Blogroll
-
Farewell to Steve Silberman5 weeks ago
-
-
-
Little tiny pieces of contradictions..8 years ago
-
Notes on autism and assisted dying9 years ago
-
-
Autistic with spoons14 years ago
-
The Jake's on You14 years ago
-
Epilogue14 years ago
-
-
-
-
-
Monday, May 26, 2008
Why I Hate Jenny
Tomorrow there's a meeting for the local autism society. I'd like to attend. I hope that they're not all Jenny McCarthy heads, because that would just piss me off. Not that there's anything wrong with hoping you'll find that magical solution. I hope for it, too. I'm just not going to follow after the whackish advice of someone who just a couple years ago was an "indigo mom" with a crystal child.
Jenny McCarthy claims she'scured"recovered" her son and that people now tell her he was misdiagnosed. Uh huh. Which people? Who's verified this cure? There are plenty of people who gain enough skills back to no longer be considered eligible for services, and not all of them think it was a condition caused by vaccination.
She claims that she tried anti-fungals, gluten-free casein free diet, vitamins, and "metal detox." And then she went on to give him ABA (applied behavioral analysis) and speech therapy. Of all of those things, guess what? ABA and speech therapy are the only ones that are known to work. And being the rich chick that she is, I bet she could afford the 25 hours per week of year round intensive therapy that has been shown to make a huge difference.
But if you believe her, it was the first step - the filling her kid with chemicals to remove the imaginary chemicals and bugs step - that did all the work, and the ABA and speech therapy were only effective because of it. Uh huh.
I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing that prevents us from having useful dialog about things that just might work. The developmental pediatrician who examined K said that a lot of kids with autism also had GI issues and that some of them did see improvement with gluten free/casein free diets. She figured it was hard to behave if your stomach hurt all the time and you couldn't articulate it.
I'm sure that some kids with autism really do have particular vitamin deficiencies, particularly if they have a GI issue. But that doesn't mean that everyone should megadose. At best it's ineffective. At worst, dangerous.
Yes. There are kids who have reactions to vaccines. But getting paranoid about it leads to more kids getting diseases and dying from those complications. And getting vocal about it makes the CDC have to get more vocal in the opposite direction. I'm sure the CDC does know that some kids react poorly to shots, such as kids with chicken/egg allergies. Let them do their job and find those high risk groups instead of whipping the public into a frenzy.
And also - could we stop spending so much time arguing about causes and get to the funding of therapy? I'd like my son to have his 25 hours per week, year round early intervention, thanks.
Jenny McCarthy claims she's
She claims that she tried anti-fungals, gluten-free casein free diet, vitamins, and "metal detox." And then she went on to give him ABA (applied behavioral analysis) and speech therapy. Of all of those things, guess what? ABA and speech therapy are the only ones that are known to work. And being the rich chick that she is, I bet she could afford the 25 hours per week of year round intensive therapy that has been shown to make a huge difference.
But if you believe her, it was the first step - the filling her kid with chemicals to remove the imaginary chemicals and bugs step - that did all the work, and the ABA and speech therapy were only effective because of it. Uh huh.
I feel like this is exactly the sort of thing that prevents us from having useful dialog about things that just might work. The developmental pediatrician who examined K said that a lot of kids with autism also had GI issues and that some of them did see improvement with gluten free/casein free diets. She figured it was hard to behave if your stomach hurt all the time and you couldn't articulate it.
I'm sure that some kids with autism really do have particular vitamin deficiencies, particularly if they have a GI issue. But that doesn't mean that everyone should megadose. At best it's ineffective. At worst, dangerous.
Yes. There are kids who have reactions to vaccines. But getting paranoid about it leads to more kids getting diseases and dying from those complications. And getting vocal about it makes the CDC have to get more vocal in the opposite direction. I'm sure the CDC does know that some kids react poorly to shots, such as kids with chicken/egg allergies. Let them do their job and find those high risk groups instead of whipping the public into a frenzy.
And also - could we stop spending so much time arguing about causes and get to the funding of therapy? I'd like my son to have his 25 hours per week, year round early intervention, thanks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
As a mom who is following the Biomedical Protocol, I feel that you are NEGLIGENT as a parent if you don't do the simple tests that will tell you if your child is full of metals, has bacterial overgrowth and food allergies. Call me a Jenny Head, if you will, but she's brought more awareness to the Autism Epidemic than anyone else in recent history. Before you bash the protocol she used to heal her son, you might want to fully educate yourself on every aspect of it. I surely wouldn't want it to be 10 years down the road and it be too late for your child and you look back and say, "What if...." What if I had just changed my child's diet, could it have made a difference, what if I had found out my child was full of yeast and/or clostridia and treated it, could it have made a difference? Jenny Haters PISS ME OFF. I've seen her speak at three different conferences and let me tell you.. yes, she's in a GREAT position and in her words.. finally able to do something with her big mouth. But beneath it all, she's also the mother of an Autistic child who also has near fatal seizures. She's just as vulnerable as the rest of us and I personally thank her for bringing awareness and hope to parents of Autistic Children.
ReplyDeleteI've seen Jenny speak on TV. She was passionate, I'll give her that, but she didn't listen to reason or have civil discourse, and frankly that's a trait I've seen in many of her followers.
ReplyDeleteThat's not the way to get a cure, and that's not the way to get scientists to listen to you.