On Saturday, we were all Berliners.  Anne Dachel created a partial transcript from Robert Kennedy Jr.'s speech in Berlin on Friday.

By Anne Dachel 

Robert Kennedy, Jr: 'People in Authority Lie"

On Friday, August 28, Robert Kennedy, Jr. spoke at a press conference in Berlin, Germany announcing the expansion of Children's Health Defense to Europe. Kennedy's words made it clear these are truly desperate times and no one can just sit back and hope things get better on their own. Very powerful forces have an agenda and that agenda will affect the freedom of all of us. It's time to listen to Kennedy and to act.

I am Robert F. Kennedy, Jr….

Let me explain to you a little bit about the journey that brought me here.

I run the biggest water protection group in the world. It’s called Waterkeeper Alliance.

Back in the early 2000s I was suing big coal burning power plants in the United States for discharging mercury. At that time my only concern was the impact of mercury on fish and on the human health of the human beings who ate the fish.

Around that time it came to my attention that there was also large amounts of mercury in vaccines, much larger exposures to children than any child would ever get from eating fish.

I began to address that and we started an organization that was trying to have a very limited scope which was trying to remove the mercury from vaccines. Little by little I came to understand there were larger problems with vaccines.

The central one and the one we were most deeply concerned with was that vaccines in the United States were not safety tested. They have an exemption that is not available to any other medical product, and that exemption which most people cannot even believe, is an artifact of the CDC’s legacy as the public health service which was a quasi-military agency.

At the time the vaccine program was launched, the purpose was a national defense purpose, and they wanted to make sure that vaccines could be quickly formulated and deployed in order to derail attacks by foreign countries with biological substances.

So they removed the regulatory impediments including the necessity to safety test vaccines against placebos.

Note: Thank you to Anne Dachel for transcribing Dr. Larry Palevsky's presentation to the CT Assembly last February, during which time the religious exemption was in jeopardy. Then...  COVID. 

By Anne Dachel

Nightmare in Connecticut

On February 19, 2020 there was hearing by the Connecticut Assembly on vaccine safety. There should have been a packed chamber and lots of press coverage because what one expert testified to was shocking. Sadly, most of the seats were empty, but we need to consider what was said.

Larry Palevsky, MD answered questions for 28 minutes. He described the appalling lack of studies when it comes to vaccine safety, especially involving the use of aluminum in vaccines and its damaging impact on the brain.

“We have never studied whether the aluminum we’re giving in vaccines gets into the brain, and we’ve never measured whether it stays in the brain, and what it does if it does stay in the brain.”

“What we’re seeing is a large outbreak of neurodevelopmental disabilities in adults, including Alzheimer’s, and one of the main factors that they’re finding in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s is the aluminum nanoparticle that’s directly related to the vaccines that we’re giving. “

The representatives should have been more than a little worried over the statistics Dr. Palevsky cited.

“We have more than half of our children with chronic inflamed conditions, and we’ve never allowed ourselves to ask the question: If the vaccines cause inflammation acutely, do they continue to create inflammation chronically?

by Anne Dachel

The representatives questioning Dr. Palevsky about vaccines should have had more than a little interest what’s causing the decline in the health of children in Connecticut.

Connecticut is the future

Back on February 10, 2014, The Connecticut Mirror published the grim story,
For CT adults with developmental disabilities, housing help unlikely until parents die.

This is piece told the public the plain truth: As long as parents were still alive, there would be no adult services for state residents with autism. Funding had not kept up with the explosion in autism.

The erosion of state funding for people with developmental disabilities has left many parents worried about what will happen to their children when they die or become unable to take care of them.

One 70 year old mother was quoted saying,

“We are told that our loved ones will stay home until we die. They’re welcome to stay home forever. We’re not trying to get rid of our beloved children, adult children included. But there is that fact of mortality.”

Six years ago the parents were already told that there were too many children with autism to automatically offer adult services for everyone who aged out of school. Of course in 2014 the autism rate was one in every 68 children compared to one in 54 children currently.  As more children are recognized with autism costs for accommodating their needs also increases.

This brings us to 2020

On August 1, 2020, The CT Journal Record published the stunning story, The system is going to explode’ — Adults with autism struggle to find support in Connecticut.

Despite the fact that for years the main stream media has conditioned us never to worry about the autism rate, here The Journal Record laid it on the line: The increases are real and we’re never going to be able to pay for this disaster.

By Anne Dachel

Boris Johnson, UK Prime Minister,  addressed the U.N. in Sept 2019.   He spoke about modern technology with analogies to Greek mythology and historical figures. Will our high tech world free us or enslave us?  Liberate us or control us?

In the midst of this 16 minute speech he managed to slam ‘anti-vaxxers’ as anti-science. (8:15)

“It is a deep human instinct to be wary of any kind of technical progress. …There are today people who are still actually anti-science, a whole movement called ‘the anti-vaxxers’ who refuse to acknowledge the evidence that vaccinations have eradicated smallpox and who by their prejudices are actually endangering the very children they want to protect.

“And I totally reject this anti-science pessimism. I’m profoundly about the ability of new technology to serve as a liberator and to remake the world wondrously and benignly.”

So while the computer age poses threats to our freedom, vaccines are good, vaccines save lives, according to Johnson. No one should reject them.

Actually this man needs to look at the British education system. Things are not good. In 2015 the government announced 27 new special needs schools to be built across England, schools for disabled children who couldn’t be helped in regular special education classes. In 2020 we see the additional of 37 more special schools, with plans for 49 more coming after that.

Johnson needs to look at the shocking numbers in the U.K. In Northern Ireland one in every 24 students is autistic, and 23 percent receive special education help. In Scotland 29 percent of children are considered special needs. (England itself puts the special education number at 15 percent, a low figure that can be explained by the recent scandal showing thousands of special needs students are routinely expelled from school. Thousands more simply don’t get assessments for their disabilities.)

By Anne Dachel, CHD Contributing Writer, Age of Autism Editor, LossofBrainTrust.com

There is still a dearth of any real news on special education and autism in U.S. schools, but not so in Britain and Ireland where the press reports constantly on big time increases in special education spending.

Honestly, while it’s not being reported on as a crisis, any thinking person has to be concerned about what’s happening over there. Someone needs to explain what’s going on.

Back in 2015 the big news out of Britain was the announcement that the government would be opening 27 new special needs schools in England.

These schools would serve 2,000 students. It all sounded good. Of the 27 schools, 22 would be specifically for children with autism. Unfortunately 27 schools weren’t enough, so because of “increasing demand” more had to be done.

2020: 37 new special schools with 49 more schools in the planning stage

July stories from the U.K. were all about more funding and more provisions for students with complex special needs. The British national government has approved 37 additional special schools across England, and that’s only the beginning.

Seemingly no one can tell us when it’s going to stop. At the same time no one is alarmed. Stories include reassuring photos of teachers and officials smiling and being quoted using words like ‘delighted,’ ‘fantastic’ and ‘exciting.’

The truth is the U.K. government has to do this. They have no choice. Local county councils simply can’t pay the enormous cost of sending students with critical special needs outside their home areas to school. The government has to come up with funding and it’s adding up to be billions.

The same is true in Ireland where shocking reports tell us about hundreds of disabled students who wait 3 and 4 years for assessments and then go on waiting lists for services. Hundreds have been told there aren’t school places for them.

One might ask why everyone is so compliant. Why doesn’t anyone demand to know why all this is necessary? Read More at Children's Health Defense.

By Adriana Gamondes

On May 3, 2013, Anne Dachel wrote about a similar nightmare (Heartbreaking Story: Adult Son with Autism Left to State) to the story below, also in Canada. Back then it was an Ottawa couple who were unable to care for their adult son with autism who functioned on the level of a two-year-old.  Families from coast to coast, Canada, America and elsewhere, are suffering right now as many children and adult children with autism have been home without supports during COVID.  Most families hide their plight out of love and respect and even fear of making the dark side of autism public. Parents are beaten, siblings cower in fear, families face collapse. This is the side of autism you rarely see or her about. Except at Age of Autism, and we take a drubbing for it. We don't care.....

Here’s the looming pandemic conveniently ignored for the present. Will officials be holding daily updates on the number of young adult descending on the welfare system?

Jul 13, 2020, (Canada) CBC: Winnipeg woman beaten by 16-year-old son with autism says she can no longer care for him

A Winnipeg woman says she's no longer able to care for her 16-year-old son, who has autism, because of his violence toward her.

She wants to surrender guardianship to Winnipeg Child and Family Services — but the agency says he needs to stay with her. 

CBC News is not identifying the woman or her son to protect their privacy. We've given her the pseudonym of Olivia and her son the pseudonym of Noah.

Noah has been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and suffers from anxiety. 

"He is strong. He can throw me. That's a bad day, Bruises. Lots of bruises, and just anger.… I think I've lost consciousness one time," Olivia said….

Olivia said there have been numerous instances when she's locked him out of the house and called police after he's beaten her.

Police have been able to calm him down, she says, but in a few days, he'd act violently again. Officers have asked her to file a formal complaint, but she refused.

While everyone has had their eyes peering over a mask in fear of  COVID-19, during a month that is the start of Summer and its carefree delights, the raw reality of pediatric health and education's decline takes no vacation, Summer or otherwise. Even by British standards. ;)

By Anne Dachel- published in full at Children's Health Defense.

June Reports from Britain on Special Education Toll

Once again, we turn our attention to what was happening to schools in Britain during June.  The U.S. is forty times bigger than the U.K., but the stories from there dwarf anything from America.

Schools in that country are in crisis because of the mounting cost of special education, and no one points out the real tragedy unfolding before our eyes: Over and over news stories from around the world tell us that, increasingly, students have disabilities.

Everywhere in Britain they’re building new special schools and expanding special education programs, but we’re not told why there are these escalating numbers. Loss of Brain Trust catalogues it all:  https://www.lossofbraintrust.com/

Villages and cities across Britain all report the same situation, more special education plans and a lack of places. To show how widespread all of this is I noted where in the U.K. these reports came from.

BBC: (Northern Ireland) ‘Progress expected’ on special needs places

The Education Minister has said it is “unacceptable” that 285 children with statements of Special Educational Needs have no school place. Peter Weir’s comments came after BBC News NI revealed those children did not have a place for September….

156 of the 285 statemented children without a place are seeking to be admitted to special schools.

…But the Education Authority (EA) has said that there is particular pressure on special school places in areas including Belfast and Newry….

Mr Weir also said the number of children with statements, and without a place, was much greater than in previous years.

Kent News Shopper: (Southeast London) Consultation on plans for new Riverside school site opened

 Plans to form a new satellite school site to keep up with swelling demand for specialist education in Bromley have been published, with locals’ opinions on the potential move wanted. …

The council saying it would provide an additional 60 places for local students with special educational needs.

According to the council, ballooning numbers of children with Education, Health and Care Plans have far outweighed projected increases in recent years.

“Since 2018 there has been a 28.5 per cent increase in the number of Education, Health and Care Plans issued in Bromley against a projected increase of 7 per cent across the four years from 2018 to 2022,” council documents state.

The authority states there is a particular shortage of places for children with profound and multiple learning difficulties (PMLD) or severe learning difficulty (SLD)….

“The expansion of Riverside School will help Bromley Council meet this need through increasing the capacity of the school from 259 to 319 places.”…

Bradford Telegraph and Argus: (North central England) New SEN school, Millcourt, in Shelf, is preparing to open in September

By Anne Dachel

On June 19 Age of Autism published the piece, We Flattened The Covid Curve Why Not the Autism Curve featuring an interview in which Safeminds' Rebecca Estepp had a candid conversation with New Jersey autism researcher, Dr. Walter Zahorodny.

“The most startling aspect of the report was that in New Jersey, I see the New Jersey rates as being the leading indicator and I saw surprised to see that even though our rate overall didn’t go up very dramatically between 2014 and 2016, our rate of autism in boys was at the 5 percent level.

“One out of 20 boys [has] autism.

"That’s hard to get your head around. Sometimes I find myself checking myself and questioning, why am I saying that? I’m saying that because the data are clear that that’s the case. I certainly never thought I would be identifying such a high rate of autism among children in our state. That’s certainly the case. I think that would be, from my perspective, the two big findings of this report are that Hispanic children are significantly under-detected in most states and that autism as the leading indicator shows that one out of 20 boys has autism.”...

"...the CDC, I think, has been just understating the issue. But really it’s behavior of the press that seems unconscionable to me, and that they take for granted that a claim or the assertion of better awareness explains the problem is sufficient. It’s really not a sufficient explanation.”

 Since I've been writing about "the really lie about autism" (that there's no real increase in the number of children affected, just greater awareness) since 2006, it immediately had my attention.

I've also written about Dr. Zahorodny before. He's been adamant that the ever-growing autism rate represents a real increase in the number of affected children that has to be addressed.

Source: Psychology Today

By Anne Dachel

Psychology Today just announced that having more kids with autism around doesn’t really mean there is more autism in the world. 

Abigail Fagan, an associate editor at P.T., asked the question in the headline of her June 3^rd story: Do Environmental Changes Explain the Rise in Autism Diagnoses?

The answer is a resounding NO! THERE HAVE BEEN NO ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGES.

Sure the numbers are up.

The rise in autism diagnoses has been steady and striking. In the 1960s, roughly 1 in 10,000 people was diagnosed with autism. Today, 1 in 54 children has the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the rise in the U.S. is mirrored in countries around the world.

Don’t worry, nothing is really wrong.

Anyone out there, like me, who’s been hanging around this issue for the last two decades knows exactly how Fagan proves her claim: More kids have an autism label because of better diagnosing, greater awareness, expanded spectrum.

That fact that there is no end in sight to the exponential autism increases doesn’t bother Fagan. More and more and more kids landing on the autism spectrum just means doctors continue to get better and better at recognizing the disorder, teachers and parents are more aware than previous teachers and parents were and changes in the official diagnosis which was expanded to include Aspergers Syndrome in 1994 and then narrowed in 2013 insures that everyone will be confused as to what exactly autism is.

