Are Autism Disorders Morphing Into Einstein Turing Syndrome?

Autism disorders are misrepresented in the mainstream media, on the internet and, as has been confirmed many times, in autism research which excludes those with severe autism disorders simply because it is too difficult to work with severely autistic children and adults. One of the sorry ways in which autism disorders are misrepresented is whenever mention is made of historical geniuses like Albert Einstein or Alan Turing whose personal qualities are attributed to undiagnosed cases  of autism.  Autism is portrayed as a different way of thinking, the foundation of genius, with no mention made of those severely affected by autism and the large numbers of autistic persons with intellectual disabilities. Maybe though it is time to divide the autism spectrum into two groups, one for whom autism is a disorder under the DSM and ICD diagnostic manuals and one for whom it is a matter of genius and identity, a different way of thinking?

Arguably the silliest speculation of all is the notion that Jesus Christ was autistic a theory promoted by one Alan Griswold of Autistic Symphony fame and the MDs, PhDs and RNs who co-authored  the article Did Jesus Christ Have Autism? An Interdisciplinary Evidentiary Analysis into the Psychiatric and Medical Literature Supporting the Hypothesis That Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Was the Root Cause of a Terrible Cross to Bear.  The underlying message of such fanciful speculation is simple ... autism is not a disorder ... it is a just a different way of thinking that includes every genius known to history.  

Anniversaries such as the recent 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing the genius who contributed so much to our modern computer world and to the Allies efforts in WWII, and who was prosecuted for his homosexuality, inevitably spur more of the autism as genius rhetoric that obscures the real challenges faced by persons with classic and severe autism disorders: (1) (2, see in particular the comment section).

A significant question to me is whether the DSM5 committee is going in the wrong direction by uniting the autism disorders into one spectrum disorder varying in severity.  Would it make more sense to describe at least two different disorders? 

One for those who actually suffer from the deficits of severe autistic disorder, the vast majority of whom also suffer from intellectual disability. The other for the higher functioning individuals who identify strongly with history's geniuses and some of whom do not wish to acknowledge the existence of  low functioning persons with autism disorders?  

Why combine under one diagnostic umbrella persons with such different challenges in life, one group who clearly have a neurological disorder and the other for whom the term "disorder"  itself is an affront to be erased from public consciousness?  

Autism and Aspergers, (Einstein Turing Sydrome?), two different realities, two different diagnostic categories, now and in the future?  Since autism is diagnosed by behaviors and functioning levels shouldn`t consideration be given to the possibility that the gaps between those who are severely impaired and those who are capable of great feats of art, literature and science should not be grouped in one diagnostic basket?

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Offit Offensive Has Failed, Vaccine-Autism War Continues, Child Vaccine Refusals Increase in U.S.

Breaking News Update:


I had just posted this comment when I read the CP Breaking News update Parents with more education less likely to let their daughters get HPV shots featuring extensive commentary by Field Marshal Paul Offit the man with great vaccine credibility ... with the main stream media ... not so much ... maybe none at all ...  with parents, including apparently better educated parents.  Personally I think including Paul Offit in an article about vaccine safety is counter productive if parents are the audience that authorities are trying to convince. The article despite the education levels of the parents, blames the internet for leading these parents to question public health authorities pronouncements on vaccine safety.  As always the possibility that parental concerns might be legitimate is not referenced in the article.  The Offit Offensive ... the insanity ... continues.

 
The latest news from the Vaccine-Autism front is summarized succcinctly in the CBC headline Child vaccine refusals increase in U.S. The article reports on the study by Philip Smith and his colleagues of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta which found that "between 2003 and 2008, the percentage of parents who refused or delayed vaccination doses "increased significantly from 22 per cent to 39 per cent."  Authorities will scratch their heads over this information, will wonder how they can get through to those stupid, ignorant, hysterical and ill informed parents who do not accept their dictates about what is best for their children.  They will continue to follow the same insane strategy of trying to convince parents, while insulting them,  that all vaccines, and all vaccine ingredients are always safe no matter how many times they are given and no matter what contrary information they might stumble  upon.  

