Tag: Chelation

A Predictable Course

A stereotype that is pretty constant is that autistic people like routine, predictability and knowing what’s happening now, next and later. It’s one stereotype that is I think reasonably true. Many autistic people hate change, but of course not all, for some it is something they enjoy. Some autistics find it mildly annoying and some of course find it incredibly difficult to deal with to the point of sending them in to meltdown, or shutdown.

I am one that doesn’t like changes to routine and like to know what is going on. I find it quite difficult even at times to make a side trip on the way home to drop into the shops if it is not a planned thing. Depending on my levels of anxiety at the time it has resulted in meltdown for me. Most of the time I can manage it but it causes difficulty for me to cope and keep going

through the rest of the day. It uses up necessary spoons and requires spline reticulation.

One thing in my life that I seem to be able to count on with an almost certainty is the progress of a discussion in autism support groups that are dominated by non autistic parents, siblings and friends of autistic people. It’s one of those things you can almost set your watch by. If it wasn’t a case of serious issues being discussed it would be one of those things that we would probably want to just scroll on past or just let go. That’s the thing though, it’s serious stuff, like whether autism should be cured, like vaccinations causing autism, like the use of questionable therapies. The passage of the discussion is almost like following the GPS unit in the dash of your car.

Let’s take for example a discussion about the supposed link between vaccines and autism. It’s a well publicised myth and touted by celebrities and conspiracy theorists and so called “truthers”. It’s been debunked so many times it is just not funny, it’s really getting old, really old. But, it is a common topic of discussion in autism support groups online. It typically goes, with a leading question posted by a parent asking what people think about vaccines, or perhaps like what I saw recently is a picture of a doll with a whole bunch of vaccination needles stuck in it to apparently represent all the injections that a child will receive by the time they are aged two. Of course the big problem with that image was it is different regime of vaccination in every jurisdiction around the world anyway.

What follows is almost to a script. There is the response of the sad parent who states they don’t say all autism is by vaccination but it is for their child, follow by expressions of sadness for the people by other parents, followed by an actually autistic people stating that autism is not a disease that is caught but a neurological condition that is developmental and from

birth and lifelong. Queue the anti-vaccination brigade, they come in now with a bombarding of links to so called scientific studies proving the link. Often the site url will be naturalnews.com or vactruth.com.

This will be interspersed with comments to the autistic people who have commented that they don’t speak for their child and that they don’t know as they are so high functioning and on the mild end of the spectrum. The unreliability of the pseudo science sites will be highlighted by autistics and some of the parents, this will be followed with outrage from people that you dare to question their beliefs. And so it goes on…

It’s a very similar conversation regardless of the topic. It could be about the need for a cure, it could be about particular biomedical treatments such as chelation or MMS or GcMaf. It could be about wacko treatments like hyperbaric oxygen chambers or quite ridiculous ideas like GFCF diet and even, believe it or not poop transplants. It could be about therapies like ABA, in fact ABA may be a topic almost as common as the vaccination one.

The constant of this is that it’s not a hopeful dialogue. It’s at time a dialogue that brings despair to autistics. It brings despair to autistic allies. It really does. I can’t comment what whether it brings despair to others as I am not in that place to experience it. As an autistic I can say that the despair is about being not listened to, to be sidelined and disregarded as though your lived experience is invalid and not informative to the discussion.

It is hopeless because one would think that those that silence us would be able to see that we are the types of people that their

children will become, that we say what we do because we really do want the best for their children. That many of us have been through these issues first hand and have been harmed by them and do not want their kids to be harmed either.

I know that these parents love their children and really do want the very best for their children. That is simply not in question.

The big question is how do we bring hope to this whole thing. I believe it is by calling for diversity to be the norm, in particular neurodiversity. This involves standing against the idea that Autism is an epidemic, something to be feared and something to be done away with. To stand for autistic voices and them being heard by those in the mainstream.

In a recent LA Times Op-ed Steve Silberman the author of the newly released Neurotribes has called on the largest autism charity Autism Speaks to do a lot more listening. He noted that they have no autistic people on staff or on their board. He called on them to listen to autistic voices. The response of Autism Speaks was to make a call for unity and to use the words of a non-autistic parent to do so. So to be clear a call to listen to autistics is met by a call to unity by a non-autistic parent.

Not really a positive step towards diversity is it?

And therein lies the problem…

No More Treatments

This is a terrible topic on which to write, but it needs to be written about. It needs to be addressed. Let it be said that Âûtism is not a disease, it is not something that is caught, it is not something that needs to be a cure. Âûtistic people don’t want to be cured they don’t want to be treated.

The cure culture is rampant in our society. In regard to Autism this is absolutely out of control and has given rise to some terrible, horrible, horrendous treatments being inflicted on Âûtistic people. The three most terrible are known as MMS, Chelation, and GcMaf. These are all terrible and all should be criminal offences for those that promote, those that provide, and those that administer.

A wonderful Âûtistic woman Emma Dalmayne speaks of them in the video below. It’s about 12 minutes and I thoroughly recommend you watch it in full.

