Autistic Kids and Technology

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families.

MIT Press Reader:

In spite of widespread assumptions that young people on the autism spectrum have a “natural” attraction to technology — a premise that leads to significant speculation about how media helps or harms them — relatively little research actually exists about their everyday tech use. It’s a gap Meryl Alper, a researcher exploring the social and cultural implications of communication technologies, addresses in her new book “Kids Across the Spectrums,” an ethnographic study of the digital lives of autistic young people.

Based on nearly a decade of in-depth qualitative research conducted in the homes of more than 60 neurodivergent children from an array of racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds, Alper challenges the prevailing myths and stereotypes that have perpetuated misconceptions about autistic youth and their relationship with technology. What Alper found is that what autistic youth do with technology is not radically different from their nonautistic peers. The experiences that children on the autism spectrum have with technology are less explained by their diagnoses alone, she writes in the book’s introduction, and more by the intersections of their disability with other aspects of their identity and the modern conditions of childhood: “They differentially face significant social and health inequalities, including limited recreational programs, poor neighborhood safety, and challenges receiving appropriate therapeutic services.” These disparities, Alper argues, “spill directly over into autistic children’s media habits.”

“Kids Across the Spectrums,” which is available in a freely downloadable open access edition, stands as a timely and deeply humane work that will especially resonate with educators, technologists, and parents of neurodivergent children, who will find insight and solace in its pages.

ReelAbilities

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss depictions of ASD in popular culture. 

Abbey White at The Hollywood Reporter:

ReelAbilities Film Festival has announced a new streaming platform dedicated to curating, supporting and streaming films and short films around disability.

Launching Tuesday during Disability Pride month and ahead of the 33rd anniversary of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ReelAbilitiesStream.org features a library of more than 50 films featured at previous editions of the festival that celebrate and explore the lives and experiences of people with disabilities. The launch marks the platform, which utilizes as pay-per-view model, as the largest online hub for disability-themed films.

AI Chatbots and Autistic People

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families.

Amanda Hoover and Samantha Spengler at Wired:

Autism affects people in many different ways and individuals can have varying needs. ChatGPT may not work for some or even most, but a common feature of autism is that social interactions can be difficult or confusing.

Using a chatbot to help with communication may seem unconventional, but it’s in line with some established ideas used in social work to help people become more independent. “We talk about empowering people and helping people to be fully autonomous and experience success on their own terms,” says Lauri Goldkind, a professor in Fordham University’s Graduate School of Social Service who focuses on the marriage of social work and technology. An accessible tool like a generative AI bot can often help bridge the gap left by intermittent access to mental health services like therapy, Goldkind says.

But the true impact of ChatGPT for therapeutic reasons is largely unknown. It’s too new—WIRED reached out to four clinical therapists and counselors for input. Each of them declined to comment, saying that they have yet to explore the use of ChatGPT as a therapeutic tool or encounter it in their sessions.

But ChatGPT still does not reason very well.  I asked it why Senator Rick Santorum sponsored the Combating Autism Act of 2006.  Among the reasons that it cited: " Santorum has a child with a developmental disability. His daughter, Bella, was born with Trisomy 18, a rare genetic condition that causes severe developmental delays. This personal experience likely influenced his interest in issues related to disabilities and special needs, including autism."  But Bella Santorum was born in 2008, two years after the bill passed.

Autism and Digital Services

The Politics of Autism includes an extensive discussion of autism service providers.  Since the book's publication, a big change has consisted of a massive increase in private equity and other investments.

At Digital Health Business and Technology, Gabriel Perna reports that startups are providing everything from online services to job-hunt platforms for autistic people.

“If you’re a tech company like Airbnb and you have venture capital, your mentality is typically, ‘grow, grow, grow,’” said Sarah Trautman, CEO of defy community, a company focused on preventing burnout among clinicians. “They don’t care if you’re running a huge deficit, they just want to get to scale and add in profit later…The issue that I think people are failing to consider is this requires human capital, and it really requires a ton of human capital.”

