Articles tagged with "autism"

Wham, Bam, Autism scams: Circumcisions and Autism

13 October 2025

RFK Jr. continues to find more and more reasons to blame acetaminophen for autism.

Wham, Bam, Autism scams: Paracetamol.

29 September 2025

What I hope has been self-evident in previous instalments of my Wham, Bam, Autism Scams series is that some people are willing to do whatever it takes to spare their children from what they see as a lifetime of suffering; usually by avoiding vaccines and making their children ingest all sorts of god awful things, i.e. bleach. What I haven't really explored is the things people do to themselves to prevent having Autistic children because, well, people don't necessarily think of preventing Autism at the parent-level, save for the occasional new blurb about sex selection in fertility medicine. Developments in the United States last week demonstrate what happens when unchecked Autism misinformation is used to justify asking women, pregnant people, and their families to make a choice that could kill them.

Wham, Bam, Autism Scams: Wasting resources, and having conflicts of interest, in a White House that claims to want neither

31 March 2025

It was announced this week that RFK Jr. has hired David Geier as an analyst on a new study into the links between Autism and vaccines. A link that was debunked years ago, which even its most profitable holdout, American charity Autism Speaks, disavowed about a decade ago. This decision is just another in a series of attacks the White House has made against the disabled, and against science in general.

Wham, Bam, Autism Scams: Reversing Autism through diet and therapy

14 October 2024

It has been a while since I wrote about pseudoscience and scams around curing Autism, but that doesn't mean I haven't been collecting a whopper or two to share.

Wham, Bam, Autism Scams - The bad actors and bad science behind the most egregious claims about the causes and cure for Autism

18 September 2023

Autism is a lifelong neurodevelopmental condition that impacts behaviour, communication, and socialisation. The exact cause of Autism is unknown, and there is no single gene that is Autisticassociated with the condition. Almost 200 genes can increase the likelihood of Autism due to mutation or possible epigenetic causes. Autism presentation varies widely, and that ranges from Autistics who live independent lives with minimal support to Autistics who require significant support with communication and day-to-day living. It is not unusual for an Autistic to move along that spectrum depending on what emotional, societal, economic, or health pressures are placed on them.

UK Autism Charity exposed and homeopathic treatment still being advertised in NZ

11 April 2022

April is Autism acceptance month, and amidst the annual articles reminding everyone that lack of eye contact and an inclination for stimming isn't the worst thing in the world, the ghost of Andrew Wakefield's deception rears its head again.

U.K. Society of Homeopaths have Accreditation Suspended

18 January 2021

In a win for skeptics everywhere, On 11 January 2021, the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) in the U.K. moved to suspend accreditation of the Society of Homeopaths (SoH), because they found that the SoH “did not appear to have prioritised public protection over professional interests in its handling of complaints or governance processes, which undermined confidence in its ability to ensure its registrants were compliant with its own Code of Ethics and position statements.”

No link between MMR vaccination and autism

1 May 2019

One of the myths (and there are a lot of them) continually pushed by those opposed to vaccination, is that “the MMR vaccine causes autism” – often coupled with claims that “there are no studies comparing the health of vaccinated & unvaccinated children”. (That's another myth, by the way.)

Homeopaths trying to "cure" Autism

29 April 2018

An organised group of homeopaths offering bogus treatments for autism has been written about in the Guardian newspaper in the UK. The article talks about how more than 120 homeopaths in the UK are part of this group, called CEASE (Complete Elimination of Autistic Spectrum Expression), and the therapies they are offering are supposed to remove "toxins" that are apparently causing autism in children, and many of these toxins are meant to have come from vaccines.

Unvaccinated Pets

28 January 2018

As if people not vaccinating their kids isn't enough nonsense to deal with, there's an increasing trend for pet owners to not vaccinate their pets as well. This appears to be due to silly concerns such as that their pets might suffer from autism, despite the fact that autism hasn't been observed in animals.

Homeopathic treatment for Autism?

21 January 2018

One of the issues with fundraising sites like IndieGogo and Kickstarter is that there's a lack of adequate oversight to ensure that the products being offered are actually plausible. Sometimes things end up on my radar that look too good to be true, and at other times they're just plain ridiculous.