AUTISM FIRST STEPS
AUTISM DAILY NEWSLETTER
Saturday January 12, 2002
INDEX:
* Residential growth sees rapid
increase
* The
red badge of vaccination
* Open
season on MMR
* Minister
promises action on autism
* A tale
of two daughters
* Local
woman leads way for autistic son, others
******************************
Residential growth sees rapid increase
By Globe Corresp ondents, Globe Correspondent, 1/10/2002
EMBROKE
For the second year, the town issued 77 new single-family home building
permits. With a large number of new houses under construction in 2001 and
annual 5 percent increases in population, Pembroke remains one of the fastest
growing towns in the region.New residential growth in town is on the upper end
of the scale, Town Administrator Ed Thorne said, with lots costing about
$125,000. As a result, he said, developers pressure town boards to approve as
many building lots in a new subdivision as possible. ''A decision made by one
of our boards has a lot riding on it,'' Thorne said.A developer recently took
the town to court over a single building lot denied to a subdivision built on
Prince Way. Thorne said the developer and the town have been asked by the judge
to reach a negotiated settlement.''With the growth tendency,'' Thorne said,
''the big issue is development versus open space. Whether it's a farm being
sold or a cranberry bog being sold, all of a sudden we get a lot of concern
from the neighborhood for the town to buy the land.''Increased development puts
pressure on town finances in other ways too, Thorne said. ''We scrambled last
year to balance the budget. The demand for providing services is greater than
the amount of revenue we can generate.''While residential growth continues to
increase, commercial growth has not kept pace. Residential property accounts
for 85 percent of local property tax revenue, up from 83 percent a few years
ago.Pembroke's population is 17,701.RANDOLPHFamily greets '02 in Habitat
homeSusan and Stephen Connors and their three children are starting the new
year with a new home after working with Habitat for Humanity for more than
eight months. The home, located at 26 Ferguson Road, was dedicated at a
ceremony Sunday marking the 30th house built by South Shore Habitat for
Humanity, a nonprofit organization that builds homes in Boston's South suburbs
in partnership with people in need.Habitat builds homes on donated private- or
town-owned land with funds donated by corporate sponsors and private
citizens.The organization uses an evaluation process to select families from
the area based on need, income, and willingness to participate in the building
process. For a commitment that includes 500 ''sweat equity'' hours working with
volunteers, families are able to purchase a house with a 20-year, interest-free
mortgage.HINGHAMLibrary to reopen after renovationThe new Hingham Public
Library at East and Leavitt streets will be open for a public preview, from 3
to 5 p.m. Sunday.The library will re-open for business the next day with its
regular hours, 9:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.The library, which will be accessible to
people with physical disabilities, includes the former town office building and
the existing library building. The renovation and expansion cost about $6
million, 30 percent of which was covered by private money, according to a
statement from the library. The new building will feature a courtyard garden
with a fountain, and a new entryway with an art gallery and a cafe.The program
for the open house will include performances by a classical guitarist and the
Honors Brass Quintet, featuring students from the South Shore Conservatory of
Music.NORWELLBenefit to help restaurant victimsEmployees of Charles
David Hair Color and Design Center on Monday donated about $12,000 to benefit families
of New York restaurant workers who were killed or lost their jobs in the Sept.
11 terrorism attacks on the World Trade Center. The salon's 50 employees each
gave up a day off in October to work on a Sunday. All proceeds from that day
were donated to the cause. They had hoped to raise $8,000.''I just wanted to
make absolutely certain that this check is being made out to benefit people who
really need it,'' said David Honeycutt, co-owner of the salon. Honeycutt said
he was inspired by a newspaper story about the plight of family members of
employees of Windows on the World, the restaurant that topped one of the twin
towers. The attack killed 44 restaurant employees and left the rest without
jobs. Honeycutt, who worked in the hotel and restaurant industry, wanted to
help their families.''When we realized, we called our local restaurant union in
Boston, and they said yes there was a fund for employees for Windows on the
World,'' he said.Honeycutt, along with co-owner Charles Dudley, presented the
check to Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 100 of New York at the
union's Boston office.NORWOODFlutie grant to aid autistic childrenA
recent grant will enable local parents of autistic children to receive special
training to help care for them. The May Institute, based in Norwood, received
the $20,000 grant last month from the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation for Autism.
