neurodiversity.net | second statement of boyd e. haley

I have been out of my office since late September giving talks on autism to Universities, DAN and the IAOMT. I had to prepare Monday for spending all of Tuesday in Washington, DC visiting the offices of Senators with other parents of autistic children to support their assertions that thimerosal in vaccines caused the autism of their children and that the CDC and FDA were covering this up. I think you should know that I do not take any honorarium for doing these talks and I do not have anything associated with my company that makes any money from autism or any mercury caused disease — that is not what my company does (see ).

I had your petition presented to me the first time at the IAOMT conference, where it was being widely circulated by those who think thimerosal containing vaccines and dental amalgams are safe. Your premise, as I explained in what I sent you when I returned, that I likened autistics to mad cows was totally wrong. Get a video copy of the talk and you will see the Mercury Afflicted Disease of Children typed out on one of the slides where I did make the comment mad child disease. No where in the talk will you find autistics compared to mad cows. I was making a point to a group of medical doctors of the power of semantics to either depress or increase the awareness of a situation. I did state that calling autism M.A.D. Child Disease would get increased attention from our congress and others and that it was a sorry situation that this was the case.

I have given at least 7 other talks on autism since the DDP Conference and the term M.A.D Child Disease was not used in any of them as it was not apropos. I used this term to make a point and garner help from what I perceive to be a group of fearless and dedicated physicians who had just heard a talk on mad cow disease — and it worked, except for offending you. If my explanation of this situation is not enough then we will just have to agree to disagree about how to best shed light on the autism problem. I am trying my best to help the parents of vaccine damaged children to get the medical and financial help they deserve and to prevent additional children from also being injured in this same manner.

Getting medical help for autistics and preventing the disease in future children requires that we get attention to the causes, one of which is thimerosal injection in infant vaccines. We are fighting very wealthy and powerful companies and agencies who are expert at spinning a situation. Dividing all of the autism spectrum illnesses into assorted "mildly named disorders" is a way to diffuse both the statistical significance and the public awareness of this disaster. I can't let them get by with that. There was never any intention on my part to indicate that autistic children were of lesser human value that others.

Boyd E. Haley
Professor and Chair
Department of Chemistry
University of Kentucky
October 13, 2004

Statement in response to Petition to Defend the Dignity of Autistic Citizens

Second Reply to Prof. Haley

Return to Petition to Defend the Dignity of Autistic Citizens