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There have been numerous calls in recent days for Michael Savage, who hosts "The Michael Savage Show" for Talk Radio Network (the "Network"), to be fired or suspended for his brief 84 seconds of commentary concerning autism during the July 16th broadcast of the Show. Promptly after the Network's management learned of the comments in issue, the Network commenced an investigation into the particulars and the circumstances of those comments. This investigation began with the Network's CEO, Mark Masters, personally contacting Dr. Savage to address the concerns and obtain an explanation of the comments directly from Dr. Savage. In that...

Talk Radio Network, the syndicator of Michael Savage's "Savage Nation" radio show, issued the following statement today: On Michael Savage's Autism Comments There have been numerous calls in recent days for Michael Savage, who hosts “The Michael Savage Show” for Talk Radio Network (the “Network”), to be fired or suspended for his brief 84 seconds of commentary concerning autism during the July 16th broadcast of the Show. Promptly after the Network’s management learned of the comments in issue, the Network commenced an investigation into the particulars and the circumstances of those comments. This investigation began with the Network’s CEO, Mark...

Shock Jock Michael Savage is in hot water again this time for a stating his belief that 99% of Autism cases are fake. He has taken a beating from parents of autistic children and those who lobby for them. However, let us play devil's advocate for a moment... Are Savage's comments mean spirited or could there be some truth to it? Are children who are diagnosed with autism and Asperger's syndrome (Considered a high functioning form of Autism) being over diagnosed? Are the diagnostic criteria for Autism and Asperger's really too broad and too flawed that otherwise ordinary playful children...

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080722/NEWS/807220363/1001/news Link only per posting rules

Some call for firing of radio talk show host The furor over shock jock Michael Savage’s autism rant intensified yesterday as parents of autistic kids called for his firing and at least one advertiser yanked its ads from his syndicated show. About 40 parents and grandparents of autistic children protested yesterday outside WOR-AM (710) in New York City, one of the more than 350 radio stations - including (Boston's) WRKO-AM (680) - that airs his program. Another protest is planned for tomorrow at the San Francisco station where his show is broadcast. “What he said is reprehensible,” said John Gilmore,...

Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every autistic child as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview Monday morning that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter. “My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in an interview on Monday. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive...

Neuroscientists at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory found that a previously unsuspected set of genes links nature and nurture during a crucial period of brain development. The results, reported in the July 8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could lead to treatments for autism and other disorders thought to be tied to brain changes that occur when the developing brain is very susceptible to inputs from the outside world. Nature--in the form of genes--and nurture--in the form of environmental influences--are fundamentally intertwined during this period. "Our work points to how a disorder...

A Savage Betrayal Of Humanity Radio Host Michael Savage Says Autistic Kids Aren't Sick..."Just Brats" One Parent Begs To Differ by Steve and Ryan Young I’ve written for years about the problems I’ve had with talk radio, and did so, for the most part with tongue tucked firmly in cheek. I’ve even had my own show in L.A. so In some way, I’ve been a part of the problem I write about. I do get ticked off, but rarely does anything said on talk radio ever cause me to lose my sense of humor. Until this past Wednesday. On his...

July 16, 2008, 0:00 a.m. Real AutismParents need to be spared the emotional trauma of false diagnoses and children need to be spared stressful treatments that follow false diagnoses. By Thomas Sowell ‘New Ways to Diagnose Autism Earlier� read a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal. There is no question that you can diagnose anything as early as you want. The real question is whether the diagnosis will turn out to be correct. My own awareness of how easy it is to make false diagnoses of autism grew out of experiences with a group of parents of late-talking...

"New Ways to Diagnose Autism Earlier" read a recent headline in the Wall Street Journal. There is no question that you can diagnose anything as early as you want. The real question is whether the diagnosis will turn out to be correct. My own awareness of how easy it is to make false diagnoses of autism grew out of experiences with a group of parents of late-talking children that I formed back in 1993. A number of those children were diagnosed as autistic. But the passing years have shown most of the diagnoses to have been false, as most of...

Genes Missing in Autism Needed for Learning-Triggered Brain Growth Surprising findings from a gene study have set the world of autism research spinning on a new axis. The new study shows that many of the different genes linked to autism -- and many of the new autism genes discovered in the course of the study -- are part of a network that allows a child's brain to build new connections in response to experience. The good news is that a surprisingly large number of these mutant genes affect the on/off switches that control experience-triggered brain development. That's much better than...

