These articles have been somewhat difficult to write, so this will be the final instalment of this series of posts, for now anyway. For anyone who has just come across this series you can see access Part one on Andrew Wakefield, part two on Jeff Bradstreet and part three on Kerri Rivera. In bringing these posts to you I have looked into the face of pure evil. Thought about what I would categorise as the worst of the worst, those that would destroy children for the feathering of their own nests. It is a tragic situation and I look forward to moving on to writing on some different topics. I thank you for sticking with the horror to get through them.

Today we consider a so called hero, who it seems, really does believe she is a hero. This woman is an absolute disgrace to the human race. She is surely under some kind of delusional state with the things she says and does. She has been known by various names over the years, but she is most well known by the moniker Amanda Mary Jewell.

It’s hard to know where to start with this particular monster. Her life is jam packed mine full of horror. Needless to say she is no hero. She is in fact a person that has been involved in the abuse of people with cancer and autistic people without any seeming presence of conscience. Even a shallow level investigation Amanda’s life yields some horrifying results.

Amanda calls herself a cancer researcher with more than fifteen years of experience. However a search of any reputable sources of scholarly information will yield zero results that have anything to do with Amanda. I have attempted to request some information about her research and so far the only information I have managed to get hold of is her referencing her blog. Now there are many blogs that contain good information and quality writing, however research it is not. I did contact Amanda via twitter at @AmandaMJewell asking her to provide her credentials as a researcher, but alas I received no reply. Actually there was a response though, the response of being blocked from accessing her tweets.

She blogs at a couple of places, but the most prominent is Mother Nature and You. This is full of all kinds of rubbish and pseudo science, and, of course a good dose of conspiracy theory. There is much present in her ravings and rantings about the evils of vaccines and their causing of all kinds of diseases. Of course is the presence of a conviction that they are utterly responsible for Autism. Here’s a video showing what she thinks about vaccines.

You can’t make this shit up. This is the stuff this woman says and promotes. But onto more serious issues.

Until quite recently, curiously the timing coinciding with the exposure of Leonardo Edwards by the BBC investigation and the conviction of MMS seller Daniel Smith, Amanda was sprucing MMS on her website. She seems to have got her start as a member of the Genesis 2 church, the non religious church of so called health and healing headed up by the self-proclaimed alien Jim Humble — I kid you not.

Amanda did have at some point a falling out and so-called ex-communication from the church through her opposition to Kerri Rivera’s enemas with MMS. Not a problem with MMS itself, it seems Amanda was quite ok with poisoning via the mouth, just not via the back passage. In the intervening time Amanda has jumped onto a new bandwagon. She has not resiled from MMS being a wonderful miracle healing agent at all but now there is another product that is just such a wonderful compliment to the so called Miracle cure. Curious, really, surely it is either a miracle healing agent or it isn’t. Surely two miracle products are not needed?

In tweets recently, those I was able to see prior to being blocked, Amanda wrote glowingly of Kerri and her so called miracle recoveries through her use of MMS. It appears that Kerri too has jumped onto the new bandwagon, perhaps a new alliance has been formed.

This product in question is known as GcMaf. A live blood product which is unregulated and unapproved and bloody darn expensive. A single vial is hundred of euros to purchase. The question has been raised into the ingredients of this GcMaf that has highlighted the likely presence of Bovine blood in the product. This product is administered through painful intramuscular injections.

This product is far from safe. And it seems that Amanda is somewhat on the run because of it. However this has not stopped her selling her product wherever and whenever she can. Recently her home was the subject of a raid by the MHRA in the UK for hosting a Genesis 2 MMS gathering, the same Genesis 2 church she is supposedly no longer a part of, just happened to be using her home.

Since then she has spent time on the Island of Dominica seemingly hiding, and made quite a drama about how the media there were hounding her and she was like a prisoner there. The reality was that Autistic advocates had made some discreet contact with the media their giving them a simple heads up of the activities she was involved in and the likely reason for her being on the island of setting up some kind of cowboy clinic for this GcMaf treatment.

