Special Ed Support

April 1st is the 3rd annual United Nations World Autism Awareness Day and April is Autism Awareness Month.  To commemorate this important day and month, Autism Speaks has asked iconic buildings around the world to turn their lights blue for their “Light It Up Blue” campaign.  In addition to buildings, on April 1st and April 2nd a number of stores and boutiques across the country will be displaying blue lights to promote autism awareness.  Get the link here.

Participating Buildings and Structures Include:

In the USA:

· Nevada State Capitol, Carson City, NV

· Governor’s Mansion, Carson City, NV

· Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL

· Willis Tower, Chicago, IL

· One South Dearborn, Chicago, IL

· Wrigley Building, Chicago, IL

· Fountain Square, Cincinnati, OH

· Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, OH

· Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ

· Denver City & County Building, Denver, CO

· Pennsylvania Capitol Building, Harrisburg, PA

· Montana Capitol Building, Helena, MT

· JP Morgan Chase Tower, Houston, TX

· Kansas City Downtown Marriott Hotel, Kansas City, MO

· Los Angeles Airport (LAX) Pylons, Los Angeles, CA

· L’Etoile Restaurant, Madison, WI

· Miami Tower, Miami, FL

· Empire State Building, New York, NY

· Madison Square Garden Marquee, New York, NY

· New York Stock Exchange, New York, NY

· Radio City Music Hall Outdoor Façade, New York, NY

· FUSE Networks, New York, NY

· John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport Air Traffic Control Tower, New York, NY

· Brooklyn Borough Hall, New York, NY

· Barclays Capital, New York, NY

· The Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel, New York, NY

· Boqueria Restaurant, New York, NY

· Corton Restaurant, New York, NY

· Mas(farmhouse) Restaurant, New York, NY

· Abe & Arthur’s Restaurant, New York, NY

· Copeland Restaurant, Morristown, NJ

· UpRoot Restaurant, Warren, NJ

· Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Philadelphia, PA

· Secretary of State Howlett Building, Springfield, IL

· Soldiers’ Memorial Military Museum, St. Louis, MO

· The Civil Courts Building, St. Louis, MO

· College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA

· Clematis Street Fountain, West Palm Beach, FL

International Buildings and Structures

· The Bell Tower, Perth, Australia

· Bangabandhu Medical University, Dhaka, Bangladesh

· CN Tower, Toronto, Canada

· Nicosia Town Hall, Nicosia, Cyprus

· Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington, New Zealand

· Kingdom Tower Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

· The Galle Face Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka

· Bermuda’s City Hall, Hamilton, Bermuda

· Shaheed Hussain Adam Building, Maldives

According to a recent article in Time magazine, it now appears that former Playboy model and self-proclaimed autism guru Jenny McCarthy now faces the reality that her 7-year-old son — whose autism she claims to have “cured” — likely had a completely different illness with symptoms that are similar to autism in some respects.

Indeed, the article suggests that McCarthy’s son instead suffers from Landau-Kleffner Syndrome, “a rare childhood neurological disorder that can also result in speech impairment and possible long-term neurological damage.” Therefore, McCarthy’s son was never “cured” because he never had autism to begin with.  Read the full article here.

Using her son’s illness as a springboard to revitalize her showbiz career, McCarthy has appeared on numerous television and radio talks-shows such as Oprah, as an activist, and has pointed to common vaccines such as the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) shot as the cause of her son’s autism. Even though McCarthy has had no medical/scientific education or training whatsoever, she has been embraced as a hero by the mainstream public and has even managed to write three best-selling books in which she recounts her experiences and describes the methods she used to “cure” her son’s autism.

McCarthy’s claims have repeatedly been challenged throughout the medical and scientific communities as completely false and she has been called nothing more than a menace to public health.  Now it appears that the scientists and doctors were right, and Jenny was wrong, all along. Unfortunately, thanks to the stupidity of Jenny and the media who supported her, parents have been refusing to vaccinate their children and old, deadly diseases like measles and meningitis have been returning as a result.  See the evidence from the CDC here and pay close attention to the Editorial Note in that article.

On a related note, the medical journal that published the original study linking autism with vaccines has recently retracted its report and the doctors are now being investigated for medical fraud.  Click here to read more, just in case you missed the earlier post.

Maybe Jenny will give back all that money to the poor folks who believed in her and bought her books…yeah sure !!! On the other hand, there’s no doubt that Jenny’s a good mommy, or that she has a great publicist, but everyone should know that she’s simply not a doctor or a medical scientist. This makes one wonder why people trusted her medical opinion with the health of their children to begin with. It’s amazing how some people worship celebrities.

So, what are the lessons that we can take away from all of this?  No matter how desperate we become, no matter how much we want to place blame on others, we must not lose our common-sense in the process by disregarding the experts and blindly-following the advice of someone with no credentials in the quest to help our children overcome their disorders.

On February 11, 2010, NJ Governor Chris Christie announced that he had signed an Executive Order cutting spending in 375 line items, via cuts, freezes, or elimination of existing programs across all aspects of State Government. The emergency spending reductions amount to over $2 billion during the remaining months of the current State Fiscal Year.

Unfortunately, one of the budget cuts was $155,000 in funding slated to be provided to Autism New Jersey under an existing, longstanding contract with the State’s Division of Developmental Disabilities (“DDD”).

There will be a direct and substantial impact on families in need of support as a result of this cut.  1 in 94 individuals in New Jersey are diagnosed with autism.   The services offer by Autism NJ are available to as many as 80,000 children and adults with autism spectrum disorders in New Jersey.  Autism NJ has planned more than twenty workshops for parents and professionals with close to 1,000 people expected to attend. And the funds allow the organization to offer a timely response to 4,500 individuals who reach them via telephone, and 2,000 individuals who receive printed support and guidance materials. Those services are all now in jeopardy as a direct result of Mr. Christie’s irresponsible actions.

On Feb. 2, many parents and professionals within the special education community were shocked when the 1998 medical study that originally linked autism with childhood vaccinations was officially retracted by the renowned British Medical Journal Lancet.   According to the official statement by the Journal’s editors, “it has become clear that several elements of the 1998 paper… are incorrect, contrary to the findings of an earlier investigation.”

The retraction comes at the conclusion of a medical inquiry of the study which has found that Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues who conducted the study committed medical-misconduct by acting dishonestly, irresponsibly and falsifying their findings.  As a result, the doctors may be stripped of their medical licenses.

To many in the medical community, these findings are no surprise since the 1998 study had already been widely discredited after many co-authors had publicly rejected their findings.  However, these findings have not changed the opinions of many parents who continue to support the vaccine-autism link.  Therefore, it appears that the debate will continue.

See the official story published in Time Magazine here.