What isn’t happening, according to Fagan:

There is no environmental factor contributing to kids developing autism. Mostly autism is genetic and it’s always been here and it always will be.

I won’t bother you with long quotations for her piece. Here are highlights.

“…some estimates place the heritability at 80 percent.” ,

“… genetic and environmental contributions did not significantly shift over time.”

“[Specific environmental factors] are not responsible for the surge in diagnoses.”

“…there was no significant difference in autism prevalence between children and adults.”

‘We’re diagnosing autism 10 to 50 times more now than we were 25 years ago.’

By Anne Dachel

It seems we're doomed when it comes to autism. We're helpless, it's hopeless, and we're just going to let it destroy us.

While health officials seem narrowly focused on the pandemic, autism hasn't gone away. It's the pandemic that will NEVER STOP AFFECTING US. Its victims will live long lives causing society billions.

Northern Ireland is awash in autism and disabled children. Their schools are struggling to survive. (See my LONG HISTORY of stories on LossOfBrainTrust.com ) What we see happening there is a stunning example of our total failure to do anything to address autism.

The Belfast story below is yet another incomprehensible report on just how bad things are--what officials are telling us we just have to learn to live with. There can be no other explanation.

I reported on this news from Northern Ireland in Derry. Now on LossOfBrainTrust.com.

Keep in mind these often-repeated statistics from the British Isles:

Northern Ireland: 23 percent of students receive special ed services.

Ireland: 25 percent of students receive special ed services.

Scotland: 29 percent of students receive special ed services.

It's easy to see why autism numbers are also skyrocketing amid horrific statistics, ominous projections, and ludicrous explanations.

Can anyone possibly believe that this is the result of “an increase in awareness and understanding” as we are told here?

May 22, 2020, (UK) Belfast Telegraph: Schoolchildren diagnosed with autism in NI increases 82% over last five years

Cases of autism in school-age children have increased by 82% in the last five years, a report has found.

One in 24 children of school age here has been diagnosed, according to figures from the Department of Health.

Its report said 12,544 school-aged children are autistic - a prevalence rate of 4.2%. The figures were described as "alarming" by the charity Autism NI.

Transcribed by Anne Dachel. Robert Kennedy Jr tells about the horrible death of Ferrets used to test previous versions of a

(VIDEO) May 22, 2020, Joni Table Talk:

 The Coronavirus Vaccine Uncensored | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. & Del Bigtree

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuMbRBTZhCY

Robert Kennedy, Jr.:  “The government has been trying for almost thirty years to develop a coronavirus vaccine, and it’s been unsuccessful.

“Beginning in 2002 there were three outbreaks of coronavirus. We called them SARS at that point and MERS.

“The first SARS was a natural illness. It jumped from a bat to human beings. The second two were lab created that escaped and infected human beings. So the governments of China and a consortium of western governments all got together and put millions and millions of dollars into an effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine.

“Between 2002 and 2012, 2014, they worked very hard to do that, and what happened is they developed about 35 vaccines. Four of them were really promising. They chose the four most promising, and they gave them to ferrets, which is the animal that is most analogous when it comes to upper lung respiratory infections.

“The ferrets had a brilliant, robust and durable antibody response. Then something horrible happened. When those ferrets were challenged, when they were exposed to the wild virus they got horribly sick. They got inflammation throughout their bodies, and they died.  (See Pubmed NIH: Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Vaccine Efficacy in Ferrets: Whole Killed Virus and Adenovirus-Vectored Vaccines )

“The scientists remembered that something very similar had happened in the 1960s where they had developed a virus for RSV, which is very similar to coronavirus. It’s an upper respiratory infection, ailment.

“They had skipped the animals and given them directly to 35 children, and the children again had developed a very robust antibody response. But when those children were exposed to the wild virus, they got very, very sick, much sicker than the unvaccinated children. And two of those kids had died. It was a scandal.

By Anne Dachel

Professor Alan Dershowitz was on Tucker Carlson Tonight on May 20^th to discuss his controversial opinion on a mandatory COVID 19 vaccine.

Here Dershowitz qualified his views about the circumstances that would allow forced vaccination of the entire population. Notice how many times he talked about the need for the vaccine to be proven safe.

Tucker Carlson: …In some rare cases, sometimes not that rare, [vaccines] can hurt people.

Does the government still have a right to endanger you be forcing you to take it?

Professor Deshowitz made these comments in response:

The Supreme Court has said yes. It is not a debatable issue constitutionally….

Then Deshowitz explained his views of the “moral issue” involved in forced vaccination.

I think one can make a plausible argument that nobody should be required to be subjected to a dangerous vaccination to help other people. That’s a plausible argument.  

I think we should continue to debate that….

…I wouldn’t require people to take a vaccine unless it was proved very, very safe…

I general, if the vaccine was proved extremely safe, then the state has a right to compel you to take it….

What you don’t have the right to do is to circulate in society without being vaccinated, if the vaccine is proved to be very safe.

Carlson: There is so much lying about vaccines…

Deshowitz:  You have to have rule of reason.  If the vaccine is very effective and very safe…

Professor Dershowitz went on to use his 10 year old great-grandson as someone who might not need the vaccine as children are not generally affected.

Actually I highly doubt that the powerful forces pushing a fast-tracked COVID vaccine will let anyone opt out.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

Rabbie Handler

By Anne Dachel

In my recent piece on Age of Autism Alan Dershowitz Says You Have No Right to Refuse A COVID Vaccine, I reported on the stunning comments by Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz that endorsed forced vaccination. One of the sources on Dershowitz that I cited was a New York Daily News piece he wrote on June 14, 2019. He was adamant that there is no religious right not to be vaccinated.

Dershowitz said this specifically about the Jewish faith:

 I challenge any rabbi to debate me on the Jewish religious law regarding vaccination and communicable diseases. He will lose the debate because there is simply no basis in Jewish law for any such argument. Religion is being used as a cover for a misguided political, ideological, conspiratorial and personal opposition to vaccination. Don’t believe any rabbi who tells you otherwise.

New York Rabbi William Handler has been a courageous voice challenging mandated vaccination despite being attacked by the Washington Post and other media sources. I have interviewed Rabbi Handler a number of times and he was happy to answer the challenge.

This is his response to Alan Dershowitz:

Among Orthodox Rabbis who take Jewish Religious Law seriously, there is a spirited debate over the issue of vaccination.

There are two aspects to this issue:

1. Are Jews religiously obligated to vaccinate themselves against all common diseases?

On this question, there is a vigorous debate among our Rabbinical authorities, and many leading Rabbis have stated that, if someone is fearful that vaccines may cause his family harm, we have no right to compel him to subject his family to the clearly-documented risks of vaccination.

2. Does Jewish law obligate us to “quarantine” healthy people simply because they refuse to subject themselves to the clearly-documented hazards of vaccination?

On this question, it is clear that we cannot quarantine a healthy person simply because he refuses to undergo a medical procedure.

The question arises only when there is a large outbreak of a serious disease. And, even then, many Rabbis state that you can quarantine only when there is a widespread Pandemic, where people are literally dropping dead in the streets, like the “Black Plague,” which wiped-out one third of Europe.

Listen to this one minute clip in which Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz tells you in no uncertain terms that forced vaccination is legal and necessary. Beyond the obvious disgust of his statement, here's where I think he stumbles: he says that if a disease will only kill YOU, you can refuse the vaccine. But vaccines are only created for contagious diseases and disease rather by its very definition, can kill. ERGO (hey, check out that fancy Latin. I'm just a Boston College gal, but it's NEAR HAH-vud) you can't refuse any vaccine. What's the difference between a flu shot and a COVID-19 shot? Flu can kill if you spread it. COVID-19 can kill if you spread it. We've lost all sense of American liberty. Rip July 4 out of the calendar. It's gone. 



By Anne Dachel

Alan Dershowitz, Professor of Law, emeritus, at Harvard Law School, seems to have exceptions in his libertarian outlook on people’s constitutional rights when we’re talking about vaccinations.

When it comes to being vaccinated, there is no liberty. Overreaching powers go on forever. You have no right to refuse a vaccine.

Below are several examples of his opinion on the subject of forced vaccines.

Actually what Dershowitz is preaching here is totalitarian rule. We are to live in a society where vaccines are acknowledged to cause injury and even death, where doctors and pharmaceutical companies are indemnified and where the powerless masses have no choice but to comply and suffer the consequences for the common good. The only ones taking any risk here of course are the American people. 

Dershowitz’s real view of individual vaccine rights boils down to SHUT UP AND GET IN LINE. Is that in the curriculum at Harvard?

**Notice Dershowitz never acknowledges any risk from being vaccinated. In his simplistic worldview vaccines don’t have harmful side effects, they only prevent disease. Therefore there’s no legitimate reason for anyone to refuse a vaccine.

June 14, 2019, New York Daily News: There is no religious right to refuse vaccination (OPINION) 

Note: Hi, readers. What do you think of the word, vaxssiah? It occurred to me the other day when I listened to A/NBCBS News (all the news reports blend into one voice) saying over and over that when we have a vaccine, all will be OK. "Wait until there's a vaccine" is now a mantra, a Rosary prayer, the Amidah fervently lulling many to get through another day of quarantine.  Yes. Yes. The Vaxssiah will come down from heaven and rescue us. And those who refuse to accept the Vaxssiah will be heretics destined for hell. On earth....   Hush little Americans, hush now. Mamma will tuck us into a soft, feather bed with a glass of warm milk fresh from Bessie the cow.  Or maybe Kool-aid. Kim

###

By Anne Dachel

The World Health Organization is out to scare everyone. The shutdown may never end and our only hope is for a vaccine for everyone.

Here is news coverage over the last several days that should have everyone concerned.

WHO's chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, warned that it “could take four to five years to get COVID-19 under control.” 

We have ‘one great hope’ for mankind to fight a virus that ‘may never go away,’ accord to the executive director of WHO Dr. Michael Ryan and that is ‘A HIGHLY EFFECTIVE VACCINE’ for every person on the planet. (Notice that the word SAFE wasn’t included in his dire warning.)

Dr. Ryan: It’s going to be “a long, long time” before we can return to normal. The risks are “still high” everywhere. It’s “public health disaster followed by economic disaster followed by public health disaster.”

COVID 19 could become “just another endemic virus.”

Ryan: “We do have one great hope. If we do find a highly effective vaccine that we can distribute to everyone that needs it in the world we may have a shot at eliminating this virus.

“That vaccine will have to be highly effective, it will have to be made available to everyone and we will have to use it.

Look at how U.S. News and Business Insider cover Dr. Ryan’s remarks. Notice that Business Insider makes “anti-vaxxers” into villains.

May 13, 2020, U.S. News: 'This Virus May Never Go Away,' WHO Says  https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-05-13/who-expert-says-world-has-long-long-way-to-go-in-covid-19-fight

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could become endemic like HIV, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, warning against any attempt to predict how long it would keep circulating and calling for a "massive effort" to counter it.

"It is important to put this on the table: this virus may become just another endemic virus in our communities, and this virus may never go away," WHO emergencies expert Mike Ryan told an online briefing.

"I think it is important we are realistic and I don't think anyone can predict when this disease will disappear," he added. "I think there are no promises in this and there are no dates. This disease may settle into a long problem, or it may not be."

However, he said the world had some control over how it coped with the disease, although this would take a "massive effort" even if a vaccine was found -- a prospect he described as a "massive moonshot". …

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus added: "The trajectory is in our hands, and it's everybody's business, and we should all contribute to stop this pandemic."

Ryan said "very significant control" of the virus was required in order to lower the assessment of risk, which he said remained high at the "national, regional and global levels". …

"We need to get into the mindset that it is going to take some time to come out of this pandemic," WHO epidemiologist Maria van Kerkhove told the briefing.

May 13, 2020, Business Insider: WHO: The coronavirus 'may never go away' if clusters of anti-vaxxers oppose a vaccine  https://www.businessinsider.com/who-coronavirus-may-never-go-away-vaccine-years-off-2020-5?r=US&IR=T

• The World Health Organization on Wednesday said no one "can predict when or if this disease will disappear," but said that a vaccine against the coronavirus is the "one great hope" at eliminating the virus.
• The WHO's Executive Director of Health Emergencies said that he's "cynical" that the world will muster the "will" to vaccinate against COVID-19, even if and when a vaccine is available.
• "We have some perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we have not used effectively for diseases we could eliminate and eradicate, and we haven't done it," the WHO's Mike Ryan said. 
• In the absence of a vaccine, the WHO's chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, estimated it could take four to five years to get COVID-19 under control. 

…"I don't think anyone can predict when or if this disease will disappear," the WHO's Executive Director of Health Emergencies Mike Ryan said during a press conference on Wednesday.

"We do have one great hope, if we do find a highly effective vaccine that we can distribute to everyone who needs it in the world. We may have a shot at eliminating this virus. But that vaccine will have to be available. It'll have to be highly effective. It will have to be made available to everyone, and we will have to use it."

Ryan's curmudgeonly assessment came just hours after the WHO's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan told the Financial Times that it may take "four to five" years to "control" the coronavirus, adding there is "no crystal ball" to know if things will get better or worse in this outbreak, or whether we'll be able to develop an effective vaccine at all.

Even getting a vaccine on the market, Ryan agreed, is still a "massive moonshot."

"This virus may never go away," he said.

Without a vaccine, it could take four to five years to control the COVID-19 outbreak

Most people in the world have not yet been exposed to COVID-19, which means the world is still in a very vulnerable spot. …

In the US, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, where scientists are at work developing a COVID-19 vaccine, told members of the US Senate on Tuesday that a vaccine will certainly not be ready by the time university students head back to class this fall.

"Even at the top speed we're going, we don't see a vaccine playing in the ability of individuals to get back to school this term," Fauci said. 

"Forgive me if I'm cynical, but we have some perfectly effective vaccines on this planet that we have not used effectively"…

Only about half (53%) of US adults aged 35-44 said definitively that "Yes, I would get vaccinated" against COVID-19, if a vaccine were to become available, according to a Morning Consult poll taken earlier this month.

