Autism Blog - Vaccines, Autism and the Concession

01 Mar 2008

Author: Kev
Comments: 112

Vaccines, Autism and the Concession

1) Concession Report (This document has been removed due to the possibility of it being illegally obtained). If people really wish to read the document for themselves it can be founf here, at the Huffington post
2) Zimmerman Case Study

When David Kirby wrote his piece in the Huffington Post, I’ll admit I read it with my jaw on my chest. Here was evidence I was wrong. I emailed David Kirby to get the whole report from him and he was kind enough to provide not only a PDF version but a plain text version as well.

This enabled me to contact a few people that I know are medical people and/or scientists and/or closely connected to this case. For example I contacted Dr Zimmerman and learned that it was not possible for him to offer any sort of opinion on this case due to the fact that his patients parents had not allowed him to discuss his thoughts and opinions with anyone except the court. I was told however that ‘the comments on your site with questions raised and loopholes pointed out about the way others are interpreting the facts of the situation, are right on track.’

It is clear to me then that there is some wordsmithing going on – either deliberately or unintentionally. What we need to do is look closely at the wording of two documents. The concession report and the case study performed by Dr Zimmerman.

The claim by David Kirby et al is, in essence, that the US Government have conceded that vaccines cause autism in this one case. Lets look at the so-called concession report in relation to what it says about autism.

Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist, evaluated CHILD…...on February 8, 2001. Dr. Zimmerman reported that after CHILD’s immunizations of July 19, 2000, an “encephalopathy progressed to persistent loss of previously acquired language, eye contact, and relatedness.” He noted a disruption in CHILD’s sleep patterns, persistent screaming and arching, the development of pica to foreign objects, and loose stools. Id. Dr. Zimmerman observed that CHILD watched the fluorescent lights repeatedly during the examination and would not make eye contact. He diagnosed CHILD with “regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development.”

Features consistent with. He did not diagnose her with autism. What were these features?

1) encephalopathy progressed to persistent loss of previously acquired language,
2) eye contact,
3) relatedness
4) disruption in CHILD’s sleep patterns,
5) persistent screaming
6) arching,
7) the development of pica to foreign objects,
8) loose stools
9) CHILD watched the fluorescent lights repeatedly during the examination
10) would not make eye contact

Of these ten, one is repeated (eye contact issues) so I make nine clear separate symptoms there. Which of these appear in the DSM (IV)? Green equal matches, red equal misses.

1) Loss of previously acquired language
2) Eye Contact
3) Relatedness
4) disruption in CHILD’s sleep patterns,
5) Persistent screaming
6) Arching
7) the development of pica to foreign objects,
8) loose stools
9) CHILD watched the fluorescent lights repeatedly during the examination

To meet the DSM criteria a person must meet no less than 6 of the criteria. So, as described perfectly exactly by the Dr Zimmerman in the concession report, this child has features consistent with an ASD. But its clear she does not meet the criteria for autism.

Later on,

CHILD was evaluated by Alice Kau and Kelley Duff, on May 16, 2001, at CARDS. The clinicians concluded that CHILD was developmentally delayed and demonstrated features of autistic disorder.

Almost the exact same phrasing. Consistent with. But no one has said thus far that the child has been diagnosed with an ASD.

The concession report concludes with:

the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder….

This is the phrasing that caused the uproar. But when looked at in light of the previous, it is clear that far from suggesting that vaccines cause autism via a mitochondrial disorder, the vaccines worsened an occluded or underlying mitochondrial disorder which took on a few of the symptoms of autism but was never actually diagnosed as autism at all . Because it wasn’t autism.

Before we switch to Dr Zimmerman’s Case Study, lets clear up a few things.

No one, I repeat, no one is saying this child wasn’t autistic. She may well have been. What we are doing is looking at the science reported in the concession report and Zimmerman’s paper and seeing if what the science says in these two papers means that it was the vaccines that caused any autism. The concession report clearly says that no it wasn’t. Thats why this case was uncontested. She was affected by her vaccines but autism was not the result.

