Welcome back, for the last time in a good while, to the
Randomizer.
How DO I even begin to say goodbye for perhaps a short while
after over three and close to a half years and 50 articles of doing this?
There’s probably no easy way to doing so. Maybe a nice silence will do…or
making fun of Justin Bieber. The latter seems more tempting. It will come up in
due course. Anyway, I will be going more into wrapping up final thoughts at the
end of this. For now, let’s continue talking about something I’ve talked about
two years since I had brought it up: Autism.
I have gone through talking about different aspects of
autism, my personal experiences with autism in the past, and my own different
traits expanded on, that if you wish to read on you can find on the links to
your right. So what else is there to really talk about? Well…plenty.
Autism is always worth talking about in different subjects,
a few which have become so important over recent years they are impossible to
ignore, to me anyway. I don’t mean to make this article into a rallying point
for a position later on, and you’ll probably see why, but it is important to
talk about as a matter of trying to find out what is the truth, and what isn’t.
The stigma that surrounds autism won’t be going anytime soon. There’s so much
to sift through with understanding, it’s a feeling that unless you come across
someone with autism you’ll never experience it. Isn’t that kind of a metaphor
for life?
Yes, autism is as difficult to break into as a bagful of
money locked in a safe, encased in a box made out of titanium, locked in a
bigger lead box, and buried in between the Marianas Trench and the Earth’s core
and a good chance you’ll be drowned and burned and pressurised at the same
time. BUT…it’s not impossible. The difficulty is the perception and ignorance
of autism, much like encasing the whole subject in a safe, and then just
responding with indifference or annoyance, particularly when an autistic child
or adult have a meltdown.
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| Can you guess what's not labelled along those labels? |
This is what we need to break down, and explore an issue
that still surrounds autism worldwide. We need to understand how perhaps the
stigma works, and how much this does affect those who have autism, bringing up
a few points that have been discussed as well in recent times. So get the
hammers out and start breaking!
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| This is my hammer |
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First off, I’m going to talk about the three main points
recognisable in autistic people, like I have done for the last two articles, as
a refresher for those who have read the articles and those who don’t have a
clue what autism means. But as usual the first question isn’t, What is Autism?,
it should be, Where do you start with autism?
Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder, sometimes known
as a hidden disability because it’s not on show as much as someone, for
example, in a wheelchair. We’re an odd species aren’t we? Autism effects people
in a number of ways: the way we can communicate, how we relate to people, and
making sense of the world around us. In addition, Autism is also a spectrum, in
that autistic people have many traits that are similar and differentiate from
each other.
The three main points relating to autism are:
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Social Communication
‘For people with autistic spectrum disorders, body language
can appear as foreign as if people were speaking Ancient Greek’ (autism.org.uk)
One of the main problems autistic people have can be broken
down into different points itself, hence the spectrum side of it.
One trait we might have is literal interpretation, taking
what is said on the nose. It’s a problem I still have, and it’s not going to go
away much as I would like it too. In conversation, I could go in one direction
just from listening to one word, and interpreting it in a manner accidentally
as ‘that doesn’t make sense’. It’s not exactly a big problem I have, like with
certain jokes from comedians I will understand, but like I said, there’ll
always be a little part of me that will think, ‘that doesn’t make sense’.
Another difficulty we might have is speech patterns. Some
autistic people may never say a single thing in their life, or say very little,
and still understand what is actually being said having different ways of
communicating, using sign language, visual symbols etc to communicate. Some may
talk just fine, but won’t always understand the give-or-take nature of
conversation, where one might speak about their favourite subject at length,
instead of accidentally not giving interest to the other person they’re talking
to. I would say this has happened before in the past, but now it’s not as
pronounced as it was, and I can share the conversation with friends and family
if I can.
A third part of this can be non-communication with people. I
am definitely like this at times, whenever I put my head phones on to listen to
music, or even not answering the phone for a number I won’t readily recognise. Some
may misinterperate this as being rude but it’s not that being an attempt to
ignore someone at all. It’s because I like listening to music, and to be honest
feel afraid of answering the phone because I hate talking to people over the
phone. Nothing to do with ignoring someone or anyone else, at least it’s not an
attempt to anyway.
See what I mean about it being a spectrum?
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Social Interaction
The second point is social interaction with people. This may
connect with communication to a point because it shows how we can interact with
each other, and show ourselves to a point who we are, in addition to
recognising the emotion states in people.
The first is a non-understanding of the social rules most
people pick up easily, but autistic people don’t to varying points. This could
involve standing too close to a person, invading their personal space or
starting an inappropriate topic of conversation, amongst other examples, that
will show how an autistic person won’t always ‘fit’ into society, and
accidentally come across as ‘weird’.
