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RFK and Trump claim to have found the "cause" of Autism.

Not saying that's your experience, but it was mine. And I was quite the devotee of benzos, so I know how pernicious they can be.

But from what I've read of your posts, you appear to think they're essential for you to be able to engage with people socially. That's addiction speaking, I feel. Maybe you don't agree, but it's my own opinion, shaped by much experience.
 
Mike here, totally destroys the ludicrous and fraudulent RFK / Trump claim.



It seemed to me that the most salient point he mentions, is that the guy that produced or commissioned the bogus study the RFK / Trump claim was made on, tries to make his living from bringing lawsuits against Tylenol.

The judge threw the case he brought against Tylenol, using the study RFK used, out of court. For several reasons. Mainly because it wasn't scientifically rigorous. In the least bit. So legally speaking it was a non-starter, before anything else.

Oh and another point, I don't think Mike mentioned, is that Autism was first diagnosed several years before Tylenol was even invented. Around ten years before. Although obviously it seems logical and reasonable to assume that Autism existed in the population for a long time, long before the medical establishment even began getting the diagnosis and criteria anywhere near right.

And another great point, in the comments section, is that wouldn't everyone be Autistic if Tylenol is the cause. Or probably about 95% of people at least.

It wouldn't be too difficult for Tylenol to take all this nonsense to court, and get it overturned, surely.

They've picked the wrong group to try this against. Probably the group most likely to be highly motivated and capable of unearthing every single fact exposing the ludicrousness of the whole claim.
 
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British Pharma shares are down 2%-3% on this "news."

Although the markets do seem to be somewhat irrational and driven by complex forces. I guess this is a good demonstration of that.

Regardless of the lack of truth behind the RFK and Trump announcement, many will believe it, and sales of Tylenol will be affected.

The generics only sold for about 30p anyway, so it's hardly gonna bankrupt the pharma giants. And most sales are cheap generics anyway, AFAIK.
 
I watched the press conference with commentary from one of the youtube autism advocates last night.

It seems clear that Trump genuinely cares about this issue, and it's therefore even more of a shame that he's barking up the wrong tree, by basing everything on an invalid study, getting nearly everything wrong, and will possibly set proper meaningful understanding and research back by decades, because of this.

So many people are going to believe this fake news.

Link: https://www.you tube.com/watch?v=QDGkLPBq_ig&list=LL&index=9&t

(I kept getting the video is not available error, so I put a gap in the URL to bypass the error.)
 
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He's a convincing actor in that case. Which is even more concerning and dangerous as you say.
 
Perkins : Reborn said:
Trump's'concern' is usually 100% performative. He's reality TV through and through.

Like a hype man for the corporations. Still a dangerous character though.
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Yeah, his latest grift is selling "medbeds" via AI generated fox news specials on Truth Social.

For real. He actually posted this last night. It leads to a website that your elderly MAGA relatives can go to and spend money on this morning.

Just thought I'd leave that here in case anyone's dementia laden relatives mention their med bed hasn't arrived at Christmas.
 
tryptakid said:
Yeah, his latest grift is selling "medbeds" via AI generated fox news specials on Truth Social.

For real. He actually posted this last night. It leads to a website that your elderly MAGA relatives can go to and spend money on this morning.

Just thought I'd leave that here in case anyone's dementia laden relatives mention their med bed hasn't arrived at Christmas.
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Astonishing.
 
Perkins : Reborn said:
Astonishing.
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In the video, the seemingly fake video of the president announcing the program says that a limited number of "MedBed cards will be released," and registration details will be announced soon. But a search for "MedBed Cards" found a website selling you the cards. The card shown in the video and the card on medbedcard.com look similar.

For $447, someone can buy a single card. In FAQs listed at the bottom of the website, the card promises the following benefits, none of which actually include a MedBed or access to a MedBed:

"The MedBed Card is made of metal and personalized with your name. With it, you receive:

  • Exclusive information about terahertz technology — you’ll be among the first to know.
  • Up to 70% discounts on all our products as a member.
  • Personalized offers delivered directly to your email.
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Perkins : Reborn said:
This isn't even getting reported in the 'quality' British newspapers. Possibly because he's said so much mad shit in the past week alone. But it's terrifying that this is happening in one of the oldest and definitely the most influential democracy in the world. And yet people voted for this shit. Or at least voted to allow the shit to happen.
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Some voted. I am not completely convinced that Elon's "Anything can be hacked" tweet from a week before the election or Donnie Diaper's quip to Mike Johnson the week before the election about... "our little secret" wasn't an over eager cheater showing that their hand in that the voting machines that were 'serviced' and connected to Starlink internet which seemed to have ensured that all swing states voted overwhelmingly for Trump despite many of them also voting for democratic seats in the house and senate down ballot, wasn't an complete and utter cop to voting fraud, election hacking, and high treason.

