Discussions among intelligent informed women, all. Scorn 'em or support them but just hear them 1st.

[proverbialwisdom]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Gormy Cuss (a host of the Feminists group).

http://www.kveller.com/mayim-bialik/vaccinations-and-other-things-i-dont-want-to-discuss/#

About Mayim

Mayim Hoya Bialik is best known for her lead role in the 1990s NBC sitcom Blossom, as well as for her portrayal of the young Bette Midler in “Beaches.” She has also appeared in Woody Allen’s “Don’t Drink the Water,” HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, “The Secret Life of the American Teenager” and is currently appears as Amy Farrah Fowler on the hit series The Big Bang Theory.

Bialik is the grandchild of immigrants from Eastern Europe, and she received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2007 from UCLA, specializing in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome. She is the celebrity spokesperson for the Holistic Moms Network, a national non-profit organization dedicating to supporting holistic and green parenting and living. Bialik gave birth to a son in 2005, and a second son (born at home, largely unassisted) in 2008.

She is the co-founder and chair of youth branch of the Jewish Free Loan Association, and is devoted to a lifestyle of attachment parenting, homeschooling, vegan cooking, and Jewish text study. She is the author of “Beyond the Sling” about her experience parenting by intuition, published by Simon and Schuster.

To read all of Mayim’s previous posts on Kveller, click here, and to read her posts on Raising Kvell, click here. And follow Mayim’s blog here.

May 21 2012
Vaccinations, and Other Things I Don’t Want to Discuss
By Mayim Bialik at 3:31 pm

ESSAY AT LINK

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/03/trutherization-of-vaccine-injury.html

COMMENT:

The recent and escalating tirades against Jenny McCarthy and other females who publicly discuss vaccine safety have to be called out for what they are- liberally correct slut shaming. Women are viciously attacked and ridiculed- men are left alone (apologies to Andrew Wakefield- some exceptions to the general rule). The nexus of this deplorable practice is the Slate-Wash Post-Daily Beast-Bill Gates bootlicking crowd.

Katie Couric, the former anchor of CBS Evening News fer Christ's sake, is called "the next Jenny McCarthy" for daring to do a story on vaccine injury. Her years of experience as a tough, fair minded journalist anchoring Today Show as well as CBS are instantly trumped by her gender and blond hair when she does a vaccine injury story. The leftie blogosphere launched a coordinated attack on Couric for being a female- the facts of her story were not challenged. The lefties kind of forgot to report that Japan, France, and Israel governments have all withdrawn recommendation for HPV series due to adverse reactions.

Dr. Diane Harper got tthe same business after the Couric story She is blond, so damn her credentials and let the slut shaming begin! Lucija Tomljenovic gets publicly ridiculed but her co-author Chris Shaw is strangely left alone- see a pattern here?

The difference in how men are treated is striking. Consider what happened to Morley Safer back in 1976 when he did the CBS 60 Minutes segment on swine flu causing over 40,000 Americans to become ill. Nothing happened. No media stories of his erectile dysfunction and tinfoil hats. His vaccine injury story was taken seriously.

When it comes to other women's issue- this same leftie clique rushes to the defense. The Commonwealth of Virginia tried to impose state mandated, medically unnecessary transvaginal probes on women seeking abortion services- the alarm bells went off and the earnest hand wringing began. The term "state sponsored rape" was actually floated. Wonder where Isaac Hayes stands in that issue?

Unfortunately the rape analogy is only too appropriate. A few hundred thousands women take their kids to the doctor and accept the vaccine schedule. When these same women report eyewitness accounts of vaccine injury, they are immediately transformed into hysterical, ignorant, inept caricatures who are "asking for" a vaccine injury diagnosis to cover up their own genetic or other shortcomings....they are slut shamed for daring to speak out.

Posted by: Ottoschnaut | March 22, 2014 at 09:10 AM



Ottoschnaut and Dan, There is no doubt that the most common way to dismiss a woman's point of view is to call her a nut or a slut. I don't think you can blame this on "liberal correctness". Michelle Bachman got plenty of heat from the right on Gardasil. http://www.businessinsider.com/conservatives-blast-bachmann-alarmist-hpv-vaccine-retardation-argument-2011-9 <>

Posted by: shannon wasserman | March 23, 2014 at 02:35 PM



Here Here, Ottoschnaut!
There is a good documentary out there called MissRepresentation which is all about the various types of discrimination & stereotypical portrayal against women in the media & elsewhere and the organization does great things. I keep wondering if the makers and supporters of the film have ever stopped to wonder what happens at the intersection of such embedded discrimination and the medical industry, a concept that wasn't addressed in the film.

