An Indiana woman with an autistic son says that President Donald Trump had held mothers responsible when he made unfounded claims that Tylenol was taken during pregnancy.
A woman in Kentucky diagnosed the disease as an adult, thought that Trump had malignant autism by describing her as a “terrible, terrible crisis”.
A man from Massachusetts, whose twin boys have a profound autism, found the words of the Republican President hopefully because it was the first time that the father discussed autism at the highest level of government.
The recent comments on the autism of the Republican President and others in his administration penetrated the United States and perform a variety of views and feelings among autistic people and their families. Some welcome the renewed focus and the promises of research funds for the complicated state of development. Others are outraged by what they consider for the fault, the shame and spread of claims based on science.
On Monday, Trump repeatedly warned pregnant women, Tylenol, known under the generic name Acetamol, no Tylenol, and he promoted discredited claims on autism and vaccines. Some studies have increased the possibility that taking paracetamol could possibly be associated with the risk of autism during pregnancy. However, many others have not found a connection and no causal connection has been proven.
In the meantime, scientists emphasize that the concerns that vaccines could be associated with autism have been exposed for a long time. A fraudulent study in which a connection between measles, mumps and rubella vaccines was claimed was later withdrawn by the magazine that she published. Science has shown that autism is mainly rooted in genetics.
Pushback on mothers, Vagierautism
Dr. Noa Sterling, an Ob-Gyn, said Trump’s comments, especially Tylenol, touched many parents of adolescent autistic children.
“There is this kind of narrative that you have to be careful about absolutely everything you do during pregnancy, and if you do the wrong food or the wrong thing, you will harm your baby irreparably,” she said. “So Tylenol only plays directly into this fear that I have taken something that caused this condition in my child.”
Dani Derner, who has a 4-year-old autistic son, said it was “really disappointing” that women are accused.
“Personally, I personally did not take a Tylenol during my pregnancy,” said Derner from Dropfingsern, Texas. But she said: “Some women may have no choice.”
Some women said the blame of the refuted theory of the dissatisfied in the middle of the 20th century that emotionally frigid “fridge mothers” caused autism.
“When I heard that he said acetamol was the thing, I had a little frightened and a little sad because, as a child of a child, I had the feeling that I would have the feeling that I would be responsible for it,” said Rachel Deaton from Fisher, Indiana, who has a 22-year-old autistic son. “We really don’t know what causes autism.”
Kelly Sue Milano from Fullerton, California, who has an autistic son, added: “I think that a lot of responsibility and sometimes criticism of mothers are put in a really unbalanced and unfair way.”
Some autistic people were withdrawn because of the idea that autism can be healed.
“It is part of those who we are,” said Dani Bowman, CEO of Danimation Entertainment and actor of “Love on the Spectrum”. “My mother never took Tylenol while she was pregnant with me or my sister. My father has autism. My sister has autism. I have autism.”
Katy Thurman, a legal assistant in Lexington, Kentucky, in which autism was diagnosed as an adult, became enraged with the concept of extermination of autism.
“There are actual crises in this country. People who are autistic is none of them,” said Thurman.
Address in profound autism
Others were encouraged by attention to the developmental disorder.
“We need a voice at the table and have to do something,” said Matt Murphy von Ayer, Massachusetts, who has two 8-year-old boys with deep autism. “This is the hopeful thing that I take out of it -the top government level speaks about it.”
He said that people with deep autism need lifelong support, and federal and state governments have to take measures in many areas, including education and living space. Murphy is elated to see that federal money expects the causes of autism for researching the causes.
“Even if you find the thing … we still have the current population that we support and address and help,” he said.
Deaton, who has an autistic son, agrees, but is worried about federal cuts that affect things like Medicaid and special education. These assist autistic people to contribute society to get jobs and be taxpayers, she said.
Judith Ursitti leads the deep autism alliance and belonged to a group of people who met in June with the director of the National Institute of Health. She said that hearing the term “profound autism” in an event of the White House was confirmed and she was satisfied with the list of the research list.
But Ursitti, mother of a 22-year-old son with autism, realizes that people in other parts of the autism spectrum violate some of the language and that others were outraged in their community because they believe that mothers were accused.
Ursitti also said that part of the discussion was confusing, including failure to tease in -depth autism from other parts of the spectrum
“The vast majority of people with autism do not fall into this profound category,” she said.
She said that the reactions to comments in the White House were as diverse as the autism community itself.
“There is a gap that is honestly like what we see in our country,” she said.
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Associated Press Video Journalists River Zhang and Nathan Ellgren in Washington and Obed Lamy in Indianapolis have contributed to this report.
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The Department of Health and Science Department of Associated Press receives support from the Department of Science Education of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is only responsible for all content.
