Autism: The Definition of A Social Wrong

"I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted"
- Frederick Douglass

Each time I start a blog entry about autism, I'm filled with enthusiasm for whatever aspect of the crisis I am about to talk about. This is because I may be teaching someone who doesn't know about the netherworld we autism families and doctors live in, about a piece of the puzzle.

Today the overwhelm, the immensity of the crisis and the utter pervasiveness of anti-movement which strives to destroy and undermine any progress in autism treatment and understanding of its cause, has me lurching a bit. I have been thinking about this blog entry since Christmas when I read a book of essays by Malcolm Gladwell.

Each week since then a new affront to the autism revolution has come up with greater teeth than before. The counter-mafia, we may call them, are the American Academy of Pediatrics, the CDC, the General Medical Counsel of Great Britain, and others who have been hunting one particular autism pioneer for a decade, whom they recently brought down. Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a tireless champion for treatment and prevention for autistic children and children at risk of autism, was publicly ridiculed by the General Medical Counsel in England a couple of weeks ago. He stands to endure further attack on his professional integrity in the coming months pursuant to more witch-hunting.

Dr. Wakefield's treatment of the pervasive gastroenterological ailments which plague most autistic children (including my own) has contributed on a large scale to the partial and sometimes total recovery of hundreds of autistic children from their most egregious symptomology. Despite great personal sacrifice and financial and professional loss, despite dogged ridicule and insults from the counter-mafia over years of helping children whose parents could not find the kind of GI help they needed anywhere else in the world, Dr. Wakefield has never given up his quest for the world to see the root causes of autism and how we could, if only we would study in earnest, prevent autism.

The BBC reported that at the culmination of the recent trial within GMC, panel chairman Dr. Surendra Kumar criticized Dr. Wakefield for invasive tests which were carried out on children and thought to be against their clinical interests. The panel called Wakefield out for acting unethically while on staff at London's Royal Free Hospital and said he did not have "relevant qualifications" for such tests. The GMC complained because Wakefield paid children $5 for their blood samples. Dr. Kumar declared that Wakefield had acted with "callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer".

With these allegations in mind, we turn our thoughts to the package insert from the Merck website for the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine. It can been seenhere.

Some of the more toxic ingredients in this vaccine, routinely shot into infants 12 months of age and 24 months of age with no informed consent whatsoever given to the parents as to risks, include but are not limited to:

- Live measles, mumps, and rubella (German measles) viruses
- Chick embyo
- Human diploid lung fibroblasts (diseased lung)
- Fetal Bovine Serum - pig fetus
- Albumin harvested from humans
- Neomycin -- an antibiotic that kills bacteria in the intestinal tract
- Sorbitol - whose safety in use for pediatric patients has not been established,
has reported adverse reactions such as vomiting, diarrhea, pulmonary
malfunction, uticaria, a rash/infection of the skin
- "Other buffer and media ingredients" -- not disclosed. Yes, you did read that
right: NOT DISCLOSED.

Various sources quote varying numbers of vaccine related damage in the U.S. extant, but the median number is more than 800,000 cases of vaccine damage in the U.S. EVERY YEAR since 1990. Note: vaccine damage is pervasive andpermanent.

And so, we on the frontlines of this world-wide epidemic, who watch these pioneers who have sacrificed everything in their attempt to present the truth about the autism epidemic be surreptitiously taken down by either a kangaroo court like the GMC or the corporate run media, scratch our heads in utter stupification. A man is stripped of his professional integrity for undertaking clinical trials which dealt with buying random blood samples and sampling spinal fluid of some pediatric patients. The sampling was not done without informed consent or against any patient's will, unlike the routine vaccination of millions of children who never understand the risks of lifelong neurological and immune damage they are being exposed to.

Wakefield, a licensed pediatric gastroenterologist, is accused of not having sufficient "qualifications" for investigating vaccine damage, while our own beloved pediatrician, an honored member of the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics), who administers thousands of vaccines on his infant patients each year, has looked me in the eye and told me he knows nothing about autism. With the tenure and academic honors that grace our pediatrician's wall, it is entirely safe to say that the majority of the AAP constituents know nothing about autism. What this means is that millions of parents facing autism in their children will go to their neighborhood pediatrician and be told nothing is wrong. Or, if the parent has somehow gotten the diagnosis and then goes to the neighborhood pediatrician for treatment, that doctor will announce there is nothing that can be done for the child with autism. I have spoken with dozens of parents who have experienced this in their communities and who have helped their children approach recovery against all odds.

Andrew Wakefield has since resigned from Thoughtful House, one of the most needed autism treatment clinics in the U.S. which he co-founded with Dr. Arthur Krigsman, another pediatric GIMD who specializes in autism-related gut disease. Doreen Granpesheh no longer graces that clinic's roster and one can no longer call Thoughtful House to make an appointment.

