LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

[October 26th, 2005] THE TROUBLE WITH NORMAL

I would just like to make a few quick comments in response to "Curing Jamie Handley" [Oct. 12, 2005]. The first comment is on the "redefinition of terms" as the cause for the dramatic increase in autism spectrum disorders. I can assure you that there is no definition of terms that would have made my son's development "normal," despite the fact that he is within the Autism Spectrum Disorders rather than classically Autistic. The idea that somehow this huge number of little boys with severe developmental delays is just how things were before but now we are giving it a name is an attempt to hide a real problem behind a semantics argument.

The other comment I want to make is on the apparent correlation between mercury-containing vaccines and autism. There is a great article by Robert Kennedy Jr. on the subject ["Deadly Immunity," Rolling Stone, June 20, 2005], which I highly recommend you read. While direct causation is not proved (and how could it be? we have no control group), there are alarming coincidences—for instance that the spike in cases occurs just after the Centers for Disease Control increased the vaccination schedule for infants.

It is also important to note that thimerosol-containing vaccines are being administered in foreign countries as I write this, and that in many of those countries autism levels rise as vaccinations become widespread.

Maybe mercury in vaccines isn't the cause of autism, but if rates in this country now fall, and rates in those countries just beginning widescale vaccination rise, the pharmaceutical companies and the CDC have a huge amount of human suffering to answer for.

And this is one mother who will never forgive them.

Jessica C. Goin
Southeast 28th Avenue

LIVING WITH AUTISM

Many thanks to Angela Valdez for including my perspective in her portrait of the Handleys and their expensive, aggressive, dogmatic campaign to persuade the world that all autistic people are poisoned and that chelation can usher them into "normalcy." The article conveys Mr. Handley's disrespect for those who disagree with him, whom he regards as stupid, perfidious or "in denial."

Autism is an atypical pattern of neurocognitive development manifesting over the lifespan. Many autistic traits are certain to persist after remediation of health problems that impair a person's functioning. Those who attribute children's improvement to various therapies should wait a decade or two before trumpeting their "recovery from autism," and should consider the inevitability that their children will encounter cognitive, social and sensory challenges into adulthood.

Parents have varied responses to difference and disability. Some have little evidence that their children suffered from vaccine reactions, yet are influenced to blame vaccines by crusaders promoting the poisoning theory, and by disbelief that stigmatized traits might be genetically transmitted. Autistic children indoctrinated to believe that autism equals contamination and thrust into the limelight by proselytizers eager to demonstrate that they are "recovering," are likely to suffer from unrealistic parental expectations and the subsequent realization that they will never completely eradicate that "damned autistic spot."

An autism diagnosis can be devastating not only because autistic children's behavior is challenging, but also because many clinicians fail to reassure parents that autistic children mature and gain skills over time. Research increasingly affirms that they have as many cognitive strengths as "deficits." Many newly diagnosed children have no intellectual impairment and formerly would have slipped under the diagnostic radar. It is unwise to reflexively offer worst-case scenarios that propel parents to profiteers selling hope at a hefty price.

Kathleen Seidel
Peterborough, N.H.

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

The article "Curing Jamie Handley" brings up numerous issues. Firstly, I am an allopathically trained physician, so clearly, I am biased. However, as a physician I am aware of the shortcomings of the medical system and the holes in our knowledge base. We docs don't know everything. However, having said that, we do have a system in place to remedy our ignorance called the scientific method, the search for causality.

"Does the use of thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism?" is a simply stated, researchable question. Studies quoted by Jim Laidler address this question and find no association between the two. A review article was recently published in the September 2004 Pediatrics that outlined a critical review of all the studies published prior to the article that examined the possible linkage between thimerosal and "autistic spectrum disorders." The conclusion from the article was that there is no measurable link. Studies cited by this article that did report an association were found to have utilized questionable methods—bad science.

To borrow from an idea set forth by Jessie Gruman, we should ask ourselves, "Should policy, and in this case very important health-care policy, be made on the basis of what we know or what we would like to believe?" Have the Handleys examined the available data to draw their own conclusions? What do they think of the data? Instead of calling for immediate chelation therapy, shouldn't we be focusing on the evidence and possibly, if we find it inadequate, the resources to gather more reliable evidence to guide us? And lastly, ask yourself one more question, what if the Handleys are wrong?

B. Ertz-Berger, M.D.
Southeast 10th Avenue

GO BACK TO THE BAY

I nearly cried my eyes dry as I read the plight of letter-writer Philip Golden [Mailbox, Oct. 12, 2005]. How terribly unfortunate it is that California yuppies with the means to swoop into Portland and buy fine homes in fine neighborhoods cannot also have their way with the local job market! My heart bleeds for the poor souls!

Believe it or not, there are still a few of us for whom living and retiring in Portland is not a flight of fancy. It's the only plausible scenario. I grew up in Oregon and could not stand to live anywhere else. My family has been established in Portland for nearly 80 years, yet my dream of buying a first home here is currently farther from reality than ever before, thanks to all the newcomers who have driven the real-estate market out of control.

Golden's purported deep love of Portland after a scant few years of living here is as laughable as his Los Angeles and San Francisco-bred notions of what it means to be underpaid. To all of the neo-Portlanders incessantly whining about the state of our economy, I would suggest that you do all of us true Oregonians a favor and move without delay. Your presence will hardly be missed.

Arend F. Hall
Southeast 28th Place

THE SPIRIT OF ACQUISITION

Kudos to Zach Dundas for a much-overdue feature story outing Portland's social and economic dysfunction ["The New New Economy," WW, Oct. 5, 2005].

I can't say the same for Irma Valdez, a real-estate agent interviewed in the story, regarding her contribution to soaring housing costs in Portland. With all due respect to Valdez as a fellow citizen, her words "there's something spiritual going on in Portland" rang astoundingly shallow and hypocritical. Miss Valdez's inability to see her role in the high-cost housing machine may very well be a byproduct of greed, self-absorption and her penchant for things expensive.

It seems obvious that she and other beneficiaries of the out-of-control real-estate market prioritize their commissions and profits over the needs of non-affluent residents who've been here for a long time, as well as those of us who moved here to escape the very superficial lifestyle—thinly guised as spirituality—that she gushes about. How anyone who counts federal prosecution duties in D.C. among their achievements doesn't get the fact that she's aiding in squeezing people out, even as she tells anecdotes about it, is more than unnerving.

"Every day, I see the seller who says, 'Screw it. I can't take it anymore.... I don't want coffee, I want a job,'" she tells us. Does she not see that the homeowner views selling the one thing they have left of monetary value (and leaving) as their only financial out? And, she profits from this transaction.

There was a time not long ago when Portland was a bastion against simple consumerism and materialism. Today, that unique culture is threatened by the same greed, selfishness and shortsightedness that plagues Every-city, U.S.A.—all dressed in a uniform that looks and talks the Portland talk, but just doesn't walk it.

Christian Gunther
Northeast Rodney Street

Editor's Note: Gunther ran for City Council in 2002.

TAME WATCHDOG

Thank you for opening the blinds and exposing the state Department of Environmental Quality's water-quality program to much-needed sunlight ["Watered Down," Oct. 12, 2005]. Since 1995, DEQ's management has diligently and systematically substituted the interests of polluters and legislators for the public interest.

What makes DEQ management so arrogant and autocratic? Unlike most Western states, Oregon laws preclude judicial redress of DEQ's administration of the Clean Water Act and other federal environmental laws. DEQ is immune even when its actions and decisions are arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.

Larry Tuttle
Southwest Alder Street

Editor's Note: Tuttle is the director of the Center for Environmental Equity.