On this dark and dreary June morning when rain has cancelled the Autism Speaks 400 NASCAR Nextel Cup Race and kept Charlie, already excited to go to school after the weekend, awake and chattering from 3 – 7.30am—-on a day of such portentous weather (threatening a basement deluge), the day after Paris Hilton was booked into jail, a sign almost on a par with the comet that is said to have appeared in the sky after the death of Julius Caesar—–one can detect a certain theme, maybe even a meme, working its way through autism circles. Not “who speaks for autism” or even Bob and Suzanne Wright’s public disavowal of their own daughter, Katie Wright, as a “spokesperson for Autism Speaks. Getting the attention today is Big Pharma:
- A press release by the leaders of the anti-vaccine advocacy organization, the NAA, notes that, for all the “spin from pharma companies and their minions,” some parents of autistic children (not this parent of an autistic child) “are calling attention to the conflicts of interest they believe continue to threaten the safety of vaccines.”
- Just a coincidence: Orac at Respectful Insolence has a post on The pharma conspiracy acts against a threat which includes, in full satirical humor, a parody of “Age of Autism” journalist Dan Olmsted under the title of “Bacardi Makes a Killer Mojito.”
- Autism Diva takes Big Pharma’s view.
Full disclosure here regarding me and Big Pharma………… my father is a pharmacist. And (what a coincidence) my mother was a pharmacy technician. They are both retired but somehow, in some convoluted way, there could be some case made that some pharmeceutical company helped pay for my upbringing, piano and viola lessons, college tuition, and so forth, and somehow seeded something in the creation of this blog. When I was growing up, rarely was a pen or pad of paper in our house to be found that did not say “Erythromycin” or “Schering Plough” etc.; “free samples,” my dad said, while my sister and I noted that the pens always ran out of ink after a few uses. My dad is, by the way, a very upright person and pens and pads of paper were the only thing the drug salespersons could leave in the pharmacy—–my dad also made one thing clear to me sister and me: “Don’t go into pharmacy.”
I indeed took his advice and instead went off to an East Coast college and studied things like……..the Greek words that are the etymological roots of “pharmacy” (pharmakon is means “drug” or “medicine” or “(love) philter” and, as such, “remedy”—but pharmakon also carries the meaning of “poison”) and a certain French philosopher’s texts on Plato, the pharmakon, the letter, blindness, supplement—–but rather than go into all that, you might want to read Bacardi Makes a Killer Mojito. And remember the words of 18th-century poet Jonathan Swift in his epitaph as rendered by William Butler Yeats:
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.
Whether your autism advocacy is vaccine-flavored or about education, little savage indignation in the heart (cor) can go a long way when the subject is autism.
Ray:
The US does “care” about what is happening to children. You’ll forgive them, of course, for examining the issue of ASDs in a rigorous scientific manner, no? I, for one, do not want to live in place that unthinkingly jumps on the band-wagon of fervent pseudoscience. So, I’ve been heartened that the US Government (ie NIH; CDC) have forged ahead with the science — even while facing death threats.
My own child has gotten very, very upset at being referred to as “poisoned”. I wish that those who “believe” in “vaccine-induced autism” (a term you’ve used for years) would think about the obligation they, themselves, have to pursue to the truth.
You had better be absolutely 100% certain — beyond-all-doubt — that the standard pediatric vaccines have caused and are causing ASDs, because all kids (elementary school; middle school; sped schools; therapy centers; neighborhoods) are aware of this frightening story.
If you are anything less than 100% assured and lacking possession the the appropriate, non-disputed facts to guarantee your premise as absolute truth, then you, need to take a hard-look at what you have done and are doing as being potentially abusive to children.
In other words, Ray: You had better be real g/d sure that the vaccines “induce” autism, otherwise what you, yourself, have done to ASD kids is a real crime.
Per…………
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/01/a-of-a-qa-ped-1.html
Buckley: … with diphtheria but with all these diseases, they said, “You know what, this risk is tremendous and the benefits are very, very good and so it’s worth adopting this universally.” But when you implement something universally and then you say in the true American way, a little is good, more must be better, and so let’s vaccinate like crazy, and then something starts to happen that is going to turn out to have a crippling impact on our economy and on our ability to perpetuate ourselves as a society, and our ability to have young men to send to war if we decide we need to fight, and to keep going forward … If we wish to be a big old superpower, then we really need to think about whether the risks are continuing to be outweighed by the theoretical benefits.
I agree with Dr. Buckley. I see it with our family where our son with vaccine-induced autism is in an out-of-state residential center where he will never have a job or serve in the military.
Recently, we were contacted by a 55 year old woman in our town that wanted her 24 year old son with vaccine-induced autism placed. Her son was choking her and having seizures.
I’m a US Navy veteran. If my country doesn’t think our children are important then I could care less what happens.
When our country goes down the tubes is abybody’s guess but it will happen. Just as well because they don’t care what is happening to our children….it is more important making a profit than having healthy children.
So be it.
Raymond Gallup