Defeating autism: a damaging delusion by Michael Fitzpatrick - what a top read!

I've just been reading Defeating autism: a damaging delusion by Michael Fitzpatrick, published by Routledge. I'm surprised that such a wise and well-researched book has been released for quite a while and I've noticed virtually no promotion of this book. Maybe it's just me.

This book is basically a critical history of the diverse movement of people who believe in environmental causes of and "biomedical treatments" for autism, written from the point of view of a British general practitioner who's son was given an autism diagnosis in 1994. Dr Fitzpatrick has been there and done that, and is able to admit that many of the things that they tried had no discernable effect (or were harmful).

The author has certainly read widely about the many controversies in the world of autism, discussing or quoting from experts, book authors, internet commentators, fifth-rate scientists and quacks from all sides of the autism battleground - Kanner, Bettelheim, Shattock, Rimland, Baron-Cohen, McCarthy, Maurice, the Geiers, Kirby, Wakefield, Seidel, Grinker, Offit, Leitch, Klein and "Ventura 33".

Here are two of my favourite quotes from the book:

"The autistic child has become the symbolic point of convergence of two major currents of contemporary anxiety: anxiety about early childhood development and anxiety about impending environmental disaster." (page 15)

"Jenny McCarthy provides a first-person account which is all about one person - herself - and everybody else, including Evan, has only a walk-on part." (page 45)

If you are a parent of an autistic child this is one book that you should read and own, just so that you know who is who and how things got to be this crazy, and this book might prevent you from wasting a lot of time and money on other books, and quackery, that are no use to anyone. If you work with autistic people of any age, buy this book and read it and claim the cost on your tax. If you are one of the fighters in the many political battles over autism, I'm sure you'd want to own this book.