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Autistic children injected with unapproved stem cell treatments supported by RFK Jr (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/health@lemmy.world
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Desperate US parents pay up to $20,000 a session for a procedure scientists say could be bogus

Autistic children as young as 18 months old are being injected with human stem cells derived from umbilical cords in unapproved, unproven and potentially harmful “treatments” that scientists warn are proliferating across the US under the active encouragement of the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

Clinics in Florida, Texas and other states are selling what they bill as “regenerative medicine” to families with autistic children who have intensive care needs. Parents who have taken their children through the process talked to the Guardian about their hopes and fears for a therapy that appears to be gaining ground in the US.

The procedure, which can involve the child being sedated with ketamine before receiving intravenous doses of millions of stem cells, costs up to $20,000 each treatment. Families are often advised to return for regular top-ups.

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[–] 9 points 4 months ago (5 children)

would be the funniest shit if this just turned the kid's autism up to 11.

"Well, we're six months after the treatments, he's still nonverbal but at least he can crack RSA-4096 encryption in fifteen seconds flat"

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  • [–] 7 points 4 months ago (4 children)

    Yeah, it would not be funny

    My brother has pretty severe autistic traits, and he wasn't born with it. He was born healthy but needed a small bladder operation when he wa 6 months old, and doctors fucked it up

    My mom had a healthy happy baby, and then wasn't allowed to see her baby after the operation, until she just went in and took him home. The hospital made sure she signed a "it's all your fault" document to hide the fact that they fucked up his air supply during the operation.

    She was told thaty brother was completely gone and that she should just dump him at some institution and coniti life. Instead she went for it, she went to give him a life he deserves and to her (and his) credit, they came pretty far. He as a Dutch drivers license now, which is really hard to get.

    So that aside, living with a family member who has real autism is not easy, and you would not want to wish it upon anyone. Nobody deserves that least of all my mom

    But growing up was hard. Really REALLY hard. Hard for him, because she is just smart enough to know that he has severe limitations in life which always haunted him. It was incredibly hard for my mother and I saw her heart breaking more time than I can remember.

    There is nothing funny about any of this.

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  • [–] 15 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    That's not "autistic traits", that's brain damage.

    And equating autism to brain damage is incredibly disrespectful to those whom are autistic (myself included, hence why I even dared to joke about the topic - it's more self deprecation than just a random joke).

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  • [+] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 0 points 4 months ago

    Interesting, I don't feel disabled even though I am autiaricm... differently abled? sure. but not disabled.

    And it's not a culture or wishful thinking, but rather, established scientific fact that most people with autism present a heavily increased ability focused on more objective matters - mathematics, pattern recognition, reasoning, etc.

    Now, I'm not claiming that there aren't cases of autism that are so severe that they classify as a disability. but calling it unequivocally a disability when it's a whole ass spectrum, so please, bugger off with the fake outrage in our name.

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