Aspies For Freedom

Wow, that's depressing. 78% of voters at the time of me voting reckon autism is caused by vaccines.

...Back down to 82%.

Still quite depressing, how people put blind faith in dumb ideas when scientific evidence indicates the contrary.

I hope they put that on YouTube; uncensored swearing on cable television makes me start cracking up. I don't know why, I guess it is because those assholes at the FCC try so hard to stop it (but occasionally they fail).

There was an episode of MythBusters recently where one of them says "fuck" audibly, and it made me laugh for like 10 minutes straight. Also, here is a video of a kid swearing on Jeopardy after answering a question incorrectly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CzEx7Z4QIk

Numbers after I voted "No"

Yes 83% 6688  
No 17% 1411  
Total Votes: 8099  

They also added "This is not a scientific poll".

Thank goodness!!

She's forever saying bullshite on TV and everywhere else...

to rebutt on mr. bob wrong; i would like to know of the 60,000 pro golfers as you claim on your ad, how many of them are autistic?  there's got to be at least one.  also, how many of the '1 in 150' are contributing in society and not the 'lifelong burdens' you say they are?  you have mentioned on your website that autistics will never participate in any 'normal childhood activities' like little league, sleep-overs, etc., what do they do instead?  spend all their free time in aba the rest of their lives, being this monster child?

i'm also sick and tired of this whole 'you got to get aba to make your kid look 'normal'' slogan you keep pouting around.  and even then they also claim that we won't learn and that it's pretty much a show to put on for adults while you waste your childhood hating yourself in aba.  thankfully, i didn't go through that.  and we learn throughout our lives, there isn't this magical window that we have to learn in to have 'a chance of avoiding an institution'.  where's that window for nt kids, huh?

then our child grows up and becomes an adult.  the wrongs will make you believe they all move on into institutions and none of them go to college or get jobs.  wrong again.  we're not just making trouble for caregivers and being a child monster that needs constant supervision.  many of us are in college, have jobs and some are living on their own.  yes, there are some that need that supervision, but don't promote as if every single one of us needs it, and don't see every single one of us as 'beings not fit to live'.

on the families bit, my parents aren't bankrupt and they are still together.  so much for that.  i bet most of these people that get divorced end up that way because they spend too much on quack therapies that people like you promote and, more likely, they end up splitting up due to the money problems, not autism in itself.  autism is not the end of the world, it's not the worst thing that can happen to a family, please end this 'war on autism' and make a truce with us and listen to us so we can make real progress with autistics, instead of faux progress with discrimination and dehumanization.

and btw, playboy jenny said that she wished her son had measles instead of autism.  what a piece of work.  she probably doesn't know (or she does and is pro autism=worse than death) that measles can be lethal in many cases.  worse, some agree with her.  we have alot of work to do to convince everyone that autistics are more than 'soulless monster burdens for life'.  i feel it's going to be like the gay rights movements of the past generation.

I disagree that that's the reason people are voting yes.

People are voting yes because they remember all the headlines from the news years ago, about vaccine damage.

There haven't been the same kind of sensationalist reporting of the discrediting of that research.

People will remember the headline/front page, but they won't remember the three paragraphs on page 18 when the story is discredited several years later.

People don't vote yes because they think that's the only way autism funds and awareness will be raised, they vote yes because they still - incorrectly, naively, stupidly - believe vaccines cause autism.

I do think it's irresponsible of Larry King's website to not include some kind of information, i.e. click on this to find out cause, and then an explanation that the cause is still unknown, believed to have genetic/hereditary roots, but reports of autism being caused by vaccines has been discredited.  That would educate people, instead of letting them think that if 80-odd per cent of people think it, then they all must be right.

http://ww w.youtu be.com/watc h?v=-5WT aLnDPY4

there's jenny on larry king last night for those that missed it.

http: //gawk er.com/375 647/jenny-m ccarthy-calls-bul lshit-on-y our-medic al-science?cp age=2#vie wcomm ents

broken link.  it's her overreacting, saying autistic=dead pretty much. it's broken because many of the comments think that autistics are a burden and that's its a devastating disease.

Quote from Bravesj858:

"to rebutt on mr. bob wrong; i would like to know of the 60,000 pro golfers as you claim on your ad, how many of them are autistic?  there's got to be at least one. "

There was one autistic pro golfer, Moe Norman. Read about him here:

Selcraig, Bruce (2004) Golf’s purest striker rarely missed a fairway. USA Today. September 28 2004.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/2004...rman_x.htm

With regard to the vaccination loons and the curebie nutbars, I think it is a sad fact that such people will always be with us, getting in the way of human progress. Just step over them, or step on them if you please, and go on your way and live your life well. That is what I do when I meet loons and nutbars and imbeciles in my daily life, as unfortunately so often happens.

Anti-vaccination ideas are well-entrenched in developed countries. Many older-generation people hold these views, and I think this is because the older generations were in general less well educated than my generation (late baby-boomers, early generation X). These older people had to pay to get a degree or get none, unlike my generation. My parents' generation were not properly taught the basics of evolution or biology or even proper food hygiene. They are mostly scientific illiterates. I have noticed that many of the people that I know who are afraid of vaccinations and modern medicine in general are or were once Roman Catholics. The Catholic church has not had a good relationship with science and modern medicine or modern public health advocates. This is the church that is against condoms in AIDS-riddled countries. This organization is also quite possibly actively promoting anti-vaccination hysteria.

You can't change the fact that there are just as many people with an IQ under 100 as there are bright people. We need to find ways to sideline and disempower and discredit the idiot fringe and the scientifically illiterate minority, as they will always be with us.

If you choose to identify yourself as a member of the "idiot fringe" because you once had an IQ test score that was 1 point under the norm, then what am I supposed to do or say? It's kinda like me saying I take offence at anti-black sentiments just because I have acquired a deep suntan by the end of the summer.

The poll is closed.

The results of self-selecting polls such as this are only minimally indicative and certainly not statistically significant as only the people who feel strongly one way or the other would have voted. There is the large and mostly apathetic majority who would not have got involved at all.

It will probably be used as another example of "gee whiz" journalism and the results extrapolated to encompass the population as a whole, ignoring the self selection bias that inevitably occurs with such surveys.

Just like it is not a scientific theory.