Autism Street

This in from an astute anonymous e-mailer. We’ll refer to him or her as “July’s Guest Blogger”. Whether or not July’s Guest Blogger participates in the comments will be up to him or her.

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Harold Doherty has on his blog this terrifying graph about the change in administrative prevalence in autism Massachusetts IDEA data from 2002/03 until 2006/07 (see his piece, “Autism Surging in Massachusetts - Part 2″).

A huge 84 percent increase, he quotes from a newspaper. He also quotes, but apparently doesn’t seem to understand the reason for the 84 percent increase: “Before the 2002-03 school year, the DOE did not track the disorder separately, Mrs. Guarino said.”

Seriously, Doherty has the graph showing the big increase AND two inches lower he has the quote explaining the basis of the increase - before 2002/03, the Massachusetts DOE didn’t track autism separately.

Read more…

By Christschool

“Full Disclosure: My wife once worked in the executive branch of the 2nd Clinton term. I’ve met Hillary, along with Bill, several times during White House functions when my wife and I were dating. I don’t think she is against autistic people. However, those in political office often have very limited exposure to “normal folk”. Hillary just needs to be introduced to autism outside of the framework of Autism Speaks and the various other charities that pretend to support autistic people.”

~ Christschool

Discussion with Christschool and others at ABFH’s blog.

Sometimes it’s hard to explain why things get overwhelming, or why something I could tolerate just find one day becomes overwhelming on another day. I look “normal”. I earned university degrees, hold jobs, have a family, converse like an intelligent person … and then I’m standing there dumbly like a deer in the headlights, or am staggering down the hallway flapping a hand, or am seated away from others and rocking in agitation. I’ve turned into a “not-normal” person, and transgressed that invisible boundary marking staff from students / clients, or have shifted from upstanding citizen to crazy-looking person on the street.

Andrea may have claimed it’s hard to explain, but then she kept writing. She did an impeccable job. This is one of those rare articles that comes along every once in a while that provides real insight in my opinion. Fair warning, if you’re squeamish about vivid descriptions of potentially irritating and stressful sounds, smells, and sights, or stress in general, this could be tough. If you’re not, then you won’t mind hearing about blaring televisions, the smell of singed microwave popcorn, or sights like graffiti. Either way, you should really go read Bridge Load Limit over at Andrea’s Buzzing About, when you have a chance. Detailed explanation, and good reason to understand in conclusion awaits!

Steve D from the One Dad’s Opinion blog (an excellent blog by the way - I highly recommend it) tagged me with the “Eight Random Things” meme . The rules are:

1. Let others know who tagged you.
2. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
3. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
4. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been tagged.

I actually like the idea of bloggers sharing a little more about themselves from time to time, but I definitely despise the inherent and inevitable mathematical problems of such memes (I never liked chain letters either). As ususal when I’ve been tagged with something like this by another blogger, I’m going to participate, and invoke a mutation of non-propagation from this branch.

Eight random facts about me:

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Part Three - Chelation “Rationale”

The following quote comes from ARI Publication 40 / April 2007 -
“Summary of Biomedical Treatments for Autism”
(authored by ASU professor James Adams, see autism.com for text).

Chelation: Removal of Toxic Metals

Rationale: Many children with autism have a low amount of active glutathione, and a higher fraction of their glutathione is oxidized (inactive). Glutathione is the body’s primary defense against mercury, toxic metals, and many toxic chemicals, so a low level of glutathione results in a higher body burden of toxins. Also, many children with autism had increased use of oral antibiotics in infancy, which alter gut flora and thereby almost completely stop the body’s ability to excrete mercury. Normalizing glutathione, restoring gut flora, and removing toxic metals often results in reduction of the symptoms of autism.

Emphases mine. Rationale?

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Every god-damn quarter, without fail. Every single one. The CDDS data gets released – Rick Rollens releases his usual ‘full syndrome’ crapola and tells us how autism is still skyrocketing and does his best Chicken Little impression and David Kirby chews at the edges of the data to try and find something that will support the idea that thiomersal plays any kind of role in autism.Its getting really, really old.

Please let me say it to you one more time.

CDDS is not good source data for epidemiology. They say so themselves.

Read the rest from Kev over at Left Brain/Right Brain.

CDDS numbers for Q2 of 2007 are in. Austism caseload increased for the 3-5 year-old cohort from 6533 (Q1 of 2007) to 6702. As usual, data and important disclaimers are available at the CDDS website.

Any guesses out there as to how this may be spun by the likes of David Kirby or Rick Rollens?