MCBDD provides services to those who need a helping hand

If Kasich thinks public union workers have it too good, wait until he sees the MCBDD board offices management staff. These people are unaccountable, even by SB5, and will remain so if we just keep renewing levies to support the status quo.

The MCBDD is top heavy in management and provides Cadillac pensions, healthcare, vacation and sick day benefits to these people instead of spending money to make sure the clients they have been entrusted with are safe. They have assistants to the assistants in the Board Offices building where a private business would only need half of this staff to operate efficiently. I will not vote to again support people who are not needed in an agency that has tragically proven that they are unable to provide for the safety of all the clients they are entrusted with.

Perhaps the money they had at their disposal could have been better used to provide an additional aide or two to prevent tragedies such as the drowning at their showcase Leonard Kirtz School last year. Priorities need to shift from the upper management's creature comforts to the caseworkers and the wellbeing of their clients.

I am tired of constantly having to renew these levies and every time we turn around there is a pay raise after a levy. It is time for accountability and complete transparency when it comes to the MCBDD. I want to know exactly where my money is going and if it is being spent wisely and efficiently. Until then, I am voting NO.

MCBDD is one of the places that deserves our support. It would really hurt the clients if this issue would fail. And they can't communicate their problems very well.

My brother was disabled and my son is disabled - and I can say that as a publicly-funded system, the MCBDD has tightened its belt and makes a real difference in the lives of the most unfortunate.

Believe me - it's not the same everywhere. We've got something good here.

Sorry Paul to hear about your son, but times such as we are in, if we are to ask the public workers to sacrifice, so goes this type of entitlement programs.

Vote No on Issue 4. Time to tighten the belt a little tighter and ask those who work there to contribute more and cut out the golden benefits. It does seem every time one of these levies is approved or renewed, it is raises for everyone?

Remember it is for the children.

How about you people start crying about the Federal government subsidizing free flu vaccines? Or many other vaccines for that matter that are disabling our infants and children? We have money to disable our young citizens (and of course deny damage and call it all on big coincidence), but we have no money to take care of them once disabled. Because the pharmaceutical industry has the money to pad the pockets of our politicians D or R makes no difference. And the luxury to provide all the corrupt studies to say no link between autism and vaccines ....there is your status quo.

Michele Bachman opened up a can of worms by retelling a story of a young girl who became "mentally retarded" after getting the HPV vaccine. She should have said "encephlapathy" which is brain swelling. Our aggressive mandated vaccine schedule is disabling countless thousands of young Americans who will be left vulnerable and in need of a helping hand-for life.

Do a little research beyond CDC propaganda and American Pediatrics Association mouth pieces. People who make their livings off of you fully complying to their out of control vaccine demands. Or doctor millionaries who got rich off of vaccine patents.

Let's go back to vaccine schedules from 25-30 years ago when "autism" was relatively rare. Now, it is so rampant we can't manage it. It will be the biggest intentional medical catastrophe of our lifetimes. Let's vaccinate for truly life threatening diseases with safe vaccines.

I'm curious how much the MCBDD is paying- has paid- or will pay the family of the young 7 year old autistic boy who drowned in their swimming pool during their understaffed summer program 2 summers ago? They certainly deserve to sue and be compensated for the loss of their little boy.

The MCBDD levy should be defeated because it is a waste of money that only goes to pay the salaries of healthy normally functioning adults. I have a sister, two cousins and a son who all fall under MCBDD's "jurisdiction". The only time anyone from MCBDD has been around is to do the required assessments to see if the patient(s) qualify for services. Once their marked down on the MCBDD counts of eligible people in the area, which is then used to "leverage" funds from the Columbus & Washington that the kids see none of, the MCBDD disappears from your life.

As for vaccines, the writer of that propaganda would do well to check their facts. It is lawyers who sue & file vaccination claims that commissioned the studies that tried to draw a link between autism & vaccinations. I say tried because the suits have largely been thrown out of courts and found to be without any merit. Those studies have also been refuted by many more studies that actually follow scientific practices. Finally, we waited and spaced our sons vaccines out, yet he was diagnosed with autism five months before his first first vaccination was administered.

Not that vaccines are 100% safe, effective & without any side effects, they are medical treatments after all and every person should use caution, check facts and discuss all concerns with their doctor(s) before taking any meds. That's common sense, blindly supporting an orginzation because it says it helps disabled individuals is not.

