Why I think it's ok to pose nude for Autism (and yep, I threw in a Star Trek reference)

I have a confession, I don't read a ton of blogs. I know it's hypocritical that I want people to read my blogs but I don't invest the time to read others blogs (oh well, I'm busy being Autism super mom, gimmie a break). Well when I started this blog it gives you the option to look up/list what blogs you read. So I went a googling. One of the first blogs I came up was: http://www.starkravingmadmommy.com/ and dam that catchy title. I read a few tid bits, thought it might be interesting and I added it. When I started working on my blog I would more frequently read the blogs I had listed and thats when I came across this post: http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2012/05/30/posing-for-playboy-does-not-raise-autism-awareness/ .

Everyday in the Autism world I'm frustrated at the animosity between parents and caregivers of people on the spectrum and this "letter" really illustrates my point. She starts out with "The Warrior Mom part has something to do with the fight against science, apparently." She includes a picture of Jenny pointing at herself with a nasty caption. If you really think she is all around "awesome" you wouldn't take underhanded digs in an "open letter" and post a picture chosen for a demeaning effect.



Of course this could be taken as "look how awesome I am even though I'm totally covered up" but she captioned it as "Jenny, check out my rack, McCarthy"



I think posing nude for Playboy is a wonderful idea, why not? Posing nude for Autism awareness brings in dollars to her organization and gets the word out. Do you think that people just google to google, no, they don't. Our culture is stuck up celebrities asses, people may not agree with her posing for Autism awareness but OBVIOUSLY it will get people talking and googling. After they google her (and her wonderful organization) they may be even unfortunate enough to stumble upon starkravingmadmommy's blog.

She goes on to take digs at her for losing her son at the playboy mansion during an Easter egg hunt. While they are having a Easter egg hunt for children (that is reputedly bigger than the White Houses Easter egg hunt), there are fantastic orgies going on, really? That is her community and support system. I don't know about other people but I would trust my community/family with my child. If I can't see my kid for a few minutes (and lets not forget her kid is doing pretty well, cough, cough) I wouldn't  freak out either.

Then she goes on to talk about how Jenny shouldn't do it because: "On Twitter, you gave your reason for posing nude as “Why should only 20-year-olds be considered sexy? Let’s hear it for the MILFs.” "I’m going to beg you: please stop there. Promoting the idea that women in their 30s and 40s are equally, if not more, sexy than 20-year-olds is a good enough reason."

I mean isn't that stupid, of course when I'm hanging out with my girlfriends the talk is all about aging gracefully nowdays, right? She clearly isn't promoting the idea that women in their 30 and 40's are sexier than women in their 20's but all women want to feel sexy, be desired. I think that was painfully clear.

TTTTHHHHEEEENNN, her next point is:

Please, please, don’t tell us that you’re dropping trou for autism. Because while posing for Playboy may, in fact, garner a truckload of money for your organization, Generation Rescue, it’s not going to do a damn thing for my two kids with autism. Generation Rescue spends an awful lot of time and energy ignoring actual science and promoting an extremely dangerous and damaging anti-vaccine agenda

My first thought is that it won't do anything for your two kids with Autism because YOUUUUU won't let it!

From Generation Rescues background page:

Generation Rescue is dedicated to recovery for children with autism spectrum disorders by providing guidance and support for medical treatment to directly improve the child’s quality of life for all families in need.

Yep that really seems like the devils work. I have read every single one of her books (along with a SHITLOAD of other bio-med books) and follow her in the media. She has said over and over again, "green our vaccines", hell they even did a march with that as the logo!

OMG, it's, it's, it's the phrase shes been saying (well duh)

I mean have you looked recently at what is in any given vaccine, is so wrong to want to take out some of the more disgusting and knowingly harmful ingredients?

Her next rant is: "I know you believe, with all your heart and soul, that vaccines somehow magically cause autism, despite study after study after study saying that isn’t true. But even if it were, autism doesn’t make kids die. You know what does? Whooping cough. Measles. Mumps. Tetanus. All things we can vaccinate against."

