Mr. Olmsted's Lump of Coal... · Dec 23, 10:45 PM

...in the Christmas stockings of autistic-spectrum adolescents and adults who have either not undergone chelation, or who have not responded to chelation with a transformation to neurologically typical status, is his repetition today of the following slur by Professor Boyd Haley, former chair of the chemistry department at the University of Kentucky:

‘It (chelation) doesn’t seem to work with the older kids,’ Haley said. ‘These older kids are just lost.’

This comment first appeared in Dan Olmsted’s August 29, 2005 syndicated article, The Age of Autism: Gold Salts to be Tested. In that article, Professor Haley offered a few ideas about the potential of (potentially toxic) gold salts as an autism cure. These ideas were inspired by Olmsted’s stories about Donald T., one of the patients first identified as autistic by Dr. Leo Kanner in 1943. Donald T.’s brother had reported to Olmsted a significant improvement in his autistic brother’s well-being after he gained relief from juvenile arthritis at the age of twelve, an improvement that the brother and Olmsted both equated with “recovery from autism.”

Professor Haley is one of the more flamboyant purveyors of the theory that autism is a consequence of mercury poisoning, and has publicly announced his development of a new chelator, presumably intended for sale to parents seeking to reverse their children’s autism. Haley is well-known for his insensitivity to the concerns of autistic adolescents and adults, and to the concerns of those who prefer that all autistic citizens be referred to with respect. Not only did he invent the term “mad child disease” to describe autism, he defended his use of that term to a reporter who questioned him about it in the summer of 2005—after over seven hundred individuals from all over the world registered their objection to that phrase on The Petition to Defend the Dignity of Autistic Citizens.

Now, it is one thing for a reporter quote an interviewee in an article, even if the comments made by the interviewee are incorrect, thoughtless, or deliberately demeaning to other people. It is quite another for that reporter to repeat a gratuitous insult in a self-congratulatory review of his own journalistic efforts over the past year.

What could it possibly benefit anyone to refer to unchelated autistic adolescents and adults as “lost”? Professor Haley might find some personal benefit in propagating this inaccurate and disparaging description, in that it might inspire pessimism and fear for the future in parents of autistic children, thereby motivating them to purchase his new chelator. Dan Olmsted might find some personal benefit in further promulgating this inaccurate and disparaging description, in that it heightens the drama of his stories, thereby accentuating his self-appointed role as a revealer of supposedly hidden “truths” about autism. I cannot imagine what kind of benefit this kind of inaccurate and disparaging description might offer to autistic people of any age, or to their parents, no matter what position they might hold with respect to mercury’s role in autism causation.

Such a description is helpful to no one and injurious or potentially injurious to everyone. It undermines optimism about the potential of children on the autistic spectrum—all of whom can be expected to grow and develop. It implies that a “successful” response to chelation is the only positive outcome that can be envisioned for an autistic child. It dismisses as inherently unworthy of consideration the experience of the great majority of people on the autistic spectrum who have not undergone chelation, or who have undergone chelation and remain autistic. These are people who Professor Haley—by his invocation of the phrase—and UPI’s Dan Olmsted—by his pointless, heartless, scaremongering repetition of the phrase—reduce to the status of “just lost.”

Comments


  1. Oh yeah, Ive been “lostâ€? for nigh onto 60 years now. When I think of all I’ve been through, working for forty-five years, all that I’ve learned and accomplished, all the obstacles I’ve overcome, all the “normalâ€? things that I’ve done, including serving 4 years in the Navy during Vietnam, married for 15 years, fathering two children, doing all the things that everyone does, in spite of being autistic; alas, it’s all for naught in the eyes of Haley and Olmsted, the matching asshats. Oh,and Lenny and Kirby can bite me too. — Clay    Dec 23, 11:49 PM    #

  2. Here I am enjoying a nice night of stimming and watching movies, and I find out that I’m lost. Oh darn. — elmindreda    Dec 24, 12:32 AM    #

  3. Autism Diva had to check on her adult ASD offspring… she heard that xe was “lost�, but now xe is found, xe is using xyr computer in xyr bedroom.

    Thanks, Kathleen.

    Make sure you check back to the diva blog to see the illustration that goes with this blog entry…if you haven’t seen it already.

    :-) — Autism Diva    Dec 24, 12:45 AM    #

  4. Strikes me that, whilst ever the likes of Haley and Olmsted are about, autistics will never amount to much. Ever.

    It’s not the being autistic that’s the problem… it’s the responses of pillocks like those to people being autistic that’s the problem. — David Andrews    Dec 24, 03:38 AM    #

  5. David Andrews hits the bullseye when he points out that it is not the person with XXXXX, but the response of the person without XXXXX that is the problem.

    This extends to the world of the physically disabled. When my son and his friend, both teenagers in wheelchairs, try to do something together and we parents try to leave “management” gets nervous and asks why we are not staying. We assure them that the boys will not be rowdy and disruptive (thus ignoring their unstated prejudices) and walk off.

    I often think that the best response to these people is to tell them to “Get used to it” or something similar. — TheProbe    Dec 26, 10:37 AM    #

  6. I thought Olmsted’s piece on the Kanner person was just pathetic. I mean, invited to a lawyer’s office to meet the guy’s brother, because the guy was “out of town”. And off the back of this, he punts some other rediculous “treatment”. Gold salts. Yeah, right. If Olmsted even read Kanner’s paper, he would see that the person was likely getting sorted out long before he started wearing long pants. This Olmsted character is plainly facing being fired by his employer if he can’t deliver, and clings on to his career with these sad pieces of garbage. No journalist of any integrity whatsoever would put forward such a report. — Visitor    Dec 26, 06:49 PM    #

  7. I feel sorry for any autistic spectrum students in the Chem Department at the University of Kentucky. I’d hate to have to disclose to Boyd Haley. — Anne    Dec 27, 12:48 AM    #

  8. Ok, many others have commented on his foul language much better than I could, so I won’t go into that.

    However, I can’t help mentioning that even if autism was mercury poisoning, then nothing you did would reverse the damage already done – so to use his foul language, all autistic people would be lost. Isn’t it interesting that even if you grant them their premises, it still fails? — Kristjan Wager    Dec 27, 06:57 AM    #

  9. Anne – I don’t think the UofK students will have to deal with the man. He’s chosen his path of pandering to special interest groups, lecturing to the same, and developing his for-profit enterprises that cater to the same SIGs. At this point he’s really more of a talking head than an academic scientist.

    Plus any autistic student in his department would have plenty of cause to kick him off any committee overseeing their progress in either academic work or the lab. I realize that would require them to have the strength to stand up for themselves, but it appears to me that given Boyd’s disparaging comments of his U of K colleagues, his list of friends grows thin. As such, it wouldn’t surprise me if an invisible layer of support from other faculty exists for autistic students. — Bartholomew Cubbins    Dec 27, 11:18 AM    #

  10. Kristjan Wager raises a great point. I looked for some evidence that chelation can reverse damage done in instances where chelation is appropriate treatment. I could not find any evidence of reversal.

    Now, if chelation cannot undo damage for toxic exposure where it is appropriate, it is even remotely possible for it to reverse “damage” (i.e. Autism) even assuming that it is appropriate treatment for Autism?

    Of course not. — TheProbe    Dec 29, 03:57 PM    #