Zimmerman’s case study is entitled ‘Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism’ – this is further evidence against the case presented that it was the vaccines that caused the autism. This child is reported as being one with autism. Not one who develops autism as a result of vaccines.

However, it is clear that this child does develop autism:

We describe a female patient in whom developmental regression and autism followed normal development…..Evaluation at 23 months showed …..[t]he Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) score was 33 (mild autism range), and she also met Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for
Mental Disorders-IV criteria for autism

and yet this autism was so mild that at that exact same period (23 months):

the patient began speaking again at 23 months old

which means that expressive language was lost for a sum total of one month (it is reported being lost at 22 months). It should also be noted that CARS is not designed for diagnosis but is an indicator only. Overall, we get a picture of a child who had an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction exposed by the illnesses following her vaccinations which caused developmental regression. This developmental regression presented with some features of autism.

Did the vaccinations cause her developmental regression? Seems likely. It is an undisputed fact that vaccines do cause injury, that is why after all there is a compensation program to claim from in the US and the UK.

Was her developmental regression autism? No. At no point in either the concession report is it claimed that the developmental regression the child went through was autism. However, in the same way that Leukemia (weakness, paleness; fever and flu-like symptoms) can have the same symptoms as flu (weakness, paleness; fever and flu-like symptoms) but be totally different, this child’s developmental regression shared certain features of autism.

So was this child autistic. She might well have been. However, her autism was not caused by a vaccine.

Update

This column was forwarded to me by a friend. Thanks to him.

The practice of calling certain things near-autism, or even autism itself is not new. Here’s a quote from a Science article regarding HIV in 1989:

The signs of AIDS dementia in children are clear and, Pizzo says, “very painful to watch. Very young children lose words.” Words like “mommy” and “daddy” and “bear” are too hard to remember as the AIDS virus multiplies in the young child’s body and penetrates the central nervous
system.

An 8-year-old boy, once normal, was rendered practically autistic by HIV, Pizzo said. He stopped speaking. Asked to trace a simple
outline of an elephant, the boy could not. Painfully, he knew what a simple task it was, and he knew he was failing it. But he could not cry even though his doctors could see tears welling up in his eyes.

Pizzo has seen children lose IQ points one boy lost as many as 28-as AIDS ravages their brains. “Kids who used to do well in school really deteriorate,” says Pizzo who has “before and after” IQ data from school-age children.

But in a series of remarkable studies, Pizzo has seen AZT (azidothymidine) reverse these symptoms. The child who lost words like “mommy” and “daddy” “got them back,” Pizzo says. The boy who lost IQ points is restored to his former capacity.

The 8 year old cries. After just a couple of weeks of continuous AZT therapy, the boy who could not trace an elephant is successful at tracing a horse.

Now, we all know that ‘tracing an elephant’ and losing IQ points are not symptoms of autism but it is intriguing to see a doctor describe a regression as ‘practically autistic’. Note also, just like in this case, in Zimmermans case study, the child quickly loses, then very quickly regains aspects of their former regression. But HIV didn’t cause autism any more than vaccines did.

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Comments

112 Responses to “Vaccines, Autism and the Concession”

S.L.
March 1st, 2008
16:31:29

Well done, wonderful job of breaking it down! Hopefully everyone who is all aflutter over this will read how you’ve laid it all out.
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
16:49:28

Kev, step back into the real world. You say “... this child has features consistent with an ASD. But its clear she does not meet the criteria for autism.”

All you are saying is that if kids get the symptoms of ASD from vaccines, but on close clinical examination of each child there is some reason specific to the kid or a class of children for those children having those symptoms, then they are not really autistic even if those symptoms are caused by the vaccines.

Buddy, I don’t really care because most kids are not getting the minute clinical examination to find out. So if it happens they all have autistic symptoms as a result of the vaccines, but are not, under your definition, autistic, we have still found the reason for their problem – its the vaccines.

Well done buddy. That solves that one. All we do is say the kids are not really autistic but their autistic symptoms are caused by the vaccines.

