A meeting of hope and information to share that autism is treatable! Meet at least 6 parents and hear them tell their story on how their children were diagnosed, what their issues were, how they lost their diagnosis and where they are today.

• Time: 1 pm - 4 pm
• Fee:  FREE – no need to RSVP
• Location:  Vineyard Newport Church, 102 E. Baker, Costa Mesa

This is one of TACA’s most popular annual meetings to help build community and educate families by district or their general geographic area. TACA will have on hand advocates, attorneys or parent volunteers to moderate each group gathered by school district or general area to discuss the good points and issues with each district as it relates to special education.

THIS WILL BE A PARENT OR CARETAKER MEETING ONLY. YOU MUST RSVP TO ATTEND.

• Time: 1pm-4pm
• Fee:  FREE – YOU MUST RSVP TO ATTEND
• Location:  Vineyard Newport Church, 102 E. Baker, Costa Mesa

Presented by Lisa Ackerman - Biomedical treatments for autism spectrum disorders can be a confusing addition to traditional therapies. This seminar will cover:

• Why you should consider biomedical treatments?
• How to start?
• What to look for…
• What is available as an option?
• How are these treatments paid for?

This seminar will be presented by a parent – not a doctor – in hopes of providing some suggestions and insight for other parents with children on the spectrum.

• Time 1pm-4pm
• Fee:  FREE – no need to RSVP
• Location:  Vineyard Newport Church, 102 E. Baker, Costa Mesa

(Please do not contact the church for meeting details. They have graciously offered use of their facility, but are not affiliated with TACA.) And remember, we are still a non-faith based group!

Directions:
405 FWY South, Exit Bristol
Right on Bristol
Left on Baker
Go under FREEWAY.
The Vineyard Church is on the corner just after the freeway - turn left onto the freeway access road,
make FIRST right into the Vineyard's parking lot.

• Meets: 1st Sunday of every month,
• Time: 7-9 p.m.
• Location: Jumping Genius – 22750 Roscoe Blvd., West Hills
  (the corner of Roscoe Blvd. & Fallbrook Ave.)
• Info: Contact us

• Meets: 4th Tuesday evening
• Time: 6:30- 8:00 p.m.
• Info: Becky Estepp
• Location: NEW LOCATION AS OF April 2005:
  Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church
  17010 Pomerado Road, San Diego, CA 92128 - Rooms 22 A&B
• November 29 - Bridgette Anderson, OTR of ACES -
  "Relationship Development Intervention  (RDI)"
• December - no meeting
• January 24, 2006 Kimberley L. Wais, M.A. of Autism Solutions For Kids (ASK)
  "Skills Acquisition Through ABA"

• Meets: 3rd Saturday
• Time: 1:30–4:30 p.m.
• Location: Autism Behavior Consultants -
  1880 Town & Country Road Building B-101,
  Norco, CA 92860.
  Located off the 15 Freeway (Take 2 nd street or 6 th street exit) off Hamner.
• For more information, please contact us
• When:  Saturday, November 19th from 1:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
• Topics: “IDEA 2004: A Discussion of Selected Changes in Special Education Law” AND An Overview of the DAN! Conference - new information!
  

  (NOTE: this is our last meeting at this location, please watch the website and boards for new location announcements.)

• Meets: 3rd Monday of each month
• Location: Whole Foods Market on PCH in Torrance
• Time: 6:30 - 9:00 p.m.
• For more info: Contact us -
• SPECIAL NOTE: This group tends to be an advanced group with biomedical discussions. If you are a newly diagnosed family, you may wish to attend other locations for your first meeting.
  • November 21st - 6:30-7:00: Diet, Supplement, Chelation Q&A
    7:00-9:00: Cooking for the holidays!  We are planning a menu of GF/CF Recipes.  More information to follow. We also have several people who will be reporting on important information they learned at the DAN Conference!

