Category Archives: Sociological Perspectives

Warning of Tragic Funding Consequences For Those With Autism/Asperger’s Syndrome Under the DSM-V

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Illustration: Matt Golding.

Illustration: Matt Golding.

“Australia‘s foremost authority on Asperger’s Syndrome has warned of ”tragic consequences” if governments use the new narrower diagnostic criteria for autism to cut funding for children at the mild end of the spectrum.

”A child diagnosed with apparently mild autism may have challenges that are profound to them. If they are offered little or no support, there potentially could be tragic consequences,” Professor Tony Attwood told the new edition of the Australian Autism Handbook, which will be published on Monday.

Changes to the criteria for the diagnosis of autism – which unlocks $12,000 in funding – are due to come into effect in May.

According to Australian and American studies, the changes are likely to exclude the highest-functioning 9 per cent to 23 per cent of autistic children, many of whom would have received a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome or high-functioning autism under the old criteria.

Those higher-functioning autistics are likely to receive a diagnosis of social communication disorder, as distinct from autism spectrum disorder.

The federal government has yet to decide whether children who have received the lesser diagnosis of social communication disorder will qualify for Helping Children with Autism funding.

”At worst, 75 per cent of those with a current diagnosis of Asperger’s will no longer meet the criteria for an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis under the new criteria,” Professor Attwood said.

The HCWA program has been in place since 2008 and has helped 19,000 children gain access to early intervention services that vastly improve their chances of fitting into mainstream schooling. It is estimated one in 100 children in Australia has autism, though the most recent survey in the US put the rate there at one in 50. Boys are afflicted more often than girls.

Professor Attwood’s caution is supported by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists president Maria Tomasic, who said: ”The diagnostic criteria suggests disability may be similar to that of Asperger disorder and will require comparable support. As social communication disorder is a new diagnosis, we do not yet know its validity or associated disability.”

Minister for Disability Reform Jenny Macklin said through a spokesman that her department would ”continue to monitor international best practice and liaise with the Department of Health and professional health bodies about the appropriateness of the tool for diagnosing autism in Australia”.

Sydney mother Kristen Callow knows the trouble parents of newly diagnosed children might find themselves in if funding is cut. Her daughter Juliet, 7, could read at age two but, despite having 500 words in her vocabulary, could not communicate ”I want juice”. She was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at age 3.

”It could very well be that we would have missed the boat,” Mrs Callow says. ”It’s hard to argue that a profile like that does not need help.

”We got a lot of ‘she is fine’, a lot of dismissal of our concerns. Because she had 500 words, our paediatrician at the time was totally unconcerned.”

After Juliet accessed the early intervention program she has been able to attend mainstream school.

Despite initial difficulties with anxiety and adapting to the social environment, Mrs Callow says Juliet is doing very well.”

This article has been written by Kathryn Wicks, co-author of Australia’s Autism Handbook

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/warning-of-tragic-outcomes-in-narrower-criteria-for-autism-20130330-2h0ab.html#ixzz2RZ8btaHl

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Aspect Research Overview and Findings Related to Gender, Age, Marital Status, Parenting and Age of Diagnosis

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Of central importance to this research was its focus on capturing the personal perspectives and stories of adults with AD and HFA, thus giving a unique ‘voice’ to a group whose needs have not been well understood or documented. These first-person data were complemented with information gathered from the parents of adults with AD and HFA, together with relevant service providers.

This report presents a comprehensive, though not exhaustive, overview of the findings of the We Belong survey of adults with Asperger’s Disorder and high functioning autism. Findings from the parent survey and service provider interviews are available in separate reports.

Overview of the study

In its entirety, the We Belong study comprised three complementary arms of data collection:

  1. A survey of adults with Asperger’s Disorder and high functioning autism.
  2. A survey of parents of adults with Asperger’s Disorder and high functioning autism.
  3. Telephone interviews with service providers who have professional dealings with adults with Asperger’s Disorder and high functioning autism.

Seventy-one per cent of respondents were male and 29 per cent were female.