<>

Womens' health freedom does not just encompass the right to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy, it includes the right to the health approach of one's choice, and right to freedom from forced medical intervention, and the right to control the health of one's offspring - and they all affect the female's ability to work and take part in the political system. But as autism parents know, it's hard to be politically active when the child that should mature into a certain level of self sufficiency instead remains or reverts into complete dependency.

This right to control one's own body should not be compartmentalized, but it is, and those in power strive to keep it that way. It is the exact same right that allowed for the end to slavery, that demands justice against pedophiles and rapists and kidnappers, that gives all adults the right to vote & control the laws that control our boundaries so that we all may coexist, that allows for conscientious military objection, that allows the right to be gay, and that demands limits to environmental contamination when it impinges on one's health and property and joint resources. People do not have the right to force others to do with their bodies something they don't want to do. But politicians do their best to keep these issues separated, despite the fact that they are the same issue over and over and over again.

In the end, I'll be surprised if the health freedom groups, LGBT groups, women's rights groups, parental rights groups,anti-war groups, minority rights groups, and environmental rights groups, and even religious rights groups don't end up forming some kind of issues trade union to expand their bases of influence. It could happen, if only they can each see beyond the blinders that the most powerful and elite have so effectively donated that they unwittingly don when they advocate in their windowless silos.

Posted by: Jenny | March 22, 2014 at 02:51 PM

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/03/debating-vaccines-online.html

COMMENT:

I believe that peanut butter has not harmed my child.
Other parents believe peanut butter harms their children.

Why? Physical observation, which can be verified by science.
Some call it empirical evidence; others dismiss it as "anecdote."

Vaccine manufacturers and policymakers have too much invested in money and reputation, so they deny consumers' adverse field observations and avoid scientific investigation.

If VAERS and VSD reports of brain inflammation and death aren't enough to motivate industry and government, what is?

In the real world devoid of consumer mandates, lack of accountability by product manufacturers inevitably leads to lack of customers.

Posted by: nhokkanen | March 21, 2014 at 01:37 PM

http://www.ageofautism.com/2014/03/to-journalists-on-the-eve-of-autism-awareness-month.html

To Journalists on the Eve of Autism Awareness Month
By Anne Dachel

Dear Fellow Members of the Media: (That includes all of you at CBS, NBC, CNN, Forbes, New York Times, Chicago Trib, LA Times, et al.)

April is coming up and I wanted to say a few words about the month dedicated to autism awareness. Many of us in the autism community are tired of stories about lighting the world up in blue and celebrating autism as if parents should be happy about a diagnosis. We've endured years of feel-good coverage about awareness, fund-raising walks, and no explanation for the mystery of autism.

Most of all, we want you to do your jobs.

Do you know what reporters are really supposed to do?

Five years ago I found this youtube by Bob Woodward. (Remember Bob? He and Carl Bernstein were the famous reporters at the Washington Post in the 1970s, who exposed Watergate and helped bring down a corrupt president. They even made a movie about them.

Woodward said that a good journalist does three things when covering a story and I thought I'd pass them on to you with the hope that you would apply them to your reporting on autism.

First, you're supposed to CHECK SOURCES.

Woodward: "It means checking everything, talking to half a dozen or even a dozen people for a day story. If it's something longer, you want to totally surround and saturate the subject."

Second, you need DOCUMENTATION.

Woodward: "I have not really ever seen a story in a newspaper or on television or even on radio that couldn't be enhanced with some sort of documentation that would support or add more detail to what the story is about."

Third, you're supposed to CHECK INFORMATION FIRST HAND.

Woodward: "Get your ass out of your chair and get over there."

This is the kind of stuff we the public think reporters do when they cover a topic, so when you start giving us stories about Autism Awareness this April, we want you to do it like professional journalists.

Instead of stories with photos of happy kids on playground equipment or a 30 second video of a cute four year old interacting with a speech therapist on the news, show us the dark side of autism--the teenagers in diapers, the non-verbal children who spin and rock endlessly, and the really sick autistic kids with seizures and bowel disease. People deserve to know just how badly autism can affect a child.

Talk to real parents who have enormous fears about the future. They're the people whose teenage children who will be aging out of school in a couple of years and they have no idea what's out there for them. You might even describe this as A CRISIS. Members of the press never use that word when talking about autism, but trust me, a serious health problem with no known cause or cure that affects 2 percent of children really is a crisis.

<>

Posted by Age of Autism at March 24, 2014 at 5:45 AM

Needless to say, none of these mothers of children with autism are "antivaxxers," a gross mischaracterization (by self-righteous manipulative bullies, IMO) found even on DU.