So I'll have that to think about when my tax bill comes due next year and I yet again owe money somehow despite claiming the least deductions possible. Glad to know that he'll have another fake gold lion to put into that room he signs things in while he waits for Melania to come home, and sends more masked thugs to beat up protestors in war torn cities like Portland and Chicago.

Keeping America safe one violent act at a time.

Piece of work.
 
Voting machines do scare me. I'm usually not that conspiratorially-minded as a rule, apart from the obvious more obvious cons.

When we voted for Brexit, social media told people to bring pens with them because the traditional pencils on string meant 'they' could erase your vote and change your vote to 'remain'.

People actually believed that shit. I mean, if you want to rig a vote, what's the easiest way? Is it having a night shift working with pencils and erasers in a race against time - in every constituency - or would you just declare a different result?

Occam needs to reissue a hell of a lot of razors.
 
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It's possible that Trump won the 2024 election by hacking the voting machines, and just didn't bother to do it in 2020 for whatever reason.

But I'd guess that his opponent being a literal dementia patient was the more likely outcome
 
Yeah, watching Biden was disturbing, especially towards the end. Should have stood down earlier.

But I'd imagine the fact that Trump's opponent was a black female didn't help the Democratic cause either. Not that I particularly admire Kamala; she's much less further left than some people made her out to be. But the fact we've had three female PMs and America has yet to elect a woman (even a white woman) says a lot. Even our Conservative party has a black female leader these days!
 
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tryptakid said:
One of the biggest issues I see today is the tendency towards self pathologizing and diagnosis. That is - we have access to information online which can confirm our own biased fears, doubts, suspicious and conclusions that inform how we view ourselves. We find labels which explain the dysphoria we experience and apply those labels in an attempt to define ourselves. This can feel empowering as it gives name to some type of challenge we have faced. The problem is, that we are not able to do this without inherent bias.

It is absolutely crucial that we do not self diagnose. This is something taught to us in psychology training as many psychopathology are familiar and some are very familiar. We see ourselves in the diagnostic descriptors and it is very easy to think "that sounds like me so maybe it is me". We then take on a label and start to assign pathology to ourselves, without any checks or balances to say "maybe it is, and maybe it isn't." When we take on pathological labels and adapt them as part of our identity, it causes us to behave in a new way in alignment with that identity.

It is imperative that people seek outside guidance, clarification, and diagnosis before taking on psychopathology and diagnosis. Instead what happens far too often is people make assumptions that they know themselves best (which is true) and that also they know how to apply diagnositcs to themselves (which is not true). When this happens, it creates dangerous self-fulfilling prophecies.
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This is one of the several issues about which there is extreme disagreement within the Autism community.

With many online groups and advocates on youtube etc regarding self diagnosis as completely valid. There are many useful and reliable tools, like the AQ50, which measures Autistic traits, and scores the likelyhood of the person having the condition. Tools like this which are objectively more rigorous can act as a very valuable first step, as to whether it's worth the person following up or not. This is just anecdotal, which I'm aware is the weakest form of evidence, but I scored like 41 or 42 out of 50, leaving me in very little doubt that I should look into things a lot more deeply.

Obviously this is not the case for some kid that's watched one 45 seconds tiktok video and self diagnoses on the basis of that.

The only reasons that I didn't discover things earlier is that the information available previously was very poor. With misleading articles saying things like 'its impossible to get through school without Autism being detected and diagnosed', completely ignoring older generations who slipped through the system way before Autism was widely recognised, and higher masking females. And also it was not previously made clear that you don't have to tick every box and have every symptom. And so as I can 'read' most people and their moods and emotions pretty accurately, which is a trait that many Autistic people struggle with, I also ruled myself out on that basis.

But I got there in the end, and knowing the "why" behind everything makes the world of difference.
 
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I went through the autism clinic business when I was very young in the early eighties, but at that time if you exhibited a higher IQ, there was little chance of being branded 'autistic', but Asperger's wasn't yet diagnosed or fully understood, so yeah, many people slipped through the net, as it were.

It was only through reconnecting with the medical world after over a decade of not seeing a doctor that I discovered my particular issue was hyperlexia, which explained why most of the 'autistic' symptoms abated or vanished, yet I still fixate on the written word. I used to sit there with a newspaper, totally transfixed, while my contemporaries were out having a good time. I was left to read on my own whilst other kids were mastering the alphabet. My actual problems lie elsewhere.

Sounds like a superpower, but a pretty crap superpower if you can't harness it and do something meaningful.
 
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Bleaney said:
This is one of the several issues about which there is extreme disagreement within the Autism community.

With many online groups and advocates on youtube etc regarding self diagnosis as completely valid. There are many useful and reliable tools, like the AQ50, which measures Autistic traits, and scores the likelyhood of the person having the condition. Tools like this which are objectively more rigorous can act as a very valuable first step, as to whether it's worth the person following up or not. This is just anecdotal, which I'm aware is the weakest form of evidence, but I scored like 41 or 42 out of 50, leaving me in very little doubt that I should look into things a lot more deeply.