The money flowing into autism care has been plentiful. According to Digital Health Business & Technology’s funding database, more than $700 million in venture money has gone into autism-focused digital health startups since 2017. There have been 28 deals, including 17 in the last two years. That includes a $219 million round for Elemy in October 2021, a $105 million round for Brightline in March and a $60 million round for Cortica in June 2021. While most of these startups companies are singularly focused on autism, others like Brightline and Cortica aim to reach multiple patient populations.

...

One key reason for investor interest in the space is that every state has enacted a mandate requiring insurance carriers to cover services for autism spectrum disorder. Jonathan Mueller, CEO of Element RCM, a revenue cycle management company for autism service companies, said the funding trends follows what’s happened in other areas of medicine, such as home health and hospice care, after they were made reimbursable through insurance.

... 

Aaron Blocher-Rubin, founder and CEO of Arizona Autism United, a community-based nonprofit that provides ABA and other services to families, and other critics have concerns over the virtualized board-certified behavioral analyst model. “Autism is way too complex. Therapists are way too underqualified to be expected to [only receive virtual support]. There’s no research on a model like this,” he said.

   

Making Federally Funded Research Freely Available

In The Politics of Autism, I describe the difficulties of finding reliable information:

One problem is that a good deal of the solid research about autism lies in academic journals behind an Internet paywall, open only to people who have a university library card or can afford the journals’ exorbitant prices ($35 or more per article). Says neuroscientist Sophia Colamarino: “In today’s information age, where essentially anything said by anyone can be made accessible within a matter of moments, it is unfortunate that families have easy access to all BUT the most scientifically valid information, that which can be found in scientifically reviewed research literature.” NIH and Autism Speaks have tried to remedy this situation by requiring its research grant recipients to put any resulting peer-reviewed research papers on the PubMed Central online archive, but this policy affects only a fraction of the literature on autism.

An August 25 release from the White House:

Today, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) updated U.S. policy guidance to make the results of taxpayer-supported research immediately available to the American public at no cost. In a memorandum to federal departments and agencies, Dr. Alondra Nelson, the head of OSTP, delivered guidance for agencies to update their public access policies as soon as possible to make publications and research funded by taxpayers publicly accessible, without an embargo or cost. All agencies will fully implement updated policies, including ending the optional 12-month embargo, no later than December 31, 2025.

This policy will likely yield significant benefits on a number of key priorities for the American people, from environmental justice to cancer breakthroughs, and from game-changing clean energy technologies to protecting civil liberties in an automated world.

For years, President Biden has been committed to delivering policy based on the best available science, and to working to ensure the American people have access to the findings of that research. “Right now, you work for years to come up with a significant breakthrough, and if you do, you get to publish a paper in one of the top journals,” said then-Vice President Biden in remarks to the American Association for Cancer Research in 2016. “For anyone to get access to that publication, they have to pay hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to subscribe to a single journal. And here’s the kicker — the journal owns the data for a year. The taxpayers fund $5 billion a year in cancer research every year, but once it’s published, nearly all of that taxpayer-funded research sits behind walls. Tell me how this is moving the process along more rapidly.” The new public access guidance was developed with the input of multiple federal agencies over the course of this year, to enable progress on a number of Biden-Harris Administration priorities.

“When research is widely available to other researchers and the public, it can save lives, provide policymakers with the tools to make critical decisions, and drive more equitable outcomes across every sector of society,” said Dr. Alondra Nelson, head of OSTP. “The American people fund tens of billions of dollars of cutting-edge research annually. There should be no delay or barrier between the American public and the returns on their investments in research.”

