with both hands.  Seriously though we had a long talk about being a
gentleman.  The juries still out on how much good it did.
Speaking about juries, the X has dragged me back to court to lower the
child support and I think I'm going to go her one better.  I'm going to
request that her parental rights and obligations be terminated, then I
don't ever want to hear from her again.  I want her out of our life
completely, but the current custodial agreement gives her Carte Blanche
to mess with us forever, because it requires that she pay child support
for life.
Oh well, life truly is a bitch, then you die.

I know what you mean. I have spent a lot of time with special ed
students, and I have seen a lot of progress. I have also known many
adults who have had various disabilities, including ASD, who are
contributing members of society.

Every kid have specials needs, needs different rules and disciplines.
(Of course, some kids need more special rules than others.)

Exactly.

A very interesting reading is a book written in the voice of a kid with
autism, The curious incident of the dog in the nightime, by MArk Haddon.
I would love to hear what parents of kids with ASD or people with ASD
thing of this book.

Jeff

I'm not sure what you mean.  Seriously.  I see the looks he gets from
strangers when we go to the city to do grocery shopping and I want
just slap them.  They have no idea what gains he has made.  Because of
ASD, I cannot put the same rules and disciplines upon him as I do his
brother.  Concessions have to me made and instruction comes in a
different format a lot of the time.  So do I act like there is
something 'wrong' with him?  I don't think so, I just realize that he
is not at this time able to interact, perform or behave the same as
his little brother.  I don't see this as wrong, I see it as different,
just like me and my sister are different, or you and your neighbor etc.

My 10yr old is the only one out of my 4 to have ASD.  He is the
sweetest, most caring, intelligent and creative one out of the 4.  We
as a family have adapted to him and his behaviors not forcing him into
ABA or any other type of therapy.  He is slower than the rest of his
class but this year in school, he made the most improvement of all his
class.  I couldn't be more proud.

   I presume he is a wee aspie. Why do you then, with all this pride, still
act like there is something wrong with him?

If you are vaccinated, then why would you need to stay away from those
who aren't?  Unvaccinated children do not carry the diseases and give
them to vaccinated children.  But, vaccinated children in the weeks
that follow a vaccination can pass the diseases to unvaccinated
children.  Thus the term 'herd immunity'.

Unfortunately, probably quite a few.  Just like with Down's Syndrome.

My 10yr old is the only one out of my 4 to have ASD.  He is the
sweetest, most caring, intelligent and creative one out of the 4.  We
as a family have adapted to him and his behaviors not forcing him into
ABA or any other type of therapy.  He is slower than the rest of his
class but this year in school, he made the most improvement of all his
class.  I couldn't be more proud.

On Jun 22, 3:36 pm, "Stephen Wilson"
<stephen.wilson2004nos...@ntlworld.com> wrote:

There is ample evdience that genetics plays a major role.

Quite true. More and more these days, one method is staying away from
the anti-vaccination parasites.

That is a scary thought. The way the anti-vaccinationist speak of
their autistic children, I am surprised that more of them do not do
post-birth abortion.

The fact right now is that we don't know what causes autism. However, we do
know what causes mumps, rubella and measles.

We don't know how to prevent a child from being autistic. We do know how to
stop them getting measles, mumps and rubella.

Maybe, in a few years, someone will work out that there are a particular set
of genes that are responsible. If that is the case (and it doesn't seem
unlikely to me), I wonder how many of the people who today blame
vaccinations would have chosen to have their babies aborted if the faulty
gene(s) had been detected in them prior to birth?

Unfortunately courage has no bearing on whether a belief is right or
not. The Nazi military were just as courageous as those of the Allies,
suicide bombers are "brave" enough to sacrifice their lives for their
beliefs, as were those who flew the planes into the World Trade
Center.

My "personal experience" objection is that as a late diagnosed
autistic (dx at age 52), and knowing others in similar circumstances,
I know that at least part of the "epidemic" is false - People with so
called "higher functioning" autism were simply not recognised, and now
they are.

