#454: Teri Arranga

Teri Arranga, whatever else she might be, is the executive director of AutismOne and the editor-in-chief of Autism Science Digest, which has preciously little to do with science. AutismOne is an annual quackfest (the 2011 edition is described here, where various famous antivaxxers could meet up with quacks, frauds and peddlers of the Secret. Arranga’s most notable personal trait is extreme paranoia pushed to levels of garbled insanity, leading to some curious Expelled-like situations at her arrangements, which illustrates pretty well how and the extent to which the antivaxx movement is developing cultlike tendencies.

Of course, Arranga appears to see conspiracies more or less everywhere, for instance in the attempts to discredit demonstrated fraud Andrew Wakefield. Orac is apparently a pharma shill (after all, he disagrees with Arranga, and everyone who disagrees with her must have a hidden agenda), whereas Rebecca Fisher has been engaging in “concrete acts of aggression” against the antivaxx community.” Arranga does not give any examples, but seems to refer to criticism and disagreement; Arranga's main schtick seems to be that people who criticizes her own attempts to shut down criticism are corporate bullies and thugs, since they disagree with her efforts to have them shut down.

She has apparently also contributed to a book-series called “Cutting-edge Therapies for Autism”, which are apparently supposed to be released annually.

Diagnosis: Hysterically paranoid crank, who – in typical crank vein – has developed the kneejerk reacton of threatening what suggests criticism of her with legal action. Dangerous.