When our son, Evan, was diagnosed with autism we were lucky enough to benefit from their knowledge and experience. Evan has been healed to a great extent by many breakthroughs that, while perhaps not scientifically proven, have definitely helped Evan and many other children who are recovering from autism.CNN Article
We believe what helped Evan recover was starting a gluten-free, casein-free diet, vitamin supplementation, detox of metals, and anti-fungals for yeast overgrowth that plagued his intestines. Once Evan's neurological function was recovered through these medical treatments, speech therapy and applied behavior analysis helped him quickly learn the skills he could not learn while he was frozen in autism.
When Evan meets doctors and neurologists, to this day they tell us he was misdiagnosed -- that he never had autism to begin with. It's as if they are wired to believe that children can't recover from autism.
Yep, a plethora of pseudo-scientific treatments did the trick because we all know that the intestines are directly related to neurological function. It couldn't be a misdiagnosis; it's as if they are wired to believe that children can recover from autism!
The rest of the article then goes on with typical anti-vax nonsense, again in direct contradiction to all the "scientific" evidence.
Please note that I never expected Jenny or Jim to be able to say anything intelligent or insightful about this issue. I just don't like them broadcasting this silliness to people who might take them seriously.
8 comments:
What I did like about this article was that she pointed out the difference between being "cured" of autism and "recovering" from it. I thought that was a very intelligent description. There are way too many parents out there who think their child(ren) have been cured. There is no cure, but recovery does exist. People who recover from some symptoms will always have others, but their life has been improved and that is the important point.
Ipecac here.
I imagine that comment was posted by Carol while I was signed in on the computer.
Carol, wouldn't a better word be "overcome"? Regardless, that can happen through medication and counseling.
And she fixed it. :-)
Many children diagnosed with autism also have severe constipation, Irritable bowel syndrome, and many other gastrointestinal problems. Many of these problems can be helped by diet. Whether improving these problems helps with the neurological functions, I don't know. However, it is possible that once the gastrointestinal problems are solved, it is easier to focus on the neurological problems, thus more improvement is noticed.
I'll buy that solving the gastrointestinal problems would assist in the overall well-being of the autistic, but there's little chance that has anything to do with neurological function in the brain. Jenny credits the diet with eliminating the neurological problems. That's just silly.
No, I don't think "overcome" is the appropriate word. That suggests that they still have a symptom, but have figured out how to live with it. That word might work for someone who knows they have poor understanding of social niceties, and has learned to perform social niceties even though they have no meaning to them. But for someone that didn't talk at all and is now talking in complete sentences, I think that is recovery.
OH MY GOD!
Well, I have problems with my stomach. Does this mean if I take anti-depressants or something related to mental well-being, that will help my stomach?
Jenny McCarthy was on The Larry King show the other night and apparently went nuts on a couple of pediatricians, you know, actual doctors, about vaccines, autism and the big pharma "conspiracy".
Post a Comment