What if Autism Were Contagious? | Kim Stagliano

What if Autism Were Contagious? | Kim Stagliano

Exactly Who Is "Anti-vaccine"? - The Thinking Moms' Revolution

Exactly Who Is "Anti-vaccine"? - The Thinking Moms' Revolution

If you want safe, non-neurotoxic vaccines for everyone, given in an independently tested and verified schedule and combination, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you want transparency, accountability, and ethical science when it comes to vaccines, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe those who profit from vaccines should not be in charge of vaccine policy or research, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe you should have the right to informed consent, and that not all vaccines are created or needed equally, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe we should study those who have reacted negatively to prevent problems for others in the future, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe you have the right not to inject yourself with something made using aborted fetal cell lines because it goes against your faith, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe the program has been derailed by special interests ever since they received federal liability protection, and that liability protection should be amended to apply only in times of emergency (if at all), you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe science can easily be bought and paid for, and that you have not only the right but also the responsibility to read it and question it, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you are a journalist investigating or reporting on CDC malfeasance regarding vaccine policy and research, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you are a politician doing the same, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you tell others to educate themselves about the risks and benefits of vaccines, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you tell others what happened to someone you know or love after they vaccinated, you are “anti-vaccine” (and a liar and dangerous).

If you believe corruption is possible in any entity, private or public, and that it needs to be exposed and weeded out wherever it is, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe 100 years is long enough to start studying the vaccinated versus never vaccinated to see if maybe, just maybe, we have created some unintended consequences,  such as swapping infectious disease for chronic disease . . . and hey, you’d really like to know that . . . you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe ALL children’s lives are valuable, not just those who appear to have tolerated the vaccine program well, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe the science you paid for as a taxpayer should be available to you and not shipped overseas or destroyed or withheld because the results are suspicious, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you think a wanted felon’s research being used for policy and legal decisions on something as important as the vaccines that you are giving to your children is a problem, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe a parent knows his or her child better than anyone, and that your first responsibility is to him or her and not society, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you would object to a public health official coming to your house today and saying you can’t leave your home for any reason until you get all of your adult boosters, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you believe a person shouldn’t be forced to have a medical procedure that could possibly hurt or kill them, or go against their conscience, in order to keep their job, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you think it’s insane that you can go to a grocery store and get a vaccine from a person who doesn’t know you or your health history, and who doesn’t tell you your rights, what to do if something goes wrong, or that you can’t sue them, the store, or the pharmaceutical company if they maim or kill you, you are “anti-vaccine.”

If you think it’s equally insane that if a Thimerosal-containing flu shot vial is dropped or spilled in that grocery store, the store has be evacuated and a Hazmat team has to come and clean it up because of the mercury in it, but that grandma should roll up her sleeve and inject it for 10% off her bill because it’s the “safe mercury,” you are “anti-vaccine.”

Autism sets back families $35,000 a year, WA study finds - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Autism sets back families $35,000 a year, WA study finds - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Families of children with autism are facing tens of thousands of dollars in costs and lost income, a Western Australian researcher has found.

The study — thought to be the first of its kind in WA — set out to measure whether a delayed diagnosis increased long-term costs for families.

But the paper, published in this month's edition of journal PLOS ONE, also established the median cost of a child being diagnosed with autism as $34,900 per annum.

Curtin professor and joint author Torbjorn Falkmer said the findings, drawn from the responses of 317 Western Australian families, had huge implications for parents.

"The majority of that cost, 90 per cent of it ... is because of the lack of the chance to have employment because parents have to stay home and take care of the children with autism, because they don't get the support they need," Dr Falkmer said.

"I think the system we have right now is showing us that parents are being forced to stay home, because they can't take a job because someone's got to take care of the kids.

"This just goes to show, that if we had proper child care and of course early diagnosis as well ... the parents would be able to work."

He said the impact was not limited to families who were disadvantaged by the economic loss, but also wider society.

"Autism cuts across every socio-economic demographic from highest to lowest," he said.

"We are just losing out on people who can actually work."

Work flexibility needed: 'You never know what's going to happen'

Tanya Harding's daughter Tara, now 11, was diagnosed with autism when she was six.

Ms Harding said she had scaled back her hours and only did temporary work because she needed the flexibility.

"Work-wise, it does put a lot of pressure on," she said.

"The amount of time I have to take off because there's appointments, and trying to get the hours of work in, trying to keep a constant security at work because you never know what's going to happen."

She said the costs of therapy for children with autism were high, while daycare centres that understood their needs were difficult to find.

The kids on the spectrum, they see and they hear and they know absolutely every single thing that's going on around them.

South Guilford mother Tanya Harding

"Since [Tara] started school, ... that has been one of my biggest problems," Ms Harding said.

"In social situations, which first of all is their biggest trigger, ... it's difficult for them to understand.

"They don't process things and understand things, body language or the normal things that neuro-typical kids learn naturally.

"They do need a lot of extra supports, a lot of extra intervention, things you wouldn't even think of."

Children with autism can react to stimulus that would not affect other "neuro-typical" kids, she said.

"[In school] there's a lot of sensory processing going on around her, there's a lot of noise," she said.