This policy update builds on the Biden-Harris Administration’s broader efforts to broaden the potential of the American innovation ecosystem by leveling the playing field for all American innovators, which can help ensure that the U.S. remains a world leader in science and technology. This policy guidance will end the current optional embargo that allows scientific publishers to put taxpayer-funded research behind a subscription-based paywall – which may block access for innovators for whom the paywall is a barrier, even barring scientists and their academic institutions from access to their own research findings. In addition, agencies will develop plans to improve transparency, including clearly disclosing authorship, funding, affiliations, and the development status of federally funded research – and will coordinate with OSTP to help ensure equitable delivery of federally funded research results and data.

Advocates, researchers, academic libraries, Congressional leaders, and others have long called for greater public access to federally funded research results. This policy update reflects extensive public engagement with stakeholders across the research publication ecosystem on ways to strengthen equitable access to federally funded research results. OSTP’s consultations have included large and small science and academic publishers, for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, libraries and universities, scholarly societies, and members of the general public.

In the short-term, agencies will work with OSTP to update their public access and data sharing plans by mid-2023. OSTP expects all agencies to have updated public access policies fully implemented by the end of 2025. This timeline gives agencies, researchers, publishers, and scholarly societies some flexibility on when to adapt to the new policies. Over the long term, OSTP will continue to coordinate with federal agencies to ensure that government public access policies adapt to new technologies and emerging needs.

Bad Security at Antivax Dating Site

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong.  

At The Daily Dot,  Mikael Thalen reports that an anti-vaccine dating website tleft its users’ personal data exposed online.

The site, Unjected, launched in May 2021 and claims to be the “largest unvaccinated platform” on the internet. Unjected initially made headlines in August after its app was removed from the Apple App Store for violating the company’s policies regarding COVID-19.

Similar in design to Twitter and often referred to as the “Tinder for anti-vaxxers,” Unjected has remained under the radar ever since, quietly adding new features for its small userbase. The site now offers what it describes as “mRNA FREE blood match & fertility directories” where unvaccinated users can donate blood, sperm, or eggs to one another.

While some of the ads for blood appear legitimate, others, such as one offering up unvaccinated semen, appear to have been made in jest. The site’s fertility section allows users the option to offer up their eggs, breastmilk, or semen. Users can also offer to be a surrogate.

Yet, according to the programmer and security researcher known online as GeopJr, the site’s administrator dashboard was openly accessible to anyone. The dashboard allows Unjected’s administrators to add, edit, or deactivate pages, such as the website’s “About Us” section, as well as users’ accounts.

TikTok and ASD

 In The Politics of Autism, I examine the role of social media in the development of the issue.  

Katie Camero at Buzzfeed:

Before TikTok, many autistic creators said they had no way to connect with other autistic people. Over time, the platform has introduced them to people who understand them and their needs.

“Ever since I started talking about autism in my videos, I’ve met some very incredible and nice autistic people who are very talented and wise and who have become some of my greatest friends,” said Timothy Boykin, 23, whose TikTok account has 90.8K followers.

With the goal of connecting and uplifting BIPOC autistic creators, Jackson-Carpenter formed a group chat with some of his new, close TikTok friends. One of them inspired him to rekindle his passion for Pokémon, one of his special interests.

While neurotypical people may not find online friendships fulfilling, autistic people may actually prefer those kinds of relationships, Mazurek said, because they don’t involve in-person stressors, like having to read social cues or dealing with strong sensory stimuli.

A 2017 study found that using Facebook was associated with higher-quality friendships among autistic teens but not among their non-autistic peers. The Yale researchers suggested autistic people “socially compensate through online interaction” because of their “unique communicative style, rather than for being socially anxious.”

“Before TikTok, it was a lot of isolation because there wasn’t a place where I can be honest about things that I’m struggling with,” David said, particularly spaces for autistic women and girls and adults who were diagnosed later in life.

Now, one of David’s goals as a creator is to fill those gaps by posting content that explores what late-diagnosed adults can do to make their lives a bit easier. “How do you be a person with autism? How do you advocate for yourself when this is a very new thing to you? That has been my goal since I started,” David said. “Even if my content helps one person, that’s enough for me.”

