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Some parents of autistic children have called for Savage’s firing after he described autism as a racket last week. “In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out,” Savage said on his radio program last Wednesday.
Savage offered no apology in a message posted Monday on his Web site. He said greedy doctors and drug companies were creating a “national panic” by overdiagnosing autism, a mental disorder that inhibits a person’s ability to communicate.
On his radio show last week, he said: “What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, `Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, you idiot.’”
The government estimates about 1 in 150 children have some form of autism. But many experts believe these unsociable behaviors were just about as common 30 or 40 years ago and that the increase is mostly caused by a surge in special education services and a corresponding shift in diagnoses.
Wendy Fournier of the National Autism Association, a parents’ advocacy group, said she was invited to speak Monday on Savage’s three-hour program by Savage’s boss, Mark Masters of Talk Radio Network, which syndicates the show across the country. A spokeswoman from Talk Radio Network did not immediately return a call for comment.
Fournier called Savage’s comments “way, way, way over the line and cruel.”
“I’m hoping to make him see the reality of what these kids are facing,” she said. “You can’t fix it by telling a kid to shut up. It’s like telling a kid with cancer to stop being sick.”
Evelyn Ain, whose 8-year-old son has been diagnosed with autism, said she had never heard of Savage and couldn’t believe what she had heard when she first listened to the remarks. She organized a demonstration Monday outside New York’s WOR-AM, which broadcasts Savage.
“That isn’t just freedom of speech, it is hateful speech when you say 99 percent of children with autism are brats,” she said. “I’ll tell you, I wish I had a brat.”
Savage, with more than 8 million listeners a week, is talk radio’s third most popular personality behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, according to Talkers magazine. He’s made a living off bold, outrageous statements: His brief MSNBC show was canceled after he told a caller he should “get AIDS and die, you pig.”
Peter Bell, executive vice president of national advocacy group Autism Speaks, said he isn’t aware of any big controversy about overdiagnosis of autism. He said Savage’s remarks, effectively blaming parents, reflect an outdated point of view.
“He’s an entertainer, he does these things for attention,” Bell said. “I think we should, to the best we can, ignore it.”
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his comments and it made perfect sense.
Media Matters took
his comments and ran with them the way Media Matters
always does with conservatives, (never liberals)
to make Dr. Savage
look as mean and looney as possible.
Dr. Savage has written 30 books, one of them
"Healing Children naturally Without Drugs".
He uses strong language at times to make the point
that children are being given powerful drugs at an early age
to make more money for "BIG PHARM".
Children are being given drugs almost like candy in some
schools to slow down the bright kids so the teachers will not
have to deal with them.
Dr. Savage has had four best sellers in a row on the
NEW YORK TIMES best sellers list, yet the mainstream
media, including FOX, pretends he does not exist.
Most people who brand Dr. Savage a HATER have never
listened to his show, they take the word of Media Matters
and Left Wing smear groups and condemn him without
hearing the full story.
The crime Dr. Savage is guilty of is the crime of not
being POLITICALLY CORRECT .
He does not think global warming is man made,
he does not want an open border with Mexico,
and he dares to love America.
If people want to hate on Dr. Savage, challenge
him to a public town hall meeting on television live
and let the questions fly.
This will never happen, never, the Left Wing
would never ever dare allow both sides to be heard
in a free and open forum.
The left Wing would like nothing better than to shut up
TALK RADIO forever, using the so called
"Fairness Doctrine" Nancy Pelosi loves.
Talk Radio is the last free voice America has.
Television and movies are almost all Left Wing
propaganda these days, newspapers also.
If people do not like Dr. Savage, don't listen to his show.
But do not quell his right of free speech!
The Left Wing has its own radio network, it
is called National Public Radio.
I dare The Left to challenge Dr. Savage to a free open
debate on television live, on any subject.
Anyone care to volunteer?
What are you afraid of?
(The usual response now
is the name calling in place
of a reasoned response.)