The predominance of males in the sample is not unexpected, in view of the well-recognised gender imbalance in ASD diagnoses. However, it is notable that there is a higher proportion of females in the We Belong respondent group than might be expected in an average clinical population. The male–female diagnostic ratio for ASD is commonly considered to be around 4 to 1 (Whiteley et al., 2010), while the male–female ratio in this sample is approximately 2.3 to 1.

Whilst there is no immediately obvious explanation for the gender profile of the respondent group being shaped in this way, it may be considered a strength of the study that it has generated a strong subset of data pertaining to females with ASD, given the relative dearth of targeted research in this area (Gould & Ashton-Smith, 2011).

Respondents ranged in age from 18 to 70, with a median age of 30 years. Figure 2.1 presents a breakdown of the respondent group by specified age brackets; namely 18 to 25 and ascending decades thereafter.

Like females, older people have historically been under-represented in autism research, and especially in work that engages directly with the ASD population. For example, Stuart-Hamilton et al. (2009), in a review of international literature on adults with AD and HFA, identified just five qualitative studies that included individuals over the age of 30 as participants. The We Belong dataset significantly addresses this gap in current knowledge by providing in-depth insights into the lives of 122 adults with AD and HFA in the 30-plus age group.

21 per cent of adults in the We Belong study sample were married or in a de facto relationship contrasts noticeably with the 2011 Australian Census data, which showed almost half (49 per cent) of Australian adults to be in a registered or de facto marriage.[1]

Eleven per cent of respondents indicated that they had at least one child aged 16 or under.

Three-quarters (75 per cent) of respondents gave their diagnosis as Asperger’s Disorder, 18 per cent as Autistic Disorder, and two per cent as PDD-NOS.

A further seven per cent of respondents ticked the alternative response box to indicate they agreed with the statement: “I believe I have an autism spectrum disorder, but I have not received a professional diagnosis”. Key characteristics of this small subset of respondents are explored briefly at the end of this chapter.

This research indicates a wide-spread in the ages at which respondents received an ASD diagnosis. Within the survey sample, the earliest reported diagnoses were received at age two and the latest at age 66. Just ten per cent of respondents were diagnosed during their pre-school years (up to the age of five), with close to half (45 per cent) diagnosed after the age of 18. The median age of diagnosis for all respondents was 23 years, with no difference between males and females.

As noted in the Introduction, there has been a substantial increase in diagnosis rates for ASD since the earliest prevalence studies were conducted in the 1960s (Williams et al., 2008). This trend is variously attributed to a heightening awareness of the disorder amongst parents and professionals; the gradual broadening of the diagnostic criteria; the now more frequent identification of children with mental retardation or language impairment as also having autism; and a growth in early-age diagnosis (Bishop et al., 2008; Bishop et al., 2010; Weintraub, 2011). This being the case, we might expect to see an overall pattern of the older adults in this study having been diagnosed with ASD later in life than their younger co-respondents.

Our findings confirm this anticipated relationship between chronological age and age of ASD diagnosis for the survey sample.

In descriptive terms, this indicates a general trend for adults aged 30 and over at the time of the survey (that is, born up to 31st December 1981) to have been diagnosed with ASD within the last ten years of their life to date. Out of a total of 122 respondents in the 30-plus age group, there were only five recorded instances of a diagnosis being obtained before age ten, and a further nine before age 20. For respondents aged under 30 (born from 1st January 1982 onwards) age of diagnosis was more varied, with around half of the 113 individuals in this group having received their diagnosis between two and ten years of age.

[1] Census data on marital status applies to individuals aged 15 and over. Data accessed 26 June 2012 from: http://www.censusdata.abs.gov.au/census_services/getproduct/census/2011/quickstat/0?opendocument&navpos=220.

The use of Recognition Theory within Disability Studies

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I’m currently looking at the potential for recognition theory to be used as a mechanism to explain how the discrepancies that continuously occur between the construction of policy and the genuine level of unmet need that those living with disabilities experience as a consequence of policy construction, arises.