I do know my facts Ytown parent and have researched this topic extensively. Your facts are about the craziest and far fetched ones I have ever heard on the topic. Studies have never been commissioned by lawyers. Vaccine manufacturers conduct their own studies on their products. The CDC has commissioned studies that are generally done by universities that have some kind of ties or funding by pharma. It's all really a super cozy relationship between industry and regulators. Until these studies are funded and conducted by independent researchers we will never have honest answers. There is a special vaccine court called the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program that has paid out billions in vaccine injuries. Autism is not recognized in that "court". Although, autistic individuals have been compensated. It's all about wording. An avalanche of lawsuits were filed all to be turned away because the NVICP would be bankrupted. Vaccine manufacturers have no liability when it comes to their products so you can't directly sue them. And that's thanks to the Supreme court's decision last year in Bruesewitz vs. Wyeth-the one possible loophole was closed. Autistic children and their parents are left dangling in the wind. With a brain disorder that suddenly and simultaneously increased as the mandated vaccine schedule has.

I am having a problem with your facts about your son and his vaccines. You claim to have waited to vaccinate your son and he was diagnosed with autism before his first vaccine was ever administered. So, what was he like 4 or 5 when he got his first vaccine? That almost sounds too weird to be true.

And, autism more than likely has multiple causes. It is after all diagnosed by behaviors. Vaccines are but one cause....in the last 20 plus years probably a major influence. Autism with all the corresponding medical issues.

Andrew Wakefield conducted the only published study that drew any link between autism and vaccines, and yes that study was funded by lawyers with a financial stake (ie. suing drug companies) and those same lawyers paid Andrew Wakefield $750,000 for signing off on the study. This wasn't the first time Wakefield threw professionalism aside for a fat paycheck, which is why he was stripped of his medical license. Wakefield's evidence was/is anecdotal at best and the dozen or more studies that have been done by universities since his have found nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Their anecdotal evidence points the other way -as the number of autism cases didn't skyrocket until after mercury based preservatives where removed from vaccines. None of those scientist are running around proclaiming that failing to vaccinate can led to autism though.

As for the NVICP, most of those cases are thrown out because doctors record the lot numbers of every vaccine administered and all a drug company has to do is pull the documentation showing that the patient was given a thermisol free vaccine and the case is dismissed. Our son started showing symptoms early on, no speech, blank stares, major ambulation & coordination issues, as well as a list as long as my arm of other medical and mental issues.He was diagnosed as being Autistic at 2 years 10 months and had his first vaccination at 3 and a half. Doctors and pharma companies are not blameless, but all the lawyers, scientists, MCBDD boards, state boards, learning centers, and alternate treatment advocates are after the same thing as the pharma corps and doctors, our money. No one involved in treating autism, or anything else, is in it for any other reason than the payday. It doesn't matter where the money comes from, individual pockets, insurers, or taxpayers, as long as they get as large of a portion as they can.

I still don't agree with your facts on the vaccine situation. But, I will agree with you on the reality that people are making lots of money off of autism. And you composed a good list of those who are doing so. Autism is a moneymaker.

Autistic individuals require so many interventions. Multiple therapies-behavioral, speech, and occupational. Lot's 1on 1 is needed. Medical interventions-range from the "type" of autism one has. But, one thing is for sure pharma and groups like Autism Speaks are looking for the development of mediations to control the symptoms. Not to mention the money being made of the medications that are already available and being used "off-label".

So, we now have the fastest growing -once relatively rare disability -autism with all it's massive and intense needs. And less money and resources to manage it.

Scary future for these individuals and their families.

Yes, it can be scary, but only if you accept the dismal picture that is painted of these individual's futures. It doesn't have to be that way, but everyone who is making money off of it wants their future to be bleak. They want parents to "accept that your child will always need basic care" because that gives them a long term client that will generate income for the rest of their life.

We've watched the dialogue and focus change over the last four years from "treatment" and "teaching" to "care" and "comfort". They try to scare parents into not doing certain things -like teaching them to dress themselves, potty train, how to make their own lunch, etc., because if he can do those things then he won't be able to get services when he's an adult.

We've been lucky enough to be surrounded by other parents who have flipped an angry bird at that system & do all the work, day in and day out, to reach the same goals we have for our child -to not need services when he's an adult. Not every kid with autism is able to accomplish that, but a lot of them, especially higher functioning ones, can. They can go to college. They can get jobs. They can write for the Vindicator. They can open their own businesses. It takes a ton of parental involvement and work, which isn't required or advocated for by anyone delivering services & treatments because it would cut out another paying client. So the MCBDD needs a major overhaul before I'll vote for another levy.