End of problem, regardless of what you want to call it.

Lets call it “vaccine damaged” resulting in autism like symptoms – but it is “not really” autism.

I can live with that. We just save all the kids from getting these dangerous vaccines.

Kev, you are brilliant. Going by that argument, if the kids in reality have mercury poisoning, they are not really autistic at all and should get compensation.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
17:08:24

“All you are saying is that if kids get the symptoms of ASD from vaccines, but on close clinical examination of each child there is some reason specific to the kid or a class of children for those children having those symptoms, then they are not really autistic even if those symptoms are caused by the vaccines.”

Uh, no.

What I’m saying is that this child does not meet enough of the criteria of autism to be considered autistic as the result of her vaccines. Its like saying that sitting by a breeze and getting a cold and then later developing leukaemia means that sitting by breezes causes leukaemia.
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
17:26:05

Kev,

The child has autistic symptoms as a result of the vaccines. You are arguing she is not autistic enough. That’s fine. She’s autistic enough for me and that the vaccines caused it is not in dispute.

Keep on denying buddy. Just keep right on.

This is about child health safety. If you think the vaccines are important, then instead you should be shouting really loud that we need all these kids closely clinically examined and to stop this happening and as fast as possible. But the odd thing is Kev, you aren’t doing that.

Your blog is about salving your conscience in public for your own kid’s condition and not about saving anyone else’s.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
17:44:16

“So if it happens they all have autistic symptoms as a result of the vaccines, but are not, under your definition, autistic, we have still found the reason for their problem – its the vaccines.

Well done buddy. That solves that one. All we do is say the kids are not really autistic but their autistic symptoms are caused by the vaccines.”

Well you could try I guess but you’re conceding (to coin a word) a few points there:

1) that autism is not caused by vaccines.

On that point by the way, we need to be clear – it is not my definition. It is the definition made by the DSM and applied by Dr Zimmerman. If he, or any of his team, had thought that the underlying condition manifested itself in autism I am pretty sure he would’ve said so.

2) by conceding point one you are conceding the entire omnibus hearings which are set up solely to discern if thiomersal, MMR or a combination of both cause autism.

And at that point I lose interest. Whilst I am interested in good health and bad science, my primary focus is bad science associated with autism. If you want to remove that association then we move apart.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
17:49:44

“The child has autistic symptoms as a result of the vaccines. You are arguing she is not autistic enough. That’s fine. She’s autistic enough for me and that the vaccines caused it is not in dispute.”

Once again you seem unable to appreciate the finer points of this. I am not saying she is not autistic enough, I am saying (as is both the concession report and Zimmerman’s case study) that the vaccines did not make her autistic.

Its really that simple. If you want to make it an issue beyond that, go to a public health blog.
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
19:20:47

Kev,

You are not the only perons who is losing interest.

I have not conceded anything. You can say whatever you want all you like but it changes nothing. The child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines. The US government conceded that in the case.

Zimmerman’s paper concludes “Young children
who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.”

So how many of the other kids have that or something like it that gives them the same thing? When you have the details of independent objective and unbiased clinical investigations of each and every one of them, get back to me. Until then, time for Kev to go Byes Byes.

What you are doing instead is proving to anyone prepared to read this blog how deep is your denial.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
19:39:40

“You are not the only perons who is losing interest.”

I am aware that the mainstream media have little to no interest in this. As are you it seems.

“The child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines. The US government conceded that in the case.”

And where exactly did they say that?

“So how many of the other kids have that or something like it that gives them the same thing?”

You’re reading far too much into what Zimmerman said. You’re also missing the key word: ‘might’.

As in: there MIGHT be a “window” during which the brain is more sensitive to the effects of disrupting mitochondrial function. There are certainly reasons to suspect that this MIGHT be so, but it hasn’t been demonstrated.

In other words, its just a hypothesis. When you have the details of an independent objective and unbiased study get back to me. Until then, you have nothing of scientific interest regarding autism and vaccines.

“What you are doing instead is proving to anyone prepared to read this blog how deep is your denial.”

