Navigating Autism: A Mother’s Experience

Interview with Michelle M Guppy on Autism, Vaccine Injury, Medical Denial, Advocacy, Long-Term Health Challenges, and Much More.

I’m deeply grateful to Michelle Guppy for taking the time to share her and Brandon’s story with such honesty, vulnerability, and detail. Michelle’s journey as a mother navigating the challenges of severe autism has been shaped by difficult medical experiences, unanswered questions, and a relentless pursuit of real care for her son. In this interview, she reflects on the early signs of Brandon’s health decline, the medical interventions that compounded his struggles, and the systemic failures that not only dismissed his injuries but actively denied their cause—forcing her to search for answers outside of mainstream medicine.

Through years of advocacy, Michelle has gained a perspective that many parents only come to in hindsight—one that challenges the standard medical narrative on autism and vaccine injury. Despite clear patterns of harm, the medical system refuses to acknowledge vaccine injury, leaving families to bear the financial, emotional, and physical toll of a crisis it won’t admit exists. This conversation is not just about one family’s experience; it’s about the larger reality faced by countless parents who are gaslit, dismissed, and left without real help. Michelle’s insights offer hard-earned wisdom for those questioning a system that prioritizes denial over accountability.

With thanks to Michelle M Guppy.

1. Michelle, you describe your son’s health decline beginning with the first unnecessary medical interventions—circumcision, Hep B, antibiotics, and vaccines. Looking back, what were the first signs that something was wrong, and when did you begin to see the pattern?

“Looking back” is the key word with that. I had no clue what was happening until long after it happened. Probably somewhere when Brandon was 2-3 years old, perhaps a bit older – when I stumbled across a friend who had a son with autism and she told me of internet “autism” groups of mothers and doctors and researchers. Studying those links and resources – was my “A-ha” moment in looking back and seeing what was happening to my son all those months from newborn to toddler. Again I’m not sure of what “date” I put it all together, but one day after all my son’s medical records, all the progress notes from Pediatricians visits, arrived that I requested --- I took those doctor visits and put them side by side with each date of vaccination. There was a clear timeline of a doctor visit for some illness after each “well visit” for vaccinations. I then began to expand that document to include all specialty testing, consultations, all of it on that rabbit hole to find what was “wrong” with my son. It’s a clear timeline of injury and abnormal results that had no explanation --- unless you looked back at earlier timelines to see that after the HebB – he went to doctor for thrush. After the next one --- we went to doctor for eczema. After the next ones --- otitis media. Antibiotics, more vaccines, more otitis media, more antibiotics. I think the “straw” that flipped the switch was the day he went in to doctor with fever, goopy nose, had been on antibiotics --- and still that day they gave me multiple vaccinations.

From that point his development froze and chronic diarrhea began.

Again, looking back, I have a series of pictures of him before “the autism look” where he was a happy baby smiling – wearing hats --- and at some point the pictures changed to that blank stare and sensory nightmare of not being able to wear a hat or have anything or anyone touching his head. You see the hand in his mouth biting in frustration. That look where there’s no spark anymore. It’s a clear point of no return.

Our Pediatrician was actually better than us at seeing he wasn’t hitting developmental milestones. He did get us in Early Childhood Intervention. But that’s all he did.

For me, again looking back, he became sensory defensive, preferred banging his head on the wall over anything else pretty much. More interested in the ribbon on the Christmas present than the toy inside it.

It was more a “slow boil” on the inside before anything noticeable on the outside so to speak. But once the outside manifested, it was hard to deny.

2. Thrush, eczema, ear infections, antibiotics, more vaccines—each step added to his toxic burden. Why do you think doctors fail to recognize these cascading health issues as red flags?

I wish I knew. With the films VAXXED – all 3 of those documentaries (my son is in VAXXED II) share from nurses and doctors who knew what was happening. I’m sure many do, did. But it’s that “secret we shall not share” kind of mentality for fear of backlash. For others like my Pediatrician --- I don’t think they receive any training in vaccines, vaccine injury, how to recognize it, nor proper safety in who should and shouldn’t get them, when they should or shouldn’t. Like my son, he received vaccines while active eczema and as we now know – anyone with eczema should NOT be vaccinated. Yet my son was. He was vaccinated while sick with fever. While on antibiotics. With an infection. All of it wrong. But I feel the mentality is “vaccinate no matter what” and so they did without ever considering when or why they shouldn’t. Nor the signs of adverse vaccine reaction. I doubt any Pediatrician in typical practices has ever even read the list of adverse vaccine reactions in the insert.

