Rimland

In 1965, Rimland founded the Autism Society of America, which was in all likelihood the first mainstream organization that regarded a diagnosis of autism as anything other than a cause for despair and a source of shame.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

This time around, Rimland was no longer a solitary voice in the woods.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

Another, equally important, factor was the growth of a parent-based advocacy movement led by a psychologist named Bernard Rimland, whose autistic son, Mark, was born in 1956.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

Once again, Rimland decided it would be easier to create a whole new infrastructure than to try to find a way to work within the mainstream, and in 1995, he launched Defeat Autism Now!

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

At the time, awareness of the disorder was so scant that Rimland had to diagnose Mark himself on the basis of information he gleaned from some old college textbooks.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

Then, she says, she read that Wakefield, along with Bernard Rimland and Barbara Loe Fisher, was scheduled to speak at an upcoming Parents for Vaccine Awareness conference in Erie, Pennsylvania, close to where she lived.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

Much of that change was due to Rimland himself, whose work at the Autism Research Institute had helped to redefine the disorder and had broken a trail for subsequent generations of DIY parent-researchers.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

The challenges facing Rimland in the early 1960s were significantly different from the ones confronting Bernard and Redwood.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

By the mid-1990s, more than three decades had passed since Bernard Rimland had embarked on his own quest after his son, Mark, began exhibiting signs of autism.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011

The lack of general knowledge—or even interest—in the disorder led Rimland to seek out every scientific paper, every case study, every research proposal and draft article and Ph.D. dissertation on that subject that he could find.

The Panic Virus Seth Mnookin 2011