From BBC News Magazine:

A French politician’s recent use of the word “autism” to criticize other political leaders has drawn attention to the transformation of the term into a fashionable insult.

France’s Minister for Europe, Pierre Lellouche, said he was misunderstood and has since retracted the remark, but experts say his rhetoric reflects an evolution of the word into a pejorative slang term used on the playground and in the media.

Whatever way he meant it, “autistic” is often used as an insult and it’s insensitive to use a term that describes a disability or a condition in this way, says the National Autistic Society.

“I thought we’d got over that from the 1970s when people used to use the term ‘spastic’ in the playground,” says Benet Middleton from the society. “To have senior politicians doing that is thereby signalling that it’s ok and that is deeply worrying.”

Los Angeles Times media columnist James Rainey says public criticism of journalist Amy Wallace reflects an increasing rejection of professional authority and journalistic expertise. Wallace wrote a recent piece in Wired Magazine debunking the idea that vaccines cause autism, sparking angry rebuttals by activists.

An excerpt:

Wallace has run smack into an abiding, perhaps growing, phenomenon of the Internet Age: Citizens armed with information are sure they know better. Readers who brush up against expertise believe they have become experts. The common man rebels against the notion that anyone — not professionals, not the government and certainly not the media — speaks with special authority.

Wallace, who spent more than three months interviewing dozens of people for a 7,000-word piece and cites epidemiological studies to support her assertions, faced accusations that she was naive, ignorant, un-American or a shill for the pharmaceutical companies.

… “It’s great that people can find out more than they ever could before,” Wallace said. “But it seems it will make trusting in experts even more important. More than ever now, we need help sifting through the torrent.”

See also:

“Readers Respond to ‘An Epidemic of Fear”-Wired

A Short History of Vaccine Panic-Wired

From Newsday, New York Daily News, and UPI:

Speaking to a group of disability advocates, New York Gov. David Paterson said he faces “degrading” attacks because he is blind.

Paterson said ridicule of his blindness by actors and commentators reflects a growing hostility toward people with visual impairments.

“Anything I did got associated with the fact that I do have visual impairment,” he said during a speech before the state chapter of the National Federation of the Blind. “That’s an insult.”

… Paterson said he can take the shots, noting that unlike 70% of blind people nationally, “I have a job and I will be keeping my job for four more years.”

But the attacks on him could influence how others, particularly potential employers, view everyday blind people.

(New York Daily News photo)

From “Fresh Air” on National Public Radio:

Music critic Tim Page didn’t find out that he had Asperger’s syndrome until he was 45, three years after winning the Pulitzer Prize. He writes in his new memoir, “Parallel Play: Life As An Outsider,” that the diagnosis helped him to accept parts of his nature that were “not very changeable.”

Page says he acted out when he was young and constantly struggled to understand social norms. He found a refuge in the repeating patterns in music.

“I have this theory that Asperger’s syndrome has been hugely important for me with music, because it was the first world that made any sense to me. I didn’t really understand what was going on around me, I didn’t understand what people really wanted me to do. I was a very lost little kid. But my mom had this record player ….

“It allowed me passage into a world where everything made sense and where I felt this profound sense of being at home in the world.”

Related posts here.

From the New York Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, with Youtube video of the commercial ‘It’s Good To Give Milk-Bone’:

A new $10 million ad campaign for Milk-Bone dog treats underscores a popular tactic in consumer advertising, in which companies seek to do well by doing good.

Del Monte Foods, owner of the Milk-Bone brand, is using cause marketing in an effort to give consumers a warm fuzzy feeling when they support a company that supports a worthy charity. The company is giving “a portion of the proceeds” from sales of the dog snacks to Canine Assistants, a Georgia charity that trains and provides service dogs to people with disabilities.

The television commercial features Jake Jeter, above, a law student who uses a wheelchair. Other aspects of the ad campaign are featured in newspaper ads, as well as on the Milk-Bone web site and in social media like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and Youtube.

(Photo from Milk-Bone commercial)

Isolation, scarce resources are still big problems

Marketers of specious miracle cures woo desperate parents

Michael Fitzpatrick, a London doctor, says autism has become better known and accepted in the 15 years since his son was diagnosed with the condition. But has increased awareness improved the quality of his son’s life? Not really, he says. Services remain scarce, unrealistic media portrayals exacerbate social ostracism, and high unemployment and public spending cuts promise an uncertain future. From the  [UK] Times:

Today autism seems to be everywhere. It has become a common, even fashionable condition, linked to talent and creativity or simply making people interestingly different. But the fact that everybody now talks about autism does not make life any easier for people affected by it.

… “Normalizing” autism may reduce stigma, but at the risk of trivializing the problems of those with more severe learning difficulties and also of underestimating the extreme aloneness that results from the social impairment of autism, even in higher-functioning individuals.

From New Scientist Magazine, Education Week: On Special Education Blog

A video screened by the nonprofit advocacy organization Autism Speaks is drawing criticism from some advocates with autism who say the film projects a damaging image and stokes public fears and prejudice.

“I Am Autism” was made by Oscar-nominated film director Alfonso Cuarón and Grammy-nominated songwriter/producer Billy Mann. Both are fathers of children with autism. As a horror movie soundtrack plays, the “Autism” character says: “I will plot to rob you of your children and your dreams … And if you’re happily married, I will make sure that your marriage fails.”

The video was screened by Autism Speaks last month at the group’s second annual United Nations World Focus on Autism. It has since been pulled from the organization’s website, but remains on Youtube.

“This is the latest in a series of unethical fundraising strategies adopted by Autism Speaks,” said Ari Ne’eman, an adult on the autism spectrum and president of the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. “This type of fear mongering hurts autistic people, by raising fear and not contributing in the slightest to accurate understanding of the needs of autistic adults and children.”

See also: Autism Self-Advocacy Network press release