Aangirfan (@Aangirfan)

Vernon Coleman Whilst working for The Sunday People, Coleman wrote that if children diagnosed with autism were "stuck up to their necks in a vat full of warm sewage for 10 hours they would soon learn some manners" - and that diagnoses of hyperactivity and autism were "misused by middle-class, aspirational parents to excuse the behaviour of their obnoxious children."[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Coleman Following the article, autism charities received phone calls from distressed parents. The Chairman of the East Anglian Autistic Support Trust, Owen Spencer-Thomas, whose elder son has severe autism, condemned Coleman's remarks as "irresponsible, medically unsound and deeply hurtful" to families that had a child with autism. Spencer-Thomas challenged Coleman to spend 24 hours caring for his son in the presence of fully trained carers who understood the effects of autism. Coleman declined and refused to withdraw his remarks leading to an investigation by the Press Complaints Committee.[29] During his time at the paper, Coleman was again censured by the Press Complaints Commission for making misleading medical claims.[5][30] Coleman became a self-published author in 2004 after Alice's Diary, a book about his cat, was turned down by traditional publishers.[30][8] AIDS denial Writing for The Sun newspaper in 1989, Coleman denied that AIDS was a significant risk to the heterosexual community.[31] He later claimed AIDS is a hoax, writing, "it is now my considered view that the disease we know as AIDS probably doesn't exist and has never existed".[32] Such claims have been rejected by the medical community.[33] On 17 November 1989, The Sun published an article under the headline "Straight sex cannot give you AIDS—official", claiming "the killer disease AIDS can only be caught by homosexuals, bisexuals, junkies or anyone who has received a tainted blood transfusion". The following day, Coleman supported The Sun's claims with an article under the headline "AIDS—The hoax of the century", similarly claiming AIDS was not a significant risk to heterosexuals, that medical companies, doctors and condom manufacturers were conspiring to scare the public and had vested interests in profiteering from public service announcements, and that moral campaigners were attempting to frighten young people into celibacy to establish traditional family values. Coleman also claimed gay activists were "worried that once it was widely known that AIDS was not a major threat to heterosexuals, then funds for AIDS research would fall".[34][31] Journalist David Randall argued in The Universal Journalist that the story was one of the worst cases of journalistic malpractice in recent history.[35] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vernon_Coleman