Antidepressants and Antibiotic Resistance

While it is well known that excessive use and misuse of antibiotics can lead to resistance, by forming the creation of deadly "superbugs" a recent study links Prozac (fluoxetine) to antibiotic resistance, (Min Jin, Ji Lu, Zhaoyu Chen, Son Hoang Nguyen, Likai Mao, Junwen Li, Zhirguo Yuan et al., "Antidepressant fluoxetine Induces Multiple Antibiotics Resistance in Escherichia Coli via ROS-mediated Mutagenesis," Environment International 120(2018): 421-430, doi:10.1016/j.envint.2018.07.046). Bacteria that were exposed to Prozac developed mutations resulting in resistance to the antibiotics, tetracycline, amoxicillin, chloramphenicol and others. Higher doses of Prozac increased antibiotic resistance.

Prozac was introduced in 1987. In just the first five years, 4.5 million Americans consumed it. After over 30 years since development, a new side effect just emerged. While most individuals with severe behaviors have no access to applied behavior analysis, they do have easy access to medications with mystery side effects. While there are significant efforts to ban a two second skin shock, the same "advocates" have made no effort to stop substituting medications, which can have dangerous and even deadly side effects, for applied behavior analysis, which has no side effects. While some of these "advocates" are against applied behavior analysis, they are silent when medications are replacing education.

Special Needs Can Also Mean Special Abilities

A very informative video on how intelligent individuals with autism can perform well professionally with the right support https://www.cbsnews.com/video/welcoming-autism-into-the-workplace/

Mindfulness with Parent Tutoring in ABA: Helping Parents Help Their Children

Yesterday, I was reading how parents may have difficulty controlling their own behaviors when confronted with a child who engaged in a severe problem behavior. Mindfulness encourages people to pay attention to their own thoughts and how their body feels and even their breathing in the present moment, to not criticize them and to use words to describe how they are feeling. This can produce a calming effect to help the parent follow through consistently on the behavior plan.

My mother once told me that one day she found my brother Matthew spreading feces around the house on everything. In that angry moment, my mother opened the front door, sent Matty on the porch and closed it behind him. Only moments later she realized what a mistake she had done, how Matty can run and knew nothing about traffic. She opened the door to let him back in, but he was gone.

It turned out Matty went a few blocks, luckily did not get hit by a car, and joined my father at the synagogue who was wondering what must have happened.

A study with 432 families shows how integrating mindfulness with parent training can "improve multiple dimensions of parenting, including interpersonal mindfulness in parenting, parent-youth relationship quality, youth behavior management, and parent well-being" (J. Douglas Coatsworth, Larissa G. Duncan, Robert L. Nix, Mark T. Greenberg, Jochebed G. Gayles, Katharine T. Bamberger, Elaine Berrena, et. al., Integrating Mindfulness with Parent Training: Effects of Mindfulness-enhanced Strengthening Families Program," Developmental Psychology 51, no. 1 (January 2015): 26-35, doi:10.1037/a0038212). The intervention was especially helpful to fathers.

Let's give parents the supports they need to prevent harm and to help the whole family.

Physical and Chemical Cages for Migrant Children

Fortunately, a judge ruled that the federal government can no longer give psychotropic medictions to children without consent, according to a recent article in the Washington Post, "Trump administration must stop giving psychotropic drugs to migrant children without consent, judge rules."

This shows how vulnerable children or individuals with special needs are when there is no one around to advocate for them.

I remember when I was a child my grandparents had a parrot, Columbus, and they let the bird fly all over the apartment. One day I asked my grandmother, "Why you don't put the bird in a cage?" She replied, "Would you like it if somebody put you in a cage?" So not only were these children put in a physical cage, apparently they were also locked in a chemical cage.

Self-Inflicted Human Rights Violations?

Last week, I posted an article, "CENSORED and Removed From Facebook Group for Posting These Five Facts." I wrote how the Queens Special Kids Facebook Group administrator removed me only for writing five court facts including page, reference numbers and quotes, responding to a discussion regarding the court decision on my brother Matthew's school, Judge Rotenberg Center, on the use of two second skin shocks, which stopped Matthew's life-threatening head banging requiring surgery.

Regarding the skin shocks, the administrator wrote, "[T]o me, this is a violation of human rights." Many families including myself, JRC staff, JRC attorneys, and even Massachusetts court judges before ordering the treatment, have tried the shock themselves. I tried it because I wanted to feel for myself what exactly my brother experienced. If the skin shocks are "a violation of human rights" then we have all committed self-inflicted human rights violations. A few weeks ago I visited Matthew and he was agitated with me and after returning to JRC when I had a flat tire. While JRC staff are accused of human rights violations, Matthew's case manager was emailing me until 12:30AM to find out what happened to see how she can help.

Last post I mentioned how the administrator stated that she "feel[s]" for us, but I do not think any anti-aversive activist would volunteer to try Matthew's identical twin brother Stuart's 20 medication regimen for a day and see what that feels like. Stuart is in a group home in NY and cannot obtain access to effective treatment.

Anti-aversive activists will state that there are other alternative treatments to eliminate these life-threatening behaviors. Unlike my book with 361 footnotes discussing multiple research studies showing that that other treatments are not always effective, not one of these anti-aversive activists cites a research study to defend their position- because they can't. While anti-aversive activists state they "feel" for us, what they really do is treat us as ignorant fools incapable of providing informed consents, even though many of the family members are MDs (including myself) PhDs, and JDs.

My mother and Matthew just got back from a trip to Niagara Falls. Stuart could not go due to his behaviors and Matthew missed him. Even though they are identical twins and the best of friends, due to the anti-aversive activists preventing Matthew from having skin shock in NY and Stuart from having effective treatment, they must live hundreds of miles apart and couldn't even spend a few days together on a trip. This is the true human rights violation.

PS: Last night I added a sentence to my Facebook Group "Special Needs Resources NY," stating "ALL OPINIONS ARE WELCOME HERE." Whether I agree or disagree, as long as there is nothing hateful or containing personal attacks, I do not want anyone to ever feel excluded because their views.