So if there are any mega minds out there who are aware of any researchers within the area disability studies who are currently applying recognition theory to their work please, please, please, let me know.

Or even better, post a link.

Thank you!

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Introducing Aspect Australia’s Research Report into the lives and experiences of adults with high functioning autism – “We Belong”.

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We Belong is the first large-scale research study in Australia to describe the life experiences, aspirations and support needs of adults who have an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) with no co-occurring intellectual disability. Through a comprehensive body of self-report data, biographical stories and personal reflections, it offers a window into the lives of Australian men and women who experience the daily challenges of a largely invisible, frequently misunderstood, and yet highly complex and nuanced disorder.

Aspect Australia’s Autism is a lifelong developmental disability that impacts on the way a person understands, communicates with and relates to others and the world around them. Recent studies indicate that around one in 100 people has some form of autism, with diagnosis rates acknowledged to be on the rise (Williams et al., 2008).

The clinical term ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder’ (ASD) encompasses three diagnostic categories, as listed in the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders (DSM-IV; American Psychiatric Association, 1994):

The clinical identification of ASD is based on a ‘triad of impairments’, namely:

  1. Qualitative impairments in social interaction.
  2. Qualitative impairments in communication.
  3. Restricted, repetitive and stereotyped patterns of interests, activities and behaviours.

Autistic Disorder (or ‘classic’ autism) is characterised by marked impairments in all three domains of the triad, with symptoms generally evident prior to three years of age. Asperger’s Disorder entails the same core features as Autistic Disorder, but without any significant delay in early language acquisition, cognitive abilities or self-help skills. A diagnosis of PDD-NOS may be applied when an individual presents with deficits in social interaction and in at least one other area of the triad, but does not meet full criteria for either Autistic Disorder or Asperger’s Disorder. For this reason, PDD-NOS is sometimes referred to as ‘atypical autism’.

As denoted by the term ‘spectrum’, autism is a highly heterogeneous disorder, meaning that every individual with an ASD will have a unique profile of strengths and challenges.

Although there is some considerable overlap between autism and intellectual disability, studies have estimated that around 60 per cent of people diagnosed with an ASD have normal or above average intellectual ability (Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2005).[1] These individuals are often informally described as having ‘high functioning autism’. By definition, the majority of people diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder will fall into the ‘high functioning’ group.

Applying the ‘one in 100’ autism prevalence rate to the Australian context translates into around 220,000 people nationwide who have an ASD, of whom 60 per cent, or 130,000, can be considered high functioning. Of these, approximately 97,000 are aged 18 years and over.[2]

Research on adults with autism

Although the autism research field has traditionally been dominated by studies focusing on children, there is now a steadily growing body of literature investigating the presentation, experience and correlates of ASD in adults. Many studies in this area have taken a fairly narrow topic focus or worked with a relatively small number of participants, or both. Notable exceptions include:

  • a UK-wide survey of 237 adults with Asperger’s Disorder conducted by researchers at Sheffield Hallam University and covering a broad range of topics, including diagnosis, higher education, employment, accommodation, social life and relationships, the legal system, and mental health (Beardon & Edmonds, 2007);
  • the National Autistic Society’s I Exist project: a UK-wide survey of over 1,400 adults with autism and their parents, aimed at raising government and public awareness of service and support needs for this group;[3]
  • the Adolescents & Adults with Autism (AAA) study at the University of Wisconsin, which is collecting data from 405 participants over a five-year period, with a particular focus on documenting the challenges and impacts for families supporting a young person or adult with ASD.[4]

In addition, some authors have undertaken large-scale literature reviews in an effort to synthesise research findings across this area: relevant reports include Barnhill (2007), Stuart-Hamilton et al. (2009), and Howlin & Moss (2012).

Together, these studies and reviews have highlighted the vastness and complexity of adult autism as a research field. Some of the key issues that have been explored in this area include:

  • mental health and emotional wellbeing;
  • social participation;
  • barriers to employment;
  • access to and eligibility for services;
  • choice and control over interventions and supports;
  • rights and discrimination.