[I would also note that I suffered from, but fortunately survived
largely unscathed, measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, and had a
friend at school who survived but had long term damage from polio.]

The previous poster rightly notes that there have been previous false
"causes" of autism such as the "Refrigerator Mother" theory - But
fails to go on and apply the same logic to his? own theories.

Their resorting to emotive language such as "the Doctor's cold
needles" is suggestive of an argument which doesn't stand up well on
its' own merits alone.

Is that really the case, or does it just feel like that to people who
live there? - A quick look at the WHO / UNICEF numbers suggests that
may not be the situation (caveat, I haven't done any detailed
number-crunching). And since they're trying to promote "western"
standards of vaccination worldwide, it seems unlikely that they would
underreport.

Except that nature doesn't wait on our convenience - The numbers vary,
but about 1 in every 3 children dying *in their first year* seems to
be the average for 19th century Britain.

(Of course we have the advantage of piped water and sewage systems,
but there are a lot of non-waterborne diseases too).

[And for those who espouse an inflammatory model of autism, I wonder
about the inflammatory effects of chronic infections and parasites?]

Well done! Be prepared for an attack for being so brave.  I only have
one objection, and I'm not worried about the attacks to come, because
I've already been attacked on here for this very statement...  "In MY
son's case" I KNOW that vaccines were not the cause of his ASD
because... (shame on me) he has never been vaccinated. That is not to
say I don't believe  that it may play a significant part in someone
elses case.

Children in the US are bombarded at a much younger age and with a
higher number of vaccines than children in any other country in the
world!  I think it would be wiser and safer if they were given later
in childhood and not so many viruses in each shot.  I've also read
somewhere(when I find the site I'll post a link)that in certain
countries they pasteurize or heat the vaccines in the making of them,
which would help get rid of the contaminates that might be in them
which adds a level of safety.  If the US has started doing this as
well, I would love to know about it.  As of today, I have not found
anything online that says they do.

Keep up the good research and thank you for sharing this information.

http://www.mercola.com/article/vaccines/neurological_damage.htm

Vaccines and Neurological Damage

Vaccinations are very neurotoxic and have been associated with many
neurological disorders, like encephalopathies, epilepsy, convulsions,
ADD, LD, autism, mental retardation, depression, anxiety, CNS
disorders, paralysis, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, nerve deafness,
blindness and SIDS. The neurological disorders associated with
vaccinations are diverse and numerous. Vaccinations lower IQ as well
as contribute to the overt mental disorders and neurological diseases
listed here. The relationship of vaccinations to encephalopathies and
neurological diseases have been surfacing in medical journals since
the advent of mass vaccination programs. Autism was unheard of before
vaccinations, and parallel mass vaccination programs very nicely. ADD
and learning disorders in children are now being traced to childhood
vaccinations, as well as convulsions, paralysis, and epilepsy. Brain
damage is by far the most common adverse reaction associated with
vaccinations, although their actual numbers are not often reported
correctly.

List of Vaccination-induced Neurological disorders:
••••Meningitis Paralysis
•Paralytis polio
•Ms Gullain Barre Syndrome
••Hyperactivity - ADD, LD
•Demyelinization diseases
•Auto-immune Diseases Epilepsy
•Convulsions - Seizures
•••••Mental confusion - lowered IQ
•Brain tumors (SV-40)
This list was generated from a variety of resources and is not, by any
means, all inclusive.

The encephalopathies associated with vaccinations may range from overt
neurological disease to high pitched crying (commonly seen after
vaccination), which is not often recognized as brain damage. In other
words, the child is just "reacting to the needle". It is "normal" to
be afraid of shots. But what they are missing is the diagnosis of
overt neuropathy, encephalitis or brain dysfunction, because high
pitched crying is not normal. Brain damage from vaccines is epidemic
and yet, doctors are slow to diagnose neurological disorders (in US)
when vaccinations are at stake but we see many citations linking
changes (for the worse) after vaccinations are given.

