A Paridigm Shift Needed in the Autism Community?

There is a very important question that must be asked, a very important issue that must be addressed. America and the rest of western civilization has gotten to the point where every epidemic, every problem, every minor or major social issue must be solved by government or an associated organization. Will we as the autism community ever realize that this is virtually impossible when it comes to our very real problem? How in the world can we trust an entity that is culpable in this epidemic, to care about finding the cause, much less a cure?
I am well aware that considering the United States government culpable in the epidemic we know as autism might be a bit of a stretch for many to grasp, primarily those that haven’t witnessed this first hand, but allow me to make this perfectly clear: the government mandates the vaccine schedule, they appoint the doctors (many of whom have serious conflicts of interest) to set this schedule, they rely on the FDA (a government organization that is also incredibly conflicted) to approve these vaccines, they create laws that shield the manufacturers from adverse reaction lawsuits through the vaccine courts established in the eighties and when a child who has had a serious vaccine reaction attempts to make their case in this court, the government sides with the pharmaceutical industry. If this set of facts doesn’t make the government culpable, I don’t know how I could convince you.
The Combating Autism Act recently approved by Congress has turned out to be nothing but a piece of worthless paper that the government hoped would “shut autism parents up” and has created a cash cow for the scientific industry that has no intentions whatsoever to actually address this potentially disastrous epidemic in any honest, thoughtful way. This is quite evident when you pay attention to the goings on at the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC). The IACC is a governmental organization created out of the Combating Autism Act to scientifically evaluate and study the autism epidemic. This was to be a group of government experts, scientists, doctors and parents / advocates that were supposed to work together to understand the causal roles behind this epidemic and determine the strategies necessary to treat those already afflicted. This however, is not the case.
Over and over again, seemingly incessantly, the IACC has sabotaged the autism community’s efforts to have vaccines studied in regards to a potential causal role in this epidemic. Despite countless families that have gone on record to state that their “normal” children were fine until they were vaccinated. We have had brave and tireless parents, grandparents, family members and advocates fight for our children only to be lied to, stabbed in the back and ridiculed. Hours, days, weeks, months and years have been spent to try to get our elected officials to pay attention to our plight with very little success.
Despite the overwhelming evidence that shows a relationship between vaccines and autism nothing is being accomplished. Yes my friends, while not conclusive, the evidence clearly suggests a correlation between vaccines and autism. If you however, rely on the evening news or one of those 24 hour news channels to inform you of the preponderance of the evidence, you are sorely misinformed. If you expect your very busy pediatrician, family practitioner or health department employee to have the facts, you will be sadly misled at best and lied to in the worst case scenario.
The evidence continues to mount on an almost daily, and at least weekly, basis and the main stream media that relies on the pharmaceutical industry for a considerable part of its advertising budget refuses to stand up and deliver this information to the public. No television media outlet reported on the Manitoba Canada study that showed that simply by delaying the DTP vaccine for two months reduced the incidence of asthma by more than 50%, even though asthma is thought to kill more than 6000 Americans each year. When a doctor from England suggested that a large majority of children with autism suffered from gastrointestinal issues (which is common knowledge within our community) and considered merely a plausible theory that this issue might be connected to the MMR vaccine, the establishment went after the messenger and ignored our children’s very real problems. When a macaque monkey study came out that clearly showed that vaccinated monkeys were experiencing developmental delays while their unvaccinated peers showed no signs of these delays, our government was silent. When our government found out that a number of the studies that our medical establishment relies on to assure parents that vaccines are perfectly safe were crucially flawed, they asked for an apology from then CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding, yet the vaccine schedule remains unchanged except for newer vaccines being added annually.
The government doesn’t want to find out what causes autism because they will be held liable to the same degree as the manufacturers of the vaccines. This is evident in the Simpsonwood Georgia meetings held by the Centers for Disease Control where government doctors were asking how they could cover up or manage the devastating evidence that vaccines were causing this epidemic of autism. This was in 2000! Imagine how many children and families could have been saved from the ravages of this disability if these doctors, scientists, industry executives and government officials had even a modicum of ethics or conscience!
We must now come to the realization that good ol’ American capitalism and charity has got to be the answer. Private industry has always done what government seems either unable or unwilling to do. While understandably, private industry is culpable as well in this problem (i.e. the pharmaceutical companies and the government funded medical organizations) finding the right group of individuals with the right motives, even if making money as well as caring about our children is a part of that agenda, is the only answer that I see bringing about success. I am not necessarily suggesting that we give up entirely on our government; there are a number of our elected officials that seem to care about this issue. I am however suggesting that we finally come to the realization that destroying the government’s and medical industry’s credibility by making this science and consequently the “cure” happen, is the only way to change the beltway’s mindset. Something we so desperately need in Washington D.C., Atlanta and all across the country.
As we continue to waste time with the government, which refuses to look into the very real science available to them, another child is diagnosed with autism every ten minutes in America. Don’t we owe these families and their children more than just a seat at a very combative and corrupt table?