Women Testing for Autism

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss gender differences in autism identification.

 Maya Oppenheim at The Independent:

Tens of thousands more women tested themselves for autism last year with numbers seeking tests now far outstripping men, new data shows.

Statistics seen by The Independent show around 150,000 women took an online test verified by health professionals to see if they have autism last year, up from about 49,000 in 2020.


Health professionals said the increase was a consequence of women not being diagnosed with the neurodevelopmental disorder as children and teens due to autism wrongly being viewed as a male disorder.


Experts told The Independent autistic women and girls are routinely overlooked and neglected by health services due to them being more likely to conceal or internalise symptoms.

Data from Clinical Partners, one of the UK’s leading mental health care providers which works closely with the NHS, shows women made up 56 per cent of those using their autism tests last year. This is substantially higher than the 46 per cent of women testing themselves for autism in 2020.

VAERS

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

Antivaxxers are sometimes violent, often abusive, and always wrong. 

Corbin Duncan at The Harvard Political Review:

When the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) was established in 1990, its creators at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would have scarcely imagined the government program would become a leading vector for vaccine misinformation amidst a global pandemic.

The VAERS dataset was created to manage reports of vaccine-associated side effects. With the authority of the CDC, whose official seal adorns the webpage, VAERS packs a shock. As of today, the online database alleges 1349 U.S. deaths attributable to COVID-19 vaccines. The database makes for gruesome reading, with side-effects of the vaccine appearing to include brain death, herpes and even one case of a gunshot wound. Quite the vaccine.

These statistics are, of course, patently false. Claims made by the VAERS database now form the foundation of a global online misinformation campaign which to-date has garnered little attention. The startling statistics are being shared far and wide by anti-vaccination activists and concerned readers alike. And the CDC’s role in the dissemination of vaccine misinformation, unwilling though it may be, is attracting increasing scrutiny as it jeopardises what President Biden calls his administration’s “most important battle”: the global coronavirus vaccine rollout.

The CDC describes VAERS as a “passive reporting system.” Pre-dating the internet, the VAERS database has virtually no guards against its potential role as a source of “fake news” and is credulous of even the most fanciful claims of COVID-19 vaccine side-effects. VAERS reports “can be submitted voluntarily by anyone, including healthcare providers, patients, or family members.” The CDC acknowledges the “quality and completeness” of reports “often lack details and sometimes can have information that contains errors.” Beyond that disclaimer, the CDC tries to ensure its readers know the data is inaccurate by offering users terms and conditions, which are presumably mostly unread, and a checkbox to acknowledge their contents. A federal agency seeking to disabuse citizens of the expectation that government health databases are accurate should be an indicator for the CDC that VAERS has a serious problem.

Beatrice Dupuy at AP:

Posts online are sharing VAERS data without any context. Screenshots of the data being shared online give a vague description to paint a much darker version of reality and mislead social media users into believing that the vaccine is causing more adverse events than the public is being told.

“VAERS - A MUST WATCH!!!!,” one video showing VAERS data on Instagram said. “I bet you haven’t seen any of THIS information about the COVID-19 vaccine covered on CNN, or any off the other treasonous corrupt mainstream media!”

Some screenshots show only a VAERS identification number, the age of the person who was vaccinated, the day they received the vaccine and the day they died to suggest that people are dying from the vaccine. The posts with misleading captions are being widely shared across social media platforms.

“I have not seen any data supporting that the vaccine caused a relationship with an increase in mortality rate or something like that,” said Dr. Werner Bischoff, an infectious disease specialist at Wake Forest University.

According to the CDC, VAERS does not determine if the vaccine caused the reported adverse events, which can often happen coincidentally after immunization.

VAERS has often been misrepresented by anti-vaccine advocates, and the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine has brought more attention to the surveillance system.

