Poll: Autism. Bad or Good?

[DSK-]

He wasn't born with it he was given a vaccine when he was 2 years old to help him from receiving the flu, but all of the vaccines in that year had expired and had mercury inside of all of the expired bottles and effected hundreds of kids within those years.

They have disproved this SO MANY TIMES.

Drives me mad to hear it.

You get more mercury eating a single piece of tuna.

You may say that, but my brother changed dramaticall when he had his MMR injection. Before he had it he would babble away and was able to say "Kelly good girl" (we would say that to our dog when she was around him as a baby) "dada" "mmmm" and "ssss" for my parents and myself and generally acted like a 'typical' baby.

After he had his MMR jab all of this stopped. He was hyperactive. He actually learned to walk before he crawled, and later would spend most of his time running around in circles in the living room, fall down asleep and within 2 hours be up and he would do it all over again.

He was diagnosed with ADHD and learning difficulties and is currently happy (although it took a lot for him to get there) at a special school where he will be playing catch-up for the rest of his life.



tl;dr - I honestly am not sure what caused it, but I honestly believe it has something to do with the injection.

OT: Why the fuck would something like Autism be good or bad? are you seriously trying to annoy/upset people? I would never wish for something like that on anyone.

My little brother is autistic. Due to lost paperwork with the military and the fact that we were base jumping he didn't get his first vaccines until he was almost 3. He stopped talking a couple months after he turned 2. The same is true for autistic kids who never had vaccines at all. Normal development until the age of 2 is PART of autism. Some hotshot researcher just decided to twist facts to make a name for themselves and picked vaccines since kids happen to get those the same age as the visible signs of autism start. My dad proves to his math classes that their grades are dependent upon the price of tea in China, just to show them that you can bend statistics to make any coincidence look like a causality. And then everyone else jumped on the wagon with other conditions that show up at 2.

Just look at all the OBs who got sued by parents who gave birth to a child with Down Syndrome--a GENETIC condition. Some people don't care if it's nobody's fault. They just want someone to blame even if it isn't true.

Secondly, and this is just my opinion, I don't think that calling autism *bad* helps anything. It's not a disease. It's not something that can be cured because there is nothing to cure. The brain of an autistic person is simply wired differently than a 'normal' person.

Can it make things difficult? Yes. Would it be easier for the person if their brain was wired the 'normal' way? Yes. But it's not bad. It's not wrong. It's just different. My brother might be mostly socially inept but he paints these amazing oils when the subject is one of his fixations and no one in the world has more extensive knowledge of all things Mario. The metaphor I usually use is myself in that I'm gay and I live in the bible belt so this can make things generally suck. Does that mean there's something wrong with me? No. My brain is just wired differently than a 'normal' heterosexual woman.

End game: if you call autism bad then it becomes bad. If you call any disability or talent or condition bad then it becomes bad even if it's something neutral or even beneficial. My mom teaches a girl who flat out does not speak not because of anything physical but because other kids made fun of her voice so much that she can't make herself use it. There is a world of difference between someone who lost their legs and thinks of it as a challenge to overcome and the person who lost their legs and thinks of it as the end of their world. There are hundreds of people who made full recoveries from things that should have 100% killed them simply because they were too stubborn to die and plenty who just gave up and died of something totally minor.

My point is that if you view autism (or ADHD or blindness or freckles) as something inherently BAD then the person who has that condition or trait WILL pick up on it. When my brother was diagnosed my parents took up the challenge and made sure that he always knew that there was nothing wrong with him. The autistic kids with parents who take diagnosis as the end of the world and a terrible crippling thing, they statistically don't do as well as the lucky ones like my brother. And this goes for everything, like I said, from medical issues to high pitched voices.

Sorry to turn this into an essay but ever since I was 5 I've been telling people that there's nothing wrong with my brother and half the time they don't listen. So this kind of hit a sore spot. But I hope that maybe you'll reevaluate the type of language you used to describe your sibling's situation and maybe ponder what signals you're sending them unintentionally.

I'll look into the subject a in-depth when I have the time. As the general consensus is that it's developmental, I will read up on it. Thank you very much for your info/story and insight.

