Free Republic

e latest look at autism in the U.S. shows a startling 30 percent jump among 8-year-olds diagnosed with the disorder in a two-year period, to one in every 68 children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which did the survey, says the numbers almost certainly reflect more awareness and diagnosis of kids who would have been missed in years past. The new estimate for 2010 was a jump from one in 88 children in 2008, the last year for which numbers had been available. “The number of children diagnosed with autism continues to rise,” the agency’s Dr. Coleen Boyle...

We teach kids that honesty is the best policy, but at one Virginia Beach middle school it might be better to keep the truth to yourself. Last Thursday at Bayside Middle School, sixth grader Adrionna Harris came to the aide of a classmate who was cutting his arm. She faces expulsion for taking a razor from the student, throwing it away and convincing him what he was doing wasn’t right. She thought she was doing the right thing, so on Friday she told the school administration what happened. The way school officials responded led to this question: was the school’s...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Gay and bisexual boys are almost six times as likely as their heterosexual peers to misuse steroids, according to a new study. "What was most surprising to us was the magnitude of the disparities that emerged between sexual minority and heterosexual boys," Aaron J. Blashill from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston told Reuters Health in an email. Upwards of 5 percent of adolescent boys use anabolic-androgenic steroids to enhance strength, athletic performance, and muscle size, but nobody had studied the association between sexual orientation and steroid abuse before, Blashill and his colleague Steven A. Safren...

In spite of their advances in education and the workforce anxiety disorders are replacing happiness for American women. Sexual liberation was supposed to bring equality for females that expected fulfillment with the freedom to pursue lust without expecting committed relationships.

Among the thousands of documents Connecticut police released December 27 related to the heinous crime at Sandy Hook Elementary, the contents and files of Adam Lanza's computer include files on mass shootings, mass murders, pedophiles' rights, and a man/boy love story. According to police reports contained within the documents, Lanza's laptop computer contained "hundreds of bookmarks," a number of which were for "mass murder killing spree" and "mass murders." His desktop had a "document written showing the prerequisites for mass murder spreadsheet." Lanza's desktop also had a "document written advocating pedophiles' rights" and a "screenplay or script describing a relationship...

Pedophilia has been widely viewed as a psychological disorder triggered by early childhood trauma. Now, many experts see it as a biologically rooted condition that does not change — like a sexual orientation — thanks largely to a decade of research by Dr. James Cantor at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Cantor’s team has found that pedophiles share a number of physical characteristics, including differences in brain wiring. It’s now thought that about 1 to 5 per cent of men are pedophiles, meaning they are primarily attracted to children. These findings have been widely accepted among scientists, but...

"We know that being gay is not a choice someone makes, and that to suggest otherwise can be incredibly harmful." Is HRC saying being gay is a birth defect?

Susan Boyle revealed she has Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism. The Scottish singer who shot to worldwide fame in 2009 with her jaw-dropping performance on "Britain's Got Talent" was diagnosed last year, but has now decided to reveal her news publicly for the first time. Speaking to the Observer newspaper, Boyle said, "It was the wrong diagnosis when I was a kid. "I was told I had brain damage. I always knew it was an unfair label. Now I have a clearer understanding of what's wrong and I feel relieved and a bit more relaxed about myself." Asperger's has...

Born Gary Matthews, the retired technology worker and a self-confessed "nerd" thinks he is a dog. The 48-year-old wears a dog collar, eats dog food from a bowl — his favorite is Pedigree – and loves milk bones and dog cookies. "I don't eat dog food every day," Matthews told ABCNews.com "It's a special thing for me to do once in awhile to get closer to feeling like a canine. I eat the canned kind. It's not bad -- it tastes OK. I eat regular human food, too, like pizza." But he has the most fun wearing his dog suit,...

Autism can be identified in babies as young as two months, early research suggests. US researchers analysed how infants looked at faces from birth to the age of three. They found children later diagnosed with autism had shown diminished eye contact - a hallmark of autism - in the first few months of life. The findings, reported in Nature, raised hope for early interventions to tackle autism, said a UK expert. In the study, researchers led by Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta used eye-tracking technology to measure the way babies looked at and responded to social clues. They...