WOW, the uninformed-ness, it hurts! Jenny has NEVER stated that vaccines magically cause Autism and those studies, well maybe you should read them, check out a few of the "data collections" they cut out. Many parents in the Bio-med Autism community dispute these studies because of the way they are mishandled and manipulated or just poorly devised. Please, Please, Please cite a study worth a crap and I'll nod along like a good little medicated puppy. I will give her this though, Autism doesn't make kids die, it just takes away their lives, and the lives of the near and dear around them, wait that is kind of like dying, isn't it.

As for the whole whooping cough scare, well both of my kids had whooping cough and LIVED, shocking I know. Take a look see at this little interesting graph too, pretty interesting how death's started dropping about 20 years before vaccines could all save us from ourselves. Its a really interesting coincidence that around the same time as sanitary living conditions and nutrition started improving deaths from communicable diseases started dropping too, hmmmm.



hmmm, interesting, the same thing.



Here is the next BS passive aggressive paragraph:

"Another thing that scares me is that you hold these quackapalooza conferences in which you continue to claim that your son has been “cured” of autism. It breaks my heart, Jenny. You give false hope to so many when you do that. There is no cure for autism. There is therapy. There is a lot of hard work. There are incremental improvements in skills. There is speech therapy and ABA and social skills training and even medication that alleviates the intense anxiety people with autism may feel when they deal with the neurotypical world.

But when you say that “recovery is real,” I’m gonna have to call BS on that, too. I have seen kids develop social skills after being explicitly taught them because they did not learn them by observation. I have seen kids develop speech after years of intensive work. And yes, I have seen that certain diets help some kids"

This is DISGUSTING, "you give false hope to so many", because what more caregivers to people on the spectrum need is your brand of vitriol and verbal diarrhea. I'm sorry but if they were a thousand Jenny McCarthy's it wouldn't be enough! So many people on the spectrum need HOPE almost as much as they need air! I do agree that therapy should be a BIG part of it and that it is hard work but that doesn't take away from the biological side of Autism. Of course then she goes on to advocate what I assume is prescription medication. She also begrudgingly admits that "certain diets, will help some children". Now from my end I think, well if certain diets help why wouldn't probiotics or things to help digestion or cleaning the toxin's out their poor battered little bodies, but that's just the crazy "warrior momma talk" though.

One of the last bits that I take issue with is this: "I have never seen a person “recover” from autism. People recover from the flu, or chicken pox. They don’t recover from an inherent part of their neurological make-up. There also remains the question of whether your son ever had autism."

Literally every person that has a recovered child is told this at some point, well maybe he/she didn't have Autism in the first place. But that is because "They don't recover from an inherent part of their neurological make-up, right? So what other explanation could there be?

You know the thing that kills me is, people would never say to a diabetic. HEYYYY, HEYYYY, HEY that is part of your inherent make up, PUT DOWN THE INSULIN SYRINGE! God help the cancer patient that seeks chemo. Its your body, attacking your body, this must be how it's meant to be. My son had lead in his BLOOD! He had so much lead it was quite literally off the charts. It looked like he slept on the floor of a soldiering factory. Should we NOT have done chelation because of his Autism?

I know in this Autism world there doesn't seem to be any easy answers but I do have one quick suggestion. QUIT ATTACKING EACH OTHER! Seems simple right? I have a dream that one day bio-med and non bio-med moms will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood! 

I have never cursed someone, hated them or called them out on a blog for not doing bio-medical treatment, implementing a special diet or anything else related to Autism. I may tell you why I don't think you should give your money to "Autism speaks" but I'll tell you why with factual information and I'm pretty sure I won't hate you if you give it to them anyway. Like any other human being I've made judgement calls on what I thought would help and done my best to do so. At this point in the game all I do is make myself available and try to help. I've somehow come to the wisdom that this is battle enough for every single parent without the vehement infighting. It reminds me starkly of a Star Trek episode from my childhood.

The enterprise comes across a planet with a decimated population, only to learn they are fighting about which color is on which side of their bodies. Of course the crew doesn't get it and neither does the viewer until it is explicitly explained because otherwise you wouldn't think of this "difference" as a problem. Of course, in the end they kill each other off completely, their entire species goes extinct. I hope that is not prophetic.

Here is what I did, I deleted her and I'm venting on my blog. I will continue to do what makes sense for my child, try to help and educate others (as they come to me), do my best to be understanding and move forward with our family's personal struggles with Autism. I will not start a cyber battle, throwing studies at each other and having followers attack the "opposing side". We are all on the same side.