What the authorities will not do, can not do, is acknowledge that they have not always been forthright in addressing public concerns and that they have ignored credible health professionals who in fact do have questions about the state of the "science" on vaccine safety particularly as it pertains to autism. 

If anyone from American or Canadian public health offices reads this blog commentary and decides that what I  say in this comment is typical "anti-vaxxer" nonsense they should know that I have two sons all of whom have received all of the recommended vaccine shots. I have never attributed my youngest son's severe autistic disorder to vaccination although I do have an open mind on the issue now.  I do not  believe the rhetoric of the failed, and insane, strategy of public health authorities and mainstream media giants who simply dismiss parents, health professionals and researchers who question whether "science" has actually determined for all time that all vaccines are always effective and safe.  The strategy has failed and yet the strategy continues to be relied on by the same authorities and media giants hoping for a different result.

On January 24 2009 in Einstein's Reply to Paul Offit I questioned the rationality of public health authorities and professionals who keep following the same failed strategy to convince parents to vaccinate their children and expecting to see different results.  I set out two quotes as an introduction to that comment:

"These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take?

Paul Offit

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Albert Einstein"

It is now 16 months later and Paul Offit and company keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and keep expecting to see different results. The insanity has not ended and there are no signs that it will. There are no signs that  public health officials or the mainstream media will abandon the Offit strategy which has been an utter failure.  The increases in vaccine refusals are clear indicators that it is insane to keep following the Offit strategy and expecting a different result.

Insulting Jenny McCarthy and other parents fighting for their children will not work.  Let me repeat that one since it is quite simple yet difficult for Offit and company to grasp: insulting Jenny McCarthy and other parents fighting for their children will not work.

Ignoring health professionals and researchers  like Dr. Bernadine Healy  and pharmaceutical official Dr. Julie Gerberding, both of whom have previously stated that a study comparing autism rates of existing vaccinated and unvaccinated populations could and should be done will not work. Ignoring a clinical and academic neurologist and parent like Dr. Jon Poling who has called for more environmentally focused autism research, including more vaccine oriented autism research will not work. Ignoring a researcher like Dr. Irva Hertz-Picciotto who says that the studies allegedly disproving a thimerosal autism connection are flawed and that stronger sceince is needed on the issue.

Playing politics by appointing those like Ari Ne'eman who oppose curing  autism to the IACC will not work.  Allowing an Alison Singer, nominated to the IACC by Autism Speaks, to  abandon that organization's mandate by voting against an historically crucial recommendation for the comparative autism vaccine study before jumping ship to join Paul Offit at the Autism Science Foundation, will not work. 

Parents know that the "science" on vaccines and autism is not as solid as portrayed by the Offit media armies. They know that research of vaccine and other potential environmental triggers of autism has been discouraged since the 1990's.  They know that public health authorities like the IACC have pushed the flawed thimerosal autism studies while refusing to  conduct the comparative studies recommended by Gerberding and Healy and while refusing the Hertz-Picciotto and Poling recommendations for stronger scientific research on thimerosal and other vaccine autism issues.

I am a parent who vaccinates my children but still has questions about vaccines.  I acknowledge the important role that vaccines have played in public health and disease prevention in children.  But there is a resource which is even more important in protecting and promoting the health of children and that resource is parents. It is that resource which has been subjected to unrelenting attack by the Offit armies as part of a failed and insane strategy to convince parents to vaccinate their children. 

It is long past time for the Offit armies, including the new Autism Science Foundation, mainstream media like the NYT, the Chicago Tribune, the Globe and Mail and PBS and internet foot soldiers like the blogging sites listed on the Autism Science Foundation web site to leave the field.  It is time for health authorities and researchers who understand that parents are the number one resource in child health promotion to work with parents and address their concerns instead of dismissing them. 

Will my small voice be heard and have any impact? Highly, highly unlikely.  The odds are good that a year from now, two years from now, vaccine refusals will have increased again in the US and the Offit armies will still be in the field attacking the number one child health resource ... their parents ... and hoping to see a different result.

