Hi all,
Thought you might be interested. I had a protracted run-in with a group of Generation: Rescue followers on the Evidence of Harm maillist over the weekend. It progressed as you'd expect: they insult me, I respond in kind, they come over to my blog en masse and the insults continue.
Turns out I'm 'ignoring my daughters biomedical needs' by not chelating her, also I'm apparently taking the easy option by recognising a genetic basis for autism. Anyway, you can get the whole story (from my end) here:
http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/?p=174
In the introduction I link through to the post where I was descended upon en masse.
We need to get more attention to the very real dangers in therapies such as chelation or ABA. Chelation itself has no solid scientific basis and is just an extension of the "mercury causes autism" thing. However, some forms of chelation can themselves involve injecting potentially toxic metals into the child.
Perhaps they can't accept that autism is a natural variation and must blame it on some external enviromental factor which has damaged their child.
Kev, you are to be applauded as a father for the care and interest in her needs and welfare that you take, for them to accuse you of being any less than giving your daughter 100% is very wrong of them, and quite sickening.
These people are showing their true colours.
We get parents coming to the chatautism network, for advice, sometimes. We always try to give good advice and never outright criticize their actions, but explain our viewpoint, and different ways of helping that are non-invasive.
It really makes me furious when people try to incite parental guilt as a tool for flogging quack cures, or flakey or unproven ideas about child-raising.
Kev, I know what it is like to be a parent, and I want you to know that you have my support.
Here's a link to the review of the book pushing the autism as mercury poisoning nonsense.
http://www.update-software.com/Abstracts/ab003681.htm
The review was written by a medical practitioner, and is in the British Medical Journal, one of the world's most prestigous and credible medical journals.
Here's some quotes from the review:
"Yet, through his laboriously detailed account he inadvertently exposes the combination of junk scientists, opportunist politicians, and ambulance chasing lawyers who have jumped on the antivaccine bandwagon (the parallels between the anti-mercury and the anti-MMR campaigns are striking). "
"But, as Kirby also reports, the same parents are pursuing a range of esoteric investigations and treatments for their children, including chelation therapy to eliminate mercury, injections of vitamin B-12, and various dietary exclusions and supplements. These costly treatments are often provided by doctors involved in the anti-mercury campaign. Yet, for all the extravagant claims, neither the efficacy nor the safety of these techniques has been confirmed. "
Shouldn't these doctors who provide treatments of unproven safety or efficacy be struck off the medical register? If autistic children are being harmed by chelation "therapy" or other unproven therapies, that is a serious matter. I wish some medical scientist would do a study about these questions.
It is puzzling how the sum of these treatments must be harmful to the child, and yet no authority is taking action.
A parent could go from one doctor to another receiving various treatments, imagine this scenario -
A child receiving 40 hours per week ABA, daily shots of MB12, chelation therapy weekly, plus surviving on a severely restricted exclusion diet.
Follow up: Mike Fitzpatrick (the Doctor who wrote the EoH review in the BMJ) mailed me over the weekend to say thanks for my public support. He also said that I was (at the time of his email) the *only* parent to express support for his review.
Bit sad eh?
He's a thoroughly nice chap. I *think* he's parent to an autistic son. Not sure about that bit though.
Can you let him know about AFF?
Can you let him know about AFF?
You read my mind Amy 
Do we have an actual day set yet for the Pride day? I'd like to tell him about that too.
edit: Just seen the 18th June date - thats my wife's due date!!!
To be perfectly truthful (something we Aspies are usually good at), I must say a lot of these "cures" seem like a pile of garbage and just a licence to make money for their practitioners.
I think it is quite contemptible to make parents feel guilty for not using the latest trendy therapy to make their child "better" but unfortunately, this is a common marketing ploy.
Kev, you are to be commended for putting your daughter's interests first and not just swallowing all the claptrap peddled by some people.