The second is, unintentionally, we may appear insensitive
due to how we don’t always recognise how people are feeling by their facial
expressions, and we may appear inappropriate with reactions. In my first blog
about autism a couple years ago, I had mentioned a video about an autistic man
joining some co-workers for lunch, one of which was upset about a break-up with
her boyfriend, and comforted by her co-workers. The autistic man says,
innocently enough, that perhaps the boyfriend thought she was ugly, prompting
stares from his co-workers. It’s a well-meaning suggestion, but to others it
will feel like an insult.
The last point I will make on this is some want to have time
alone, opposed to hanging out with friends and whatnot. While there will be
many autistic people like this, I do enjoy company with my own friends. If I
didn’t have any friends, I’d feel really lonely. I’m happy to have such close
friends, I wouldn’t know what to do without them. Well I have a PS4 but that doesn’t
really count.
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Social Imagination
The final point I will talk about is social imagination.
First is, connecting with social interaction, how difficult
it can be for an autistic person to understand another’s thoughts and feelings
and what they will do next. I have had a few problems with this, especially on
Facebook when someone can write a sarcastic comment for fun, and I won’t always
understand it, even if I am somewhat sarcastic myself. Least I think to a point
I am sarcastic. But I do understand how someone else can be feeling, and give
out a hug if needed.
Secondly, some will find it difficult to engage into
imaginative play. I remember vividly watching a documentary from HORIZON about
autism, called Living with Autism, and one segment showed a difference between
‘normal’ kids and autistic kids. They were shown a box, with a red ship placed
inside, and then they had to tap three times on top of the box to get it out,
shown by Professor Uta Frith. Autistic kids just took the red ship out of the
box, but that was because they knew the ship was already in there, and
sometimes unable to use imagination. Personally this hasn’t always been a
problem, since I used to play spy games with an old friend at Primary School
and of course writing stories.
Lastly, and more obviously, some autistic people like to
have a set routine to help focus on what will happen each day. For some, change
can be a difficult thing, if not downright unacceptable, and need to have a
steady plan to deal with different issues. I will say this doesn’t affect me
too much, because I’ve never found the need for a routine as I’ve gotten older.
As a kid though, it seemed to be a little stronger that way, because my parents
remember strongly that whenever they went a different way into Bury St.
Edmunds, I cried that we wouldn’t go a route I was familiar with, and so they
always had to go a different way. Not that I remember that much.
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Other characteristics
Apart those three main points, there are a few others that
need to be mentioned.
First is sensory sensitivity. This affects any one of the
five main senses: Touch, Smell, Sight, Taste and Sound, and can range from
hypersensitivity (overfeeling) to hyposensitivity (underfeeling). Examples of
either one can come from an autistic person finding a particular sound
unbearable to listen to or feeling sick, or to the latter’s case not feel it at
all. This can include as well clothes that one may feel unbearable to wear
against their skin.
Second is finding specialist interests some autistic people
have close to their heart. Ranging around Science fiction to music, films to
computers, no subject is off limits. I have had many different interests myself
over the years ranging from films to music to wrestling. There might be one
person whose one personal subject can dominate their entire life.
Thirdly is a term some of us know about: Asperger’s
Syndrome. It’s a form of autism that shares many of the three main points,
except the crucial main difference is people with Asperger’s tend to have fewer
speech problems as opposed to those with autism, and have above or average
intelligence. The issue here is that there is a fine line in between the two so
you need to be an expert in knowing, and I have some difficulty in knowing the
difference myself.
The one thing I haven’t mentioned with the other two blogs,
which I should’ve done, is the point that autism isn’t just centred on boys.
Girls and Women with diagnoses of autism have been growing substantially in
recent years, in how much they are getting those diagnoses more and more, women
slipping through the net as it were. A consensus is that the diagnoses for
women centres around:
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Increased social imitation skills (following the
social rules)
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Desire to interact directly with others
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Tendency to be shy or passive
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Better imagination skills (more setting up
scenarios rather than acting out)
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Better inguistic skills developmentally
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Interests that can focus on animals or people
One woman in particular that might be a good example is
autism advocate Temple Grandin, who has worked with cow livestock in the past
and helped to reduce their stress before being slaughtered. She studied how
they would react to ranchers, movements, objects and light, then designed
curved corrals to reduce their stress, panic and any blatant injuries. She has
been criticised by animal activists apparently for such methods, despite her
respect and compassion for such livestock. Gradin has been quoted as saying:
"I think using animals for food is an ethical thing to
do, but we've got to do it right. We've got to give those animals a decent
life, and we've got to give them a painless death. We owe the animal
respect."
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| Let's break that closet with the hammer! |
Autism then really encompasses a number of people on the
spectrum, regardless of gender, colour or creed. It’s like a description I made
last year: Imagine if your brain was like Lego made, coloured blue, but for a
few red pieces in and around the brain. Those red pieces are representative of
autism. Different for anyone who is autistic. Some media have shown how autism
works to a point, but that’s it, just up to a point.
