I have previously written about the importance of the IACC and in a 2009 blog comment expressly thanked the IACC for its role in advancing autism research.  With the passage of 3 years though I have  become a less enthusiastic IACC booster.  Both the Canary Party and the Elizabeth Birt Center for Autism Law and Advocacy (EBCALA) have called for an accounting from the IACC and its leadership. I support their calls for accountability.  

Autism advocate representatives on the committee have been anti-cure ideologues while autistic persons seeking cure like Jonathan Mitchell are ignored in every sense of the word.  The IACC, despite paying lip service to gene environment interaction has for the most part continued to subscribe to the "it's gotta be genetic" belief system for explaining what causes autism. 

During the IACC existence, and during the 14 years since my son's autistic disorder diagnosis,  autism diagnosis rates have literally exploded. Yet the IACC makes no serious effort to address this burgeoning rate and allows the public to believe the tired, repetitive, and unsubstantiated excuses that every single reported increase in autism is due entirely to mid 90's diagnostic definition changes, enhanced awareness and diagnostic substitution motivated by parental desire to obtain all those wonderful autism services that apparently exist in every school district in the US.

I am not anti-IACC but I do believe there should be some accounting provided.  As the Autism Gadfly Jonathan Mitchell has said non-Americans, including Canadians like me, have no right to DEMAND anything from an American taxpayer funded institution but the IACC has an important role to play in autism research and, like many US institutions, has a world wide impact.  As a Canadian autism dad I ask the IACC to provide a real world accounting of its efforts.  Are we any closer to understanding autism causes? Will the IACC continue to politely ignore the environment side of the gene environment base of autism disorders?  Will we actively direct our research towards cures and treatments?

If I have been too one sided I invite anyone reading this blog, including the academics and researchers who occasionally humor this autism dad with a visit to my blog, to please provide examples of real world results achieved by the IACC or indicate where the IACC is going and whether it still hopes to find causes, cures and treatments for the increasingly diagnosed autism disorders.

These simple points seem to escape those who perversely find joy in the fact that a child has an autism disorder. Equally irrational is the notion that society need not find a cure, or cures, for the various autism spectrum disorders. Autism, at least in its most severe manifestations, directly harms a person with autism when he or she engages in Self Injurious Behavior.  Autism has also taken the lives of those who wander away from home or place of care as appears so often in the news. Some of us have been very fortunate when our autistic children are returned to us safely. It is impossible for me as the father of a severely autistic 15 year old son to respect the opinions of those who argue against curing autism disorders.  That perspective, as I see it, is irrational at best and perverse at worst.

At Autism, Epilepsy and Self-Injurious Behavior Kim Oakley is a blogger who has previously posted a number of honest, informative Youtube videos showing her son's Self Injurious Behavior.  In the latest comment on her blog   Autistic behaviors, Antipsychotics and Angioedema: Warning she again addresses issues arising from SIB with an emphasis in this article on some medication side effects. Her son's SIB is described:

Casdok, as I understand her writings, does not believe that autism should be cured. She is obviously a caring and dedicated mother but I can not pretend to understand how she can fight so hard to help her son deal with serious self injurious behavior on one hand, including seeking  medical treatment, and still oppose curing autism. 

Self injurious behavior and other serious challenges presented by autism are exactly what motivate the many parents of autistic children who do seek cures for their children. I wish Cadok and her son well.  I hope they do get the medical assessment  her son needs.  

For the sake of my own son, and others who are severely affected by autism disorders, I hope that the new trend in research toward understanding all of the possible causes of autism, and the decline of the autism is primarily genetic myth,  will also lead to more effective treatments and some day a cure for autism.

Autism is, by definition, a mental disorder. Autism is, by definition a psychiatric disorder. 

These autism realities are often ignored in the attempt by some persons to claim that they speak on behalf of persons with autism.  These same persons, purporting to speak on behalf of all persons with autism disorders, claim that "THEY" do not want to be cured.

The politicking involved in maintaining the impossible position of speaking for all persons with a mental disorder is challenging even with the backing of the New York(er) magazine and the IACC. Flip flopping is  frequent with discussion focusing on autism as a socially imposed disability rather than a mental or psychiatric disorder. The same "autism spokespersons" who purport to speak on behalf of people with mental disorder diagnoses avoid like the plague any mention of autism as ...... a mental disorder.  Although they embrace the autism label, a diagnostic category in the DSM they make no mention of what it actually is ... a mental disorder.  

A social disability, a way of life, a culture, a different way of thinking, a different part of a neurodiverse existence. All of these things for sure but not a mental disorder.  And they want me to reject what I know about my son's Autistic Disorder, his mental disorder, based on 14 years of living with him, caring for him, loving him .....  in favor of the views of some adult diagnosed persons views who do not know my son and  who do not acknowledge the reality of their own diagnoses?

Today is a day on which some in the online autism world are shutting down social communication in an attempt to draw attention to communication deficits suffered by persons with autism. It is an interesting idea and I hope it creates some buzz even though I am not participating. 

I have long ago chosen to speak out about autism disorders and on this day I choose to go back to basics and point out a basic that is becoming more and more obscured ... autism is a mental disorder.  It is a mental disorder which imposes severe life restrictions on many who suffer from it and can not drive Land Rovers, operate successful businesses, play in rock bands, attend colleges for gifted youth or work as researchers with prominent high functioning autism experts. 

Autism is a mental disorder for which we must not stop trying to find treatments and cures to improve the lives of those who suffer from the disorder.