Savage Stands by Autistic Remarks

NEW YORK TIMES ^ | July 21 08 | JAQUES STEINBERG

[camerakid400]

Michael Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized nearly every autistic child as “a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” said in a telephone interview Monday morning that he stood by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.

“My main point remains true,” Mr. Savage, whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, said in an interview on Monday. “It is an overdiagnosed medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism.”

On his program lastWednesday, Mr. Savage suggested that “99 percent of the cases” of autism were a result of lax parenting. He told his audience: “They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life.“ He added, “Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ ”

Asked Monday if he actually believed that 99 out every 100 cases of autism was misdiagnosed, Mr. Savage conceded that figure was “a little high.” “It was hyperbole,” he said.

But he said he was proud to have prodded discussion on the subject, and planned to give over his entire show on Monday — broadcast live from northern California from 3 to 6 p.m. Pacific time — to parents and other callers who wished to disagree with him, and to educate him.

[Alia]

I cannot recall the exact issue; but it was an issue which more infuriated the left than right; but it was in re a situation in which both sides could feel fury, should they choose. The guy's a psychotherapist. You'd think the liberals would have loved what he had to say; hung on to every word. But non! He was decidedly, to them, "evil, being a Republican, conservative" therefore his credentials as a psychotherapist were flung to the way side.

[commonguymd]

You are so disappointing as you minimize the affliction. Just like any affliction that categorizes our lives, and our society - you have proponents and distractors. The sad fact is that the proponents want to include everyone whereby I feel the distractors have it right - follow the money and engage the truly afflicted.

Sadly, everyone trying so hard to excuse normalcy in their lives and in their children’s lives fit the bill of a doctrine of medication, so much so, it becomes a psuedo religion of sorts.

[Soliton]

I don’t believe in AHDA or autism

Wow! Somehow you think it is a matter of opinion? Who ARE you? Where did you get your PhD?

[truthkeeper]

As the grandmother of a high-functioning autistic boy, I can only think of one thing to add to your post...BRAVO, dad!

[commonguymd]

Bull on several levels. Did you introduce yourself to feel a part of the bandwagon or do you have credentials of hers to back it up. I will call it out.

[colorcountry]

A friend's teenage son was diagnosed as autistic, with Aspergers. I do not believe he is truly autistic. He uses the diagnosis to get away with unbelievably rude behavior, especially towards his mother. He is manipulative, using the diagnosis whenever it will let him excuse bad behavior.

Sounds like a certain freeper I know.

[truthkeeper]

For Savage to say an autistic child needs to be told to shut up is like telling a polio victim to stop malingering and start walking.

Thanks...it bears repeating.

[commonguymd]

Another enabler to the money making swill now that the age of prescription has been lowered. Duped and cubed.

[purpleraine]

thanx

[Hot Tabasco]

Really my friend’s son is autistic.

As is my nephew's son and quite possibly his daughter too.......

Savage crossed the line and has forever lost any credibility he ever had with me.......

[truthkeeper]

Yours is the best post on this thread. My grandson is almost 11 and sounds a lot like yours.
Thanks for your efforts to educate people...they are appreciated.

[SoftballMominVA]

I've never discussed my daughter's medications, if any exist at all. So I would appreciate if people do not assume she was or was not on meds. Never, one time, have I minimized the affects of ADD/HD even one bit. I've seen how devastating it can be in my own family and in the lives of those I teach.

I object to putting a broad brush label of blame on everyone. ADD/HD and autism are real and can be life - altering. I've been there, I've lived it with my child, and I continue to watch my now adult daughter fight the monster so that she can approach normality and live the life that everyone else takes for granted.

[truthkeeper]

The “autism spectrum” is a fraud, IMO. Real autistic children would never be able to function in a school at all.

Thank you. You've obviously seen the same genuinely austic children, that I've seen. These are few and far between and there's NO mistaking them. There's no wiggle room. It's obvious.

Good lord...the misinformation on this thread is mind-numbing. Obviously you have never heard of high-functioning autism. These children most certainly can and often do function in a regular school setting, and my grandson is one of them.

[commonguymd]

So you should be on board with me, who understand the affliction and the diagnosis when it is real and not a manufactured excuse to give bad parenting a badge. Stand up and be counted for the nonsense driven by profit. Those that are truly affected understand the minimization of the disease by broad general profit driven conquests to seek new markets. Fight for the disease so to speak, don’t fight to water it down.

[Tamar1973]

I don’t believe that “high functioning autism” is actually autism. It’s some thing else. I’ve seen people who are truly autistic and they don’t function in society at all. Period.

By the standards of “autism spectrum syndrome” anyone who isn’t a bubbly, highly social person is autistic. The term has been so over-used, over stretched and over diagnosed that the term has nearly lost its meaning.

[Fundamentally Fair]

...though Savage states that this correspondence is actually a forgery created by gay detractors.

Sounds like some of Savage's fans here yesterday claiming he never said this and that Media Matters faked it all...

[commonguymd]

Good lord, degrees go all the way to the normal looking to be different. Get a clue and understand the 10 fold discovery of the disease by the lowering of age prescribe for those drugs taboo for the young.

You do realize that, beyond the personal struggle, that just because some child didn’t eat his peas when told, that it doesn’t gift the parents with the opportunity to be have a special, a special medicated child... right? I mean, I know many want to be special and their child to be different, but watering down the true struggle of Autism should not be the goal for self identity. Accepting normalcy should. It is okay that a child is average, normal, or even odd and weird but gifted.

[SoftballMominVA]

You'd be surprised how I stand up and what enemies it's made me in real life

Try sitting in on an eligibility meeting and be the only adult there who disagrees with everyone and says "I don't think this little guy has ADHD. I think he's just a boy that can't sit like the girls can." Try being the only one that dissents and says "He's fine - all he needs is to have some breaks and a chance to move around more than the average bear, he doesn't need anything more special than that." and then do this a solid dozen times and see how many enemies you pick up for failing to toe the line of label em and drug em

But when it's real, it's real

[tommythev]

you said: I feel like all battles are lost if even here you have folks jumping on the trains to a medicated society. Anyway, perhaps Savage used a bit of hyperbole but he is right, the new boondoggle money maker is destroying the children by over diagnosing autism. Real suffering children are getting crowded out by hyperactive non-disciplined children - forever ruining them with medicated therapy rather than diet and discipline.

Autism cannot be treated with medication. It is a developmental disorder where one part of the brain grows more slowly than normal. In fact many autistic children, when misdiagnosed as ADD or ADHD and medicated with Ritalin, start having seizures. Ritalin tends to act as a stimulant with many autistic children and in other cases has no effect whatsoever. You are talking about ADD and ADHD which are NOT autism.

[truthkeeper]

We have called it his "skippidy doodahs" since he was little. He will get excited by something online, or on TV or simply in his head and he will start jumping up and down, making hissing sounds and flapping his hands. IQ is part of the difference in the different parts of the spectrum. My son has a high IQ so he is able to understand his condition and control it in public enough to get by as normal.

Same with our little guy. I was told years ago that it's better he lets the stress out at home rather than in school, so those hands really get a workout at home.

No matter...to me he is still perfect in every way.