UPDATE: Here are others’ thoughts on this subject. I’ll update as I see more speaking out against this madness.
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/08/31/whitewashing-the-brutal-murder-of-alex-spourdalakis/
http://paulacdurbinwestbyautisticblog.blogspot.com/
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Yeah, I was not supposed to come back to the blog until Sunday. In fact, that blog post has already been written. It’s just that something came to my attention today, and you, my two or three readers, must know about it right now. It is almost an emergency because it is placing children in harm’s way.
I’m talking about this report from CBS. I need to warn you that it is very hard to look at. It has images of a child with autism by the name of Alex being mistreated and it describes in some detail how his mother and his caretaker killed him. The most infuriating part of the report is that, in my opinion, it attempts to explain why the child was killed, completely forgetting that a child was killed. Giving the mother and caretaker’s difficulties in having the child treated, the report, to me, tries to justify what they did. And, in my humble opinion, now puts it out there that it is okay to kill your neurodevelopmentally delayed child if he or she becomes too much of a burden to you.
The worst thing is that the heinous murder of Alex is being touted by the “Autism Media Channel,” an online outfit who seems hell-bent on declaring Andrew Jeremy Wakefield innocent of the fraud he committed, as what parents are being driven to do when help doesn’t come. Not only that, but Andrew Jeremy Wakefield sat there next to Alex and looked into the camera asking for “help” while using Alex as a background prop.
Instead of saying, “Hey, we have all these great new ways to detect autism in children and all these great, evidence-based interventions to make their lives better,” the people who keep touting vaccines as the cause of autism keep on keeping on… They go as far as to say that bleach enemas and drinking bleach solutions will “cure” autism, a condition that is not curable (because it is not something that can be cured). And now they’ve gone a step further and try to justify the murder of a child.
Then again, it’s not the first time anti-vaccine activists try to clear the names of killers. They’re all about defending parents who shake their babies to death by alleging that vaccines can break bones, bruise internal organs, and snap necks. If we let them spread their lies and misinformation, it will be okay to kill your child and blame vaccines for your lack of coping skills in being a parent.
No, it is not okay to kill your child, no matter how much you’re suffering because of their disability.
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I didn’t realize that MR. Andy Wakefield could sink any lower than he already has, in light of how my children were put at harm because of his fraud. I guess I just wasn’t thinking broadly enough.
Here’s another way the vile, contemptible Attkisson spun the story
I read the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s 990 (tax return) for the last year available, which showed $0.00 in “government funding”. (Note that they couldn’t be bothered to name the group accurately). ASAN’s funding comes from individuals such as myself, and grants from other foundations.
I asked Ari Ne’eman (how his name is actually spelled) and he replied that there is some government funding, for example from grants for studying things such as health disparities for autistic adults and research into how government grantees are serving autistic adults and those with other invisible disabilities.
Thank you, Reuben, for writing this. Kathryn has summed up many of my feelings more eloquently that I could.
There are parents with autistic children who cherish, love and adore their very bones and who are utterly sickened by this murder and sick of being portrayed as slaves or victims to their child’s neurology.
The bastards at that notorious anti-vaccine website have blogged twice about that video, Reuben. Their latest blog provided the CBS website where the video is being reshown and there are 12 comments posted, including some from their groupies.
Earlier today I telephone a complaint to the “CBS This Morning” hotline, which is open for telephone calls M-F 10:00-11:30 AM and 2:00-3:30 PM EDT, for those calls. I was polite but quite forceful with “Rachel” about my extreme displeasure about the video.
Rachel also provided me the name and address of CBS Chairman Jeffrey Fager, c/o CBS News, 524 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. Mr. Fager will be receiving a letter from me shortly.
Rachel also gave me the email address to correspond with the Program Director of the CBS This Morning TV show:
cbsaudiencenews@cbs.com
I would urge you and your readership to use these contacts to write and email CBS to voice your displeasure with that video segment showing. Here’s the email I just sent to the Programmming Director:
To Programming Director, CBS News
Dear Sir or Madam:
I am writing to you to strongly protest the showing of the Alex Spourdalaxis video on the “CBS This Morning” show, Friday August 30, 2013
It is my understanding that the segment shown is part of an 18 minute documentary that was videotaped by staff at the Autism Media Channel.
Many of those scenes showing Alex in 4-point restraints in a hospital bed were “featured” on a number of anti-vaccine websites and Autism Media Channel placed those videos along with other videos showing Alex semi-nude with a diaper barely concealing his genitalia on YouTube, where you can view them. Anti-vaccine organizations sent people into the hospital and they were advising Alex’s mother about not agreeing to Alex’s transfer to a psychiatric hospital, so that his behaviors could be evaluated properly and medication that he was prescribed could be properly managed to help Alex.
