Recently, I had a friend ask me a question about my thoughts on autism. Now, anyone that knows me, knows I have an opinion or two or a thousand about this particular subject. After mulling things over I have decided to write a blog post about it. I’ve written posts on autism in the past, but I’m going to do it again because I believe I need to share some important information. If this post does nothing else I do hope it makes my readers think.
I am going to write this post as if you are just reading my blog for the first time and don’t know me or know anything about my opinions. If you are a long-time reader, please just hang with me. Hopefully, you will also learn something new or at the very least this blog post will make you consider the truth about autism.
Before I begin I just want to say I do not wish to be offensive to anyone. That is not who I am, but I might say some things that people will be offended by. There is a difference. I know many individuals on the autism spectrum, some on the higher end and some on the lower end, and several in the in-between. I am friends with families that have been dealing with autism in the day to day. I am a grandmother to a grandson on the spectrum. Most days I don’t feel worthy to speak for them, but I hope they know my heart. There are as many different opinions in the autism community as there are people. Some individuals with high functioning autism (formerly Aspergers Syndrome) have no desire to be neurotypical and find it upsetting that people want to find a cure for something they do not consider a problem. Other families are struggling with children who are unable to talk, but scream at the top of their lungs as they beat their heads on the hard floor until they bleed. Children that won’t eat, or have extremely restricted diets and those whose guts are such a mess that severe diarrhea is an everyday thing. Kids who require physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech and language. The list goes on and on……
******************************************
As a teenager, I knew I wanted to be a special education teacher. I grew up with an aunt with intellectual disabilities, born in the 1930’s. The doctor that delivered her told my grandma that she should be institutionalized. My grandma said no. When I was sixteen I was babysitting and helping with children that had Cystic Fibrosis, and Prater-Willi Syndrome. I volunteered for the Special Olympics. By the end of my junior year of high school, I only lacked two credits in order to be able to graduate. My senior year I took two classes first thing in the morning and spent the rest of the day at an independent study at the special education preschool next door. During the summers between my years of college, I worked in group homes for developmentally disabled adults, as well as summer camps for these same individuals. By the time I graduated in the spring of 1990, with a Bachelor of Science in Special Education, I had a lot of practical experience under my belt. Over the past twenty-eight years I have worked as a special education teacher, consultant, and passionate advocate in the mountains of rural Appalachia, an urban inner-city school with gang violence and drive-bys, suburban schools large and small, and now in the rolling farmland of the Mid-west. In the midst of all this, I also took some time (along with my work from home husband) to homeschool our three children so I also understand that educational choice. During these years I have worked with children with a myriad number of different diagnoses, from severe and life-altering to mild issues. Because of my passion for assisting students on the autism spectrum, I chose to go back and get a Master’s degree in special education with a graduate level certificate in autism spectrum disorders. Honestly, I would not have been able to get this certification in the past, certainly not when I was in my twenties or early thirties because this certification didn’t exist at that time. It has been fairly recently that concentrations in autism have come into existence. College and university educators are realizing that the astronomical increase in autism spectrum disorder diagnoses over the last three decades requires teachers to have an excellent working knowledge, passion for, and a will of steel to instruct and nurture these kiddos.
**********************************
When I was in college in the late 1980’s, my professors did not talk much about autism. They were wonderful educators, but autism was rare and they didn’t think their students would have much opportunity to work with children on the spectrum. By the mid-1990’s I began getting students diagnosed with Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD). PDD falls under the Autism Spectrum umbrella. Then I would get another student, and another student on the spectrum. My special education director sent me to conferences, I was asked to be a member of the Autism Peer Advisory Review Board (where special educators that worked with students with ASD, helped general education teachers to understand their students with autism and gave practical help/assistance) and my passion for this population began to grow.
In the late 1980’s autism was 1:10,000 children. Autism was considered a rare condition and most people, unless you were in the field, didn’t know much, if anything, about it.
According to the CDC, Children born in 1994 and who according to the 2002 CDC study had an ASD prevalence of around 1 in 150, probably started first grade in the fall of 2000.
And so starts the beginning of what would become a full-blown tsunami of children with autism spectrum disorders.