Ted Koren, DC stated, "Dyslexia, minimal brain damage, ADD, autism,
allergies, visual and many other neurologic diseases grouped together
as "developmental disabilities," barely existed before mass
vaccination programs. Probably twenty percent of American children-one
youngster in five-suffers from a 'developmental disability.' This is a
stupefying figure Developmental disabilities" are nearly always
generated by encephalitis. And the primary cause of encephalitis in
the United States and other industrialized countries is the childhood
vaccination program. To be specific, a large proportion of the
millions of U.S. children and adults suffering from autism, seizures,
mental retardation, hyperactivity, dyslexia, and other developmental
disabilities, owe their disorders to one or another of the vaccines
against childhood diseases." [Emphasis mine.]

Some 40-50 years ago children were not vaccinated until they were
ready for the first grade at age 6. Neurological disorders were very
uncommon then. Today, children are vaccinated at birth for HiB and
begin their long vaccination-journey at 2 months of age, before the
blood brain barrier is fully developed. A review of the medical
literature around the world will turn up many articles linking
vaccinations with many neurological disorders. Before the 1940s,
autism was extremely rare or unheard of. Then in the mid-1940s we
began a massive vaccination programs and autism was "born". At first,
it only occurred in the children of wealthy parents, since
vaccinations were not free or government sponsored like today. Later
autism became a disease of all classes (with government-sponsored
vaccine programs). The psychiatrists had a hay-day with autism and at
first they called it the "Refrigerator-Mother Syndrome". They said the
mother had a "cold" heart causing the child to be autistic and
withdrawn. Yet, studies did not support this theory, since many
families had only one autistic child among several normal children.
The point they missed was that it was the Doctor's cold needles that
caused the problem, not the mother's cold heart.

"The strongest link was between measles virus antibodies and anti-MBP,
suggesting that exposure to the measles virus may cause the immune
systems of children with autism to attack myelin," Singh said.
Children with autism produce anti-bodies against their own brain,
making autism an auto-immune condition. "Singh compiled a
nonscientific, anecdotal survey of 88 autistic children whose families
have contacted him. Of those, 51 percent said symptoms of autism began
shortly after the MMR vaccination, and 36 percent said the problems
started days after the DPT shot." Anecdotal evidence over-whelmingly
points to vaccines as causing autism. The connect between autism and
vaccinations can not be denied.

The pertussis vaccine is very neurotoxic and is used in the laboratory
to produce brain lesions in lab animals for study. But if our child
develops brain problems after a DPT vaccination, our doctor will tell
us it is coincidence or genetic. Vaccinations have been known to
increase the demyelination, a process related to many neurologic
diseases and MS is a demyelination disease. Myelin is designed to
protect the outer coating of neurons, much like the plastic outer
coating over an electrical wire. When this myelin is damaged,
neurological disorders, such as, MS, paralysis, or ALS, will result.
(Singh mentioned autism as a result of demyelination disorder.) The
nerves are short-circuited and do not function normally.

The encephalitis form vaccinations is much more prevalent than we
would like to realize, since all vaccines are neurotoxic to begin
with. That one child develops encephalopathies from a vaccine and
another remains "normal" is not the issue. All children are affected,
but some are affected more than others. For example, if a child
develops uncontrolled high pitched crying after a vaccine is given,
that is written off as a normal reaction and is even listed in medical
texts as such. But if that same child has a slower speech development,
slower learning (which is so common today), or slower ability in
walking, who would know. Unvaccinated children walk sooner, talk
sooner, and have a high degree of manual dexterity at an earlier age.
Their minds are not assaulted by the neurotoxins that most "normal"
children receive. Vaccinations cause the brain to swell and that is
"encephalitis", regardless of diagnosis. During the period after
vaccines are given children often lose their soft spot in their
cranium, as the swelling increases. Why would one's brain swell after
vaccines were given? The four points of infection are pain (dolor),
redness (color), fever (rubor) and swelling (tumor). Infections of the
brain might produce these same points too.