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Autism Awareness: More Einstein Was Autistic Nonsense

The formula for concluding that an historical genius was autistic is simple:

Genius + Eccentricity + Aversion to Small Talk = Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Autism researchers in the UK and Ireland are at it again. Not finding causes of autism or developing knowledge of treatment and possible cures. No our good friends on the other side of the Atlantic are busy promoting the "Einstein was Autistic" picture of autism spectrum disorders. When it comes to autism, our English and Irish friends have no qualms about abandoning scientific certainty and the realities of the severely autistic living today for ideological, historical speculation about whether Einstein, and in addition Newton might have been autistic.

The bold headline on World Update News declares that Einstein and Newton ‘had autism’. In the article Cambridge University researchers are reported to have stated that Einstein might have had Aspergers. The article itself is fairly balanced and cites Dr. Glen Elliot from the University of California at San Francisco as stating that the eccentricities of both esteemed scientific geniuses can simply reflect their high intelligence without indicating that either was autistic. Professor Simon Baron Cohen of Cambridge University, however, clings to the genius as autism speculation. In February Professor Michael Fitzgerald offered his latest in a very long list of historical geniuses that he specultes were autistic - Charles Darwin. Professor Fitgerald even speculates that Mozart was autistic. This is the same Mozart who married, had several children and was a member of more than one lodge including the Freemasons in which he achieved the status of Master, had many friends and was well regarded. Just your typical autistic?

In the formula above "learned" professors like Mr. Baron Cohen and Mr Fitzgerald simply disregard some uncomfortable realities in making their historical speculative diagnoses:

1) Total lack of observation of the "patients"

2) Reliance on second and third hand accounts of persons no longer alive many of whom were not health care of psychological professionals.

3) Contrary evidence concerning ability to form intense interpersonal relationships iincluding marriages.

4) Lack of discomfort in public speaking.

Professors Fitzgerald and Baron Cohen are academics. They are of course free to speculate about any subject that flits through their consciousness. But it seems strange that these two learned men do not find it worthy to mention that there are many severely autistic persons living lives dependent on the care of others, some with limited intellectual and practical skills.

It seems, for one reason or another, that the learned professors are ashamed of the plight of the severely autistic who live with us today, preferring to speculate about long dead historical geniuses.

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Topsy Turvy Irish Times Article Demeans Autism Parents, Promotes Reality Challenged Professor

Corrrection: This comment initially, and incorrectly, identified Professor Michael Fitzgerald as being the author of Defining Autism – a damaging delusion, instead of Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick. Thank you to Mike Stanton for the correction. This comment has now been corrected and modified accordingly.


It is Topsy Turvy Day in an Irish Times article Darwin is the origin of new thesis on Asperger's. In "Darwin" Dr. Muiris Houston promotes the latest effort by Professor Michael Fitzgerald to assign yet another historical genius, this time Charles Darwin, to his speculative list of persons with Aspergers. Dr. Houston glosses over entirely the fact that Professor Fitgerald's opinion is pure speculation, having never met Darwin who died before Asperger's was even defined as a medical condition. Nor does Dr. Houston mention Professor Fitzgerald's career of assigning many historical geniuses to his speculative Asperger's list. Parents once again are the villains in Dr. Houston's and Professor Fitzgerald's Topsy Turvy fantasy production.

Wikipedia, in People speculated to have been autistic, has a summary of Professor Fitgerald's career in historical genius autism speculation:

Michael Fitzgerald, of the Department of Child Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, has speculated about historical figures with autism in numerous journal papers and at least three books: The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts,^[4] Unstoppable Brilliance: Irish Geniuses and Asperger's Syndrome^[5] and Autism and Creativity, Is there a link between autism in men and exceptional ability?^[6]

Fitzgerald speculated the following were autistic in The Genesis of Artistic Creativity:

• Writers – Hans Christian Andersen, Lewis Carroll, Bruce Chatwin, Arthur Conan Doyle, Herman Melville, George Orwell, Jonathan Swift and William Butler Yeats.
• Philosophers – A.J. Ayer, Baruch de Spinoza, Immanuel Kant and Simone Weil.
• Musicians – Bela Bartok, Ludwig van Beethoven, Bob Dylan, Glenn Gould, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Erik Satie.
• Painters – Vincent van Gogh, L.S. Lowry, Jack B. Yeats and Andy Warhol.