In the Australian context, these themes have been echoed in state government reports, including Stronger Together: A New Direction for Disability Services in NSW 2006-2016 and the Autism State Plan developed by the Department of Human Services, Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, and Autism Victoria in May 2009. Priority areas for reform identified in these reports include:

  • social inclusion and participation;
  • services and supports that facilitate, rather than act as barriers to, participation;
  • strengthening the ASD experience of the workforce;
  • specialist support to enhance educational opportunities, including during transition stages;
  • pre-employment and employment support, including workforce capacity building;
  • strategies to effect successful participation in the community.

Stronger Together comments perceptively that individuals with ASD tend to “fall between the cracks of disability service provision”, reflecting a lack of professional understanding about the needs of this group that results in their exclusion from services. It is for this reason that the report identifies an urgent need for “development of a comprehensive evidence base about autism spectrum disorders”.

Most of the studies listed above have profiled adults from across the autism spectrum, including those with profound intellectual impairment and significant support needs. In the light of this, it is important to acknowledge research that suggests if anything, higher functioning adults experience worse outcomes in life than other ASD groups. This is because the consequences of having serious difficulties in social interaction and communication are not compensated for, so much as exacerbated by, a higher intellectual ability and normal language development (Mordre et al., 2011).

To date, no single published research study in Australia has attempted to comprehensively profile the lived experiences of a large sample of adults with high functioning ASD across a wide range of life domains. We Belong sought to address this gap by conducting a detailed survey of over 300 adults who have an ASD with no co-occurring intellectual disability, exploring topics such as their health, education, work, social and community activities, and daily life.

 

[1] Intellectual ability has traditionally been defined in accordance with the non-verbal Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scale. An IQ score falling below 70 is considered to reflect a generalised intellectual disability.

[2] Estimate based on ABS Cat. 3201.0 – Population by Age and Sex, Australian States and Territories, June 2010.

The Privilege Game

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Reblogged from Autism & Oughtisms:

Click to visit the original post

Non-autistic parents of autistic children, are apparently privileged. What does that mean, and why does it matter? And does it really justify silencing and attacking us, as seems to have become a popular pass-time for a few autism bloggers?

"Privilege" here means that we're in a position of power, particularly as relative to other autistic adults and autistic parents. We live in a world where being not-autistic is some sort of advantage, a world where our voices as non-autistic parents is apparently already strong.

Read more… 1,831 more words

I've been trying to say something very similar to this in many of my previous posts but I've never ever managed to pin down all the arguments involved in such an eloquent and articulate way.

Parenting in the Digital Age. The Dangers of Mobile Phone Uploads and “Selfies.” A plea for teenage girls and their parents to become more aware of what’s going on out there in cyber space.

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This is just one example of the phenomenon known as a “Selfie” ( a photo taken of oneself by oneself) that is beginning to flood the pages of Face Book, Instagram, YouTube and other various forms of social media.

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What’s disturbing about this photo, amongst oh so many other things, is that the girl in it is obviously quite young.

Young enough to not be posing for pictures like this in her underwear, (even if she is the one taking the photo of herself), and certainly not yet old enough to realize the dangers inherent in posting photos like this on the world-wide web, where anyone can download them and do whatever they want with them.

As a parent, I have to admit that I am shocked to see this kind of photo being posted regularly via links to my own daughter’s Facebook page.

As a mother, whenever I see these images, I wonder whether or not the girl’s parents are aware of what their daughters are posting on-line?

This is a very different response to the one I would have had less than a year ago, when I would have automatically condemned the girl’s parents for “letting their daughter’s take such photos”.

Now with the benefit of hindsight and a rapid education in the modality of our modern social media, (thanks in large part to my own children’s use of social networking), I am beginning to understand that such photos can be taken without a parent even so much as being aware that their children are doing anything more than playing with their iPod’s, iPad’s or mobile phones all within the safety and the privacy of their own bedrooms.

And of course, therein lies the rub.

