Posted on 07/21/2008 11:23:49 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Anyone trying to get him off the air will only make him a martyr.
I thought the comments were deplorable. But I can always change the channel if I don’t want to listen.
Second it!
Me, I'll continue to ignore him, and parent my own way.
Absolutely spot on. Savage plainly has no idea what he is talking about. Furthermore, the more he clings to this idiocy of a position, the more he loses whatever credibility he has.
Is it at all possible he got autism confused with ADHD?
He’s 99.9% dead on. Autism is seriously overdiagnosed as are many mental disorders.
...and has written several books on the subject too
He’s the one out of 100. I have had a friend with a completely disabled autistic child. And I’d go so far as to say that many autistic children are just poorly parented, I have no idea how many that could be.
I also have friends with mildly autistic children who are pretty fair behaved.
So he’s exaggerating. No surprise. I wouldn’t take this personally if I were you.
Guess he wanted to go one better on the "ADHD is made up" theme. Sorry but when "conservatism" gets involved in saying kids' medical conditions don't exist, count me out. Autism is not even a close call. My wife's school has a whole class of autistics they are severely disabled.
Maybe they aren’t there to serve the conservative movement.
Why? Savage comes from a generation where three-year olds were routinely told that and most of them turned out fine. It's only in our "progressive" generation that never telling anyone "no" is a mortal sin.
Exactly.
It’s the “mildly autistic” children that probably aren’t even autistic at all. They’re pigeonhold so the drug companies, schools, etc. make a few $$$ off them. I was barely saved from a diagnosis of autism with a simple hearing test when I was 3 years old.
The bottom line is that what Savage said is insensitive, harsh and lacking in any compassion. But he's essentially correct. All autistic kids need extra attention, but most of it is the attention of time and disclipline which a loving parent or caring teacher could deliver. A minimal amount of medication can also be helpful, but not in the frequencies and quantities pushed by the "funky kid" industry.
“Is it at all possible he got autism confused with ADHD?”
My initial thoughts as well.
I am shocked at the percentage of my young patients that are on some form of “attention-enhancement” medication.
Some take this so personally. Hear the “i know of one (or several) and therefore he’s just wrong and I’m deeply offended!! crowd.
It IS overdxed.
and many of the libs “little darlings” can’t be crossed.
Or "Nutritional Ethnomedicine" or something. A degree he's so proud of he never fails to go even one 3-hr segment without mentioning his "physician" and "scientist" creds. Savage would last less than a week in a real medical school.
Maybe I shouldn’t have posted. Lots of Savage haters here!
Do you honestly believe that we've had an order of magnitude increase in autism over the course of one or two generations or just more and more broad definition of a condition based on vague clinical diagnosis?
Autism is a real thing. Probably it is overdiagnosed. There is no cure but some get over it anyway.
I think that perhaps both you and Savage have confused autism with ADD (or ADHD).
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