So, in roughly six or seven years children being diagnosed with autism went from 1:10,000 to 1:150. Think about that for a minute. Let it sink in. Even if we say that over that time period diagnosis of autism was more accurate, that could only explain a small amount of the diagnosed children. I personally do not believe that the medical profession did such a horrible job of diagnosing these children. Maybe some, but I think that amount is on the lower end of the scale. Something happened during that time period. Something that was forever changing the lives of children…..
In 1983, children got 10 shots (birth to six years) and by 2013 the total of shots was between 36-38 (birth to six years). So, people (often well-intentioned, but uninformed) cannot say, “Well, you got all your shots and you are just fine.” Anyone born in the mid-1980’s and earlier did not have anywhere near the shots that children have today. This also does not even touch on the fact that vaccines are filled full of neurotoxic chemicals. Heavy metals such as mercury (in flu shots), and aluminum used as adjuvants (what makes your body have a reaction to the vaccine). Formaldehyde and Polysorbate 80 are poisonous. Formaldehyde is the chemical used in embalming! Some people will say, “A little bit can’t hurt, right?” “They wouldn’t put that in there if it were going to hurt anyone”. I don’t know about you, but I think poison is poison. It would be like you saying you are thirsty, and I give you a glass of water, but then I say, “Um….I put a drop of strychnine in there. It was only a drop, it shouldn’t hurt you right?” That is crazy, right? That is what is happening with vaccines. The known neurotoxins that are in vaccines are able to cross the blood-brain barrier, cause inflammation, and all kinds of physical issues for our children. Think about this, studies show that this generation of children are sicker than any generation before them. Our children are afflicted with developmental disabilities (autism being one of them), ADHD, severe life-threatening allergies, asthma, diabetes and a plethora of auto-immune diseases.
In 1988 something changed.…..pharma companies that made the vaccines were no longer going to be liable for any vaccine injury. This was an open door for these massive companies to crank up the number of vaccines given to children. Vaccines are money in their pockets, the health of the children be damned.
In 1988, under U.S. Code 300aa-22 Standards of Responsibility it states, 1) No vaccine manufacturer shall be liable in a civil action for damages arising from a vaccine-related injury or death associated with the administration of a vaccine after October 1, 1988, if the injury or death resulted from side effects that were unavoidable even though the vaccine was properly prepared and was accompanied by proper directions and warnings.
The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network is part of the CDC. According to their statistics, the prevalence of autism was at 1:250, 1:150, then 1:110, then 1:88, to 1:68. The 1:68 is based on 2010 data. In the meantime, 2013 showed 1:50 and in 2016, 1:36. Anyone can look at these numbers and see there is definitely an increase in autism. The numbers are astronomical! These numbers of the children tracked by the CDC are terrifying. Yet, there are those in the autism community (parents, educators, medical professionals) that believe that the CDC stats are still too low.
Dr. Brian Hooker, a top vaccine scientist for the CDC, and whistleblower, states “CDC numbers are actually too low, and that the real rate of autism is much higher”.
What does this mean for us as a society, if we are currently at 1:36 children being diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum? Boys are 4.5-5 times more likely to be diagnosed with ASD, although girls, especially those who are higher functioning, tend to fly under the radar of diagnosis until they are much older. They might be the ones that seem a little odd or quirky, but try to fit in. The girls with higher functioning ASD, often do not have the major behaviors of the boys, and so they can go undiagnosed or self-diagnose when they are older.
MIT researcher Dr. Stephanie Seneff has stated that given current trends in autism diagnoses, she expected by the year 2025 half of all children with being diagnosed somewhere on the autism spectrum.
In 2002, the CDC found evidence that might lead to understanding why young African-American boys were being increasingly diagnosed with autism…then they destroyed the evidence. Yes, you read that correctly. The CDC destroyed the evidence. The evidence that showed an increase in autism of these precious little ones, was thrown in the trash. That makes me angry!
Some people might say, “I want to see the evidence”. For those people I would show you the 145 peer reviewed medical/scientific research papers that currently show a link between vaccines and autism. This is not all the articles that are out there, but it is a start.
Honestly, I could write a book about this topic. I know it can be overwhelming, but I ask that you do your own research. Look up the information. Be informed. Ask questions. Dig deeper. The lives of our children will depend on it.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”. -Edmund Burke
It Just Dawned On Me 