Thats certainly an opinion you’re entitled to. However, I’ll stick with what the concession report and the Zimmerman paper actually said, as oppose to what I’d like it to say.
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
19:58:20

Kev,

You say “I’ll stick with what the concession report and the Zimmerman paper actually said, as oppose to what I’d like it to say.”

But you stick with what you would like them to say.

If anyone wants to read for themselves they can read it here:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....88558.html
and here:-

You would like them to say this child got no symptoms of autism from the vaccines. But it does not say that. The US government say she got her symptoms of autism from the vaccines. Zimmerman’s paper dealing with this one case was commenting for children in general that this is possible and not just for her – hence the use of “might” – some might and some might not – but those who do, do – no “might” about it.

For being in denial, this takes the biscuit. You can deny it all you like and continue to prove the depth of your denial to everyone.

You are doing a great job.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
20:12:03

If I wanted to hide the report David I would hardly link to the entire document at the top of this post.

I am asking you, for the second time, where do the US Gvmt concede that this child ‘got symptoms of autism from the vaccines’ to use your phrase? In fact, can you point out where the word ‘concede’ or ‘concession’ appears anywhere in the report?

Try and parse this: the Gvmt said: ‘He (Zimmerman) diagnosed CHILD with “regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder’. Not ‘symptoms’, and certainly not ‘autism’. The regressive encephalopathy is the key thing here. This encephalopathy had features consistent with autism. So did the child with HIV I reference above. The encephalopathy was no more autism than the HIV was.

“Zimmerman’s paper dealing with this one case was commenting for children in general that this is possible and not just for her – hence the use of “might” – some might and some might not – but those who do, do – no “might” about it.”

I really strongly suggest you read the paper again. More carefully this time.
Schwartz
March 1st, 2008
20:18:08

Kev,

A few thoughts/questions:

Question 1)

CHILD was evaluated by Alice Kau and Kelley Duff, on May 16, 2001, at CARDS. The clinicians concluded that CHILD was developmentally delayed and demonstrated features of autistic disorder.

This isn’t clear to me. Was this a diagnosis of Autism or only one of PDD-NOS? If it’s PDD-NOS, then by some definitions here diagnosis was along the ASD.

Question 2)

If indeed there is a fine line between Autism diagnosis and what this child had, I think it likely that a large number of children diagnosed with Autism, could very well be mis-diagnosed in a similar way as this case. Do you agree with that?

Question 3)

It appears by your logic then, that we can now conclusively say that there is evidence that vaccines are directly related to developmental disorders in a subset of children?

Question 4)

Zimmerman’s case study is entitled ‘Developmental Regression and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in a Child With Autism’ – this is further evidence against the case presented that it was the vaccines that caused the autism.

I don’t think this supports your point. In the case report Zimmerman’s description of the study patient before vaccination is clearly not one of a child with Autism (she did not meet the criteria before the vaccinations). If he is using the term Autistic now (the title, and in the conclusion as well), then clearly the Autism diagnosis appeared after Vaccination and this child was/is Autistic by diagnosis. Reading the case report, the Autism diagnostic criteria all showed up after the vaccination period.

So from the case report we have:

1) A child who is not Autistic
2) The child receives vaccinations, and immediately has reactions, medical complications and a regression in development
3) The child is subsequently diagnosed with Autism

Since the chain of medical events (which leads to Autism) is clearly connected to the vaccination (as per the concession), how does this not show that a vaccine reaction resulted in Autism?
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
20:24:51

Kev,

Here is what the government said in conceding the case:-
“..... the vaccinations CHILD received on July 19, 2000, significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder, which predisposed her to deficits in cellular energy metabolism, and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy with features of autism spectrum disorder”.

This vaccines at the July 19, 2000 examination were DTaP, Hib, MMR, Varivax, and IPV.

So Kev, if you want to say she is not autistic or whatever you want to say, that is fine.

Many people believe all the vaccine damaged kids are not suffering from autism but from autism like disorders. You can believe what you like. Beliefs are free.