The foundation is run by San Diego Chargers quarterback Doug Flutie and his
wife, Laurie, who have a 10-year-old autistic son. They live in Natick in the
off-season. It is the second year the institute has received $20,000 for the
program.The foundation provides annual grants to groups that provide services
to people with autism. The May Institute is a nonprofit organization that
provides programs for children and adults with developmental and other
behavioral health disabilities, including autism.The $20,000 gift will enable
the institute to expand a program it started last year, institute officials
said. That program offers training at Northeastern University in applied
behavior analysis therapy, which is used with autistic children. Erin Casey,
director of development for May, said, ''We are charmed to be a recipient two
years in a row.'' She said parents of autistic children whose therapists
receive training from the institute are a ''natural constituency'' for the new
training. But she said the program is open to anyone with an autistic
child.Lisa Borges, executive director of the Framingham-based Flutie
foundation, said the May Institute was one of 14 groups that received a
combined $254,000 in the recent annual grant round. Ninety groups had applied
for funding.Community Briefs were compiled by Globe correspondents.This
story ran on page 2 of the Boston Globe's South Weekly section on 1/10/2002.
© Copyright
2002 Globe Newspaper Company.
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/010/south/Residential_growth_sees_ra
pid_increase+.shtml
******************************
The red badge of vaccination
The red band so frequently seen on the left arm of
the man in the street at present naturally has an effect on the
"antivacks" akin to that of the proverbial red rag on the bull. We
note without surprise, therefore, that at the annual meeting of the General
Council of the London Vegetarian Association, held the other day at the
Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street, Mr. A. F. Hills, the President, who was in
the chair, used strong language on the subject. He is reported to have said
that it was absurd and distressing to see men and women walking about the
streets with a piece of red ribbon on their arms, advertising the fact that
they had taken into their bodies one disease in order to prevent the breaking
out of another. This he thought must be regarded as a sad sign of the mental
decrepitude of the people of our time. Vegetarians believed in no such
nonsense. They believed that if only people would put their lives in harmony
with God's eternal law of health there need be no fear of contracting small-pox
or any other disease. He hoped vegetarians would do all in their power to
counteract the false doctrine that people could be saved from one disease by
the inoculation of another. All who looked carefully into the question would find
that the medical statistics respecting the power of vaccination were
fallacious, and it did not possess the value claimed for it in preventing a
person contracting small-pox. We may perhaps be excused from dealing with the
statistical part of Mr. Hills's remarks here. But we venture with all respect
to ask for a little more light on his dark saying about "God's eternal law
of health." Faddists are too ready to take the name of God in vain to
support the sickly fancies bred in their own brains. Has Mr. Hills an atom of
proof that vegetarians unprotected by vaccination are not as liable to
small-pox as their carnivorous fellow creatures? If he has, we call upon him to
produce it. If he has not, what right has he to delude the silly folk who
listen to him into the belief that they need have "no fear of contracting
small-pox or any other disease?" Does Mr. Hills seriously believe himself
or the devotees of his cult to be above the common lot of humanity and
invulnerable against disease?
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7329/99/a
******************************
Open season on MMR
(see Editor's Notes at the end of story)
How the Blairs' silence sparked a media storm
In recent weeks opponents of the triple measles, mumps, and
rubella (MMR) vaccine have had rich pickings. In late November the General
Medical Council cleared former general practitioner Peter Mansfield of
professional misconduct for offering separate vaccines. The Daily Mail
heralded this as a victory. Shortly afterwards, the Express picked up an
editorial in the British Journal of General Practice, which argued that
the Department of Health needed to respond to parental concerns and rethink its
policy on single vaccines. In early December Andrew Wakefield, whose research
in the Lancet in February 1998 stoked widespread alarm over possible
links between MMR and bowel disease and autism, left the Royal Free Hospital in
London. He claimed that he had been forced out for his rebel views. His
departure was extensively covered in the Guardian and provoked several
angry letters in both the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. But it was
the Blairs' refusal to answer Conservative MPs' questions about whether their
youngest son, Leo, had had the triple vaccine that kept MMR firmly on the media
agenda. Many newspapers viewed the Blairs' silence as doing little to quell
lingering parental doubts about the safety of the vaccine. This even included
papers that supported the prime minister's view that his children's welfare was
a private matter, as an article in the Independent on 21 December
reflected. But the refusal to budge vexed the Daily Mail the most. It
ran stories on the issue, clamouring for a confession, on 13, 14, 18, 19, 20,
and 21 December. The paper continued its campaign in the new year, bringing in television
presenter Carol Vorderman to add her voice to the request for the Blairs to
break their silence. The Independent had already revealed that Ms
Vorderman had not had her son vaccinated with MMR. The Mail on Sunday
chipped in a strand to the conspiracy theory on 16 December. It reported that
GPs were paid to meet vaccination targets for MMR, implying that financial
concerns took precedence over children's health, a theme that was taken up
again a few days later. Suspicion that a lack of candour must imply something
to hide was not dispelled by the less than convincing performance of junior
health minister Jaqui Smith on the BBC's influential Today programme on
20 December. The minister was taken by surprise, but wriggled uneasily under
relentless questioning about her own children's vaccination. Her defence that
their health was a personal matter came across as lame and evasive.