Nathan, born Nancy, Verhelst, 44, was given legal euthanasia, most likely a lethal injection, on Monday afternoon on the grounds of "unbearable psychological suffering". Wim Distelmans, the doctor who carried out the euthanasia, is the same doctor who late last year gave lethal injections to deaf twins who were frightened they were also going blind. "I was the girl that nobody wanted," Mr Verhelst told Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper in the hours before her death. "While my brothers were celebrated, I got a storage room above the garage as a bedroom. 'If only you had been a boy', my mother...

As more details emerge about Alexis, Lieberman said he was concerned that the shooting renews worries for people with mental illness and once again raises questions about how society treats disorders. “I think it immediately arouses fears and enhances stigma about people with mental illness, that they’re psychotic killers and wackos running amok,” Lieberman said. “It’s unfortunate.”

The O-Shot for women and the Priapus Shot for men are made from platelet-rich plasma (PRP) sourced from your own blood, which is then activated, to heal aged and damaged tissue of the sex organs. PRP therapy is nothing new – it’s been used for the popular Vampire Facelift, and for decades to treat athletic injuries and promote healing after certain procedures – but those same healing properties are now helping giving patients a boost...in the bedroom. Here’s how it works: Local anesthetic cream is applied to the injection sites and then PRP is injected at those precise locations. These...

“As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me,” Manning said in a statement read during an exclusive TODAY show interview with lawyer David Coombs. “I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female. Given the way I have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible.” While Fort Leavenworth, the prison where Manning will serve her sentence, does not offer hormone therapy, Coombs told host Savannah Guthrie he would fight to ensure his client received the medical treatment she needed. He also said he and Manning...

Full Title: Revealed: California killer who abducted teenage girl is shot dead in Idaho wilderness 18 years TO THE DAY after his own father committed suicide while holding another 16-year-old hostage James DiMaggio's kidnapping of 16-year-old Hannah Anderson, whom was said to have a 'crush on,' could be a horrific case of history repeating itself, it has been revealed. DiMaggio's father, also named James DiMaggio, shockingly killed himself 18 years ago to the day that DiMaggio was shot dead by an FBI agent in the Idaho wilderness. Hannah was found safe and is expected to be reunited with her father...

The patient, who is gay, doesn't have a problem with his sexual orientation listed on his medical chart, but does take issue with it being labeled a "chronic condition"A patient said a Southern California doctor diagnosed him with "Homosexual behavior" during his first visit to the office for a check-up. Earlier this year, Matthew Moore started seeing a new doctor who suggested he undergo a complete physical. The tests revealed he was B-12 deficient, and had high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- conditions that he called "normal for me." When Moore, who is openly gay, went back to the...

ABC News editor Don Ennis suffered a very public identity crisis by switching his gender twice in a three-month period, and posting a workplace memo attributing his actions to amnesia. According to a report by The New York Post, Ennis started dressing as a woman and going by the name “Dawn” in May, but recently switched back to being a “just another boring straight guy.” In a memo posted to the newsroom bulletin board Friday and first obtained by the website NewsBlues.com, Ennis called the episode a “transient global amnesia” and said he accused his wife of playing “some kind...

ABC News editor Don Ennis strolled into the newsroom in May wearing a little black dress and an auburn wig and announced he was transgender and splitting from his wife. He wanted to be called Dawn. But now he says he suffered from a two-day bout of amnesia that has made him realize he wants to live his life again as Don.Fortunately, my memories of the last 14 years have since returned. But what did not return was my identity as Dawn,” said Ennis, who had been wearing lipstick, skirts and heels. “I am writing to let you know I’m...

ARCADIA, CA, July 26, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-family leaders reacted with stunned disbelief this week to the news of a settlement in the case of a Southern California girl whose parents filed a federal civil rights complaint against their local school district after their daughter was not allowed to sleep in a hotel room full of boys during field trips, despite her belief that she is a boy trapped in a girl's body. After two years of investigation by the Obama administration's Department of Justice, the Arcadia Unified School District agreed to a settlement in which they admit no wrongdoing,...

The lewd behavior that New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner engaged in suggests he is struggling with more than bad behavior and could be dealing with a variety of issues driving his problematic sexual behavior, experts said. But doctors, clinical psychologists and sex therapists differ on the role of biology, as well as issues such as anxiety, depression and insecurity. Fred Berlin, director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said many of his patients exhibit behavior similar to Weiner’s, although he and other experts cautioned that they could not speak to the former congressman’s specific situation....