The Myth of Autism - What do you Think?

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I stumbled across a video today, which can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_BS_Lkh ... re=related

The video is titled The Myth of Autism, and talks about a doctor that treats autism as a neurological disease, which he believes attacks the immune system and causes the symptoms of autism. According to the video and the description of the video, his treatments have been successful.

I'm honestly not sure how I feel about this, or how valid it is. I'd like some other opinions, if any of you have them.

Many aspies apparently have a messed up immune system. It presents as ALERGIES. I DON'T have that problem.

I am not a doctor.
However, Dr. Goldberg is all over Whale.to (strike one), His credentials are not easily verified (I am still working on it, strike 2) and he has decided that he can fix autism, which in itself is humurous, as autism is a wide and vast spectrum, that currently encompasses a wide variety of persons.

Now, as a parent of a child who is diagnosed ASD, that whole video offended me. But I admit, I am biased.
As a critical thinker, I have to point out, though, that my child does not have an immune issue. Or gastrointestinal whatevers.

Just sayin.

I've heard so much quackery throughout the years about many different diseases and conditions: The drug companies stop cures because then they'd be run out of business, the government is behind a scam to keep poor people sick to kill them off, numerous psychiatric conditions were invented to bring in more money for drug companies and doctors, children are being misdiagnosed and drugged just to keep drug companies and doctors in money, womens health issues are made up to lure women into Planned Parenthood so they have money for abortions, and if you buy this book (and five of the same BS follow-up books) you'll be able to cure diabetes/cancer/migraines/bipolar disorder/arthritis/influenza using only the stuff in the garden. I don't have to even watch the video to smell that it's BS.

I'm going to say loud and proud, that my autism is real and there is no autism myth. Those people who came up with that one, can all eat worms.

This falls into the category of a Myth-stake.

He says right in there "There is something medically wrong with these children causing autistic like symptoms... but it's not autism."

He's treating underlying imflammation and auto immune issues and seeing results.

This doctor is not treating autism and isn't claiming to treat or cure autism. He's curing a yet unspecified medical condition.

It's amazing how stupid parents of autistic children are, they should have blenders shoved up their butts, then ask them how's that for inter-action. Do they read the information on autism or not? Or are they so far below average intelligence, they need help in daily activities.

In ASD there is delay then progress, often involving special interest, and lets be fair men use less words per day than women and the majority of ASD individuals are men, female ASD individuals don't fair much better either.

I'm not trying to be elitist , but are neuro typicals a lesser spieces or what?

This NT drivel about my child doesn't connect with me is insane, do they think people come with DIN sockets?

Autistic people are DNA's advanced humans, sometimes it goes wrong, but eventually it will produce the final product at which point we will merge with NT's and create a more able human species with greater logic and emotional intelligence. But why we should down breed with them is a tough one.
Ok I know this is a rant, but I am totally fed up of the NT ramblings.

quackery....very obvious

I know that. He calls the disease NIDS. I thought he was trying to say that most of the cases people classify as "autism" are NIDS. So he's treating what everyone knows as autism, but saying it's not autism.

The whole things sounds fishy to me, but unless the parents and children were paid actors or something, it seems to be having some effect...

That is just as bad for the opposite reason... this whole 'not autism' thing has merit but seriously... why does it seem EVERYTHING is so polarized? Why is the idea that BOTH may exist so controversial?

First of all he's selling a book so he's obviously biased. He purportedly has a treatment modality that turns medium and high functioning autistics into aspies, something that often happens naturally anyways; so what we'd need is to compare the level of reduction of deleterious symptoms in his patients compared to more traditional treatments. Even in the videos his supposedly cured patients just had an aspie aura about them, my guess is that these cured patients probably aren't representative of his whole patient population and are individuals that have done extraordinarily well in spite of his treatment not because of it.

I've looked at the website and also viewed a medical presentation given by this doctor. It's long and quite technical, but you can find it at tarzanacme(dot)com/video.aspx?Vid=158 (I can't post the actual link).

It seems that all that is being suggested is that doctors consider the possibility that a child has a medical issue - often an immune-related problem - before labelling with 'autism'. He is trying to educate the medical profession to treat this from a medical perspective first by doing some workups, and encourages patients to try immune-boosting diet and other treatments. He also suggests that some medications (anti-psychotics, etc.) given to autistic children can be harmful and much more diligence and other, less harmful treatments, should be undertaken before prescribing. He's also trying to encourage more research into immune-related medications.

How can anyone think this is a bad thing, or 'quackery'? I'll tell you what's quackery - the psychologist who, after 6 hours of primarily intelligence-related assessment, 'diagnosed' my 8 year old daughter with Aspergers without any real impairment in her symptoms (we went because she was presenting as depressed). Then, after I explained that she did not have any symptoms other than some social skill deficits, backing off and saying it was PDD-NOS, then shortly thereafter saying she did not even have PDD.. it was just a 'possibility'. It is shocking to me that anyone who calls themselves a doctor can label so flippantly. This really is a disservice. I would think that anyone who suffers from true 'impairment' would support a doctor who recommends a more holistic, thorough approach before diagnosis. The alternative - that real medical issues are being missed because of a convenient, brush-off diagnosis of millions of children - is just intolerable.

I am sure this community has seen many quacks come and go and is legitimately skeptical, but I do hope that skepticism doesn't get in the way of otherwise reasonable assertions.

Please note that prior to this post I had never heard of this doctor or of this theory, but it was very informative and enlightening to me, not just from the perspective of autism but of our entire medical system and approaches. Thank you.

Marie

He is also "President of the Neuro-Immune Deficiency Medical Advisory Board" which appears to be a fictional organisation with the sole purpose of validating Dr Goldberg's pronouncements.

I can't find any peer-reviewed scientific publications at all by him (there are none in Pubmed). He prefers the old patient-and-parent testimonials beloved by quack-pots.

He links to various "autism and vaccination" scare sites in his online ramblings.

Yet another person who makes the mistake of assuming that autistics are dysfunctional typical individuals. It's unlikely that such a cause could be responsible for the complex atypical traits found in most autistics. Also, I suspect that autoimmune disease would have other symptoms besides autistic-like features (most autistics have "idiopathic" or "non-syndromal" autism - in other words, they have no obvious physical symptoms).

this video has no info, just testamonials........sham,sham,sham
so.... some autistics have auto-immune prob.s, ya and any other group you could find.