Dr. Bernard Rimland passed away just a few days before this past\u00a0 Thanksgiving and will be mourned by many.\u00a0 At times controversial, always searching for answers, he changed the way autism was viewed\u00a0 worldwide. Those of us who knew him as Bernie will always feel a twinge of sorrow around this holiday, a reminder of how\u00a0 much we have\u00a0 to thank this pioneer who\u00a0 played\u00a0 David to the medical establishment\u2019s Goliath.\u00a0 As\u00a0 research would prove, fighting Goliath\u00a0 was not a lost cause\u00a0 but a righteous endeavor.<\/p>\n
The first time I heard\u00a0 Dr. Bernard Rimland\u2019s name\u00a0 was the\u00a0 day after a visit with my son to a psychoanalyst\u00a0 for the only treatment on offer for autism\u00a0 in Paris at the time. The bookshelf in the\u00a0 waiting room\u00a0\u00a0 included\u00a0 a few copies of \u2018The Empty Fortress\u2019 by Bruno\u00a0 Bettleheim,\u00a0\u00a0 who believed that autism was a reaction to bad parenting and expounded\u00a0 the \u2018refrigerator mother\u2019 theory of autism.<\/p>\n
Dr. Rimland\u2019s\u00a0 book,\u00a0 \u2018Infantile Autism: The Syndrome and Its Implications for a Neural Theory of Behavior\u2019(1964),\u00a0 would have been a\u00a0 better choice in this psychoanalyst\u2019s\u00a0 waiting room. In his book,\u00a0 Dr. Rimland\u00a0 lambasted\u00a0 the then generally held view that autism was a psychological disorder, brought on by cold and unloving parents. His conclusion was\u00a0 that autism was the result of\u00a0\u00a0 biochemical defects underlain, perhaps, by a genetic predisposition, but ultimately triggered by environmental assaults. This book grew out of the research he did searching for answers when his son, Mark,\u00a0 born in 1956, displayed behaviors which are now easily recognizable as symptoms of autism but were rarely seen in those days.<\/p>\n
The psychoanalyst I visited informed\u00a0 me that\u00a0 my son had autistic behaviors due to separation issues from breast feeding. This she\u00a0 gleaned form watching my son play with two round objects, and\u00a0 crawl across the floor\u00a0 in an attempt to retrieve\u00a0 one that he accidentally dropped.\u00a0 Following this Allen Woodyesque moment, and looking for some\u00a0 useful advice, I called an old friend and former colleague from a state hospital\u00a0 for the developmentally disabled in California.\u00a0\u00a0 She gave me the telephone number\u00a0 for\u00a0 the Autism Research Institute, the non-profit\u00a0 founded by Dr.Bernard Rimland in 1967.<\/p>\n
Many\u00a0 are familiar with\u00a0 Rimland and know that his autistic son, Mark (now 50 and an accomplished artist),\u00a0 was the impetus for Rimland making the field of autism his life\u2019s work,\u00a0 yet few know from where he got his unrelenting fighting spirit.\u00a0 It most probably came from\u00a0 one of his maternal uncles.\u00a0 Rimland\u00a0 once recounted to a journalist from the San Diego Jewish Journal, “My mother used to tell me about one of her brothers who was a mathematical genius. During the war [World War I], an elderly\u00a0 Jewish gentleman was being harassed by German soldiers. My uncle interceded because he couldn’t stand the injustice. The soldiers beat him and left him there, bleeding to death. My mother would finish this story by telling me, ‘So don’t be like him!’ Instead, it inspired me to fight injustice.”<\/p>\n
Dr. Rimland was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1928. His parents were Russian immigrants who met in Cleveland, married and had a son and a daughter. World War I precipitated their move to the US, and it was another world war that precipitated their move to San Diego where his father had a metalworking job with Convair.\u00a0\u00a0 From the minute he\u00a0 arrived\u00a0 at age 12, Rimland fell in love with San Diego. He once told a reporter “Cleveland had been muggy and dirty. I got here and said, ‘This is heaven, I’m never leaving.”<\/p>\n
Although a college education was not considered a necessary or worthwhile pursuit by\u00a0 his blue-collar family, both Rimland and his sister went on to attend college and to earn graduate degrees. His sister earned a Master\u2019s degree in education and Rimland earned a Master’s in psychology at San Diego State University. For those familiar with Rimland\u2019s work and his fascination with research, methodology and the search for truth, it will come as no surprise that Rimland went on to earn a doctorate from Penn State in experimental psychology and research design.<\/p>\n
In 1951, after college,\u00a0 Bernard married Gloria, the sister of a childhood friend. In 1953, after he received his Ph.D. he worked\u00a0 with the Navy at its Personnel and Training Research Laboratory in Point Loma, San Diego as the director of the Personnel Measurement Research Department.<\/p>\n
