FYI: This is the fourth blog post that is not related to vaccines… Or is it?
It’s a tricky balance to listen to testimonies and be skeptical about them. On the one hand, you want to believe everything you’re hearing. You want to give the person the benefit of the doubt and take them at their word. On the other hand, if you are a reasonable person in a position of authority and you need to recommend or take action based on the information you’re being given, then you have do use your best judgment and separate the wheat from the chaff.
The Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee recently held a meeting and public speakers were invited. The oral public comments are really something interesting to read. Yet something we need to keep in mind is that these are not the comments of unbiased people. Rather, they are the public comments of people who feel that they have been wronged or that they are currently being wronged by life, the government, members of the committee, etc. Keep that in mind should you want to read them.
My issue with this type of activism is that it is very negative, very angry. Consider this statement:
“Now the numbers continue to rise with little being done to find the cause or cure. My children acquired autism via toxins. We know based on medical tests the toxins were vaccines. Something needs to be done to prevent other children from such injuries. My children have no future. They are extremely affected. It was brought to my attention that some of the studies that this committee uses to base certain opinions were falsified and corruption was taking place. People need to be held accountable because children continue to be harmed.”
Indeed, children continue to be harmed because autistic children continue to be described as having “no future”.
But, if there is no passion, can there be activism and advocacy? Absolutely. Also, anger does not equal passion. Passion is motivation and desire to get something done, to pursue a goal. Anger? Anger just clouds judgment and gets nothing done. Anger only gets you in trouble and makes you sound like a loon (with all due respect).
So how do we take the testimony of an angry mom who sees no future in their living, breathing child who, by her testimony, plays hockey and travels? We take it with an enormous grain of salt.
The Poxes Blog 
I’ve read or heard in real time the public comments that are presented at the IACC meetings. With rare exceptions, these parents are anti-vaccine to the core of the beings, who have never gone beyond their “belief” that their children are “vaccine damaged”.
Yeah, I slum over at the Clown blog where these parents hang out and I have observed unbridled anger and a paucity of advocacy to implement meaningful changes (insurance reforms, the establishment of funding streams from the States and from the Federal government to provide in home and out-of-home respite programs, alternative living arrangements for developmentally disabled children and adults and continuing education leading to employment opportunities for those diagnosed with ASDs). Their energies and resources are devoted to bogus biomedical interventions and to support their heroes (Wakefield and Geier).
They all supported the coalition and the PAC which tried, unsuccessfully, to disband the IACC and the funding for the Autism Cares Act:
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/206736-feud-risks-killing-off-autism-law#disqus_thread
Very well said. I’m really getting sick of parents saying children with autism are lost, stolen, kidnapped, etc.
To quote a wise, uh, man? “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
I think Man would be an insult in this case. Teacher?
Teacher? No.
Master.
I don’t begrudge him stealing my line, “When 900 years you reach, look as good you will not”.*
*Hey, in the morning, I *do* feel old enough to have taught him that line.
But then, I was with the Corps of Engineers for the Great Earth Dirt Delivery Project.
So, yes, I am older than dirt. 😉