It is not the first time that she has been involved in this kind of thing at all. She was involved in a flight from Bulgaria where she and her husband Doug, ran another of these clinics. The clinic was in a hotel and was certainly the subject of controversy. There were two deaths that occurred at her clinic there. Whether these deaths were the direct result of the treatment provided by Amanda, or not. But what is known is that the people involved were in, I believe end stage cancer and were denied the provision of any standard pain killers to assist them.

It appears that Amanda and Doug made a dash for it before they could be held to account for whatever their role may have been. I am not saying that they are responsible, but it is certainly a curious and suspicious situation indeed. There are reports available in the Bulgarian press that detail the known details of the situation.

one thing is certain about Amanda and that is that she does not choose to do things according to the regulations and requirements of where she does her business. Indeed she uses deceit and trickery to make it appear that she is out of jurisdiction. On the website she runs to sell GcMaf First Pro Engineering, the company address is listed as being in Bulgaria, however it details the use of the UK Royal mail and lists a UK telephone contact number. Clearly a case of obfuscation at the very least.

Amanda is convinced that she knows all there is to know about Autism, yet, she tweets nastily about how certain advocates have no empathy and are unable to understand because they are autistic. She is unable to comprehend herself that in fact being autistic is simply a neurological difference and not a disease. Of course this is of no consequence to her as what she is really interested in doing is making money from her quack treatments on the backs of vulnerable and desperate people.

Amanda comes off with a soft and friendly manner and attempts to portray a caring and loving image, yet the nasty side of her has been very evident in her communications with advocates like Fiona O’leary and Emma Dalmayne, she has openly ridiculed knowledgable Phd students and compared them to Kindergarten students. This woman is not full of any love and light, as she signs off her tweets, but is full of danger and horror. One would be well advised to steer very clear of her.

This brings to a close this series of posts. And one thing is clear, none of these people in question are heroes of autism, they are in fact villains of autism. They gain wealth on the backs of the desperation and vulnerability of people who believe they need to recover their children from autism. They do so with an eye on nothing but their own success. They do so with no concern of the dire consequences the will occur for the victims of their crimes.

The more I have thought about this over the process of these articles, the more I am convinced that the narrative of the media and the autism peak bodies like Autism Speaks in America, The National Autistic Society in the UK and Aspect and Amaze in Australia must take a level of responsibility for this. It is the negative narrative, the patholigising and characterising autistic children as lost, locked away, intellectually incompetent, and unable to make their way in the world that has in fact created the market in that these monsters have been able to operate in.

I thank you for bearing with these posts and making your way through them. I hope they have been somewhat informative and a jumping off point to find out more, or to at the very least be wary of the treatments that are pushed for so called recovery and curing of autism.

Stay tuned for something of a different nature to be forthcoming.

In a recent post I wrote about the so called hero but in actual fact monster Dr Wakefield. You can read the post here. Welcome to part two in this series of postings dealing with some notorious figures within the Autism industry. Because it is an industry, and it is an industry that is all about selling false hope, quack treatments and the abuse of autistic people. This may seem harsh but if you look at these figures with even a cursory glance it is very easy to see the underhanded strategies, the selling of false hope, the fudging with the truth in order to get people to sign on to their so called treatments.

As stated previously we considered Dr Wakefield the discredited and deregistered author of the study that set off the blame game of vaccinations causing autism. A point I neglected to mention in considering his research in that post was to mention the fact that along with all the other questionable things in the duration of his research was the interesting tidbit that Dr Wakefield had an application for an alternative MMR vaccine patent. Clearly he had a vested interest in discovering something wrong with the current MMR vaccine as it stood.

Onward we go to our next notorious figure, the late and not great Dr Jeff Bradstreet. In late June Bradstreet was found dead from what appears to be self-inflicted gunshot wounds. The death of any person is a tragedy, and let me be clear I do not write here to speak ill of the deceased and to jump on the grave of someone who is unable to defend themselves.

