The great autism rip-off ... How a huge industry feeds on parents desperate to cure their children

There is little hope given to parents of children with autism.

Mainstream medicine offers no explanation for the cause of this life-long learning disability, thought to affect one in 100, and there are no effective treatments.

Perhaps the most cruel characteristic of the condition, which impairs communication development and ability to relate to others, is that children often develop normally until about two years of age, when they suddenly 'regress', becoming mute, withdrawn, refusing to make eye contact and prone to tantrums.

Many never take part in mainstream education and some require full-time care, even as adults.

In the absence of solutions, desperate parents are increasingly turning to the world of alternative medicine in their search for a cure.

In this burgeoning market, private doctors and clinics have sprung up across the UK claiming they can treat or even 'reverse' the disorder.

Recent research published in the Journal Of Developmental And Behavioural Paediatrics found that a third of parents of autistic children have tried unproven 'alternative' treatments.

Worryingly, the study claims one in ten has used what the experts class as 'a potentially harmful approach'.

Jacqui Jackson, 43, lectures around the country on Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Blackpool-based mother of seven, five of whom suffer from ASD, knows all too well the powerful allure of the promised 'cure'.

After the Jackson family - including Matthew, 24, Rachel, 22, Sarah, 20, Luke, 19, Anna, 18, Joe, 15, and Ben, 11 - appeared in the 2003 BBC documentary My Family And Autism - dramatised in the film Magnificent 7, in which actress Helena Bonham Carter played a character based on Jacqui - they were inundated with calls from alternative practitioners.

'You are so desperate in the early stages, you'll try anything,' says Jacqui. 'I bought enzymes and supplements from America, which cost a fortune. I even paid thousands for a special mattress, blankets and pillows with magnets sewn into them that the sales people promised would do wonders but, of course, didn't work. Autism is seen by some people as big business.

'I meet parents who want a cure and spend money in the hope they'll have a normal child. I try to warn them that there is no evidence any of these things work, but they'll often go ahead.'

To investigate Jacqui's claims and to discover exactly what is being offered to parents, I visited five practitioners of 'biomedical' autism therapies posing as a parent of a three-year-old boy diagnosed with ASD.

In each case my story - a 'typical' case of an autistic child, developed with the help of medical experts - was the same: My 'son' Archie was born on September 15, 2004, after an uncomplicated pregnancy and birth. He had all the usual baby vaccines, including the MMR at 14 months, and developed normally until around 18 months old when he became withdrawn and stopped speaking, refusing to make eye contact.

Our GP referred us to a specialist who diagnosed him with ASD. I claimed to be seeking help from more 'forward- thinking' doctors. During my investigation, I was recommended expensive tests, vitamin supplements and special diets, ointments, suppositories and injections to 'flush out toxic heavy metals', bizarre-sounding high-pressure oxygen chambers and intravenous infusions of hormones - and told in each case that they could bring about a complete recovery from autism.

Yet medical experts say there is no evidence to support their claims, and in fact many of the treatments I was offered were potentially harmful, and even possibly fatal. The experience left me disturbed at the lack of regulation surrounding these practices. | Full Story (offsite link).