Unstoppable Brilliance discusses Daisy Bates, Samuel Beckett, Robert Boyle, Eamon de Valera, Robert Emmet, William Rowan Hamilton, James Joyce, Padraig Pearse and W.B. Yeats.

Autism and Creativity says the following may have been autistic: Lewis Carroll, Eamon de Valera, Sir Keith Joseph, Ramanujan, Ludwig Wittgenstein and W.B. Yeats.

While Professor Fitzgerald visits history, and his imagination, to speculate about historical figures he never met, most of whom lived and died before autism and Asperger's were known to the world, parents in the real world today struggle with the real challenges of caring for, raising and preparing their autistic children for a future without them.

Dr. Houston, clearly enamored with Professor Fitzgerald's historical speculation, also shares Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick's demeaning characterization of parents facing autism reality who take a biomedical approach to their children's autism. He promotes Fitzpatrick's book Defining Autism – a damaging delusion:

“Parents who share the unorthodox biomedical outlook project a negative view of autism, as a destructive disease process which is sometimes described as ‘worse than cancer’.”

And he says that some parents implicitly dehumanise people with autism by describing “their own predicament in terms of grief and loss and as one of unremitting battle against the corrosive impact of autism on their child, their marital relationship and their wider family”.

Dr. Houston then goes on to point out that there is no scientific evidence, only anecdotal evidence, in support of biomedical treatments. And therein lies the rub. Dr. Houston and the Irish Times reject anecdotal evidence, direct observation by parents of their children, of real situations and people, as being unscientific. Yet, he embraces, without question, the historical speculation of Professor Fitzgerald that Darwin, and other historical geniuses, people that Professor Fitzgerald never met, most of whom died before autism or Aspergers were recognized conditions, had one of these disorders.

Parents who actually care for and raise their children, who can see the realities of their children's autism spectrum disorders, and who try to help them live the fullest life possible are increasingly under attack today. Medical authorities fiercely intent on protecting vaccine programs from ANY criticism or question dismiss as hysterical parents who see their children regress after receiving vaccines. Parents who provide ABA or biomedical treatments to help their children are accused of oppressing them by some neurodiversity advocates.

Professor Fitzgerald has built a career writing articles and books and making presentations to learned societies speculating about the possibility that people he has never met might have had either autism or Aspergers. Dr. Mike Fitzpatrick, himself the parent of an autistic child, has the incredible arrogance to to demean and dismiss parents who fight for their children, who struggle to care for them every day. He speculates, with no solid evidence, that parents efforts to help their own children has a corrosive impact on autistic people. Describing our children's realities as we see them every day is actually harmful? Meanwhile Professor Fitzgerald sits in the library imagining that Darwin had Aspergers. Dr. Muiris and the Irish Times embrace both of their evidence bare theories while dismissing the daily observations of parents from around around the world.

If you are the parent of a child recently diagnosed with an autism disorder welcome to the Topsy Turvy world of autism parenting. Parents know nothing and hurt their autistic children while purporting to help them. Professors who prowl the library speculating that historical figures were autistic are taken seriously while parents who observe and deal with their children's autism challenges every day know nothing. In the world of autism parenting every day is Topsy Turvy Day as described in Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame:

Once a year we throw a party here in town
Once a year we turn all Paris upside down
Ev'ry man's a king and ev'ry king's a clown
Once again it's Topsy Turvy Day
It's the day the devil in us gets released
It's the day we mock the prig and shock the priest
Ev'rything is topsy turvy at the Feast of Fools!

Crowd:
Topsy turvy!

