Michael Fitzpatrick (born 1950) is a libertarian, British general practitioner (GP) and author from

London, UK London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major se ...

. He was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party. Fitzpatrick is known for writing several books and newspaper articles about

controversies in autism Diagnoses of autism have become more frequent since the 1980s, which has led to various controversies about both the cause of autism and the nature of the diagnoses themselves. Whether autism has mainly a genetic or developmental cause, and the ...

, from his perspective as someone who is both a GP and the parent of a son with autism. His book ''Defeating Autism: A Dangerous Delusion'' (2008) describes his views on the rising popularity of "biomedical" treatments for autism, as well as the

MMR vaccine controversy Claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism have been extensively investigated and found to be false. The link was first suggested in the early 1990s and came to public notice largely as a result of the 1998 ''Lancet'' MMR autism fraud ...

. He has held a position as a contrarian on certain scientific issues as he has disputed the health risks of

secondhand smoke Passive smoking is the inhalation of tobacco smoke, called secondhand smoke (SHS), or environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), by persons other than the intended "active" smoker. It occurs when tobacco smoke enters an environment, causing its inhalat ...

, and promoted

AIDS denialism HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while oth ...

.London, Junius, 1988, p. 8 In ''The Truth About the AIDS Panic,'' Michael Fitzpatrick and Don Milligan falsely claimed that there is "no good evidence that Aids is likely to spread rapidly among heterosexuals in the West". Fitzpatrick's books have also focused on the

pseudoscientific Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable claim ...

treatments for autism, such as

Mark Geier Mark R. Geier (born 1948) is an American former physician and controversial professional witness who testified in more than 90 cases regarding allegations of injury or illness caused by vaccines. Since 2011, Geier's medical license has been su ...

's use of

chelation therapy Chelation therapy is a medical procedure that involves the administration of Chelation, chelating agents to remove heavy metals from the body. Chelation therapy has a long history of use in clinical toxicology and remains in use for some very sp ...

and

Lupron Leuprorelin, also known as leuprolide, is a manufactured version of a hormone used to treat prostate cancer, breast cancer, endometriosis, uterine fibroids, as part of transgender hormone therapy, for early puberty, or to perform chemical castra ...

as autism treatments, which Fitzpatrick has criticized as "dehumanising and dangerous." He also condemned the use of

secretin Secretin is a hormone that regulates water homeostasis throughout the body and influences the environment of the duodenum by regulating secretions in the stomach, pancreas, and liver. It is a peptide hormone produced in the S cells of the duode ...

as an autism treatment in his 2004 book ''MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know'', in which he wrote that "the secretin bubble burst" when a

randomized controlled trial A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical te ...

found that it was ineffective. In an interview with ''The Guardian'', he proposed that special diets are appealing to parents of children with autism because so little is known about the cause or possible treatments for autism, "And then someone else comes along and says your doctor's useless, that they know what caused it, and that you can do something about it". Fitzpatrick has criticized ''

Neurotribes ''NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity'' is a book by Steve Silberman that discusses autism and neurodiversity from historic, scientific, and advocacy-based perspectives. ''Neurotribes'' was awarded the Samuel Johnso ...

'' for generalizing about autistic people, noting that most low-functioning autistics need supervised living and experience challenging behavior. He also was skeptical that

Naoki Higashida Naoki (直樹) is a masculine Japanese given name and surname. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese long jumper *Naoki Bandou, voice actor * Naoki Harada (原田直樹, born 1991), Japanese footballer *, Japanese footballer *Naoki Ha ...

, a non-speaking autistic individual, could have written the book ''

The Reason I Jump is a biography attributed to Naoki Higashida, a nonverbal autistic person from Japan. It was first published in Japan in 2007. The English translation, by Keiko Yoshida and her husband, English author David Mitchell, was published in 2013. The ...

'' because of the "scant explanation" of the process Higashida's mother used for helping him write using the character grid and expressed concern that the book "reinforces more myths than it challenges".

Books and chapters

*''The Truth about the AIDS Panic'' (1987) co-authored with Don Milligan. Junius Publications. *''The Tyranny of Health'' (2001).

Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...

. *''MMR and Autism: What Parents Need to Know'' (2004). Routledge. *''Defeating Autism: A Dangerous Delusion'' (2009). Routledge. *"The point is to change it: a short account of the Revolutionary Communist Party", in ''Waiting For The Revolution: the British Far Left from 1956'', edited by Evan Smith and Matthew Worley (2017), pp. 218–237. Manchester University Press.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fitzpatrick, Michael 1950 births Autism researchers HIV/AIDS denialism British medical writers Living people The Guardian journalists English people of Irish descent