[JoeyT]

1. Posted without comment:

[proverbialwisdom]

2. Her media persona may be ditzy but don't be fooled, she's a 'Warrior Mother.' Watch her video below

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/niom-sdt011413.php

Public release date: 15-Jan-2013
NIH/National Institute of Mental Health

Study documents that some children lose autism diagnosis
Small group with confirmed autism now on par with mainstream peers -- NIH-funded study

Some children who are accurately diagnosed in early childhood with autism lose the symptoms and the diagnosis as they grow older, a study supported by the National Institutes of Health has confirmed. The research team made the finding by carefully documenting a prior diagnosis of autism in a small group of school-age children and young adults with no current symptoms of the disorder.

The report is the first of a series that will probe more deeply into the nature of the change in these children's status. Having been diagnosed at one time with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), these young people now appear to be on par with typically developing peers. The study team is continuing to analyze data on changes in brain function in these children and whether they have subtle residual social deficits. The team is also reviewing records on the types of interventions the children received, and to what extent they may have played a role in the transition.

"Although the diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time, the findings suggest that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. "For an individual child, the outcome may be knowable only with time and after some years of intervention. Subsequent reports from this study should tell us more about the nature of autism and the role of therapy and other factors in the long term outcome for these children."

The study, led by Deborah Fein, Ph.D., at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, recruited 34 optimal outcome children, who had received a diagnosis of autism in early life and were now reportedly functioning no differently than their mainstream peers. For comparison, the 34 children were matched by age, sex, and nonverbal IQ with 44 children with high-functioning autism, and 34 typically developing peers. Participants ranged in age from 8 to 21 years old.

<>

Link from: https://www.facebook.com/TheAutismRevolution


Background: http://www.generationrescue.org/about/background/

Published on Jun 3, 2013

Generation Rescue's Executive Director Candace McDonald shares why being a part of the organization is so important to her.

By JB Handley (2 years ago)

http://vimeo.com/29349428

[proverbialwisdom]

3. Differences on etiology aside (3rd rail), experts on the same page regarding therapeutic approach.

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Healthy U NOW ‏@HUNFoundation May 15
New detailed article on diet and autism in Journal of Child Neurology- by Drs. Martha Herbert and Julie Buckley! http://pic.twitter.com/2poXsb3TIJ

[img][/img]

Martha Herbert ‏@marthaherbertmd Feb 20
MT - Beyond Hopelessness: Autism as a complex, chronic, whole-body disorder (not a permanent, brain-based trait)

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Martha Herbert ‏@marthaherbertmd 25 Jul 2012
Synapses, glial cells, brain energy & more: all highly environmentally vulnerable–to many things. #ASD @marthaherbertmd @AutismRevolutio

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Martha Herbert ‏@marthaherbertmd 25 Jul 2012
Probably won’t find a single enviro culprit for #autism – many env agents, fewer physiological pathways. @AutismRevolutio @marthaherbertmd

http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2014/03/21/tools-well-being-talk-series-martha-herbert

Tools for Well-Being Talk Series: Martha Herbert
A Whole Body Approach to Brain Health

Friday, March 21, 2014 | 3:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: MIT Media Lab (see link)

Speaker: Martha Herbert
Host/Chair: Rosalind W. Picard

Physical and biological needs of the brain must be met as a precondition for "higher" functions to be performed. Basic physical and biological functions are performed by an array of cell and tissue types without which neurons could not live or function. The quality of health, lifestyle, and environment can profoundly affect these physical and biological parameters. Transduction of molecular and metabolic biology into electrophysiological signaling is vulnerable to poor physical and biological health, and conversely can be tuned up by improving whole-body health. Many chronic neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions can potentially be modulated, improved or slowed in their progression in this fashion. In addition, poor health status can increase vulnerability to stress, brain injury and brain disease, while good health status may confer protective resiliency. Taking a whole body approach to brain health can open the way to many practical ways to support the brain through presently available health practices, and improve effectiveness of medical practice and can open new avenues for systems brain-body research.

Biography:

Martha Herbert, PhD, MD is a pediatric neurologist and neuroscientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where she is an assistant professor in neurology. She is an affiliate of the Harvard-MIT-MGH Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging where she directs the TRANSCEND Research Program, which uses advanced brain imaging techniques and biomarkers to look at metabolic, perfusion, and brain function measures of brain change. She received her medical degree at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, her residency training at New York Hospital-Cornell and Massachsetts General Hospital-Harvard, and her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her academic research interests include how changes in whole-body physiology, structure and organization of movement may impact electrophysiology to alter brain function, development and structure; how environmental influences can act through our physiology to degrade molecular, tissue and neuroglial function—or create improvement and fulfill potential; and how emerging bioinformatics and small-scale measurement technologies can facilitate crowdsourcing of health and lifestyle data and build motivation to make these healthful changes. She works to convey to the scientific, policy and public communities that there is a better, more inclusive and action-promoting way of looking at autism, brain health and chronic disease, which is the message of her book, The Autism Revolution: Whole Body Strategies for Making Life All It Can Be (Harvard Health Publications and Random House, 2012, www.AutismRevolution.org and www.autismWHYandHOW.org).