We think that as parents, our children are safe when they are in the privacy of our houses or in the safety of their own rooms.

But the truth is….. Sometimes they’re not.

Sometimes, especially for teenage girls, privacy when combined with the ability of mobile phones, iPod’s or I pad’s to take photos and upload them instantly onto the internet, along side the peer pressure they face to  be cool, can  become nothing short of a recipe for disaster.

A disaster that anyone can download, copy and redistribute to as many different web sites, as many times as they like.

As if that isn’t a creepy enough thought already, my major concern in all of this is for my own daughter.

What happens if these kinds of photos appear often enough on her links that they become viewed as common place and no big deal at all?

Will she then, in time, begin to believe that it’s acceptable to post up similar images of herself? As if it is no ‘biggie’ to expose her face and her body in such a way to the world at large?

That if enough of her friends start doing it then eventually it won’t matter to her how many times I tell her that it’s wrong……. and that it is a big deal…..

And then maybe…..

Just maybe…..

The first time I’ll know anything about it will be once it’s already too late to take it back.

And perhaps the scariest part of this line of thinking is that when it comes to questions like this……

How do I know that she hasn’t already snapped a shot of herself like that within the privacy of her own bedroom?

With the phone I brought her to keep her safe while she’s out and about in case of emergencies.

The answer is….. I don’t know. And if even I have to admit that I don’t know, then there must be other parents out there who may also have to admit that they don’t know either.

So I think the days of believing that we as parents can control what our children do, show and say have well and truly been taken away by the digital age.

So we’d best get on with the job of understanding this and start looking at finding new ways of safe guarding our children’s best interests.

In the meantime here’s a simple truth for every teenager out there………

Once a picture has been posted on the internet you can never really get it back.

It is there to stay.

Yes sure, you may be able to delete the original copy that you put up……… but can you track down and trace however many people have downloaded it in the meantime?

Can you prevent them from sharing it?

Can you prevent complete strangers from downloading your photos?

You may think that you can….. But you can’t……

Unfortunately the photo at the top of the page is proof that anyone, and I mean anyone, can download your personal pictures from any unprotected social media sites……

Scared yet?????????

Because I know I certainly am.

The photo used in this post is the least offensive “selfie” shot of its variety that I could find. Believe it or not, this young girl is actually wearing more clothes than most of the others. Disgusting I know.

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Free Form Human Beings ……………Life In The Androgynous Zone

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Do you ever just sometimes want to be able to walk out into the world, not as a gendered being, but simply as a human being?

A human being that isn’t defined by the otherwise hidden credentials harboured between your legs?

The very credentials that have become such important aspects in shaping both our place in the world and whether or not we are deemed to “fit” successfully within it?

I must admit that some days, as a woman, I long for the sanctuary of androgyny.

To be able to move freely amidst the sea of other human beings without the minds of others making automatic assumptions about me simply because of my gender.

Sometimes I just want to go out into the world as the person that is me. No if’s, and’s or but’s, just plain old me.

I’m not sure whether this desire to be viewed as gender neutral is something that’s becoming stronger  within me as I age, or whether it has more to do with constantly  feeling at odds with a world that endlessly seeks to tell me who I am and how I should be.

Whatever the reason, I feel the personal need to strike out against the ideological constraints too often placed on women in our society.

Not in a violent aggressive way, but in a silently self-contained  way.

A way that reflects who I am, not who I am told I ought to be.

More and more often, I find that I am drawn to wearing hats that conceal my hair, scarves that conceal my neck, long coats that conceal my body and tall boots the visually eradicate  the curve of my legs.

These items of clothing, I am discovering, are becoming my own modern version of a personal Burqaa.

A mailable barrier that creates a material shield which encapsulates me when I’m out in public, in a way that I find, comforting.

Liberating even.

In the past I’d heard Muslim women claim that they derive a sense of liberation from choosing to wear their Burqaa’s.

For years my western sensibilities denied the truth of such claims. After all, I reasoned, how can anyone feel free when they’re being forced to cover themselves up night and day for the benefit of others?

