By Dan Summers

Corynebacterium diphtheriae, the infectious agent responsible for diphtheria, is a nasty little germ. Known once upon a time as the “strangling angel of children,” affected patients would develop a membrane that covered the airway, as well as significant irritation in the throat and surrounding tissue. Respiratory and circulatory collapse commonly followed, with resultant coma and death. Removal of the membrane would lead to profuse bleeding.

I graduated from medical school almost exactly ten years ago, and did my residency in pediatrics at NYU Medical Center in New York City. I have never seen a single case of diphtheria in my career, which is a statement that many pediatricians of my generation could probably echo. Indeed, I have never seen a single case of smallpox, polio, tetanus, measles or a handful of other once-common childhood illnesses, despite having been taught about all of them in medical school and being expected to know about them to pass my certification exams,. The pediatric wards of Bellevue Hospital, once full of children ill with epiglottitis and bacterial meningitis, were largely empty during my time there.

The reason for this gulf between my textbooks and my experience can be attributed to the various vaccines now commonly administered as part of a standard schedule in the United States. While very little in contemporary medical practice is totally free of risk or adverse effects, from the perspective of pediatric infectious disease the advent of vaccinations has been as close to an unalloyed good as is likely ever to occur. Diseases that once killed thousands of children a year are all but unheard of now.

It’s hard to argue with that kind of success.

Sadly, Jim Carrey has seen fit to try. It was with singular frustration that I read his recent missive in the Huffington Post, full of the usual “vaccines lead to autism” misinformation and pseudoscientific mumbo-jumbo. What was most frustrating about the post was not so much that I think Mr. Carrey is wrong (though I think that he is very, very wrong), but that he is dishonest.

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Freddie has made a strong argument against viewing autism as a positive thing to be celebrated.  In so doing – and keeping in mind that he is our resident liberal – Freddie argues that such views are political correctness run amok.  To complete the role reversal, I, one of our two resident self-avowed libertarians, am going to argue that at least mild autism, Asperger’s, and various other disorders, including ADHD, are in fact things that society should learn to celebrate. 

Freddie writes:

Autism has debilitating effects on many that have it, often with profound negative consequences for learning, self-control, communication, and the restraint of physical violence. I cannot personally comprehend the emotional toll of dealing with autism in a family– nor can I understand the depth and love found within the relationships between families with autistic members. The value of autistic people or the relationships austic people have are unquestionable. Who would want to question such things? But there is something wrong, and deeply sad, in eliding a love and respect for the people and relationships that are affected by autism into a respect for the disorder. Autistic people are beautiful. Autism is not beautiful.

For several years until relatively recently, I probably would have agreed 100% with this statement, which I think applies with equal force to other disorders such as ADHD.  Before that, I would have taken the hardline approach that these “disorders” were merely excuses for some sort of moral defect (although maybe not with respect to severe autism). 

I tend to think that we as a society have basically followed this evolution as well – these disorders were initially viewed as mere exuses for character flaws that should not be tolerated.  Eventually, as it became clear that they were becoming more and more a problem in society and it became more evident that people had little control over these traits, we learned to tolerate those with these disorders by defining them as diseases outside of the individual’s control but that should still be something to be corrected.

But I think there’s another step that we need to take as a society – one of acceptance, rather than mere tolerance.  Where I’ve come down is that at least mild forms of autism, and just about all forms of ADHD are really just unchangeable personality traits that, like all personality traits, have their upsides and their downsides but are hardwired into one’s genetic makeup.  People have them in varying degrees, and when they reach a degree where they do more harm than good according to our modern society, we call them disorders.  But ultimately, the problems they cause and benefits they create are a function of what our society values at a given moment.  People with these traits should have access to medication and treatment that allow them to better cope with modern society; but at the same time, society should do a better job recognizing the potentially positive aspects of these disorders and providing avenues for such people to funnel their efforts in that direction. 

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