Thus, we come to the main point of this article: Autism and
the MMR Vaccine.
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This might be a difficult subject to talk about, as it’s not
just a case of knowing that autism is a developmental disorder, but also finding
what are the factors involving the arguments, and looking for the truth,
especially in a country that has had many issues with the subject of autism in
general: the good old US of A. I say good…(insert joke here). The major issue
concerning the MMR vaccine started in Britain oddly enough.
In 1998, Dr. Andrew Wakefield published a paper in the
Lancet, now officially fraudulent, that claimed the Measles, Mumps and Rubella
Vaccine had links towards the symptoms of autism and bowel disease. The
controversial findings grew in the early 2000s, when Wakefield continued
publishing findings to add to his argument, but added nothing new to the
original findings, as the British public became more fearful about the prospect
of giving their child autism. The controversy ebbed away with the lack of
further findings, and a few points made by John-Walker Smith about how the MMR
is safe, but if there was a subtype of autism caused by the vaccine, research
would address that question, and so far it seems have proven negative.
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| A disturbing man called Andrew Wakefield |
Wakefield lost more credibility, The Sunday Times journalist
Brian Deer revealed in 2004, when he had been paid a sum by Richard Barr to
conduct research in finding a “new syndrome” two years before Wakefield made
his announcement, instead being a front to attack MMR and drug companies that manufactured
the MMR, and help a litigation of families recruited through media stories to
claim that their children had been damaged by the vaccine. Nine months before
Wakefield made his announcement, he filed a patent of products including a
single ‘safer’ vaccine against measles, which would only stand any chance if credibility
of MMR was done. In addition, for the 12 patients that had been used as part of
the study, Wakefield had manipulated the evidence from their histories and
diagnoses, and lied of conducting different experiments to prove his theory. In
effect, Wakefield had lied about his theory for simple gain of money.
Moving toward the late 2000s and 2010, Wakefield attempted
and abandoned a two year “gagging” lawsuit, and created a conspiracy theory
video, also promoting his work from Thoughtful house in Austin, Texas, holding
a $280,000 a year job, and refused to co-operate while Deer and Channel 4 would
press for a trial against Wakefield. In 2010, a panel of doctors and lay
members found Wakefield guilty, branding him “dishonest”, “callous”, and “unethical”.
Lancet retracted his paper fully, he was ousted from his Texas business, and
erased from the UK Doctor’s registar ending his career as a doctor. Deer
received a specialist journalist award in the Press Awards for his work for his
“outstanding perseverance”.
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| Brian Deer |
In USA, Wakefield is still working with his theory against
the MMR vaccine, including new claims that a vaccine including mercury based thimerosal
lead to the development of autism, and a documentary film called ‘Vaxxed’
directed by Wakefield -- that looks into the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention) apparently manipulating and wiping date of a study looking
into autism and vaccines – due to be shown but pulled from Robert De Niro’s
film festival Tribeca this year for not furthering the argument for ‘vaccines
causing autism’, De Niro himself the father of an autistic son. His support in
America seems to be just as prolific, if not more than in Britain. In addition to
reading up on this, there has been an American scientist called H. Hugh
Fudenberg who claimed – as well – that the MMR Vaccine caused autism as early
as the 80s, and that he had developed a cure, oddly, using his own bone marrow.
This theory was used in the original Lancet paper.
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| Sorry you're too intelligent to continue watching this documentary anymore, please read the tabloids to lower brain power. |
However again, a few things are amiss that seemed to be
explained properly by the CDC. The point that thimerosal lead to autism are
unfounded because thimerosal, used for many decades, had been taken out of
vaccines in 2001, bar certain flu shots, and the MMR Vaccine never contain
thimerosal inside, with autism rates continuing on the up even so, and
thimerosal disapparates into the body soon as it enters the body, breaking down
completely to not harm anyone who’s had a vaccine containing it. Even the NHS
explain that they have stopped using thimerosal in vaccines, and according to a
recent study last year, updated this year, from JAMA of Autism Occurance from
the MMR Vaccine along children with siblings with or without Autism, results
show that the MMR Vaccine did not increase a risk of autism, regardless of
older siblings with autism, and thus no further risk of autism is made in-between
the two.
A bigger issue opened up when Deer worked with the British
Medical Journal in 2011, revealing how one case had developed symptoms of autism
a month before he received his MMR jab, and two cases showing that they had
bowel problems before their vaccine, one when discharged from hospital was summarised
not to have autism. A third showed how they received their vaccine at four
years after developmental delay early in life. Many similar cases have been
written up in the essay for the journal, and in effect create a massive discrepancy
in the theory undertaken.
