Autism Treatment: Science Hijacked to Support Alternative Therapies

Dr. Carlos Pardo, a Johns Hopkins neurologist, and his colleagues autopsied the brains of people with autism who died in accidents and found evidence of neuroinflammation. This rare look inside the autistic brain had the potential to increase understanding of the mysterious disorder.

He knew it could also inspire doctors aiming to help children recover from autism to develop new experimental treatments -- even though the research was so preliminary the scientists did not know whether the inflammation was good or bad, or even how it might relate to autism. He was right.

Over and over, doctors in the autism recovery movement have used the paper to justify experimental treatments aimed at reducing neuroinflammation.