Time has come out with a great story on Jenny McCarthy – which includes the possibility that her son may have never had Autism. According to the Time Magazine Article:
Was her son ever really autistic? Evan’s symptoms — heavy seizures, followed by marked improvement once the seizures were brought under control — are similar to those of Landau-Kleffner syndrome, a rare childhood neurological disorder that can also result in speech impairment and possible long-term neurological damage
Jenny McCarthy is widely known for her stance on vaccinations causing Autism. She is known by people in the health field to be a public menace for encouraging parents not to vaccinate their children. What do you think about the possibility her son may not be Autistic?
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{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
hannautie, I totally disagree. I think not only are more kids Autistic than ever before, I think doctors are finally becoming educated on the subject and thus are better able to spot it. But remember, Autism is a diagnosis that’s given once the other things have been ruled out. We had to visit psychiatrists, neurologists, have an MRI and EEG, as well as countless other tests to finally get the diagnosis of Autism. There are criteria which must be met to be considered “on the spectrum”. It is not as easy a label to slap on as you might think. And there are people who are both Autistic and dealing with depression and mental illness.
Instead of comments like that, which I fear will encourage those who wish to pull support for the Autism programs our children and families need, our energy would be better spent making sure people understand Autism better and that those diagnosed have been properly screened for other issues.
Just my $0.02
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Jenny McCarthy’s pediatrician is an idiot. Just like so many others who are hyperdiagnosising autism in every kid that walks into their exam room. This is so stupid. There are so many kids out there running around with this diagnosis that aren’t autistic it isn’t even funny. Worse yet, now we have a bunch of mentally ill persons posing as high functioning autistics who are really complete mental cases that are causing more chaos and confusion. The truly autistic population is not that common. Okay, there is a spectrum, but even the guy whose life inspired Rain man and Temple Grandin, who are both high functioning examples of autism and (grandin—aspergers), still are NOTHING like the falsely diagnosed autistics cramming our system today. Doctors are really ignorant sometimes. So are schools. They just don’t understand what real autism is. It certainly isn’t the autism you see on these self advocacy sites. Boy oh boy, are these special cases a case study in psychiatry. Totally crazy people. U can’t even believe how whacked they are.
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I never got the impression that Jenny McCarthy was against vaccination. More that she was against the current vaccination schedule. A concern shared by a number of people in the medical field. Even vets don’t give dogs and cats as many vaccinations as we give our babies, because they’re concerned about the effects. We offer our babies one food at a time in case there is an allergy or sensitivity, but we’ll pump a 3 month old with multiple vaccines at once in the same strength we’d give an adult.
I don’t know if her son had/has Autism. But I don’t think she’d have reason to believe any differently if that’s what doctors told her.
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If she was TOLD that her son had autism by a top neuro doc what evidance did she have to prove otherwise???? At the time what research she did proved that the doc was correct!! IF this Time Mag is true which you cant believe everything you read…. it DOES NOT change the fact that a top neuro doc told her her son HAS autism plus the fact tt EVERYTHING she learned said the SAME thing.
We all fight for our children whom have been diagnosed with some type of ASD, the way I chose to fight for my son differes from the way you fight for your child. I dont believe any one of us know why or what cuased our childs ASD as for me personally I know now that my son showed symptoms before age 1 year old. So for me personally I know his WAS NOT caused by childhood shots. I have chosen NOT to focus on the how or why but to focus on what is next how do I best advocate for and make my sons life as easy and full as I can on a daily basis.
I whole heartedlly believe that our children would be best served if we focused on their daily care insted of why our babys have ASD. If we put all of that energy in to the daily therapys can you imigiane how much better they would be???
I AM NOT SAYING THAT WE DONT NEED TO GET TO THE BOTTOM OF WHY BY ANY MEANS AT ALL.
However I believe it should be left up to the EXPERTS who know far more about the human body than an ordinary parent, let them come to us and ask us for helpfull information, not parents SHOVING info dwn their throats.
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You people crack me up. At LEAST the posted put “Her son MAY NOT have Autism”, unlike most who are just jumping up and down screaming he DOESN’T and she was wrong or lied. But the commenter- SpunkyKitty- is highly misinformed on a few counts.
One- the “researcher behind this hullabaloo” is a doctor- Andrew Wakefield.
Second- He is not the only, nor the first to question the link between vaccines and Autism- Dr Rimland was in the 60s and 70s wrote papers on the proposed link.
Third- the paper that was discredited by the Lancet was did not state there was a link between vaccines and Autism, therefor, it did not start the hullabaloo. It was a case study of the intestine/colon/gut of 12 children with Autism and the presence of the measles virus in the lining- his paper asked- Perhaps we should look further into this. The paper is only 5 pages long, will not hurt you to read it.
Fourth- The Lancet was VERY vague and misleading on WHY the paper was discredited. It was not because any information published was inaccurate. It was because Wakefield drew a child’s blood at a birthday party (with parental consent) and therefor used “unethical practice”. His study was discredited for ethics, not inaccuracy, but you people just read links and titles and biased sources and think “Well, that has to be it, the scare is over”. Digging deeper and actually READING the studies are valuable and helps stop ignorant posting in it’s tracks.
Oh who am I kidding, people will read what they want and throw effort into finding truth right out the window.
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“One- the “researcher behind this hullabaloo” is a doctor- Andrew Wakefield.”
So what if he has a qualification in medicine: at the time he was in post at the hospital, he was not practising medicine… he was involved in academic medicine – as a researcher!
“Second- He is not the only, nor the first to question the link between vaccines and Autism- Dr Rimland was in the 60s and 70s wrote papers on the proposed link”
He was the first one to actually make it the subject of a paper, though… as in a published paper, using evidence from samples.
“Third- the paper that was discredited by the Lancet was did not state there was a link between vaccines and Autism, therefor, it did not start the hullabaloo.”
Indeed, it did not propose a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, at least in the minds of the parents concerned, but was actually the press conference later brought an all-out attack on the MMR vaccine. One of Wakefield’s colleagues (Dr. Nick Chadwick) included in his Ph. D. thesis the data that Wakefield’s published study ignored: data that demonstrated that there could be no link between MMR and autism. The original paper did not even consider autism: it was investigating the possibility of a link between the vaccine and disintegrative disorder of childhood (Heller’s syndrome). The link was child->MMR->enteritis->malabsorption->myelodysgenesis->DDoC.
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i personally do not like some of the things jenny has said about autism and the somewhat perverted view of autism that autism speaks sends out… besides, the vaccination issue is a non-issue because the researcher behind this hullabaloo has been publicly discredited anyway… (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7094081/Andrew-Wakefield-was-dishonest-and-irresponsible-in-MMR-research.html) … and i will not be surprised if someday it is made known that her son isn’t even autistic after all…
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I think there are many people who don’t like things Jenny McCarthy has said about Autism.
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I think that story was written by Karl Taro Greenfield, the brother of Noah and the son of Josh, and a Time feature writer.
It’s good that he was aware of Landau-Kleffner.
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