When his son Mark was born, their tranquil\u00a0 life changed. \u201cFrom the moment Mark was born, everyone noticed he was different,”\u00a0 Rimland\u00a0 recounted to\u00a0 a reporter. “He was always screaming at the top of his lungs and nothing would placate him. But no one knew what it was. The pediatricians threw up their hands.”<\/p>\n
His wife, Gloria, remembered having read in one of her college textbooks about a child wandering around, staring into space, and appearing not to recognize people. Rimland\u2019s first step into\u00a0\u00a0 autism\u00a0 was into\u00a0 their garage to find\u00a0 that textbook\u00a0 packed away in box with other college momentos. In the book he found the term \u2018infantile autism\u2019 that described the characteristics his son was displaying.\u00a0 Rimland began studying the disorder, only to find that autism was blamed on \u2018refrigerator mothers\u2019\u00a0 by most of the scientific community, mostly due to the work of Bruno Bettelhim.\u00a0 Knowing that Gloria was an affectionate and caring mother\u00a0 to Mark and his siblings (one brother and one sister) Rimland found this to be ridiculous. As a scientist, he decided to research everything that was out there on the topic.<\/strong><\/p>\n For five years Rimland\u00a0 researched\u00a0 autism in the evenings after his Navy job, long before the internet and faxes, when even photocopy machines were not easily available. “When I started my quest, autism was no less than an obsession,” he once\u00a0 wrote.\u00a0 “I quickly read everything I could find on the subject and hungered for more. This was war. I envisioned autism as a powerful monster that had seized my child. I could afford no errors.”<\/p>\n At the end of five years he had about 400 pages of information amassed. He thought of publishing a paper, but his wife, Gloria, told him he had enough to write\u00a0 a book. Although the\u00a0 medical community for the most part ignored his book \u2018Infantile Autism\u2019 when it was first published, it is now considered a classic by doctors and psychologists (although perhaps not by French psychoanalysts). An interesting tidbit: \u2018Infantile Autism\u2019 was very popular with psychology students and Rimland was once told by a librarian that it was one of the most stolen books off the shelf.<\/strong><\/p>\n After his book was published,\u00a0 Rimland started\u00a0\u00a0 receiving hundreds of letters and\u00a0 phone calls\u00a0\u00a0 from parents\u00a0 searching\u00a0 for answers concerning their children. After\u00a0 work at the Navy every day, he spent hours\u00a0 replying to\u00a0 these queries.\u00a0 He then started the nonprofit Autism Research Institute (ARI), originally named\u00a0\u00a0 Institute for Child Behavior Research,\u00a0 in order to share the latest information on autism research with those interested. The ARI\u00a0\u00a0 became a worldwide network of parents and professionals concerned with analyzing the scientific data for diagnosing, treating and preventing autism.<\/p>\n Dr. Rimland was often at odds with the medical establishment and in the middle of controversy. He was\u00a0 one of the first\u00a0 to\u00a0 conclude that the United States was undergoing an epidemic of autism, that diagnoses rates were climbing, and one of the first to state that mercury and vaccines as well as other environmental and dietary triggers could be a primary culprit in autism.<\/p>\n One of the first treatments investigated by Dr. Rimland was high dose vitamin B6 therapy, and he did this based on reports from parents of autistic children. Stephen Edelson, Ph.D,\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. Rimland\u2019s close friend and colleague for many years and now Director of ARI,\u00a0 told a reporter, \u201cOne of the most remarkable things about Dr. Rimland is that he realized in the early days that parents held many of the keys to solving the mystery of autism. From day one he listened to them and respected them \u2013 and he followed their lead.\u201d\u00a0 He went on to say that\u00a0 \u2018It\u2019s a key reason why ARI has always led the way in identifying treatments and uncovering the roots of autism.\u201d<\/p>\n Rimland\u00a0 was always\u00a0 putting people he knew in touch with one another if he thought they had something in common besides autism.\u00a0 After a while, I got used to receiving interesting calls from people\u00a0 in different time zones telling me\u00a0 Bernie had given them my phone number.\u00a0 Whenever\u00a0 I\u00a0 heard my fax machine after 10:00 pm, I knew it had to be Bernie sending me a document with some comments scribbled in the margins, either a sardonic remark or an observation about\u00a0 the contents of the document.\u00a0 I knew the phone would ring next, and it would be Bernie, wanting to discuss the fax.<\/p>\n One of Rimland\u2019s major talents and accomplishments\u00a0 was\u00a0 taking an idea,\u00a0 getting people together, and putting\u00a0 that idea\u00a0 into action.\u00a0 In the 1960\u2019s he started what is now the Autism Society of America with a few other parents in order to share information, provide moral support and, in large part,\u00a0 to promote applied behavior analysis \u2013 then known as behavior modification.