Show news for a region of your choice (mostly Austraian news).

William Shatner Under Fire for Spreading Autism Awareness

By bobb |

Earlier this week, the White House and autism organizations around the world celebrated the 10th annual World Autism Awareness Day. Actor William Shatner, best known for his role in Star Trek, changed his profile icon and tweeted his support into the related hashtag to draw awareness to the disability. Today, he was inundated with outrage from social justice warriors likened his support for autism awareness to hate speech. They further expressed their anger towards organizations like Autism Speaks, which sponsored the event.

If you don’t vaccinate your kids, Australia won’t pay for your child care

By convenor |

Amanda Erickson 

In Australia, there used to be widespread agreement that vaccinating children against fatal diseases was a good thing. Kids got shots, and the rate of childhood diseases plummeted.

But then things changed. In 1994, a group calling itself the Australian Vaccination Network launched a campaign claiming the risks of vaccines (which are essentially nonexistent). Its core mission: “to ensure that vaccinations are never made compulsory for Australian children." (Years later, the group was forced to change its name to the Australian Vaccination-Skeptics Network, or else be de-registered.) The group seized on a fraudulent, wholly discredited paper linking the MMR vaccine to autism.

International Autism Research Society Denounces Trump's Immigration Restrictions

By convenor |

Emily Willingham 

In a strongly worded statement dated February 1, the board of directors of the International Society for Autism Research (INSAR) has expressed its “unanimous denunciation” of what it calls “restrictive immigration policies” as laid out in what is likely Donald Trump’s most controversial executive order (EO) to date. The complete text was posted to INSAR’s website January 31.

The controversy over autism’s most common therapy

By bobb |

Applied behavioral analysis is the most widely used therapy for autism, but some people say its drills and routines are cruel, and its aims misguided.

BY ELIZABETH DEVITA-RAEBURN

When Lisa Quinones-Fontanez’s son Norrin was diagnosed with autism at age 2, she and her husband did what most parents in their position do — they scrambled to form a plan to help their child.