Don't you think the mercury myth cheapens our existence?

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It's as though when people suggest that mercury "made" us - it seems as though they say we aren't real.
That we are a disease; have less value - and that a stranger with our faces would be better?

Does this view not irritate you, too?

Yes. If Asperger's was caused by mercury, our physical health would be horrible.

Cheapens us? Not particularly.

I don't think people who were affected by their parents taking meds or toxics or anything are 'cheapened existences'. People who were for example affected by their parents taking contagan during pregnancy don't have less value.

I believe that mercury causes me problems, but I don't think it caused my AS. Still, there are claims of identical twins where one has AS and one is NT. That is highly indicative of environmental triggers. However, one still has to have a genetic predisposition to it.

As for mercury, you get a ton more of it eating seafood and tuna and such than you do from vaccines.

i dont have AS.
i dont have maleness.
I dont have australianess.

Im am male, i am australian and i am AS.
it isnt a disease it is a part of what i am, not what i have.

Or do you mean to say that other people might think a non-genetic disorder results in a less valued person?

I don't think that is correct in general. Because the problem stems from something much much bigger.

People tend to twist their ideas to fit both person and disorder, non-genetic and genetic disorder. Genetic abnormalities mean bad things to people, but also diseases that are not genetic. I think that it depends on the case, every opinion is possible. You can take 2 people and ask about the same thing and one will think it's death and doom while the other is overtaken by joy.

So the disregard for ASDs as something horrible, the personification and personalisation of the disorders isn't autism-specific. It rather happens to all disorders.

I think we shouldn't try to play in that system to our advantage but instead declare that system of values and opinion as idiotic. It's as if 'hf' aspies would fight for their 'hf' rights and needs. They're good - and suddenly 'lf' autistic people and other autistic needs become bad. (Even vice versa.)

We could also say ASDs are better than... Down's. Or mercury poisoning.

But I think so that we can stop people devaluing autism spectrum disorder entirely, we must stop people valuing and devaluing disorders, disabilities, diseases in people at all.

The same debate as with what type of ASD is good to have, what is not.

I think that before we could even start with other people, the autistic community should stop singling out people and symptoms too. At least all has to start somewhere and if the ASD community wants something, they should start within themselves. And cooperate with people with other disorders and disabilities and with diseases too.

To be degrading it would have to be true. Also, mercury has been around naturally long before we started burning coal and mining mercury. Lately I have developed a taste for tuna. I have been feeling different (better) since I started eating more tuna. It's an excellent protein source with benefits that outweigh the mercury issue as long as you don't eat too much of it.

Everything has a cause of some kind. But like the Cybermen, I think there is more than one way in which Aspies are created.

I don't think it cheapens anyone. If anyone looks at us as cheapened for ANY reason or cause, be it genetic or environmental, then they're the ones with the problem. And I don't believe it's entirely a myth either; I'm sure there are people whose ASD is caused by various environmental factors, and mercury could well be one of them, be it from vaccines or burning coal or factories or amalgam fillings or a mother who ate too much fish while pregnant, and any number of other ways.

I think the 'mercury myth' as you put it, and the hysteria surrounding it, cheapens the genuine need for better, safer vaccines, fewer of the unnecessary ones, less given at a time, longer and better testing, less contamination, etc etc, and cheapens those of us desperately urging for that to come about as we get grouped with the hysterical ones with little understanding of science...

But that's another story.

I mostly just think it's obnoxious when people insist mercury must be why I'm like this.
Autism existed way before vaccines.