Can Autism be cured??

I have also read on conspiracy news sites that autism is caused by the live measles virus in the MMR vaccine. This live measles virus supposedly gets stuck the intestinal wall of individuals with a weaker immune system causing inflammation of the Ileum (entrance to small intestine). The small intestine is where the vitamins and nutrients nessacary for the production of neurotransmitters are extracted from food being ingested. This inflammation in the small intestine causes the food to be malabsorbed which then causes the imbalance of neurotransmitters which causes autistic symptoms.

I can’t deny that it is all interesting stuff and a pretty impressive theory. However to be quite frank with you I just don’t know what to believe anymore. I trusted the government throughout the lockdown and got all the jags and then it turned out they were partying in Downing Street whilst they were telling us all to stay isolated in our homes. I will go on the side of vaccines don’t cause autism though until it is definitively proved that they do. 

Yellow tree 118 said:

I have also read on conspiracy news sites

I’m generally a reasonably tolerant person but I would happily support life jail sentences for the people behind conspiracy sites.

They do incalculable damage.

Yellow tree 118 said:

I have also read on conspiracy news sites

I’m generally a reasonably tolerant person but I would happily support life jail sentences for the people behind conspiracy sites.

They do incalculable damage.

The rise in diagnosis is because autism is being spoken about more freely. The stereotypical view on autism isn’t true, more people are realising why they have always been different and are seeking a diagnosis. I’m in my 50’s, there are whole generations of people who never dreamed they could be autistic and never had the opportunity of an assessment.

I said othering. Not contention. Different thing.

I Sperg said:

I'm surprised that here where we are pretty much ALL victims of being "othered" that so many people are so keen to do "othering" here in this forum to each other.

If you bring up contentious subjects and link to contentious websites, you will get contention.

Yes some of us DO have the smug and annoying sense of superiority akin to that which seems to be the hall mark of those who would say "it's all bunk".

But a sense of superiority is just that, a "sense". 

It's knowledge of facts and ability to command critical thinking skills that actually gives some people an edge in some situations, makes them a social outcast in others. 

For myself it's classic & simple Psychology.

I was lied to and mistreated as a kid by the ultimate Authority figures, my parents. It makes me "overly suspicious" of Authority in disinclined to outsource my thinking, which apparently works for most of you, very well indeed..I have to collect enough data to make up my mind. That means I have to listen to an awful lot of absurdity, dishonesty, madness,misrepresentation etc. ON BOTH SIDES OF THE MEDIA  but there is also a lot of truth. 

Unlike most of you who have different imperatives in life, I have spent some 20 years now acquiring and sharpening a tool known as occams razor. I have better skills at using that tool and otehr slike it, , than whose who have not practiced. Jjust as I do with a soldering iron, function generator or 25,ooo volt home made power supply. 

It's easy to mock.

It takes time, effort, and perseverence to learn things that other people would rather you did not know. 

In an ever widening area the very act of learning things is Illegal and people can and do to jail for simply having acquired "the wrong knowledge"! 

Setting aside any woo, when covid appeared, I had knowledge that most of you did not. 

IT wasn't because some conspiracy site told me things, (that came  later, the early bullshit all came from China and the WHO figures which indicated a CFR of about 45%!! IF you did a bit of arithmetic). That was the first clue I got that something was off about this "event".

The knowledge I had was because many years ago I asked the question (and received an answer pitched at a level I could understand) "Why isn't there a vaccination against the common cold?"

First it was explained to the much younger me what a vaccination actually was. (At that time. The definition has been recently changed) 

I was told that a vaccine was a weakened form of the actual virus one was immunising (that word "immunisation" used to define the action of a vaccine, it does not any more) against.  

I was then told that a vaccine could be developed against the common cold virus but due to it's speed of mutation it would rapidly produce clades that would be immune to the virus in such a short time that it was not a viable option.