3. You trusted the pediatrician’s advice on vaccines, Tylenol, and fluoride, only to later realize how each one compounded the problem. What do you wish you had known before following those recommendations?

That’s a tough question because it assumes there was some base of knowledge to know of regarding those things. I simply wish I knew not to take them, the downside of taking them – much like I wish I knew “the other side of the story” regarding the necessity of vaccines and most especially the great harm from them where chronic, debilitation, lifelong diseases can replace that acute, normal, childhood febrile illness. I guess greater informed consent from those recommending those things. But then again much like the very vaccine policy they are mandated to follow – I don’t think “they” knew of the harm of doing those things they recommended. I think this falls on the NIH, CDC, and those agencies that should be transparent and without bias in their recommendation and licensing of these products. I wish I had known my Pediatrician had all the facts before he recommended those things. I wish I had the benefit of all the independent groups that advised against those things. I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish I hadn’t done those things. Any of them.

4. Your son’s complete developmental freeze and speech regression at 18 months was a devastating turning point. What was the response from doctors, and how did they explain (or dismiss) what had happened?

This will be the shortest answer yet, nothing. My Pediatrician referred me to a psychologist for my son’s behaviors. Basically said, “Go home and love your child, he’ll likely end up in an institution one day.” The Psychiatrist I took my son to said, “He’ll have it easier than most, he looks normal.”
At the time of formal diagnosis, those were the treatment plans I was given by the medical establishment.

Specialists I was referred to did no better. Abnormal results had no explanation, seizures no explanation, and the gem of all gems, “The chronic skin-burning diarrhea is just autism.”

5. You mention that vaccine injury is just the beginning of a long battle—because the medical system refuses to help and insurance won’t cover effective treatments. What have been the biggest roadblocks in getting real care for your son?

Insurance and money and knowledge from the medical system. Again it was those independent groups I researched as they were my lifeline – all the things they had said to try, recommendations of treatments, supplements, etc --- none of which were covered by insurance. I bet we spent 3 lifetimes of income out-of-pocket the best we could. Just the total lack of recognition of “autism” as what it truly is “VACCINE INJURY”. Labeling it as “autism” put it in a “mental” category and not a medical category. No mainstream medical doctor ever saw it as medical or vaccine injury – even though the word “encephalitis” was written in diagnosis from scans or x-rays. It was just an “anomaly” so to speak or simply “autism” and thus no medical treatment. The doctors I was coming to know from the (then) DAN doctor movement (now MAPS) --- were few and far between and certainly not covered by insurance and far out of reach for out-of-pocket. Money is the roadblock. “Autism” aka “vaccine injury” – is not a poor-man’s disease. Nor is it a “middle income” man’s disease. It is for the rich who have money to pursue all that one can pursue.

I will say that while we did pursue as many “out-of-pocket” interventions we could – there came a point we had to realize that severed financial artery would run dry – and we had to make the decision to stop pursuing those things insurance or Medicaid didn’t cover. I will say that nothing since the sucker punch of the realization of our son’s “autism” hurt more than that. To know there had to be an end to the endless spending – is one of the cruelest things to experience.

We had spent thousands of dollars taking our son to be scoped by Wakefield/Krigsman – in Austin. We live in Houston. Just the medical validation of the page of valid medical diagnosis in how bad my son’s gut was – made that expense worth it. I live 30 minutes from a major medical metropolis for children – yet no one there did what that man Krigsman did in Austin in validating, and treating, my son’s severe ulcerative colitis that lined with Wakefield’s research on gut issues in children with autism. With proper treatment, my son’s 10-12 skin-burning diarrhea explosions a day went from that – to the most normal bowel movements we’ve ever seen in a period of 2 years of healing.

6. Over the years, Brandon has developed new health issues, each seemingly linked to that early toxic overload. What patterns have you noticed in his long-term health struggles, and how do you manage them now?

I have a joke with myself. A truly sarcastic purely to save my sanity joke…. It goes something like, “I thought Autism was bad until my son began having seizures.” “I thought seizures were the worse until my son had his first PANDAS attack.” “PANDAS is the cruelest form of torture!” “I wish I could go back to my son just having autism…….and seizures……not ever PANDAS rage ever again, - but instead I have all three.”