The video of the talk will be posted on http://wellbeing.media.mit.edu in the future but will not be streaming live.

Laugh all you want, besides being callous, it's gonna be short-lived as the science supportive of Generation Rescue continues to emerge.

[proverbialwisdom]

4. And to think it all started with the so-called 'refrigerator mother' theory.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/14/health/autism-fast-facts/

Autism Fast Facts
By CNN Library
updated 1:09 PM EDT, Fri March 28, 2014

October 1938 - Five-year-old Donald Gray Triplett of Mississippi is first examined by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner of Johns Hopkins Hospital and later becomes the first person diagnosed with autism symptoms.

1943 - Triplett is referred to as "Donald T." in the paper "Autistic Disturbances of Affective Contact," by Leo Kanner. The paper expounds on the idea that autism is related to lack of parental warmth; this is later dubbed the "refrigerator mother" theory.

DISCLAIMER: CNN playin' fast with the facts? Never.

[proverbialwisdom]

5. Just to make is complicated, Triplett was first diagnosed, but Vivian (aka, Virginia S.) was oldest.

Excellent historical reporting: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1059&pid=2619

[LadyHawkAZ]

6. If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck

it's probably a quack. The gender of the quacker is irrelevant. This is not a feminist issue, it's an anti-science issue. Criticism of anti-vaxxers is not due to their gender, it's due to their buying into a lie that's been debunked by pretty much the entire medical community. From your last quote:

Members of the press never use that word when talking about autism, but trust me, a serious health problem with no known cause or cure that affects 2 percent of children really is a crisis.

We have a group of people who are determined to fly in the face of science and claim a cause for autism that science has found to be not only untrue but harmful. Trying to claim that no one's listening to them just because they're women is disingenuous, misleading, and not to put too fine a point on it, a lie- the very kind of thing that is harmful to the cause of gender equality.

Gormy, you're the host here and I'm not, but I really wish you would lock this shit.

[proverbialwisdom]

7. Science? Didn't you notice the two recent peer-reviewed papers overturning so-called skeptic memes?

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-01/niom-sdt011413.php

Public release date: 15-Jan-2013
NIH/National Institute of Mental Health

Study documents that some children lose autism diagnosis
Small group with confirmed autism now on par with mainstream peers -- NIH-funded study

Some children who are accurately diagnosed in early childhood with autism lose the symptoms and the diagnosis as they grow older, a study supported by the National Institutes of Health has confirmed. The research team made the finding by carefully documenting a prior diagnosis of autism in a small group of school-age children and young adults with no current symptoms of the disorder.

The report is the first of a series that will probe more deeply into the nature of the change in these children's status. Having been diagnosed at one time with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD), these young people now appear to be on par with typically developing peers. The study team is continuing to analyze data on changes in brain function in these children and whether they have subtle residual social deficits. The team is also reviewing records on the types of interventions the children received, and to what extent they may have played a role in the transition.

"Although the diagnosis of autism is not usually lost over time, the findings suggest that there is a very wide range of possible outcomes," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D. "For an individual child, the outcome may be knowable only with time and after some years of intervention. Subsequent reports from this study should tell us more about the nature of autism and the role of therapy and other factors in the long term outcome for these children."

The study, led by Deborah Fein, Ph.D., at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, recruited 34 optimal outcome children, who had received a diagnosis of autism in early life and were now reportedly functioning no differently than their mainstream peers. For comparison, the 34 children were matched by age, sex, and nonverbal IQ with 44 children with high-functioning autism, and 34 typically developing peers. Participants ranged in age from 8 to 21 years old.

<>

Link from: https://www.facebook.com/TheAutismRevolution

Retweeted by Autism Revolution
Healthy U NOW ‏@HUNFoundation May 15
New detailed article on diet and autism in Journal of Child Neurology- by Drs. Martha Herbert and Julie Buckley! http://pic.twitter.com/2poXsb3TIJ

[img][/img]

Bias, much?

[Gormy Cuss]

8. This thread, while interesting, is a discussion of vaccinations and autism

rather than one of a feminist issue.

For that reason, I'm going to lock this thread.

--Gormy