confounded and confused parents to develop an effective early intervention plan.
Unfortunately, the drier but critical message of acting early got suffocated in April by America's infatuation with celebrities and the politics they espouse.
The celebrity du jour for the hot cause of the year — autism — is former Playmate-of-the-Year-turned-autism-author-expert Jenny McCarthy. This "perky and cute" woman, as introduced by Grand Poobah talk-show host Larry King on his April 2nd World Autism Day segment, has emerged as the parents' expert for this disorder, which now strikes one child out of every 150 in the United States, making it more common than childhood cancer, diabetes and AIDS combined.
Autism struck Ms. McCarthy's son, Evan, in 2005. It struck my son, Leo, in 2001.
That's the one thing Ms. McCarthy and I have in common. There are two others. Both of our sons have "recovered" from autism, and we have both written a book about it, even sharing the same publisher, The Penguin Group. But the similarities end there while America's infatuation with celebrities, their books and the politics begins to spread like kudzu on a highway roadside. The kudzu spread by Ms. McCarthy is the messages that vaccines cause autism, and the way to get rid of autism is eliminate certain foods from a kid's diet.
She also is a resurfacing a fad treatment, namely antifungal medications, that had its heyday in the 1980s before researchers disproved its effectiveness. Based on the attention Ms. McCarthy has received during National Autism Awareness month, the media is eager to spread her messages and elevate her to expert status. Is this because in her book, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism, she professes to be a graduate of the University of Google?
Sadly, the media is driven by ratings and headlines, not to the truth and not to helping parents set their child on a proper course of development. While the media has every right to interview a celebrity, the public has every right to get both sides of the story. In the complex world of autism, the media is propagating only one side.
Since a federal court conceded in March that an Atlanta girl developed autism from vaccines — a ruling that in my opinion does not set a precedent given the unique circumstances of that case — the messages of early detection, diagnosis and treatment are being squeezed out and overrun by fingering easy blame on vaccines and advocating treatments with no credible proof of effectiveness. Ms. McCarthy asserts that vaccines caused her son's autism. Yet, her son was born in 2002, a year after the vaccine culprit — mercury — was removed from the childhood vaccination series. She also credits a special diet with helping to make her son whole.
Yet, she downplays the one treatment — applied behavior analysis (ABA) — that her son received and that has the most scientific evidence behind it. Granted, experts struggle with defining what it means to say a treatment has enough evidence behind it to earn the label of "effective," "scientifically valid," or "evidence-based."
But ABA, which is an educational strategy for changing behaviors through positive reinforcement, has emerged as the most widely accepted treatment for autism. Despite the study's flaws, the famous 1987 study by psychologist Dr. O. Ivar Lovaas cemented that belief. Initial studies for another treatment, floortime, a developmental play-based approach that is rooted in brain research, suggest its effectiveness, also.
I find it astounding that Ms. McCarthy's promise of hope speaks louder than the findings of science. For me, her messages on treatments are a tough sell when stacked against the organizations that back ABA: the National Institute of Mental Health, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Research Council, a panel of experts convened by the federal government to look at the research, which led to the council's 2001 report, Educating Children with Autism.
Ms. McCarthy is suffocating the more important message that the experts do agree on. And that message is to act early if parents suspect a problem in their child's development. Research shows that the most favorable circumstances for turning autism around occur through early intervention. Early intervention takes advantage of when the brain is most receptive to changing the framework that determines whether a baby will develop successful and healthy relationships or retreat into a solitary world.
I believe I understand why her message resonates with other parents on their own journey to heal their child. Though in error, it is simple and neat. It is delivered by someone we recognize, though for all the wrong reasons. It places easy blame and absolves other guilt. Why not buy Ms. McCarthy's advice to help us recover our children from this brain disorder that robs them of their ability to talk, make friends and find joy? I'll tell you why.
Unlike fads, you don't get a second chance to heal your child from autism. The window to heal a child is narrow because the brain's breathtaking plasticity to adapt and change diminishes with age. Although I got my son back, I am now the one recovering from the years devoted to his therapy, rebuilding my life as I open a new chapter to give others access to the gift that saved my son's life — early intervention.
That message is not a fad. It's the real deal.
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