Likewise, the percentage of US adults who feel "very comfortable" with vaccinations is declining, and the share of people who say they're "not at all comfortable" with vaccines is on the rise, even since January, in the midst of this devastating pandemic, according to a CivicScience survey.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

By Anne Dachel

Adults have just as much autism as children, the CDC says so

Those who promote the idea that today’s kids with autism are nothing new, are now making the claim again. We’re to believe that there have always been lots of  people on the spectrum, we just called them something else.

As I’ve said for years, show us the adults with autism. Of course they can’t. They’ve pretended to. In 2009 a British study claimed to have found the same rate among adults by means of a phone survey.

The results were immediately used to support the denial of a link between vaccines and autism: Sept 22, 2009, UK Guardian: Autism just as common in adults, so MMR jab is off the hook

Autism is as common among adults as it is in children, according to the world's first big study of its prevalence, undermining the theories of those who claim the MMR jab is responsible for the rising toll in recent years.

The survey, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research in collaboration with the University of Leicester, shows that one in 100 adults in England have an autism spectrum disorder, which can range from a serious disability to difficulties in socialising, and includes some people with extraordinary artistic talents.

It is important to establish the NO REAL INCREASE claim right now, just like it was used in 2009.

If autism has always been here, then the dramatic increase in the vaccine schedule isn’t related to the explosion in the autism rate. It’s all just better diagnosing.

IF we’re headed to a massive push for COVID 19 vaccine for everyone, the whole vaccine debate is likely to surface. It’s time to once again guarantee that there is no evidence of serious side effects especially in children.

So if anyone wonders why there’s suddenly a new autism/adults study in the midst of the pandemic, that’s why.

CNN put out the original story on May 11, 2020,  https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/health/autism-adults-cdc-health/index.html and local TV news outlets around the country republished it.

The first US study of autism in adults estimates that 2.2% of Americans adults have an autism spectrum condition.

That adds up to 5.4 million people age 18 and older, or about 1 in 45 people, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday.

"This is the first CDC study to provide estimates of the number of U.S. adults with autism and fills a gap in data on adults living with autism spectrum disorder in the United States because there is no existing surveillance system to collect this information," the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities said in a statement. …

Because it's an estimate, true numbers may be above or below 2.2%, the team said.

"The findings from this study can help states determine the need for diagnosing and providing services to adults in the United States who remain unidentified with ASD," the CDC said.Stations like CBS Pittsburgh, ABC/CBS Idaho Falls, ID, CBS Baltimore and others put out the same piece giving the public no details on how the findings were reached.

Disability Scoop however gave readers details and the whole thing is just projection. The CDC looked at the statistics for children with autism in the various states used to come up with the rate for autism among eight year olds and then extrapolated the rate to include adults, coming up with total number in the millions.

May 13, 2020, Disability Scoop: CDC Researchers: Over 5 Million US Adults Have Autism

CDC researchers looked at autism prevalence rates for kids reported through the National Survey of Children’s Health — an annual government survey that asks parents across the nation if they’ve ever been told by a health care provider that their child has autism — between 2016 and 2018. Then, they estimated adult prevalence by adjusting the children’s numbers to account for mortality as people age and cross-referenced the figures with Census data on the population of each state.

How is this science?

So we are to believe that children and adults are equally affected by autism because the CDC says they are. If one in 45 children have autism, then one in 45 adults must too. Applying a little math to the total adult population, they come up with 5 million. There you have it.

This is the dictatorial power of public health officials who are answerable to no one, and of course no one among their faithful puppets in the media would ever  challenge anything.

Anne Dachel is Media Editor for Age of Autism.

By Anne Dachel

Video: Recently CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota interviewed Dr. Sanjay Gupta about earlier diagnosing for autism in this three minute video. Now experts can see the signs at 14 months.

The subject of the interview was hardly news. Over the years there have been continuous calls for finding autism as early as possible so all those ABA therapies can be started. It is standard stuff every April during Autism Awareness Month.

In her opening statement Camerota incorrectly stated, “One in 59 children has autism.” She told viewers that finding the disorder sooner could be “a game changer.”

Gupta replied, “It could be.”

The real message on CNN was EARLY DIAGNOSING IS ALL WE CAN DO. We are totally helpless when it comes to autism. One in 54 (the actual rate) children may be on the spectrum but there’s no way to stop it from happening to your child. Furthermore we can only expect that statistic to keep going up and up until everyone has at least one child with autism.

Camerota and Gupta and their tedious chat about labeling toddlers with autism sooner isn’t a big story, but what is frustrating is that both of them know so much more that they aren’t talking about.

Alisyn Camerota used to be at Fox News where she did outstanding job reporting on the vaccine autism link. She interviewed people like Dr. Bob Sears, Mary Holland and Dr. Sarah Bridges on the link between vaccines and autism.

Ten years ago I named her Journalist of the Year for Age of Autism.

Dec 30, 2010, Age of Autism Awards 2010: Fox News' Alisyn Camerota Journalist of The Year

Dr. Gupta now seemingly has forgotten his interview with Dr. Jon Poling back in 2008 about the reality that YES, vaccines are recognized to cause autism.

Back then he did not challenge the link between vaccines and autism in Hannah Poling’s case. Gupta told Dr. Poling that he was worried about vaccinating his own two daughters with the standard one-size-fits-every-child vaccine schedule.

Thank you to our Anne Dachel for transcribing excerpts for our readers.  Anne says:

"This was one of the most informative and empowering talks I’ve ever listened to in all the years I’ve been working as an autism advocate. Every person concerned about what the COVID 19 pandemic will do to our medical freedom needs to hear these speakers and learn the truth about what’s coming. There is no walking away from this threat to our liberties."

April 4, 2020, Panel discussion the COVID 19 crisis and what a vaccine could mean to the American people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV_QPwWxOX8&feature=emb_share&fbclid=IwAR04nwi-CfzHYrIIgE5U00Gt7Z9ZBeht8N-3xzUtsHziHNHr8BuAKO0X6VQ

Panelists:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, Dr. Judy Mikovits, Del Bigtree, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, Dr. Rashid Buttar.

Here are excerpts from the discussion.

Charlene: “…the year 2020 was a big deal. … This is the year, if we don’t help people understand this critical issue we may loss our freedoms, and they may be able to come in and try …to force us into these vaccines. But we did not know what we were getting into….

“I was watching Tucker Carlson  [Fox, Tucker Carlson Tonight]. He’s actually had Bobby Kennedy on…  We couldn’t believe that mainstream media outlet was covering that. We felt like Tucker’s our friend…

“Last night…on Tucker Carlson Tonight … He had a guest and they talked about Operation Wrap Speed, the COVID vaccination where they’re literally going to pass through the trials that they should be doing. They’re going to skip all that safety measures to get to this vaccine. They’re going to have a hundred million ready to go. …

“The guest talked about this as if it’s a good thing, and Tucker Carlson who has interviewed our good friend Bobby Kennedy, ….  I was really letdown by the fact that Tucker Carlson allowed that guest to say that and didn’t dig in. …”

5:42 Kennedy: “There’s now eighty separate vaccine projects. Bill Gates has eight of them. Bill Gates is now the biggest vaccine producer in the world, bigger than any other company.

By Anne Dachel

The COVID 19 crisis is a blessing in a very ugly disguise for those who want us all to believe that ever-increasing numbers of children with autism are merely the result of never-ending better diagnosing by doctors and greater awareness by everyone else.

Coronavirus coverage dominates the news currently. The only stories about disabled/autistic children involve how they’re dealing with the pandemic.

Lost in the current crisis was the seemingly unnoticed update of the autism numbers at the end of March from one in every 59 children to one in every 54, (one in every 32 from up one in 34 in New Jersey) which was, as expected, attributed to spot-on recognition and maybe, possibly to an as yet unknown environmental factor, most likely older parents.

There were several disturbing reports that should have warranted at least a fraction of the coverage that the current virus does because the long term effect of what’s happening to children will have an immense economic impact as well.

Instead, when it comes to autism, we continue to be lulled into believing that autism is something that only requires awareness and acceptance.

Leading autism researcher Dr. Walter Zahorodny received the most minimal coverage (only the Rutgers University student newspaper) warning everyone that autism is indeed a crisis with looming consequences.

Rutgers Daily Targum: Rutgers expert discusses prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in NJ

Rutgers researchers said in a federal report on March 26 that autism spectrum disorder (ASD) continues to be more prevalent in New Jersey among 8-year-old children than in other states, according to a Rutgers Today article.

Researchers monitored ASD prevalence of 11 states participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Autism and Developmental Monitoring (ADDM) Network in 2016, the report said. The autism prevalence rate for New Jersey was approximately 1 in 32, or 3.1 percent, compared to the ADDM average, approximately 1 in 54, or 1.85 percent. ASD prevalence across states increased 10 percent since 2014, the report said.

“Since 2000, when the ADDM Network was started, overall autism estimates increased 175 percent,” said Walter Zahorodny, an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School who directed the New Jersey autism-monitoring site. “Since 2000, New Jersey ASD estimates have been consistently higher than in all other participating states. From 2000 to 2016, autism prevalence in New Jersey increased from 1 percent to 3 percent, a 200 percent increase.” …

He said it is ultimately not known why autism prevalence has increased, but better awareness and an increase in underlying environmental risk factors are likely at play.

“Autism is a significant lifelong developmental disability, and so a large and broad increase that is not understood represents an urgent public health phenomenon,” Zahorodny said.

Meanwhile the mainstream press called for celebration, awareness and services when it comes to what to do about autism.

Lewes, DE, Cape Gazette: Continued services needed for families affected by autism

By Anne Dachel

I recently talked with Brett Wilcox, a long time advocate for personal choice when it comes to mandatory vaccination. He has written and spoken extensively on the subject. For taking the position he has, he has paid a personal price, the loss of his job.

Brett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMvCZgmg8Pc

A couple of weeks ago I put out a blog about COVID19 and the COVID19 PSYOPS, and I made it very clear that I don’t even anything about COVID19. I’m not a medical professional, I’m not a scientist.

I have no idea where this was caused, who brought it out, whether it was natural or whether it was manmade, or what country it started from, or how dangerous it was or anything like that. I don’t anything about that, but I do that there’s a history of bad people, criminal people, that take these things, these events and they turn them into something else. There’s an agenda involved,

And so the purpose of the blog was to talk about what looked like an unfolding agenda and how this thing was being blown way out of proportion.

I quoted Paul Offit, who is not necessarily our friend in the vaccine informed community, but he had come out and said we’re really not very good at evaluating risk. We’re blowing this way out of proportion.

I looked at the numbers—I can use a calculator. I looked at the numbers and I thought, yeah we’re blowing this way out of proportion. Paul and others have said it too. I put that out there as a blog, and I said this looks like something else is going on. I shared that on a local Sitka, Alaska, Facebook forum, and I received a whole lot of negative comments about it.

I got a feeling for how people were being affected by the news. People were very much taken in by the fear, by the hysteria, and by that date Sitka had zero confirmed cases, and now, even as of this date [April 4^th], it’s still zero confirmed cases. But people were terrified and are terrified.

Some people read my blog and my comments and made a report to the hospital where I work and said I was sharing these things. Some even said they were afraid of me. Maybe I wasn’t taking this seriously, therefore I would infect other people and make them sick with my presence.

I learned about these things on Thursday [April 2^nd] when I was called down to the basement and I stepped into the room and I saw who was there. I knew immediately that I was there to be fired, and I was. It took about fifteen minutes, and they explained that these things had gone on, and that I was expressing personal opinions that went against the policy of the organization. Therefore I was being let go.

By Anne Dachel

April 9, 2020, New Brunswick, NJ, The Daily Targum: By Joanne Chung  Rutgers expert discusses prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in NJ

I found this stunning piece from a New Jersey paper on the recent expansion of the autism rate in America.

Despite the latest findings, especially for New Jersey, the reporter was indifferent to what was being discussed: the ever-increasing numbers.  

“Researchers monitored ASD prevalence of 11 states participating in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Autism and Developmental Monitoring (ADDM) Network in 2016, the report said. The autism prevalence rate for New Jersey was approximately 1 in 32, or 3.1 percent, compared to the ADDM average, approximately 1 in 54, or 1.85 percent.”

Top Rutgers autism researcher Walter Zahorodny gave us the overall explosion in the disorder in New Jersey.

‘From 2000 to 2016, autism prevalence in New Jersey increased from 1 percent to 3 percent, a 200 percent increase.’

No need to worry New Jerseyans. Your state is on top in the autism numbers for a good reason.

Reporter Joanne Chung wrote, “New Jersey’s higher autism prevalence estimates are related to more complete case-finding in New Jersey and availability of high-quality educational and developmental health services in the region.”

In a piece that should have been had the headline, Rutgers expert raises alarm over stunning new autism numbers, Chung quoted Zahorodny saying that there’s “greater awareness” behind the increase but also some “underlying environmental risk factors are likely at play.”

That comment was at the end of the story with no follow-up. Reporter Chung had no interest in what those “environmental risk factors” might be, so the subject was dropped.

In the final sentence Zahorodny described autism as ‘an urgent public health phenomenon’

Seriously?  A ‘phenomenon’? 

Check out the definition for phenomenon.

A fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.

A remarkable person, thing, or event.

Synonyms include: occurrence, event, happening, marvel, sensation, wonder.

Tell that to the parents changing the diapers on their twenty year old nonverbal son or the parents of the growing number of autistic children who wander away and drown or the thousands of parents with autistic children in Britain on waiting lists just for a place in school there because they can’t keep up with rising demand.

Note: Anne has been compiling thousands upon thousands of stories about the catastrophic rise in pediatric illnesses that have both hobbled and stymied schools around the world. It's clear that we CAN respond to emergencies on a dime. The world has come to a crashing halt because of COVID. Not so for autism. The rates have increased like the red line on a thermometer, up, up, up and then what?