Obviously this is not the case for some kid that's watched one 45 seconds tiktok video and self diagnoses on the basis of that.

The only reasons that I didn't discover things earlier is that the information available previously was very poor. With misleading articles saying things like 'its impossible to get through school without Autism being detected and diagnosed' completely ignoring older generations who slipped through the system way before Autism was widely recognised, and higher masking females. And also it was not previously made clear that you don't have to tick every box and have every symptom. And so as I can 'read' most people and their moods and emotions pretty accurately, which is a trait that many Autistic people struggle with, I also ruled myself out on that basis.

But I got there in the end, and knowing the "why" behind everything makes the world of difference.
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Autism was reconsidered when the DSM-IV transitioned to the DSM-V (or as @Perkins : Reborn noted - the ICD 9 transitioned to ICD 10 which took place around the same time in 2013/2014~) . The diagnostic criteria changed and we eliminated the designation of "Asperger's Disorder" which accounted for many of the low-moderate acuity cases that we would now simply call Autism Spectrum Disorder. We also started shifting a broader number of adjacent disorders (oppositional defiant disorder, Non-verbal learning disorder) under the same ASD umbrella.

This shift has lead to a couple of things happening in my experience:

1) ASD has come to encompass a much broader swatch of human subjective experiences, levels of functioning, and quality of life than it did prior to this shift occurring. I worked in a program for kids with ASD back in 2006. These kids were unable to live at home with parents, required constant supervision (some 24 hours per day) and were not capable of succeeding in normal academic settings. The highest functioning individuals - those with 'mild ASD' at that time were still children who were unable to succeed in traditional classrooms.

2) ASD, in coming to encapsulate some of the highest functioning individuals who experience some degree of ASD traits, has lead to a generation of young people whose understanding of their own ASD experience is intertwined with things like academic success and professional levels of functioning. Further, the highly objective/logical cognitive styles that ASD generates is one that works very well in workplaces where little human contact is required, and high levels of computer:human interaction is the norm. This has resulted in a high number of high functioning individuals demonstrating that ASD is not a disorder which connotes the same levels of functional impairment that it did 10-15 years ago. The reclassification has lead to highly successful individuals who also happen to fit the new diagnostic criteria recognizing that their disorder is not an impairment and in some ways may be an asset.

This is not a truth held by many of the children I worked with years ago. Many of these children could not speak a full sentence that was not simply repeating lines from a disney movie. Many communicated with a picture board or an electronic touchpad that vocalized for them. They required prompting to engage in self-care activities, and lacked the ability to care for themselves in some of the most basic ways. They were teachable, but required very very close attention paid by trained adults to perform basic things like making macaroni and cheese.

In relaxing the guidelines, we created a more fluid understanding of what ASD represents which has resulted in many people feeling empowered on one end, while on the other end you have a large number of people whose ASD is largely forgotten.
 
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tryptakid said:
Autism was reconsidered when the DSM-IV transitioned to the DSM-V. The diagnostic criteria changed and we eliminated the designation of "Asperger's Disorder" which accounted for many of the low-moderate acuity cases that we would now simply call Autism Spectrum Disorder. We also started shifting a broader number of adjacent disorders (oppositional defiant disorder, Non-verbal learning disorder) under the same ASD umbrella.

This shift has lead to a couple of things happening in my experience:

1) ASD has come to encompass a much broader swatch of human subjective experiences, levels of functioning, and quality of life than it did prior to this shift occurring. I worked in a program for kids with ASD back in 2006. These kids were unable to live at home with parents, required constant supervision (some 24 hours per day) and were not capable of succeeding in normal academic settings. The highest functioning individuals - those with 'mild ASD' at that time were still children who were unable to succeed in traditional classrooms.

2) ASD, in coming to encapsulate some of the highest functioning individuals who experience some degree of ASD traits, has lead to a generation of young people whose understanding of their own ASD experience is intertwined with things like academic success and professional levels of functioning. Further, the highly objective/logical cognitive styles that ASD generates is one that works very well in workplaces where little human contact is required, and high levels of computer:human interaction is the norm. This has resulted in a high number of high functioning individuals demonstrating that ASD is not a disorder which connotes the same levels of functional impairment that it did 10-15 years ago. The reclassification has lead to highly successful individuals who also happen to fit the new diagnostic criteria recognizing that their disorder is not an impairment and in some ways may be an asset.

This is not a truth held by many of the children I worked with years ago. Many of these children could not speak a full sentence that was not simply repeating lines from a disney movie. Many communicated with a picture board or an electronic touchpad that vocalized for them. They required prompting to engage in self-care activities, and lacked the ability to care for themselves in some of the most basic ways. They were teachable, but required very very close attention paid by trained adults to perform basic things like making macaroni and cheese.

In relaxing the guidelines, we created a more fluid understanding of what ASD represents which has resulted in many people feeling empowered on one end, while on the other end you have a large number of people whose ASD is largely forgotten.
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We use the ICD over here, not the DSM.
 
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