Autism – Page 7 – Operation Jack

Silly Me … I Thought Things Were Getting Better

June 7, 2011 by operationjack 10 Comments

Silly me, writing yesterday about how I thought we might have hit rock bottom with Jack, our 7-year-old son who struggles with severe autism. We had a train wreck of a weekend, but I thought he was turning the corner. He had a fairly peaceful night on Sunday and then a relatively decent morning on Monday.

I got home from work last night and got the rundown on how everybody was doing. All three kids had been well behaved and were sitting on the couch in the front of the house. Jack was completely calm. Ahhh, what a breath of fresh air.

Not more than two minutes later, he started having another meltdown. He started hitting his head and escalating his crying. It was so out of the blue, we had no clue what was going on. It was totally bizarre. Of course, everything has been bizarre lately, so maybe that’s normal. At one point, he put his hands on his stomach, so we we figured he had a stomach ache.

Poor little dude with the leaky gut. Internal pain is the story of his life. [Read more…]

Reaching Rock Bottom

June 6, 2011 by operationjack 10 Comments

I normally remain pretty optimistic when it comes to dealing with my 7-year-old son Jack’s autism. I try to look at the glass as being half-full. I think of how much worse things could be. I keep my faith that things will get better. I think about all the sweet things about him.

But this weekend, for the first time I can remember, I didn’t look at the glass as half-full. I saw it as completely full … of vinegar. [Read more…]

This Picture Is Worth A Million Words

May 19, 2011 by operationjack 6 Comments

If anybody ever asks me why I ran 61 marathons in 2010, all I need to do is show them this picture:

We just got this picture yesterday from a photographer. When I saw it, I had an ultimate case of mixed reactions. It’s a beautiful picture of my son, no doubt. But it stopped me dead in my tracks. It’s tough to stare at reality like that.

[Read more…]

The Next Chapter in Vaccine Autism Causation Begins Today

May 10, 2011 by gingertaylor 1 Comment

Quick note from Sam: I was going to go with a guest blog from John Atilano today, but I’m going to run that tomorrow so that I can run this guest post from Ginger Taylor today. The following is her guest post:

In 2008 Johns Hopkins Neurologist Jon Poling went public with the news that his daughter Hannah, who regressed into autism following her 18 month vaccines, was paid by the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

CDC, in a public statement, claimed that the Hannah Poling case was “rare” and should not be generalized to “normal” children. Days after the Poling’s announcement, the Hiatt family also went public with their VICP ruling that their autistic daughter Madison was also a vaccine injury victim. Then the Banks family went public. Finally, CBS News reported finding 7 more vaccine/autism cases that dated back to 1991, the very beginning of the autism epidemic.

So the autism community wanted to know… just how many cases of autism have been paid by the program that was established in 1986, how “rare” is this, and what did the government know about vaccine injury and autism causation that they were not telling the public and the medical community. After being questioned by a journalist, the department of HHS that oversees the VICP issued the following statement on whether this was an admission that the government was now paying children for vaccine induced autism. The “official response” from HRSA: [Read more…]