I love my friends and I want the best for them. I love being a mom and I want the world for my children. We have so many friends who have beautiful children that are not blessed with good health. It makes me sad. We know someone whos baby just had surgery at like 3 months for a heart condition. A small boy at our church was diagnosed with Moyamoya a very rare brain disorder.My bosses daughter has Ausbergers. We know someone who has a daughter with MD. Another just had a baby tested for Cistic Fibrosis. I can't even tell you the number of friends with Autistic children. My sister in law has a nephew that was born with Downs Syndrome. My brother's 17 year old best friend just got diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. Ack! The craziest part? So many of these children are under the age of five. When we got the call about my brother's friend I hung up and with tears in my eyes had a serious conversation with my husband. Do we have a right in this day and age to have our children grow up healthy? Is it to much to expect our kids to reach adulthood unscathed? Maybe because so much of this is fresh in my mind I am overreacting. I am a girl after all. I just really am a little shaken by the fact that so many of the sweet kids we know are starting out their lives with such a big issue over their heads. Childhood is about chasing butterflies and frogs and eating ice cream not doctors visits and therepy sessions.
I feel a little helpless sometimes. I want to help but don't know how. I wish I could start a foundation or fund research. Rainbows in Wichita recently filed bankruptcy. Can you believe it? A lot of my friends lost their kids school funding. Someday, when I win the lottery (haha) I am going to work on helping children with disabilities. I have this incredible pull towards these families. My thoughts and prayers go out to you. I love you and want you to know that there are people out there willing to fight the fight with you. I got your back ladies!
I seem to blog about this a lot. I promise I am not all sadness and gloom. It is just something I am very passionate about. Especially recently. I should really proofread this but I probably won't so I am sorry if it is rambling and scattered. Love you but I should get back to work.........
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label autism. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Autistic Man Hacked Into American Gov't Systems
I am back to posting news stories. I thought this one was a little crazy. I have heard a lot of negative feedback on this story written by Kaiser Hwang. So much of it fueled by ignorance of the autistic condition. Let me know what you think.
Forty-three-year-old Londoner Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the U.S. (as well as up to 60 years in a U.S. prison) if convicted of hacking into government computers, reports the BBC. He also has Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism disorder. After numerous failed attempts to have her son tried in the U.K., McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp is pleading directly to President Obama for help, having sent him a letter signed by 40 Members of British Parliament asking him to "bring this shameful episode to an end." Speaking outside the High Court last week, she added, "I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing."
McKinnon claims he was simply looking for suppressed UFO-related documents, and that the attacks were in no way malicious. Still, laws were broken, and two judges found that extradition was the proper response, but also admitted that extradition and prison in the U.S. for the handicapped McKinnon might be "very difficult indeed." With the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty recently failing to get a revision, it's unknown exactly what Obama's choices are in the matter. But Sharp is hopeful. Outside the High Court, she told reporters, "Obama wouldn't have this. He doesn't want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be a guy with Asperger's, a UFO guy." [From: BBC News]
Tags: aspergers, government, hack, international law, InternationalLaw, law, top, ufo, uk
Forty-three-year-old Londoner Gary McKinnon is facing extradition to the U.S. (as well as up to 60 years in a U.S. prison) if convicted of hacking into government computers, reports the BBC. He also has Asperger's syndrome, a type of autism disorder. After numerous failed attempts to have her son tried in the U.K., McKinnon's mother, Janis Sharp is pleading directly to President Obama for help, having sent him a letter signed by 40 Members of British Parliament asking him to "bring this shameful episode to an end." Speaking outside the High Court last week, she added, "I'm just praying, please hear us, Obama, because I know you would do the right thing."
McKinnon claims he was simply looking for suppressed UFO-related documents, and that the attacks were in no way malicious. Still, laws were broken, and two judges found that extradition was the proper response, but also admitted that extradition and prison in the U.S. for the handicapped McKinnon might be "very difficult indeed." With the U.S.-U.K. extradition treaty recently failing to get a revision, it's unknown exactly what Obama's choices are in the matter. But Sharp is hopeful. Outside the High Court, she told reporters, "Obama wouldn't have this. He doesn't want the first guy extradited for computer misuse to be a guy with Asperger's, a UFO guy." [From: BBC News]
Tags: aspergers, government, hack, international law, InternationalLaw, law, top, ufo, uk
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
New study on Autism
Hey blogger moms! I read this study and was curious. Do you think that what your children eat affects their behavior? My children do not even have autism and I think it makes a difference. I would be interested in your opinion. Thank you!
Jenny McCarthy is wrong, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic.
Diet does not contribute to autism.
The autism activist who started her career as a model and Playboy playmate has made a crusade out of her belief that food allergies and childhood vaccines are major contributors to the rising number of children diagnosed with the neurological disorder.
However, Mayo Clinic researchers tracked 124 kids with autism for more than 18 years and compared them with "typical" children. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News' senior medical editor, was emphatic in reporting the researchers' conclusions.
"These findings are very conclusive," she said on the "Today" show following the release of the study Monday in the journal Pediatrics. "There is no link between illnesses of the gut and the signs and symptoms we see in children with autism."
This is good news for parents, she told viewers. "Because its means if you're putting your child on a restricted diet, or if you're doing colonics (which is a type of enema), if you're using extra vitamins and nutrients, and you're spending a lot of money and putting your child through that, there is no reason to," she said.
Children should only be put on wheat- or dairy-free diets after undergoing diagnostic tests, Dr. Samar H. Ibrahim told The New York Times. She is a pediatric fellow in gastroenterology and an instructor in pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic, as well as one of the principal authors of the report.
