Jacob Lawrence Crosby: A Catalog Raisonné (of sorts), 2008 - 2013 Part 1 Introduction and Early Life

[2/12/2012: edited to add: One of my readers suggested that I add the following disclosure, with which I agree. Mr. Crosby and my daughter are four days apart in age.  My daughter identifies as neurodiverse, as a well-remdiated dyslexic.  Her life experiences deeply inform how I veiw Mr. Crosby's writings.]

e Jacob Lawrence Crosby, hereafter Jake Crosby, is a 2007 high school graduate and a 2011 graduate of Brandeis University with a bachelor of arts degree with two major subjects: History and Health: Science Society and Policy. Crosby matriculated in the epidemiology track for Master's Degree in Public Health (MPH) at The George Washington University in the fall of 2011.

Crosby is best known for his writings at the blog, Age of Autism. His published works there began with personal accounts of his experiences with autism, specifically Asperger's Syndrome, and developed into accounts of his confrontations with vaccine advocates and criticisms of reporting on autism causation.

Family, Early Life, and Education
Mr. Crosby was born December 2, 1988 (source) to Frederic G."Giff" Crosby and Nicole Cranberg Crosby.

Mrs. Crosby's father was the highly respected research physicist, inventor, and entrepreneur, Lawrence Cranberg, PhD.

Among Dr.Cranberg's many accomplishments was the invention of the Texas FireFrame, which he built into a thriving business from its invention until his death in late 2012.   The company is located in Austin, Texas.  His daughter Nicole Cranberg Crosby today runs the company.

Nicole Cranberg Crosby was brought up in Texas, and earned a BS in Advertising from the University of Texas.  She then relocated to New York, where worked in advertising from 1978 to 1995. She was named a senior vice president of Doyle Dane Bernback in 1986. In 2010, Mrs. Crosby took over her father's fire grate business.

 Nicole Cranberg Crosby's brother, Jake's uncle, is Alex Cranberg, a highly successful energy industry entrepreneur.  He controls Aspect Energy LLC, and is a controversial recent addition to the board of trustees of the University of Texas (the alma mater for both himself and his sister Nicole).

Jake Crosby's father, Giff Crosby, appears to have spent his entire career in the advertising industry.  According to his LinkedIn profile, Giff Crosby today works for Dentsu America. Previously he was a copywriter for such products as Miracle-Gro (2008).

In 1999, Giff Crosby was employed by DDB (formerly Doyle Dane Bernbach), where he was an Executive Creative Director (ECD) slated to work on such firms as Compaq, Lockheed Martin, and The Bank of New York and new business. That same year, DDB picked up the vaccine maker Merck as a client.

The industry giant Monsanto brought RoundUP, a highly-toxic, carcinogenic weedkiller,to market. Doyle Dane Bernbach, which employed Mr. Crosby, provided advertising services to Monsanto.

 What is known about Jake Crosby's life prior to 2008 is drawn from several of his published posts at Age of Autism.

Crosby's first post for Age of Autism, Living with Asperger's in fact, may have been a sort of coming out, in which he proclaims to the world that he is an autistic student at Brandeis. 

In Discovering I Was Toxic, Crosby discusses how he learned the belief that thimerosal in vaccinations may have caused his autism, and how he hid his autism, in shame,  from his classmates throughout high school and the first year of  college.  

While it’s good to know the cause of my problems, as well as having the freedom to discuss them with others, what has been very disturbing was learning about the tremendous amount of suffering caused by the health authorities. They were given the huge responsibility of protecting people from defective drugs, but instead, completely betrayed the public trust. I am both overjoyed at the explanation I have for my condition and angered at the people who are responsible.

These first posts also establish themes Crosby continues to develop: a deep loathing of autism; contempt for the neurodiversity movement and the allied, but not identical, autistic self-advocacy movement, and rage against the "health authorities" over a non-existent issue (the alleged toxicity of vaccines).

Next: Jacob Lawrence Crosby: A Catalog Raisonne (of sorts), 2008 - 2013 Part 2 Works 2009

Comments

[M.J.]

On what planet do you think it is acceptable to compile and post this sort of information about a non-public person without their consent?

Do you even care that you are invading the privacy of a person with a disability?

[Liz Ditz]

All of the information posted above was taken from public sources, beginning with Dr.Lawrence Cranberg's obituary, posted to Dr. Cranberg's blog.The information about Mr. Crosby's schooling was taken from his posts at the blog, Age of Autism.

[Reuben Gaines]

"On what planet do you think it is acceptable to compile and post this sort of information about a non-public person without their consent?"

Well, he's not a non-public person. He writes publicly. He speaks publicly. He publicly confronts vaccine manufacturers, authors, and scientists. He posts private emails online.

Non-public? No. Very public.

[lilady]

Jake Crosby himself has provided most of his background information with his 90 blogs on Age of Autism:

http://www.ageofautism.com/jake-crosby/

"Do you even care that you are invading the privacy of a person with a disability?"

Jake's libelous blogs, his slanderous sliming posts and his stalking behaviors of respected scientists, researchers, doctors and journalists have nothing to do with his diagnosis of an ASD.

[lilady]

(Correction to my post above)

"Jake's libelous blogs, his slanderous sliming STATEMENTS AT PUBLIC MEETINGS and his stalking behaviors of respected scientists, researchers, doctors and journalists have nothing to do with his diagnosis of an ASD."

[Science Mom]

"On what planet do you think it is acceptable to compile and post this sort of information about a non-public person without their consent?

Do you even care that you are invading the privacy of a person with a disability?"

Scraping the barrel to create outrage for a pissy little public persona eh MJ? Spare us the faux indignation; it's all public information. I didn't see you register any complaint when Jake unleashed his foolish screeds against his perceived enemies with completely fallacious charges and woefully manufactured connections to all sorts of bogey-men.

Now are you saying he behaves the way he does because he has a disability? If that is so then why aren't you outraged at those who have cultivated and encouraged him? You're trying to piss on the wrong leg there MJ.

[Beryl MacLachlan]

Followed a link over from RI, where I always enjoy your comments. I don't know if you're going to do anything more with the Round-Up/Monsanto connection. If you do, you might want to go for multiple sources on that. The one that you used has a few elements (like a cite to Mercola.com) that trigger the skeptical spider sense. Or am I missing a bit of deliberate irony?

[Liz]

Irony

[Beryl MacLachlan]

Oh, thanks. I only have about 12 hours a day of fully functional irony detection.

[Todd W.]

@MJ

As others have already mentioned, all of this information is publicly available. Jake himself has provided a significant portion of the info, which Liz has conveniently cited back to his own writings. If you can point to anything specific in Liz's post which is, indeed, private information that has not been publicly published previously, please do so.

Now, if you want to be intellectually honest, you would call out Jake for publishing what really was private information (e.g., emails).