Autism: the issue that shouldn't be.

Let me just start off by saying that if you think that with that title I'm saying autism shouldn't exist, you can get off my blog right now because you're obviously an idiot who wouldn't be able to comprehend anything I am about to say.

I read an article in the Daily Mail today that made me exceedingly angry. While this will almost certainly surprise nobody, I feel compelled to clarify: the article in question was this one and although the reader was obviously meant to become angry about the idea that this boy supposedly may have been given autism by his MMR vaccine, I was angry for several completely different reasons. Let me explain.

For those who have not worked it out for themselves yet, I am autistic myself (Aspergers, to be precise). I am currently in the process of being referred to a psychiatric hospital in an attempt to get a formal diagnosis (which I almost certainly will), and I don't really give a dam who knows this - it is just something about me, like the fact that I am short, dark and consider myself Welsh even though I'm actually just as much (if not more) Irish.

With that established, the main reason why I was so affected by this article was because it felt like a personal insult. The tone of the article very much screamed "victory! This woman is receiving compensation because she was done an injustice!" which I have several big problems with. Even disregarding the fact that the original research showing a link was later revealed to be fraudulent (1) (2) (3) (4) and Andrew Wakefield, the man responsible for the research, was struck off the Medical Register for it, the mere fact that people are so worried about a potential link is rather offensive. The way I, and the vast majority of the autistic community see it, autism is not a disorder or an illness to be cured, it is an unusual and uncontrollable difference like being ginger or actually liking Nickelback. (Both of which I admittedly freely poke fun at, but I wouldn't seriously suggest eradicating all gingers or the entire fanbase of what I'm sure are some, er, very nice people?)

With this in mind, the idea that people would rather risk letting their child die from a potentially deadly disease than take a far smaller risk that they might develop autism makes me extremely sad. Are people really so eager to eradicate a character trait that is part of what makes me (and many others) who I am (or they are) just because they don't understand it? Personally, I don't even want a cure, I just want to be accepted, and to be treated like the intelligent human being I am. There is nothing wrong with me and I am not deserving of pity. Being autistic is not a tragedy and is certainly not deserving of the attention it gets from being (incorrectly) linked with a vaccine: my point is, frankly, that even if there was a link, it should be no big deal, unworthy of mass hysteria. Possibly some sort of a novelty, like it would be if the vaccine magically turned people into gingers or Nickelback fans. There is no real difference in the scenarios.

I find that although autism is covered a lot in the media the overwhelming majority of what gets reported is to do with the families of those with autism, endless explanations of how terrible, how difficult it is to live with somebody autistic because they do things differently from you that you don't understand, and hardly anybody pays any attention to the people with autism themselves. The end result is that everybody thinks they know autism, when in reality they have no chance of understanding what they have never experienced. I can't even put into words a lot of what goes through my head, and I can't show you my thoughts, so how can you ever know how my brain works? It is for this reason (among others) I disagree with the charity Autism Speaks - for an example, there is not one person with autism on the board. Would you support a charity called Womanhood Speaks if it were run by men, and dedicated to curing people of being female when the vast majority of women are perfectly happy as they are, thank you very much? Just some food for thought.

If anybody has any questions, you can leave them in the comments and I'll add a section at the end of this post to answer them.

Lowri