What Michael Savage Meant: His Explanation of the Autism Commentary

Last week, a nationally syndicated radio talk show host made controversial comments about autism and autistic children. He has not retracted them, but has explained what he meant.

Michael Savage, host of the radio talk show "Savage Nation", discussed his comments about autism on one of his latest broadcasts. Savage never took back his comments against autism because he felt that they were taken out of context versus his continuous efforts to stop false diagnosis of any diseases and to whom he was targeting the comments towards. Savage had commented that "99 per cent of autism" cases were falsely diagnosed and were due to lack of good parenting. He also claimed that autism was a fraud and a racket. Savage also wrote on his website what he was trying to convey:

"My comments about autism were meant to boldly awaken parents and children to the medical community's attempt to label too many children or adults as 'autistic,'" he wrote on his Web site and read on his broadcast yesterday. "Many children are being victimized by being diagnosed with an 'illness,' which may not exist in all cases. ... Let the truly autistic be treated. Let the falsely diagnosed be free.

Throughout the broadcast, Savage attacked the group responsible for reporting the autism comments to the media, Media Matters.

... I attack falsely diagnosed cases, the misdiagnosed and the outright fraud artists through a bold parody, and Media Matters rips the parody out of context, stirs up the autism community against me, and here we are!"

Media Matters re-printed excerpts of Savage's explanation for his comments. In it, he discusses how he has spent 40 years fighting for the rights of defenseless children, largely because of his brother, Jerome, who was born with brain damage and institutionalized at the age of 5. Jerome died 20 years later. He admitted that his accusation that "99 per cent" of autism cases were fake was a hyperbole.