[Debra Antifaev]

Dear Ministers Reid and Hogg,

I felt it necessary to clear up a few past inaccuracies in the field of autism. It is my belief that anyone who had actually read the Supreme Court Judgments, read the New York report, and looked at the results of two separate autism studies, could not possibly misquote them so often. I am praying that this misinformation is the result of simply not keeping yourselves informed and not something more sinister, such as catering to the many MCFD service providers lobbying to keep the unacceptable status quo. The Supreme Court found "antipathy toward the litigants" by the folk at MCFD so prevalent throughout the trial.

1. Minister Hogg, Lovaas is NOT and experimental, controversial treatment. The studies are complete and it is the ONLY treatment that is science based and PROVEN effective.

2. Minister Reid, your statement; “this program (EIBI) was accepted by the court as adhering to best practices and meeting the government's obligation to provide medically necessary treatment to all children under six" is completely FALSE! Unless Justice Marion Allen is a time traveler there is no way she could have endorsed a program that was not running at the time she wrote her judgments!

The Supreme Court ruled that ALL autistic children's charter rights were violated, not just those under the age of six, and that the crown be directed to fund early intensive behavioural intervention for ALL children with autism. The ruling said; “it is presumed that the Government will act in good faith in implementing…" Their rights are still being violated and your Government is NOT yet acting in good faith.

3. The judge ruled in Auton # 2 that speech/language pathology, occupational therapy, physical therapy and sensory integration were ineffective in the treatment of autism, so how could she possibly endorse them as "Best Practices" in Auton # 3 ? Common sense should tell you that "Best Practices" would exclude these ineffective therapies and consist only of the treatment that the whole damn lawsuit was about. The judge and the experts (for and against the litigants!!) endorsed Lovaas. Make no mistake, Lovaas is EIBI or IBI and not your government's version of it.

4. The training and the calibre of the staff if the EIBI are also in question. The MCFD and the EIBI are so afraid of anyone finding out how seriously flawed THEIR experimental program is, that they have hired no less than THREE lawyers to impede my access to information. So much for open government. Why is there always an abundance of money available for lawyers to screw with these disabled children but not enough to save them ? I was forced to pull my son from this program because I wasn't even their training was to watch my house and record my daily activities. Tell me how training someone to be a stalker treats autism?

5. The evaluation of the Government's EIBI is being done by the very person who designed the Government's EIBI. The evaluation component was never put out for tender. I believe the whole process is unethical and tainted. There has even been mention that some of the children in the Government EIBI do not appear to be autistic. Were there two independent evaluations of these children? If not, why not?

In closing, Ministers, you were wonderful in opposition but I guess it is much easier to be a critic than to stand by your morals (as Joy McPhail is proving). The autistic children are still being abused by Government, just a new Government. Please remember something my six year old told me, "Breaking a promise is the same as lying, it's still just a lie" …out of the mouths of babes…

Sincerely,
Debra Antifaev
mother of a violated four year old, does anyone care what his name is?

[Author]

Posts