SAN DIEGO, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Bernard Rimland, whose 1964 book debunked the then-prevalent belief that parents' behavior made their children autistic, died Tuesday.
Rimland, who was 78, "will go down in history as the person who ended the 'dark ages' of autism and spearheaded the fight to bring hope and help to autistic children," said Dr. Stephen M. Edelson, his successor at the Autism Research Institute founded by Rimland.
Rimland began researching autism after his son Mark was diagnosed with the disorder. The result was the landmark book "Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior."
After marshaling extensive evidence and argument that showed the disorder had a biological basis, Rimland wrote:
"To add a heavy burden of shame and guilt to the distress of people whose hopes, social life, finances, well-being and feelings of worth have been all but destroyed seems heartless and inconsiderate in the extreme."
In recent years Rimland helped introduce medical treatments for autism that some parents say has significantly improved, or even cured, their child's condition. Mainstream medical groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics reject such approaches and say there is no evidence they are effective.
Rimland attributed the rise of autism diagnoses in the 1980s and 1990s to increasing use of vaccines -- another idea embraced by some parents and a minority of researchers but rejected by public-health officials.