 

[Grigori361]

Don't care about the Lady comp.

It may have been due to Dr. Wakefield being hired as an expert witness by a law firm that was suing a pharmaceutical company on client claims that their product was harmful to children.

Agreed, my point to make it perfectly clear was simply a statement on how the "system" operates, for example, even if a medical practitioner where to honestly beleive it (ie that vaccines are harmful) they aren't allowed to say so, (usually) health sciences are very strictly regulated.

And unless one uses their authority for whatever the medical oversight committee of that country says is okay, then that license (ie to do medicine) is usually considered for being revoked.

Once again I don't actually share the belief that vaccines cause autism personally, but oversimplifying things as I am of the opinion that you seem to be doing, is just as dangerous as saying it happens without much if anything more then a correlation between the two.

Now there IS a correlation, but scientifically correlation does NOT imply causation.

 

[Liquid155]

You may say that, but my brother changed dramaticall when he had his MMR injection. Before he had it he would babble away and was able to say "Kelly good girl" (we would say that to our dog when she was around him as a baby) "dada" "mmmm" and "ssss" for my parents and myself and generally acted like a 'typical' baby.

After he had his MMR jab all of this stopped. He was hyperactive. He actually learned to walk before he crawled, and later would spend most of his time running around in circles in the living room, fall down asleep and within 2 hours be up and he would do it all over again.

I'm a linguistics major in college and one of the areas I've studied is language impairment in a range of conditions including autism.

Normal language development continuing to a certain point and then abruptly stopping is very common in Autism. When language is affected in Autism, this is usually how it happens. The age when it stops just happens to correspond with the age most children get vaccinated.

It's unusual, and still not completely understood, but despite the correlation there really is nothing to link vaccines to Autism.

Thank you very much for the depth of your post and the information. I will take it to heart and I appreciate it, but I suppose it will probably take me a while to acquainted with the idea, especially when you believe something (even if it is wrong) for such a long time.

Thanks again

I'm not going to write you a paper on language acquisition in normally developing and Autistic children. You wanted an explanation for what happened other than vaccines and I was simply pointing out that that's what normally happens whether the child has been vaccinated or not.

If you want to understand it better, look it up. There has been plenty written on the subject. If not just blame whatever you like.

I wasn't being sarcastic or offensive - I genuinely wanted to say thank you for the insight :/

Whoops, apologies =/ It's internet discussions...I've become predisposed to reading sarcasm in replies, evidently even when there is none >.< Sincerely sorry man.

 

[DSK-]

You may say that, but my brother changed dramaticall when he had his MMR injection. Before he had it he would babble away and was able to say "Kelly good girl" (we would say that to our dog when she was around him as a baby) "dada" "mmmm" and "ssss" for my parents and myself and generally acted like a 'typical' baby.

After he had his MMR jab all of this stopped. He was hyperactive. He actually learned to walk before he crawled, and later would spend most of his time running around in circles in the living room, fall down asleep and within 2 hours be up and he would do it all over again.

I'm a linguistics major in college and one of the areas I've studied is language impairment in a range of conditions including autism.

Normal language development continuing to a certain point and then abruptly stopping is very common in Autism. When language is affected in Autism, this is usually how it happens. The age when it stops just happens to correspond with the age most children get vaccinated.

It's unusual, and still not completely understood, but despite the correlation there really is nothing to link vaccines to Autism.

Thank you very much for the depth of your post and the information. I will take it to heart and I appreciate it, but I suppose it will probably take me a while to acquainted with the idea, especially when you believe something (even if it is wrong) for such a long time.

Thanks again

I'm not going to write you a paper on language acquisition in normally developing and Autistic children. You wanted an explanation for what happened other than vaccines and I was simply pointing out that that's what normally happens whether the child has been vaccinated or not.

If you want to understand it better, look it up. There has been plenty written on the subject. If not just blame whatever you like.

I wasn't being sarcastic or offensive - I genuinely wanted to say thank you for the insight :/

Whoops, apologies =/ It's internet discussions...I've become predisposed to reading sarcasm in replies, evidently even when there is none >.< Sincerely sorry man.

