WTF?
Was just reading an article in Newsweek about Oprah and people on her show. They were talking about a woman whose son has autism, which the woman firmly believes was caused by childhood immunizations. She says she had a bad feeling about the immunizations, and the doctor gave them anyway, and not long after, "the soul was gone from [her son's] eyes."

If I wrote short stories, there'd be one. We know there's been an increase in cases of autism. We know there's been an increase in the number of children who survive infancy and childhood due to those immunizations. [Theme from Twilight Zone] The children who have autism are those who would have died! [/Theme from Twilight Zone]

Of course I've never heard any sane parent refer to their autistic child as having "the soul gone from [their] eyes." Actually the concept of a parent who believes we have souls saying that her son's is "gone" is more shuddery than anything I've ever read about autism. That's horrifying. How can she parent him capably if she believes that? [Night of the Living Dead theme] What does she think she's raising? [/Night of the Living Dead theme]

(Now there's an interesting question: assuming we have souls, and assuming we can be turned into zombies, do our souls remain, or depart? ...I suppose the literature has covered this, but I'm less fascinated with zombies than is trendy, so the thought never occurred to me before.)

Incidentally if you're curious about autism, there are a couple of obvious starting places for information: if you like to learn from fiction, The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon is an excellent novel by a woman who knows her autistic son's soul is right where it aught to be; or if you prefer nonfiction, then try just about anything by Dr. Temple Grandin, a noted autistic whose soul is, also, right where it ought to be.