Best of AofA: Who Is Dorit Reiss?
Tell Congress Your Vaccine Safety Concerns Pre-Hearing

Dachel Media Review: Affordable Care Act and Autism

Online newsBy Anne Dachel

Read Anne's comments and view the links after the jump.

Nov 11, 2013, Farmington (NM) Daily Times: Farmington salon offers stress-free haircuts for people with autism

Nov 10, 2013, Chicago Tribune: Grandin puts autism spectrum in perspective

Nov 9, 2013, Congressional Briefing Attempts to Discredit Vaccine Injury Compensation

Nov 9, 2013, Brattleboro (VT) Reformer: Our Opinion: Now's the time

Nov 8, 2013, Miami Herald: Learn about autism at town hall meeting

Nov 8, 2013, CBS News: Lack of eye contact may be first sign of autism in infants

Nov 7, 2013, ABC6 Augusta GA: Affordable Care Act and Autism

Farmington (NM) Daily Times
"Many routine tasks people take for granted -- such as getting a haircut -- can seem almost impossible for individuals with sensory issues, such as those who fall on the autism spectrum.
"The bustling sights, sounds and smells of a barbershop or salon can often be an overload of sensation for such individuals. So the New Mexico Autism Society of San Juan County partnered with a local salon to ease the haircutting process for autistic people.

"Sarah Shelby is on the board for the local autism group. As the mother of a 12-year-old son with autism, she has experienced the sometimes excruciating process of getting her son's hair cut."
 I don't know why this bothers me so much, but it does. Notice the title is "haircuts for people with autism," but it's a story about cutting kids' hair. Why is this the first salon in New Mexico to do this? Where have autistic people been going for haircuts in the past? What is this telling us?
Chicago Tribune

""Who do you think created the first stone spear?' Temple Grandin asked, wearing her trademark Western shirt and looking out over the capacity crowd Saturday at the UIC Forum. 'It wasn't the social yuckity-yucks around the campfire, that's for sure.'

"More likely, she implied, it was someone on the autism spectrum. Einstein may have been autistic. Steve Jobs, too. "Half of Silicon Valley is on the spectrum," she said. . . .

"The biggest takeaway from her Chicago appearance was an emphasis on the unique ways those with autism process the world - and how essential these differences can be to our communal well-being. We need people on the spectrum (the geeks, nerds and socially awkward among us, in Grandin-speak) in the workforce alongside neurotypicals."

"In perspective"?  So what's the perspective?  ----the pretense that autism is merely an alternative way of looking at the world?

I can't imagine a more false and insulting spin on the nightmare called autism. I posted one comment.
"On November 7th, a congressional briefing, entitled "The Injustice of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)" was sponsored by "The Canary Party" and billed as a precursor to a hearing scheduled on December 4th in the Committee of Government Oversight and Reform.
"Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, a passionate vaccine advocate with intimate knowledge of the legal system and Professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, attended the briefing and provided the following post as her personal response to comments she heard there.

"At a briefing in Congress about the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), Ms. Mary Holland and Mr. Rolf Hazelhurst criticized the program's operation. Ms. Holland, addressing several possible reform options, rejected improving the program (what she called "tinkering at the edges") as a way to fix the problems she identified. Her solution was to have claims of vaccine injuries litigated in the regular courts, either through making NVICP optional, limiting it to the original 7 vaccines it covered in 1986, or repealing the act completely. Doing so would be an error. From plaintiffs' perspective, adjudication through NVICP is either equivalent to the courts or better. For society, too, vaccine injuries are better handled by NVICP than by the regular courts. . . .

"Ms. Holland's case focuses on the claim that NVICP is unjust and painful for plaintiffs. There is probably room for improving the program (or any other administrative program). But Ms. Holland is not interested in improving the program: she wants to abolish it and send plaintiffs to the courts. . . ."

I would like to know what motivates Dorit Reiss to be such a strong proponent of vaccines.  It's clear why I write stories and post comments---I know vaccines damaged my children.  So why is Ms Reiss such a public voice against us?
Brattleboro (VT) Reformer

"It's that time of the year when many of us find ourselves wondering should we or shouldn't we? Of course, we are talking about whether to get a flu shot. Some people are dead set against getting a flu shot and can give a whole host of reasons while others, without fail, get their flu shots as soon as the vaccine is available. They, too, have a whole host of reasons for getting the shot.

"William Schaffner, MD, chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University's School of Medicine in Nashville, Tenn., told WebMD that the flu is one of those subjects that is surrounded by myth.
"'There are urban myths and rural myths about the flu,' he said. 'Flu myths are everywhere.'
"Even care providers are susceptible to the myths, noted WebMD's R. Morgan Griffin.
"'Given that influenza can be serious and even fatal, it's crucial that we all know what's fact and what's fable,' he wrote, in a column listing 14 myths about the flu. . . .

"'Some believe that there could be a link between vaccines -- specifically the ingredient thimerosal -- and developmental disorders in children, like autism. However, there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, and experts say that we're losing sight of how important vaccines are.'
"If you're still concerned about thimerosal, noted Griffin, manufacturers produce more thimerosal-free flu vaccine than people use."


I posted nine comments. The links look incredible---photos included!!
Miami Herald

"At least 500,000 American children with autism will become adults during the next decade, according to the Autism Speaks awareness and advocacy group. These young people will need homes, jobs and the promise of a future.
"Learn more at a Town Hall Meeting with the focus, 'Small Businesses that Employ People with Autism' at 7 p.m., Nov. 11 at Newman Alumni Center, University of Miami, 6200 San Amaro Dr. in Coral Gables. . . . "

It really seems pointless to comment on something like this, but I did anyway. This is really scary stuff to read, but no one is ever alarmed.

