Why Parking in L.A. is Such a Snap

More Autism Ridiculousness on CNN

A recent report on that trusted news network, CNN, titled, "'Horse Boy,' family find respite from autism in Mongolia," described how an autistic boy in Austin Texas began to show improvements in language skills after riding a horse named Betsy. The story cautions, however, that a distinction must be made between this kind of "recreational therapy" and the "medical treatment that uses horses and is supervised by a licensed speech-language pathologist."

Now everyone knows that licensed speech-language therapists, highly skilled in the methods of science, must be the only ones qualified to supervise this serious medical treatment -- I'm sorry, I can not write those words without laughing. Medical treatment? Riding horses? C'mon, how gullible do they think we are? Never mind, don't answer that question.

But, all kidding aside, you might wonder just how riding horses can be an effective treatment for autistic kids. Well, according to the licensed speech-language therapist CNN interviewed, the powerful movement of the horse is "having neurological impact on the autistic child." And I guess she should know since I'm sure she's not only had years of training as a neuroscientist, but also training in the research methods to make that determination.

On the other hand, this "therapist" cautions that "For some autistic children, riding too long can overstimulate their nervous system, leading to more erratic behavior" (Now, there's a factual statement about the nervous system if I ever heard one).

So, I guess the dilemma is to try to figure out beforehand which kids will respond which way. Perhaps they should enlist a psychic to help them with that.

Speaking of psychics, the story doesn't end there. The father actually brought in an African bushman who was a healer and noticed that his son improved after the healer laid his hands on the kid.

So, like any other logical, rational person, the father took his kid to Mongolia so he could experience both horses (yes, they have a lot of horses in Mongolia) and shamans. And, guess what? His kid's behavior changed dramatically! Well, whose behavior wouldn't change dramatically after being high jacked to Mongolia and forced to ride Mongolian horses and be healed by Mongolian shamans?

It's not until the end of the article that we finally read the following: "Rowan's applied behavioral analysis therapist has him studying math and English at the third-grade level -- a full year ahead of some of his peers." So, applied behavior analysis, the only scientifically documented treatment for people with autism, is what really produced long-lasting and measurable changes in the kid's behavior.

Then what about all the time and money spent on horses, speech-language therapists, African shaman, and trips to Mongolia? (If you couldn't tell, that was a rhetorical question.)

Before ending this post, however, I want to comment on Austin Texas. As a native Texan myself, I am loathe to criticize it too much (our last President notwithstanding) and also because it is a city with great music and restaurants. But, probably because Austin is a liberal bastion (surrounded by the reddest of red counties), it has attracted more than it's share of quack programs for autism.

Austin has the distinction to be the home of programs such as Thoughtful House and HALO, both of which promote therapies with no scientific foundation.

Thoughtful House claims to recover autistic children through "the unique combination of medical care, education, and research." Of course "medical care" is code for chelation therapy. Unfortunately, someone who claims to be a behavior analyst, Doreen Granpeesheh, Ph.D., is one of the founders of Thoughtful House along with the infamous Andrew Wakefield, M.D. (see my previous post, The Great Vaccine Scare Epidemic). Oh yes, Thoughtful House also offers hippotherapy.

HALO is the brainchild of the imminent scientific researcher (I'm being facetious, of course) Soma Mukhopadhyay, the mother of Tito and the developer of the Facilitated Communication-like method called Rapid Prompting. As you'll notice from her website, there is an extensive list of peer-reviewed scientific articles supporting her method (I'm being facetious again).

So, now we can add hippotherapy and shamanism to the list of quack programs for autism that are in Austin. But, before we get too judgmental about Austin, we should take a look around our own communities. I think we'll find this ridiculousness is everywhere.

Headlines that Make You Go Hmm

A recent story in the L.A. Times about the Binghamton, N.Y. shootings had the following headline and deck:

Gunman targeted strangers

Jiverly Wong was shy, jobless and struggled with English. But Binghamton is at a loss to explain his rampage.

Hmm.

The Great Vaccine Scare Epidemic

Let's face it, we are all afraid. And the media feeds on our fears by constantly suggesting new things to fear -- food, water, air, toys, etc.

Although the media's obsession with things to fear may be a topic for a future post, the topic of this post is the unwarranted fear of childhood vaccines.

