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With the diagnosis of her son and the book she wrote about their journey together, McCarthy became the world's most famous parent of an autistic child. "I knew I was going to be the voice of the families when this happened," she says. "Because I had the platform. In my head, something said, 'You can get booked on talk shows.' If there was a purpose from God, he just picked someone who can get booked on talk shows. I just fell into this truth ... The only reason I'm getting this much attention is because I represent hundreds...
...viewed as a life sentence. In the 1970s, parents sought out a range of alternative and unconventional treatments. There was patterning (in which the autistic child was retaught to crawl), multivitamin therapy, bee-pollen therapy and various restrictive diets. There was the gentleman who claimed he had cured his son by hugging him a lot - he wrote a best-selling book about it - and others who claimed they had cured their child by teaching him or her to swim. There has been the facilitation movement, in which "facilitators" supposedly helping nonverbal autistic children type words turned out to be making...
...that's where McCarthy comes in. She is telling the parents that yes, your son or daughter can be healed. "I have three children on the spectrum," says Stagliano. "I have yet to really get one actionable piece of assistance from my pediatrician. They offer nothing. Nothing ... These treatments are filling a vacuum...
McCarthy's conviction stems from her having "recovered" her own son from autism. "Evan couldn't talk - now he talks. Evan couldn't make eye contact - now he makes eye contact. Evan was antisocial - now he makes friends," she explains. "It was amazing to watch, over the course of doing this, how certain therapies work for certain kids and they completely don't work for others ... When something didn't work for Evan, I didn't stop. I stopped that treatment, but I didn't stop." (See how genes, gender and diet may be life extenders...
Well before McCarthy's son was diagnosed, that was the course most parents were following anyway. I recall my parents in the 1970s trying out a range of therapies and various diets for my younger brother Noah, a low-functioning adult autistic: everything from chiropractic adjustments to megavitamin doses to copper bracelets. McCarthy was the first celebrity to embrace this approach publicly and to hit the airwaves pep-talking mothers to never give up. That is what she tells those parents who seek her out here at Generation Rescue - and the 200,000 mothers she has met on her various...