Epidemic? Pandemic? Not according to this Pan-Democrat in California, Richard Pan.  Thanks to Laura for this update. Thanks to readers for the photo suggestions...  ;) Kim

By Laura Hayes

6-minute video summary of recent hearing in CA  (have a listen before reading)

Link to download hearing in its entirety.

At this point in time, one would have to be living under a rock, severely intellectually challenged, or frighteningly indebted to Pharma to deny that we are in the midst of an autism epidemic.  CA Senator Richard Pan, a public figure, is not living under a rock, which leaves the remaining two possibilities.

On Feb. 28, 2018, a Joint Hearing for Special Education Finance in CA was held.  Partners in SB277 crime, Senators Richard Pan and Ben Allen, were both in attendance. 

In the midst of plentiful, pleading, and powerful testimony from many involved in CA’s public school system with regard to the dramatic and alarming increase in autism up and down the state for the past 10-15 years, corroborated by Ryan Andersen of the Legislative Analyst’s Office, Senator Pan interjected to clarify that they are all wrong. He clarified that there is no increase in autism, not in CA, nor elsewhere. 

To repeat, to take such a preposterous stance when the autism epidemic is self-evident at this point in time (with even the incompetent and corrupt CDC reporting that 1 in 36 American children has autism), one would have to be living under a rock, severely intellectually challenged, or frighteningly indebted to Pharma. Pan’s insistence that autism rates have always been 1 in 36 defies the research coming from the institution at which he used to teach, UC Davis. A 2009 study by researchers at UCD’s MIND Institute found that the humongous increase in the incidence of autism is real, is not due to how autism is diagnosed or counted, and shows no sign of abating. This study was published in the January 2009 issue of Epidemiology.

Pan dug himself further into his hole of lies as he referenced “a growing body of research showing that the increase in autism rates is due to difference in diagnosis and changes in the DSM.”  The only research from this “growing body” that he could then cite was a laughable and completely unscientific 2009 study from England which Dr. Carol Stott and John Stone ripped apart from start to finish, summarized here. 

For his coup d’etat, both of imbecility and offensiveness, Pan basically accused school districts of over identifying special education students in an effort to secure more funding, which is moronic because school districts statewide, nationwide, and worldwide are drowning in the costs of special education. Identifying special education students means having to provide services for them, services that are costly. In reality, school districts have a financial disincentive to identify special education students. Despite that fact, Pan stated, in his native tongue of gibberish, “One of the things that seems to come up a lot…we heard it from the LAO presentation, we also in some of the other policy…they keep saying that, “Well, what we are worried about is that we actually pay for the need…we’re gonna incentivize more people, more kids, moving into special ed, and also they’re less likely to be mainstreamed.” This was immediately scoffed at, countered, and corrected by the next 2 women who testified.

If Pan truly believes that school districts, in cahoots with parents and licensed professionals, are purposefully misdiagnosing students as needing special education services when in fact they don’t, with the express purpose of the school district enriching itself at the expense of the child, who might then be placed into a segregated classroom and subjected to unneeded therapies,THAT IS A VERY SERIOUS CHARGE. As such, his first and top priority should be to start an immediate investigation into the abuse of these children.

Not surprisingly, that is not going to happen, because Pan knows he cannot tread down that path of nonsensical false accusation without having it blow up in his face. This false accusation reminds me of another one of Pan’s recent false accusations, when he accused other doctors of “monetizing their licenses” by writing medical exemptions for vaccinations for patients.

I would like to remind readers that Richard Pan, both a state senator and a practicing pediatrician, is the same man who publicly stated that water is the most dangerous ingredient in vaccines. Now he is saying that there hasn’t been any increase in autism, that 1 in 36 children has always had this disabling disorder.  Instead of sounding the alarm bell about the ever-increasing number of special education students in his state, and demanding that we figure out why our children's minds and bodies are being destroyed to the point of disability, Pan disgracefully puts forth the misleading and malicious falsity that there is no increase in the rate of students with autism, and that schools are wrongly identifying students as having special education needs in an effort to commandeer more money from the state.

Woe to anyone who listens to this man, woe to any child who is a patient of his, and woe to the citizens of CA.

Written by Laura Hayes, mother of a 24 year-old son who was severely and permanently disabled by his “routine” childhood vaccinations. Laura speaks and writes often about the dangers, inefficacies, and lack of need for vaccines. For an 80-minute comprehensive overview of many vaccine-related issues by Laura, listen to her 2016 WAPF presentation.