Report On California DAN Conference

[Guest guest]

This report is from Judy " Hope " of the Dr. Mom's whose children are

patients of Dr. Sid Baker.

California DAN Conference

On Thursday night there was an SCD workshop. The main speaker was a

nurse

from Pam Farro's practice who did an excellent job overall.

explained

in great detail how the diet works, gave many helpful hints on how to

get

started, etc. I (Judy) spoke about my son, observations of other

children,

the importance of SCD as the foundation for all biomedical treatments in

autism, etc. There was excellent feedback on the evening!

On Friday, at the general conference, Maureen McDonnell did a talk on

nutrition. She is very pro-SCD and made some very warm remarks about

Elaine

and about the diet but had to skip some of her slides on it because her

time

ran out.

The tribute to Elaine on Friday evening was lovely, although being at

the

end of the day, maybe a third of the audience had left unfortunately.

The

short movie about Elaine was very good. I cried a lot, watching Elaine

being so...Elaine. There was some wonderful footage of her and I do

know

that the people who watched it all fell in love.

Maureen said some wonderful things about her and by the time I was

asked to

come up on stage with I was far too emotional to say anything to

the

audience. The plaque they gave to Elaine reads:

In Recognition and Tribute to the Extraordinary Efforts of Elaine

Gottschall

Whose Work Has Made an Enormous Difference In the Lives of Children with

Autism Worldwide, Gratefully, The Defeat Autism Now! Community "

Saturday was the best day as far as SCD is concerned. In the afternoon

there was a parent panel - three of us talking about what helped and

didn't

help our children. I edited mine because I decided to use the

opportunity

really try to get people to understand what SCD is in terms of it being

a

nutritious, far-from-impossible and exceptionally effective diet.

It turned out that Stan (the creator of the Elaine video) was the 2nd

speaker and Karyn Seroussi was the 3rd. Karyn went first and talked

about

her son and his recovery. I went second. My talk was received very

well.

I think that by using some pretty shocking before and after photos of my

friend's son I really got the point across. There was an audible gasp

from

the audience. I got a lot of questions during the Q&A, so, I do

strongly

believe that I was successful in getting my point across. Stan was the

last

speaker. His son is recovered via a combination of SCD and anti-viral

therapies. He showed a movie about his boy, with before and after

footage,

and it was VERY moving.

To summarize, I think the conference went very well. Being biased, I

wish

that we could get a full hour of speaking time in front of the general

audience (!), but even with the time I had, I think the message got

through.

By the way, I also spent some time harassing the various DAN! doctors

that I

think can help our cause. I even interrupted Bernie's lunch to show

him my

before and after SCD photos! (He's thankfully very tolerant of me.) I

also

elicited a promise from Arthur Krigsman and Andy Wakefield that

Thoughtful

House would be researching SCD. So progress was certainly made.

Judy

Posted by:

Carol F.

Toronto, celiac. SCD 5 years