October 3rd, 2007 by Jemaleddin Cole

A woman where I work sent out a request on an internal mailing list asking if anyone could recommend “a good autistic specialist who practices using the DAN philosophy” in our area. Here’s what I wish I could write her:

Dear XXXXX,

I don’t want this to come across too harshly, but I certainly hope nobody will help you find what you’re looking for. DAN is nothing but quackery, and their use of chelation and Lupron is both ill-advised and unethical.

I would encourage you to call Kennedy Krieger and talk to them about seeing a neurologist and whatever other therapists your child might need - they have all sorts. My son Jared has done wonderfully working with them.

Best of luck,

Jemal

13 Responses to “What I Wish I Could Say”

1. If you omit the first paragraph there’s no reason not to send it to her.

   — C.S. Ritchie October 3rd, 2007 at 3:07 pm #

2. This is one time when the positive advice is less important than the negative. While KK can certainly help their kid, DAN’s treatments kill people. Chelation and Lupron are nothing to screw around with.

   — Jemaleddin October 3rd, 2007 at 5:43 pm #

3. But you weren’t going to say anything. So saying something in this case is better than saying nothing. You can’t have it both ways, ass monkey.

   — C.S. Ritchie October 3rd, 2007 at 6:08 pm #

4. What I can hope is that she doesn’t get any good answers at work and then does a search on the internet and finds a certain 6-pagerank site that answers her questions. :-)

   — Jemaleddin October 3rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm #

5. You could send an email anonymously. You could send the link to KK. You could provide excellent feedback about KK: “I can’t speak about DAN, but let me tell you how wonderful KK was for our son…”

   With great power comes great responsibility.

   — CanadiensFan October 3rd, 2007 at 9:41 pm #

6. There’s no anonymous email at work, bub. We’re sorta against anonymous. :-)

   In fact, there may be no such thing as anonymous email anywhere, if certain people are doing their jobs right.

   — Jemaleddin October 3rd, 2007 at 9:47 pm #

7. Give me the lady’s email address - I guarantee an anonymous email.

   OR

   You could go with my original option #2.

   Remember…power & responsibility….

   — canadiensfan October 4th, 2007 at 10:37 pm #

8. I really don’t think you can send an email to somebody on our internal network. And if you can, there are BIG PROBLEMS with our security. :-)

   I’m gonna try saying something - we’ll see how it goes down.

   — Jemaleddin October 5th, 2007 at 8:12 am #

9. Well that would be a cool test to try. Maybe when you’re leaving that job…

   Good luck!

   — CanadiensFan October 5th, 2007 at 10:48 am #

10. Hey - what’s up with the advertisements?

    — CanadiensFan October 5th, 2007 at 10:49 am #

11. a) No, I think I like staying out of jail.

    b) Ads? What ads? Oh, I think I see the problem. You should install AdBlockPlus: http://adblockplus.org/

    — Jemaleddin October 5th, 2007 at 11:47 am #

12. I’m not talking about banner stuff, but highlighted words that appear to be linked, and when you mouse over them, they’re advertisements. Is that what you’re talking about?

    — CanadiensFan October 6th, 2007 at 10:38 am #

13. Seriously, I have no idea what you’re talking about - I just see a the big AdBlockPlus stop sign in my tool-bar indicating that I never have to look at ads like that ever. Cause that would suck. Hint.

    HINT. HINT.

    Hint?

    — Jemaleddin October 6th, 2007 at 11:17 am #