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'Medicine has limits. Despite tremendous technological advances several diseases remain without a clear cause or cure, autism among them. Unfortunately, where medicine fails, charlatanism and quackery abounds, often with damaging results. In his book, Defeating Autism, Michael Fitzpatrick, a physician and himself the father of an autistic son, explores the therapies that have been proffered for autistic children with clarity and compassion. This is a must read for any parent trying to wade through the Arabian bazaar of autism therapies.' - Paul A. Offit, M.D., Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, USA
'With eloquent and persuasive writing, Fitzpatrick uncovers the political agendas that lie behind current fears of an autism crisis, and challenges the epidemic of unproven and expensive treatments. He shows us that our children are indeed being helped tremendously, not by unscientific autism treatments that falsely promise cure or recovery, but by educators, scientists, evidence-based therapies, and new understandings of what it means to be human, and different, in the twenty first century. If my child were diagnosed with autism today, I would turn to Dr Michael Fitzpatrick for guidance.' - Roy Richard Grinker, Professor of Anthropology at George Washington University, USA and author of Unstrange Minds
‘Fitzpatrick has begun a much-needed conversation… A disembodied attitude of incredulity toward what is known and true can lead parents and scientists to dark places. Fitzpatrick’s book is a superb effort to reverse these negative trends.’ – Contemporary Psychology
Product Description
Autism: disease, disorder or difference?
What causes autism – genes or environment?
Can biomedical treatments cure autism, and are they safe?
An increased public awareness of autism has resulted in a rising trend of diagnoses, creating the impression of an ‘epidemic’. Many parents of children newly diagnosed with autism have been impressed by plausible theories blaming vaccines and other environmental causes. Many have also been captivated by claims that ‘biomedical’ treatments – including special diets and supplements, detoxification and medications – can achieve dramatic results.
In Defeating Autism, Michael Fitzpatrick, a family doctor and father of a son with autism, questions the scientific basis of environmental explanations of autism and exposes the incoherence of unorthodox ‘biomedical’ theories and therapies. This book reveals that these therapies are far from pioneering interventions and they remain unsubstantiated by scientific authorities. Campaigns promising to ‘defeat or cure autism now’ have attracted much support among parents struggling with their difficult children. But the crusade against autism risks dehumanising and stigmatising those who are identified as autistic and their families. This compelling book is essential reading for students and professionals working in the field of autism, as well as academics concerned with the public understanding of science and the treatment of scientific and medical controversies in the media.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Book!,
By
This review is from: Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (Paperback)
Mike Fitzpatrick is a doctor. He has an autistic child. So I welcome a book in which he uses his medical training and experience to evaluate various explanations of the causes of autism and the unorthodox therapies and treatments that promise to cure or recover a child from autism. He does us a valuable service in exposing the lack of scientific and medical evidence for many of these nostrums. Some are worse than useless and have the capacity to cause harm. But the most harmful effect of the damaging delusion that it is possible to defeat autism is the corrosive effect it has on parents.We used to be blamed for causing our child's autism. Now we stand condemned if we do not pursue every quack cure on offer. I well remember the slogan on an early internet forum, "whatever works for your child." The implicit message was that you had to try everything until you found your personal cure and if nothing worked you were not trying hard enough. I wrote on a forum that my son would have been a prime candidate for biomedical treatment as a toddler - lack of speech, ear infections, sleep problems, tantrums etc - except that we did not have a diagnosis then. So we followed orthodox interventions like speech and language therapy and ignored special diets and mega doses of vitamins. Today my son would be considered recovered by the standards of the biomedical movement. I went on to note that my son's biggest problem at school was not his autism but the bullying he got from normal kids. One parent suggested that if I had tried biomedical treatments he might not have been a target for bullies! The greatest achievement in this book is not the debunking of bad science and quack treatments, though Mike does that well enough. What I really liked was his sympathetic approach to parents who are taken in by the delusion. He seeks to understand the appeal of the whole edifice of so called complementary medicine and locate it within a social context. This attempt to understand instead of merely exposing the dangerous delusions that surround autism is what marks this book out as essential reading for anyone concerned with autism today.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another must-read book for any parent with a recent autism diagnosis,
By AB (Kent) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (Paperback)
Michael Fitzpatrick is a doctor. He has a son with an autism diagnosis. Perhaps more than anyone he would want to use the knowledge of his profession to find a cure. However when he looked at the literature which purported to support the various "cures" on offer, in his own words: "To say I was disappointed would be an understatement". Dr Fitzpatrick is a welcome dose of reality in a confusing world of promises. His premise is simply to show people - in particular parents of children with autism - how to approach supposed cures with a critical eye, and in fact give you sufficient evidence to dismiss virtually every "miracle cure" currently on the market as at best nothing more than false hope and at worst potentially deadly. I am also a parent of a child with autism, and believe me if I honestly thought that any of these supposed cures worked, I would be doing them. However the evidence simply doesn't support it, and many of the "treatments" are actually nothing more than a form of hit and miss medical experimentation on your child. If you are a parent of a child with autism, before you start to pay hundreds/thousands to some well-spoken doctor at a private clinic who "understands" you better than your GP, please consider spending the price of this book first.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
outstanding,
By
This review is from: Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (Paperback)
I am also a GP with personal experience of some of the challenges in bringing up autistic children. I have over the last 3 years collected a library of books on autism.I can now stop. My only wish was that I had bought this book 3 years ago. If you only ever wanted to read one book on autism this is the one I would recommend. My only wish was that Dr Fitzpatrick was blonde with silicone breasts and had a previous realtionship with Jim Carrey, then he may have got his slot on Oprah and a much wider readership of this excellent book !!
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