Defeat Autism Now!!

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To those defeatist NTs topic

Do not throw out the soap with the bathwater.

Measles, mumps, rubella, possible nutritional difficulties and the belief that your natural self is a burden and must be crushed(or aborted)?

I think I'd rather have autism. This is coming from someone who knows a person who will DIE a painful, horrible death if he eats wheat gluten. Autism ain't nothing compared to that.
DAN is a crock of s**t.

My son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS a few months ago. He appears to be high functioning, but has some mild to moderate speech delays and a few other traits.

My sister gave me Jenny McCarthy's book, which I read. Although I respect that she went through some stressful times while responding to her son's health needs, I find myself disagreeing with most of her opinions regarding vaccinations and her "cures" by diet. She also highly recommended DAN doctors.

At my sister's suggestion, I looked into DAN doctors in my area. Each DAN doctor was a naturopath (as opposed to a regular MD). I checked out a couple of websites. I couldn't believe the amount of money these people charge. Holy crap!! ! I would have had to pay over $2,000 just for initial "tests". Then the fees per visit and any treatments and supplements that the naturopath would have prescribed. My husband and I have just average earnings and cannot afford this.

I contacted one of the naturopaths via e-mail and asked if they would be willing to work within my budget by ordering only some of the tests and tailoring treatments so that we would get maximum effectiveness with fewer office visits. (e.g. if gluten intolerance was a common problem - get just the tests that would indicate or rule out gluten intolerances and start with one or two therapies that affect most patients). I also said that I was not looking for pro bono services - I would pay - but I wanted to work within a budget. I never heard back

My conclusion is that DAN doctors are a bunch of quacks who would rather have desparate people who are willing to shell out big $$$$$ and swallow any pill or herb and take any treatment that they suggest.

Just as an aside, in my province, the government funds up to $20,000 for therapy for autistic children up to age 6. This money is for ABA Therapy, Speech Language Therapy or Occupational Therapy ONLY. These are the only therapies that have solid, scientific evidence of being helpful. My son is getting Speech Therapy by a fully qualified Speech Language Therapist and has ABA therapy through an excellent consulting company and two good ABI's. He is doing very well and I am very happy with their methods. He is speaking more clearly, using complete sentences, making his needs known verbally and leaning good social skills. He stills has autism and always will have autism. I have no problem with that. However, with these therapies, he will be autistic, but able to interact fully with neurotypicals. Nothing wrong with that.

As for DAN doctors - I think it is a bunch of snake oil and hope that parents use their limited financial resources on other therapies or on enjoyable things that their child benefits from (e.g. therapeutic riding, swimming, day trips or ???).

Boo. That's all I have to say about DAN

I would love to defeat the blighters who work and volunteer for Defeat Autism Now!! They are as bad as Autism Speaks, and I think that they're just like the jerks that I went to school with. It's jerks like that, who form such organizations. I think that the people at both DAN and Autism Speaks have been watching the movie, 'Rain Man' too many times. They see us as parasites that need to be eliminated from the institution of human perfection, that they dream of. They don't realize that there is no perfect life, and that each individual on this planet lives their own perfect life, whether that person has a disability, or not. To me, they're just another group of people, who want to eliminate autism through genetic testing, and that makes me sick. We do not deserve to be wiped out! We deserve to be loved, valued and accepted by everybody else.

I want to start out saying that I disagree with the DAN methods and do not support their group.

That said I think that this is a little ridiculous. Yes groups like this do more harm than good, and yes their literature can be offensive to people on the spectrum but really.

Nazis? In the quoted text they say that autism can't be cured. I don't think that they are trying to kill us. Parents that go for expensive therapies or do complicated diets are not trying to fix their disappointing children.

Contrary to what many here believe many parents of autistic children are willing to do anything to help their children. It is love not disgust that leads parents to go broke on therapies. It is a lot of money and time they are expending.

Yes parents make mistakes and are led astray by corrupt, or mistaken doctors and groups but that does not make them nazis.

I would guess that many DAN staffers and doctors want to help autistics function in society and have the best of intentions.

I find that yelling Nazi! at people rarely influences them other than to make them listen even less. What we need is to work with organizations to get accurate information to parents and doctors.

That's my $.02.

Yes, I prefer to yell "Quack!" which is quite correct in the case of the overwhelming majority of DAN doctors.

Hope autism will be defeated one day by any mean possible.

The genetic manipulation might be one of them in the future.