There was a time when a number of reports in VAERS were from people concerned that vaccines were causing autism, which has been debunked, said Dr. James Campbell, professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

 

Program for Autistic Students at the University of Idaho

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the growing number of college students on the spectrum. Some colleges and universities have programs to assist them.

At the Moscow-Pulman Daily News, Lex Van Horn reports on a program for autistic students at the University of Idaho:

Raven Scholars Project supports students as they transition from the distractions of typical high-school classrooms to learning in a more supportive setting.

“There is that place where I can go and everybody knows I’m on the autism spectrum,” Program Coordinator Leslie Gwartney said. “I don’t have to explain myself. I don’t have to worry about if I’m stimming (self-stimulation behavior) or if I’m having a bad day or if I want to talk about my special interest. People are going to understand.”
...

The UI Raven Scholars Program, one of several UI programs supporting these students, helps 30 students with ASD, diagnosed or undiagnosed, per semester, Gwartney said. Students regularly talk with her about their academic work, time management, self-care and social skills. These meetings are meant to become shorter and less frequent because Raven Scholars is a program helping high-school students transition into college life.

The change to online learning because of COVID-19 has challenged students with ASD. Some instructors have expected students to fill in gaps, but ambiguous assignments can be challenging for students with ASD, Gwartney said. Assignments that place equal weight on small portions of work instead of heavily weighting a final project can also be difficult. Students may feel like it’s busywork and avoid it.

Other students have struggled more with transitioning their social lives online. Normally, students have access to the Raven Room, a large, open space where students can work, eat, relax or chat with each other. Puzzles, board games and books are organized on shelves around the room while sensory tools and fidget toys lay on a counter near the common table. Two large windows oversee neighboring halls and their courtyards.

Inequality and Special Education During COVID

 In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families. Those challenges get far more intense during disasters.  And coronavirus is proving to be the biggest disaster of all. Providing education is proving to be very difficult.  To make matters worse, the crisis is deepening inequality.


 Anna Almendrala at Kaiser Health News:

As children head back to school online across California and much of the nation, some of the disparities that plague education are growing wider. Instead of attending the same school with similar access to supplies and teacher time, children are directly dependent on their home resources, from Wi-Fi and computers to study space and parental guidance. Parents who work, are poor or have less education are at a disadvantage, as are their kids....

The gap in online learning experience is sharply visible in [Alhambra teacher Tamya] Daly’s class, and the parents’ role is crucial. For parents who don’t have to work, distance learning may be tense and time-consuming, but it becomes part of a daily routine to be endured until the pandemic ebbs. For others, schooling is an unworkable nightmare burdening parents already stretched to their limits.

School started Aug. 12. By day five, Daly knew which children had the luxury of a stay-at-home parent and which were being supervised by older siblings. She knew which students struggled to get online on time every day — a new state requirement for all virtual learners — and which ones needed reminding to eat breakfast before class started.

She also knew, from last spring, that most of the parents couldn’t print the worksheets she had uploaded to Google Classroom. Their printers were broken, or printer ink cost too much, or they didn’t have printers. For this semester, she set up a time every Thursday for parents to drive by the school and pick up packets for the following week.

Greta Thunberg and Asperger Awareness

In The Politics of Autism, I write:  "Support from the general public will be an important political asset for autistic people. Another will be their sheer numbers, since a larger population of identified autistic adults will mean more autistic voters and activists."  Perhaps the most prominent is climate activist Rachel Thunberg.

At The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Micah Hartwell, Ashley Keener, Sara Coffey, Tessa Chesher, Trevor Torgerson & Matt Vassar have a brief report titled "Public Awareness of Asperger Syndrome Following Greta Thunberg Appearances." 

