Chicago Tribune Once Again Affirms Reason for Financial Trouble by Alienating Parents of Autistics

Chicago Tribune Once Again Affirms Reason for Financial Trouble by Alienating parents of Autistics
C. Linderman Sr. ATO Opinion Press Nov. 23 2009
With reporters Trine Tsoudaris and Patricia Callahan’s most recent tripe regarding “alternative” treatments for autism, the Chicago tribune has once again alienated a large segment of the world’s population and affirms to this parent, another reason to believe that this paper deserves its financial woes. With the most recent numbers from the CDC stating that 1-91 eight year old children in the U.S. are ending up with an autism diagnosis, and numbers in England and other nations greater than this, Sunday and Monday’s recent articles flies in the face of reason. The Tribune astonishingly decides to deride and belittle the parents of children afflicted with this mysterious disorder for researching and trying “alternative” treatment methods as they state in these most recent articles that “studies have found that up to three-quarters of families with children with autism try at least some alternative treatments.”
One in ninety one children afflicted. Add to this the parents, grandparents, nieces, nephew, aunts, uncles, cousins and other family members and friends that have seen beneficial gains from these treatments and you can add the numbers of those offended by these articles up for yourselves. I am one of those that are not only deeply offended by these articles, but also immensely troubled by what this type of reporting represents: a mainstream media that seems to care far more for the pharmaceutical and medical “industry” than it does for its readers.
I have been a member of this “alternative treatment” community (one which also seems to frequently get the moniker; the anti-vaccine community) for a number of years and have not only seen the huge benefits that my own son has gained by taking the more nontraditional route, but have also witnessed these beneficial results from the families of other children that have improved as a result of these treatments. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, on this great planet are most assuredly deeply offended by what the Chicago Tribune has allowed to be printed. I certainly hope that the majority of these people in the Chicago area and readers elsewhere take their complaints to the advertisers in this sorry excuse for a newspaper and thereby further compound their financial troubles. After all, if the media, the one’s that used to be known as “the defenders of our democracy” continue to sell the citizenry out, we must take action.
In this past Sunday’s edition, the Chicago tribune article entitled; Autism treatments: risky alternative therapies have little basis in science, these reporters get completely lost as they whore themselves to the industry insiders of the mainstream medical establishment. Seemingly all of the medical professionals that these two pathetic reporters used to make their obviously predetermined case seem valid stated that there was no known cause for autism spectrum disorders. They all also seem to know what doesn’t work to treat these children. This is astounding to say the least. Just as Dr. Paul Offit, a self proclaimed and media revered “autism expert” that has never treated a child with autism claims that while not knowing what causes autism, he certainly knows that vaccines do not play a role, these other physicians and scientists are showing their true concerns, and it most certainly isn’t the child with autism.
Ms. Tsoudaris and Ms. Callahan state that “after reviewing thousands of pages of court documents and scientific studies and interviewing top researchers in the field, the Tribune found that many of these treatments amount to uncontrolled experiments on vulnerable children.” I have one question for these idiot reporters: couldn’t the very same thing be said about the current vaccine protocol? While there are countless studies as well as thousands of anecdotal statements from parents, showing clearly that autistic children are recovering or at the least being aided by these “alternative” therapies, there is not one documented study that shows the long term adverse affects of hyper stimulating our infant’s immune systems! In fact, I find it rather amusing (not in a funny ha ha sort of way) that one of these “top researchers” that they spoke with and quoted, Dr. Steven Goodman of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics stated “Few treatments are benign. Even an effective therapy is rarely harmless and sometimes that harm is worse than the disease.” Thanks doc, I think I’ll use that quote the next time I write an article regarding our government’s massive childhood experiment commonly referred to as our nation’s vaccine protocol!
While attacking hyperbaric oxygen therapy, chelation, supplements, vitamins and a slew of other known beneficial treatments throughout the autism community, these ridiculous excuses for reporters also attack our children and their futures. How in the world can these two idiots justify their actions when at least one of them has personally met recovered children? Knowing Autism One’s Director, Teri Arranga personally, I can tell you that there is no way that these reporters scoured over the references that she sent them. As to the claim that Tsoudaris and Callahan reviewed “thousands of pages of court documents” did they miss the Bailey Banks case in an overtly determined sort of way? Did they miss the hundreds of other Vaccine Court cases that the government has conceded? Was the Hannah Poling case “old news” and off their radar, or did they intentionally not report this court case? I would most assuredly vote for the latter since it is already obvious that these cases have not been represented in the mainstream media properly to date.
Also from the Chicago tribune article: “Many parents who try alternative therapies cite an analogy popularized by a luminary of the movement, a physician who wrote a book on recovering children from autism. They say they feel as if their child has jumped off a pier. Science hasn’t proved that throwing them a life preserver will save the child, but they have a duty to try, right? Critics say that’s the wrong way to think. ‘How do they know if that life preserver is made of cork or lead?’ That is the real issue.” I think that most of us feel as if our children have been thrown from a pier, not jumped, and traditional science is offering up the “lead life preserver” because they can’t come to terms with the very fact that they have caused this epidemic. Trust me when I say this, parents of autistic children know the difference between Styrofoam and lead and we have the metals tests to prove it!
As these idiot reporters continue to degrade the parents of autistic children that obviously have far more knowledge than the “experts” which they have conferred, they make this idiotic statement concerning mercury in the vaccines: Toxicologists and experts on vaccines said studies show that if a vaccine contains mercury, the metal is quickly excreted.” Really? The only thing that these reporters are doing here is misleading the general population and hastening more autism diagnoses because the large segment of the autism parents treating alternatively already know that this is most definitely not the case. These new diagnoses will of course be highly beneficial to the pharmaceutical industry, to which these reporters are obviously quite familiar, since the mainstream scientist’s only course of autism treatment is Abilify or Risperidal, two psychoactive drugs with possible detrimental consequences!
They obviously received this tidbit of ignorance from Dr. Fombonne who is also quoted in the story stating: “There is no evidence for (the treatments’) efficacy, no evidence for the reason for them to work. There are no published studies which would suggest that (they) would change the course of autism.” Yet alas, they are doc! It is really common knowledge among us seriously misled and wanting moms and dads, that ethyl mercury, (the kind found in vaccines) does not leave the body quickly. This was an incredibly flawed study by Fombonne that assumed that ethyl mercury left the body faster than methyl mercury (the kind found in fish etc.) because they hadn’t found it in the blood. They made the decision to state that this is because it most probably left the body, yet show no proof whatsoever that this was in fact the case. So much for science…
While this may seem like a personal attack on these moronic reporters and the thankfully financially wrecked Chicago Tribune, be assured that it is most certainly just that! I am a pissed off autism dad that is sick and tired of the postulating prostitutes that do nothing but attack those that are helping our children as “traditional” scientists and medical practitioners sit on their thumbs and continue to look for more idiot reporters to further proclaim their innocence regarding this autism epidemic that they have caused!
As the prostitution of our mainstream media continues, there will be warrior parents like me that will continue to call these idiots on their lies. We will use the internet to destroy these bastions of deceit that we once knew as defenders of freedom. The mainstream media is in its last throes as a meaningful source of information and Tsoudaris and Callahan, with their Chicago tribune article, are hastening its demise.