• Meets: 3rd Wednesday of every month
• Time: 6 p.m. "Happy Hour" with GFCF snacks and coffee 6:30-8:30 p.m. Speaker
• Location: Kaweah Delta Multi-Service Center Auditorium, 402 W. Acequia, Visalia
• Information: Please contact Lynne Arnold
• Newly added meeting: COFFE TALK & SUPPORT
  Time: Every Tuesday morning, 9-11 a.m.
  Location: Visalia Coffee Company, 129 E. Main St., Visalia

• Meets: (typically) 2nd Tuesday of each month
• Location: Swain Center - 795 Farmers Lane, Suite 27
  Santa Rosa, CA
• Time: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.
• For more info: For more information, please contact us
  • November 8th: We are showing Dr. Houston’s enzyme video and have samples
  • December 13th: Stephanie McGlynn - Marriage & Family Therapist

By JUDY L. THOMAS

The Kansas City Star

Once considered rare, autism — a collection of neurologically based developmental disorders characterized by social withdrawal and repetitive behaviors — now afflicts 1 in 166 American children.

What’s more, the Autism Society of America estimates that the number of autistic children is growing by 10 percent to 17 percent every year.

U.S. Department of Education statistics show that in the past decade the number of children ages 6-21 who were diagnosed with autism and served under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act increased more than 500 percent.

In Kansas, the number of children served in 1993 was 147. In 2003, the number was 993, a 575 percent increase. In Missouri, 399 children were served in 1993, compared with 2,664 in 2003, a 568 percent increase.

“It is obvious from all accounts that there is a crisis in the United States regarding the dramatic rise in autism rates and the resulting strain placed on families, the education system, and state Medicaid and disability programs,” a congressional report concluded in 2003. “A further crisis will ensue in the next two decades when we see an explosion in the need for adult services and long-term housing.”

The cause of autism has been hotly debated for years. Many experts think it involves a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

One theory is that the increase of mercury in childhood vaccines may have triggered a response in children who were genetically predisposed to being more vulnerable to neurological damage from mercury. But government health officials say that research indicates no connection between mercury in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders.

The issue intensified in 1999, when health officials announced that thimerosal — a compound that is 49.6 percent mercury by weight — no longer would be used as a preservative in children’s vaccines. They stressed, however, that the action was merely precautionary.

But those who think there is a correlation between mercury and autism note that the alarming growth in autism cases coincided with an increase in the number of recommended childhood vaccines that contained thimerosal.

Throughout most of the 20th century, children were not required to receive many vaccines. The only vaccine routinely given to infants that contained thimerosal was the DTP vaccine. It contained 25 micrograms of ethylmercury and was administered three times in the first six months of life, with a total of four times in two years.

But in 1991, when the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began recommending the hepatitis B vaccine and increased the doses of Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) vaccine, the amount of mercury exposure to infants increased significantly.

Many Hib vaccines contained 25 micrograms of mercury and, like the DTP vaccines, were given three times in the first six months and a total of four times in the first two years. The hepatitis B vaccine contained 12.5 micrograms of mercury and was given shortly after birth, then two more times in the first six months of life.

That means babies receiving the recommended vaccines at their checkups went from getting 25 micrograms of mercury in one day to up to 62.5 micrograms in one day.

The daily limit set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is 0.1 microgram of methylmercury for every kilogram of body weight. For an 11-pound baby — about the weight of a 2-month old — the daily limit would have been about 0.5 micrograms. So that baby would have received 125 times the EPA’s daily threshold.

How did this happen?

In 1997, Congress ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine the effects of mercury on the human body through foods and drugs.

But when the agency examined the amounts of ethylmercury being injected into children, it faced a problem: The effects of ethylmercury had not been studied as extensively as methylmercury — the kind found in seafood — and the government had not established safety limits for ethylmercury exposure.

As a result, the agency ended up comparing the exposure from the vaccines with the federal limits for methylmercury exposure. And what they found was that the cumulative amount of mercury in the vaccines exceeded the EPA’s threshold.

“For years, nobody sat down to do the math to figure it out,” said U.S. Rep. Dave Weldon, a Florida Republican who has introduced legislation in Congress to ban the use of mercury in childhood vaccines.

That delayed discovery led the FDA and other agencies in 1999 to recommend, but not order, the removal of thimerosal from most childhood vaccines.

A June 29, 1999, e-mail sent to colleagues by a former senior FDA official said the news would “raise questions about FDA being ‘asleep at the switch’ for decades by allowing a potentially hazardous compound to remain in many childhood vaccines, and not forcing manufacturers to exclude it from new products.”

