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Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion
 
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Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (Paperback)

by Michael Fitzpatrick (Author)
3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion + Autism's False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure + Bad Science
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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



Product Description

Biomedical theories of autism can offer a plausible explanation of the supposed ‘autism epidemic’ and are increasingly accepted by parents and activists but do they work and are they safe? Dr Fitzpatrick, himself the father of an autistic boy, investigates the scientific evidence around a number of theories.

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3.7 out of 5 stars (6 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Book!, 10 Feb 2009
By M. Stanton - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
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.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent book on autism, 7 Feb 2009
By H. Guldberg "Helene Guldberg" (Birmingham, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick gives a moving account about how raising a child with autism can be made infinitely harder - emotionally, financially and practically - by the charlatanic `war on autism'.

This book should be read, not only by parents of autistic children, but by policymakers, professionals and practitioners working in the field of autism, and by academics and scientists interested in the media and the public presentation of science and medicine.

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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Another must-read book for any parent with a recent autism diagnosis, 14 Dec 2008
By AB (Kent) - See all my reviews
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.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the one star reviews - this is a must read!
I'd put this is the same category as "Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion" by Paul Offit (which I intend to read next) as being a sober, thoughtful and accurate account of the... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Mr. John L. Dixon

1.0 out of 5 stars Not A Delusion
Defeating Autism is not a delusion, but a reality for many children and adults on the spectrum. My own son is being treated naturally by having a gluten and dairy free diet which... Read more
Published 10 months ago by louise

1.0 out of 5 stars A terrible read for those who are optimistic and helping there child

This is awful, a damming and depressing read for anyone looking to help there child with autism. Read more
Published 10 months ago by mark A

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