“If your child is one of those who became autistic after receiving a vaccination, please raise your hand.” – Dr. Bernard Rimland

“If your child is one of those who became autistic after receiving a vaccination, please raise your hand.” – Dr. Bernard Rimland
With little fanfare, the 10th anniversary of Dr. Bernard Rimland’s passing was Monday this week (11/21). Dr. Rimland changed the course of the Autism debate forever, and even the New York Times praised him in this obituary:
“Bernard Rimland, who overturned conventional theories about the origin of autism in the 1960s and later forced scientists and policymakers to consider alternative causes and treatments, died last Tuesday in El Cajon, Calif., near his home in San Diego. He was 78. Dr. Rimland’s interest in autism, the puzzling social-skills disorder, and his work on behalf of families touched by it grew out of his intuition as an experimental psychologist and his experience as a father. When his young son Mark received a diagnosis of autism, doctors generally blamed the disorder on cold, distant mothering. In his book “Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior,” Dr. Rimland demolished the cold-mother theory by presenting lucid evidence that the disorder was rooted in biology.
“He was tremendously important to the field, in that he reoriented research from a focus on the parents to a focus on the brain,” Dr. Fred R. Volkmar, director of the Child Study Center at Yale, said. “He also developed the first checklist for diagnosing autism. He was a pathfinder and tireless advocate for families dealing with autism.”
Did you ever go to a DAN! Conference and stand up with hundreds of other parents? I did (in SD, 2004), and it changed my whole understanding of autism. Dr. Rimland was a hero to hundreds of thousands of parents and he is sorely missed! (Tragically, this video was filmed 13 years ago!!)