For the last several decades, the official autism narrative was that ‘autism is genetic, a GIFT, and anyone who says otherwise is a NUTTER who must be banned from polite society.’ The mainstream media pounded this message into the public consciousness every chance they got, and this narrative was enforced through […]
Good afternoon, Chairman Johnson, Ranking Member Blumenthal, and members of the Permanent Subcommittee: On July 4, 2015, my then-partner’s son was diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum. I was in a Ph.D. program in Political Economy at the University of Sydney where I had access to almost all current […]
I. Introduction Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) is a relatively recent phenomenon. The term itself was not coined until 1991. It began with the best of intentions — to give frontline doctors the tools from clinical epidemiology to make science-based decisions that would improve patient outcomes. But over the last three decades, […]
(Editor’s note: This is yet another look at autism causation studies. We’re in such a strange moment. The stakes could not be higher, and yet, as I explain below, the available studies are flawed and unlikely to get better. I don’t believe that the presence of a few reformers inside the administration […]
I. Introduction It seems to me that the proper way to understand the autism epidemic is to read everything that has been written on autism causation, throw out any studies that are characterized by a financial conflict of interest or fatally flawed study design, and see what patterns emerge from […]
Itraveled to Connecticut to participate in a four-day writers’ retreat hosted by Jeffrey Tucker and Brownstone Institute. It was amazing. Speakers presented on a topic or question for 15 minutes that was followed by a discussion for 15 minutes. Below are my remarks from the retreat (lightly edited): I. Introduction Over […]
The University of Sydney caps doctoral theses at 80,000 words (excluding references). The theory is that external reviewers don’t want to read more than that (true!). One can apply to the Dean to increase the word limit to 100,000, which is what I did. But my doctoral thesis, as initially written, was […]