Final Reflection

When I started work on this series back in September, I never could have imagined just how large it would become and how much I would get out of the experience. I started just helping out with researching background information regarding vaccines mercury, laws and the vaccine debate. This allowed me to travel to Lexington, Kentucky for the interview with Dr. Boyd Haley, to Springfield, Missouri to gather more information on Missouri’s mercury law from Senator Champion and to meet Dr. Frank Engley here in Columbia. In covering the vaccine debate as part of our series, I realized how passionate people involved are on both sides of the debate and how important it is to cover the sides fairly.

For the series I was also able to go on the shoots for Jeremy, an adult with autism, as well as Will and the Miles family. Seeing what autism was like through the families was an eye opening experience. Before meeting these families, I was not quite sure of what living with autism and having a family affected by autism were like. I was impressed to see how much Jeremy could tell his mother about different cable companies and it was great when he wanted to help me and Mark change the tape in our web video camera during our interview. Meeting the Miles family was another great experience for me. Right when we pulled into the driveway Will was fascinated with the car and some of the camera equipment that we brought along. Seeing family members become emotional during interviews showed me just how real this disorder is and how it not only affects the person with autism but also everyone around them.

I hope that the blog posts along with our First Veiw videos, picture slideshows and Behind the Scenes web packages allowed viewers to see even more of what went in to putting this series together as well as even more of the stories that we may not have had the ability to put directly into the on air series. I am grateful for all of the comments that we have received on the blog the feedback has been phenomenal. It is so great to be able to share this series online with people outside of our viewing area not only because of the work that has gone into this series but also because the topic of autism is so large and discussion on it should be encouraged in communities everywhere.

Coming up we will be putting together an hour-long show for the series and I anticipate that we will be able to share even more with our audience and keep the topic of autism in the spotlight. I am thankful for everyone involved in this series, I hope that we were able to inform the public on issues relating to autism and I am appreciative of this entire experience.

Haley Airs Tonight

The package that introduces Dr. Haley airs tonight. The trip to Lexington, Kentucky was the first trip that the team took for the series, and it's nice to finally see the story air. We decided to include Dr. Boyd Haley in our series because we are addressing the vaccine debate and quite a bit of his research is regarding mercury toxicity, so he is a source for one side of the vaccine debate.

Check out Dr. Haley on the KOMU website to see what we've already posted and check back after the show tonight for more KOMU.com extras as well as a slideshow and a behind the scenes look at the trip.

And this isn't the only time you will see Dr. Haley. We feature him in our investigation portion of the series next week.

Will's Story aired

I'm so excited to see the story about Will Miles air on KOMU.

On the station website www.KOMU.com, we have extras such as a behind the scenes package, a slideshow of pictures from the shoots that we went on for Will and the Miles family, as well as extended interview clips and links to the websites of some of the resources that Will has used.

It was so great to finally see this all come together and I encourage everyone to keep checking the blog and post your comments as well as visit KOMU.com to see everything that we have done for this series.

Please Comment here on this post about Will.
See his story here Will

The crew talks

Here is a preview from the crew about our up coming series. Thanks to Meredith for putting this together!

Will-First View

Here is a sneak peek for our bloggers about our shoot at the Miles. Thanks to Meredith for putting this together!

Will- Meredith

I am so glad to have gotten the opportunity to meet the Miles family and their 3 year old son Will. Watching Will run circles around the KOMU car just after we pulled in and set up some of our equipment showed me just how cute and fun he is.

I really enjoyed being able to observe Will’s occupational therapy, it was a great way for me to see how Will is able to communicate as well as some things that he enjoys doing such as puzzles. I have been on one other shoot with a family and I believe that the combination of the two have really started to open my eyes to what it is really like to be affected in some way by autism.

I felt that the interviews with Will’s parents, Tim and Dee, went extremely well. I loved being able to hear about what his parents hoped for Will years down the line and some of his therapies, as well as about their lives and how Will is such a big part of them. Tim Miles made a point that his son is not bad and they did not do anything wrong, he’s just different, just like some people are right handed and some are left.

As we were doing the interviews Will was occupied with other activities such as his dinner and games on the computer, although there were times that he would come into the living room to see the interview, just out of curiosity. Being able to see just how interested Will was about everything around him was very neat and I enjoyed the visit to his home very much.


I can’t wait to share more of Will and the Miles’ family story with you.

Senator Champion-Meredith

On Tuesday we traveled to Springfield, Missouri to interview Senator Norma Champion about mercury laws relating to vaccines in the state of Missouri.











As a part of the investigative portion of this series reporting on the vaccine debate; It's important for us to have a legislator talking about why mercury laws have been passed. Senator Champion takes the political approach to the issue. She says she doesn't pick a side to support whether vaccines cause autism.... but says she is an advocate for the children and their safety.

