What the cure really is. READ!! !! !

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Oh thanks, everything is clear now. ( <- attempt at humorous sarcasm)

I apareciate your opinion but I would kindly like to argue that the NT world won't see it as just for sever cases.

Some uneducated family is going to hear that their presious child has autism and they'll flip. Maybe their kid only has Aspergers, or maybe they are high functioning enough to be taught how to talk and fuction in scociety, but all their folks know is that their kid is autistic.

And you can bet those parents are going to demand that the cure be given to their kid -so yes, it will start out for sever cases, and people old enough right now will be able to choose.

But the newer generations won't be given a choice. As long as the NT world sees us as 'sick' or as an 'epademic' then they'll gladly hand over that cure regardless of wheather that little boy or girl really needs it.

Someone's been chatting with John Best.

Who the hell is john best? Sorry, H haven't heard of the dude.

John Best is a very strange man who has an almost religious devotion to curing autism, which he believes is all down to mercury poisoning from vaccinations (it's not). He does not have autism himself, from what I understand he has a low functioning autistic child. He goes around posting on autism/AS websites trying to convert people to his point of view even when they are not interested. He is very rude and hostile and if you try to contradict him at all, even politely, he becomes even more so. He doesn't listen to anything you have to say even if you have scientific evidence he will just say what do you know you're a brain damaged autistic person. He runs a blog called Hating Autism and also believes that gay people should be cured.

For what it's worth I don't think you are like him. People are just saying that because he advocates a cure though that's stupid because he is the absolute worst of the cure-advocates. In my opinion it's starting to become like Godwin's Law for autism.

I can see why people were confused in this thread because your first post was not very clear. It says "what the cure really is:" and then fails to mention any specific medicine. I see now that what you are doing is complaining about people's knee-jerk reaction to the word "cure" because they assume it to mean the more extreme methods. I disagree with you however in that what you are talking about is not a cure. It is treatment for symptoms. I am fine with treatment for symptoms, things to increase functioning. I would love something to treat my sensory issues because they make things very distressing. If you're saying that's the closest we'll get to any real cure then that's fine. Most people here would agree with you. But because you wrote it confusingly and in kind of an obnoxious way there has been a lot of misunderstandings. I myself had to read your message several times to understand it.

While I don't seem to be offended by ChimChar statement to the extent of some of my peers I do find some fault with it:

1a)Correct me if I'm wrong but you seem assume that work on a cure for either LFA or HFA is a very intense process, and that the reason we aren't getting any where is that the funding/manpower/misc. is being divided between the two.

1b)At this point in time, we have no idea what causes ASD, let alone a what we need to cure it. While research is being done, I don't think focusing solely on LFA will yield any discernable benefit.

2)You mention a "cure" but don't give any clues as to the nature. If you're refering to some deus ex machina cure-all that eliminates ASD but leaves other mental functions intact, I think we need to consider that few, if any, neurological differences have had such a breakthrough. If such an implausable method did come to be, there are so many more debillitating syndromes out there that ASD would fall by the wayside.

3)While no one will argue that those with LFA have more severe needs than those with HFA, you discount that HFA still does affect many people in a negative way, and that there are those such as myself, who would like an alternative. If one came up, who are you to say who would or would not recieve it.

4)Finally, since LFA and HFA/AS are so close on the spectrum, a hypothetical "cure" for one would probably be followed closely by a "cure" for the other.

ChimChar, If you truly believe what you posted, then by all means stand by your convictions. But as you have seen, you should NOT presume to speak for us.

perhaps I should state my point again. The fact that this cure is going to magically make up neuro typicals is silly. I'm sure that it's there to reduce the bothersome symptoms of the disorder. You're still autistic right?

It sounds like you're talking about something that (a) physically exists and (b) isn't a cure (So we've found this cure for cancer. You'll still have cancer, but it'll reduce bothersome symptoms. No, I don't think so, that's a treatment, not a cure.) (And I used cancer there to point out how silly it is to talk about a cure that doesn't actually eliminate what you're curing, not because I think cancer should be compared to autism in any way, ever.)

What are you talking about, specifically?

First of all, Elderwanda...that's funny...My karma ran over your dogma.



Second, I don't know exactly yet what Chimchar is trying to say, but what exactly do we have a cure for right now? I really am having a hard time thinking of one. I keep thinking of vaccines and antidotes. Antibiotics, but that's more assisting the body, and it created the superbacteria. Like stitches can cure a wound, but in many cases where the body would have inevitably healed itself. Is surgically removing the problem a cure? If so, then that did cure cancer in some cases.

The issue is that the current direction of research is to finding prenatal genetic tests so that autistic fetuses can be selected against- they have already started a (very crude) system of trying to select against autism in the UK, and I would point to the historical example of Down's Syndrome, which disappeared almost overnight when a reliable genetic marker was identified and then used to selectively abort Down's Syndrome babies. So yes, a "cure" in this sense is something to be feared and opposed. Also, trying to change some of our traits is viewed by many as offensive because it implies that we are defective, broken, inadequate, not good enough the way we are, etc. Now, treatment or therapy to help develop coping mechanisms for the undeniably negative aspects (sensory overload, social skills training, etc) would definitely be welcomed, but not an insistence on "normalcy." There is nothing fundamentally wrong with autistics, but some of us do need more help in learning how to function in this world.

I know you weren't really referring to me, but that still is not technically a cure. Genetic Engineering could prevent babies from getting Autism, but it is no cure to the actual disorder. Genetic selection would just kill the person, not the disorder (sorry, but I believe babies are people too). Any kind of therapy, of course, is only a coping mechanism of itself. So, do we have a cure to anything in this world?