A recent article in the L.A. TImes, "California schools' risks rise as vaccinations drop," reported that more and more parents of children in affluent areas of California are choosing not to vaccinate or to to selectively vaccinate their children.

The problem, of course, is not just that the unvaccinated children may contract serious childhood diseases (e.g., measles, mumps, rubella) that have been for the most part eradicated in this country, but that if unvaccinated children contract a childhood disease, they may pass it on to other unvaccinated people, including infants before their scheduled vaccinations and pregnant women.

Why are these parents choosing not to vaccinate their children and, therefore putting other children and adults at risk?

Who better to ask then those eminent scientists, former Playboy Bunny and "actress" Jenny McCarthy and actor Jim Carrey.

According to these two public intellectuals, and contrary to every scientific study so far, autism is caused by vaccines. They have even founded an organization to promote their agenda, called Generation Rescue. And Jenny McCarthy has been on Larry King Live (with Jim Carrey) several times spouting her bizarre theories and, of course, hawking her books. She claims that she made a pact with God that if he (God) cured her son, she would crusade to help other parents.

Jenny McCarthy also claims, with no scientific support, that children diagnosed with autism can recover from their autism. Even though her own son apparently received ABA treatment, she claims that he was recovered through biomedical treatments, in particular, chelation. Gee, I guess the ABA was irrelevant. And if you don't believe Jenny or Jim, there are numerous testimonials on their website from parents. Who better than parents to determine what causes autism or what treatments are effective. After all, don't we look to parents of kids with cancer for the most effective treatments?

So, where do Jenny and Jim and other parents get their phobia of vaccinations?

From that famous scientist, Andrew Wakefield, the researcher who first claimed in a Lancet article that there was a causal link between the MMR vaccine and intestinal disorders that led to autism. In 2004, however, all of the authors of that study and the Lancet itself retracted their claim.

But it was too late; the damage had been done. Measles had once again reached epidemic proportions in Great Britain because parents were refusing to vaccinate their children, and with the assistance of other celebrities (e.g., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who believes there is a cover-up at the highest levels of the government and health agencies), the great vaccine scare epidemic reached the shores of the U.S.

Now we see that mostly affluent parents are not vaccinating their kids and the result will likely be a resurgence in childhood diseases. Ironic, isn't it, that the most affluent, and presumably, most educated people have been so easily persuaded to believe in something that has no scientific support. And, irony of all ironies, their children may be some of the ones who suffer most.

Of course, it is sad that their irrational decisions may result in great harm to other children, in particular those who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons or to pregnant women who, if they contract rubella, can pass it on to their fetuses causing brain damage or death.

This new age, in which otherwise intelligent people question the basic scientific methods that have reduced so much human suffering in the world, or the motives of scientists or public health officials, resembles the early middle ages more than the age of enlightenment.

So much the worse for these unenlightened people and for the rest of us.

The Tragedy of Guns

The latest in the tragedy of guns is the killing of four Oakland California policemen two days ago. After a routine traffic stop, the assailant shot and killed the two police officers and then two SWAT officers later using an assault rifle and a semi-automatic hand gun.

The assailant was a parolee who had missed several appointments with his parole officer. Some in California are viewing this as an outcome of a much larger problem in California of monitoring parole offenders.

However, I see it more as another tragedy of our liberal gun laws, the blame for which can be placed squarely at the door of the NRA and their rabid push for no restrictions of any kind on guns.

The NRA apparently believes that everyone has the right to own as many guns of any kind as they want and that this right is granted in the Constitution. And unfortunately, emboldened by a string of Supreme Court decisions, the NRA and its supporters have embarked on a journey to overturn more local and state gun control laws.

But some of the NRAs arguments are based on twisted logic. For example, the NRA says that "Guns don't kill people, people do." That's right. People kill people WITH GUNS! No one walks into a mall and kills scores of people with a baseball bat. The NRA will also say that if guns are criminalized, then only criminals will have guns. It is true that even if all guns were outlawed one could still get a gun. But the point of meaningful gun control is to make it much more difficult.

The NRA's main argument has always been that it is our right under the constitution to own guns. But at the time the 2nd amendment was ratified (in 1791) the "well regulated militia" it refers to was composed of ordinary citizens, so the authors wrote that the "right of the people . . ." was not to be infringed, the people being the militia. But today our militia is a formal standing army, so this amendment obviously needs to be interpreted in that context and not, as the gun enthusiasts believe, to allow everyone to own as many guns as possible.