Clopin:
Ev'rything is upsy daysy!

Crowd:
Topsy turvy!

Clopin:
Ev'ryone is acting crazy
Dross is gold and weeds are a bouquet
That's the way on Topsy Turvy Day

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Good Grief! Now Darwin Was Autistic? Give It A Rest!

As a parent of a boy with autistic disorder, assessed with profound developmental delays, and focused on the real life challenges of helping my son, I get tired of the endless speculation that attributes to every historical genius a diagnosis of Aspergers or Autism. Einstein is the most oft mentioned. Now a psychiatrist, Dr. Michael Fitzgerald is is presenting to the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Faculty of Academic Psychiatry his speculation that Charles Darwin was autistic or at least that he had Aspergers.

Perhaps psychiatrists like Dr. Fitzgerald would have more time to actually help autistic children and adults if they just went through the history books and claimed that every historical genius known to humankind was autistic or had Aspergers. Then they could close off the discussion before anyone started speculating about whether history's brutual tyrants and serial killers might also have been autistic.

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Vaccine-Autism War: Albert Einstein's Reply To Paul Offit

These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take?


Paul Offit


Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.


Albert Einstein

How rational are public health authorities and health care professionals who express concern over increasing non-vaccination rates of children of parents concerned the vaccines might trigger the onset of autism in their children? A strategy in place, for over 10 years, of demonizing parents and researchers who claim that vaccines cause or might cause or contribute to the onset of autism disorders has failed. Yet public health spokespersons continue the same failed strategy expecting different results.

Research of a possible vaccine-autism connection has been actively discouraged by public health authorities as was noted by researcher Teresa Binstock in 1999. Ms Binstocks observations can be confirmed in public health documents like the 2004 IOM report on autism and vaccines. At the same time authorities and spokespersons simply choose to ignore and not respond to, public statements by such a credible authority as Dr. Bernadine Healy, former head of the NIH and the American Red Cross who has pointed out the need for research, beyond epidemiological studies, of possible vaccine-autism connections (1)(2).

Teresa Binstock also pointed out in 1999 that parents offering anecdotal evidence of a vaccine-autism connection, and researchers who attempted to study such evidence, would be demonized by spokespersons for public health authorities and what she has predicted has come to pass. Her predictions are reflected in the recent media offensive, led by Dr. Paul Offit and Alison Singer, to promote demeaning views of parents who believe, based on their observations and knowledge of their own children and their development history, that vaccines played a role in their children's autism onset. At the same time very credible critics like Dr. Bernardine Healy, who has made a case for proper research of possible vaccine-autism connections are ignored.

Still the numbers of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children are rising, according to Dr. Paul Offit, suggesting that a strategy of marginalizng parents and critics of vaccine programs has failed. The public is continuing to lose confidence in the safety of vaccines as Dr. Offit implicitly acknowledged in his most recent opinion piece, this time on the Huffington Post:

These outbreaks have not, apparently, been sobering. If anything, the number of parents choosing to delay or withhold or separate vaccines is increasing. So what will it take? Certainly, as more and more children contract measles and pertussis, deaths from these diseases will follow. And it's not a leap to believe that we could see other deadly diseases, like polio and diphtheria; both of which still occur commonly in some areas of the world; and both of which are only a plane ride away from causing outbreaks in relatively unvaccinated communities in the United States.

Dr. Offit's question is rhetorical at best and cynical at worst. He is a very intelligent individual, extremely well educated and very well informed. He knows, or should know, the answer to his own question. It will take credible research of possible vaccine-autism connections to restore public confidence in the vaccine programs. The kind of research that the IACC backed in December of 2008 before reversing itself a few very short weeks later on January 14, 2009.

The demonizing of parents as desperate, delusional and dangerous has not worked. Ignoring their anecdotal evidence has not worked. Ignoring credible critics, like Dr. Bernadine Healy, who have presented a strong case for reliable research of vaccine-autism issues has not worked. Refusing to conduct the necessary research while repeating endlessly the discredited mantra that vaccine-autism connections have been dis-proven will not work. It is time to stop the public relations offensive against parents and do proper, credible research into these issues.