However, death does not exlclude one from critique and it needs to be said the work of this man is nothing less of horrific.

Bradstreet has in fact been characterised as a hero by the anti-vaccination movement and has been a vocal proponent of the discredited vaccine causing Autism theory. He has published questionable research however it has not stood to critique. According to the website quack watch:

Jeff Bradstreet, M.D. has been described by his fans as a “cutting edge doctor” who specialized in treating autistic children. However, a Special Master of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims who looked closely at Bradstreet’s work concluded that he habitually misdiagnosed and mistreated autistic children [1]. The 293-page report, issued in 2009, dissected Bradstreet’s management of Colten Snyder, whose family — based on the belief that vaccines caused the boy to develop autism — had petitioned the court for compensation . The court ruled that no such connection existed. This article highlights the Special Master’s observations. that Bradstreet had improperly diagnosed and treated Colten for “mercury toxicity.

The above linked article is well worth reading to discover just how outrageous the practices and processes in which Bradstreet was engaged in his so-called treating of Autism. He is roundly criticised for his questionable diagnosis, and even more questionable treatments.

Bradstreet performed a plethora of questionable therapies, one of which known as Chelation, which is a treatment to remove heavy metals from a persons system. Bradstreet performed this treatment on Colten Snyder, even though the presence of mercury, the so called cause of autism, was not present in a treatable quantities.

The list of treatments that Bradstreet used included, as mentioned, Chelation, as well as, GcMaf, Hyperbaric Oxygen chamber, Stem Cell, Faecal implants. In addition to this whilst I am unaware of his actual use of Miracle Mineral Solution he was a supporter of Kerri Rivera — the subject of forthcoming post.

Earlier this year at the AutismOne quackiest Bradstreet bamboozles the watchers with so-called research and questionable conclusions and facts. His modus operandi was the selling of false hope and ensuring the continued pathologising of Autism.

Above is one of his several talks at the conference. If you have the stomach for it you can watch it, I don’t necessarily recommend you doing so as it is full of quackery and rubbish. However, it is here available if you would like to. What is clear is that he was extremely skilled at putting people at ease and romancing them to his point of view. A true snake oil purveyor plying their trade.

For a good starting point to go further into looking into Bradstreet’s treatments and so-called work the Wikipedia entry on him is a good jumping off point, here is a link to it. Clearly Wikipedia is not an exhaustive or scholarly credible place to research but it is in fact a place to begin.

Autism industry sites that continue to purvey the view of autism as a horrible disease that needs to be cured such as the Age of Autism, speak of being struck silent at Bradstreet’s death and have eulogised him with phrases like:

Like you, we read of Dr. Jeff Bradstreet’s death and were struck silent. A stalwart leader in treating autism, really helping families, his loss is huge in our community.

It verges on worship and is deeply disturbing. Particular in light of such statements as that by the United States Justice system who have made comments about Bradstreet’s treatment and practice as:

he April 29, 2000 hair test for mercury demonstrated a low level of mercury in Colten’s hair, but one within the reference range of normal for the laboratory, and one well below the 90th percentile for U.S. children ages six to eight.” In addition, Vowell stated, “The more disturbing question is why chelation was performed at all, in view of the normal levels of mercury found in the hair, blood and urine, its apparent lack of efficacy in treating Colten’s symptoms, and the adverse side effects it apparently caused.” — Barrett, Stephen (15 March 2009). “”Autism Specialist” Blasted by Omnibus Special Master”. Quackwatch. Retrieved 24 August 2013.

It is clear to me, and I am sure to many, that whilst the death of Dr Bradstreet is a sad occurrence, the autistic community, and in particular autistic children are safer now that he has passed away.

The next instalment of this will investigate the so called Angel Kerri Rivera, who dispensed Chlorine Dioxide as a so called cure to what she describes as the symptoms known as Autism.

