Hi Jenny,

My name is Sarah Mensah and I’m the senior Vice President of Sales for the Portland Trail Blazers. When I read your book I had to stop several times to stop sobbing. Our experiences are so similar. My dear little boy who is the light of my life “Davis” also was diagnosed with Autism at age 2. It also led to a very painful divorce. I also have an extremly high profile job and have had to deal with a difficult travel schedule. I also instituted nearly every single one of the interventions that you mentioned in your book. I wanted to let you know we are looking at doing an Autism Awareness night here in Portland at a game and as we were brainstorming we disscused the viability of bringing you to town to speak to our families and be featured at a nationally televised game. Let me know if this is something you’d be remotely interested in. I know you are extremely busy but I also know how committed you are to this cause. I can be reached via e-mail at sarah.mensah@trailblazers.com.

Thanks in advance for your consideration!

Sarah

I’m really impressed with who she’s become.

I saw Jenny and Hollie on Oprah. I was glad she made the comments she did about the association between immunizations and Autism. Her comment to the CDC who claimed there is no science to back that up and she said “my science is at home, his name is Evan.” wow….Here is some more science. I live in Pennsylvania near the Amish. They do not immunize their children…I have never seen an Amish child with Autism, and I’m willing to bet their are non!

Thank you to L.Noelle for such a great post.

I think Jenny is not only funny but a very smart and loving woman. I have just recently found out that my son who is 2 in December may have autism, and I was devistated. I knew there was something “worng” and different about my son, but when I saw Jenny on tv talking about her son and the signs that he showed, I knew that my son was showing the same signs! I have read her blogs and am watching for her book ‘Louder than words,’ so I can read more up on the subject. I have taken books on autism out from the library and read as much as I can. Like Jenny, I want to do what is best for my son, and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for showing me the direction to go for healing my son! THANK YOU JENNY!!

As a parent of two autisic children I was insulted at Oprah’s lack of research as to the validity of her guest’s knowledge on the subject matter. My children are TRULY autistic as officially diagnosed by Dr. Edward Ritvo (Professor Emeritus, UCLA and known worldwide as the Father of Austism). His textbooks are used in all colleges re: this subject matter. Jenny McCarthy is an absolute nutcase! She has NO CLUE as to what Autism is all about or the possible causes. The symptoms her son displayed were plainly not autistic, but those of epilepsy! I’ve been witness to both for many years and there’s a huge difference! Come on Oprah! With all that you can afford your research team has to be a lot better at booking more intelligent and appropriate guests for your show!

Like any neurological condition, autism is
extremely complex and does not have one
simple cause.

http://www.autismspeaks.org is a very informative
website and helped me gain a greater
understanding of this condition.

Hi, I watch a tv interview with Jenny McCarthy about her son having autism. I have a 4 year old son and had him checked for autism 3 times and found that I could not get a clear answer to it. Finally I was told that if he has it, he is in the 2-3 percental for what is called PDD – Pervasive Development Disorder that can be turned around through speech therapy and developmental therapy. But in going through this ordeal, I learned statistics that signs of autism in children are 1 to 166 ratio – which seems overwhelming. But I also talked with 2 mothers who children were normal and acted normal until they were given immunizations. They spoke, had eye contact and acted fine. After they had certain immunizations there children developed signs of autism – servere signs. In fact one mother told me that one immunization was taken off the market in 2003. I am not sure of the validity of this statement, but I also talked with other moms at autism centers saying they same thing, that there child developed signs of autism after immunizations and she could not afford the medication to reverse the symptoms. I was wondering if my child had this problem, but his signs were not severe enough. This is my observation and also 2 preschools that my son attends. One of the signs of this PDD in 20 percent of the children is counting at an early age. My son was capable of counting past 20 and putting all the pieces of an alphabet puzzel back correctly at age 2 and 3 months. At 3 could tell me all 9 planets, say the entire alphabet by letter and associate a word for that letter. At 4 can spell 3 and 4 letter words, write the entire alphabet and do beginning basic math. Also my child is very athletic and can climb anything. He can become very upset if he cannot master what he is doing and succeed at it. Right now my son goes to preschool 5 days a week because he likes to learn. He goes 2 days at one preschool and 3 days at another with a speech therapist. Both preschool teachers and my speech therapist have told me my son is the only 4 year old in 2 schools that can spell. Also, just so you know, he barely spoke until he turned 4 and started talking in almost full sentences. He always knew you were talking to him, but did not give very good eye contact but if asked a different way or I asked in a manner to throw him off guard he would react – basically saying something I knew he wouldn’t be able not to react to or ignor. Now, my physician is even saying he may have been misdiagnosed. The reason I am sending this email is not to glorify my child, but when Jenny McCarthy made a comment about it’s a mothers instinct, I understand that statement very well. When you interact with your child daily you know the patterns and behaviors of them. Like the other moms said, my child was normal until after they had an immunization and then started having signs of autism, which can possibly be controled by medication and diet. I have also read books on gifted children. It is hard to determine at a very early age, like age 1-5. In fact they say you have to wait until an IQ test to even see if they have the potential. I do not mistake my son wanting and absorbing learning by saying he has autism. In fact if my child wants to learn I definitely am not going to stop him. I did however have to work through him becoming very frustrated when he could not figure something out, that usually lasted no more that 5 minutes. I would have to focus his attention on something else. Also, I fell victim to something else – the system. My son was 2 when he was not showing signs of speech. I took him to my physician who had me take him to Children’s Hospital to have him evaluated. At Children’s they stated that it was to early to determine any sign of autism until 3 years, so I was to have a speech therapist and a developmental therapist work with him. After his 3rd birthday he will be evaluated again. At 2 years and 6 months my speech therapist insisted that he be evaluated again so she could do her job better. At Children’s, the policy is that if the speech therapist wants this evaluation moved up that they need to put in writing why she needs this done. I went through with the evaluation to find that the speech therapist wrote my son has distinct signs of PDD and has “meltdown” – a term associated with autism. Also, the group that prescribes autism is psychiatry. I was extremely upset with finding out my speech therapist can write a report about my child and elude to behavior of PDD and not be a prescribing physician. This is why I had my child evaluated by other groups, which by the way gave very different evaluations of my son. And also taught me more about terminology used in dealing with autism and the behavior associated with that terminology. After this experience, I firmly believe in second opinions now. If the information they are telling me is the same than it is more valid for me. Also, leave the diagnosing to the doctors. I feel for the moms out there who have children with any form of autism. After being told your child could have autism is a heart wrenching feeling. I especially feel for those who have seen dramatic differences with there children after having been told this. When trying to find out exactly what autism was and how he got a problem like this was near impossible. Finding answers to the origins of autisn is very hard to come by. I asked if this could be genetic. Plus I was told this has to be diagnosed through psychiatry. I was horrified to take my 2 year old to a psychiatrist. Now I am curious if they diagnose possible giftedness in the same manner as autism. And if not, why?