Psychologist Leonard Berkowitz once stated that not only does the finger pull the trigger, but the trigger pulls the finger, implying that the presence of a gun makes its use much more likely. Road rage shootings are a perfect example. If you have a gun within arm's reach in a car when another driver offends you, you are much more likely to use that gun. Again, people kill people, but they are more likely to do so with guns.

Since it's pretty clear that human behavior isn't going to change anytime soon, our only hope to reduce the carnage caused by people with guns, is to pass stronger laws regulating guns and enforce them strictly.

I keep wondering when all the mothers of the victims of gun violence will form a Mothers Against Guns just as mothers did years ago to fight drunk driving. I also wonder how many people need to die tragically and senselessly before our legislature(s) will stand up to the gun lobby and enact real gun control or, better yet, ban the sale of any guns except those used for legal hunting, and hold parents responsible if their children use the parent's gun to kill someone.

Most law enforcement officers are in favor of stricter gun laws which is understandable as the tragedy in Oakland demonstrated all too clearly. Why, then, do legislators support the NRA instead of those who lay their lives on the line for us everyday?

The bottom line is that if we don't do something soon, we will continue to witness mass murder with guns in our streets, schools, city council chambers, hospitals, and homes. Are we okay with that?

Killer Antibiotics

A recent editorial in the L.A Times, "Resisting Antibiotics," stated that "The rise of bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which kills more people in this country each year than AIDS, is believed to be a consequence of the overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals."

The editors argued that stricter guidelines for antibiotic use in farm animals and livestock be imposed to prevent the situation from becoming even more dire.

Frequently omitted from stories about killer antibiotic-resistant bacteria, however, is how they came to be. Simply saying that antibiotics are overused doesn't explain how antibiotic-resistant strains develop; and it isn't by divine intervention.

Such bacteria do not just happen by accident, but by a process that approximately 50% of the American population still don't accept -- evolution by natural selection. Only this time, we humans are the agents selecting the killer bacteria by overusing antibiotics.

The process is elegantly simple. Antibiotics kill most of the bacteria they are meant to, but not all. Those that are not killed are naturally resistant, which means that we must develop new antibiotics to kill them. We end up in what evolutionary biologists call an "arms race," with the bacteria currently winning. So, for all the evolution naysayers and intelligent designers out there, here is direct and immediate evidence of evolution by natural selection.

For everyone else, this story shows how an understanding of how the world really works, in this case, evolution by natural selection, may actually save us from ourselves.

Pet Peeve: Part IV: Valet Parking

I don't know if anyone else is peeved by being forced to use valet parking, but here in Los Angeles, it seems as though there are as many valet parking attendants as there are illegal immigrants.

Now I know that valet parking is useful in some instances, but in L.A. almost every restaurant has valet parking, and here's what riles me in no particular order.

First, the valets take up parking spaces where I would normally park myself, for example, in the street. Sometimes the valets even get permission to park your car in parking lots in strip malls where the restaurant you are going to is located. What's worse, however, is that you are prevented from parking in those lots yourself. Is that legal? If so, who's getting the kickback from that arrangement?

Second, valets charge an arm and a leg and then expect a tip. Well, here's a tip: let me park my car myself and don't take up parking spots that I want to use. While recently in San Francisco, we paid $10 for the valet to park our car directly across the street from the restaurant, where, if there weren't any valets, we could have parked it ourselves. Of course, we didn't notice that until we came out of the restaurant and watched in utter disbelief as the valet walked across the street, got in our car, and made a U-turn to deliver our car to us. Needless to say, we didn't tip him.

Third, have you ever seen how valets drive your car when you're not looking? Believe me, you don't want to.

Lastly, perhaps there wouldn't be as many valets if people weren't so willing to pay someone exorbitant fees to park their cars. But many people seem to have the disposable income to afford such luxuries.

So I say, unless you're old or infirmed or are out for a very special occasion, why not park your own car and walk the short distance to the restaurant? Many people I see these days could use the exercise. And at least then we'd be competing with each other instead of valet attendants for parking spaces.

Obviously parking is in short supply in L.A and other cities, but that doesn't mean that every restaurant needs to have valet parking.

Give us our parking spaces back and the choice to park our own cars.