Vitamin D Theory of Autism In addition to the current epidemic of vitamin D deficiency, say another epidemic—an epidemic of autism—was upon our children? What if the autism epidemic began at the same time the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency began? What if both epidemics had worsened in unison? What if one theory explained all the unexplained facts about autism? What if both epidemics had the same root cause: sun avoidance? What if both were iatrogenic, that is, medical advice to avoid the sun had caused both epidemics? Be warned, what follows is not light reading—autism is not a...

An American Eagle flight taxiing to a Raleigh-Durham Airport runway was turned around Monday, but not because of a terrorist threat. The crew was kicking an autistic Cary toddler and his mother off the plane. As the American Eagle flight headed down the taxiway, two-and-a-half-year-old Jarett Farrell wasn't a happy traveler. His mother says she was doing all she could to calm the autistic boy, but got no sympathy from the flight crew. "If they just would have been a little more understanding I think that none of this would have been a problem," Mother, Janice Farrell said. But it...

Leduc said they advised her that Victoria's educational assistant (EA) had visited a psychic, who said a youngster whose name started with "V" was being sexually abused by a man between 23 and 26 years old. Leduc was also handed a list of recent behaviours exhibited by her daughter.

The first day of kindergarten found Alex Barth in the principal's office. The teacher had asked students to draw self-portraits. Alex had wanted to draw his in red crayon. There was no red crayon. Alex had melted down. Alex was a capable child with superior intelligence -- and no end of eccentricities. He would flee noisy school assemblies. He couldn't bear the smell of the cafeteria. By the end of first grade, his mother was spending much of the day at Alex's side. Robyne Barth soon learned her son had Asperger syndrome, a developmental disorder on the autism spectrum. Children...

New evidence shows that the brains of adults with autism are "wired" differently from people without the disorder, and this abnormal pattern of connectivity may be responsible for the social impairments that are characteristic of autism. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, a team of researchers affiliated with the University of Washington's Autism Center also found that the most severely socially impaired subjects in the study exhibited the most abnormal pattern of connectivity among a network of brain regions involved in face processing. "This study shows that these brain regions are failing to work together efficiently," said Natalia Kleinhans, a research...

This Rally was held yesterday in Washington DC. The Green our Vaccines movement is a grass roots effort to send a message to the Vaccine Manufacturers....Too Many Too Soon! With many videos, pictures, and links this blog entry is a comprehansive overview of the rally and the bloggers and media who covered it. Jenny Hatch Entertainment Tonight: Jim and Jenny March for Green Vaccines ET takes you to Wahsington, DC, where JIM CARREY and JENNY McCARTHY lead a march and rally aimed at drawing attention to the issue of toxins in children's vaccines. McCarthy, who wrote the best-selling book Louder...

Parent wants apology from school district He spends $4,000 fighting citation By JANICE KAYSER jkayser@cninow.com Posted: June 5, 2008 The Wauwatosa father said he took a photo of a reading wall in a Wilson School classroom Feb. 19 to help a parent in his wife's online support group for parents of autistic children. The photo, however, led to an interrogation of another parent, conspiracy accusations and, eight hours later, a disorderly conduct arrest of the puzzled father. "I just cannot believe this happened," Dave Gallenberger said. Gallenberger and his wife, Arlene, and Dana and Barbara Nicholson told a reporter last...

Enlarge ImageBrain trust. The hormone oxytocin may spur us to trust others even when they betray us by suppressing activity in the dorsal striatum (top, red regions) and amygdala (bottom).Credit: Thomas Baumgartner/University of Zürich Trust forms the foundation of healthy relationships, and now scientists are zeroing in on how the feeling is triggered by chemicals in the brain. A new study shows that the hormone oxytocin may spur us to trust others even after they have betrayed us by suppressing a region of the brain that signals fear. The findings could lead to a better understanding of social phobias...

Hundreds of parents of autistic children are signing an online petition to get Florida teacher Wendy Portillo fired for her alleged tactics toward a 5-year-old boy that mirror the reality show “Survivor.” Morningside Elementary School in Port St. Lucie, Fla., recently alerted Melissa Barton that her son, Alex, suffers from a high-functioning form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome, WPEC News reported.