Today, two weeks after the GMC declaration upon Dr. Wakefield and two of his medical colleagues, an autism parent searching for GI and autism-related medical help from either of these doctors will not be able to find them. The phones are disconnected. Dr. Krigsman has abandoned Lennox Hill Hospital in New York and they hold no contact information for him. Dr. Wakefield has disappeared. Even if a family is lucky enough to have the money and the knowledge to seek out these doctors, they can no longer have their children treated in the foreseeable future by them. I think of my daughter being in the acute physical pain she was in when she was a toddler with a rampaging yeast overgrowth in her gut that no one would diagnose. Had I not been able to access a doctor like these extremely rare ones who acknowledge the gastrointestinal link in autism, she would still be suffering today.

In Malcolm Gladwell's recent collection of essays "What the Dog Saw", there is a selection called "Million Dollar Murray", wherein the scourge of homelessness is observed. In it the leading exponent for the power-law theory of homelessness, Peter Mangano, a past executive director of the US Interagency Council on Homelessness states: "It is very much ingrained in me that you do not manage a social wrong. You should be ending it."

And what, dear readers, is a social wrong? It is a pervasive attitude of discrimination which blocks a citizen from access to fundamental human rights, notwithstanding health care pertinent to that citizen's health condition. The case for autism as a social wrong is a wide swath that includes medical access, social and governmental recognition of autism as a human disaster, and educational and therapeutic access. It also includes governmentally mandated, forced exposure with no informed consent, to vaccination as dictated by the pharmaceutical industry. Yes, vaccination is dictated by the pharmaceutical industry, not by medicine. Every agency listed above as our counter-mafia is beholden financially to the pharmaceutical industry in what is affectionately known in autism as "captive agency phenomena", the phenomena in which the agency responsible for regulating a particular function is held financially captive by that function. The GMC and its proponents in the UK did bring pressure to bear onThe Lancetto retract its publication of the important study Dr. Wakefield produced which now has him on the brink of having his professional career destroyed (http://www.thelancet.com/).

As these captive agencies annihilate the rare physicians of this recent age who have devoted their lives to the cause of preventing and treating autism, the tidal wave of children beset with autism are denied the fundamental right to access the medical attention they need to recover. As our current president, like all presidents before him, continues to allow the pharmaceutical and insurance lobby to exclude autism patients from medical coverage, that president and his government deny a civil right to its citizens trapped in autism as it grows to breathtaking numbers.

Autism is not a rare disorder, it affects one in 55 boys born in the US today and millions of children around the globe. Each year the numbers in autism increase astronomically rather than incrementally and yet our governments remain steadfast in their refusal to acknowledge the epidemic. This is, at its base, the rationale which perpetuates discrimination against disabled people: the refusal to acknowledge the serious catastrophe at hand and thereby allowing an entire population of children now and in the future to perish in an abyss without treatment. It is the perfect illustration of social wrong.

How do we address autism? We end the corporate rule of its study, navigation and treatment. We end the delay in autism-relief measures and we provide open access to the rare doctors who have taken up autism as their cause. We encourage whole-heartedly, honest science that is not touched by the pharmaceutical industry or government. We acknowledge both the children who have not encountered autism as a result of vaccine damage, and those who have, with open eyes. We honestly and whole heartedly ACKNOWLEDGE THE CHILDREN WHO HAVE RECOVERED AS A RESULT OF UNDERGROUND MEDICINE IN THE AUTISM AGE. This medicine can no longer be ignored. Pediatricians in this country should no longer legally be allowed to tell their pediatric patients diagnosed with autism that there is no treatment.

In closing, Dr. Wakefield, I conjure up the darkness of mind and spirit that may pervade your life now, as you face this immense trial in your professional and personal life. I implore you, on behalf of the children in every continent on the face of this earth who suffer from and will suffer from the acute pain and alienation of autism, not to give up. You have thousands of passionate supporters, and children out there now who seek your help to access a healthy life. Please don't go away or give up.

Frederick Douglass also said:

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose."

We parents have endurance to stand behind you. Our children are depending on you and those who follow you to continue on, undaunted. We do face a civil rights crisis of the utmost urgency, and we need you and your colleagues, in order to alleviate these social crimes against our children.

Please, carry on. Please don't give up.

Amanda is a documentary filmmaker and autism activist currently engaged in making a feature documentary about the world autism crisis.The Pilgrims: The Journey to a New World for Autism. Narrated by Aidan Quinn. She is the mother of a young child with autism. She urges all parents of childbearing age to learn about prevention and treatment of autism, the most prevalent childhood epidemic in the world today.www.pilgrimsmovie.com