: Fw: Autism World Loses a Giant: Bernard Rimland

[Guest guest]

Passing this on from another listserv:

Autistic children and their parents said goodbye to

their best friend

and greatest champion on Tuesday, November 21st when Dr. Bernard

Rimland, founder and director of the Autism Research Institute,

passed away at the age of 78.

Dr. M. Edelson, who is assuming the position of Director of

ARI, says, " Dr. Rimland will go down in history as the person who

ended the `dark ages' of autism and spearheaded the fight to bring

hope and help to autistic children. When he began his work in the

field of autism in the 1960s, psychiatrists blamed parents for their

children's autism, institutionalized those children, and `treated'

them by drugging them into submission. Today, autistic children

receive effective educational interventions and biomedical treatments

that bring about dramatic improvement and often even recovery. At

every step of this revolution, Dr. Rimland led the way—and at every

step, he had to fight tooth-and-nail against an establishment

determined to maintain the status quo. "

Dr. Rimland's forty years of work on behalf of autistic children began

with a single child: his own son, Mark Rimland, born in 1956. In the

most recent version of the DAN! treatment manual, Dr. Rimland wrote,

" Mark was a screaming, implacable infant who resisted being cuddled

and struggled against being picked up. He also struggled against being

put down. Our pediatrician, Dr. Black, who had been in practice for 35

years, had never seen nor heard of a child like Mark. Neither Dr.

Black nor I, who at that time was three years beyond my Ph.D. in

psychology, had ever seen or heard the word `autism.' "

It wasn't until Mark turned two that Dr. Rimland's wife, Gloria,

remembered reading in college about children with symptoms like their

child's. Digging through a dusty box of Gloria's textbooks in the

garage, Dr. Rimland saw the word " autism " for the first time. That

discovery was the first step in a quest that covered nearly half a

century.

Dr. Rimland's battle to help autistic children began in the early

1960s, when psychoanalysis reigned and professionals believed that

autism stemmed from a " refrigerator mother's " subconscious rejection

of her child. Treatments, prescribed by leading authority Bruno

Bettelheim and other psychoanalysts, included having children kick and

spit on statues representing their mothers.

Knowing that Mark was a greatly loved child and that the " refrigerator

mother " theory was both wrong and destructive, Dr. Rimland set out to

discover all that was known about autism. He scoured libraries for

articles on autism, including foreign articles he had translated, and

found, as he noted later, " not a shred of evidence " to support the

hypothesis that bad parenting caused autism.

What he discovered, instead, was powerful evidence that autism was a

biological disorder—a fact that seems obvious now, but was

revolutionary at the time. He outlined this evidence in his seminal

book Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural

Theory of Behavior, published in 1964. The book changed the autism

world forever: it won the Century Award for distinguished contribution

to psychology and, as one reporter put it, " blew Bettelheim's theory

all to hell. " For parents, the nightmare of being blamed for their

children's terrifying disorder was over.

Most people would be content to rest on their laurels at that point,

but Dr. Rimland was barely getting warmed up. He'd revolutionized an

entire field, but he still had no way to help his own son. So he

formed the National Society for Autistic Children (NSAC), now known as

the Autism Society of America.

Through this group, parents of children

with autism—a very rare disorder, at the time—could offer each

other

moral support and practical advice about which therapies worked and

which didn't.

Dr. Rimland started ASA in large part to promote " behavior

modification " (now known as Applied Behavioral Analysis, or ABA), a

treatment then being pioneered by a very controversial young

psychologist named Ivar Lovaas. Authorities in the autism field

scoffed at Lovaas's claim that autistic children could be helped by

something as simple and straightforward as behavior modification, but

Dr. Rimland spread the word through NSAC and parents began fighting

for this therapy for their children. Today, of course, ABA is the

educational treatment of choice for autistic children, and many

autistic children who receive early ABA

improve dramatically.

Dr. Rimland knew, however, that educational treatments alone could not

adequately address a devastating biological disorder such as autism.

In 1967, he started the nonprofit Autism Research Institute in order

to create a worldwide research center and clearinghouse for biomedical

treatments (which barely existed at the time). In 1985, he retired

from his career as a psychologist for the Navy to devote the remainder

of his life to autism research.

The first treatment Dr. Rimland investigated, based on reports from

parents of autistic children, was high-dose vitamin B6. Other

authorities in the autism field considered the idea that a vitamin

could correct a brain disorder to be preposterous, but time and

research proved them wrong. To date, 22 studies (including 13

double-blind studies) show that vitamin B6, typically combined with

magnesium, benefits a large percentage of autistic children.

" One of the most remarkable things about Dr. Rimland, " says Dr.

