Mark Blaxill and the Hidden Horde

Mark Blaxill is one of the leading "mercury parents." He's one of the troika who take the lead at "SAFE MINDS." Blaxill is fancied as some kind of self-made epidemiologist. He's a businessman by profession and doesn't appear to have any serious education in the sciences. One sure wouldn't guess he has much of an understanding of science, psychology or history based on the stuff he writes. He accuses the mainstream scientists of producing science that makes the scientists feel more comfortable, and yet, SAFE MINDS' only goal is to support and promote science that tells them what SAFE MINDS want to hear, that is that the parents have good genes, that their personal choices didn't contribute to their kids being autistic, it was those vaccines.

Blaxill knows how to generate Excel graphs that convince people who don't know better that there's been an autism epidemic (see also here.)
One of Blaxill's big contributions to autism epidemic hype is the phrase "hidden horde." Blaxill disagrees with the well supported idea that autism has a "high and stable rate." Blaxill asks the pithy question: if autism has always been here, at the current rate where are all the older autistics? Where's the "hidden horde"?

Without waiting for an answer to come from people who might actually know, Blaxill waves an ivory hand and dismisses the existence of about a million autism spectrum adults. Nice work if you can get it.








Meet Alan. Alan is the star of the documentary, Without Apology. Alan is presented in this film through his sister, Susan's, eyes. It's a her viewpoint not Alan's, but it's seems to be a much better viewpoint than Mark Blaxill's.

She writes on her website about how Alan was hidden away:

Alan became a secret suddenly. In 1958, he was sent to live in Letchworth Village, a state-run institution for people with mental retardation. And after that day, almost all mention of him within the home virtually ceased.

In the documentary she says: "My brother had become one of this country's disappeared."

Lots of people like to say that people like Alan shouldn't be born because they are so bad off and burdensome and they need to be sent to institutions, but at least people like Alan don't do freaky things like go to Harvard and get MBA's, and work to frighten people away from vaccinating their kids.
Click here and here to watch clips of the documentary Without Apology.



These black and white photos of institutionalized children are from the book, Christmas in Purgatory, by Barton and Kaplan (1965.)


The photos were taken in the United States in 1965. You may have to think about 1965 for a minute because the photographs are in black and white and so seem to look more like they were taken in 1945
.For perspective, the Beatles album HELP came out in 1965. Autism Diva colored a couple of the photographs from Chrismas in Purgatory to make the 1965 date seem more real.





Many of us who follow autism hype in the media hear the devastated, or formerly devastated, parents talk about how a pediatrician told them that they should send their child to an institution. There aren't too many "institutions" for little kids any more in the United States, as far as Autism Diva knows. Unwanted handicapped kids usually go into foster care these days don't they? Is there an children's institutional archipelago out there that Autism Diva doesn't know about? Yes, there are still plenty of mental hospitals. They are mainly, but not entirely, for adults.

There are fewer mental hospitals per capita now than in 1965. Sometime in the 1970's all those mentally ill people were turned into homeless people (those people who sleep under bridges) weren't they? Then there are jails and prisons which function as dysfunctional mental hospitals these days. The largest provider of mental health care in Sacramento County (California), for instance, is the county jail (mental health services are provided there by UC Davis, by the way.) But back to institutions and autism. Putting disabled people into institutions, on the street or in jail is and was a good way to reduce their numbers. They frequently die. See how that works?

Why do people like Mr. Wonder-Bread-and-Butter Blaxill say that they can't remember ever seeing autistic people when they were growing up? Why do they ask where are all the autistic adults now? Here's one answer, Mr. Blaxill, lots of them are dead. They died when they were put out of institutions. Or, they died in the institutions when they were kids or maybe as adults. They died in institutions when they were given anti-psychotic drugs and then they inhaled in their own vomit, they died of other side effects of the drugs. They died of just lousy health-care. But some of them survived and are now living on the street, in jails, or in group homes.

Some autistics born pre-1980 were able to "pass" for normal well enough that no one thought to put them in an institution, or they were born into families that couldn't cope with the idea of giving up their child to an institution. Autism Diva met a man who works for the State of California in public health. He told Autism Diva that his brother is over 60 years old and recently entered the California Dept. of Developmental Services system. The brother is autistic. He has been living with their parents all these years, and recently mom, who seems to be alone now, had to find other arrangements for her autistic son. The DDS (and probably Social Security) will pay for the autistic brother's living and care arrangments now.

There's your hidden horde Mr. Blaxill. For more photos of people who might be part of Blaxill's hidden horde: here, here, here, here, here...




An interesting quote from Christmas in Purgatory.

Before we start experimenting it would be wise to find out what occurs in the natural situation. -Seymour B. Sarason

More unhiding the hidden horde from UPI.

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Reference:
Blatt, B , Kaplan, F (1974) Christmas In Purgatory: A Photographic Essay On Mental Retardation, Disability History Museum, www.disabilitymuseum.org (November 1, 2001).

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Autism Diva
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