Hi! I’m Kiera Butler, a senior editor at Mother Jones.
While reporting my new story about the rightward shift of autism treatment groups, I spoke to dozens of sources. But the conversations that really stuck with me were those with autism acceptance advocates. These were a diverse group of people. Some were parents of autistic children, others were autistic themselves. They came from all over the world. But all of them told me that they were deeply concerned that the groups peddling dubious autism treatments would be catastrophic for a movement that they had worked hard to create.
It used to be that autism was widely considered a devastating diagnosis. To parents of autistic children, it was like a scarlet letter—a mark that meant their child would never fit in or find happiness. But over the last few years, as scientists have come to learn more about the human brain, they started to view the condition not as an affliction, but rather as an innate brain difference. Autistic people experience the world differently, and that difference, they say, is something to be honored rather than treated. Autism is evidence of neurodiversity—the idea that human brains are not one-size-fits-all.
But peddlers of dubious autism treatments—diets, cleanses, supplements—reject the notion of neurodiversity. As one essential oils saleswoman told her 39,000 followers recently on Facebook, “Once you question the label instead of embracing it, you can believe in healing—whatever that looks like for your journey and your child. Dig deeper.”
Melissa Eaton, an autism activist who monitors social media groups, told me that the people who promote questionable treatments “really have fueled this problem because they created a tragedy narrative of autism.” Panicked parents of autistic children, she says, are the perfect targets. “They’re kind of egged on. It just becomes this quest to remove autism from their child—which is not something that you can do.”
I hope you'll take some time to read my latest.
—Kiera Butler