Distance learning for students with special needs is a huge challenge. My daughter's team is doing a great job of Zoom calls and work to complete here at home.  I really appreciate their efforts. Still, it doesn't come to close to what she needs. I've wondered if the shut downs will be beneficial for budgets? Surely there are savings for districts if only in building operating costs.

By Anne Dachel

Loss of Brain Trust: March stories https://www.lossofbraintrust.com/

The COVID19 pandemic has been the sole focus of news outlets over the past couple weeks, yet previous to this happening media coverage of the dire situation in our schools was nonstop throughout March both here in the U.S. and in other places.

A pandemic of sick and disabled children continues with no significant interest on the part of national leaders or public health officials. “Increasing demand” is something repeated over and over in so many of these stories.

More and more children who cannot learn or behave without massive and costly accommodations are the subject of endless news reports. Sadly, the public is being schooled to accept the decline of education and children’s health, no questions asked.

CHRONIC HEALTH PROBLEMS

Palmdale, CA, AVPress.com: Breathmobile can rescue students “Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger unveiled the Breathmobile — a new mobile clinic that will visit Antelope Valley schools to treat youngsters with asthma and allergies — at a Friday afternoon ceremony at Dos Caminos Dual Immersion School. …

“‘This truly is a very exciting day for this community. This is something that we have been working on for quite a while,’ Barger said at the ceremony, attended by children, parents, Palmdale School District trustees, administrators, county officials and other community leaders.

“There is a huge need in the Antelope Valley for the Breathmobile, the supervisor said.

“‘The statistics prove it,’ Barger said. ‘Our Los Angeles County Department of Health Services confirmed that 14.2% of children have asthma in the Antelope Valley and don’t have access to services. That is far too many of our youth — from infants to teenagers — who are suffering.’ …

Palmdale School District trustee Nancy Smith toured the Breathmobile prior to the ceremony.

“‘I think it’s wonderful that we’re going to have access for this for our kids,’ Smith said.”

WLKY-TV, Louisville, KY: JCPS opening health clinics in 2 of its high schools “Two Jefferson County Public Schools schools are getting their very own health clinics.

“They're still under construction, but in just a few weeks, students at Central High and Pleasure Ridge Park will be able to see a doctor while they're at school.

"‘We're wanting to make sure that these students are ready to learn, that they're in the classrooms, they're here, they're healthy. So, this is a great resource for us to have,’ said Blaire Adams, JCPS nurse practitioner….

"‘We have nurse practitioners and nurses in the school building to treat those and be able to do the school physicals, immunizations, sports physicals to make sure that they can have access to all that health care,’ said Adams….

"‘Our partnerships with Shawnee Christian Care with Park Duvalle and with Norton, it's really to expand and access the services that the students have. So if their asthma is poorly controlled or diabetes is not well managed, those all impact their ability to attend school and learn well,’ said Eva Stone, manager of district health services.

“According to Stone, about 10% of students at Central suffer from a chronic illness such as diabetes or asthma. School leaders say they are excited about the addition, describing it as critical.”

RESTRAINT AND SECLUSION

Chicago Daily Herald: Constable: Teachers say ban on 'timeout rooms' one reason injuries increased

“A special-education teacher for 24 years, Kerry Doctor knows there can be dangerous moments working in a classroom with adult-size people who have behavioral issues.

But Doctor says a change in the school's enrollment and the state's recent crackdown on use of locked timeout rooms designed to alleviate tense situations have increased the risk for injury this year.

"‘I'm not so naive to believe that I won't get some bumps and bruises working with my kids," Doctor says. "I've gotten bit. I've gotten kicked. I've gotten scratched.’

 By Anne Dachel

I recently got to know a tremendous activist in the autism community, Marcia Hinds. She’s the author of the book, I Know You're in There: Winning Our War Against Autism,  published in January, 2020.

Ryan’s mom just wants all kids to have what her son now that’s why all profits from the book go to autism treatments/research and Marcia never charges for helping families. Once it becomes common knowledge that autism is the result of a dysfunctional immune system and is TREATABLE more answers and research will come.

Preview Ryan’s recovery story on Amazon or Marcia’s website.  Check out this 90 sec clip from the documentary Restoring Balance: Autism Recovery that shows Marcia’s son before and after interventions. (watch here)

I talked to Marcia on Skype so everyone can hear her story and know we should never give up on our kids. This is her account of successfully recovering her son Ryan from autism.

I asked Marcia about her son Ryan and how she became involved in autism advocacy 

Marcia: “Hearing that your child has autism is kind of terrifying. I don’t want any other parent to feel as terrified as I did. Ryan, he was very serious. In the beginning all he wanted to do—he had this little portable radio, and he would take it to every outlet and plug it in and out, over and over and over again.

“And when he wasn’t doing that, he was turning off and on all the faucets.

By Anne Dachel

What’s happening with autism?

We are about to enter April, Autism Awareness Month. Although significantly overshadowed by the coronavirus crisis, I’m already seeing the standard coverage about “celebrating” autism awareness. 

What’s there to celebrate?

Officially one in every 59 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum. That statistic has been out for two years and any new numbers will probably be worse as the stories below seem to indicate. Still, as in the past, more kids with autism is never a crisis.

Back in April 2018 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its biennial update of autism’s estimated prevalence among the nation’s children. It was based on an analysis of 2014 medical records and, where available, educational records of 8-year-old children from 11 monitoring sites across the United States.

The new estimate represents a 15 percent increase in prevalence nationally: to 1 in 59 children, from 1 in 68 two years previous.

This also meant that among boys, the new rate was one in 38.

The national advocacy organization Autism Speaks said that the disparity among the 11 states that were averaged “suggests that the new national numbers reflect a persistent undercount of autism’s true prevalence among the nation’s children.”

UNDERCOUNT?  So can we expect things to get worse?  Will anyone care?

Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers contributed to the one in 59 rate study and in 2018 they were quick to announce that the increase was nothing to lose sleep over.

Rates have been rising since the 1960s, but researchers do not know how much of this rise is due to an increase in actual cases. There are other factors that may be contributing, such as: increased awareness, screening, diagnostic services, treatment and intervention services, better documentation of ASD behaviors and changes in diagnostic criteria.

Regardless of a new increase in autism, it’s never a REAL increase. 2004: one in 166, 2007: one in 150, 2009: one in 110, 2012: one in 88, 2014: one in 68, 2018: one in 59, (also in 2018: one in 40 according to a separate study published in JAMA). Every single time the numbers came out, there was always an official cautioning us against thinking that more kids actually had autism. None of them has ever been sure if THIS INCREASE is a true increase. It seems they’re good at counting but not much else.

Anne Dachel continues her interview with Toby Rogers, PhD. Read Part 1 here.

#2 More questions for Dr. Toby Rogers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpqbGKcg_dU

Here Dr. Rogers comments on “the strange moment that we’re in.”

“In 2012 I was teaching in Cambodia. I had just graduated with a master’s degree from UC Berkley, and I’d gone off to teach gender studies in Cambodia.

“During the time that I was there, the King [Norodom Sihanouk] died. This was a big deal, and the night the King died people poured out into the streets of Phnom Penh and throughout Cambodia.

“It was strange because they were all looking up at the moon. It was a beautiful night, there was a full moon. Everybody was all in the streets. They were all looking up at the moon.

“I wanted to understand what was happening so I went down to the street. I asked a young lady, ‘What’s happening? What’s going on here?’

“The young woman said that the King had died. I said, ‘Yes, I know the King has died. I’m sorry for that.’

“And she said, ‘The King’s face is there in the moon. Can’t you see it?’

“And I looked up at the moon, and it was a full moon. It was a nice moon, but I didn’t see the King’s face. ‘What are you talking about?’

“And she said, ‘Well the King’s face is in the moon right now. That’s what we’re all looking at. We can all see the King’s face in the moon.’

“At the time this was a very strange social phenomenon that several hundred thousand, actually it was probably more than a million people, in the space of a day could physically see something in the moon that I couldn’t see.

“It was a social phenomenon that I’d never seen before, and it was an example of a collective delusion on a scale that I had never even thought was possible.

Note: I don't mean to be snippy, but WE had an epidemic long before C19 came around.  And all the troubles facing families in Europe, the USA and elsewhere, have been SOP when you have one (or more) children of any age with autism. We also have no treatment. No cure. And.... no prevention. Our children die too young. We're alone a LOT.  We stay inside and avoid public places. Careers have been sidetracked, income decimated, savings devoured, healthcare lacking, schools unable to educate and????  We're mocked left and right. Onward, friends. Thanks to Anne for this terrific interview.



By Anne Dachel

Thanks to the incredible work of political economist, Dr. Toby Rogers, we’ve gotten a preview of what the nightmare epidemic is going cost us in the very near future, as I reported in my Mar 11th coverage of Dr. Rogers on Del Bigtree’s Highwire interview.

Here is a follow-up Skype talk I recently had with Dr. Rogers:

#1 Dr. Toby Rogers explains his work

“My doctoral research is relatively straightforward. Anybody can read these studies. I gathered the best cost estimates from economists from around the world about the costs of autism.

“We know that autism is devastating financially to families, particularly to mothers who often become caregivers.

“We know that autism is the most costly medical condition in the United Kingdom. A study from the London School of Economics shows that autism costs the United Kingdom more than heart disease, stroke and cancer combined. And we know that  five years ago [2015] …autism cost the United States $268 billion a year.

“We’re looking at a trillion dollars a year in costs for autism in the United States within five years.

“There’s no plan for how to respond to this. The federal government isn’t ready for this. The state government isn’t ready for this. This is strange, and the question becomes WHY. Why is it that government officials are so slow to respond to an epidemic that is all around us?

“I think there are multiple answers for that and none of them are good. We’re trying to understand a very strange social phenomenon.

“I think elected officials tend to live in information bubbles. They tend to be surrounded by other people who look and think like them. They tend to only talk to people who look and think like them. They tend to listen to lobbyists who are in their ear and writing them checks. So then a parent comes to testify or to meet with them to explain the vaccine injury that happened to their child, they don’t know what to do with this information. So they dismiss it or they don’t want to think about it, or they find ways to distract themselves.

“I don’t quite know how things go astray with elected officials, but in the social science literature they say that knowledge is socially constructed. We would like to think that we all just are governed by the facts, and that we all follow logic and reason.

Our Anne Dachel has transcribed the January 21st, 2020 interview between Del Bigtree and Dr. Toby Rogers.  She is a gem, more precious than a 12 pack of mega-roll of Charmin....

Rogers' thesis  at The University of Sydney (Australia) was titled, The Political Economy of Autism.

DEL BIGTREE: THE HIGHWIRE : The True Cost of Autism

Del’s Jan 21, 2020 interview with political economist, Dr. Toby Rogers, should have everyone’s attention. Toby is a researcher who has looked at the science and added up the cost of what autism will do us. There is nothing to celebrate during April, Autism Awareness Month. The economics of autism will bury us.

Starts at 45:50

 “We watched the [Who Health Organization] scratching their heads on vaccine safety science; now a new study is even more terrifying. We keep hearing that autism was always here, it’s just being diagnosed better.

“Well this study just came out, remember we’re at one in 36 with autism in New Jersey which I would assume would be the case for just about the entire county.…

‘Now take a look at this study. … ‘A quarter of kids with autism go undiagnosed, study suggests.’…

‘This is terrifying! …They’re now preparing for the new numbers. They’re preparing us. They’re saying, well we better let them know that we’ve been missing by 25 percent so when we ramp it up, we need an excuse for why we just went from one in 36 to, what’s it going to be, 25 percent? Are we going to one in 29?

‘Are we going to one in 29 with autism and nobody’s talking about it? Just looking the other way?...”

Del showed a clip of a congressional hearing run by U.S. Representative Dan Burton from 2002 where he grilled officials on the use of mercury in vaccines.

Back in 2002 the autism rate was, according to Burton, one in 250 children.

Del continued:

“What really hit me when I was watching it the other day, [Burton] was irate. We are at one in 250 children, this is the fastest growing epidemic of our lifetime. No money is going into it. …

“And I just thought, ONE IN 250, if only, if only that was the issue.

“We’re talking about one in 36, and now we know that’s probably 25 percent short of where we’re at!

“WHAT IS HAPPENING?

“And for people out there that will say, ‘Del, drop the autism. You can win this argument on all the other autoimmune diseases.’ NO!

“I will not drop autism because autism is going to destroy this country and the world, and these morons that are running our country right now looking the other way. …

“WHAT IF IT’S ALL OF OUR PROBLEM? WHAT IS THIS GOING TO COST US?

“I want you to listen and meet one of the most incredible people, an economist that is going to look at this in a way that no one else ever has.

“SHOCKINGLY!

“When everyone else should have, one man once again is pioneering the economics of autism.

“This is Toby Rogers.”

VIDEO:

“I’m Toby Rogers. I’m a political economist. …

By Anne Dachel

Fourteen years ago, when I was in the early stages of my coverage of autism in the news, I wrote a piece that was published on Scoop.co.nz entitled, The Really Big Lie About Autism.

This article referred to the universally promoted idea that all the kids with autism everywhere were really nothing new. They’ve always been here; they were called something else or their condition went unrecognized by doctors and teachers.

Reporters routinely assured the public that while the rate of autism may seem to be on a nonstop upward path, it was merely the result of “better diagnosing,” “greater awareness,” and “ an expanded definition” of the disorder.

For years these excuses have been enough to dispel any real concern. I’ve seen them thousands of times in news reports over the past two decades, and I’ve always wondered why no one asks the obvious: WHERE ARE THE ADULTS WITH AUTISM at rates even remotely close to what we’re seeing in children? Most importantly, why do the numbers never level out? Why do they only trend upward?

Back in 2006 when I first wrote about The Really Big Lie the official autism rate was one in every 166 children in the U.S. Things continued to get worse as the years went on as shown by statistics from the Centers for Disease Control: 2007: one in 150, 2009: one in 110, 2012: one in 88, 2014: one in 68, 2018: one in 59, (also in 2018: one in 40 according to a separate study published in JAMA).