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class. Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism. Alex began the testing process in February for an official diagnosis under...

"Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. "After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. "By a 14 to 2 margin, the class voted him out of the class. "Barton said her son is in the process of being diagnosed with Aspberger's, a type of high-functioning autism... "Alex has had disciplinary issues because of his disabilities, Barton said. The school and district has...

PORT ST. LUCIE - Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex -- who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism -- out of the class. Melissa Barton filed a complaint with Morningside's school resource officer, who investigated the matter, Port St....

PORT ST. LUCIE — Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son's kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class. After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn't like about Barton's 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said. By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class. Melissa Barton filed a complaint with Morningside's school resource officer, who investigated the matter, Port St....

The man detained over a suspected suicide bomb attack in Exeter was an autistic 22-year-old allegedly radicalised by a gang of suspected Muslim radicals who were being monitored by police and MI5, The Daily Telegraph can disclose. Investigating officers said that Nicky Reilly received a text message of "encouragement" hours before the nailbomb attack in a family restaurant. Police have made the first arrests as the net closed in on the suspected radicals alleged to have groomed the bomber. Sources close to the investigation said that the alleged corruption of a vulnerable young man - who suffered from Asperger's Syndrome,...

Stefan Ferrari got his required vaccines before he was 18 months old. At the time, his parents said, he was a healthy, verbal boy. But after his last round of booster shots, Stefan stopped speaking and, now 10 years old, he has not spoken since. Stefan's parents, Marcelo and Carolyn Ferrari of Atlanta, filed suit, alleging the vaccines caused neurological damage to their young son. On Tuesday, the family's lawyer asked the Georgia Supreme Court to let the case against two vaccine manufacturers, Wyeth and GlaxoSmithKline, go forward. Lawyer Lanny Bridgers told the court it was bad timing when Stefan...

BERTHA, Minn. (AP) - A Catholic priest has filed a restraining order against the parents of a severely autistic 13-year-old boy in an effort to keep him from attending the church here on Sundays. The Rev. Daniel Walz alleges that Adam Race's unruly behavior endangers others who attend the Church of St. Joseph. Race's parents have ignored the restraining order, calling it discriminatory, and Carol Race, Adam's mother, was cited by police and is due to appear in court on Monday for violating the order. "He said that we did not discipline our son. He said that our son was...

JAMES CITY - James City County police officers used a Taser gun on a 24-year-old autistic Williamsburg man Thursday after police said he became unruly with employees at Wilson's Leather at the Prime Outlets-Williamsburg shopping mall. Police responded to the store on Richmond Road around 2 p.m. after employees reported that the man had become argumentative during a dispute over a returned item, according to police spokesman Mike Spearman. The man, whom Spearman called "large in stature," became combative with police and refused to leave the store. Officers incapacitated him with a single shot from the Taser, placed him under...

The mother of a 13-year-old autistic boy who was banned by a court order from attending services at a Roman Catholic church in Bertha, Minn., woke up Sunday determined to take her son to mass. But Carol Race changed her mind when Todd County Sheriff Pete Mikkelson met her at the end of her driveway Sunday and told her she would be arrested if she brought her son, Adam, into the Church of St. Joseph. Instead, Race took Adam and her four other children to mass at Christ the King Church in nearby Browerville, Minn. "It occurred to me that...

DanburyNewsTimesArticle Last Updated: 05/12/2008 04:14:20 AM EDT Lyme disease care under fire Medical groups differ on courses of treatmentConnecticutBy Robert Miller Staff Writer In the battle over how best to treat Lyme disease, a new settlement between Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and a major medical group might seem to offer at least a little hope of expanded treatment for those with the tick-borne disease. That, however, would involve a change in the lines of debate over the disease, and it's not clear there will be any yielding. The settlement, reached this month between Blumenthal and the Infectious Diseases Society of...

Texas authorities have asked foster care providers to immunize every FLDS child - despite some parents' concerns about possible negative effects. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services sent letters to 16 group homes and shelters this week asking them to line up shots for the children. "It appears to be a totally unimmunized population," said Patrick Crimmins, department spokesman. "We're the legal parents of the children and we would like for them to be immunized." Crimmins said the state requires all children in custody to be immunized for their "health and safety." He said no one would be...

