Fraud and Liar Andrew Wakefield has the book thrown at him.

[Odin2005]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4246553

[SheilaT]

1. Children do not suddenly go from being

normal, or at least neurotypical, to being autistic overnight.

My oldest son has Asperger's, and every so often someone asks me if I think vaccinations caused it. It's all I can do to refrain from hitting them. He was always different, even though it took until he was 18 years old to figure out what was actually the diagnosable thing with him. He's 27 now, so part of it was that Asperger's wasn't recognized until 1994.

Anyway, the more I read about AS, the more I've realized that from the very beginning, from early infancy, he was autistic. It's just that, consistent with AS, he had no language delays, his intelligence is above normal, and he functioned more or less well in school settings.

For what it's worth, that same son as Alopecia Universalis, which is an auto-immune disorder which causes hair loss. All of his hair fell out when he was four years old. So many people blithely say, Oh, it's stress, and those people I REALLY want to hit. I may not have been the best mom in the world, but I was not such a monster as to cause such stress as to make his hair fall out.

Oh, and it's obvious to me that those two things have nothing to do with each other. He just happens to have them. Just like someone might have blue eyes and curly hair. Or brown skin and be left handed. Just to come up with two examples of traits that aren't related to each other. But if someone only noticed the blue eyed people with curly hair, or the left-handed brown skinned ones, they'd falsely think one causes the other.

[Odin2005]

2. Exactly. Going from neurotypical to auitstic overnight is neurologically impossible.

If one looks at my behavior as an infant one could see in retrospect my autistic behaviors. Most of these parents are simply in denial and are looking for some quick fix and someone to blame.

[SheilaT]

3. When I started learning about

Asperger's, and read about what Aspies are like in infancy, it became very, very clear that my son was autistic from the very beginning. And even though I sometimes wish he could be "normal", I also know that a "normal" version of him would be a totally, totally different person. And I really like the person he is right now. He's interesting and funny and smart and I just wish I got to see or talk to him more often. I suppose I would have loved a "normal" version of him, just as I love his neurotypical younger brother who also happens to be interesting and funny and smart, but is as different as he can possibly be. Indeed, I had teachers at the small private school they attended comment more than once that they'd never seen siblings so completely different from each other.

[liberalhistorian]

4. VERY glad to finally see this, it's been a long

time coming! Of course, that will not convince the vaccine kooks of anything, they'll just dig their heels in more like conspiracy theorists usually do when confronted with any facts disputing their sacred positions. They'll claim "persecution" by pharmaceutical companies, the medical industry, etc., etc., and they'll still be full of shit. They're as bad as the hateful curebies.

Now, if only someone would finally discredit that hateful hack, Maxine Aston, and her Fascists at FAAAS, the aspie hate group that is ruining the lives of aspies everywhere everyday!!!!!!!!