Really alarming was the rate from New Jersey in the 2018 CDC announcement: in that state one in every 34 children has autism. New Jersey is credited with having a statewide registry of children with autism so their identification of the disorder is considered very accurate.

What if New Jersey’s autism rate is happening everywhere? What if the national rate is really one in 34 children? No one even considered that possibility anywhere in the news reports when the numbers were announced in 2018.

The end of the Really Big Lie About Autism

Seriously it has to stop. How much better diagnosing can we afford? When will we openly admit that something of recent origin has dramatically impacted nearly two generations of U.S. children?

I’m seeing the end, kind of. Here are three reports from the past couple of days. Two are from California, one is from Minnesota.

We can’t keep closing our eyes to these numbers

By Anne Dachel

Looking back over January it’s clear that the stories I’ve been collecting over the past three full years are unstoppable. There is no plateau to be reached where cost and demand level out.  

Everywhere in the English-speaking world, as far as I can see, special education is taking center stage in school budgets talks. Reports on special ed enrollment are invariably about growth and the need for more teachers to accommodate more special ed students. And we’re constantly told that kids with needs go way beyond just cognitive delays. Today special education involves students with behavioral issues/emotional problems. Stories often mention that the disorders these kids have are more complex. And at the same time all this is going on, our children are increasingly plagued with chronic health problems never before seen at today’s rates.

So how will we pay for all of this? Will we have to take from the general ed money to pay for special ed?

Actually I am seeing this being talked about in news reports. There’s no way they can avoid the issue. The money has to come for somewhere since it’s a federal law that special needs kids have a right to a free and appropriate education, and the feds haven’t increased funding. This means state and local governments have to come up with the cash.

So how much longer will this go on? Are we approaching a point where someone will sound an alarm and demand we look into the state of children’s physical, mental, emotional health?

I’d like to think so, but I have watched autism grow from a novel, unheard of condition over the past twenty years to a normal and acceptable part of childhood. The same thing seems to be happening with all kids with special ed needs.

Let me start with a really strange story from the Pocohantas (WV) Times entitled, School system increasing medical staff for student safety.   Staff reporter Suzanne Stewart made it clear that students are coming to school with really serious health issues/learning problems all the while she’s completely disinterested in why it’s happening.

Stewart reported, “… the medical issues of students today have grown to the point that a medical professional is needed full-time.”

To meet the needs of the students, superintendent of schools Terrence Beam said the Pocahontas County Board of Education is seeking two LPNs to assist school nurse Jenny Friel.

Schools become clinics

Superintendent Beam:

‘Our kids are coming to us with all kinds of emotional and physical issues that – up to this point – we have been unable to provide the assistance that was necessary….

 ‘The actual physical condition of the kids is different than it was twenty years ago. We have more diabetic students. We have more kids with major allergies. We have kids with seizure disorders.’…

Schools now are in charge providing medical care as well as classroom learning, and while we’re told there are school-based clinics in every school, this is not enough.

“In addition to physical medical concerns, there is also an increase in social and emotional issues, which Beam hopes to also address soon.”

Beam: ‘The next step we’re going to take is to employ a social worker for our schools. …We’re going to expand our counseling services.’

At the end, the superintendent conceded that he has no choice. We have to adjust to the students of the 21^st century.

‘Sometimes we focus a lot on the academics and the athletics in our school systems, but we really need to look at the physical and the mental condition of our kids, because it is difficult.’

So if the superintendent isn’t looking for answers and yet another reporter has no interest in asking for an explanation for what’s happening, nothing will improve. Expect the downward spiral to continue. All the things happening in Pocahontas County schools should be seen as an unprecedented crisis.  More kids with diabetes, seizures, and ‘major allergies’ should be scaring everyone.  

Pocahontas County is not alone in this nightmare. Here are a few examples to show just how widespread this is.

Jan 25, Charlotte (NC) Observer:

$5.6M in county funding will be used to hire 25 new social workers for the district. In addition,

“The district is looking to hire 30 additional mental-health professionals, including counselors and psychologists….

“Staffing deficits at CMS call for recruiting 500 more social workers, as well as 150 counselors and 115 psychologists, according to an analysis provided to the Mecklenburg County commissioners ahead of their annual board retreat next week. …

“In recent years, the number of students screened for suicide risk at CMS has soared.”

Jan 24, WAAY-TV Huntsville, AL:

Alabama Department of Education is asking for $7.7M in additional funding to address student mental health. 

‘I think across our state and certainly across our district, we're seeing an increase of mental health issues at an earlier age for students.’

“The money would also provide more full-time therapists to schools. …”

Jan 24, NorthCentralPA,com:

Danville, Pennsylvania school district is shortening the school day and reducing class requirements to help improve students mental health.

Jan 24, Charlottesville (VA) Daily Progress:

A bill in the state legislature to authorize all school nurses to stock Albuterol inhalers for students with asthma.

Jan 23, (Canada) Leghbridge News:

The government of Alberta, as of Jan 1^st, “has required all K-12 schools in the province to have at least one epinephrine auto-injector (EpiPen) on-site at all times” in case of a severe allergic reaction.

Jan 22, (UK) Barking and Dagenham Post:

“Barking and Dagenham has experienced rapidly increasing numbers of youngsters needing support for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), councillors heard.

“A forecast total of 113 primary and 353 secondary SEND pupils is anticipated over the next four years, the majority with autism….”

Jan 22, Trumbull (CT) Times:

“[Superintendent] Iassogna had told the board the schools were running a deficit projected at up to $2 million and that he had implemented a spending freeze and a hold on overtime and substitute teacher costs….

“The biggest factor, though, is special education and transportation for students in special education programs, he said.

“‘In October 2019, we identified $1.4 million in special education and transportation costs,’ O’Keefe said. ‘That number has only grown.’”

Jan 21, AZFamily.com:

“With more students having more severe disabilities, there is a growing strain on general classroom spending in Arizona's public schools.

“Now, Arizona lawmakers are considering a bill that would help public schools manage the rising cost of special education services….

“Dr. Kym Marshall, Director of Student Services for Chandler Unified School District says the special education population has exploded and so have the needs.

“‘It’s not just about reading writing and math, it’s more about mental health, social emotional,’ said Marshall….

“‘What we do know is that the population keeps growing without any additional funding.’

“Between the 2007 to 20017 school years, the number of Arizona students diagnosed with autism more than doubled…

“‘There are just too many children who fall into these classifications that haven’t been true in the past,’ said Sen. Allen. ‘I don’t know all the reasons and I guess it doesn’t matter for this argument. We have the issue now let’s try to help these kids.’” …

Jan 19, Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette:

“Cedar Rapids elementary school students were held in seclusion rooms or physically restrained 237 times in the first month of this school year — more than 10 times a day and more than four times as much as in the first month of the 2015-2016 school year….

“School seclusion has been a lightning rod in recent years as more parents learn about 6-by-6 foot rooms with padded walls used to contain overwrought students in schools across Iowa….

“…most elementary students were put into seclusion for violent behavior that included kicking, biting, hitting and throwing items that could harm others….

“Teacher and staff injuries that involved students rose 88 percent, from 226 to 425, in the past five years in the Des Moines Public Schools,…”

Jan 18, (UK) Sunderland Echo:

“With concern growing that an increasing use of the booths for disruptive students could have serious effects on young people's mental health, we asked if their use should be stopped.”

Jan 17, South Portland (ME) Press Herald:

“As schools deal with an increasing number of children with disabilities like autism, demand for disabilities awareness and sensitivity programs has increased, meaning Portland-based organization The Cromwell Center currently has a waiting list of 25 schools….

“She estimates that between 10 and 12 percent of the school’s students have some type of disability and said that while she has not noticed more autism diagnoses in recent years, she said the number of students who are in special education or require an individualized education plan has increased over the last few years.”

Jan 16, Wilmington (NC) Daily News:

“Collected data also showed students with disabilities were secluded more frequently than those without disabilities. During the 2013-2014 school year, students with disabilities were subjected to seclusion rates ‘that far exceeded those of other students,’ according to an OCR report published in 2016….”

Jan 15, (UK) North Somerset Times:

“A special school has received overwhelming support for its expansion ambitions, during a five-week consultation.

“Baytree School, in Weston, is desperately in need of more space to cope with the growing demand for children with  special educational needs.”

Jan 14, (UK) Independent:

“Families of autistic children are facing waits of up to three years for a formal diagnosis, a charity has warned. 

“Around half (46 per cent) of families waited 18 months or longer for a formal diagnosis for their autistic child, according to a survey of nearly 4,000 parents by Ambitious about Autism. 

“Once a diagnosis is made, nearly three in four (70 per cent) parents said they were still not offered adequate support for their child – such as therapies that help with speech and language.”

Jan 11, Texarkana (AR) Gazette:

“Over the past decade, greater numbers of Arkansas children have been diagnosed with disabilities that require them to receive education.

“Consequently, Arkansas public schools are spending greater amounts of money on special education.

“Last year, there were almost 64,000 students with a diagnosed disability in Arkansas public schools. That is 13.4% of the state's total student enrollment….

“The number of students diagnosed with autism has gone up 55% since 2013. The increase is attributable to an increased awareness among educators and others of the characteristics of autism.

“The growth in children diagnosed with dyslexia has followed a similar trend. In 2014, for example, 957 students received therapy for dyslexia. In 2014, only 89 school districts and one charter school reported results from screening for dyslexia.”

Jan 9, (UK) Guardian:

“A special needs school has welcomed plans to increase its capacity in the face of growing demand.

“New Rush Hall school, in Fencepiece Road, Fairlop, will be expanded from 64 places to 80 after Redbridge Council gave plans the green light on Tuesday, January 7.

“The school – rated outstanding by Ofsted in 2016 – is a specialist school for children and young people experiencing significant social, emotional, behavioural and/or mental health difficulties.

“Executive headteacher, Sam Walters, welcomed the news, saying the demand for places had greatly risen in recent years.

“He said: ‘There has been a huge increase in the number of young people needing EHC plans, particularly for social and mental health needs, has naturally meant that there are not enough appropriate school place to meet the populaces needs.’ …

“Since 2014, the number of Redbridge resident pupils with an EHC plan has risen approximately 35 per cent.

“Council officials estimate the borough’s special educational needs and disability (SEND) pupil population will grow by 16.5 per cent (153 school places) for primary education and 33.7 per cent (248 places) for secondary by 2025.”

Jan 8, 2020, NJ Spotlight:

“Tuition for out-of-district placement of some students often runs well into six figures

“The high cost of special education in New Jersey is getting renewed attention, as Senate President Steve Sweeney presses the state to do more to help districts pay for students with severe disabilities….

“Long an advocate for special education as a parent of a child with special needs, Sweeney said he wants to ease the tension that arises with the high costs of serving these students, and said the state can and should do more….

“But the rising costs of special education — and specifically those of specialized outside schools where tuition costs can reach six figures — has been a contentious issue for years, if not decades….”

Jan 8, Butte Montana Standard:

“‘So this whole thing here is the sensory hallway, and we added it as a way for kids to calm down themselves,’ said Norah Barney, Lincoln Primary School principal. She said the school’s occupational therapist, Addie Hall, created the pathway just in time for the 2019-2020 school year….

“While it helps students with motor skills and provides sensory input, the sensory hallway is part of a larger movement to get Lincoln students to learn how to ‘self-regulate.’

“‘What’s self-regulate? So think of it like: When you get upset, are you able to calm yourself without assistance?’ explained Barney.”

Jan 7, (UK) KLFM, Norfolk:

“The plan is part of Norfolk County Council’s £120 million [$160M US] transformation of special educational needs.

“The programme seeks to create 500 extra school places by building up to four new specialist schools and expanding existing SRBs or building new ones.”

Jan 5, 2020, (UK) Exeter Fe News:

“With one in eight children suffering from some form of mental health issue during their childhood years, it is important that we as parents and teachers are able to understand what this means for our children and how we can support them….”

By Kim Rossi

Ususally our Anne Dachel writes about the weight of special education on school districts.  Earlier this month, in my Fairfield County Connecticut town, our Superintendent announced his retirement and then took an immediate leave. We've heard that our Special Education Director is also leaving. Then we found out we have a huge budget deficit. Take a look at this sentence pulled from the article below:

The biggest factor, though, is special education and transportation for students in special education programs, he said.

I believe that "special education” means mostly autism. My own daughter attends a private autism school for her 19 - 21 post graduate years, and is transported some 13 miles away.  How long before special education take so high a toll on districts that there is a real backlash? And think of the bedlam post age 21, if schools can not handle the numbers of students, how will the meager offerings of the adult disability world ever provide services? This is the looming pandemic that should be mobilizing the great and mighty global minds. Entire families will be affected by adult children, siblings, aunts, uncles, with autism. Generations.  Kim

From CTInsider.com

TRUMBULL — School officials are breathing easier after a week of crunching budget numbers and meeting with numerous town and state officials, according to Interim Superintendent Ralph Iassogna.

“We’re seeing a light at the end of the tunnel,” Iassogna said Wednesday.

At the Jan. 14 Board of Education meeting, Iassogna detailed a series of belt-tightening measures he had implemented in his first five days since replacing retiring Supt. Gary Cialfi. Iassogna had told the board the schools were running a deficit projected at up to $2 million and that he had implemented a spending freeze and a hold on overtime and substitute teacher costs.

“That’s how dire the situation is,” Iassogna told the board. He said he had not been able to pin down exactly how large the deficit is, but it likely would be at least $1.2 million.

“I will candidly tell you that, after five days in the position, we are in a serious situation and have several challenges ahead. There’s no question about that,” he said.  Read more at Trumbull schools face ‘dire’ budget situation.

By Anne Dachel

Investigative reporter Ben Swann makes the case for questioning the mandated, one-size fits all vaccine program.  

Jan 21, 2020, New study warns about potential harm of present vaccination guide

A new study says that the CDC's vaccine schedule, a guide for doctors and parents detailing which vaccines to get and when to get them, may have harmful effects. Plus, I explain the systemic bias against those who question the effectiveness and possible health impact of some vaccines.

I covered Mr. Swann in 2015 and in 2017.

