Autism and Biomed Protocols: A Primer on Pseudoscience

Emily Willingham and Kim Wombles Emily’s family has kept their biomed treatment — or any treatment excepting occupational and behavioral therapies — to a minimum, primarily because of some inherent skepticism. Their current biomedical interventions are limited to fish oil, probiotics, and some vitamins.  The Wombles brood has generally taken a similar approach, although they spent four years gluten and dairy free (with Kim worried she was getting ALS every time she ate her own GFCF baking! Cough cough — dry stuff) before admitting that it made no difference for them whatsoever, except that there were five much happier people once they went off the diet. Many autism parents investigate biomedical or “biomed” approaches as a way to ameliorate negative manifestations of their child’s autism. These parents can also find themselves overwhelmed by biomedical protocol possibilities. Sorting through these protocols can be a daunting task, which is, of course, one…