“We must keep in mind that the dose of ethylmercury was not generated by ‘rocket science’: conversion of the percentage of thimerosal to actual ug (micrograms) of mercury involves 9th grade algebra,” the FDA official wrote. “What took the FDA so long to do the calculations? Why didn’t CDC and the advisory bodies do these calculations while rapidly expanding the childhood immunization schedule?”

Those who have studied the issue say it could take a few more years before it is known whether thimerosal causes autism.

“Time will tell,” said David Kirby, author of Evidence of Harm, a new book about the controversy over mercury in vaccines. “One way or another, this is all going to come out.”

“WE HAVE THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH, BUT NOT THE FREEDOM TO BE HEARD,” SAYS ONE PARENT AFTER BEING THROWN OUT OF CONFERENCE IN DC

Washington, DC – On Saturday morning, six parents and an 11-year-old child were removed from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Convention. They were escorted by security officers after being told by coordinators that they were not welcome. The parents, two of which are medical professionals, were pre-registered to work at a booth and hand out materials to pediatricians about autism. Two camera crews were also escorted out prior to the ouster of the parent group so that the AAP's actions could not be recorded by the media.

According to parents, Cynthia Airhart, AAP Director of Division of Convention and Meeting Services, said that even though the group was pre-registered, their badges would not be issued because the group had broken the AAP rule of disseminating information at a demonstration outside of the conference. When it was pointed out to her that not all of the parents had done so, she changed her reason for banning them and said it was because they took part in Friday’s “Power of Parents” rally, a non-hostile and family-friendly event on Capitol Hill which focused on the association between mercury and autistic-like symptoms.

One of those asked to leave was an 11 year old child who had been previously diagnosed with autism and was subsequently found to have suffered from mercury toxicity. After biomedical treatments aimed at correcting the many known sequela of mercury exposure, the child has made remarkable improvement. His plan was to hand brochures to doctors in order to spread awareness about autism and the potential for effective biomedical treatments. After he was escorted from the premises, the young boy was terribly upset. “He only wanted to help raise awareness and felt like he had failed in doing so,” said his mother. "It is a sad day when a child is asked to leave a meeting which is supposed to be about the care of children."

Not all participants of the conference agreed with AAP’s actions. Many of the pediatricians were surprised and gave the escorted parents words of encouragement for their work in speaking about the disorder. Many also signed a petition at the booth.

Rita Shreffler was allowed to stay, but was accused of stealing someone else’s badge in order to enter the conference. After she showed proper identification, Ms. Shreffler, a mother of two vaccine-injured children, was followed around the conference for the remainder of the day. “I feel as though the AAP violated our civil rights and grossly overreacted to an embarrassing level,” says Shreffler.

Other parents expressed similar dismay over first amendment rights violations after being escorted out by AAP security for wearing T-shirts with messages regarding the role of mercury-containing vaccines in the development of their children's neurological disorders.

Parents traveled from as far away as Hawaii to have the opportunity to address pediatricians and ask for help for their autistic children. Several political figures were also on the list to be banned. Although Congressman Dave Weldon, Congressman Dan Burton, Senator Debbie Stabenow and Representative Carolyn Maloney had no intention of going to the conference, the AAP stated that they would be turned away after delivering speeches at Friday’s rally.

“We came here today asking for help for our injured children. We brought with us relevant new research and information that the AAP denied its members access to. Why?” asks parent and president of the National Autism Association, Wendy Fournier. "The AAP should be ashamed of the treatment we received here today. I hope its members will look beyond their leadership in search of treatment options for their patients with autism.”

Last year, the AAP refused to print an ad in their journal that thanked pediatricians for their work and dedication to the autism cause and asked them to request mercury-free vaccines from vendors. Just this year, the New York AAP fought a measure that, starting in 2008, would limit mercury exposure in vaccines given to children under three and pregnant women. Governor Pataki was asked by the AAP to veto the measure after it passed unanimously in the State Senate and passed 147-3 in the State Assembly.

For more information on autism, visit www.nationalautism.org.

By Dan Olmsted, UPI Senior Editor
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi/20051010-085118-3002r.htm

      In our last column, "A whole-body illness," we wrote: "Something is medically wrong with many, many autistic children. To be more precise, many things are wrong with them. Yet autism is defined by the health authorities as a mental disorder, diagnosed solely by observation."