He is truly one of a dying bred: a real journalist.

By Anne Dachel

Disabled children are changing the face of education in the 21^st century, and the evidence is overwhelming. And yes, the impact of the ever-increasing autism rate is a big part of the story, but it’s not just about autism. Intellectually, behaviorally and emotionally students today are noticeably different from past generations.

Below is just a fraction of recent coverage in the mainstream press that clearly documents the decline of children everywhere. Incredibly these are increases without explanation. Exploding numbers and soaring costs are accepted without question by today’s reporters and educators. The only solutions talked about involve more money for more programs, schools and therapists as if these things can continue indefinitely.

What is never discussed is the future when this disabled, costly population does to adult social services what they’re doing to schools worldwide.

 These stunning reports should have everyone’s attention.

RESTRAINT/SECLUSION

Rockford (IL) Register Star: Schools aren’t supposed to forcibly restrain children as punishment. In Illinois, it happened repeatedly  

An analysis of more than 15,000 physical restraints in 100 Illinois school districts from August 2017 to early December 2018 found that about a quarter of the interventions began without any documented safety reason. …

Records show that most of the children restrained had behavioral or intellectual disabilities….

…Together, districts used these restraints nearly 1,800 times in the 15-month period examined.

Thirteen-hundred of those floor restraints were in the prone position, and three districts accounted for the majority of those incidents.

 (UK) Motherwell Times: Inspectorate’s concerns over special schools in Motherwell, Uddingston and Coatbridge  

Three North Lanarkshire special schools have received harsh assessments from inspectors….

Clydeview School, hit the headlines last March as North Lanarkshire Council called in police to investigate allegations of use of improper restraint involving an autistic child. This resulted in four members of staff being suspended….

In the report from this further inspection they wrote: “A number of children display challenging behaviour as a result of their social and emotional needs. This leads to a significant number of incidents of conflict and disruption to learning on a regular basis. Staff’s approaches to promoting positive behaviour are not having an impact on improving relationships and behaviour across the school.”

SCHOOL VIOLENCE

Lakeland (FL) Ledger: Student assaults on Polk County school officials skyrocket

Between mid-August and early December this school year, there have been 26 incidents….

The numbers also show a trend: more than 60 percent of those assaults each year are routinely committed by special education students — those students who have learning disabilities or behavioral issues and are receiving special accommodations to help them….

Judd said there has been a breakdown in society and some parents are not holding their children accountable for their bad behavior.

Deputy Superintendent John Hill, who has worked in education for 25 years, said a number of factors have developed over the last few decades that has adversely impacted children.

“I often tell people that children have not changed; what has changed is our society, environment and popular culture,”…

SPECIAL EDUCATION INCREASES

(UK) Newcastle upon Tyne Chronicle: New £6.3m [$8M US] Sunderland specialist autism school vows to provide 'the very best education'

A new multi-million pound school is set to provide specialist education and support for children with autism in Sunderland.

Note: Anne Dachel has been cataloging thousands of stories from around the globe that discuss the decline of pediatric health and the impact on education systems. Schools are staggered by the percentages of students with serious mental health, special needs and health issues. Budgets are being stretched thin in an attempt to educate a population never before seen - chronically ill and unwell children from preschool forward. You can find her catalog at LossOfBrainTrust.com.

By Anne Dachel

Connecticut: “The growing needs of students”

Sheridan Roy, staff reporter at the Southington Observer clearly has a limited view of the coming collapse of education in her state.

Here was the title of her Dec 27^th piece: While school populations decline, special needs are on the rise.

(The story covered a recent presentation at a school board meeting by two special education coordinators.)

Reporter Roy told readers that the increase in special education numbers is part of  “the national trend of growing needs that the school system must meet for its students….”

The fact that the PRESCHOOL SPECIAL EDUCATION PROGRAM IS INCREASING should be worth exploring, but nothing more was said about it. In fact, not once did she venture to say anything about why MORE KIDS ARE IN SPECIAL EDUCATION, while the overall student population is declining. “

Here’s what the special ed coordinator told the board: ‘Our data has indicated that preschool [sped] enrollment is increasing. It has also indicated that our programs are nearing or are at capacity.’

Roy continued,

 “…that prevalence rate is increasing, too. Essentially, the number of students needing to be placed in special education programs is on the rise—especially students with autism spectrum disorder.”

Here’s the jaw-dropping fact revealed by the sped head:

‘Since 2013, the number of students with autism spectrum disorder has increased by 36.6%.’

THERE WAS NOT ONE WORD TO EXPLAIN THIS NIGHTMARE INCREASE or why they expect it to keep growing.

NOT ONE.

An official even admitted, ‘The issues that students have to come to us with have become more complex over the years.’

STILL there was no attempt to explain why it’s happening.

Note: Final part of our series. Vaxxed II debuts THIS Week! Join us in congratulating and thanking Polly and her team, and all of the professionals and parents who had the courage to participate.  XOX

Vaxxed From Cover up to Catastrophe launched a firestorm when, in 2016, it was abruptly removed from the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's event in New York.  As angry as so many of us were at the time, the cowardice and dismissal provided an efficient fuel that fired the campaign, and continues to do so.  From the Vaxxed II site: 

In 2016, a media firestorm erupted when Tribeca Film Festival abruptly censored its documentary selection, VAXXED: FROM COVER-UP TO CATASTROPHE, amid pressure from pro-pharmaceutical interests.

In response to media silence on CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, who admitted to fraud on a pivotal vaccine safety study, VAXXED catapulted to notoriety and became a worldwide trending topic, opening to sold out theater audiences nationwide.

Stunned by the immense volume of parents lining up outside the theaters with vaccine injury stories to share, VAXXED producer Polly Tommey began to livestream worldwide reaching millions, and a community that had once been silenced were empowered to rise up.

In VAXXED II: THE PEOPLE'S TRUTH, Polly and the team travel over 50,000 miles in the USA and around the world. Interviews of parents and doctors with nothing to gain and everything to lose exposed the vaccine injury epidemic and asked the question on every parent’s mind, “Are vaccines really as safe and effective as we’ve been told?”
 
Many Age of Autism readers have seen the bus, which is a rolling memorial to vaccine injured children.  Some are included in the interviews, including me, Kim Rossi.) Perhaps your child's name is on the bus. Vaxxed II the People's Truth continues the stories from families and includes many medical professionals, who risk everything when they talk about vaccination policy and injury.  Anne Dachel interviewed Executive Producer Polly Tommey. The series will run here on Age of Autism.  The transcript follows each video clip.

Q: Parents with thriving, healthy, high achieving UNVACCINATED children tell their stories on Vaxxed II. What do you see these stories doing to the vaccine debate?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtDoqYaZwCU

Polly: Make no mistake that the other side, without a doubt, do not want the public, the people, the parents to hear the stories of the unvaccinated. They want us to talk about the MMR, autism, Andrew Wakefield. They want that to go down the same path every single time because they can attack us. But you cannot attack the generations and generations of the health of the unvaccinated.

Vaxxed II doesn’t even begin to cover the health of the unvaccinated. We uncovered so much. We uncovered generations and generations standing there saying, “We’ve never had any cancer in our family.” “We’ve never had rheumatoid arthritis in our family.” “We’ve never had diabetes.” “We’ve never had any of these things that you see that are just common elderly conditions.”

They don’t have them in their families. And as we went deeper and deeper into the world of the unvaccinated, I could see, the team could see, this is why they don’t do the vaxxed/unvaxxed study. This is why they’re trying to censor us and stop us, and they’re petrified of these people speaking out. Because when the world knows about the health of the unvaccinated, game over. They’re done.

Note: Senator Schumer might as be Amy Schumer when it comes to vaccine safety. If the juxtaposition of allowable media and political outrage weren't so infuriating, it would be laughable.

By Anne Dachel

Forbes…listen to yourself!

On Oct 21^st Forbes Magazine published this piece about the news that toxic heavy metals were found in almost all commercial baby food.

Forbes: 95% Of Baby Food Had Toxic Heavy Metals, Senator Schumer Calls For Action, by health expert Bruce Y. Lee.

Bruce Y. Lee was more than a little critical of the oversight failure on the part of the FDA. He quoted U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer who was equally infuriated:

The FDA must investigate the new report detailing the presence of toxic metals in a wide variety of baby foods.

We need new regulations to force the industry to address exposures and alleviate concerns for the health of our youngest Americans.

(One has to wonder how the FDA can “investigate” this since they were the people that okayed all these products in the first place.)

Lee continued giving us the facts:

According to the report, 95% of baby food containers tested had “toxic heavy metals.” Oh, baby, baby, that does not sound good.

The testing involved checking 168 containers of 61 brands of 13 different types of baby food for four types of heavy metals. Arsenic was in 73% of the baby foods tested, cadmium in 75%, mercury in 32%, and lead in a whopping 94%. In fact, 26% of baby foods tested had all four of these metals, and 40% had three of them.  

“Something needs to be done…”

Lee expressed a certain amount of outrage about what we’re doing to children. 

These weren’t bullets and batteries that were being tested. Rather they were things that go into the mouths of little Johnny, …

Why are these heavy metals even in baby foods? …Some of the metals can be from the environment, which would be more evidence that something needs to be done about better controlling pollution.  … 

Lee was adamant that toxic metal exposure can harm children. He even suggested that exposure can be related to neurological conditions, including autism.

The bottom line is that heavy metal and babies should not mix. Musically, head banging is not good at that age. Chemically, exposure could lead to brain and body problems. It isn’t even clear what levels of such heavy metals in food may be safe, especially since exposure can accumulate over time from other sources such as the environment. How might exposure to these metals be related to rising rates of conditions such as autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)? How well is our food supply being monitored for contaminants? There is a lot of unfinished business when it comes to the safety of our food supply. …

According to our Anne Dachel, when she went to post this video on Facebook, she was blocked from doing so with a content warning. The information in this post is a mix of true and false statements or it could simply be incomplete. In some cases, the information is misleading.

Thank you to Bill Maher. Go to the 6:15 mark. Share far and wide. The hell with Zuckerberg, his pediatrician wife and Facebook.

Note: PART THREE of a series

Vaxxed From Cover up to Catastrophe launched a firestorm when, in 2016, it was abruptly removed from the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's event in New York.  As angry as so many of us were at the time, the cowardice and dismissal provided an efficient fuel that fired the campaign, and continues to do so.  From the Vaxxed II site: 

In 2016, a media firestorm erupted when Tribeca Film Festival abruptly censored its documentary selection, VAXXED: FROM COVER-UP TO CATASTROPHE, amid pressure from pro-pharmaceutical interests.

In response to media silence on CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, who admitted to fraud on a pivotal vaccine safety study, VAXXED catapulted to notoriety and became a worldwide trending topic, opening to sold out theater audiences nationwide.

Stunned by the immense volume of parents lining up outside the theaters with vaccine injury stories to share, VAXXED producer Polly Tommey began to livestream worldwide reaching millions, and a community that had once been silenced were empowered to rise up.

In VAXXED II: THE PEOPLE'S TRUTH, Polly and the team travel over 50,000 miles in the USA and around the world. Interviews of parents and doctors with nothing to gain and everything to lose exposed the vaccine injury epidemic and asked the question on every parent’s mind, “Are vaccines really as safe and effective as we’ve been told?”
 
Many Age of Autism readers have seen the bus, which is a rolling memorial to vaccine injured children.  Some are included in the interviews, including me, Kim Rossi.) Perhaps your child's name is on the bus. Vaxxed II the People's Truth continues the stories from families and includes many medical professionals, who risk everything when they talk about vaccination policy and injury.  Anne Dachel interviewed Executive Producer Polly Tommey. The series will run here on Age of Autism.  The transcript follows each video clip.



By Anne Dachel

Q:   The stories about the HPV vaccine Gardasil were especially shocking. What did you learn about the damage from this vaccine?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0i653grpCs

Polly: Gardasil, Gardasil, Gardasil. Everywhere that we went on the bus was Gardasil injury. It got to the point where we could open the bus door and see the line of people and spot how many Gardasil injuries were walking towards us. You could see the Gardasil girls, the Gardasil boys as they came towards you.

This vaccine has caused untold injury and death, and I don’t think we are at even the beginning of the extent of the damage that this vaccine has caused. It’s got to go. …I think when people watch Vaxxed II there is no one in their right mind that is going to give this vaccine to anybody—themselves, their children, anybody—when they’ve seen what we’ve seen on the roads of America. It is everywhere.

Anyone who’s had the Gardasil vaccine is injured in some way: girls’ ovaries shutting down, the paralysis, the death, ongoing injury and no recovery from these injuries.

Q: The movie charges that forces are telling us to “hate the unvaccinated… hate children.” Why are the unvaccinated the enemy if vaccines offer protection? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVNCS2PNiCs

Polly: So in the movie Vaxxed Del Bigtree talks about the hatred for the unvaccinated child. It’s a very, very good point. I’m 53 years old. When I was a child, I was taken to parties to catch measles, and it was considered a mild childhood illness. I remember having measles and really not feeling that ill but just enjoying the week off school. Then 20 years later, I then go to have children, and we’re told that measles is not very nice, so why don’t you give your child the MMR? And they’ll never, ever, ever get measles again.

Sure. Give your child the MMR—brain damage, another story.

Then by the time I get to my third child, actually you need two of the MMR for extra protection.

Can you see how it’s changing?

To say that an unvaccinated child is a hateful person you need to stay away. We see it on social media.  “Stay away from my child. I don’t want to catch your disgusting unvaccinated diseases.”

Of all the unvaccinated children that we saw on the roads of America, I can tell you that none of them were sick, they were extremely strong, they were clever, top of their class. And if they did get sick, they got over it very quickly—unlike the vaccinated. So to blame an unvaccinated child for spreading measles, for example, when they don’t have measles, and to believe that, is really, really, really unintelligent.

