Thoughtful House
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The Thoughtful House Center for Children, founded in 2005 and located in Austin, Texas, is a collaboration between medical professionals, scientists, and autism activists seeking means to change children with autistic spectrum developmental disorders (i.e., Aspergers syndrome, ADHD, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, etc.) through a combination of medical care, education and research.
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[edit] Origins
Thoughtful House, under the guidance of executive director Andrew Wakefield, MD, was founded by Troy and Charlie Ball as a tribute to their son, Marshall. The Balls donated land in Austin for the center. Marshall, who has published two books of poetry and won many awards despite severe physical challenges, named the original Thoughtful House, built as a special place for reflection in his backyard.
In September, 2001, Andrew Wakefield, along with other colleagues including Jeff Bradstreet and friends, initiated planning for the treatment center, devising a model combining medical care, behavioral analysis and education, as well as clinical and laboratory research.
Working with the founding Board of Directors, Thoughtful House became a reality in 2005, with the commencement of medical, educational, and recreational services for children with developmental disorders. Thoughtful House has yet to achieve success treating children with a gluten-free diet.
[edit] Andrew Wakefield
Wakefield is an academic gastroenterologist who is now discredited in the UK. He has published 132 original scientific articles, book chapters and invited scientific commentaries, and was awarded the Fellowship of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2001.
Wakefield has become a controversial figure in medicine because of his claim that the MMR vaccine was a cause of autism - made at a time when he was employed by attorneys attempting to prove that link. In 1998, Wakefield published a description of the pathology of what he says is a novel syndrome, which he later dubbed autistic enterocolitis, in The Lancet. In the ensuing fallout, six years later, ten of the study's co-authors retracted the interpretation, published in the Lancet, of a possible link between MMR and autism. Action is now being taken to charge Wakefield with serious professional misconduct. [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- ThoughtfulHouse.org - Thoughtful House homepage
- AutismConnect.org - 'New Andrew Wakefield study links autism to novel intestinal illness (Autistic enterocolitis): A British gastroenterologist who now works in Austin has completed a new study on autism which claims to link the disease to a novel intestinal illness', Cox News Service (October 11, 2004)
- AutismDiva.blogspot.com - 'Andrew Wakefield is just trying to help' (August 29, 2005)
- AutismToday.com - 'New Research on Autism Points to a Novel 'Gut' Disease in Some Kids', Mary Ann Roser, New York Times
- Bailii.org - 'Andrew Wakefield Claimant - and - Channel Four Television Corporation Twenty Twenty Productions Ltd Brian Deer Defendants' (Queen's Bench decision), England and Wales High Court (November 4, 2005)
- BrianDeer.com - 'There's a Whole Lot of Thinking at Our Andy's Thoughtful House' (commentary), Brian Deer (August 29 2005)
- TimesOnline.co.uk - 'Your child next?', Nigel Hawkes, The Times (April 5 2006)
