At the risk of raining scorn on my head, this reasoning seems awfully close to the Deaf community who want deafness to be viewed no differently from, say, being a red-head to the point where they opt out of procedures for their children that could repair their hearing.
I understand the rationale–people who are autistic (and those who love them) don’t want to be viewed as broken, especially those who are on the higher-functional scale. But it is a disorder; some people with autism will never be able to live on their own. If we ever find something that reduces autism then we should adopt it.
My daughter is autistic. I love her like mad. I would never want her to not be her. If, however, I were given a button to push that made the autism instantly go away, would I push it? Hell yes. To make my own life easier? No. Because I know exactly - well, no, not exactly - how much more difficult her life is going to be because of her condition, and I would do anything to let her live more normally.
I’m trying to keep my son as is but do what I can to change the world. He’ll make his accommodations, bur hopefully things will be easier for him when he grows up than they are for autistic adults today. But yeah, I’d do anything that would help him lead an independent, satisfying life.
Sorry, but then we can blame vaccines the mom got (even back in her childhood. Epigenetics, you know).
*"Assuming the results (of research indicating autism begins prenatally) pan out, this would provide further evidence that autism is likely to be a genetic disorder affecting early brain development. Onset in the womb, of course, would eliminate childhood vaccines as a cause.
We already know, however, that this won’t stop the anti-vaccine community from continuing to claim that vaccines or mercury cause autism. The evidence is not relevant to their beliefs. They already have shifted to blaming the mother’s vaccines."*
Of course it could be the fault of Dad’s vaccines. Or even the parents talking about what vaccines the baby might get later on. It’s a toxic subject.
Ok, I admit it. It’s my fault. I’m the Autism Fairy. I took over this job from the previous Autism Fairy shortly after I was born back in 1962. I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know it was wrong. I was too young to know. As I grew up, I came to hate Humanity (stupid little half-monkeys) and really came to enjoy my job. Hell, for a while there I was deliberately giving Autism to kids who had been vaccinated, just to mess with you folks.
But I have come to recognize the errors of my ways. I’m will be resigning the job very shortly. However, since the job must be filled and the only way to resign is to find your replacement, and I’m looking at several candidates. One of them seems promising, even if he is a bit old. Anyone heard of Dick Cheney?
If it’s down to the mother’s vaccines, though, then surely at least there’s very little argument left for not vaccinating the kids? I’m vaccinated to the gills, so my kids are already epigenetically fucked (if I believed that, which I don’t), so where’s the extra harm in vaccinating them?
make sure to include Dr. Oz in your list of anti-Vaxx celebrities. While he’s not contractually free to fully express his opinions on the subject, he admits to not vaccinating his kids.
there are actually quite a lot of MD’s against vaccination, though their voices are not widely heard as they are sidelined by the MSM. This article links to a list of 150+ MD’s (no google degrees here) who have spoken out:
a novel way to shut-up the anti-Vaxxers, find the actual cause(s) of Autism. 1 in 68 now in the US? That’s crazy! Clearly there’s something really bad going on, maybe something in our environment that was approved and shouldn’t have been… Clearly that’s a large enough sample pool to do some studies… You can’t blame it all on the anti-Vaxxers “distracting” the conversation.
I think it’s because it’s being properly identified and diagnosed. Some people also attribute it to video and computer dating, which has enabled people on the high-functioning end of the spectrum who otherwise might not have been able to find partners to do so.
FYI, the source you linked to here hypes bullshit for gullible people. Their idea of a reputable source on vaccines is a nonsensical piece of propaganda that promotes anti-vax horseshit. And then suggests coconuts are the solution to all health problems.
Well clearly there is something people are more exposed to these days that is causing a rise in autism, it’s not all due to overdiagnosis or expanding the definition of the “spectrum”. A lot of the Holistic crowd thinks it’s a combination or build up of aggravating factors, and not just vaccines - which has a ring of truth to me. But one has to at least admit that the Immunologic adjuvants in vaccines are by definition toxic. But vaccines just can’t be the only factor, as there would be clear correlations with autism. I’m betting on a more broadly used environmental contaminant, perhaps a pesticide or other hastily approved product, or combination of chemicals that’s the larger part of the problem, while the vaccination might just be the tipping point. I do believe the parents who swear there was a drastic, irreversible change after a vaccination, I just think they’re misguided if they consider it the only cause.