Think people. Think about what they’re saying. I really don’t know what else to add to that, Anne, other that it’s the most stupid, stupid, statement ever to blame the unvaccinated who don’t have the illnesses on spreading the illnesses. It makes no sense.
 STOP HERE

Note: PART Two of a Three Part Interview Series

Vaxxed From Cover up to Catastrophe launched a firestorm when, in 2016, it was abruptly removed from the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's event in New York.  As angry as so many of us were at the time, the cowardice and dismissal provided an efficient fuel that fired the campaign, and continues to do so.  From the Vaxxed II site: 

In 2016, a media firestorm erupted when Tribeca Film Festival abruptly censored its documentary selection, VAXXED: FROM COVER-UP TO CATASTROPHE, amid pressure from pro-pharmaceutical interests.

In response to media silence on CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, who admitted to fraud on a pivotal vaccine safety study, VAXXED catapulted to notoriety and became a worldwide trending topic, opening to sold out theater audiences nationwide.

Stunned by the immense volume of parents lining up outside the theaters with vaccine injury stories to share, VAXXED producer Polly Tommey began to livestream worldwide reaching millions, and a community that had once been silenced were empowered to rise up.

In VAXXED II: THE PEOPLE'S TRUTH, Polly and the team travel over 50,000 miles in the USA and around the world. Interviews of parents and doctors with nothing to gain and everything to lose exposed the vaccine injury epidemic and asked the question on every parent’s mind, “Are vaccines really as safe and effective as we’ve been told?”
 
Many Age of Autism readers have seen the bus, which is a rolling memorial to vaccine injured children.  Some are included in the interviews, including me, Kim Rossi.) Perhaps your child's name is on the bus. Vaxxed II the People's Truth continues the stories from families and includes many medical professionals, who risk everything when they talk about vaccination policy and injury.  Anne Dachel interviewed Executive Producer Polly Tommey. The series will run here on Age of Autism.  The transcript follows each video clip.



By Anne Dachel

You remarked that you were surprised at the number of medical experts that came on the bus to tell their stories. What do you see changing among doctors? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCo1DiTgDig

Polly: It was incredible to see the medical profession coming to the bus and talking openly about what they know about vaccination. And really, it took a couple to come on the bus, and then they started to all come onto the bus. Safety in numbers.

These doctors are brave to do this because we know what happens to doctors who speak out against vaccines. So it was incredible to hear—first of all, who knew? We’re told, “Do you have a medical degree? Do you have a medical degree, Anne? Do you have a medical degree, Polly? Well you can’t speak on this subject.”

But what the bus found out—again the medical profession coming to the bus on the roads of America—is that they have absolutely no training in vaccines while they’re training to be a doctor.  Not one of them had any training. And we interviewed hundreds of doctors and nurses—people with the highest, top qualifications in the medical profession. Nobody has had any training other than vaccines are safe and effective. The same thing that we hear from the media is the same thing they hear in the medical profession. Why are we bowing down to the white coat gods with our most precious possessions to vaccinate them when they’ve had no training?

And you, if you do your research on the insert of that vaccine, will have more training than the doctor that you’re talking to. That was to me was the most amazing thing that happened from the medical profession.

People wake up. They’ve had no training. They do not know what they’re talking about when it comes to vaccines as say they.

Q: There were numerous stories of regression, many immediate, following vaccination. What kind of support/explanation from doctors do parents get when healthy children suddenly stop making eye contact and talking, start having seizures, develop high fevers? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C2Rw8uTmmw

Polly: Vaxxed II is one and a half hours long, so they can’t put everything in, but one of the things I think could last an hour and a half on its own, is all the parents when they talk about what happened when their child was injured, or someone they love was injured, and they went back to the doctor and they said, my child just had the Gardasil or the DTaP or whatever vaccine it is. It had a seizure…it died, whatever.

“It’s not the vaccines.”

All of them. They put their hands up: “It’s not the vaccine.”

STOP HERE

Note: Vaxxed From Cover up to Catastrophe launched a firestorm when, in 2016, it was abruptly removed from the Tribeca Film Festival, Robert De Niro's event in New York.  As angry as so many of us were at the time, the cowardice and dismissal provided an efficient fuel that fired the campaign, and continues to do so.  From the Vaxxed II site: 

In 2016, a media firestorm erupted when Tribeca Film Festival abruptly censored its documentary selection, VAXXED: FROM COVER-UP TO CATASTROPHE, amid pressure from pro-pharmaceutical interests.

In response to media silence on CDC whistleblower, Dr. William Thompson, who admitted to fraud on a pivotal vaccine safety study, VAXXED catapulted to notoriety and became a worldwide trending topic, opening to sold out theater audiences nationwide.

Stunned by the immense volume of parents lining up outside the theaters with vaccine injury stories to share, VAXXED producer Polly Tommey began to livestream worldwide reaching millions, and a community that had once been silenced were empowered to rise up.

In VAXXED II: THE PEOPLE'S TRUTH, Polly and the team travel over 50,000 miles in the USA and around the world. Interviews of parents and doctors with nothing to gain and everything to lose exposed the vaccine injury epidemic and asked the question on every parent’s mind, “Are vaccines really as safe and effective as we’ve been told?”
 
Many Age of Autism readers have seen the bus, which is a rolling memorial to vaccine injured children.  Some are included in the interviews, including me, Kim Rossi.) Perhaps your child's name is on the bus. Vaxxed II the People's Truth continues the stories from families and includes many medical professionals, who risk everything when they talk about vaccination policy and injury.  Anne Dachel interviewed Executive Producer Polly Tommey. The series will run here on Age of Autism.  The transcript follows each video clip.



By Anne Dachel

Q: What did the original showing of Vaxxed around the country do for parents?

Polly: When Vaxxed come out, and parents started to hear, thanks to censorship, thanks to the explosion on social media, …this was about a whistleblower at the CDC, and there were parents in there talking about how their children regressed. Every parent that’s lived through that, which is countless as we know, suddenly BREATH, breath of relief that we’re not crazy. This is true. We’ve been slam-dunked so much that the original Vaxxed was literally the massive boost that these parents needed to get out there, have the courage to say, “You spoke out, so I’m going to speak out.”

And as that happened, the army of parents started to come out. So Vaxxed definitely was instrumental in giving parents the courage to go back out there and tell their stories and warn the other that parents, which is what they’re actually doing more than anything else.

Q: What was the Vaxxed bus tour around the U.S. like?

Polly: We realized that travelling by plane to all the events and trying to speak to parents was not going to work. We were missing too many stories. So we got a Vaxxed bus, and we got out on the road in an RV, and we spoke to the parents.

What we saw, none of us were prepared for. None of us knew the extent of vaccine injury. We knew there was a problem with the MMR. We knew there was a problem with autism. We knew there was a possible problem with a few others, but nothing prepared us for what I described as a war zone out here in America. It was like a blood bath of death and injury. It was literally like walking out onto a battlefield.

And this America. This isn’t a Third World country. This is America where …all I’m seeing on the streets talking to the people—and these are really well-educated people—talking to these people who believed in and had faith in our medical profession, and there in their houses coming to the bus, nothing but death, destruction, paralysis, injury beyond belief here in America.

By Anne Dachel

Here’s one of the latest stories added to my website, LossOfBrainTrust.com NBC Nightly News gave the issue of nationwide classroom violence/room clears coverage, but they completely missed the real issue in their dismissive attitude in how to deal with situation.

We’re told that clearing classrooms because of out-of-control students has ‘become more common in the past decade,’ and one expert even calls for finding out ‘why that kid is acting that way,’ but NBC News has no interest in what’s really going on.

“Room clears” are the problem, not violent kids. (This practice is done here in my little town in Wisconsin, as I’ve been told by parents of elementary school students.)

NBC News calls for MORE MONEY and MORE MENTAL HEALTH SPECIALISTS. Dangerous students are normal and acceptable in today’s world, even as young as seven. (If we can casually watch the autism rate climb year after year, no questions ask, we will somehow learn to live with any type of dysfunctional child.

How long before things finally collapse under the strain? I’m not sure, but eventually they will.

Oct 1, 2019, NBC News: Teachers sounding the alarm over ‘room clear’ method

One of the methods often used to control a child having a meltdown, “room clear” leaves the disruptive child in the classroom, while the other kids are moved out. The result can be classrooms torn apart, desk and tables upended.

VIDEO: "The videos are shocking, classrooms torn apart. Desks and tables upended."

By Anne Dachel

Ever since Simpsonwood (the secret meeting of CDC, FDA, British Health Ministry, federal scientists and pharma people in June 2000 where they discussed the link between mercury-containing vaccines and the explosion in neurological problems in kids) the official explanation for the decline of our childrenhas been one of reassurance. Parents are routinely told that nothing is really wrong. They’re told the dramatic increase in learning problems/neurological disorders is merely greater awareness and better diagnosing—experts just used to miss these kids or label them as something else. 

Nineteen years ago officials were already seeing the connection between vaccines and speech delays, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism, but the aim of that meeting was not to address what was happening, but to figure out how to cover it up. 

Autism

And for two decades officials have stuck to the script. More and more kids with disabilities is never a crisis (officially the word CRISIS is never used in connection to the ever-increasing autism rate). We celebrate autism every spring with April Awareness Month. Health officials have remained dumbfounded by the puzzling disorder. Is the rate the result of better diagnosing/greater awareness or is it really going up? We may never know. Officials have never acknowledged a real increase in the autism rate.

In truth, the meeting goers at Simpsonwood had every right to be concerned. The increase in the number of mandatory vaccinesafter the U.S. government indemnified the vaccine makers and doctors in 1986 was affecting children worldwide. The effects went way beyond the short list of neurological problems discussed in 2000. Modern children were rapidly becoming the generation of the sick and disabled. Chronic health problems like seizure disorders, asthma, life-threatening allergies, bowel disease, diabetes and more were becoming commonplace in children, along with behavior problems and mental health issues.

More vaccines were added year by year to the childhood schedule, and year after year our kids became more disabled.

The disinterest of the media

Since January 2017  I’ve been collecting stories from all over on what’s happening.  I barely touch on what’s out there in the press, yet I have over 5,000 news reports. 

The figures I’m seeing on a daily basis are the undeniable truth. Incredibly, there is pathetically little effort being made to explain why these things are happening. We’ve come to the point where we just have to accept the situation. 

That should surprise no one. Any thinking person back in 2000who understood the full scope of things could have predicted the future we’re living today:

Note: The laws in California and New York now require expelling healthy, whole students based on their vaccination status. At the same time, schools are turning into pysch wards and play grounds are more like prison grounds with violence and trouble. Are we so worried about measles or chicken pox of pertussis that we think it is acceptable, even necessary to remove students who may be honor roll 4.0 kids, athletes, leaders, kind kids, special needs kids, every type of kid?

I'm reminded of an old 1960s commercial for Armour hot dogs, "Hot dogs! Armour hot dogs! What kind of kids eat Armour hot dogs? Fat kids. Skinny kids. Kids who climb on rocks. Tough kids. Sissy Kids. Even kids with chicken pox love hot dogs! Armour hot dogs! The Dogs! Kids! Love! To Bite!"

Today, kids without a chicken pox shot are to be feared and removed, like criminals.  Meanwhile, the violent behavior of our critically and chronically unwell population of students escalates to never before seen heights.

Hot diggety dog...

By Anne Dachel

TWO RECENT STORIES on Age of Autism were about the explosion in school violence seemingly everywhere.

June 11, 2019, Violence, Aggression Taking Over Classrooms in Ore-GONE

And June 7, 2019, Iowa Teachers Reach Breaking Point Over Student Violence 

So what is happening to children from Iowa to Oregon and from Maine to California? Curiously this is never a topic for the national networks or major print media.

On my website LossOfBrainTrust.com I manage to post a few of the non-stop local stories from around the world each day. (Believe me I could add hundreds if I really worked at it.)

So what is the public supposed to think when they read about VIOLENCE in schools (more and more it’s elementary schools) in their town?

Why are schools across the country adding “calming rooms” to help with aggressive students?

Why are state legislatures passing laws on restraining and secluding kids as young as kindergarteners?

Why are more districts partnering with mental health providers and adding in-school therapy?

When will the local stories add up to being a national issue? Will the candidates care about this issue in 2020?

Here are some examples of just how bad things are EVERYWHERE:Oslo, Norway: Armed police and emergency health care personnel responded swiftly to calls of a “threatening situation” involving a knife at a primary school in Oslo this week. Eight minutes later they had control of the suspect, a little boy who apparently was angry with his teacher. … It was just the latest example of violence at Norwegian schools, also now those with the youngest pupils. …

A new report confirms the incident was not unusual. Norway’s workplace regulatory agency Arbeidstilsynet has just recently surveyed 93 primary and junior high schools in southeastern Norway, and state broadcaster NRK reported on Wednesday that the findings were raising alarm: fully 90 percent of the schools lack routines to prevent violence and threats. School employees don’t receive training in how threatening situations can be warded off.

…“The problems are the biggest in the primary schools,” federation leader Steffen Handal told NRK. “Teachers are subject to a rising degree of violence from pupils. We’ve seen incidents double from 2005 to 2018.”

Brighton, MI: Officials with Brighton Area Schools have provided some clarification about student disruptions at Hawkins Elementary School in Brighton. On Wednesday, WHMI reported that special education students were causing daily disruptions at the school to the point where a class may have to be evacuated 2-3 times a day because of a disruptive or violent student.

Anne Dachel transcribed Rep Adam Schiff's speech from June 13, 2019, on the dangers of “vaccine hesitancy” and what to do about it. See FB post here.

“I rise today to offer an amendment in support of vaccines and the medical effectiveness. Specifically my amendment would direct $5 million to amplify a public health campaign to promote vaccine usage and combat hesitancy.

These funds would support the work of the national vaccine program within the office of infectious disease policy and HIV aids, which provides a framework for pursuing the prevention of infectious diseases through immunizations. It is the nation’s leading roadmap in articulating a comprehensive strategy to develop new and approved vaccines, enhance the vaccine safety system, and support communications to enhance vaccine decision making.

Each year vaccines are estimated to save two to three million lives worldwide. Due to effective vaccination campaigns, what were once referred to as the usual diseases of childhood, are now considered vaccine preventable diseases.