Everyday there are stories in the news where we're given the rate: one in 50 children or one in 88, with no explanation.

We're regularly told that there's no known cause or cure.
And now I'm seeing the Autism Speaks prediction that 500,000 children with autism will age out of school in the next decade---we better do something to prepare for them! All without anyone asking why it's happening.
I would love to attend the Town Hall Meeting. I would simply ask people how many autistic children they know personally (besides their own child). I would ask how many middle aged and elderly autistic people they know. What is this telling us?
 CBS News

"Kids with autism stopped focusing on their caregiver's eyes between two and six months, and increasingly halted their attention throughout the study period. By the time they reached 24 months, the children with autism looked at their caregiver's eyes about half as long as children without autism did.

"'This insight, the preservation of some early eye-looking, is important,' Jones said in a press release. 'In the future, if we were able to use similar technologies to identify early signs of social disability, we could then consider interventions to build on that early eye-looking and help reduce some of the associated disabilities that often accompany autism.'"

Are we to understand that researchers observed children regressing into autism and didn't ask why it was happening? Why is it that experts seems helpless in the face of an epidemic affecting one in every 50 U.S. children? And when healthy, normally developing two year olds suddenly stop making eye contact, stop talking, stop being potty trained and regress into autism, doctors are equally mystified. The only thing they're sure of is that the ever-expanding vaccine schedule, which begins at birth with the HepB vaccine, isn't the cause. And they've got lots of studies, all tied to the vaccine makers, to prove it.

"Tonight--we look at how the affordable care act will impact insurance coverage for those who have autism. . . .
"Insurance companies in Georgia are not required to cover treatments for autism. . . .
"However other states, including South Carolina mandates that their insurance companies cover autism treatments. The Affordable Care Act goes into affect January 2014, but it doesn't make any concrete changes to insurance coverage. . . . "
This story is a great example of just how we've come to accept autism as inevitable. Autism affects KIDS. We're now conditioned to believe that lots of things cause autism---we'll probably never know what it was in YOUR CHILD'S CASE. All the endless announcements of study after study showing "an association" with all kinds of actions on the part of the mother or things affecting the mother have set the stage for this perfectly. Eventually, we can just stop looking for or talking about "the cause of autism." It's just too complicated to understand. The only thing we can do is recognize the signs and start therapy early. Of course there's the matter of paying for the ABA. The Affordable Care Act doesn't help. There are still states that don't make insurance companies cover it. That's just the way it is with autism.


Sarah L'Heureux

Temple Grandin has been recognized as a foremost authority on humane animal slaughtering systems. Her sensitivity and insight have enabled her to create brilliant designs that save large animals from awareness and stress at the time of death and spare consumers from eating meat flooded with stress-induced hormones (i.e., cortisol).

What Ms. Grandin is NOT is an expert on autism. She is entitled to her opinions, of course, and can make any statement about autism she wishes to, especially given her own unique perspective. Let us blame instead the journalists who CITE her as an expert, often twisting her words to make it sound as if she is speaking for the autism community at large. She deserves more respect; obviously our community deserves more, too. A moot point, that last.

Mary W Maxwell, PhD, LLB

There is a terrific Youtube of Temple Grandin in the TED talks series. There is no hint that she is saying “We want autism to occur.” She is saying “Yes it occurs. So how might we encourage some of these children to make inventions or having fulfilling lives?” She also says there are geek types who do not have autism, who also deserve society’s appreciation and need to have hands-on classes in school, which many schools have stopped providing.

In my opinion, it is people high up in the media who send “talking points” down to the local newspapers, each day, to perform all the tricks of distraction that Anne Dachel keeps good track of. The stories do not just crop up from Connecticut or Montana, etc, at random. It is all part of a careful plan to keep the public confused, and to withhold protest about the real tragedy of autism until more and more children have “had a chance” to get autism.

(Good God, did I just say that someone wants more people to get autism-ized? Am I living in a totally surrealist world? Yes!) Anyway, Temple Grandin is NOT a participant in the media’s game. Let Chicago Tribune misrepresent her if they wish. She is a champion of those already afflicted. Her TED talk is brilliant – and she flaps throughout! See:

John Stone


She not only found time to fly to Washington and back and write her article, she's also managed 34 comments on Emily Willingham's latest blog about vaccine exemptions in California.



"Even care providers are susceptible to the myths..."

Not in California where care providers are uniformly wise and all knowing and where parents seeking vaccine exemptions must first get their permission.


re: "So why is Ms Reiss such a public voice against us?"

That is a very good question, and I wonder if we will ever know the answer. Maybe she has been brainwashed? The Manchurian Shill? I don't know how a law professor has enough spare time to be so prolific.



Yes, of course. It was obvious from the first sentence. Whether to get a flu shot is my biggest dilemma every autumn, as I assume it is for most people. (Eye roll)


I'm sorry but Temple Grandin is really failing persons with autism by making such bizarre claims. As someone who works with children who have autism I am offended. Non-autistic people can't be summarized as "Yuckity Yucks" and autism can't be only thought of as persons who are highly intelligent. Many children I have worked with cannot toilet themselves, cannot communicate (even with devices and barely with signs), bolt, need encouragement to eat, etc. THIS IS NOT JUST A DIFFERENT WAY OF THINKING, TEMPLE! If you are going to speak on behalf of persons with autism then include the full spectrum!

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