\u00a0 In the 1990\u2019s Rimland brought together leading researchers from different fields and created a think tank from which grew\u00a0 the now\u00a0 worldwide Defeat Autism Now! movement.\u00a0 Today, DAN! conferences take place a few times a year providing information to parents and training to medical professionals. Currently there are\u00a0 hundreds of DAN!\u00a0 trained physicians experienced in biomedical interventions. The idea that \u2018autism in treatable\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 is an off shoot of the DAN movement and part of Dr. Rimland\u2019s\u00a0 legacy to all\u00a0 impacted by autism and their family.<\/p>\n Another of his many accomplishments is serving as the technical advisor to the Oscar-winning film Rain Man (1988). Although it is true that not all individuals with autism have an incredible talent as depicted in this movie, the film created much\u00a0 awareness about autism in an era when few people had ever seen a person with autism.<\/p>\n Despite all his long hours and importance\u00a0 in the autism community, Rimland\u00a0\u00a0 was always available to\u00a0\u00a0 provide encouragement to others, including unpublished and unknown authors.\u00a0 Although I had contacted the ARI a few times since I was given his\u00a0 phone number those many years ago in France,\u00a0 Bernie did not know me personally. Yet, when I sent him my book proposal for\u00a0 \u2018Autism Spectrum Disorders\u2019 hoping for\u00a0 some encouragement, he called me as soon as he received it and read it. It wasn\u2019t late at night, but it was a Saturday ( the day after I had mailed it), and I remember my disbelief as I heard on the other end of the line \u201cThis is Dr. Bernie Rimland.\u00a0 Are you Chantal? I just got your book proposal and I had to call you right away. This needs to get published. What can I do to help?\u201d<\/p>\n When I first visited Rimland in\u00a0 his office\u00a0 in San Diego, I walked\u00a0 by it a few times before realizing that this dusty\u00a0 old storefront is where he waged\u00a0 his daily battle against autism. The storefront\u00a0 is on Adams Street which is a gentrified and trendy part of town.\u00a0 ARI fits right in with\u00a0 the antique book stores,\u00a0 the vintage\u00a0\u00a0 movie theater\u00a0 and\u00a0 hip restaurants. Trendy, Rimland was not, but his ideas, the work he generated, the research he supported and published, were. This is where new educational therapies, biomedical treatment and dietary interventions were discussed and where Defeat Autism Now! (DAN) had it\u2019s beginnings.\u00a0\u00a0 Inside, the disarray – piles of documents and boxes that covered every inch of floor and desk space –\u00a0 made me wonder how a man whose office\u00a0 looked so rumpled and disorganized\u00a0 could produce such detailed and exacting work. Perhaps the answer lies in what he told a reporter\u00a0 at the San Diego Union Tribune in 1988, \u201cI will never stop until I have found the answer or die, which ever comes first. I will find the answer, and if living to be 150 is what it takes \u2013 I\u2019ll do that, too.\u201d Obviously, Bernie was a man on a mission to defeat autism, and he had no time for the details of every day life such as filed papers and a clean office..<\/p>\n If San Diego feels a little empty\u00a0 now that Bernie is no longer here, I take comfort in knowing that\u00a0 his family and ARI are. It is thanks to Gloria, his dedicated wife who took care of Mark,\u00a0 his siblings and the household schedule,\u00a0 that Dr. Rimland was able to devote so much of his waking time to research.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At ARI, autism research and sharing of information continues.\u00a0 Dr. Stephen Edelson,\u00a0 who\u00a0\u00a0 relocated\u00a0 to San Diego in May 2006,\u00a0 is now Director of ARI, and \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Matt Kabler, Rebecca McKenney,\u00a0 Mallie Odle, and Sue Field\u00a0 continue to keep\u00a0 ARI operations going.<\/p>\n In Paris, this past December, for the fist time, an international conference covering both biomedical treatments and applied behavior analysis took place, organized by the only DAN doctor in France. I miss Bernie, but I take comfort in knowing that before\u00a0 he passed away, he knew\u00a0 that his work\u00a0 was reaching and helping families in this country where the\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018refrigerator mother\u2019\u00a0 theory of autism is still\u00a0 accepted. Marian Wright Edelman,\u00a0 Founder of the Children\u2019s Defense Fund, once said: \u201cYou really can <\/em>change the world if you care enough.\u201d\u00a0 Thank you, Bernie, for caring enough, not only for your son\u00a0 but for all of us.<\/p>\n This was first published in Spectrum Magazine,\u00a0 January 2007<\/em><\/p>\n