Results from our study suggest that Thunberg’s increased media attention during the climate summit and subsequently being named Time’s person of the year was strongly associated with increased public awareness for AS. More than 1.3 million searches for AS occurred in September in concordance with the UN summit, nearly double the volume from the previous month. The search trend for AS remained well above the forecasted values through the end of the year. In turn, the executive director of the Asperger/Autism Network stated the organization sees increased call volumes, specifically related to acquiring a diagnosis, when prominent figures such as Thunberg receive heightened media attention and reveal their diagnosis (Ortiz 2019). Additional evidence of increased help-seeking behavior during this period may be supported by the increased internet traffic for the Asperger/Autism Network (AANE) and Autism Speaks websites.

Trump insulted her. 

"Infodemiology"

In The Politics of Autism, I analyze the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. This bogus idea can hurt people by allowing diseases to spread.   And among those diseases could be COVID-19.

The Lancet -- which published and later retracted the infamous Wakefield article suggesting a link between vaccines and autism -- has an editorial on vaccine disinformation.

The tidal wave of information on the internet concerning the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in difficulties in discerning truth from fiction. This so-called infodemic, defined by WHO as an “overabundance of information—some accurate and some not—that makes it harder for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when needed”, has become a major threat to public health. Infection rates will rise if people are confused about restrictions and patients may be harmed if they use unproven treatments or bogus remedies.

An urgent call for action to gauge, map, and develop a means of combating this problem was explored at a WHO-organised conference held across April, June, and July. The meeting, which focused on so-called infodemiology—the science behind managing infodemics—brought together experts from a range of disciplines, including epidemiology, public health, applied mathematics, and data science.

• View related content for this article

The term infodemiology was first used in 2002, although concern about misinformation in health and the need for fact-checking have long been present. But now, a growing mistrust in science and experts, poor and confusing responses by political and government leaders, and some people's reliance on social media as their sole source of information have made dealing with infodemics as acute as dealing with COVID-19 itself. While the discipline of infodemiology is in its infancy, some insights are emerging.

The groups generating and spreading egregious information are highly organised political or pseudoscientific bodies that are experienced at using nefarious techniques to propagate their narratives. These bodies can rapidly change their names and their key messages, moving from one campaign to another, and consciously seek and target vulnerable populations. Conspiracy theories and misinformation proliferate in times of uncertainty and fear. Such circumstances, exemplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, have occurred throughout history and been manipulated by populist politicians, anti-vaccination movements, climate change deniers, and the tobacco industry. Protagonists and propagators of such fake news have been shown to be motivated often by political and financial gain.

An analysis mapping Facebook interactions between nearly 100 million people with various viewpoints about vaccinations showed that individuals cluster into specific, dynamic, interconnected groups. Although small, the anti-vaccination group (4·2 million people) was highly connected with those who were undecided about the importance of vaccinations (74·1 million people). The pro-vaccination group (6·9 million individuals) was isolated and had little interaction with those who were both undecided and anti-vaccination. These observations show that health campaigners who to wish change people's minds ought to focus attention on those who remain open to both good and bad information.

Dealing with the infodemic relating to COVID-19 will need a combined global effort involving health organisations, governments, media outlets, and individuals. WHO has built myth-busting teams of internet-savvy communicators to stamp out disinformation related to COVID-19. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has employed a global team of behavioural scientists and communicators to tackle infodemics as they relate to vaccine acceptance in low-income and middle-income countries. Social media platforms say they have increased efforts to remove disinformation and lead users to more trustworthy sources. However, Facebook, for example, is “rife with bogus cures and conspiracy theories that remain on the platform long enough to put millions of people at risk”, according to activists.

At The Lancet, the COVID-19 pandemic has given us salutary lessons about dealing with an infodemic. We are mindful that our readership now extends beyond the health and scientific communities. With this comes a responsibility to explain that different content types carry different weights of evidence, and how peer review and editorial input contribute to building scientific knowledge.

The problem of infodemics and the importance of infodemiology are escalating, and not just related to COVID-19. There is collective responsibility to produce clear, simple, honest messages, but individual digital and health literacy must also be strengthened. Behaviour change is needed, appreciating the importance of emotion, trust, credibility, and self-efficacy. The key to infodemics is not to produce even more information, but to address the environmental and social factors that make spreading misinformation easy.