Edelson, " is that he realized in the early days that parents held many

of the keys to solving the mystery of autism. From day one, he

listened to them and respected them—and he followed their lead. If

five or six parents reported, `DMG makes my child much better,' he

didn't ignore them; instead, he organized a study to see if other

children responded the same way. For a professional psychologist, even

one who was the parent of an autistic child, this was a revolutionary

viewpoint—and it's a key reason why ARI has always led the way in

identifying new treatments and uncovering the roots of autism. "

One important clue contributed by parents of autistic children put ARI

squarely in the middle of a huge controversy: the debate about the

safety of vaccines. Early in his work, Dr. Rimland received many

reports of children who had no disability before receiving DPT

vaccinations. As time went on, the number of reports snowballed, and

included other vaccines. At the same time, as the number of vaccines

received by children grew, autism rates began climbing relentlessly.

When Dr. Rimland learned that most childhood vaccines contained

thimerosal—a preservative that is nearly 50% mercury, a powerful

neurotoxin—he realized that the escalating numbers of vaccines given

to children could be the culprit behind skyrocketing rates of autism.

His suspicions grew when he discovered that the symptoms of autism

bear many similarities to the symptoms of mercury poisoning.

The medical establishment, not surprisingly, expressed great

antagonism toward this theory. They turned a blind eye as well to

strong evidence implicating wheat and milk proteins, persistent

measles infection in the gut from MMR vaccines, and other

environmental factors in causing or exacerbating autism. And they

continued to scorn biomedical treatments, even when hundreds and

eventually thousands of parents reported that these treatments worked

– often dramatically. So Dr. Rimland began yet another new project,

this time aimed at quickly identifying causes of autism and promoting

the safe and effective treatments that mainstream medicine refused to

investigate.

To accomplish this mission he created the Defeat Autism Now! (DAN!)

project, jump-starting the project in 199- by bringing together dozens

of the world's leading researchers in different fields to create a

state-of-the-art treatment plan and prioritize research goals. This

small first meeting grew into a worldwide DAN! movement that now

includes huge standing-room-only conferences, major research projects,

a treatment manual, and hundreds of DAN!-trained physicians. A happy

offshoot of this massive effort is the " Recovered Autistic Children "

project, in which parents whose children improve or even recover

because of DAN!-oriented treatment are spreading the word that " autism

is treatable. " Dr. Rimland and Dr. Edelson also collaborated on

Recovering Autistic Children, a book of stories about children who

improved or recovered as a result of DAN!-oriented treatment.

In addition to these projects, Dr. Rimland served as a technical

advisor for Rainman, the Academy-Award-winning film that introduced

millions of moviegoers to the world of the autistic savant. As editor

of the Autism Research Review International, now in its twentieth year

of publication, he also provided parents and professionals with

crucial information about autism treatments and research—as well as

with his trademark editorials, often scorching in their condemnation

of established medicine's failure to help autistic children.

Dr. Rimland achieved worldwide fame and a reputation as a giant in his

field, and his friends ranged from Hollywood

stars to national media

figures. Yet unlike many professionals, he didn't know the meaning of

an " ivory tower. " In his few free moments each day, he responded to

letters, phone calls, faxes, and emails from thousands of distraught

parents around the world. His vast network of friends knew him as an

extraordinarily generous soul and an irrepressible " yenta, " whose

greatest joy lay in bringing strangers together for the benefit of

all. He was also a soft touch, incapable of saying " no " to any

worthwhile cause—no matter how large or small. (The San Diego branch

of the Autism Society was probably the only chapter whose Christmas

party once featured an internationally-renowned autism researcher

playing Santa Claus.)

How did Dr. Rimland find time to juggle enough huge projects for ten

lifetimes, and also help out every friend (or stranger) who needed a

hand? He spent seven days a week in his office. Some nights, he slept

on the office floor. And everyone who worked with him knew that if the

phone rang at 10 p.m., it was Dr. Rimland with another idea – often an

earth-shaking one. (Not all of his ideas and interests involved

autism. He owned several patents for inventions, and was an inveterate

" tinkerer. " )

Dr. Rimland's remarkable wife, Gloria, gracefully handled his

nearly-impossible schedule while keeping a home with three children

running smoothly. The autism community owes a huge debt of gratitude

to Gloria Rimland for the inspiration and moral support she provided

Dr. Rimland throughout the years – as well as her willingness to share

her husband with an entire world of " autism parents. " The autism

world

sends its deep condolences to Gloria and to their children, Mark,

, and Helen.

" Our community is greatly diminished by the loss of Dr. Rimland, "

says

Dr. Edelson. " His legacy, however, will live on in the work of ARI and

the DAN! project – and in the joy of families whose children,

dismissed as `hopeless' and `incurable' by the medical establishment,

are now leading happy, healthy, productive lives. It's exactly the

legacy that Dr. Rimland would want.

____________

A graveside memorial service will be held tomorrow, Wednesday,

November 22,

at 2 pm on the Shalom Lawn at Greenwood Memorial

Park in San Diego.

The

public is welcome to attend.

In lieu of flowers, Dr. Rimland's family asks that donations be made

to the

Autism Research Institute (4182

Avenue, San Diego, CA 92116).

Donations can also be made online on ARI's website

www.AutismResearchInstitute.com.