Delicious LiveJournal Links for 28-5-2009

[innerbrat]

• 
  Somewhat Stretchy : Make Your Own Catsuit Sewing Pattern
  
  No idea if this is the best place to go for a free catsuit pattern, but it'll do me. Now, to source some fabric.
  
  (tags: crafts)
  
• 
  A Broken Trust: Lessons from the Vaccine/Autism Wars
  
  PLoS isn't always the best source for actual peer

Comments

[tyrell]

That Wondermark is brilliant :)

[e_mily]

*reads the article about the vaccine war*

Hrm.

Interesting.

I'm not sure how good about it doctors are now, but I can pinpoint at least one major thing that contributed to my mother's lack of trust in most doctors regarding autism, and why she stopped vaccinating after my first brother.

Right about the time he received his second set of vaccinations, my brother started developing severe autistic symptoms and behaviors.

And multiple doctors told her that he was literally crazy, messed up in the head, untreatable, and to lock him up in an institution, throw away the key, and forget about him.

This was back in 1994/5.

Autism Spectrum disorders are a very fickle thing, and it's sad that it's taking so very long for the scientific community to research it and want to deal with it. And discounting what happens just because the parents are upset and looking for something to blame isn't a good strategy, either

[e_mily]

Oh, right, I was also going to say something more but forgot while I was writing that:

I don't know about the rest of the parent community, but among my mother's circle, and what seems to be a large portion of the parents who have educated themselves and are trying very hard to live with the problems that their kids have, it's generally accepted fact that the BASE cause of autism is genetic. When you have a family like mine, with all five kids varying across the spectrum, and I have cousins who fit in the spectrum, my grandmother displays symptoms herself... How can you say it's NOT genetic.

But also it's common belief and observation that autism is genetic caused, and environmentally affected. My mom doesn't think that the chemicals in vaccinations caused the problems in my brother, we always knew they were there. She says they made them worse.

And.... I THINK that's the last bit I have to say, for now. *thinks hard*....yeah. That's it.