Slide 54:

So, in review, we’re looking at hypoperfusion. In published reports, by the way, decreased bloodflow means decreased function. If the brain is blue, it is shut down – it is not working correctly. The key point here is that there is no measurable loss of tissue on the MRI’s on the vast majority of your children. This says that you are looking at areas of the brain that are shut down and not working, but that do not have pre-existing damage and are thankfully not injured by everything we can measure. If this is not brain damage, that means, in theory, that your children started off with normal brains.

Now, when I said that a number of years ago, of course, it was a statement. At this point I can say to all of you that any child that fits into this pattern of autistic regression, what we’re talking about is NIDS, these kids started off with normal brains and their brains eventually shut down into this disorder. They did not start off autistic; they did not start off as PDD.

The critical part about that unfortunately, is that it is not how the world looks at your children. On my last trip to New York, I had a number of parents screaming at me that Doug Flutie had just gone on one of the morning TV shows saying that his son, who is 7 years old, is autistic. He realized that there was nothing he was going to be able to do to help his son talk, but that he was going to start another research foundation to study autism and try to help other children.

This is the "gospel," in a sense, from all the organized autism societies. If your child is autistic and he’s now 7 years old – we’re sorry, but what are you going to do. Well, we have children that are 8, 9, 10, and now 12 years old who were not talking before and are now talking because of medical intervention and the help of Dr. Susan Fosnot, a speech pathologist, who, as many of you have heard me say, is magnificent.

The trouble is as long as the world assumes you are starting off with brain damage, not only do you have that pessimistic view of the autism societies out there, but one of the anecdotes that is distressing right now is all of you know that Dan Marino is involved with the Autism Society. I have heard from parents in Florida that Dan Marino is thrilled that his son is in a normal kindergarten, I think now first or second grade. No one will tell you that his child is normal. But if you’re told that your child is going to be retarded and never get to school, and now is in kindergarten or first grade, you’re thrilled. But if someone said to him that his child started off with the potential to go to college, I don’t think he would be so happy right now. Maybe he and others would be saying that we need to do more for these children. This is the battle you’re all fighting. No one thinks your children have it in them.

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