When those clever scientists came up with a solution in a mere six months, to a problem that people had been trying to solve all my life, and in light of my already knowing (through simple arithmetic and looking out the window) that he virus did not in fact have a lethality of 45%(!) I reached for my trusty microbiologist "friend" and asked her to confirm my understanding of basic biology and assess my misgivings for me from her more educated perspective.

I decided that at best this seemed to be a colossal experiment with new technology, akin to biological software in that this concoction directly programs you immune system to do a specific thing rather than letting it find out how to fight the virus itself like an old style vaccination used to (and I've learned never to buy new software always run the older & fully patched release!) and elected to stay in the "control group" since I knew I had  well above average ability to evade the virus, due to situation and some rudimentary NBC training, which I've self updated over the years.

As the broad spectrum push to get everyone to take the injections grew and knowledge of my avoidance grew in my peer group, I got told repeatedly "It's those conspiracy sites you go to"...

I'm surprised that here where we are pretty much ALL victims of being "othered" that so many people are so keen to do "othering" here in this forum to each other. 

Those people are a tiny minority.

It was the lizard people..

Conspiracy theory believers are motivated by the same thing that attracts people to fringe religions and cults. It is the idea that they know something that 'Mr Average' does not. It gives them a specious and entirely false sense of superiority. This is why, even when faced with the truth and lots of supporting real evidence, they cling to their, often idiotic, convictions.

Many years ago Putin’s propaganda tzar openly stated that their policy is to spread numerous lies AND the truth and thus leave people overwhelmed with (dis)information, unable to tell what’s true and what’s lies and ultimately give up trying.

And that’s where a lot of people are now.

But the people who believe nonsense like Covid was a false flag operation to let Bill Gates inject us all with monitoring devices - they are simply nutters.

Lies NEED to have "incalculable damage" inflicted on them.

MOST (not all, some are as you correctly intuit, driven by malevolence or insanity, we have our "bad apples" too) are trying to raise awareness of some very inconvenient truths.

What you have been carefully trained to call "conspiracy theory" others call the "Truth Movement".

It really is a matter of perspective. 

For those of us you call "Conspiracy Theorists" (at best, a lot of the names are less flattering) it is not "news" to learn that The Ukraine war is not going well, as I've been provided with copius evidence that Ukraine aided by NATO has been relentlessly crushed by the Russian army. Worse, the when the truth is generally known, we will all find that the Russians have done it with incredibly low civilian casualties compared to anything we've ever accomplished in our MANY, MANY, invasions of other nations... 

We have a dark joke which goes:

Q. "What is the difference between a real fact and a conspiracy theory?"

A. "about eight months, currently."

Eek I've said too much, there'll be a black helicopter full of lizard people coming to get me... 

Yeah, pretty much.

There's a rise in diagnosis, but that doesn't mean there are more people with autism, which certainly isn't caused by the measles vaccine. 

Genetics probably plays a part

The problem is they see a sudden rise in autism cases and they think there must be a cause to it like vaccines and they don't look at the fact that the definition ("Not sure if the right word") of autism changed in 2013 and there was also a rising awareness of it so more people getting diagnosed. Correlation does not mean causation. Most of the people are worried parents who see their child stop looking them in the eyes after the vaccine and think the vaccine caused it and didn't notice the other signs before it. Also all their energy is campaigning against this instead of actually helping their child.

Yep.

I wonder why people who believe this nonsense don't ask themselves basic questions like - Oh, I don't know... what caused autism before the measles vaccination was introduced, maybe? 

Hmm...

I have a hypothesis that the people behind them are undiagnosed neurodivergent, the reason being it gives them a sense of belonging and purpose which they haven't found anywhere else. Which I think is common among neurodivergent people. I am probably wrong though and it doesn't excuse their actions. I also agree with you, so much money has been spent disproving the vaccine causes autism claim even though the evidence was shaky behind it in the first place that it set back support for autism. All of that money spent on research could have been spent on support for us and all because of these conspiracy sites. This makes me a little bit angry. There purpose isn't to make the world better it is to create misinformation, and confuse people and waste resources. This is such a waste of time and money.