Pursuing the same strategy of marginalizing parents, ignoring credible professionals and refusing to do the necessary research will not produce a different result, it will not restore public confidence in the vaccine programs. To expect otherwise is ...... insanity.

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My 2009 Promise To Non-famous Persons With Autism Disorders

To the persons diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders who are not famous this autism dad wants you to know that I will not forget you in 2009.

And I am not alone. Parents, family members, carers and professionals across Canada and the United States will continue to fight for Applied Behavior Analysis intervention for autistic children and adults because of the incredible volume of research demonstrating its effectiveness in helping you make real gains in your life. And researchers and parents with common sense will continue looking for answers as to the cause, and possible cures, for the autism disorder that restricts your abilities to participate fully and independently in all aspects of life. We will fight for you, and alongside you, for decent residential care for all autistic youths and adults.

You have, unlike Albert Einstein, an actual autism spectrum disorder (Pervasive Developmental Disorder) diagnosis, but you will never receive a small fraction of the amount of time and attention that is devoted to speculation that Mr Einstein and other historical geniuses and talents were autistic. You may never pose for articles in New Yorker magazine, or tell breathless, gullible, CBC and CNN reporters that persons with autism disorders do not want to be cured. You probably did not attend a college for gifted youth and you probably do not work as a researcher with prominent neuroscientists and psychologists.

You may live at home, or in a community residential facility. You may live in full institutional care. You may or may not be able to read, and understand, this promise. If you can not then I hope that someone, a parent who loves you, a professional carer who helps you each day, will communicate the message to you in a way that is meaningful to you. Not so much that I personally will not forget you, but that they will not; they will be there for you and they will be focused on you and your needs. They care about you.

And in 2009 this father of a boy with autistic disorder will continue the fight on my son's behalf and on behalf of those of you who DO seek a fuller life through common sense acceptance of the realities of autism disorders, through evidence based interventions, through research into the causes and possible cures of autism disorders. The fight will continue for decent, autism focused residential care facilities.

You are not famous but in 2009 you will not be forgotten. This I promise you.

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Einstein's Alleged Autism Is Speculation Not Fact

WNDU has an interesting autism article and video feature Autism: Understanding the Puzzle on its web site WNDU.com. The feature is helpful in stressing different kinds of autism and providing links to autism resources. The video includes footage of a family's children with different autism disorders. One drawback though is that the feature opens by asserting as fact the speculation that Albert Einstein was autistic.

"What do you think of when you hear names like Albert Einstein or Dan Aykroyd? It's likely Einstein's brillance comes to mind and Aykroyd's comic timing. But did you know both the physicist and comedian had or have forms of autism?"

I don't know if Mr. Aydroyd has an autism diagnosis disorder or not but Albert Einstein did not in the sense that he was never diagnosed with autism . There are some who speculate that Einstein was autistic because of some known eccentric behaviors and his self description as a lone traveler. Speculation about historical figures having been autistic is common and includes Beethoven, Newton, Darwin, Jefferson, Hitler, Eamon de Valera, Orwell and Michelangelo to name only a few. The problem is that all such instances are simply speculation. The biggest drawback of any such speculation is the total lack of any clinical observation:


Speculative claims that historical figues displayed behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder include people who died before the work done by Hans Asperger and Leo Kanner in classifying autism spectrum conditions was completed. Autism has only been recognized since the 1940s, so many earlier cases may have gone undiagnosed.^[2]Speculation about their diagnoses is based on reported behaviors rather than any clinical observation of the individual. Fred Volkmar, a psychiatrist and autism expert at the Yale Child Study Center says, "There is unfortunately a sort of cottage industry of finding that everyone has Asperger's."^[3]

Wikipedia, People speculated to have been autistic

Unfortunately, speculation repeated often enough will sometimes becomes accepted as fact. When it does a myth is born. Albert Einstein was brilliant, he was different, but he was never diagnosed with an Autism Disorder.

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