Savage Stands by Autism Remarks

[Guest guest]

Just remember folks, every time you sit here and do nothing, you

allow people like these to determine the future for your autistic

children.

When Savage and others put down autistics, they impede people who

wish to get proper services for their autistics, they impair the

ability of people to get proper educations for their autistics, and

they increase prejudices, making it harder for autistics to integrate

in society and find jobs.

And by doing nothing, people are helping Savage with his efforts.

Administrator

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/business/media/22sava.html?

em & ex=1216872000 & en=e345d55276b40910 & ei=5087%0A

By JACQUES STEINBERG

Published: July 22, 2008

Savage, the incendiary radio host who last week characterized

nearly every child with autism as " a brat who hasn't been told to cut

the act out, " said in a telephone interview on Monday that he stood

by his remarks and had no intention of apologizing to those advocates

and parents who have called for his firing over the matter.

Skip to next paragraph " My main point remains true, " Mr. Savage,

whose radio audience ranks in size behind only those of Rush Limbaugh

and Hannity, said in the interview. " It is an overdiagnosed

medical condition. In my readings, there is no definitive medical

diagnosis for autism. "

On the July 16 installment of his program, which is broadcast every

weekday, Mr. Savage suggested that " 99 percent of the cases " of

autism were a result of lax parenting. He told his audience: " They

don't have a father around to tell them, `Don't act like a moron.

You'll get nowhere in life.' " Among the other admonitions he felt

children with autism should be hearing, he said, were: " `Straighten

up. Act like a man. Don't sit there crying and screaming, idiot.' "

Asked Monday if he actually believed that 99 out of every 100 cases

of autism were misdiagnosed, Mr. Savage conceded that figure was " a

little high. " He added, " It was hyperbole. "

But he said he was proud to have prodded discussion on the subject,

and planned to give over his entire show on Monday — broadcast live

from Northern California from 3 to 6 p.m., Pacific time — to parents

and other callers who wished to disagree with him and to educate him.

While Mr. Savage's program is heard on more than 350 stations

nationally, his comments on autism were widely disseminated via e-

mail on Friday by Media Matters for America, an advocacy group that

dedicates itself, at least in part, to " correcting conservative

misinformation in the media. "

Some critics were not inclined to wait until Monday's edition of Mr.

Savage's show, " The Savage Nation, " to register their disagreement

with him.

Late Monday afternoon, Aflac, the insurance company, announced it was

withdrawing all advertising from Mr. Savage's show. " We understand

that radio hosts pick on any number of targets, " Kane, a

company spokeswoman, said in a statement, before adding that Aflac

considered " his recent comments about autistic children to be both

inappropriate and insensitive. "

In New York City, Autism United, a coalition of organizations that

advocate on behalf of children with autism and provide services to

them, staged a protest Monday outside the studios of WOR (710 AM),

which carries Mr. Savage's program weeknights from 6 to 9 p.m.,

Eastern time.

" He characterizes children with autism who are very, very ill —

disabled children — as essentially bad kids; the only thing wrong

with them is they have parents who don't discipline them, " said

Gilmore, executive director of Autism United and the father of an 8-

year-old with a diagnosis of autism. " That completely misrepresents

what is going on with children with autism. "

" Basically, what he's doing is parroting what used to be said about

autism 40 years ago, back in the heyday of Freudian analysis, " Mr.

Gilmore added. " It was blamed on bad parenting. There wasn't a shred

of evidence to support that. "

Siebold, a spokesman for WOR, said in an e-mail statement: " The

views expressed by Savage are his views and are not those of

WOR Radio. We regret any consternation that his remarks may have

caused to our listeners. "

Mark Masters, the chief executive of Talk Radio Network, which

syndicates Mr. Savage's program and which extended his contract in

February, did not respond to several messages left at his office

Monday morning.

Lord, an expert on autism who is a visiting professor in

the child study center at New York University, said that beneath Mr.

Savage's overheated rhetoric was a kernel of truth: that some

children are saddled with an autism diagnosis by default, when they

seem to fit in no other category. But far more often, she said,

children who have autism are given a misdiagnosis of having something

else. And she said she feared that Mr. Savage's ill-informed comments

could wind up being harmful.

" Any tendency to blame the children or to think they're just being

bratty if they misbehave perpetuates the myth that autism isn't a

learning disability, " she said. " It's a neurobiological condition,

just like epilepsy or another medical condition like diabetes or a

heart condition. It would be like blaming the child with a heart

condition for not being able to exercise. "