You can see for yourselves the unfolding story of Alex’s hospitalization, being reported by Lisa Goes on the (redacted) blog, which serialized Alex’s life before and during his hospitalization, the long car trip that the mother’s advisors took Alex on, for a consultation with Dr. Arthur Krigsman in New York and the reporting on (redacted), after his mother over sedated him, then plunged a kitchen knife into his chest to murder him. She, rightfully so, has been indicted for his premeditated murder. Dr. Arthur Krigsman is well-known in the autism advocacy community as the physician who has a history of diagnosing autistic children, without examining them with gastrointestinal disorders. You should check the Wikipedia entry under his name to verify what I have stated about him.
Science bloggers, including a physician, have written extensively about this case and the interference of outside parties, including Lisa Goes and disgraced former medical doctor Andrew Wakefield, while Alex was hospitalized. Andrew Wakefield is the co-owner, along with Polly Tommey, of the Autism Media Channel and he bragged during a radio broadcast about six weeks ago, that he was “shopping” that 18 minute documentary around, at major TV networks.
As a licensed health care professional (registered nurse), as the parent of a beloved child who was born with a rare genetic disorder who was hospitalized frequently because he had multiple and profound physical, intellectual and medical impairments…and as an advocate on behalf of developmentally disabled children and adults for the past 37 years, I am deeply disturbed that you chose to show this vile video segment. I am very much involved with parents of autistic children and adults, throughout the United States and they share my opinions about that choice.
Alex can no longer speak for himself because he was brutally murdered by his mother. We collectively are haunted by what Alex’s last thoughts were, as his own mother slit his wrists while he was tied up and then plunged the knife into his chest, to snuff out his life and to silence him forever.
I am requesting that you immediately pull down that video segment from your website and make a public apology to Alex, to the family and friends who did love him and to the hundreds of thousands of individuals in the autism community.
I intend to write to Jeffrey Fager, Chairman of CBS, and to the Cook County District Attorney about this deplorable situation.
Thank you for your anticipated quick response to my request,
Sincerely,
(lilady) RN, BSc-Nursing
Horrific and I agree with you 100%. There is never an excuse to kill a child, any child. Yet, as far as I’m concerned, anti vaxers do it every day.
Thank you. I’m an autistic adult and Alex’s death disturbed me beyond words. People are rushing to his mother’s aid and are quick to blame autism for his death while overlooking her clear acts of neglect and violence against Alex, and they’re saying she was pushed too far because she didn’t have enough help. That just isn’t true. A lot of information has come out that Alex’s mother refused all the assistance she was offered and denied Alex the care he needed.
And autism is not a reason to murder someone. It terrifies me every day that my life has so little value to strangers that they wouldn’t even investigate my violent death if they heard I was killed by a caretaker before determining that whoever involved must have been struggling due to my “condition,” pushed to it because of frustration or lack of resources. How does that make sense? How do you improve or save someone’s life by trying to kill them? It is not better to be dead than autistic, and a lot of autistic people have happy, fulfilling lives, or at least as happy and fulfilling as their non-autistic counterparts. I was lucky enough to have parents who loved me, who saw me as a person instead of just a burden and believed that human life was valuable.
Dorothy Spourdalakis did not value her son’s life. She could not have been a good mother, because good mothers don’t kill their children. She killed a living, breathing, thinking human who she had a legal and moral obligation to take care of (and refused offers of outside help before his death). Somehow this doesn’t seem to horrify some people, and terrifyingly enough, a lot of those people supporting Alex’s mother are the non-autistic parents of autistic children. I’ve heard how Dorothy was a hero who laid her “sweet angelic boy” to rest. The way I remember it, she brutally stabbed him repeatedly to the point limbs were nearly severed, and also butchered his cat for fear it might get a new loving home after a short stint in an animal shelter. When I read that, I imagine the fear, confusion, and betrayal Alex must have felt in his final moments, and I feel physically ill. Anyone who reads of that gruesome murder and describes Alex as being “laid to rest” by his mother is committing the worst kind of lie imaginable. This is not the way to advocate for better care for autistic people. This is only going to get more of us killed, especially when the message being sent is, “It’s so hard taking care of those monsters that their mothers are forced to kill them. It’s not her fault; it’s autism’s fault.” That’s victim-blaming. Autism cannot be separated from a person, and it does not magically make someone okay to kill.
I hear it every time another one of us dies. The non-autistic parents rush to the killer’s defense and hurl insults at those standing up for the victim. I’ve seen both autistic and non-autistic adults threatened and harassed for suggesting that it’s not okay to murder someone because they’re autistic or because you’re not receiving enough social security. When we try to create safe places to mourn our murder victims, they make those places unsafe by showing up and accusing those present of lacking empathy for the real victim: the murderer. They make it safe for other parents to fantasize about killing their children, so the cycle can begin again. I’m so tired of losing people like this. CBS airing this program will put even more autistic people’s lives at risk by normalizing and legitimizing those murder fantasies. The autistic community doesn’t need this. We need the opposite of this. We’ve buried enough people already.
Thank you for saying this so eloquently. I agree with it all but could not have written it as well as you did.