By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website.

Mainstream media coverage of autism has increasingly normalized the condition, its prevalence and its symptoms while ignoring the future costs of treating and housing people with autism as their caregivers age and die.

In some cases, the media focus on the need to treat the exploding numbers — 1 in 36 — of children with autism as a “market opportunity.”

Polly Tommey joined “The Defender In-Depth” this week to discuss these issues and what increasing numbers of people are doing to respond to the coming “autism tsunami.”

Tommey, a filmmaker, founder and editor-in-chief of The Autism File and founder of the Autism Trust, is the program director of CHD.TV.

She discussed how increasing numbers of parents are teaming up to develop communities where their adult autistic children can receive care for the rest of their lives.

Tommey also said she believes more and more expectant parents are choosing home births over hospitals, in the face of mounting evidence that the childhood vaccine schedule may be a factor in the soaring number of children being diagnosed with autism.

Tommey warned that if something doesn’t change, society will face a dual tsunami going forward: the need for housing for adults with autism and the growing number of autistic children exhibiting new and more severe symptoms, which Tommey attributed to the expanding childhood vaccine schedule.

‘A huge, barbaric money-making machine’

Tommey believes her son Billy developed autism as a result of a vaccine injury after receiving the measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR vaccine. Today, children receive larger numbers of vaccines early in life and, as a result, are exhibiting far more severe injuries and symptoms.

“The vaccine schedule now is so intense,” Tommey said. “Children now are getting so many [shots] that … you can’t even call it autism. They’re not going to be able to label these new children with autism because they can’t hold their heads up. They are crippled beyond belief.”

“There’s not a vaccine on the childhood schedule now that I haven’t seen an injury from,” Tommey said. “At 8 weeks, they’re having this huge amount of vaccinations on these tiny little babies … The injury is untold compared to what happened with Billy.”

“I fear many of those young children that are coming through with these vaccines are not going to make it into adulthood if they can’t hold their head up and they can’t breathe, and they’re on this equipment. It’s a desperate situation we have to address soon,” Tommey said.

Tommey suggested these new symptoms may eventually not be classified as autism.

“We’re getting to a stage now where [we] potentially see autism coming down because something new is coming up,” Tommey said.

As these children grow older, “Where are these adults going to go when we, the parents, are no longer around? … Who takes over?” Tommey asked.

Tommey said that government health agencies at both the federal and state levels have largely ignored this impending tsunami. Instead, a “solution” being proffered is the construction of “psych wards” that will house adult autistic individuals who have lost their caregivers.

“That’s what they are already doing,” Tommey said. “They are going to put them in four-point restraints and drug them … because they don’t know what to do with them. Even hospitals now have these psych wards,” she added.

Tommey said this is “a big money-making business,” as people with autism are placed on medications, resulting in side effects that will result in still more medications being administered. She likened this scenario to the COVID-19 hospital protocols, where hospitals were paid to admit COVID-19 patients and administer drugs like remdesivir.

Big Pharma and Big Money are “looking at psych wards,” Tommey said, after the COVID-19 pandemic proved that “kill[ing] patients … is huge money.”

“You can imagine how they’re rubbing their hands together with all these adults with autism,” she added.

Tommey cited a 2016 study that found that 1 in 6 children diagnosed with autism were prescribed antipsychotic medications, which Tommey said has contributed to an increase in suicides among people with autism.

“Before you know it, you’ve got this whole cocktail of drugs that do not work,” Tommey said. “It is not sustainable to have that many drugs in you and survive.”

“They’re seeing it as a money-making opportunity,” Tommey added. “It is a huge, barbaric money-making machine … and somehow we’ve got to stop this.”

“It is everybody’s problem what we have done to these adults … with autism and what the future is going to hold. It’s going to be a really desperate situation. It already is a desperate situation, but it’s going to get a lot worse,” Tommey said.

“I implore parents to get together in circles and fix the future for your child. You have to do it, otherwise, they’re going to take them,” she added.

Parents ‘have to take control’ of their autistic children’s future

Tommey also criticized media reports normalizing autism for drawing attention away from its causes, including vaccine injuries and exposure to chemicals and pesticides.

“They have no choice but to make it a wonderful gift … and I want to make it clear that Billy, my son, is my gift. The autism they labeled him with from the vaccine injury is not a gift,” Tommey said.

“It is, at times … honestly pure hell to live with,” Tommey said. “It’s a very difficult journey to go on. We love him and we’re proud of him, but it can destroy the family,” she said — noting that 80% of marriages in households with autistic children end in divorce.

Tommey said parents “are going to have to take control” of their autistic child’s future — adding that increasing numbers of parents are doing just that.

She said “it’s really hard” to find a caregiver you can trust, as many doctors see patients with autism as a money-making opportunity, and many care centers — even those marketed as offering the “gold standard of care” for people with autism — are “dangerous” for those patients. “You have to be really careful all around,” she said.

That’s why she and others are building their own care communities.

“What we are doing in Austin is, we’ve managed to have 40 acres donated to us” by a local church, with the goal of “building … a place where a family can live together.” She said this community has attained 501(c)(3) status and will be largely self-sustaining.

“We’re doing little Airbnbs and things like that to raise the money so we can live. We grow our own food,” Tommey said, noting that this was accomplished despite opposition from the local community.

“We had the residents that live near these 40 acres saying, ‘We don’t want autistic adults in our area, that’s going to lower the price of our property.’ I kid you not,” Tommey said. “We had doctors coming in saying that adults with autism were rapists.”

Tommey said that she is aware of other instances where parents are taking the initiative to do things like buy homes and leave them to their autistic children, forming a board of individuals that will take care of those people and manage the property.

“Everybody’s doing what they can, what is right with them … to prepare for the future,” Tommey said. “We’ve destroyed their life, that’s the least we can do, humanity can do is give them the rest of their life, living with purpose. Each of these adults with autism, if given the chance, can put something back into society.”

For parents who “are just exhausted and … don’t know what to do,” Tommey recommends “going to your local churches and asking them for help.”

“That’s their job,” Tommey said. “They’re supposed to help. Keep going, because there are people out there that will help you. Just don’t give up, because these adults with autism, they need you to protect them in the future. And maybe, get together with people like us and see what we’re doing, see if you can get involved with that as well.”

Citing her experience traversing the U.S. on the Vax-Unvax Bus, Tommey said, “I can tell you there are more good people here in America … There are some strong, powerful human beings here in America who will help you and who want to help you. So lean on them.”

“We stand firm … they will never be able to silence us as parents,” Tommey said. “We will never stop talking about what they did to our children.”

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. completed his Ph.D. in media studies at the University of Texas in 2018 and holds a masters degree in public policy from Stony Brook University. He has taught at various institutions of higher education in Greece and the U.S.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children's Health Defense's News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.