I watched the Comedy Central 2008 Night of Too Many Stars benefit for autism education and was repeatedly confused as a number of people commented about "curing autism". This repeatedly struck me as odd. First, I don't think you can cure autism it's a developmental condition. Second, I don't know if it is a good idea. I understand those on the far side of the spectrum are often times closed off from the world but it seems an odd desire that people be open to the world. I don't see too much reason to demand this interaction with the world of people. There seems to be a remarkable desire among neurotypicals to share things. Capital of Spain. First three digits of pi. Favorite movie. Just saying these things makes me eagerly jump in with the answer. What if people lacked that motivation? They'd seem pretty closed off, what if they never forced these interactions or honed these skills (or picked them up like they are second nature)? I don't think Autism is wrong or really needs curing. Seems like they probably think differently and I'm not sure we're correct equating different with wrong.
Ps. Vaccines don't cause autism... if you picked this up somewhere forget it. It's beyond idiotic. *pokes nutters with stick*
Update: Some have commented that my comments about not fixing autism are due in part to my own anti-social tendencies. I am however, in no way autistic, I'm a loser. There's a rather massive difference. I highly recommend this piece on Wired about the subject.
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
A Show to Hate: Eli Stone
So on the 31st the pilot episode of Eli Stone is set to air... and boy does it suck.
Eli Stone is a lawyer, a moron, and apparently a prophet.
The opening scene starts off with Eli Stone settling out of court with a women who claims that her child got autism from a vaccine additive that only their company produces. Clearly meant to represent, thimerosal which antivaxers claim causes autism, regardless that the original claim was made by Andrew Wakefield now under investigation for breach of ethics for both being paid by some lawyers to make up some evidence that vaccines cause autism and standing to personally gain by casting doubt on the MMR vaccine owning a patent on a measles only vaccine. Despite the inability to find any correlation between vaccines and autism (which is likely genetic and only seems to be widespread all of a sudden because we stopped diagnosing kids as retarded for every neurological disorder). So conceding that there is absolutely no way for her case to succeed, because there is no evidence and the claim itself is false, and there's no way to show that the vaccine caused the autism (tapes from pre-vaccine kids later diagnosed with autism show pretty tell-tale signs of the disorder) he settles out of court for 90 grand. Did I miss something? Why would throw money at something, when it's plainly wrong? Thimerosal isn't in any domestic vaccines it was taken out years ago, and no autism rates haven't gone down (there's no evidence they've changed).
Several more minutes in... he has a vision of George Michael (singing "I gotta have faith") in his living room and is referred to an acupuncturist. Sees this acupuncturist a few more times. Is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm to cause the hallucinations (no brain aneurysms don't typically cause hallucinations).
--- Shoot me now.
Closing argument, "case about faith." Believe in things without evidence like vaccines cause autism! -- Result: vaccines do cause autism! Five million dollars! *sigh*
Eli Stone is a lawyer, a moron, and apparently a prophet.
The opening scene starts off with Eli Stone settling out of court with a women who claims that her child got autism from a vaccine additive that only their company produces. Clearly meant to represent, thimerosal which antivaxers claim causes autism, regardless that the original claim was made by Andrew Wakefield now under investigation for breach of ethics for both being paid by some lawyers to make up some evidence that vaccines cause autism and standing to personally gain by casting doubt on the MMR vaccine owning a patent on a measles only vaccine. Despite the inability to find any correlation between vaccines and autism (which is likely genetic and only seems to be widespread all of a sudden because we stopped diagnosing kids as retarded for every neurological disorder). So conceding that there is absolutely no way for her case to succeed, because there is no evidence and the claim itself is false, and there's no way to show that the vaccine caused the autism (tapes from pre-vaccine kids later diagnosed with autism show pretty tell-tale signs of the disorder) he settles out of court for 90 grand. Did I miss something? Why would throw money at something, when it's plainly wrong? Thimerosal isn't in any domestic vaccines it was taken out years ago, and no autism rates haven't gone down (there's no evidence they've changed).
Several more minutes in... he has a vision of George Michael (singing "I gotta have faith") in his living room and is referred to an acupuncturist. Sees this acupuncturist a few more times. Is diagnosed with a brain aneurysm to cause the hallucinations (no brain aneurysms don't typically cause hallucinations).
Dr. Chin: "Everything has two explanations, the scientific and the divine."
--- Shoot me now.
Eli: "I don't believe in God."--- Thank goodness you shot me already.
Dr. Chin: "Sure you do, you believe in right and wrong. You believe in justice. You believe in fairness. And you believe in love. All those things, they're God, Eli."
Closing argument, "case about faith." Believe in things without evidence like vaccines cause autism! -- Result: vaccines do cause autism! Five million dollars! *sigh*
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