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Ripped Off?
By Richard | May 31, 2008
The great autism rip-off … How a huge industry feeds on parents desperate to cure their children
Barney Calman | DailyMail.co.uk
There is little hope given to parents of children with autism. Mainstream medicine offers no explanation for the cause of this life-long learning disability, thought to affect one in 100, and there are no effective treatments.
Perhaps the most cruel characteristic of the condition, which impairs communication development and ability to relate to others, is that children often develop normally until about two years of age, when they suddenly ‘regress’, becoming mute, withdrawn, refusing to make eye contact and prone to tantrums.
Many never take part in mainstream education and some require full-time care, even as adults.
In the absence of solutions, desperate parents are increasingly turning to the world of alternative medicine in their search for a cure.
In this burgeoning market, private doctors and clinics have sprung up across the UK claiming they can treat or even ‘reverse’ the disorder.
Recent research published in the Journal Of Developmental And Behavioural
Paediatrics found that a third of parents of autistic children have tried unproven ‘alternative’ treatments.
Worryingly, the study claims one in ten has used what the experts class as ‘a potentially harmful approach’. MORE
Topics: In The News |
May 31st, 2008 at 11:54 pm
We need to learn to father babies in our 20s to early 30s to prevent paternal age non-familial autism and schizophrenia and many other disorders.