Michael Fitzpatrick (physician)

Michael Fitzpatrick (born 1950) is a libertarian,[1] British general practitioner (GP) and author from London, United Kingdom. He was a member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.[2] Fitzpatrick is known for writing several books and newspaper articles about controversies in autism, 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.[3]

Neurodiversity paradigm
Philosophy Bodily autonomy Disability rights movement Independent living movement Self-advocacy
Organizations Aspies For Freedom Autism Network International Autistic Self Advocacy Network National Autistic Society
Events Autism Acceptance Day & Month Autism History Month Autistic Pride Day Autscape Disability Day of Mourning Weird Pride Day
Issues Ableism Anti-autism All in a Row Applied behavior analysis Augmentative and alternative communication Autism-friendly Autism Speaks Communication Shutdown Community integration Controversies in autism Deinstitutionalisation Disability-selective abortion Double empathy problem Ethical challenges to autism treatment Eugenics Facilitated communication Filicide Inclusion in education Inclusion as a right Judge Rotenberg Educational Center Ole Ivar Lovaas Social model of disability Societal and cultural aspects of autism Universal Design for Learning
People Alex Plank Ari Ne'eman Damian Milton Daniel Lightwing Devon Price Donna Williams govy Jim Sinclair John Elder Robison Judy Singer Julia Bascom Lydia Brown Mel Baggs Michelle Dawson Morénike Giwa Onaiwu Morton Ann Gernsbacher Roy Richard Grinker Shain Neumeier Stephen Shore Steve Silberman Temple Grandin William Davenport
Films Citizen Autistic Loving Lampposts Neurotypical
Criticism Pro-cure perspective National Council on Severe Autism Matthew Belmonte Manuel Casanova Jill Escher Michael Fitzpatrick Bruce Hall Thomas A. McKean David Miedzianik Jonathan Mitchell Alysson Muotri Jonathan Shestack Alison Singer

He has held a position as a contrarian on certain scientific issues, as he has disputed the health risks of secondhand smoke, and promoted AIDS denialism.[4] In The Truth About the AIDS Panic, Fitzpatrick and Don Milligan falsely claimed that there is "no good evidence that Aids is likely to spread rapidly among heterosexuals in the West".[4]

Fitzpatrick's books have also focused on the pseudoscientific treatments for autism, such as Mark Geier's use of chelation therapy and Lupron as autism treatments, which Fitzpatrick has criticized as "dehumanising and dangerous."[5] He also condemned the use of secretin 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 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".[6]

Fitzpatrick has criticized NeuroTribes for generalizing about autistic people, saying that most low-functioning autistics need supervised living and experience challenging behavior.[7] He also was skeptical that Naoki Higashida, a non-speaking autistic individual, could have written the book The Reason I Jump 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".[8]