I hope to write this next instalment tomorrow. So I hope you will await it with interest.

Let us not pretend, Jeff Bradstreet was no hero, but very much a villain to the autistic community.

Thanks for reading.

Previously in my posts I have written about the issue of the multiple communities around Âûtism and Âûtistic people. I don’t resile from the reality of these different communities but, I would contend that these communities need to be much more united than they are in fact are.

Today I saw another situation on social media where the divide was yet again present. Where a perhaps misguided but likely good intentioned campaign came into the spotlight. This particular campaign was named #silentselfie and the idea was to raise awareness for Autistic children by having people take a selfie of themselves with their hands over their mouth. Apparently this was meant to portray support for those that don’t speak with their mouthparts.

This campaign was misguided because it is a fact that speaking with mouthparts is not the only way of communicating. It may be the most common and it may be in some respects the most convenient. But it is not the only and necessarily always the best.

The people who were responsible for this campaign attracted the ire of some Autistic people, who suggested that the campaign was unhelpful and in fact hurtful to them. These autistic voices were met with justifications and denials that their point was valid. As often happens in the world of social media, escalation was swift. Within a few hours the campaign was dropped and there was much comment on the organisers page. The most unfortunate part of this was when autistic voices commented they were more often than not quickly deleted and banned from further comments.

I was one of those voices unable to comment. I thought my comment was fair, and, it was in reference to the fact that it didn’t seem right that people were being silenced. As I couldn’t comment I watched the comments evolved with some distress. My distress was seeing my fellow autistics silenced, accused of being less than capable of understanding and other delightful things. Clearly the passion was high. But the most important thing that is an issue in my view is the absolute divisiveness I saw.

Personally I think the campaign was quite silly, I could not see what it would do to actually help anyone. A key point made by autistics was that we don’t want awareness we want acceptance. A key point by the families and carers of autistics was that awareness was needed and that this was a positive way of doing it.

I could go further into this and analyse the to and fro but I don’t see any value in that and I do think it would in fact only further entrench division.

I will not shirk the responsibility to speak for Âûtistics. It is an important advocacy thing to do. I will not shirk away from that in any way, and in saying that I was devastated again to see my fellow autistics silenced by some that are raising the future autistic adults in our society.

We gather around Âûtism. Âûtistic people, families of Âûtistic people. Friends of Âûtistic people. Yes we gather around this thing called autism. We gather around it to see the best lives possible for Âûtistic people. We gather around calling a halt on the cure culture that does not help Autistic people. We gather around to stop the abuse of Âûtistic people through biomedical and therapeutical actions which are dangerous and harmful. We gather around to speak out for a positive narrative in the media and from the peak autism bodies and dispense with the negative narrative. We gather around to lobby our governments for services and support for Âûtistic people, their carers, their families, their children. We gather around this thing called Âûtism.

The operative word here is we. We, yes we, must move forward together. Autistics. Allistics. Neurodivergent and Neurotypicals. Together We can achieve much. That old saying is a truism:

United we stand divided we fall.

It really is easy to find things we disagree about. It really is easy for us to find the fault in each others arguments. It really is. But what is the benefit. I think, no I know, we all need to do a better job of listening to each other. I as an Autistic need to do a better job of listening to my Allistic family members, friends, colleagues etc. And at the same time they need to do a better job of listening to me too. It cuts both ways. It really does.

I am convinced that overall the absolute majority of parents out there want the very best for their autistic kids. I am equally convinced that the same is true for the autistic people that try to talk to them. But, we seem to each have our own set of earplugs in. We seem to effectively preach to our own choir, but not so good at singing to the choir next door.

It’s time to retune our voices to be heard by each other. Let’s link ourselves together because in doing this we can achieve amazing things, stupendous things. I offer my allistic allies and friends my arm to link with, I thank those that have already taken it and I ask those that haven’t will you take it?