Oliver Canby

Oliver Maxwell Canby (born April 10, 1992) is a Los Angeles, California based blogger who writes a blog about autism called Autism Is Bad. [1] Canby is autistic, and along with his parents, figures in Barbara Firestone's study of autism and its effects on families, Autism Heroes.[2]

Against allopathy
Alternative medicine
Clinically unproven
v - t - e

Autism is Bad began in 2010. Much of Canby's attitude towards autism was originally based on the rants of John Best, an American conspiracy theorist and autism denialist. He is adamant that autism must be cured as it is a "horrendous disease", completely ignoring autism's established genetic basis[3], and the positive contributions that some autistic people have made to history and science.[4]

28th Amendment proposal, or let's shoot everyone who disagrees with me

Canby's most disturbing commentary on autism came in the form of a 2015 proposal for a 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution that would impose the death penalty for the "crime" of "neurodiversity".

  1. Anyone who supports, engages in, or partakes in neurodiversity shall be put to death by lethal injection.
  2. The constitutional principle of "due process" does not apply in cases of neurodiversity. Execution shall be carried out immediately following conviction.
—Proposed 28th Amendment to the Constitution.[5]

Canby wrote that three Congresswomen supported his proposal and had referred it to a Congressional committee,[6] that it had passed Congress on October 7, 2015 and is now in the hands of the states for ratification.[6] His explanation for the lack of official documentation of these developments is that "the general public does not have access to Congressional records due to national security".[6]

Other beliefs about autism

Where there is autism crankery, there are vaccines, and Canby is no exception. He believes that he contracted autism from mercury laden vaccines. He accused British medical authorities investigating Andrew Wakefield of paying The Lancet to withdraw Wakefield's controversial study.[7]

Canby also supported the controversial "Talk About Curing Autism" (TACA) charity that runs the annual "Ante up for Autism" fundraiser not noticing that the charity has apparently been supporting families directly and doesn't live up to its name of supporting a cure.[8]

Canby claims that Adam Lanza, Elliot Rodger and Chris Harper-Mercer were all autistic[9] and this caused them to commit their crimes, despite there being no proof that Rodger was autistic and there is only speculation over Harper-Mercer. Lanza, according to his father, rejected his diagnosis,[10] which is inconsistent with Canby's claim.

Canby justifies his calls for a cure for autism with the argument that autistics are naturally inferior to "normals".[11] He has gone further describing autistics as "fully subhuman".[12][13]

gollark: No, I remember configuring Arch's locale stuff, it was totally* en-GB.
gollark: *But* it sends en-US at q=0.5 somehow?
gollark: Oh, hey, for some reason it *does* send it to the Organization site.
gollark: Firefox, latest version.
gollark: Why not use Accept-Language if it exists then fall back to GeoIP?

References

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