In this “Life with Autism, Seizures, & a side of PANDAS” ---- I have not found that thing that helps. I feel he’s gone too long without proper medical intervention or the ability to financially pursue all that could help. The doctors who could help. The travel to get to the doctors who could help. My son cannot fly in a plane. Been there, tried that, never again unless it’s a private jet.

The “pattern” is a clear one for any mainstream medical researcher to pursue should they care enough to. He has a clear cycle of yeast die-off most likely causing the seizures. A clear correlation between the moon cycles and seizures. A clear correlation between the rages and the toxic/viral overload – inflammation of the “brain on fire” autoimmune disorder.

The only tools by the mainstream doctors I’m given are drugs to mask the behavior. Not anything to actually treat what is causing the behaviors. That’s still my million-dollar question --- “How do I help him?”

7. What do most people misunderstand about severe autism, especially in cases like Brandon’s, where medical injury and gut dysfunction play a role?

I feel the greatest tragedy to this generation of “autistic” children (now adults) is that it was called “autism” and not what it is, “Vaccine Injury”. By calling it autism it is assumed it’s some kind of mental disorder or thanks to the “Asperger” population who can speak and live independently – simply a “quirk”. To put those like my son who are clearly medically injured by vaccines – in the same category as those who can speak and live independently – is cruel. Most people don’t know what this severe autism is that my son and so many others like him have because they don’t see it. So how could they understand it? It’s hidden. They are in the Special Education Classrooms; they are at home in their own fortress because they can’t go out in society – it’s too much overload for them. They certainly aren’t in the news or written about in the media. They aren’t even acknowledged by their doctors. People who saw them out in society when little simply thought they were brats and had bad parents if they were acting out. But like with my son, there came a time when I could not catch him anymore when he would dart off. There came a point when I simply could not take him out because he was too strong – if he had a PANS rage – I would be helpless and he the victim of someone calling the police or something like that. Those like Brandon are the invisible generation. But they are there.

8. You’ve been outspoken about how social media censors vaccine injury stories. What impact has this had on your advocacy, and what do you think it means for public understanding of autism and medical freedom?

From the very beginning when I realized the horrific travesty that happened to my son, and why, - I decided that with so much I couldn’t do in terms of treatment, I would do the thing I could do --- in sharing the truth. The ugly, horrific, truth in both word and picture. I have a blog, “Life with Autism in Pictures” that shares the pictures of those seizures, those rages, all of it. To which Adult Protective Services has been called because someone who couldn’t handle the truth called them that I was exploiting my son. But I’m not. I know that I would want that truth shared to prevent another from living through it. And so my son’s legacy would be that truth – and I think he would approve. I can’t ask him because vaccine injury took that speech from him. I have been transparent in what happened so that no other mother would have to live this nightmare. Parents need to “see” the other side of that coin that Pediatricians push in vaccination. That is what medical freedom is. And if it continues to get me ridiculous calls to APS, death threats, hate mail, -- so be it. The truth is the truth no matter how inconvenient. I didn’t harm my son, the government did with their mandates and no true informed consent. All I have ever done is sacrifice everything for my son. EVERYTHING. Without the advocacy of truth being allowed to be told, there is no medical freedom.

9. You once described vaccine injury as "trading a week of measles for a lifetime of milestones." How did that realization shift your priorities in advocacy and in life?

I did. I ignorantly traded the milestone of a child overcoming a normal, acute childhood febrile illness for a lifelong chronic, debilitating, milestone-robbing disease. It made me all the more determined to do all I could to prevent another parent from living this nightmare. My “other son” has a perfectly healthy child because of that advocacy – as do many others who have listened and heeded our warnings.

10. The medical establishment continues to push vaccines without full informed consent. What steps do you believe parents should take to protect themselves and their children from going through what you did?

Never go to a well-visit or Pediatrician ever again. There’s no need. Find a family doctor. If your baby has some true genetic disorder/disease – referrals to specialists are readily available. But there is no need to take a well baby to the doctor. My son was born healthy. And before I ever gave him a chance to remain that way --- I put him on that vaccine conveyor belt at the Pediatrician’s. That is my single greatest regret in life. I don’t think any parent will ever get true informed consent at a traditional medical practice office. Especially those offices that get cash-back bonuses for high vaccination rates. Until my dying breath, I will share the truth of what was done to my son in pictures – and in print.