Today, Wakefield still pursues his theory and campaigning
against vaccines in America, with continued support from many supporters.
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| Otherwise known as 'completely bananas' |
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This whole idea of MMR causing autism, to me as a moot point,
is genius crap in the making. I do feel, as an autistic person myself, that the
forethought of manipulating a study for making ends meet, to gain money off those
who blame a medical procedure out of possible genuine fear - or different
reasons - to understand how their child got this, and develop a lie then
continuing that lie and serve one’s own purpose to gain out those desperate and
weakened – perhaps emotionally – a vast amount of money, is self-proposing a
destructive method of how autism works, and needs to be broken down completely.
The few questions that opened up in my mind are these: 1) If
the MMR vaccine really did lead a raise in autism rates from when it was
introduced in 1988, a number of people of my generation would be greatly affected
by autism, in fact perhaps many people in secondary schools over ten years ago
would be autistic. 2) I had the jab myself at perhaps the same age as anybody
would have gotten it, which leads the question how far on the autistic spectrum
would I be? Would I have been further down, or would I have not been autistic
at all? 3) If people claim vaccines have given their child autism, what about
those in the past who didn’t have vaccines, and thus we can only still assume
based on their outward characteristics that they are autistic?
Andrew Wakefield can claim all he wants that the MMR vaccine
is bad, the manipulation is there pure and simple. It could also be fairer to
say that because of his work, rates of measles had increased back in the UK, in
a few years after he showed his theory, and perhaps an increase of over 2,000
cases in 2012 alone, some I think I’m right in reading have even died from it
in those times, reported by the Oxford Vaccine Group. This may suggest, in
theory not practice, Andrew Wakefield has blood on his hands, from a
perspective of greed. Perhaps if true, it gives rise to a moral and ethical
question to a man – who has stopped vaccines for a money made purpose – plus,
and I’m being honest here, a degenerate horrible human being, who deserves this
gif, with an extended prison sentence.
This is a disturbing trend that needs to be halted in its
tracks fast, though it won’t anytime soon and it’s a disturbing way to show. I’ll
admit it has made my blood boil to a point from researching this myself,
because it’s grounds for showing how far manipulation goes. People desperate
for help are seemingly sucked into this world of how vaccines will make your
child different from any other normal child, such as if autism is a disease.
Autism is NOT a disease, it’s a different way of looking at the world. Emphasis
on NOT!
That kind of stigma still stays high around autism, the
thought that perhaps it is a disease. Autism is still an unknown subject, only
seemingly for those who have had the experience of knowing and dealing with
someone who has autism, or being autistic themselves. Now and perhaps still in
future, it will be seen as something different and taboo, not to be heard of
unless you don’t know or ignore it. The only reason it’s seen as a negative
thing, is because no one understands what’s seen on the outside more than the
inside. It’s the same for people with dyslexia, bipolar disorder, dyspraxia,
anyone that deals with mental issues every day. Few really know the happening
in our heads, certainly many do not understand because of a number of reasons.
Autism has been turned into a dirty word to a point, and it
never should be, but from majorly one man’s twisting charming work it has been
turned into such, a discord to be afraid of turning your child into something
inhuman. Let me say this: Autism is NOT A DISEASE, it’s a lifelong developing
condition that stays forever, there’s no cure. It is treatable, but no matter
how much you look up online for any dietary tips, pills, or crackpot scam
artists, it’s NOT curable. The help is out there, but it needs to be seen in
the right place, by experts who know and see the symptoms, people who spot it
from experience, and others who do help bring better understanding to you so
you can help yourself or child.
Autism is a great word, but it needs all the support it can
get. Start a tug a war that Wakefield and those who believe otherwise cannot
win.
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| Not a bad metaphor |
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This is it, perhaps for the moment. It’s where the
Randomizer stops, on a good message I reckon.
The support I have had for this blog since 2013 has been
fantastic, and for that, thank you all who have continued to spread the word,
and for the overwhelming views I have had, though however small some of the
articles could be. I may come back to this in future, and push for better
viewership somehow, to bring more people toward understanding how things can
change, with a few random jokes thrown here and there. Now, it’s best to come
away until a time may be right to start again, when I feel properly refreshed
for more subjects of importance or awesomeness. I will still be doing my book
and few film reviews here and there whenever I do see a film, good or bad
otherwise. But for now, here are my final thoughts:
Autism is a part of who I am, I am as human as anybody else
on this planet. I wouldn’t think I could get as angry as I could finding out
what I’ve researched, but finding out the truth can help show anger being good
in spates. Many changes need to be sorted out, and they need to start keeping
Wakefield and others away with their ideals. Autism is a great word. Please
remember that.
Also, Justin Bieber sucks. ^_^
Randomizer out!
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| Drink up, me hearties yo oh...... |