      That prompted lots of e-mails from parents describing all kinds of ailments that, taken together, suggest a pattern of pervasive illness in some people who have autism.

      With the American Academy of Pediatrics now holding its annual convention in Washington, we decided to share some excerpts and ask two questions they might want to address: What is wrong with these kids, and why are so many parents so angry at so many of you?

      --

      My 14-year-old son with Asperger's Syndrome has several things in common with other parents that I know with kids in the Autistic Spectrum.       

1. Abnormal Immune System. He has asthma and is allergic to dust, animals, pollen, and mold. He has gotten allergy shots since he was six and must have them bimonthly.

      2. Abnormal Gastrointestinal System. He has recurrent bouts of diarrhea with fever and stomach aches, and occasional vomiting. All tests come back negative. Has very large amounts of gas.

      3. Red ears. His ears become beet red and are very hot to the touch for no apparent reason.

      All these main symptoms are common in the AS children that I know.

      --

      I would just like to add that my 13-year-old son, newly diagnosed as high-functioning autistic, has had immune problems his whole life. He had a huge history of ear infections (tubes inserted by 11 months old), inexplicable high fevers (105 plus) with no other symptoms, a histiocytoma (tumor in his femur, immune system related) and most recently a halo nevus (immune system attacking a mole on his back).

      He has a large list of learning disabilities, but I've had trouble finding a doctor that can add all of this up. I think each thing adds up to the whole of him being autistic, but the doctors only see each individual problem for what it is.

      --

      I just wanted to add my testimony to those whom you quoted. Our son is 4.5 and was diagnosed with autism two years ago immediately following a series of ear infections, the most severe of which left enough fluid in his ears to cause moderate hearing loss. I had always suspected that his autism was caused by something physical, some illness in his body, but none of the professionals we consulted took my suspicions seriously.

      Then about 10 months ago we had our first consultation with a DAN doctor (Defeat Autism Now doctors use biomedical treatments for autism symptoms).

     We went through many tests to determine our child's physical state, and we took him off casein and gluten and began vitamin therapy.

      Within three weeks after changing his diet, he began to speak in full sentences, and actually look at us and respond to us when we asked him questions. We are continuing with biomedical treatments and he is continuing to improve.

      No one can tell me that his abrupt, dramatic turnaround was simply coincidental with starting this biomedical treatment. I know that my little guy, like many other children diagnosed with autism, has some serious health issues that are impairing his ability to communicate and interact. Thank you for bringing these issues into the mainstream.

      --

      My son also shows allergies by both blood and skin tests to every food he eats, has ever eaten, and many he has never tried. When two years old, an Ig panel was run for an unrelated condition (pneumonia) -- IgE levels 10,000 times above normal.

      --

      "Autism is a disease that affects the immune, GI and central nervous system" -- This is our experience absolutely.

      Our son is now adult, 22 years old. We continue to try to find things to help him. He was in and out of hospitals and doctors' offices for the first few years of his life. We've just about given up on regular medicine at this point as our son is allergic to most drugs anyway.

      --

      I would agree that autism has some form of physical symptoms as well. My son who is sixteen has had chronic ear infections up to about seven or eight. He was on so many antibiotics that I got tired of filling the prescriptions and stopped at one point. The ear infections seemed to clear up on their own.

      He has had many rashes due to drugs he has been given such as codeine for tonsillitis, and penicillin. He has food allergies. He has learned what foods agree with him and ones that do not. All trial and error on his own.

      Sometimes he does not appear to be as "autistic" as other times. He is not retarded but he struggles socially.

      We don't go to doctors anymore. I don't like being bullied and made to feel stupid. I would only go to a doctor for accident-related events.

      --

      My nine-year-old grandson had numerous ear infections when he was about 15 months old and a two-week-long bout of diarrhea as well. He has only said a word or two since then, so he can't tell us how he feels. He puts his fingers in his ears a lot, so he must be supersensitive to sound (I’ve seen a few other autistic children do this as well).

      His ears and sometimes his face also turn red a number of times during the day (but my 88-year-old mother apparently has had that symptom although she has always been incredibly healthy). He has good days when he seems more normal" to us and lifts our spirits, but on other days I know he is not feeling well because he is more short-tempered about everything.

