Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Autism Awareness Month

April is Autism Awareness month, and I am one autistic that boths dreads and anticipates it. It's nice that there is a push to raise awareness of the challenges that those of us who are autistic face in life. Yet at the same time, it's hard to keep calm when groups like "Autism Speaks" use it to further their agenda. Please do me a favor this year, if you are thinking about donating to "Autism Speaks" please don't.

"Autism Speaks" has spent large amounts of money on research, but not research aimed at helping autistics. In the past they have pushed the idea that autism is "caused" by mercury poisoning, mostly pointing to vacceines as the source of the "poisoning." They are currently working on a test for autism, with the goal of a pre-natal test. This goes along with their mission of ending autism forever. Say goodbye to any future Einstein, as if they have their way the next Einsteind will be aborted before they are born.

What autistics need are services and understanding. Not hate and a eugenics program designed to eliminate them. If you want to help, volunteer or donate to groups that actually have autistic adults on their board of directors, such as ASAN

1 comment:

Mattbear said...

Thank you for putting that out there...something interesting to think about. I've never heard of Autism Speaks, but I will probably wind up looking into them more now. Those don't seem like the most noble goals.