"The kids on the spectrum, they see and they hear and they know absolutely every single thing that's going on around them.

"Where a neuro-typical child would be able to sit and focus on their work, and probably wouldn't even notice what's going on around them.

"But these kids are focusing on what they are trying to do plus trying to process everything going on around them, [like] the bus going past on the road on the other side of the school."

True cost may be higher, support coordinator says

The coordinator of a support group for parents of children with autism said she thought the $35,000 per annum cost may be an underestimate for many families.

"My business was thriving, I had to close it down; so I lost my career and income significantly higher than that amount," the mother, who asked not to be named, said.

Our kids are supposed to have 20 to 40 hours of therapy a week, which is just impossible to afford or to manage practically speaking.

Parent support coordinator

She said a Centrelink carer's allowance of $115 a fortnight did not begin to meet costs.

"That doesn't even cover one session a week of occupational therapy or psychology for our child," she said.

"Our kids are supposed to have at least 20 hours of therapy a week when they are small, which is just impossible to afford or to manage, practically speaking."

She also pointed out that the emotional and psychological costs of the diagnosis impacted on families well beyond finances.

"We've lost friendships, we've lost the ability to visit friends and invite friends over," she said.

"There's been a huge amount of strain on our family because of our daughter's lack of flexibility, controlling behaviour caused by anxiety and hyper-sensitivity to all sensory input.

"We've been really isolated at the schools that she's been to and just in the community in general because of those sorts of things, as well as her lack of social awareness."

But she said the solution may not be as simple as more child support or extra government money.

"There's problems in the medical system with long diagnostic wait lists, the welfare system with restrictive eligibility criteria and the child care system as well, and then on top of all that you have to deal with the impact on the child's, parents' and siblings' mental health," she said.

"It's not just as simple as ask the Government to give us more money or child care places and we'll just pop them in there and we'll go happily back to our career.

"It's certainly not that simple because its a 24 hour a day job being a parent of an autistic child."

Inclusion Rates For Special Education Students Vary By State - Disability Scoop

Inclusion Rates For Special Education Students Vary By State - Disability Scoop

Where a child lives may significantly impact whether they are placed in an inclusive or segregated classroom, a new national analysis suggests.

Regional differences appear to play a role in education placements for students with autism, with those living in the West more likely to attend mainstream classes while students in the Eastern United States are more frequently assigned to segregated settings, according to findings publishedonline in the journal Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities.

For the study, Jennifer Kurth, an assistant professor of special education at the University of Kansas, combed through U.S. Department of Education data on placements for children with autism in the nation’s schools between 1998 and 2008.

On average, about 37 percent of students on the spectrum spent at least 80 percent of their school day in inclusive environments. But the numbers varied considerably from one place to the next, ranging from just 8 percent in Washington, D.C. to 62 percent in Iowa.

Similarly, Kurth found extreme differences across the states in the number of students placed in self-contained classrooms and residential or otherwise separate schools.

“If child-specific factors were solely responsible for education placement decisions, one would expect states to have similar rates of inclusive, self-contained, mainstreaming and separate school placements for students with ASDs,” Kurth wrote. “Instead, … results indicate that educational placement varies by state.”

Overall, the analysis found that Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin most consistently favored inclusion.

In contrast, Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. generally leaned toward restrictive settings.

When funding formulas for each state were examined, Kurth found that a handful of states appeared to incentivize placing students in more restrictive environments, but said that these monetary policies did not appear to have a “clear impact” on educational placement decisions.

Journal Retracts Autism Study Citing 'Serious Concerns' - Disability Scoop

Journal Retracts Autism Study Citing 'Serious Concerns' - Disability Scoop

A new study suggesting that decade-old data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides evidence of a link between autism and vaccines has been retracted amid concerns about its validity.

The paper published last month in the journal Translational Neurodegeneration concluded that African-American boys have a higher risk of autism if they receive the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine before age 2. The findings were based on a reanalysis of data from a 2004 CDC study.

The publication was accompanied by the release of a documentary-style video featuring Andrew Wakefield — whose since-debunked 1998 study first sparked concerns about a link between vaccines and autism — which includes allegations of fraud and a widespread cover-up by government scientists.

The video features recorded conversations between the author of the current study, Brian Hooker of Simpson University, and William Thompson of the CDC who worked on the initial study. In the video, Thompson is heard saying “we didn’t report significant findings.”

Now, however, the journal has withdrawn Hooker’s paper.

“This article has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions. The journal and publisher believe that its continued availability may not be in the public interest,” reads a statement on the website for Translational Neurodegeneration.

The CDC is standing behind it initial study findings, which included information on the age of vaccination for kids with and without autism. Findings were not broken down by race because such information was not available for all study participants, the agency said.

“The data CDC collected for this study continue to be available for analysis by others,” the agency said in a statement. “Additional studies and a more recent rigorous review by the Institute of Medicine have found that MMR vaccine does not increase the risk of autism.”

For his part, Thompson said in a statement issued by his lawyer that he was unaware that Hooker was recording their conversations.

“I regret that my co-authors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics,” Thompson said. “I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race.”