Urged to confess: Blair with Leo
Was it the prime ministerial silence tha did the most
damage to confidence in MMR? After Christmas the Telegraph produced
evidence that the Blairs' stance had undermined public confidence by revealing
a huge surge in demand for single vaccines. The Independent on Sunday
revealed that supplies were running out as parents panicked. Postings from
parents seeking information on doctors willing to offer single vaccines on the
Justice Awareness and Basic Support (JABS) website (www.argonet.co.uk/users/jabs/),
an anti-MMR organisation campaigning for parental choice, almost tripled during
December. Department of Health figures show that MMR uptake varies considerably
across health authorities in England. London is the worst, averaging 79 per
cent. Some areas in the capital are as low as 73 per cent, although these
figures reflect poor general uptake of childhood vaccines. But in the rest of
the country MMR uptake consistently lags behind other childhood immunisations.
A spokesperson for the Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS) says that trends
in MMR uptake, while far from experiencing a vertiginous plummet, have been
heading downwards since 1995, when the first of the queries about MMR came to
public attention. The recent downturn after a period of relative stability may
have been helped by the introduction last year of meningitis C vaccine in young
children, given at the same time as MMR, he said. This may have persuaded
parents to defer the latter to stagger the number of injections. Would it have
made any difference to public confidence in MMR if the Blairs had made a public
statement about whether or not Leo had had the jab? Only the next set of
figures will make that clear.
Caroline Whitet did the most damage to , freelance
medical journalist
.
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/324/7329/120
Editor's Note: I do not believe that the views of anyone person is strong
enough to make a decision on any one subject for All people. People around the
world have been watching the vaccine controversy for some time now. With good
reason, they have children that may have/had complications with vaccines. Many
informed parents and professionals have seen and read the original CDC report
on vaccines and the links to many dangers with them. I believe that the
pressure should be on the Vaccine makers for the content of the vaccines and
their safety, not the Prime Minister for his personal business with his own
child. Let this family rest in peace on this matter. They as Individuals have
the right to make their own decision with their child and not be scrutinized by
the press to their decision.
******************************
Minister promises action on autism
BY HELEN RUMBELOW
THE Public Health Minister promised a more
concerted approach to autism yesterday after a Commons debate in which MPs paid
tribute to the Times campaign to raise awareness of the condition.
Yvette Cooper said that the NHS, schools and social services would have to work
together under the National Service Framework for Children to stop families
slipping through the net. The National Autistic Society, the subject of The
Times Christmas Appeal, helps to improve the lives of those affected by
autism, but lack of resources means that many families are still not getting
the help they need. Linda Perham, Labour MP for Ilford North, organised the
Commons debate to inaugurate the first Autism Awareness Year, founded by Ivan
Corea, a constituent with an autistic boy, Charin, 5. Tony Blair pledged his
support at Question Time.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,11-2002015880,00.html
******************************
A tale of two daughters
Karen McVeigh
kmcveigh@scotsmn.com
At first glance, the family likeness is hard to spot. One is tall, almost
willowy, immaculately well-groomed and self-assured. The other is plumper,
prefers casual, comfortable clothes and can be rather shy. But with their
deep-set eyes and jet-black hair, each woman bears an extraordinary resemblance
to their father.
Mary Parkinson’s eyes are the precise colour of her father’s, a piercing
blue; her half-sister, Flora Keays, shares his high cheekbones and firm chin.
They have never met, yet they are both daughters of Lord Parkinson, former
chairman of the Tory party and one of the most eminent politicians of the
Thatcher government. And their lives, one of whom he has showered with
affection, the other he has virtually ignored, could not be more different.
Flora - the offspring of the married Lord Parkinson and his former secretary,
Sara Keays, whose scandalous affair rocked the Thatcher government - has
enjoyed few advantages from having such an esteemed father. Until her 18th
birthday, on the last day of 2001, she was forced to live in the shadows, a
victim of a wide-ranging gagging order which forbade anyone, including her
mother, from talking about her.