In Wil Kerner's world, happiness and grief — and all the feelings that come between — are puzzle pieces as alien as the curious construction-paper characters in the art he assembles on his grandmother's living-room carpet. What the autistic 12-year-old can't express verbally or in social interaction he can show through his carefully cut out geometric shapes assembled into characters in a paper collage, a talent the staff at Seattle's Harborview Medical Center calls a rare artistic gift. Large red circles become heads, delicate strips of fringed white paper become hair, and finely cut arches are shaped into eyebrows.

FASHION is a strange thing, and many fields are susceptible to it—not least, medicine. There has, for example, been a vogue (among commentators, if not among doctors) to ascribe the rising number of cases of autism diagnosed over the past couple of decades to childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps and rubella. That this is fashion rather than reality is suggested by the fact that the explanation proffered in Britain has been that such vaccines provoke an immune response that damages the nervous system, whereas Americans have blamed residual mercury in the same vaccines. It is now pretty well established that...

Kathleen Seidel is a New Hampshire mother of two. She runs a blog, Neurodiversity.com, about autism--a topic of special interest to her as one of her children had an "autistic spectrum diagnosis." There is a theory that thimerosal, a preservative formerly used in vaccines, causes autism. Seidel has written skeptically of that theory, and of the trial lawyers who have sought to cash in on it. Last month one of those lawyers, Clifford Shoemaker, had Seidel served with a subpoena demanding that she report for a deposition and produce a voluminous collection of documents, described in her motion to quash...