"There is actual no trial that has proven that a gluten-free and casein-free diet improves autism," she said. "The diets are not easy to follow and sometimes cause nutritional deficiencies."
Physicians listed with the advocacy organization Defeat Autism Now stick to their belief in the link between food and autism.
Dr. Rochelle Neally, a chiropractor at the Long Beach Autism Center in California questions large-scale medical studies. They are often backed by the big money of monolithic pharmaceutical companies," she said.
"What they call 'scientific' are these expensive double-blind tests," she said. "I tend to believe what I see in my office and what I've seen at the autism conferences I've attended for the past 10 years."
What she sees, she said, are often dramatic improvements in children's behavior when they are placed on a special diet. "The proof is in the pudding," she added.
The gluten-free pudding, that is.
That's the problem, according to traditional researchers. Practitioners such as Neally base their conclusions on anecdotal evidence rather than hard scientific investigation. "I think there's room for both," said Neally.
However, she said parents with autistic children are increasingly unsatisfied with science that comes without answers. "Parents are rebelling against traditional medicine," Neally said.
Dr. Eileen Comia, M.D., in Bloomfield, Conn., is another physician allied with Defeat Autism Now. She said smaller-scale studies are needed. "Any doctor who says there's no link between diet and autism hasn't read a single article on the subject," she said.
Actually, believers in the link between mind and tummy have read too many articles -- inaccurate ones, Dr. Patricia Manning Courtney, medical director of the Kelly O'Leary Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, told US News and World Report.
A new study shows that Autism and food issues are not linked.
"A couple of highly publicized cases of autism and loose stools in the 1990s led to an impression that children with autism had a higher rate of GI [gastrointestinal] dysfunction," she said. "It wasn't well characterized, but that got the story onto the national scene."
There is a link between diet and autism, Ibrahim said The New York Times, but not the one McCarthy and Defeat Autism Now physicians believe. Children with autism are often picky eaters. With limited diets, they often have more cases of constipation.
Restricting their diet choices even more than they do themselves only makes the problem worse, she told the paper.
"We did find that two specific problems -- constipation and feeding issues -- were more common in children with autism," Ibrahim told WebMD Health News.
Jenny McCarthy is wrong, according to researchers at the Mayo Clinic.
Diet does not contribute to autism.
The autism activist who started her career as a model and Playboy playmate has made a crusade out of her belief that food allergies and childhood vaccines are major contributors to the rising number of children diagnosed with the neurological disorder.
However, Mayo Clinic researchers tracked 124 kids with autism for more than 18 years and compared them with "typical" children. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, NBC News' senior medical editor, was emphatic in reporting the researchers' conclusions.
"These findings are very conclusive," she said on the "Today" show following the release of the study Monday in the journal Pediatrics. "There is no link between illnesses of the gut and the signs and symptoms we see in children with autism."
This is good news for parents, she told viewers. "Because its means if you're putting your child on a restricted diet, or if you're doing colonics (which is a type of enema), if you're using extra vitamins and nutrients, and you're spending a lot of money and putting your child through that, there is no reason to," she said.
Children should only be put on wheat- or dairy-free diets after undergoing diagnostic tests, Dr. Samar H. Ibrahim told The New York Times. She is a pediatric fellow in gastroenterology and an instructor in pediatrics at the Mayo Clinic, as well as one of the principal authors of the report.
"There is actual no trial that has proven that a gluten-free and casein-free diet improves autism," she said. "The diets are not easy to follow and sometimes cause nutritional deficiencies."
Physicians listed with the advocacy organization Defeat Autism Now stick to their belief in the link between food and autism.
Dr. Rochelle Neally, a chiropractor at the Long Beach Autism Center in California questions large-scale medical studies. They are often backed by the big money of monolithic pharmaceutical companies," she said.
"What they call 'scientific' are these expensive double-blind tests," she said. "I tend to believe what I see in my office and what I've seen at the autism conferences I've attended for the past 10 years."
What she sees, she said, are often dramatic improvements in children's behavior when they are placed on a special diet. "The proof is in the pudding," she added.
The gluten-free pudding, that is.
That's the problem, according to traditional researchers. Practitioners such as Neally base their conclusions on anecdotal evidence rather than hard scientific investigation. "I think there's room for both," said Neally.
However, she said parents with autistic children are increasingly unsatisfied with science that comes without answers. "Parents are rebelling against traditional medicine," Neally said.
Dr. Eileen Comia, M.D., in Bloomfield, Conn., is another physician allied with Defeat Autism Now. She said smaller-scale studies are needed. "Any doctor who says there's no link between diet and autism hasn't read a single article on the subject," she said.
Actually, believers in the link between mind and tummy have read too many articles -- inaccurate ones, Dr. Patricia Manning Courtney, medical director of the Kelly O'Leary Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, told US News and World Report.
A new study shows that Autism and food issues are not linked.
"A couple of highly publicized cases of autism and loose stools in the 1990s led to an impression that children with autism had a higher rate of GI [gastrointestinal] dysfunction," she said. "It wasn't well characterized, but that got the story onto the national scene."
There is a link between diet and autism, Ibrahim said The New York Times, but not the one McCarthy and Defeat Autism Now physicians believe. Children with autism are often picky eaters. With limited diets, they often have more cases of constipation.
Restricting their diet choices even more than they do themselves only makes the problem worse, she told the paper.
"We did find that two specific problems -- constipation and feeding issues -- were more common in children with autism," Ibrahim told WebMD Health News.
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