Autism Speaks & Google Harness ?Cloud? for Genomic....

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Breakthroughs

It sounds promising to me.

Sequencing the whole genomes of 10,000 individuals in families affected by autism and cross-referenced with anonymous behavioural and medical info on them and google cloud can make analyzing, storing and accessing that info easy. It should yield some interesting discoveries.

Since it's Autism $peaks, I'm immediately suspicious:

They are a bloated, top-down, heavy bureaucracy.

They are a parents organization. A parent with a child newly diagnosed with a child on the spectrum, hope upon hope wants their child to be normal above all else. This is an entirely understandable and human reaction on the part of the parent. A doctor, or family member, or friend of the family can communicate through words, hugs, and actions that they will be with the parent, and in due time respectfully communicate the idea that the child can be the best version of himself or herself, should embrace life and have a variety of good versions of himself or herself, should and can continue developing on his or her own terms, as well as long shot possibilities of cure.

I view 'cure' like I might view going cyborg, as being an individual choice. and realize that's kind of a cop-out, sorry

I wish Autism Speaks, or pretty much any other group, spent most of its effort on teaching sign language, good workarounds to sensory issues, and other everyday quality of life issues.

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Now, in fairness, I think Autism Speaks now does have one member of its board who is on the Spectrum. That's a start. We need a lot more than that.

Our long plan should be building our own Spectrum Rights organizations. If we can improve Autism $peaks along the way, so be it, but we shouldn't count on that.

A kick ass essay and letter! Good for John.