We have MMS, they try to pass it off as Miracle Mineral Solution. Basically we are talking bleach here. That is right. Yes. Bleach. They take Choline Dioxite and mix it with boiled sea water and call it Chlorine Dioxide. The resultant product at 1 drop is 500 times the safe limit for human consumption.

This solution is then administered to Âûtistics by two main methods. Orally and via Enema. The so called protocol here is outlined in much detail by a woman who hides away in Mexico by the name of Kerri Rivera. This woman believes and promotes that Âûtism in fact doesn’t exist it is merely a set of symptoms. These symptoms she claims are caused by rope worms, which by the way do not even exist.

Children and Adults are subjected to this multiple times a day. Oral drops by mouth and enemas shot up the anus directly into the colon. Human beings are held down by parents to have this poison inserted into their bodies.

The body responds to this poison by trying to reject it. It manifests in rashes, vomiting and the lining of the intestines coming out in stools. This is passed off by the so called pracitioners as worms. This is nothing short of horrendous.

There is a support group online for these people, they, unsurprisingly ask questions about what is going on, with concern for the well being of their children, but they are told that this means that the treatment is working. That it is all good and the body is purging itself from the Âûtism. This group is found online, people are told not to give their location or their real names. They are told not to seek a doctor, because the doctors want them to stay sick. They want them to stay sick to make more money.

Surely anyone who tells you not to seek a doctor but just to trust my advice should never be listened to and the warning bells should go off causing one to run a mile.

The two other therapies mentioned I don’t know so much about. I know that Chelation is a therapy which is inflicted to remove heavy metals from the the body systems. It is a genuine therapy but not for Âûtism and is meant only in very isolated situations. I am aware of a child, at least one, dying of this therapy at the hands of the recently deceased so called Dr Bradshaw. It appears this Dr was aware the law was finally catching up with him and he committed suicide.

GcMaf I know very little about other than that it is some kind of blood product which is injected into the children system. It then does it’s damage.

There is no question that all of these treatments are terrible and poison to the body. That this does no good whatsoever. That this is nothing short of an abusive practice perpetrated on a group of people who, it needs to be said are not sick or diseased. Even if they were it would still be totally wrong and nothing other than abuse. This treatment is touted as a treatment for many other diseases. In a recent undercover investigation by the BBC a seller of the MMS poison was seen to claim it purges cancer, ebola and even Alzheimer’s. This whole situation is utterly tragic. It is utterly horrible and absolutely unnecessary.

The important question to be asked is how did we actually get to this state of affairs. How did we get to this situation where people would risk their children with such untested and dangerous treatments. We must ask how we got here.

There is no question that Âûtistics face challenges in life, I know this personally as an Âûtistic adult. And there is no question that there is a real range of the levels of struggle as there is a real range of things that different Âûtistics have difficulties and require support with. Some of us are non verbal and need alternative communication devices. Many of us struggle with sensory issues. Some of us have issues such as dyspraxia and synesthesia.

It is my belief, my assertion that the almost exclusive negative language and discussion of Âûtism in the media and the failure of the so called national and state Âûtism societies to counter this view is largely responsible for this. Furthermore is the fraudulent link made between vaccines and autism, fraud that has been shown time and again to be false.

It is these things that have led to the desperation of parents and the false hope of seeking a cure. If they can believe it is from a vaccine or a rope worm then they can believe it could be cured.

Recently we heard Robert Kennedy Jr claim publicly that we must stop this holocaust, this catastrophe this epidemic. He later apologised for this, well he apologised only for his use of the word holocaust and it causing offence to victims of the holocaust. You can see his speech here:

Arguably perhaps the biggest damage is done by the worlds largest charity for Âûtism Autism Speaks. Some years ago they released an add called I am Autism. Watch it below, but be warned it is terrible.

If this from Autism Speaks was not enough their founder Suzanne Wright made a horrible call to action where she claimed Autism was causing families to exist not live and many other such horrible things. You can read her speech right there on their website here.

The end result of all this rhetoric is the pathologising of Âûtism as a major problem. It is this rubbish that creates a situation of parents and families feeling they have been served a fate worse than death. To feel like they have lost their children and they must do all they can to cure them. To believe their kids are locked away in their own little worlds from which they can’t escape.

I contend that this needs to be countered. I contend that only by countering this can we turn the tide. Only by showing what the Âûtistic community has to offer, what the gifts and talents are that autistic people have.

I call upon Âûtism organisations that are meant to represent us to speak out against the pathologising of us. I call on the National Autistic Society of England to stand up and speak out against these things. To Aspect of Australia to do the same. To any of the other National, provincial and state based societies to stand up, to be brave and to speak out and declare that we different not less.

I know there are many Âûtistics who are doing their best to do this. I think of Emma Dalmayne and Fiona O’Leary and Malcolm Mayfield and Tori Haar, and Jeanette Purkis and many others. I think of the great work being done by organisations like ASAN. I thank you my fellow Âûtistics for your commitment to changing things around. We need the organisations that are supposed to support us to also stand up.

We are different not less. We Don’t need a cure. We are not sick We are not diseased. We are not disordered.

We have much to offer. We ask you to listen.