Saturday, March 07, 2009

Michelle Dawson's False Claims Allegations? Where's the Evidence?

Jonathan Mitchell of Autism's Gadfly has run afoul, like so many others have, of Michelle Dawson.

On the discussion board Misbehaviour of Behaviourists Ms Dawson has accused Jonathan of making false statements about her. Apparently Jonathan made a statement about Ms Dawson's communications with the IACC, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee that might not have been correct; or at least not literally correct. Ms Dawson takes Jonathan to task over the issue at the Misbehaviour of Behaviourists. Then, out of left field, Ms Dawson also accuses me of making false claims about her as well:

Michelle Dawson 8995
03-06-2009 08:31 PM ET (US)

Edited by author 03-06-2009 08:32 PM

Still in the "pants-on-fire" dept., for what Mr Mitchell wrote on his blog, see /m8990. What Mr Mitchell has claimed on his blog is false. He made it up.

If Mr Mitchell did not make anything up, as he claims, then I'm sure he can provide sources to support his claim that I was "writing letters trying to influence the direction of NIMH autism research" and so was Mike S.

I suggest that as with Mr Doherty, no one should believe Mr Mitchell when he makes any claims about people he disagrees with, unless Mr Mitchell can provide sources (in this case, links to all the "letters" Mike S and I have written to the NIMH) to support his views.

Some day when I have a lot of spare time, I'll try to find and list all the false claims, misrepresentations, etc., made about me and my colleagues by Mr Mitchell and Mr Doherty.

As you can see Ms Dawson did not provide any specifics, particulars, examples, information or evidence of any kind whatsoever to substantiate her out of left field allegations against me. She just decreed that I have made false claims and informed her loyal subjects that some day, when she had the time, she would bother herself with substantiating her allegations. That my friends is the work of Michelle Dawson, autism researcher and anti-ABA activist.

To my knowledge the statements that I have consistently made about Ms Dawson are that:

1) She is an anti-ABA activist ( see the title of her forum (the Misbehaviour of Behaviourists), her appearances before the Supreme Court of Canada and the Canadian Senate in opposition to ABA for Canada's autistic children and her numerous media comments opposing ABA.)

2) That her anti-ABA views are inconsistent with the views of numerous credible authorities in the United States, like the US Surgeon General, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the MADSEC (Maine) Autism Task Force, the NY State Department of Health, and the Association for Science in Autism Treatment to name the most prominent.

I stand by these statements which are factually correct. And I caution anyone against putting too much weight on any of Michelle Dawson's allegations and statements that she has made against anyone, professional, reporter, parent or autistic person who dares to disagree with her views.




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4 comments:

jonathan said...

Hi Harold, contrary to what michelle said, I did provide the link in question, which was on mike stanton's blog post publicizing the petition that the autism hub had signed. I provided a link to the blog post. On this post there is a link given to the petition. Either the link is broken or the autism hub removed the two year old petition from the site. I cannot help it if the link is broken.

In one of my posts I did use a bad choice of words in that I said that she and mike stanton had written letters. They did not write separate letters per se, but signed the petition to which the link is broken. They were two of three neurodiversity proponents who were not american citizens that I know of who signed this petition back in January of 2007. The third was David Andrews who I found out in my research trying to verify the link signed the petition also in a comment on autism diva's blog. She, as well as mike Stanton also publicized this petition back in 2007. If there were any other nonAmerican neurodiversity proponents who signed this petition to the NIMH I am not aware of them. I regret the poorly phrased post and I added an addendum to my last blog post but that is certainly not making up something up as Michelle Dawson is alleging I did.

Unknown said...

Thank you Jonathan.

I figured there might be more to the story than what Ms Dawson had stated on her discussion board.

Anonymous said...

Truthfully, I am sick and tired of Michelle Dawson!!! For years now everytime she opens her mouth, the world thinks she is talking on behalf of all persons with autism. She has no appreciation of treatment that is medically necessary for with autism that are not 'high functioning' like herself.

Pardon the rant....but I have had enough of her!

Dawn

shakingsystem said...

Denial seems to go hand in hand with Michelle Dawson's autism philosophy.

It's really sad, how so many parents are heading towards a downward spiral (emotionally, financially,psychologically etc). Divorce rates amongst families with autistic children are at 80%. Government officials continously turn their backs,on the 'real' issues.And then you have people like the 'neurodiverse crowd' who refuse to lift their heads out of the sand.

It' just another day in the life of self-denial and false hopes for 'some'.