The injunction, which prevented Flora Keays appearing in the public domain, was
the same procedure that protected child-killer Mary Bell, on her release from
prison. In Flora’s case, however, the result was that she could not appear on
school photographs, nor could she take part in school shows. Her schools could
also not publish news of any of her hard-won achievements on noticeboards or in
school magazines.
Hers has been a life in which the odds are stacked very much against her.
Childhood surgery to remove a brain tumour has left her with serious social and
learning difficulties. She also suffers from a form of autism called
Asperger’s Syndrome which means she feels rejection more keenly than her
peers. Brought up by her loving and devoted mother, she has nevertheless
suffered arguably the cruellest blow of all - the rejection of a father whose
presence she can never escape.
Yet in a poignant Channel 4 documentary, to be shown tonight, she emerges as a
lively and courageous young woman, determined to battle against the cards she
has been unfairly dealt. It shows her delighting in pastimes she has been told
she would never master - gymnastics, basketball, ballet, rock-climbing,
ice-skating and horse-riding. She is also learning to drive.
"People are always saying things will be difficult for me. They say, Flora
can’t do gymnastics, that will be too hard," she says, after a perfect
somersault. "I want to show that people with my sort of problems can do
all these things."
By contrast, Mary, the eldest child of Cecil and Ann Parkinson, has had all the
advantages of a mother and father who both loved her from birth. As the
daughter of a millionaire, she never wanted for anything. Her life was the same
as those of her younger sisters, Emma and Joanna - good schools, holidays
abroad, friends of the family in high places, should she need them. Her
childhood memories include idyllic family holidays in Cornwall, where she swam
and played golf. She excelled at sports, playing lacrosse, tennis and hockey,
and her parents bought her a horse when she was a teenager. Winter holidays
were spent skiing. But her problems began at an early age. She suffered from
anorexia at 14, while studying for her O-Levels. At university she discovered
drugs and alcohol and quickly became addicted. She tried everything, from
ecstasy and speed to cocaine, and nearly died three times as a result of her
addiction to heroin.
For 11 years, the eldest child of Lord Parkinson was in and out of treatment
centres as her parents tried everything to help her, footing bills of £2,500
for clinic treatments. But instead of welcoming such gestures, she became
devious and manipulative and would run up huge bills on her father’s gold
American Express card to feed her habit. She became a familiar figure to the
police, who once picked her up for prostitution in Brighton.
In 1990, at the age of 30, she once bizzarely tried to climb out of a window
when the police arrested her for drink-driving. Her parents could only watch in
horror as she spiralled further and further into the black void of her own
addiction.
The Parkinsons’ energies were poured into their eldest child, but she did not
seem to care and attempted suicide several times. While her father was a
minister, he would visit her in 22 clinics in all. Her heartbroken mother has
said that she believed her daughter would die. She said: "Once you’ve
been through this, nothing can ever touch you the same way again."
Mary once said that her problems stemmed from the pressure of being Cecil
Parkinson’s daughter. "I was the eldest daughter and I was very
bright," she said. "I wanted to be successful and I wanted to be the
best in his eyes, as any daughter does."
She kicked her drug addiction once, at the age of 21. Her mother helped her by
setting up a charity, Action on Addiction, to give her something to do. But
after the initial recovery period, and a brief period working with the charity,
she was back on drugs.
"There was a lot of pressure on me," she said, although she later
conceded that her upbringing was the same as that for both her sisters, who
were both fine. "I was portrayed in the press as being this wondrous
person who was spending all her life saving other desperate drug addicts. I
believed all that nonsense and I felt I had to be an angel."
For the next four years, she was once more an addict, finally kicking the habit
in 1990.
Mary and Flora’s lives are poles apart, yet both have suffered from being
Lord Parkinson’s daughter. Each has carried a secret which their father would
rather the world didn’t know about: one, being the innocent offspring of an
illicit affair, the other, with an 11-year drug addiction, another sort of
victim who has dragged her father and family into the depths of despair and
threatened to destroy them.
But the similarities stop there. Mary’s problems came about of her own free will.
And when she did decide finally to kick her habit, her father was there to
help.
Today, she has a new life, with a career as a television presenter for Granada
television. After a brief dalliance as a fitness instructor, she has presented
Eat Drink and Be Healthy for Granada Breeze channel and has also presented a
football programme. She lives her life quietly, in a modest terraced house in
an unkempt street in Clapham, far away from the trappings of the life of luxury
she had as a child. She says has not touched drugs or alcohol since October
1990 but will never forget the long hard struggle to come off drugs.