Of course the point I’d missed within it all was that the women making such claims were choosing to wear their Burqaa’s/ Hijab.

Now when I think about the concept of the Burqaa, sitting as it now does alongside my own desire to move about the world un-gendered and un-encumbered by all of the stereotypes that gender brings, I can appreciate and begin to understand how it may indeed hold liberating effects for women.

So now instead of wondering  why it is that anyone would want to cover up their gender, I find myself questioning why it is that our Western societies have taken something as personal and as intimate as gender and turned it into a trademark.

A trademark that has become both the stamp of admission and the marker of denial framed within the fine print on the passports that we all must carry in order to obtain our human rights.

A passport that for too many now offers up the personal judgements, condemnations and un-warranted rules and regulations that seek to constrain personal freedoms instead of ensuring them.

Perhaps if we stopped placing  gender at the centre of our being and instead re-instated our humanity, in all of its colors, shapes and diversity, as the single most important qualifier for accessing human rights, then all the division, intolerance, discrimination and hatred that has established itself so firmly within our world,  could be dissolved overnight?

Wishful thinking I know.

But some days it seems to me that if we removed all of the superficial and socially constructed constraints of gender from the passport of our humanity, we’d all be just that little bit closer to actually being free.

Free from banning girls from going to school.

Free from bullying young boys and girls for existing somewhere outside of the lines of a predefined gendered stereotyped way of being.

Free from having to try and delineate the terms under which love is legal.

Free from the weight of living in what is fast becoming a too unrealistic and overly sexualized world for our children.

I don’t know about you, but I for one think this world could be a wondrous place if we simply just let ourselves and others be free.

Free Form Human Beings. That sounds good to me.

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Ignore them and they’ll go away……A Dangerous Response to a growing social problem….

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The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get

The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been reading  a few blog post that have really got me thinking about the way we treat other people in this world and the lists of  justifications we use  for doing so.

I think in a lot of ways, the views we have of ourselves, dictate the views and actions we  practice towards others.

The thing is, I’m not entirely sure this is a particularly good way of going about things.

Take for example the view that if someone does something that YOU do not like, then YOU should ignore them until they go away.

As a result of this line of thinking, a lot of people have commented that the best way to defeat “evil” or “negative actions”, is to ignore those who  commit them.

To many, this way of thinking involves  making sure that the stories behind the actions of “wrong doers” receives no ‘air time‘  either within the media or society itself.

Don’t talk about them,

Don’t mention them,

Don’t let yourself for one minute even consider how such unimaginable actions might have occurred int the first place.

Focus only on the victims and the perpetrators will go way.

After all, isn’t that what current conventional wisdom dictates?

That  if a person committing an aberrant  action is not given any attention, then that person will either go away (note there does not seem to be a particularly large amount of thought going into just how that person should go away)  or change their actions into something considered more favorable by society.

The thing about all of this is, well, what if the person has already been treated negatively by others all of their life for the very same reasons?

What if  it’s the very idea that you should ignore someone whose actions or behaviors  do not fit in with YOUR own world view, that has caused that person to further respond badly toward others?

What if being ignored all the time just because they are different, is the very thing that feeds the fire within those who go out and commit acts of violent crimes towards others?

What then?

I know a lot of people are currently running with the adage ‘that if you don’t feed the flames  the fire  will eventually snuff itself out…..

But…..

People aren’t fires or flames, or whatever other analogy you’d like to use .

And I do worry that this idea that we should automatically ignore those who are different or not behaving in ways that we either understand or consider to be positive, is a dangerous one.

Especially when it comes to acknowledging the reality that  those with conditions such as Autism or  Mental Health Disorders, already often live in a world in which their behaviors, and as a consequence of this, their personhood‘s, are routinely being looked down upon or ignored by others.

So how are such people to react to the adage that ,”if you don’t feed the flames, the fire will snuff itself out.”

If you don’t pay attention to those behaving negatively or in ways that you cannot comprehend…….