Unfortunately, vaccines are a victim of their own success. These monumental public health achievements have contributed to a false perception that disease threats are minimal and that routine vaccination is no longer necessary.  

This year alone we have witnessed numerous outbreaks of measles across the country—a disease that was once considered eradicated in the United States.

Declining vaccination rates pose an imminent threat to public health. In fact the World Health Organization has identified vaccine hesitancy as a top global health threat for 2019.

There is strong evidence to suggest that at least part of the source of this trend is the degree to which medically inaccurate information about vaccines surfaces on websites where many Americans get their information.

Repetition of information, even if false, can often be mistaken for accuracy. And exposure to anti-vaccine content via social media may negatively sharp user attitudes towards vaccination.

The emergence of vaccine hesitancy as an increasingly common theme in health care settings demands attention. And it is imperative for public health officials to take a necessary and critical step to flip the script from vaccine hesitancy to vaccine confidence to protect and bolster the public health.

The scientific and medical communities are in overwhelming consensus that vaccines are both effective and safe.

There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines cause life-threatening or disabling diseases and the dissemination of unfounded or debunked theories about the dangers of vaccination pose a great risk to the public health.

Support for the national vaccine program in coordinating a national public health campaign to fight vaccine misinformation is imperative.

It is essential now more than ever that we fund vaccine communication research to strengthen the evidence-based for what works in fighting vaccine hesitance, combating misinformation and encouraging responsible vaccine decision-making.    

By Anne Dachel

On May 21, 2019, Business Insider published a piece entitled, The anti-vaxx movement is fueling the measles epidemic by deliberately targeting communities most affected by the disease.

Hundreds of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, gathered at a rally in Rockland County, New York last week to listen as speakers ticked off a slew of unverified claims about vaccinations.

The story included prominent critics of the mandated vaccine program: Robert Kennedy, Jr. Del Bigtree, Barbara Loe Fisher, and Dr. Andrew Wakefield via Skype. Also in the gathering was an outspoken leader in the Orthodox Jewish community from Brooklyn, Rabbi William Handler. Brooklyn is an area where the measles outbreak is especially acute.

Readers were told that most of the attendees were “ultra Orthodox Jews,” and that these are “people who are mostly isolated from the outside world and have limited access to the internet or scientific research, can be particularly vulnerable to anti-vaxx rhetoric.”

At a May 14^th  rally in Albany Handler joined other activists in attacking a bill that would remove the right to a religious exemption from vaccines. “We have come here today to protest this latest desecration of God in culture to take away the religious exemption.” 

Handler has received coverage by such well-known vaccine defenders as the Washington Post and the New York Times.  A hit piece by Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura at the Times with the headline, Despite Measles Warnings, Anti-Vaccine Rally Draws Hundreds of Ultra-Orthodox Jews,  sounded more like an editorial than standard journalism.  Anyone questioning vaccine safety and calling for the right to exempt children were blamed for “the spread of misinformation.”

Handler was featured saying that his community has recently been demonized.  "We Hasidim have been chosen as the target... the campaign against us has been successful,” but the Times accused him of having  “falsely described the measles outbreak among Jews as part of an elaborate plan concocted by Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York to deflect attention from ‘more serious’ diseases brought by Central American migrants.”

There was of course no mention of any risk involved with mass vaccination with multiple vaccines at once, or the fact that the people making and giving the vaccines can’t be sued for injuries resulting from the shots.

(To understand the attitude at the NY Times, one need only to look at the 2011 story where in attacking the movie, The Greater Good, reporter Jeannette Catsoulis made this stunning statement:

“But while the film acknowledges that science has so far been consistent in its refutation of a vaccine-autism link, it fails to point out that even were such a link proved definitively, all that matters is that its victims number significantly fewer than those of the diseases vaccinations are designed to prevent.”)

While the real fear mongers warn about measles outbreaks, Rabbi Handler continues to call attention to individual civil rights along with questions about the safety and efficacy of the measles vaccine.

In this 4 minute video from June 4^th, Rabbi Handler explained his views.

Note: Our Anne Dachel has been cataloguing the demise of the pediatric brain for over a decade at Age of Autism. Our children are sicker than ever and increasingly incapable of functioning in a traditional American classroom. Behavior plans replaced weekend plans with friends.  Detention is a quaint remnant of another era, as arrests and calls to "211" have become the norm. Teachers find themselves needing to learn how to block, place a student into a submission, and restrain as if the classroom as become the Octagon.

Here in Connecticut, we have "PMT" training for educators.  It's supposed to support safe interactions during a behavior. But when there is violent aggression, staff are woefully unprepared. The result is more injury to staff in school. And that's never acceptable. At the same time, as a parent of three daughters with special needs, I know that restraints and submissions can maim, wound and even kill - think sleeper hold. It happens.  I teach martial arts. My Sensei and I have a class called ASD - Autism Self Defense, for families. The problem in schools is that teachers and staff can not use techniques that really work - that send a message. Stop. And let's face it, as parents we do not want them to touch our kids - not on a bet.  The answer isn't martial arts training for staff - that's ridiculous and would take years for any training to take affect.

But training is an issue - and discussed heavily in the article for Oregon which is part of a series. However, the real problem is this: 

“Have mental health people, have counselors so we don’t have to pull staff from other assignments,” said Winters. “Because that’s what happening right now. Principals are being pulled, other assistants.” 

Why the increase in disruptive behavior?  

There are several theories on why disruptive incidents are on the rise in Oregon classrooms but no in-depth research on what’s causing it.

Teachers say more trauma at home and less support in schools are the most obvious factors.

I call horsepucky and I know you do too. Trauma at home? Chances are the parents and siblings of these students are the ones facing trauma. Less support in schools? Nonsense - kids have 1 to 1s, lunch bunch, social worker teams, school psychologists, counselors and far more mental health support than any school ever imagined necessary. What's changed:

0 Food - it's chemical garbage

0 Vaccinations - more than 72 before first grade today with more in the queue

o Toxic chemicals everywhere, including school classrooms and grounds

o Tampering with the brain in utero with vaccinations, ultrasounds, medication and interactions at birth

o Tylenol at the first sign of any and all discomfort, including at vaccination visits

o Electromagnetic Frequencies

o Screen time

o Reduction in parental authority

o Changing the power structure from parent overseeing child to child bossing parent

And I'm sure there are many more suggestions. Feel free to share them.

Here's an article that is part of an excellent series from Oregon.  Thanks to Laura Hayes for sending it to me. Teachers are not working with teachable material, "normal" children, like their predecessors who taught our parents and grandparents and yes, most of us. Education is Ore-going, going, gone.

###

From KGW-8 NBC TV in Portland, Oregon:

Classrooms in Crisis: Verbal, physical, sometimes violent outbursts plaguing Oregon classrooms

The situation has gotten so dire that the Oregon Education Association – the union that represents 44,000 teachers across the state – plans to release a report this week calling classroom disruptions a “significant and growing problem in Oregon classrooms.”

Note: American children are regressing into a primal state of dysfunctional mental health. They are not naughty. They are not unloved. They are not possessed by demons. Screen time alone isn't destroying their ability to have empathy and control. One could say that even our poorest children living in abject poverty have more luxuries that our grandparents could have imagined. Kids are pathologically unwell. But they don't have the chicken pox, so teachers can be grateful for that as they dodge chairs and fists. Meanwhile, teachers, aides and bus drivers are also cracking up and being violent toward students with special needs. Children are not supposed to need psychiatric care at age 7. Schools nurses are supposed to hand out band aids to boys with scraped knees and feminine pads to frightened 7th grade girls and put cold compresses on a feverish child whose mother has been called. Today's school nurses might as well work under MASH tents for the trauma the see each day. Social workers used to facilitate lunch bunch and counsel children whose parents were in the process of a divorce. We have a monstrous problem on our hands. 

###

By Anne Dachel

Reporters endlessly tell us about INCREASES/CHANGES in the population of disabled children in our schools everywhere in the English speaking world. Despite the serious things they tell, these same reporters just move on to the next topic. There’s never an in-depth follow-up asking critical questions and searching for real answers.

One recent story immediately got my attention, and I felt I had to highlight it.

May 31, 2019, Des Moines, IA, CBS13: Extreme & Violent Student Behavior Pushing Iowa Teachers to Breaking Point 

Iowa teachers tell Channel 13 they are so overwhelmed by extreme violent behavior they have reached a breaking point.  They asked us to share their stories so people will understand what happens inside classrooms.

Ashlee May teaches second grade in Des Moines.  She said, “Most people, I don’t think, realize kind of what’s happening.  We get screamed at and cursed at daily.  I’ve been stabbed with a pencil before.”

Police reports back her up.  They contain stories of children ages 10 and younger throwing chairs, punching teachers in the face, and leaving bruises on instructors.  May considers herself lucky.  “In terms of what other teachers deal with, I think I’ve been kind of blessed because I’ve never had to go to the hospital.”

A teacher whose identity we concealed based on her fear of retaliation from administrators for speaking out told us children “get in the faces of the teachers.”  She said she hears things like, “Get out of my way, you (expletives).  You can’t do anything to me.  I’m not going to get into trouble.  You’re going to get into trouble.  All kinds of intimidation.”

May said, “There just comes a point where you’re just so worn out emotionally, and physically, and mentally that you just can’t do it anymore.”

We’re told, “Teachers have been sounding the alarm privately about extreme behavior for years.”

We hear about “room clears” where a child becomes so violent that other students are in danger and they have to be removed to the hallway. A single student is then left to trash the room.

So why have (elementary) students recently become so disruptive and out-of-control?

The 7 minute news video didn’t have much to say about it except that there are ‘gaps in our social fabric’ and insinuate that parents are at fault. 

“Teachers are tasked with types of nurturing that have never been asked of them, that they weren’t trained for, and state lawmakers haven’t budgeted for.”

Nurturing?

Children seemingly aren’t being nurtured outside of school.

In addition, there is a lack of mental health services that children need.

The interview with a district administer went like this:

“All the gaps in our social fabric that schools are more and more expected to take on, whether that’s private service providers or access to private service providers.”

“Or moms and dads.”

By Anne Dachel

While California politicians focus on removing vaccination rights from healthy citizens, its schools face unheard of budget pressures from ever mounting special education costs.

On May 12 the Los Angeles Times  reported that local school districts were “hitting the panic button” over costs despite a huge 21% increase in the state’s special education budget.

Reporter John Myers pointed to “the rapid growth in expenses for special education.” He wrote, “More children are qualifying for additional services, particularly those diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.”

MORE CHILDREN ARE QUALIFYING

Many of these kids have really severe and costly needs. ‘When you look at the dollars that reach the actual schools, the increase in overall funding is being outstripped by the increase in mandated costs.’

Back in March, the Marin County Independent Journal  had a similar story. It seems that while enrollment in the district is going down, special education costs are rising. This makes for a big money problem and they have to make budget cuts of $1.8M.

“ ‘This $1.8 million is just the beginning,’” said trustee Ross Millerick, referring to continuing challenges from rising pension costs, declining enrollment and flat per-student revenue from the state.” …

“Hawkins said another significant factor this year was a steep rise in special education costs. … ‘The costs for special education are up over $750,000 this year,’ Hawkins told the board on Tuesday. ‘This is the largest increase in over 20 years.’”…

No one seems willing to ask the obvious in these stories: Why are special education costs and numbers increasingly a problem, especially if enrollment is down?

By Anne Dachel

I often say that regular ed today is really special ed with all the kids who have individual plans and different learning needs.

In the same sense, special ed should actually be called behavioral ed because of what things are like in the modern school setting.

From therapy dogs, to the use of restraint/seclusion and increased mental health services, academics is no longer the sole focus of schools. Education has to change because kids today cannot function normally. It's that simple.

Here are some examples from recent news reports. Taken as a whole they should be scaring everyone. How much time do we have left to fix things?

The content quoted below can be found among the recent stories on LossOfBrainTrust.com

Delaware, OH: Two full-time and two part-time therapists are assigned to Delaware City Schools, she said….

The district also partners with other [mental health] agencies as part of its overall effort to maintain student wellness, she said.

Florida: Florida has an estimated 400,000 children who need behavioral-health services, but 55 percent of them don’t get any treatment, members of a health-care panel were told Thursday.

That translates to 220,000 children across the state, or about one child in every classroom…

Lawmakers this month approved a 2019-2020 state budget that includes $75 million for mental-health services at schools, a boost from the $64 million given to school districts for the current year.

Dublin, Ireland: She is one of a number of Dublin parents who will take part in a protest on Saturday in the city centre, about the lack of school places for their autistic children.

Fairfax County, VA: But last March, a WAMU investigation revealed hundreds of cases in which elementary students in schools designed to serve students with special needs were secluded and restrained. In some cases, children were as young as six. One child was isolated more than 100 times in a school year. …

WAKE UP ARKANSAS! The end is near.

In the midst of a flurry of coverage in the media about the threat posed by measles outbreaks in the U.S., I found a truly frightening story from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

State autism-treatment options scarce, but growing was all about how the state government fails children with autism. It seems that in Arkansas, autism is a real problem.

The Democrat Gazette gives readers real things to worry about. It’s the inevitable position every state in the U.S. will be in the next few years.

To summarize: the epidemic of autism shows no signs of slowing down, and there simply aren’t enough services to address it.

Reporter Alex Golden uses the example of a 2 year-old who stopped talking and was diagnosed with autism. Incredibly, Golden says nothing about why a child would regress. It’s just autism.

From there he goes on to talk about THE PRICE TAG OF AUTISM.

Autism costs an average of about $60,000 a year through childhood, with the bulk of the costs in special services and lost wages related to increased demands on one or both parents. Costs increase with the occurrence of intellectual disability.

And it isn’t just the cost of care, what’s worse is the absence of help for these children.

It's also a struggle in Northwest Arkansas to get treatment for children who are on the autism spectrum, a problem that parents and professionals attribute to a lack of services and professionals in the field. …

Golden cites one service provider who just can’t keep up with demand.