Keyes and Chlorine Dioxide

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss autism quackery.  One particularly dangerous "cure" involves bleach.

Kelly Weill at The Daily Beast:

The “Miracle Mineral Solution” (“MMS”) movement falsely claims a dangerous chlorine dioxide cocktail can cure almost any illness, from autism to infertility. A new addition to the Facebook-fueled movement is IAMtv, a conservative web-based channel fronted by Alan Keyes, former diplomat and adviser to President Ronald Reagan who appears in pro-MMS broadcasts with bottles of MMS from a dubious bleach “church” featured prominently on his desk. IAMtv figures even claim Keyes is helping the network spread its mission from Uganda to the halls of power in the U

... 

“I'm convinced that chlorine dioxide is going to be what God uses to bring down Big Pharma,”    [IAMtv host Bob] Sisson said in an October episode of Keyes’ show titled “Big Pharma: The Truth of MMS.” Sisson directed viewers to Genesis II’s website and encouraging them to buy MMS. “But I do know that that it will detox your body and then God himself will heal you. And we're finding in like in Uganda, curing malaria and poisoning and diabetes and AIDS by the way. It's amazing."

Keyes listened approvingly, then said those claims were “why I was so interested in MMS and going to Uganda so far [...] There will be no excuse for pretending that you should price it at hundreds of dollars a dose so that people can make billions off of it.”

Sitting on Keyes’ desk for the entire episode: two bottles of Genesis II bleach.

From FDA:

If you’re drinking “Miracle” or “Master” Mineral Solution or other sodium chlorite products, stop now. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received many reports that these products, sold online as “treatments,” have made consumers sick.

The FDA first warned consumers about the products in 2010. But they are still being promoted on social media and sold online by many independent distributors. The agency strongly urges consumers not to purchase or use these products.

The products are known by various names, including Miracle or Master Mineral Solution, Miracle Mineral Supplement, MMS, Chlorine Dioxide (CD) Protocol, and Water Purification Solution (WPS). When mixed according to package directions, they become a strong chemical that is used as bleach.

Some distributors are making false—and dangerous—claims that Miracle Mineral Supplement mixed with citric acid is an antimicrobial, antiviral, and antibacterial liquid that is a remedy for autism, cancer, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, flu, and other conditions. But the FDA is not aware of any research showing that these products are safe or effective for treating any illness. Using these products may cause you to delay other treatments that have been shown to be safe and effective.

The bottom line: Sodium chlorite products are dangerous, and you and your family should not use them

In this clip, Sisson and Keyes talk about chlorine dioxide at about 11:00.


 

"Health" Sites That Promote Antivaxx Myths and Conspiracy Theories

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.

John Gregory at STAT:

According to analysis by my employer, NewsGuard, NaturalNews.com articles have declared the measles outbreak a “false flag” that originated with “infected migrants.” Similarly, Adams’ network has reported that an outbreak in New Hampshire was caused by the vaccine itself (a false claim based on state officials having mistakensomeone’s reaction to the vaccine as a confirmed measles case). And the network has been relying on an old “Brady Bunch” episode as evidence that a measles infection is “typically very mild, much like getting chickenpox,” overlooking the serious complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis that typically accompany the disease.
...
NewsGuard was co-founded last year by journalist and entrepreneur Steven Brill (known in part for his health care reporting) and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz. In rating news and information sites in the U.S., Italy, U.K., France, and Germany, it has discovered a diverse spectrum of health sites. These range from green-rated peer-reviewed medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine to hundreds of red-rated conspiracy-minded sites such as NaturalNews.com and Collective-Evolution.com, where vaccine-autism stories can be found next to articles claiming the 9/11 terrorist attacks were staged.