During our interview she stressed that there is still much research to be done, but in the meantime there is enough concern to eliminate the mercury from vaccines for the safety of Missouri's children in the future. Senator Champion was very good at articulating the reason for the mercury law in Missouri. She wants to be cautious until further research is done.

Jeremy- Meredith

Every story that I have seen so far on autism seems to only focus on children with autism and what life is like for the child and their family; while this is a very important aspect of autism, children are not the only ones affected, children don't just grow out of their autism and it seems that adults with autism are often overlooked by the media. This is the reason that I was so excited to find out that we had an adult with autism that wanted to be a part of our series.

During the interview Jeremy really did amaze me, he did not have much trouble speaking...he was not disconnected like I thought that he may have been. He opened my eyes and made me realize that there were very few differences between us. He was extremely interested in all of the camera equipment and wanted to know everything that Mark and I were doing during the interview with his mother. A conversation that Jeremy had with his mom about cable companies after the interview surprised me- he knew so much about the technology and could recall the exact pricing for all the different kind of packages off the top of his head- I was impressed, and I still would have been impressed even if Jeremy did not have autism.

I loved being able to go and meet Jeremy, I think that his story is an important one to be told as a part of our series because even though his autism will never go away, he is working hard and appears to be very much like many of the other guys my age that I am around everyday.

Jeremy- First View

Here is a sneak peek for our bloggers. Jeremy is an adult who has autism. Thanks to Mark and Meredith for doing this.

Jeremy Jacobi shoot

Some pics from our shoot last night. Jeremy is an adult with autism...We interviewed him and his mom, Robin. Robin is one of our bloggers...should have first view video, more pics and blogs from Mark and Meredith in a few days....

Pictures from Dr. Engley Shoot

Our bloggers get a sneak peek of pics from the Dr. Engley shoot. Thanks to Meredith and Mark. Don't forget to check out the first view video and blogs...all labeled Dr. Engley

Dr. Engley- Meredith

thought that the interview with Dr. Frank Engley went very well this Sunday. Throughout the interview I shot video for the web, and looking back on the footage later I again noticed how Dr. Engley was very engaging and brought up many interesting points. He was quite a character which made him very enjoyable to interview. Also, he seems to be very knowledgeable in his field of microorganisms and thimerosal and mercury toxicity which I think will come across to viewers. One point that Dr. Engley made throughout this interview, that struck me, was that he did not want to comment much on autism because his research is not necessarily about autism. Because Dr. Engley wanted to focus on the research and facts that he knew, and did not want to comment directly on autism, since he had not directly done research on it, I found him to be a very credible source.

Dr. Engley-First View

For our bloggers, here is your video sneak-peek for Dr. Engley for the series. Blogs and slide shows will be up soon. Thanks to Meredith and Mark for putting this together.

Kentucky-First View

Our bloggers get a sneak peek of our Kentucky Trip thanks to Research Assistants Robert and Meredith. This was all shot by our web camera. Thanks to Robert for editing this.

Introduction-Meredith

Hi Everyone, my name is Meredith and I am one of the research assistants helping out with the Combating Autism from Within series. As I have been working on this story I realized just how complex the world of autism is, I have learned so much so far working on this series and I am looking forward to learning more as we continue.

Since the start of my research I have looked into information concerning the vaccine debate including how many and what types of vaccines a child receives from infancy to the start of schooling. I have also tried to become very knowledgeable about various studies that relate to autism as well as the research of doctors that we interview.

If anyone has any studies or articles that you believe we should look over for the series, please let me know. I look forward to seeing this series unfold and to your feedback.

Kentucky--Meredith

I never thought that just offering a little bit of help around the KOMU station would lead to anything like this. The Kentucky team got back from Lexington last night, and it was such a great experience overall.

Back in August I started to help out Ashley Reynolds with a story that she was planning to do on autism after she received a lot of feedback from a story that aired over the summer. I started my research with basic information about the vaccines that children receive from infancy to the start of school along with the documented amounts of thimerosal in those vaccines. Later on in my research, I looked over all of Dr. Boyd Haley's research along with many other documents that he sent to me to back up his argument. I found a lot of his research about mercury toxicity interesting and that is why it was so exciting to be able to go to Kentucky to do a formal interview with him.

Being able to meet with Dr. Haley was an amazing experience considering how well known he is for his research relating to mercury toxicity and autism. I thought that during the interview Dr. Haley had quite a bit to say and he was very passionate about the issue and he provided evidence to back up his claims. Off camera I had the chance to ask Dr. Haley what he would do if he were in the situation of having to vaccinate an infant family member today, his answer was a little bit of what I expected since he stated he was not anti-vaccines, he said he would vaccinate the child after their first birthday and he would use research to decide which vaccines the child would receive.

I am excited to see how this story turns out after our other interviews with three other doctors with differing viewpoints and families.