Friday, January 23, 2009

Autism Bitch from Hell: Neurodiversity Propagandist

I see that one of my favorite hatemongers and propagandists in the neurodiversity movement, someone who calls themselves the autism bitch from hell is at it again Her latest post is another propaganda effort with the tired cliche constantly purported by neurodiversity. She writes: Autism Speaks has never come close to being an anti-vaccine group. Its agenda consists of one thing only: Genetic research to develop a prenatal test to be used for routine abortion of autistic children.

What is so absurd about this statement is that they fund the work of my friend Matthew Belmonte who does fMRI research as well as event related potential research. They also fund the work of a Dr. Pineda who does work in neurofeedback mirror neuron studies and mu wave suppression, no relation to genetics at all.

In addition to this, they lobby for insurance bills in order to get insurance companies to pay for treatments such as ABA and speech therapy, again nothing to do with genetics.

This new attempt at propaganda by this person who is too cowardly to sign their own name to their posts is truly pathetic. One can't help wondering if the reason ABFH posts anonymously is that she is perhaps afraid of a libel suit from AS, as they certainly would be on solid legal ground if they chose to pursue legal action against the ABFH for her nasty and defamatory statements.

One only has to look at the grants section of the AS website to see how full of shit this person is. We see that AS funds the work of a UCLA scientist named Deanna Greene who studies socially driven attention in autistic children using fMRI imaging. We see they fund a kathleen meyer who studies sibling imitation intervention treatments. And the list goes on and on. We can see that there are many things that AS funds that have nothing to do with genetics, let alone the stupidity and the nastiness of claiming they are deliberately trying to find a way to abort autistic fetuses.

Last but certainly not least they fund one of the idols of neurodiversity, Dr. Lauren Mottron who employs postdoctoral fellow Luc Keita who receives funding from AS. This lab also employs neurodiversity sidekick michelle dawson. ABFH recently wrote a post about Michael John Carley being a traitor, but she does not seem to feel the same way about michelle dawson who continues to work in the Mottron lab which solicits AS funding and won't resign in protest.

However, there is one thing that ABFH does get right in her diatribe. The fact that autism speaks is now trying to cowtow to the mercury militia to get in their good graces. Actually, I feel that autism speaks should change their name to money talks based on their behavior. They have Sally Bernard on their board of directors who from what I have heard has a worth somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 million dollars. She is one of the founders of the mercury causes autism group SAFEMINDS and was one of the authors of the first journal article to claim that autism was a form of mercury poisoning. The anti-vax camp has tons of money and power behind it. Autism speaks certainly covets that additional capital. Also it is possible that Bob and Suzanne Wright are trying to overcome the rift with their daughter Katie, a militant anti-vax activist who constantly writes articles on the age of autism webpage, which endorses an "autism epidemic caused by vaccine point of view".

ABFH goes on to say they have no hope of AS redeeming themselves in the eyes of the ND movement. This is probably true also, as ND is a weak and puny little movement, that looks much bigger than it really is because of the internet. They don't have the capital of the mercury militia. This is probably why they complain about no autistics on the board. They just want to get into that capital and want to try to change AS into an ND type organization. As they don't have the capital of Sallie Bernard and JB Handley they will have no hope of doing that.

It is a shame that ABFH has to stoop to such ridiculous propaganda and anyone willing to check the facts will see how absurd her claims are.

Addendum: I see that ABFH has changed the wording in her post from it's agenda consists of only one thing to its ultimate goal. This was her response to my comment on her blog and this post, since obviously they don't do one thing at AS. By using ultimate goal she can just claim they are more interested in that than in anything else, but it is still baloney as one can see from looking at the AS site and what it funds, certainly its ultimate goal is to find a cure for autism and to help kids in the now with academic and other issues.

2 comments:

Alyric said...

I know it's fashionable to talk about ND as a living organisation, but could you rationally compare ND with AS. The latter is a business entity to raise research funds. The former is a philosophy with no offices, no secretaries and no incorporation.

jonathan said...

Again, you get it wrong. You are still batting 1000, Ali.

You are forgetting ASAN, GRASP, ANI and autistics.org.

The only reason there is no big As type corporation with secretaries and stuff is because the ND is too weak and puny a movement to acquire the capital for such things..