      --

      I have a 20 year old autistic daughter. I cannot believe the lack of understanding associated with this condition! I thought I was the only one to notice all these other "trends." I am not a doctor but after 20 years of this I feel like I could take a test and get my degree within the week.

      Doctors and scientists obviously are NOT listening to parents.

      My daughter has always had bowel issues, swallowing problems, allergies, ear infections and, though youthful genes run in my family, she looks 12 at the age of 20. Now as she is becoming a young woman, it has become painfully obvious to me that hormones are wreaking havoc on my precious daughter. The one "expert" I spoke with about this subject knew nothing.

      I will not, and cannot afford to, put my daughter through the insanity of the medical system, trying to find a doctor that knows what they are doing. We deal with her autism and its adverse symptoms with a holistic agenda. We control her diet and use supplements, and maintain a very open and honest line of communication.

      Which is almost an oxymoron. That communication consists of me digging and dragging bits and pieces of information out of her and putting it together like a puzzle. I maintain a constant vigil of reading and listening to all the latest research and information. The most accurate and effective information I have ever attained is the experience of other parents.

      Why can't medical science see the obvious?

      --

      This ongoing series on the roots and rise of autism welcomes reader comments. E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com

The Age of Autism: 'My child is toxic'
By DAN OLMSTED

This column receives a welcome avalanche of correspondence, but our recent discussion of autism as a "whole-body illness" has generated more e-mail and faster than any other topic we've considered.

The mail comes mostly in three varieties -- parents telling their own tales of battling multiple illnesses and disorders in their autistic children; describing what they believe to be significant improvement through biomedical approaches; and venting anger at pediatricians for failing to see the disorder the way they do.

Matt Mester of Morganville, N.J., neatly summed up those aspects: "My child is toxic and needs to be detoxified." Here is his letter.

As a father of a 5 1/2-year-old boy diagnosed with autism at age 2, I have followed your series very closely.

My son also exhibits a series of biomedical problems that are completely out of the ordinary compared to my other 2 children (both neuro-typical), not to mention my wife and myself. Jack is virtually non-verbal and would be classified as severe, although thankfully Jack is not self-destructive and he is a happy boy.

He cannot tolerate dairy or soy, has had chronic constipation since infancy, and has terrible seasonal allergies. Like too many other children, Jack has regressive autism, which became apparent at approximately 18 months of age when he lost his language as well as his interest in the world.

Thankfully, the medical science field has progressed since he was first diagnosed 3 years ago, and we are seeing our first bit of significant improvement in Jack since we started Methyl B-12 shots and glutathione treatments this past summer.

In addition, a very recent blood test has revealed an underlying metabolic problem that will apparently need to be addressed -- we are still awaiting detailed results of a series of tests to lead us in the right medical direction.

I'd like to specifically comment on a statement published in your most recent article, quoting a parent: "Autism is a disease that affects the immune, GI and central nervous system." I honestly disagree with this opinion and offer the opposite conclusion.

In my humble opinion, there is no such thing as autism. Autism is a series of symptoms caused by one of a number of underlying medical issues -- most highly related to metabolic or detoxification problems. These problems are more than likely genetic, yet triggered by an environmental cause.

I believe that each child needs to be individually diagnosed and tested, as autism is a very personal disease, therefore studying and revealing as many possible treatment paths is the right thing to do. There is no cure-all, rather there are a number of paths that must be followed until you find the right one. And unfortunately, all of the paths have yet to be identified.

While I'm not certain that thimerosal (a mercury-based vaccine preservative) or mercury caused my son's symptoms to appear, I'm becoming more and more certain that my child is, for lack of a better word, toxic, and needs to be detoxified. His improvement with B-12 and glutathione is proving it to me once and for all.

Here is another representative letter, from Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Haite of Kingston, Mass.

We are certain there are medical issues at the forefront of our ten-year-old son's autism. Sadly, they were missed by mainstream doctors for most of his early years. When we received his diagnosis there were no blood tests, screenings or medical work-ups. Most simply advised therapeutic services which in turn had to be obtained through adversarial means with our school district.

