Autism

Friday

Neal Pollack

By order of the non-doctor

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did not say, in yesterday’s cabinet meeting, that circumcision causes autism. But the fact that we’d even consider that a real statement shows just how far down the rabbit hole into the MAHA Wonderland of his mind RFK has dragged us. In fact, RFK said that after doctors circumcise boys, they give them too much Tylenol, and that causes autism. President “Don’t Take Tylenol” responded, “there's a tremendous amount of proof or evidence. I would say as a non-doctor, but I've studied this a long time.”  A non-doctor is right, and I say this as someone who’s not a fan of male circumcision, a practice based on dated religious superstition.

RFK

Tuesday

Elisa Segrave

The reality of raising an autistic child

Although I disagree with Donald Trump’s and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s suggestion that mothers who took Tylenol during pregnancy may have caused the huge rise of children born with autism in the US, I also can’t agree with the spate of articles and interviews that have followed – several by high-functioning autistic adults, others by parents of autistic children – basically saying it is great to be autistic. I understand that they are fearful that Trump’s idea of a “cure” could result in anyone with special needs being regarded as subnormal and a second-class citizen, but it’s not helpful, either, to pretend that autism is without its many frightful drawbacks. My son, 42, was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome on his 13th birthday in 1996.

autistic

Friday

Ben Sixsmith

‘Chris Chan’ and the grotesque online attention sideshow

Summarizing the tale of Christian Weston Chandler in a paragraph is like trying to squeeze an octopus into a bottle. You can’t. Chris is known for being the ‘most documented person on the internet’. A biographical documentary on YouTube has 59 episodes, all 40 minutes long, which add up to over 40 hours footage. Imagine that there was a remake of The Truman Show, except that instead of being a fairly functional married insurance broker, Truman Burbank was a mentally ill aspiring cartoonist who lived with his aged mom. Do you get the picture? Well, not any more. Chandler, who claims to be transgender and now goes by Christine, has been arrested after appearing to admit in online conversations to raping said aged mom, and faces up to 10 years in prison.

chris chan

Tuesday

David Shabtai, MD

Dispelling the myth of the vaccine-autism controversy

Vaccines didn't cause Rachel’s autism. Or Sam’s, or Daniel’s, or anybody else’s for that matter. The reason is simple. Vaccines don’t and can’t cause autism. Peter Hotez ought to know. A certified pediatrician, he's one of the world’s leading vaccine scientists, developing vaccines against ‘neglected tropical diseases.’ He’s also the father of Rachel, an autistic and intellectually challenged young woman. There is no vaccine controversy, just as there is no shape-of-the-earth controversy. Anybody who understands the scientific method knows that there is no link whatsoever between vaccines and autism, just as they know that they can walk as far as they’d like around the world without falling off the edge.

vaccines autism