These days, among two million Americans, around 20,000 have ankylosing spondylitis (an autoimmune disease I have that can lead to a crooked spine), 50,000 are mentally retarded,112 at least 50,000 are schizophrenic,113 35,000 have dementia (Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, etc.),114 10,000 are severely autistic, and 650 are deaf-blind.115

Autistic individuals are less likely to conform, in part because conformity feels less gratifying and comforting to them than to other people. Autists’ inbuilt resistance to peer pressure and authority, combined with their outsider status and precise language, allows them to notice and describe society’s flaws better than those comfortably immersed... See more

In NeuroTribes , Silberman writes that many in Silicon Valley, in the tech industry, seem autistic. I’ve noticed that many autobiographical authors and graphic novelists do too. There’s a connection between autobiographical self-expression and autism, or auto-ism , from the Greek word auto , meaning “self” or “self-referential.” Pain and discomfort... See more

In 2016, the nonprofit Moms Across America sent five childhood vaccines to Microbe Inotech Laboratories to be tested for glyphosate. Using the ELISA test, glyphosate was found in all five vaccines, at 0.107 to 2.671 parts per billion.81 The MMR vaccine, which is grown as a live culture on gelatin, contained the most glyphosate. Additional tests... See more

The pleasure, bonding, satisfaction, meaning, fulfillment, and stimulation—the opioids, oxytocin, endocannabinoids, dopamine, etc.—normally achieved through human relationships, in the autist is instead diverted, beginning in the formative years when the brain is rapidly developing, to non-social activities with self-invented goals. This explains... See more

In 1974, two years after DDT was banned in the U.S., the already corrupt and/or incompetent EPA allowed Monsanto, the main seller of DDT, to begin selling glyphosate in its weedkiller Roundup. Seven hundred tons of glyphosate were used in the U.S. that year, 20,000 tons in 1995, and 138,000 tons in 2014,70 a 200-fold increase nearly matching the... See more

Scientists have been unable to define how autism is genetic. Over the past two decades, an increasing number of genes have been blamed in causing the disorder. It’s now argued that 500 to 1,000 genes are involved,37 which amounts to 7 to 14 percent of all the genes used in brain function. This is like saying a cut on a leg is caused by genetics,... See more

They had what Kanner called “an anxiously obsessive desire for the maintenance of sameness .”

After stopping pills in 2013 and 2014, I continued learning about natural treatments. I read Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression, Schizophrenia (2010) by Natasha Campbell-McBride, a former neurosurgeon who reversed her son’s autism. I read Bugs, Brains, and Bowels (2013), an... See more