What is autism? Well, it ain't this.

While waiting for the ignominy that we call "mammogram" yesterday, I picked up one of the free mags in the waiting room. It's name is Austin Woman Magazine. Being a woman and in Austin, I felt I must be a member of its target audience. After paging through about 50 ads for plastic surgery and anti-aging treatments, I figured that my age and gender were its target audience, but that I myself was not.

Then, I came across this story, entitled "What is Autism?" I quote here for your delectation the lede:

"What is autism? Autism is a complex medical illness that affects a person's behavior as well as many of the body's systems, most notably the neurological, gastrointestinal and the immune systems. Children with autism have impaired ability to detoxify themselves. When exposed to environmental chemicals, instead of the body getting rid of them through its natural defenses, the substances build up and cause massive disruption of the metabolism and bodily functions. Children with autism often have seizures, copious foul diarrhea and are prone to recurrent infections because of their impaired ability to detoxify."

Oh. My. God. Let's overlook the crappy prose, the lack of parallelism, the AP style. No. Don't look at that. Look at that description of autism. For God's sake. What? WTF? Impaired ability to detoxify? Can I see the damned peer-reviewed, unretracted citations on that one? Environmental chemicals? What other kinds of chemicals are there? Non-environmental? Heavenly? Other-worldly?

There's so much here to stomp into the mud that I won't even bother. As my brain tried desperately to recover even as I read on (masochism, anyone?), I noted the photo credit. Dr. Bryan Jepson, Thoughtful House Center for Children. I turned the page. There was a "sidebar" that included a plug for and picture of the cover of Jepson's book, Changing the Course of Autism: A Scientific Approach for Parents and Physicians. And the "expert" quoted throughout the article? Why, the good Dr. Jepson himself. Oh. This is not an article. It's dressed like one. It's bylined like one. But it's really one big long advertisement for Jepson and Thoughtful House. Hope they paid good money for it.

Good Lord. It quotes the good doctor as saying, "Many people say that autism is genetic. But studies show that is not the case. Autism has been studied extensively in genetics, yet only 3% of those affected have a genetic component." WHAT? And then, in the very next quote, he says, "Autism appears to have a genetic predisposition that is triggered by the environment." Dr. Jepson, do you always argue with yourself like that? How do you feel about arguing with actual scientists who are working in the genetics of autism, like, say, these folks at MIT? What have you got to say about the findings of twin studies that directly contradict these unsupported statements? These, by the way, are rhetorical questions. I'm not interested in such a conversation.

I understand that this "magazine" relies completely on advertising dollars, given that it is a free, four-color glossy pub. But that's no excuse for parading nonsense and misinformation in the guise of a bylined, allegedly "journalistic" article that begins with a string of false, unsupportable assertions and relies solely on one "expert" who's got a big, fat, moneyed dog in this hunt. This piece is a huge disservice to so many stakeholders in autism. I encourage anyone who reads this to contact the editors of this magazine at editor@austinwomanmagazine.com and let them know what a gross misrepresentation of autism this is. One question you might ask is, Why aren't the full-page ads for liposuction and breast enhancement enough?