They will……

What……?

Give up?

Go away?

Live a life of isolation?

Or eventually just snuff themselves out…..?

I’m sorry, and please forgive me, but isn’t this practice of ostracizing others because YOU do not like their behavior,  the exact same belief pattern that has already made those who are different in any way, feel like outcasts within their own communities?

I don’t know about any body else….. but to me….. the use of this whole mindset of ” ignore them and they will go away”,  as a justification for  not dealing with or attempting to understand those who are different within our society, far from posing any form of solution,  just seems to be feeding the bigger problem of intolerance.

Besides, whatever happened to the good old-fashioned saying that “all that is necessary for evil prospers is for good men do nothing?”

Isn’t it time we did something?

Isn’t ignoring the problem exactly the same scenario as “good men doing nothing?”

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First do no harm or First ask no questions? Thalidomide, Anti-Anxiety Medication, Anti-Depressants, Doctors and the Big Pharma World Wide Web

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THEIR PROFIT

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YOUR LIFE

Shows 1962 photo of baby born with an extra ap...

Recent reports on Thalidomide state that the German pharmaceutical company that produced it had knowledge that Thalidomide caused birth defects  for at least 2 years prior to its being banned.

An Australian report released last week asserts that not only did that company employ many ex-Nazi war criminals in the form of scientists and doctors, but that one of those of those war criminals was also on the board of the company.

It further assert that Thalidomide itself is a drug devised directly from the many atrocities and torturous ‘medical experiments’ performed at Auschwitz.

Sadly, Thalidomide is not the only so-called pharmaceutical or medical ‘break through’ which began its life in this way.  Many of the  drugs which have emerged since the 1940’s share this same shameful heritage.

Nor are the makers of Thalidomide the only drug company to profit  from the misery their products create.

Time and again we are being shown that fiscal fines offer no deterrent for big companies whose products knowingly cause harm to millions.

Why? Because the amount of money they make from selling harmful products far outweighs the cost of any fines applied to them.

Even when caught there is no jail time involved.

Big Pharma simply has nothing to lose in this equation.

We now live in a world where anti- anxiety and anti-depressant medications are being dispensed like candy to an increasingly stressed and disillusioned population. All this despite the growing level of evidence that some anti-anxiety medications and anti-depressants are more addictive than heroin and just as, if not more, destructive to those who take them.

Isn’t anyone out there stopping to ask why a doctor would prescribe a person suffering extreme anxiety or depression medication that many increase “thoughts of self-harming”?

What on earth is the point of dispensing medication that holds the potential to increase the very symptoms it is supposed to cure?

We need to understand that just because a drug is  being legally made , it  does not necessarily make it a safe drug to take.

That medications prescribed by doctors are neither  safe nor in many instances even  necessary for attaining good health.

In fact, many of the medications that have been manufactured and prescribed for mass consumption are leaving behind a legacy of harm which, as with Thalidomide, hold the potential to impact on future generations.

Many of these medications  can be seen to offer little more than a quick medical fix to the wider societal problem of unhappiness. As such they create more problems than they cure.

Given this it is hard to see how our doctors are not acting as little more than legally sanctioned drug dealers.

Errand boys ,operating  between Big Pharma and the vulnerable populations their drugs are being pimped out too.

What ever  happened to the idea that doctors are supposed to be independent thinkers who read medical journals and research the products they dispense to their patients?

Aren’t they supposed to be the guardians of our health?

Isn’t that what they are trained to do?

Isn’t that what they get paid  the big dollars for?

Their so-called knowledge and ability to discern a good treatment regime from a bad one ?

Isn’t  the motto of the medical fraternity supposed to be ‘first do no harm’?

Or have our doctors stopped taking the Hippocratic Oath and replaced it instead with the motto of ‘first ask no questions’ if profits abound?

Are parents of children with Autism really so wrong to question the role of immunization and other medical treatments in relation to their child’s Autism?

If there’s one clear lesson from the Thalidomide scandal it’s the sure and certain knowledge that legally prescribed drugs can and do cause harm to developing fetuses.

