ADHD – An Independent Position
There was an interesting article in the Independent on Sunday (20/09/15) entitled “Thousands of children are being medicated for ADHD – when the condition may not even exist,” The author,…
Dr Lorna Wing, OBE 1928 – 2014
I learned today that Dr Lorna Wing died on Friday. Her contribution to our understanding of autism is unsurpassed. I think it was Dr Ekkehart Staufenberg, speaking at a National…
Autism, serial killers and mass murderers
A recent literature review by Doctor Clare Allely, at the University of Glasgow has been attracting a lot media attention. According to Google News there are press reports in Britain,…
Is Andrew Wakefield a fraud and a bully?
I had hoped that, after he disappeared into obscurity in the United States, I could safely ignore Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced former surgeon, who lost his licence to practise medicine…
What Doctors Don’t Tell You is wrong about autism.
What Doctors Don’t Tell You (WDDTY) is a magazine that claims it is “helping you make better health choices.” But it has drawn criticism from those like Andy Lewis who…
Tony Benn: the legacy
Herbert Shapiro is probably not that well known here in the UK. The son of Russian, Jewish immigrants he was a professor of history in the United States from 1964…
Susan Boyle and Asperger Syndrome
In today’s Observer Magazine there is an article about Susan Boyle in which she reveals her recent diagnosis with Asperger Syndrome. She found fame and fortune 4 years ago on…
Autism: Challenging Behaviour
Introduction Michael Fitzpatrick is a retired GP with a profoundly autistic son. Mike is also the author of MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know and Defeating Autism: A…
Furness National Autistic Society Push for Action
The National Autistic Society has been running an unusual campaign, Push for Action, that is probably one of it’s most successful in terms of participation and outcomes. That is not…
The Ageing of Autism
BACKGROUND When data from California emerged in 1999 that suggested a dramatic increase in the rate of autism it was taken by some advocates as evidence for an epidemic. This…