11. In your early years navigating this, you followed every piece of mainstream medical advice—until you realized it was making things worse. What advice do you have for parents who are just starting to question the system?

Leave the system. Find a holistic-based family practice and focus on nutrition, exercise, quality herbal and vitamin supplements for your babies and children. Cook and eat real food. Network with like-minded groups. Believe those who have no financial stake in what they recommend. Always question and research the links that aren’t provided by the government! Find independent information for health.

12. You describe your faith as central to your strength. How has HOPEISM helped you endure the relentless challenges of Brandon’s condition?

My Faith – my HOPEISM – is the only thing that does get me through. It’s hard to convey just how deep that faith has to be unless you are in this trench. The sheer cruelty of watching your son suffer year after year is relentless. The only thing that counters that is the relentless HOPEISM that there is a GOD and that something good will come from all this bad. To me, without that to cling to, why keep clinging? I don’t know how to wake up every morning without knowing God is there – perhaps to not take this “cup” from me – but to be there in the desert with me. To help me carry this cross my son, and I must carry. Much like I think for a prisoner of war who is making scratches of the days on the cell wall to get them through – that something to focus on – surviving another day – another day closer to freedom perhaps ----- I too view my HOPEISM as that mark on the new day to simply get me through. Something to cling to as I wait for the freedom of him in healing here on earth – or in heaven. Without that I don’t see how I could do it. And believe me, some days I question it. It’s too much cruelty. Some days before the rooster crows, I’ve disowned God 3 times. But I come back. And find HIM waiting for me.

13. The trampoline incident illustrates the delicate balance between keeping Brandon safe and letting him experience joy. How do you navigate those decisions in daily life?

We navigate them as they come. Trial and error mainly. Mostly error. We once had an above ground pool. Brandon loves the sensory of water. So, we got an above ground pool in our back yard, as taking him to a public pool was out of the question between his toileting issues and behavioral issues. That was all great until one day he was standing on the deck of the above ground pool and had a seizure. He fell that 5-6 feet down onto our concrete patio. How he didn’t die is a miracle. Obviously, we got rid of the above ground pool the next day. We can’t afford an inground pool – so now our son has no pool. We have a 2-story house, one day we found our son walking on the banister of the 2^nd floor railing over the entry way. Needless to say, that night my husband built rails from the top of the banister to the ceiling and now our entire stairway looks like a jail cell. We once had a deck around the trampoline with a rail to stop someone from falling if they were jumping and bounced to the deck. One day I went out and my spider-monkey “autistic” son was balancing ON THE TOP RAIL. I can’t imagine if he had a seizure and fell from that height. So that moment I took apart the rail. It’s just one series of “been there learned that” continued each and every day.

14. Looking back at your journey, what do you see as the most critical failures of the medical system when it comes to recognizing and treating vaccine injury?

Not diagnosing it as it is. Vaccine Injury. Not recognizing it as what it is, vaccine injury and not autism. Not treating it as such with the medical code of vaccine injury where all treatments are covered by insurance and Medicaid. Not educating those in medical school about VAERS and vaccine injury. Not giving those doctors-to-be a vaccine insert and making them read and recognize all those injuries listed in that insert.

15. If you could change one law, policy, or medical practice to prevent more children from experiencing what your son has endured, what would it be and why?

Revoke the liability shield of vaccine manufacturers. They should be paying for every treatment for my son, every supplement, every support program, and his lifelong care. Not me. Along with that is making the process of vaccine count public. And I think if you do that --- the other answer to this question in ending vaccine mandates – will take care of itself. No parent who knows the full truth, would ever vaccinate again, ever.

Here is my one blog on "Autism Awareness" per say. I asked all my family to share insight -- I named it "30 Steps in our Shoes"...There are 30 posts.
https://30daysofautismawareness.blogspot.com/2012/04/step-one-leap-of-faith.html

Life with Autism in Pictures:
https://lifewithautisminpictures.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-pain-of-autism.html

From hell to HOPEISM:
https://michellemguppy.blogspot.com/2018/04/is-my-suffering-showing.html

My "HOPEISM" Blog of Faith:
http://godsworddaybyday.blogspot.com/2014/11/broken-bread-and-poured-out-wine.html

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