Max Wiznitzer is the director of the Rainbow Autism Center at

Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital is a pediatric acute care Children's hospital, children's teaching hospital located in Cleveland, Ohio. It is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and has a neonatal intensive care ...

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

. He has worked there since 1986. Wiznitzer is also an associate professor of pediatrics and neurology at

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

Early life

Wiznitzer was born in

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

and grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. His parents were Jewish and had immigrated to the United States from

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern, and Southeast Europe, Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, S ...

. From a young age, Wiznitzer was interested in reading about medicine, and often went to the local library to check out books on the topic. Beginning in 5th grade, he never considered any career other than being a doctor. He attended

Lane Technical College Prep High School Lane Tech College Prep High School (often shortened to Lane Tech, full name Albert Grannis Lane Technical College Preparatory High School), is a public 4-year selective enrollment magnet high school located in the Roscoe Village neighborhood on ...

, and became the valedictorian upon his graduation in 1971.

Education

Wiznitzer graduated from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

with a medical degree, and completed 4 years of training in Cincinnati, 3 years of which were in pediatrics; the other year was in developmental pediatrics. During this time, he met his future wife. He then spent three years training in child neurology at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

before finishing up his training with a two-year stint at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he studied disorders of higher cortical function in children.

Autism

Wiznitzer argues that the rise in autism rates is due not to a real increase in the disorder's prevalence, but rather due to broadening of the diagnostic criteria, decreasing age at diagnosis, and other non-environmental factors. He has also stated that autistic children often show improvement over time, saying, "Over 3 to 5 years, you see an improvement in communication skills." Wiznitzer also considers autism to have a strong genetic basis, arguing that autism is genetic in about 10 to 15 percent of cases, and is of the firm opinion that vaccines do not cause autism as postulated by Andrew Wakefield in a fraudulent 1998 paper, having said that "If you can't trust the integrity of the researcher, you can't trust the research" while speaking at

Marietta College Marietta College (MC) is a private liberal arts college in Marietta, Ohio. It offers more than 50 undergraduate majors across the arts, sciences, and engineering, as well as Physician Assistant, Psychology, Clinical Mental Health Counseling, an ...

. With regard to this paper, Wiznitzer has stated that although it has been retracted, "his core group of supporters is not going to let the facts dissuade their beliefs that MMR causes autism."

Autism omnibus trial

In the autism omnibus trial, Wiznitzer reiterated that neither the MMR vaccine nor thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism, nor do both working together. In this trial, Wiznitzer submitted an expert report in which he contended that there he has not seen any evidence of an epidemic of autism in his clinical practice. He also criticized

Marcel Kinsbourne Marcel Kinsbourne (born 1931) is an Austrian-born pediatric Neurology, neurologist and Cognitive neuroscience, cognitive neuroscientist who was an early pioneer in the study of brain lateralization. Kinsbourne obtained his Doctor of Medicine, M.D. d ...

's testimony and report as "speculative and without support," and went on record as saying there was no credible evidence that thimerosal caused autism.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wiznitzer, Max Northwestern University alumni Living people Pediatric neurologists Case Western Reserve University faculty American people of Romanian-Jewish descent Year of birth missing (living people)