Americans who search symptoms or diseases online may come across well-sourced health information on sites such as WebMD or Healthline. But also high up in search results and social shares are sites with names such as GreenMedInfo and Healthy Holistic Living, which present themselves as authoritative reference guides on health topics while relying on false claims and misrepresented sources to promote alternative medical treatments.

While both of those sites promote a disproven link between vaccines and autism, their deceptive practices go beyond questioning vaccine safety.

Antivax Tactics on Social Media

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism.  Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.

Soumya Karlamangla at the Los Angeles Times:

As measles cases pop up across the United States, public health advocates have blamed social media for allowing misinformation to take root and swiftly spread. But the platforms also facilitate far more antagonistic behavior, with doctors facing online harassment and even coordinated attacks for promoting vaccines.

Since late 2017, there have been more than 50 of these online campaigns against health providers who promote vaccines, some of which have led to threats of harm that prompted calls to the police, said Chad Hermann, communications director for Kids Plus Pediatrics, a Pittsburgh practice that faced one of these online attacks in 2017 and then began tracking them.

E.J. Dickson at Rolling Stone:

To be clear, platforms like Facebook are not outright banning content that is critical of mandatory vaccination. What they are doing is more akin to what Naomi Smith, a sociologist at the Federation University of Australia who co-authored a 2017 paper on anti-vaccination communities on social media, refers to as “digital deplatforming — making it harder to find, making it lower in the search results, not taking money from these groups to promote their posts, making sure the top results on these search queries are quality and not anti-vaxx pages.”

...

There’s also the crucial question of whether this so-called “de-platforming” effort will actually work to begin with. Smith is skeptical, in part because anti-vaxxers have become adept at using language that carries a whiff of scientific legitimacy (take, for instance, phrases like “vaccine choice” or “informed consent for vaccines”) to “sound more publicly palatable… it’s a way of working within the political system to get an aura of legitimacy.” And it does indeed seem like members of the community are learning how to skirt the policy changes by using such language: Facebook searches for “vaccine choice” and “vaccine freedom” yielded a number of different anti-vaccine groups and posts.
...

If the changes do start kicking into gear, and Big Tech makes good on its promise to aggressively crack down on anti-vaccine content, members of the community have plenty of options other than social media: as Baylor College of Medicine infectious diseases researcher Peter Hotez recently told Vox, there are nearly 500 anti-vaccine websites in “the anti-vaccine media empire,” not to mention dozens of books and movies. “We need a comprehensive public-private partnership between the US government and all the major stakeholders — Facebook, Amazon, Google — to look at dismantling the anti-vaccine empire,” Hotez told Vox.

If this ever happens, Smith suggests some members of the community may circumvent these roadblocks by migrating to newer forums like Discord, which is a hotbed of alt-right and white supremacist sentiment. Indeed, Lyons Weiler has said he’s received multiple requests to join MeWe, a chat and messaging app that markets itself as a platform for free speech. 

Antivax and Amazon

In The Politics of Autism, I look at the discredited notion that vaccines cause autism. Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms have helped spread this dangerous myth.

Caitlin Owens at Axios Vitals:

Amazon is the latest tech company to crack down on content spreading false information about vaccines from its platform.

• Buzzfeed News reported on Friday that anti-vax documentaries were available on Amazon Prime Video on Friday morning, but appeared to have been removed by the afternoon.

• Around noon, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — chairman of the House Intelligence Committee — sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressing concern that the company was "surfacing and recommending products and content that discourage parents from vaccinating their children, a direct threat to public health."

The big picture: Amazon's actions follow similar ones taken by other tech companies like Google and Facebook, which have also taken steps to reduce the availability of anti-vaccine content on their platforms in response to increased public pressure.

• Recent measles outbreaks have been attributed, in part, to reduced vaccination levels in some areas.

• While tech companies have tried to avoid becoming content arbiters, "the issue is harder to duck when the spread of false information can lead to real-world harm," my colleagues Sara Fischer and Kia Kokalitcheva wrote last month.