Aspie Dad

As part of the welcome addressing of the needs and concerns of the real autism and autistic community in regards to science and as part of their efforts to address the pseudo-science and quackery of the agenda of anti-vaccine groups such as Generation Rescue et. al, the AAP are looking for some rational parents to help them. I am offering them my details and I would urge any parent of an autistic child who is sick of hearing the unscientific and self-serving agenda of such groups -– groups who not only readily belittle autistic people but also gladly place the health and well being of others at risk for absolutely no purpose to contact the AAP to offer their details also.

If you wish me to pass on your details, please either leave your name and email address in the comment section of this post or email Kevin Leitch or Susan Stevens Martin of the AAP directly. Her email message follows.

Hello,

As part of our ongoing response to media stories regarding autism and vaccines, the AAP communications department is compiling a list of parents who support the AAP and are available for interviews. We are looking for two types of parents who could serve as spokespersons:

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders who support immunization and who do not believe there is any link between their child’s vaccines and his or her autism.

Parents of children who suffered a vaccine-preventable illness. This could be a parent who declined immunization, whose child became ill before a vaccine was available, or whose child was ineligible for immunization.

We are asking for your help identifying parents who would be good spokespersons. They do not need to be expert public speakers. They just need to be open with their story and interested in speaking out on the issue. We will contact candidates in advance to conduct
pre-interviews, to offer guidance on talking to reporters and to obtain a signed waiver giving us permission to release their name.

If a parent were placed on our list, we would offer their name and contact information to select media. We hope to build a list of parents from a wide range of geographical areas.

As the Jenny McCarthy and “Eli Stone” stories illustrate, this issue is likely to recur in the national and local media. The AAP is committed to doing all we can to counter such erroneous reports with factual information supported by scientific evidence and AAP recommendations.

The anti-vaccine groups often have emotional family stories on their side. The ability to offer a reporter an interview with a similarly compelling parent who is sympathetic to the AAP’s goals is a powerful tool for our media relations program.

Please contact me if you have any questions or to suggest a parent to interview.

Thank you,

Susan Stevens Martin
Director, Division of Media Relations
American Academy of Pediatrics
(847)434-7131

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Tags: AAP, American Academy of Pediatrics, autism

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 11:04 pm and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.