"I realised that I’d had a pretty wretched time and that, if I was going
to be happy, it was down to me. For example, I’m not great in really
stressful jobs, so its suits me to be self-employed."
She says that she owes a great debt to her family. In the end, she says, it was
her parents’ brand of "tough love" that made her see sense. They
threw her out of the family home in 1987, the same year she was fined £125 for
cocaine posession.
Flora, who has struggled every day to be where she is now, also has the love of
her family behind her. At the age of four and a half, she had a tumour removed
in a five-hour operation that involved removing the whole right frontal lobe of
her brain. The extent of her recovery is a tribute to both her and her mother.
Yet throughout her recovery, her father never once asked how his daughter was.
Flora’s mother has had to fight through the courts for adequate maintenance
for her daughter.
As a handicapped child, Flora already feels isolated and rejected, but was made
to feel these things more acutely because of the injunction her father placed
upon her. At the age of 12, when her grandfather - the main father-figure in
her life - died, she began to ask questions about her father, and would
constantly ask "Does he love me, mummy?"
It was a question that her mother found difficult to answer. "I decided to
tell her that lots of children never saw their fathers - but that didn’t mean
that their fathers didn’t love them," her mother says. "I didn’t
want her to feel deprived."
In the documentary which charts her remarkable progress, there is a
heartbreaking moment when Flora reveals the depth of the hurt she feels. She
says: "I would like to meet my Daddy. I haven’t had a chance to see him
yet. If he were part of our lives I would see him every day. His name is Cecil
Parkinson."
Later, she says: "I would like to see him and talk to him. I would like to
go to the cinema with him and have some fun."
She also reveals that she wants to meet her half-sisters, Mary, Emma and
Joanna.
Lord Parkinson has said publicly that it was better if he never saw Flora. He
has never tried to contact her.
In a recent interview, Mary revealed her admiration for her father’s former
mistress for the way she has brought up Flora. "I think Sara Keays has
done a brilliant job," she said. "It’s clearly been quite a
struggle to get her daughter to this stage." She would say nothing of her
half-sibling. But perhaps she would do well to watch her. If Flora had been
around when Mary was a child, perhaps her life would have turned out quite
differently.
Flora’s Story, Channel 4, tonight, 9pm
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/s2.cfm?id=30822002
******************************
Local woman leads way for autistic son, others
By GREG BARTLETTStaff WriterWhen they say that Jackie Marquette wrote the book
on gaining independence for people with autism, they mean that she really wrote
the book."Independence Bound," published late last year, is the first
documented guide for the process of making an autistic young adult independent
- an uncommon feat."I wrote the book because there weren't any books out
there to guide families with autism seeking independent living," said
Marquette, a special educator for Hardin County Schools. "There's nothing
that really tells a parent how to carve an independent living relationship, how
to even let go of your child."Marquette understands that process well. Her
24-year-old son, Trent Altman, has the neurological disorder, and she worked
for years at giving him a more autonomous life. The book is partly a personal
narrative, chronicling "our struggles and our crises and our difficulties"
and providing insights gained from the transition process, Marquette
said."This was a major accomplishment in my life. I want to share with
other families how we did it," she said.Marquette and Altman have lived
separately in Louisville for 20 months. Altman and a roommate live next door to
Marquette's brother.To allow Altman more freedom, his roommate, Jason Williams,
is on hand to provide instruction on daily living tasks. Williams also works
with Altman at a Louisville Kmart."(Altman) didn't take it very well at
first," Williams said. "The transition was kind of rough for
him."After about a month, though, Altman began to adjust to living away
from Marquette."Trent's more open and free," Williams said. "He
has fewer anxieties about everyday things."Many parents would never
consider making their autistic children more self-reliant, Williams said,
because parents often believe that isolating the children is in their best
interest."But it insulates them from life," he said.Marquette would
attest to that."(Altman) has grown more since (moving in with Williams)
than I have seen him grow in his life," Marquette said. "That's the
real joy of it.""Independence Bound" can be purchased online at
www.independencebound.com. It will soon be available locally at The Bookstore
in Radcliff. The book is priced at $19.95.Marquette will speak to the public
about the book and her experiences at the Central Office Annex Building in
Elizabethtown from 6 to 7 p.m. on Jan. 29.Greg Bartlett can be reached at
769-1200, Ext. 238, or e-mail him at gregbartlett1@hotmail.com.
http://www.newsenterpriseonline.com/news/10510200.htm
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ALONE, IN CONSULTATION WITH YOUR HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.