09-28-2005, 01:31 AM
I saw a half-hour documentary on autism on Chronicle tonight. They made out autism to be some horrible disease, as usual.
The woman talking put huge emphasis on words like "suffering" and "wrestling". They used emotional language to make people sympathize with the parents and think of their children as a curse. Also, in the segment on Asperger's, they made it seem like aspies all want to be cured, and when they brought up the obsessions associated with AS, they used one example: a teen with an obsession with (believe it or not) reporting every single instance of someone breaking the rules to the authorities. They had a whole segment on mercury causing autism. I missed it, but my guess is that it brought up chelation. This documentary was disgusting.
At the end, they also said the mother of one of the autistic boys in this documentary was holding a fundraiser at Faneuil Hall in Boston to help fund research for a cure. I should probably protest, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. First, my mother probably wouldn't even let me and would tell everyone and they'd all make fun of me. Second, if the Boston Globe takes notice of the protest, it could stigmatize me and my family in the eyes of everyone in the state. I don't know what to do.
The woman talking put huge emphasis on words like "suffering" and "wrestling". They used emotional language to make people sympathize with the parents and think of their children as a curse. Also, in the segment on Asperger's, they made it seem like aspies all want to be cured, and when they brought up the obsessions associated with AS, they used one example: a teen with an obsession with (believe it or not) reporting every single instance of someone breaking the rules to the authorities. They had a whole segment on mercury causing autism. I missed it, but my guess is that it brought up chelation. This documentary was disgusting.
At the end, they also said the mother of one of the autistic boys in this documentary was holding a fundraiser at Faneuil Hall in Boston to help fund research for a cure. I should probably protest, but I'm not sure it's a good idea. First, my mother probably wouldn't even let me and would tell everyone and they'd all make fun of me. Second, if the Boston Globe takes notice of the protest, it could stigmatize me and my family in the eyes of everyone in the state. I don't know what to do.