Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Missing: Respect for Human Worth and Dignity

Please read the story of the "Ransom Notes Campaign" referenced here at Whose Planet Is It Anyway. The note pictured here reads, "We have your son. We will make sure he will not be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. *This is only the beginning. (signed) Autism." Please express your opinions on this to the perpetrators.

EDIT: Dr. Harold Koplewicz of the NYU Child Study Center has responded to letters about this campaign: "The strong response to this campaign is evidence that our approach is working." He also invites everyone to "join the dialogue."

Larger versions of these posters are available here and here. Please print them and distribute wherever you see "Ransom Notes."

12 comments:

  1. Wow. I will have to look into that. Thanks for sharing.

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  2. Thanks Bev. Great poster -- I especially like the official seal at the top.

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  3. Excellent poster :)

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  4. One thing to say...GRRRR!!!

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  5. I cannot believe they are treating autism as the same as bulimia, depression etc. And I dislike the fact they imply that only males are autistic. And I dislike the fact they imply that only females get eating disorders.

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  6. Bev, my apologies for the crossposting, but I just got a comment on my blog that has contact information for some influential people at NYU:


    Writing to the center's people is a waste of time. I learned through a friend who has a son with aspergers and big time NYC donor connections that you can reach the head of the NYU Med Center at robert.grossman@nyumc.org and the two big funders of the asperger program at istatfeld@aol.com and mrecanati@aol.com. You really should reach them to end this offensive campaign.


    For those who wish to send e-mails to the people mentioned above, please be courteous in your remarks, as they are not responsible for the content of the ads.

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  7. Thanks, abfh,

    I'm glad to have that information here. Especially if it's true that the note I sent earlier was "a waste of time!"

    By the way, if anyone gets a response from any of the responsible parties, I would be very interested in what they have to say for themselves.

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  8. Here's more complete information on the donors mentioned above:

    mrecanati@aol.com is Michael Statfeld Recanati.

    istatfeld@aol.com is Ira Statfeld Recanati.

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  9. It turns out his 'town hall' wasn't really about hearing people's viewpoints, as he only allowed very selective posts that he could use.

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  10. I swear! So many autism-related services appear to be a scam. It gives such services a bad name and causes people who actually would benefit from good services to see them globally with cautious trepidation. Not good. :-/

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