No worries, these things happen

 

[Dragonpit]

I don't think it's good or bad. Sure, there are down sides, but there isn't anything out there that doesn't have them. All it is is a burden to be carried. We don't need to make it any more or less complicated than that.

 

[wearesoneutralthatithurts]

To be perfectly honest, we're a social species, and we need each other, so while some individuals may thrive with their extra learning skills, without proper social skills, they can sometimes be more of a drag than a bonus. I dont mean to generalize, but social skills are far more important in the way of operating around other people in my opinion.

I was about to post a long-winded argument about why it isn't good when I saw this. Thanks dude.

Ever thought about the fact, that some people need lesser social blabla? Humanity is made of individuals. Different people, different needs.
Some need very little intimacy. the are happy if they can be alone. People can be very annoying and disturbing, so its nice to have much time for yourself.


I am studying, so i meet much people, but at my free time i am at home the most time. I seldom meet other people at my free time. I play games, cook, learn and read. and sleep. I like sleeping. There is no need to socialise much for me.

 

[sirkai007]

Don't care about the Lady comp.

It may have been due to Dr. Wakefield being hired as an expert witness by a law firm that was suing a pharmaceutical company on client claims that their product was harmful to children.

Agreed, my point to make it perfectly clear was simply a statement on how the "system" operates, for example, even if a medical practitioner where to honestly beleive it (ie that vaccines are harmful) they aren't allowed to say so, (usually) health sciences are very strictly regulated.

And unless one uses their authority for whatever the medical oversight committee of that country says is okay, then that license (ie to do medicine) is usually considered for being revoked.

Once again I don't actually share the belief that vaccines cause autism personally, but oversimplifying things as I am of the opinion that you seem to be doing, is just as dangerous as saying it happens without much if anything more then a correlation between the two.

Now there IS a correlation, but scientifically correlation does NOT imply causation.

My father is a doctor here in the States and if he feels that a treatment is bad it is his duty to make it known to the medical community.

 

[Grigori361]

Don't care about the Lady comp.

It may have been due to Dr. Wakefield being hired as an expert witness by a law firm that was suing a pharmaceutical company on client claims that their product was harmful to children.

Agreed, my point to make it perfectly clear was simply a statement on how the "system" operates, for example, even if a medical practitioner where to honestly beleive it (ie that vaccines are harmful) they aren't allowed to say so, (usually) health sciences are very strictly regulated.

And unless one uses their authority for whatever the medical oversight committee of that country says is okay, then that license (ie to do medicine) is usually considered for being revoked.

Once again I don't actually share the belief that vaccines cause autism personally, but oversimplifying things as I am of the opinion that you seem to be doing, is just as dangerous as saying it happens without much if anything more then a correlation between the two.

Now there IS a correlation, but scientifically correlation does NOT imply causation.

My father is a doctor here in the States and if he feels that a treatment is bad it is his duty to make it known to the medical community.

I never said he didn't but what happens if the medical community refused to acknowledge even the possibility of something working, which might actually work?

This lady comp which I'm using as an example is a good one because I went to my doctor (at the time, I've moved out of area since) and he told me A: as a doctor he can't recommend it because the medical establishment doesn't recognize it as birth control, but as a scientist there is no reason it wont. So as long as the record is correct he said go for it, there is no reason it can't be more effective then the pill and the condom.

To paint the picture with a more perhaps (to yourself) relevant case, see the medical community's endorsement of cigarettes, and how for years many of the most respected doctors in all sorts of fields all said that A: there is nothing wrong with them, and B: they may actually be GOOD for you.

It took a private interest group of people railing against the medical industry (for what was essentially fraud on their part) and the Cigarette industry, recall that when that case was won they said A: the cig companies Knew about this for years, and B: the doctors supporting them did too.

Case and point, the industry is self regulating, and only a fool expects anything but corruption from a self regulating industry. If you dad is part of that good for him, I don't care. My mother is an accountant, that doesn't mean I think the accounting industry can do no wrong.