Transcript Autism_Medicating Children

AUTISM & CHILDHOOD DISORDERS
Getting That “6th Sense” with Blue (bad) & Green (good) Decks of Cards
M. Gladwell’s “Blink” and Cognitive Thin Slicing
Our brain uses two very different strategies to make sense of many
situations and to process the extraordinary amount of data we are
constantly processing: (1) conscious and (2) unconscious
The latter operates entirely below the surface of consciousness.
“Fast and Frugal”: you often know something and respond
accordingly before you fully understand and can explain it
“Epidemic” Increase in Autism: Why?
Vaccine-Autism Saga
• Origins: Fall 1971 and famine in Iraq
- tons of wheat seeds distributed in rural communities, treated with methyl mercury
- 50,000 became ill and 6,500 died
• 1998: Dr. Andrew Wakefield and The Lancet
• 1999 thimerosal eliminated from vaccines, yet there is no clear connection
e.g.,
95% of cigarette smokers never get lung cancer (99% of non-smokers never get it)
• Secret truth about vaccines: they don’t have much benefit for the
individual child who receives them. They’re mostly for the good of the
community
(hepatitis B, polio, diptheria-pertussis-tetanus, whooping cough, MMR, etc.)
Vaccine-Autism Saga: You Cannot Prove a Negative
Josh Tenenbaum in Psychology Today:
“Coincidences drive so many of the
inferences our minds make. Our neural
circuitry is set up to notice these anomalies
and use them to drive new learning.
*
There is an old saying that ‘neurons that
fire together wire together.’
•
So you could say that coincidence operates
at the level of the synapse, whenever
neurons fire at the same time.
•
This “neural circuitry” explains why
some parents believe the rise in autism
over the past years has been linked to the
higher number of childhood vaccines.
•
90% of children receive vaccines at 15
months of age, the same time that many
cases of autism are diagnosed. Inevitably,
many autistic children will be diagnosed
Alex Donnelly had abnormal levels of mercury in his body; his father thinks there's
immediately after receiving vaccines.
a connection between vaccinations and the autism he developed . (CBS)
The Secret Truth about Vaccines: “Herd Immunity”
Six-year-old William Hansen, at home in Framingham, is
autistic just like his brother, Jacob. Their parents are
convinced that vaccinations triggered the disorder in
both boys.
In the summer of 2000,a
measles outbreak swept
Dublin, Ireland due to low
vaccination rates.
Alternative Explanations for “Autism Epidemic”
Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the world's richest
man, is thought by many to be the most famous face of
Asperger. He has often been seen rocking and tends to
speak in monotones–both habits are acknowledged
symptoms of Asperger.
Microsoft was one of the first major U.S. corporations to offer
to pay for behaviour therapy for its employees' autistic children.
Children with Mental Disorders and
Education Policy
Children with Mental Disorders and
Education Policy
More Mainstreaming
More Emotionally Disturbed Children
are Going to Regular Schools…
…and are Being Mainstreamed
More Parents are Seeking Public Financing
for Private Education…and Losing
The New and Thriving
“Business” of Treating Autism
More Mainstreaming AND Single-Sex Schools
Bi-Polar Disorder and Medicating Children
Why has there been a 4,000 percent increase over the past 10 years in the number of children diagnosed with bipolar?
“Use of Antipsychotics by the Young Rose Fivefold”
“1 million children now diagnosed with bipolar:
sometimes in kids as young as 4 years old”