As we watched our son physically decline and had our concerns dismissed time and time again, my husband and I often thought of just driving to the emergency room of a major hospital in Boston and refusing to leave until we had answers.

Instead in 2001, I wrote the exact same letter to my son's physician, his neurologist and a doctor whom I had never met, but heard was having success treating children on the spectrum. The letter outlined all our concerns regarding ear infections, frequent antibiotic use, a multiple-vaccination schedule, suspected food intolerances, eczema-type skin rashes, pale skin coloring, the inability to tan or burn, imbalance of bowel ecology, poor protein digestion, chronic diarrhea followed by episodes of constipation, and malabsorption issues.

Further, our son presented with no protective antibody to Hepatitis B and elevated titers to measles. He also had nutritional and metabolic deficiencies as well as elevated HHV-6 and heavy metal toxicity. We did not receive any response from the aforementioned pediatrician and neurologist.

Thankfully, the physician we never met, Dr. Jacquelyn McCandless, responded to our request. She reviewed his entire medical history from birth and validated most if not all of our concerns. She recommended further testing and proposed treatment protocols that was the first real medical attention our son ever received. Improvements followed and we continue to address these issues today.

We parents have every reason to be angry with the AAP ( American Academy of Pediatrics), but frankly we don't have time for that, because of the intense commitment to help our son. It is a double tragedy ... not only in what we believe to be the root cause of our son's autism (thimerosal/vaccine additive connection) but the way we were treated along the way.

Initially, we completely stepped up to our parental roles and did not wallow in "How did this happen?" but rather "How do we help?" The AAP did not. Ironically, it was only until we did the work to understand "how this happened" that we could truly help our son.

We struggle daily to work with and celebrate gains made ... but perhaps our son's treatment and outcome potential would be far less challenging had our concerns not been dismissed early on.

Last, here is a letter that suggests why a sense of urgency and openness is so desperately needed in dealing with a disorder that the CDC says afflicts 1 in 166 American kids. We withheld the name.

My son is 7 years old and I'm concerned about his future as an autistic adult. A little at a time I'm beginning to realize that his autistic behaviors are not changing that much, and that as he grows, he's becoming a larger body with the same behaviors.

I saw (ABC TV's) "Nightline" the other night and, for the first time, saw an autistic adult. There is no information out there on the subjects of teen years and adult years, and what to expect for elderly years for autistic children. I cannot bear the thought of my son in a mental institution just to have a place to live when he grows old.

For now, we've started a trust fund for him so that maybe when he becomes old enough, he'll have money to have someone take care of him when we're gone. Is this the right thing to do? What else do I need to do?

Readers who have a constructive response to this father are invited to offer it via this column.
E-mail: dolmsted@upi.com

Chilling New Details

ALISO VIEJO - Internet messages left by William Freund before he killed two neighbors and himself in Aliso Viejo indicate he was an anguished Asperger's syndrome sufferer crying out for help, it was reported today.

The disease, caused by a neurological disorder, often triggers depression and suicidal thoughts but is seldom marked by violence. Sufferers are often presumed to be rude, and while it is subtler than autism, Asperger's can be emotionally crippling, according to experts quoted by the Los Angeles Times.

This month, Freund revealed his anguish and frustration in more than two dozen messages on wrongplanet.net, a Web site created by people with Asperger's as a place where they can post comments, share experiences and talk in chat rooms, The Times reported

Members of the online Asperger's community tried to reassure Freund and offer suggestions, and volunteer moderators tried in vain to find his parents, according to The Times.

In his messages, Freund asked for a "real life" friend, said he was contemplating suicide, revealed he had bought a shotgun and threatened to start "a Terror Campaign to hurt those that have hurt me," according to The Times.

Authorities say Freund donned a dark cape and paintball mask Saturday morning, entered a neighboring house armed with a shotgun and killed Christina Smith, 22, and her father, Vernon, 45. He allegedly also shot at a house across the street, tried to fire at a neighbor, then walked home and killed himself.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department has said it is looking into Freund's mental health to explain the slayings.

(Editors note: my heart is in my throat writing you all a note about this absolutely tragedy. Words cannot express my sadness of what lead up to this terrifying day and this young man’s actions. I only wish I could have known him and his family. I wish there was something we could do to protect our kids, show them love and build a better community so we can all support each other. )