I missed this episode on Oprah, so I was really happy to read it posted here. It’s refreshing to read such an important topic being posted on here.
Being the mom of a 2-1/2 year old son with Down Syndrome, I have so much sympathy and understanding for what mom’s go through with their autistic children. I have been blessed with a healthy, bright, thriving boy who has avoided many stereoptypical problems associated with Down Syndrome, and by all means don’t have the challenges many parents face with their children who are autistic. However I now understand things on a much different level.

I would hate to know that the readers here get side tracked, focusing on only vaccines, and miss the bigger picture. Any parent, celebrity or not, who devotes their time to advocating for their child, is a true hero. It isn’t until you find that you need to speak up for your child because no one else will, that you realize nothing else is as important as that. I applaud all parents who do this, to which there are Hundreds of Thousands!

After studying vaccines, reports, research, periodicals, medical journals and stories for over 10 years, I have concluded a few things. Vaccines are very important in any society, if they are used appropriately and sparingly. Vaccines also help spare many people from contracting otherwise deadly diseases.

However, Vaccines, with out a doubt, are destroying our children’s immune systems, one shot at a time. Unfortunately, our children are sicker than ever before with more immune system disorders, neurological disorders, allergies, autism, etc. What most parents don’t understand or question is that babies are born with perfect, pure immune systems that are able to fight off many things. The first thing they want to do in the hospital is dose up your perfect baby with foreign viruses!!! This makes NO sense! A babies immune system isn’t even properly formed until the age of 2! 2/3 of the immune system is located in the digestive tract. This is why nursing is so important to their immune system formation.

Vaccines should not even be started until the age of 2 and then they should be started 1 at a time. Most people also don’t understand how many vaccines are tested and it’s not until X amount of children react, die or become injured, that they re-formulate the vaccine or take it off the market. Most people don’t know that there is a fund of millions of dollars set aside by the government solely for Vaccine Injuired Children!

Parents need to research exactly how vaccines work inside the body, what they do to our immune system and what ingredients are actually in vaccines. Too much focus was on Mercury in vaccines, but what parents need to undertsand is there are hundreds of ingredients which make up vaccines. Remember, drug companies hit the lottery when they can come up with a vaccine! No, you don’t have to vaccinate to enter your child into school, every state has exemption policies. Vaccines=Big Money!!!

I have 2 children, for the record, who have never been vaccinated. My 8-1/2 year old is the only child in her class each year in school every day because she doesn’t get sick! She’s never even had antibiotics. My son, is also never sick, and by the nature of having Down Syndrome, he’s defied all of the odds! I am personally not against vaccines either. However, based on what I know, I would not vaccinate until I felt it is 100% necessary. My children are both in private schools and have regular pediatricians who fully support my decision not to vaccinate and have never questioned it or given me a hard time.

There is so much information on vaccines, I really think that the only way to really learn about what they do, is to read about them. A great website with tons of information is called, NVIC.org

Many people think your child will “catch” one of these diseases or illnesses if you don’t vaccinate. That isn’t the case. Most of what they vaccinate for are mild childhood illnesses. Merck stands to make BILLIONS of dollars if they mandate the Gardisil vaccine. They’ve invested MILLIONS into the commercials we all see every day. They’re trying to convince you that a relatively harmless virus that most women catch and get rid of on their own without ever knowing they had it, is going to give you cancer. Only 10% of the viruses can actually lead to cancer and even then, cervical cancer is one of the most treatable forms of cancer. The catch is though, that Gardisil only prevents a FEW forms of the virus, not ALL of the forms! However, what they don’t tell you is that 95% of the time, women get over the virus, even if they have it! Now they are trying to tout it as an “anti cancer” vaccine, when it’s the furthest thing from that. Just read. Read. READ! Don’t assume the FDA, CDC and the USDA are all looking out for our best interest! They are all FOR Profit institutions! That allow chemicals in our foods, toxins in our products and posions in drugs!

Wow! This topic is so interesting to me. My son was born with Prune Belly Sydrome, diagnosed with Hepatoblastoma (an extremely rare form of childhood cancer) at 10 months, and then Autism at 18 months. Let me tell you all, I’ve done my research and have concluded that every disease carries a genetic predispositon but it is the environmental factors that “seal the deal”. I’m convinced that vaccinations, chemotherapy, and long term antibiotic use is why my son (www.carepages.com, page name is lukegutierrez) has Autism.