Generation Rescue "In light of the recent Hannah Poling decision, in which the federal court conceded that vaccines could have contributed to her autism, we think the tide is finally turning in the direction of parents like us who have been shouting concerns from our rooftops for years." Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey are actors and parents actively involved in autism-related causes. McCarthy is the author of the book Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism. Go here to read the whole editorialI have to applaud Jenny McCarthy for her tenacity. Her much needed voice has blasted through...

~~~snip~~~ Cryobank doesn't reveal the identities of donors but allows people to choose based on the traits they'd like their child to have. Jackaway decided on "Donor X" because he appeared philosophical and intelligent on paper. He liked music, loved to travel and had a high IQ and a degree in economics. What she couldn't know then is that her son would have autism. So she started to wonder whether Donor X might carry a gene that could have contributed... ~~~snip~~~ Researchers have found some genetic areas associated with autism, but it could take years before the gene or genes...

See the amazing picture by an autistic artist who drew London from memory after a single helicopter trip  This picture depicting the London skyline in fine detail was drawn after just one flight over the city and purely from memory.  Stephen Wiltshire, who was diagnosed with autism at the age of three, memorised the appearance and position of hundreds of London's buildings in exact scale during a helicopter ride along the Thames.  Over the next five days, the 33-year-old drew the seven-square mile panorama, including landmarks such as the Swiss Re tower, and Canary Wharf, on a 13ft curving canvas....

Tito Mukhopadhyay shuffles to the front door of his home in Austin, Texas. He's coming home from school, something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. His mother, 45-year-old Soma Mukhopadhyay, is considered a pioneer in a breakthrough treatment for some autistic children who face the stigma of being considered "mentally retarded." That was a label Soma never accepted for 19-year-old Tito. And after hearing Tito's story, you'll never look at an autistic child the same way. "How was your day?" Soma asks. Before Tito can answer, he obsessively moves around the house, placing the TV remote...

ON March 6, Terry and Jon Poling stood outside a federal courthouse in Atlanta, Ga., with their 9-year-old daughter Hannah and announced that the federal government had admitted that vaccines had contributed to her autism. The news was shocking. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and at the American Academy of Pediatrics have steadfastly assured the public that vaccines do not cause autism. Now, in a special vaccine claims court, the federal government appeared to have said exactly the opposite. What happened? The answer is wrapped up in the nature of the unusual court where the...

It has been rumored that Gov Blunt has recommended huge increases in funding for autism because he has a family member (not immediate) who has autism. Can anyone confirm this?

It is believed to be a first in Western New York. A traffic sign alerting drivers that there is a child in the area with autism. Take a trip down Sargent Drive in the town of Amherst and you will no doubt see the traffic sign. It's a warning sign that there is a child in the area with autism. The Amherst Traffic Safety Board put the signs on the street Wednesday morning. The father of Sawyer Aston, 8, took the idea of installing a traffic sign on their street to town officials several months ago. The idea was researched...

"It's indisputable that autism is on the rise among children," Senator John McCain said while campaigning recently in Texas. "The question is what's causing it. And we go back and forth and there's strong evidence that indicates that it's got to do with a preservative in vaccines." With that comment, McCain marked his entry into one of the most politicized scientific issues in a generation. McCain is correct that autism diagnoses have increased in recent decades; indeed, no one disputes that. He is on much shakier ground when talking about the preservative as a cause. While some parents' groups and...

Reviewed by Brunilda Nazario, MD Federal Officials Say Vaccines Worsened Condition That Led to Autism Spectrum Disorder in Georgia Girl Federal officials say a Georgia girl is entitled to compensation from a federal vaccine injury fund because she developed autism-like symptoms after receiving childhood vaccines in 2000. Hannah's father, Jon, tells WebMD he was not surprised by the compensation decision. "When you are talking about the courtroom versus science, the burden of proof is different," Poling says. "(But) we showed there was a plausible mechanism. We showed that an injury occurred shortly after her vaccination. Her growth curve went flat...

The federal government continues to deny a link between vaccines and autism, but the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has ruled in favor of a child alleged to have regressed into autism as a result of vaccinations. Several of the vaccinations included the controversial mercury-based preservative thimerosal, points out the National Autism Association, which sees the ruling as confirmation of the claims of many parents. "This case echoes the stories of thousands of children across the country," said NAA President Wendy Fournier. "With almost 5,000 similar cases pending in vaccine court, we are confident that this is just the first...

Many leading figures in the fields of science, politics and the arts have achieved success because they had autism, a leading psychiatrist has claimed.Michael Fitzgerald, Professor of Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin, argued the characteristics linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) were the same as those associated with creative genius. (l-r) George Orwell, Albert Einstein and Thomas Jefferson Prof Fitzgerald cited Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, George Orwell, H G Wells and Ludwig Wittgenstein as examples of famous and brilliant individuals who showed signs of ASDs including Asperger syndrome.Beethoven, Mozart, Hans Christian Andersen and Immanuel Kant have also received post mortem...

Doctors Amazed by Carly Fleishman's Ability to Describe the Disorder From the InsideCarly Fleischman has severe autism and is unable to speak a word. But thanks to years of expensive and intensive therapy, this 13-year-old has made a remarkable breakthrough. Two years ago, working with pictures and symbols on a computer keyboard, she started typing and spelling out words. The computer became her voice. "All of a sudden these words started to pour out of her, and it was an exciting moment because we didn't realize she had all these words," said speech pathologist Barbara Nash. "It was one of...

Every day, identity politics raises its ugly head in America and snarls threateningly, as various interest grops complain about something somebody said or did that might reflect ill on some particular category of person. This trend threatens to destroy freedom of speech entirely, through largely private sector means, by pressing the constant, intimidating threat of government action. In short, it follows the political premises of fascism. How appropriate, then, that today's instance involves a TV program called Big Brother. An autism group is demanding an apology from the CBS television network over a statement made by a contestant on the...

With all the struggles that come with being autistic has also come an incredible gift for British artist Stephen Wiltshire — he can draw in extraordinary detail from memory. After standing in London's Piccadilly Circus for just 10 minutes, ABC News correspondent Nick Watt asked Wiltshire to draw it from memory. It took him a little more than an hour. He drew without stopping. In the end Wiltshire's image was almost exact in every detail. At age 3 Wiltshire was diagnosed with autism. Though mute and withdrawn, he demonstrated a natural talent and active interest in drawing. Wiltshire uttered his...

The ABC network said on Monday it will go ahead with plans to air an episode of its new legal drama "Eli Stone" despite objections from pediatricians who say the show may discourage parents from having their children immunized. The debut episode features the show's title character and hero, a trial lawyer for big corporations who decides to fight for the little guy, convincing a jury that a mercury-based preservative in a vaccine caused a child's autism. On the show, a jury awards the boy's mother $5.2 million in damages after it is revealed the CEO of the vaccine maker...