Kim Rossi

View Autism Recovery

I had a wonderful time at http://www.autismone.org/ in Chicago. Mark took great care of his girls for the weekend.

On Saturday night at the dinner, young Sam Debold turned on the charm (and every tear duct in the room) with his muscial performance. Here is Dr. Andrew Wakefield's introduction of Sam. You can see Sam's complete performance, including this intro, at the link to A of A below. Sam's Mom Vicky wrote about Sam's ongoing recovery. Hope - we all deserve hope.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have just a very, very small role tonight and that is to introduce someone that I first met some years ago in Detroit. He’s a Red Wings fan. And a when I met Sam Debold through my great friend Vicky Debold, his mother, Sam was profoundly autistic. And back then when I knew very little about this disease, I wondered quite what the prospects for Sam were. And I’ve been following his progress over the years and Sam has been doing extremely well.

And then I received the other day a YouTube video of Sam which his mother instructed me to watch of Sam playing Hotel California - he’d only just heard it, I believe, for the first time that day and it was one of the most extraordinary things I’d ever seen. And so it is a great great privilege for me and without any further adieu for me to introduce Sam Debold.

I should just say that Sam is dressed in a way that makes me look under-dressed. I forgive him for that. Sam, over to you man.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDeEtGNNexg&feature=channel_page/

How Long Must We Sing This Song?
Vicky Debold, PhD, RN

In 1983, the band U2 released an album titled War which includes Sunday Bloody Sunday, a song widely considered to be one of the most powerful political protest songs of all times. For anyone who doesn’t know the song’s history, it captures the anguish of an observer who witnessed Northern Irish civil rights protesters being fired upon by the British army (lyrics below).

For those of us within the vaccine-injured communities who are fighting on behalf of our children for the basic human right to make voluntary, informed vaccination decisions that are based on sound science rather than ideology, it is a battle. And it is personal. Like the victims of the civil war described in Sunday Bloody Sunday, many lives have been lost, our families torn apart, and everyday there’s unbelievable news where indeed, “fact” is fiction and TV becomes reality.

For anyone fortunate enough to be able to attend this weekend’s outstanding Autism One conference and Saturday night’s dinner, they heard my 11 year-old son, Sam, sing Sunday Bloody Sunday.

Sam’s story is a common one these days. He was a healthy, happy, normally developing baby until 15 months-of-age when he experienced a significant physical and social regression after receiving seven vaccines during his well-baby visit. The following day, he was unable to stand up in his crib, seemed “dazed”, was ataxic and lost interest in walking which lasted for two months, developed chronic diarrhea and progressively lost his ability to speak and all interest in socializing with his family.

Read the rest of the post and see two more videos HERE.