So just how many more scandals  will it take before we understand that the role  of Big Pharma and their profit driven medications offer us no solutions, cures or reductions in the problems of the human condition?

That  in fact, Big Pharma corporations may indeed be creating their own seductively marketed and heavily disguised ‘consumer diseases’ under the guise of the DSMV for  little more than their own fiscal benefits.

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Autism and Parental Expertiese

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As both a parent and a researcher I can not stand the way parents have continuously been portrayed by ‘medical’ researchers as either uncaring, neglectful or somehow to blame for their child’s autism.

Too often the lies that have been told in the past are recycled in the present to form a justification for the negation of parental views on Autism.

For many decades parents of children with Autism were constructed through the medical model of disability, as not having the capacity to ‘cope’ with the ‘caring’ demands their child required (Olmsted & Blaxil, 2010; Kanner, 1943).

This type of thinking led to the  policies of the past that sought the removal of Autistic children from families and instigated the  institutionalisation of disabled children (Olmsted & Blaxil, 2010).

The medical definition and diagnostic criteria applied to understanding those with  Autism  also led to their socially prescribed status  as unable or ‘non-functioning’ people.

Many today have refuted such erroneous understandings (Oliver, 1996)  and indicated the role of the medical establishment in  influencing, if not entirely constructing,  modern understandings of Autism, disability, parenting and family life (Oliver, 1996: Olmsted & Blaxil 2010).

Despite this the influence of the medical model is still present within the changing circumstances and social interpretations of the role of the family and those with disabilities today.

More recently  the recommendations of the placement of disabled children within the realms of familial care, as well as the instigated structural reliance of disabled persons and their families on the medical system in order to gain support payments (Heredia, 2007:129) has shown the clear influence that  the medical model of disability has in framing understandings of disability.

For this reason it has been argued by theorists that  the governmental systems over reliance on the medical model of disability to define modalities and instances of disability, has prioritized medical pathology over and above an individual’s rights of citizenry (Heredia, 2007:129, Priestley, 2003:61, Oliver, 1996: Finkelstein).

This is particularly true for children with Autism and their parents where citizenry rights and services, such as access to educational facilities, funding for teacher aids and specialised educational equipment  are based entirely on the medical confirmation of a disability in order to receive  said support (Department of Education Australian curriculum, 2009).

Nadia Heredia (2007:129) argues   that in placing  medical understandings of disability at the gateway of structural, institutional and financial resources, the government has  instigated ‘special’ policies for people with disabilities and their families,  based exclusively on the medical model (Heredia, 2007:129).

As a result the medical model continues to be  viewed as the only mechanism through which solutions to any and all aspects of disability can be legitimately found (Heredia, 2007:129).

Applying Heredia’s (2007:129) argument, it can be seen that  parents of  children with Autism are structurally being positioned in society as both voluntary ‘carers’ and person’s with no professional rights.

The positioning of parents as ‘carers’ with out professional rights is also being  strengthened by the emphasis on  early intervention for children with disabilities (Jenkinson, 1997).

Parental co-operation within early intervention centres, although often crucial to a child’s success,  positions parents as unpaid ‘carers’ working within a system in which every other adult participant working with their child receives financial and social recognition for their work.

This state of affairs neither accurately reflects or acknowledges the high degree of  skill, understanding and worth of parents.

Through both early intervention settings and familial settings  the broader inferences of medical  ideologies can be seen to be constructing  understandings of what constitutes appropriate parental behavior for parents of children with Autism by actively constructing and stratifying the conditions (where, when, how, and why)  through which ‘professionally supervised’ and parental interactions take place (Jenkinson, 1997).

If you think this is not true, just take a minute to consider how you would react to parents who refuse to engage with early intervention, therapy or any other form of established treatment for a child Autism and instead opted for a free form understanding of their child’s needs based on their own observations.

Would you consider them ‘bad parents’ for not conforming to our heavily regimented and medically constructed understanding of how  children with Autism such should be parented?

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