You have to read this article ; Why autistic people don't like Autism Speaks

[Guest guest]

To the group

You have to read this article :

I am beginning to think , that this AUTISM SPEAK is nothing more than a front to

big phama

Why autistic people don't like Autism Speaks

http://www.examiner.com/x-21742-Long-Island-Autism-Examiner~y2009m9d7-Why-autist\

ic-people-dont-like-Autism-Speaks

Autism Speaks is easily one of the biggest and loudest voices talking about

autism. However, it is also one of the most despised among autistic adults.

There are various reasons, many of which involve where their money goes, the

stances they take regarding issues that are important to autistic people, their

outright refusal to have autistic adults on their board of directors (autistic

people do not even have a token presence in Autism Speaks's leadership), their

continual use of pity advertising, their unreproducable facts and figures, and

their insistence that autism is universally tragic and that autistic people

should not exist (their insistence on " curing " autism, which can only be done if

a prenatal test is designed to facilitate the decision of whether or not to

abort the fetus). Luckily, there are other organizations that are more

favorable to the autistic community, though that's for another article.

Autism Speaks has released its 2008 990 tax return form, which is the primary

source of the following information regarding its finances. According to their

990, Autism Speaks has 36 employees who were compensated over $100,000 this

year. The highest paid employee listed, their Chief Science Officer, Geri

Dawson, was compensated $644,274. That's better than most people make in fairly

good positions at Fortune 500 companies! Shockingly, she makes more than the

five people listed in the form as " highest compensated employees " , who are

listed as being compensated less than $150,000 each by Autism Speaks. Where's

the rest of that money that they didn't report, and how much is it to make them

more highly compensated than someone getting almost $650,000 from a non-profit

organization? All of the " highest compensated employees " are in some sort of

administrative or " relations " position, meaning that they're part of the Autism

Speaks bureaucracy and overhead, except for one who is listed as " Senior Policy

Advisor and Counsel " , which could mean that he's part of their oversized legal

department, known for suing people who make t-shirts to express their

displeasure with Autism Speaks (false allegations of copyright violation were

the bulk of those cases). Not including federated fundraising money, Autism

Speaks spend over $1.7 million on fundraiser expenses, and made only $142,693

from that investment (that's the net gain, or what's left after that $1.7

million+ is subtracted from the total monies gained from the fundraisers). In

total, they spent $17,756,876 on employee salaries, pensions/401ks, benefits,

and payroll taxes. By contrast, their grants to individuals and communities

totaled a paltry $66,670, not even a drop in the bucket compared to their total

reported expenditures. Based on that information, it is clear that Autism Speaks

does very little with their money to help autistic people and their families,

and I haven't even shown all the reputation-damaging financial information I

have on them from their 990.

Another huge reason why autistics hate Autism Speaks is their film " Autism Every

Day " , in which they film their then-Executive Vice President, Alison Tepper

Singer, saying that when her daughter was first diagnosed, she seriously

contemplated driving her car, with her autistic daughter inside, off a bridge.

Her only reason for not acting on this, according to her own statements, was

that she had a neurotypical daughter waiting for her at home who needed her. By

her own admission, apparently, she would have preferred to murder her own child

than to have an autistic child. There are parents who actually HAVE murdered

their children and claimed that it was a mercy killing because said child was

autistic. For more information on the minimal sentencing many of these killers

got, see thiswayoflife.org/murder.html. Those are all autistic people who were

killed/murdered as a direct result of the fact that they were autistic.

Statements like those in " Autism Every Day " glorify and seem to excuse these

horrific actions, lending justification to a parent murdering a child for having

a disability. This was originally designed as a form of pity advertising, but

has become a destructive influence in autism politics since its release. On a

side note, if one looks at the page I linked to, one would find quite a few

murder/suicides, which may be in part inspired by Ms. Singer's remarks.

There are many more reasons why Autism Speaks is harmful to autistics, and why

autistics continue to insist that Autism Speaks does not speak for them.

However, it would take too long to disclose them all in a single article, so I

limited it to the top two. Since Autism Speaks is headquartered in New York (in

a Park Ave. high-rise, no less), I do hope that they'll read this and respond.

After all, you keep saying that you're listening. Try listening to autistic

people who are telling you to go away, for once.