But the facts are the child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines as conceded by the US government.

Keep on denying buddy. Just keep right on.

This is about child health safety. If you think the vaccines are important, then instead you should be shouting really loud that we need all these kids closely clinically examined and to stop this happening and as fast as possible. But the odd thing is Kev, you aren’t doing that.

When you have the details of independent objective and unbiased clinical investigations of each and every one of them, get back to me. Until then, time for Kev to go Bye Byes.
HCN
March 1st, 2008
20:36:37

Mr. Wright, I would also ask you to read this:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/c...../160/3/302

and then come back and tell us what study shows that DTaP vaccine is more dangerous than diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis, or that the MMR is more dangerous than measles, mumps or rubella (mentioned in the paper above), or that Hib vaccine is more dangerous than the actual disease which (quoting the paper above): “With regard to natural history, Hib meningitis was once the leading cause of acquired MR in the United States. Slightly more than half of the Hib meningitis invasive cases presented as meningitis, and one third of children with Hib meningitis went on to have MR. Approximately 1 in 10 children died from Hib meningitis.12, 39”

If you are truly concerned with the neurological health of children, you would answer my queries honestly. Since my oldest son had seizures caused by a now vaccine preventable disease when he was a bit over a year old I am quite interested in the actual science behind your opinions.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
21:20:32

“This isn’t clear to me. Was this a diagnosis of Autism or only one of PDD-NOS? If it’s PDD-NOS, then by some definitions here diagnosis was along the ASD.”

I would say ‘neither’. I don’t see a diagnosis anywhere at all.

“I think it likely that a large number of children diagnosed with Autism, could very well be mis-diagnosed in a similar way as this case. Do you agree with that?”

I think its way to early to say either way. If you’re asking if its possible then I agree it is. If you’re asking is it likely then I don’t agree.

“It appears by your logic then, that we can now conclusively say that there is evidence that vaccines are directly related to developmental disorders in a subset of children?”

Not at all. I think its obvious in this case that vaccines damaged this child. Or at least contributed to damaging this child. Is there a subset? Who can say? Its a hypothesis (as Zimmerman indicates) that needs testing.

“Since the chain of medical events (which leads to Autism) is clearly connected to the vaccination (as per the concession), how does this not show that a vaccine reaction resulted in Autism?”

I disagree that it does. My opinion is laid out above.
David Wright
March 1st, 2008
21:25:24

HCN,

What you are saying is what do we choose – causing new problems with the vaccines or the old problems from infectious diseases.

But that is not the point. The point is causing new problems for kids.

We now have higher rates of diabetes, autism, multiple sclerosis, asthma and allergies (including life threatening allergies) than ever before. These have all been linked to vaccinations, albeit the medical professions, drug companies and government agencies work hard at not admitting that and there is great pressure on anyone who steps out of line. So if you start asking for published papers proving vaccines cause these problems, some do exist, but they are the exception not the rule.

The paper you choose cites just under 200 cases per million of mental retardation in 1960 before measles vaccination in the US. That would be in varying degrees and equates to 1 in 5000.

I comment here without considering the reliability of the paper or the accuracy of the data used or its sources. It is a 2006 paper and the authors make no statement regarding conflicting interests. Some of the references and figures cited are in doubt. As also are estimated figures cited from the CDC, which are often exaggerated and are not reliable.

With those caveats, and taking those figures what would you have me choose? 1 in 150 kids on the autistic spectrum, whatever number are developing diabetes, multiple sclerosis or allergies or whatever against 1 in 5000 with some degree of mental retardation?

My sympathies to you for your child but you ask too much of me. It is not for me to decide these things for individuals but for the parents to decide.

What you also need to take into account is that figures from 1960 have no relevance to the present day. Mortality and morbidity from infectious diseases has been dropping dramatically regardless of the use of vaccines. If you look at the logarithmic plot of measles mortality in Figure 1 of this paper

“Measles Mortality in the United States 1971-1975
SISTER JEFFREY ENGELHARDT, NEAL A. HALSEY, MD
DONALD L. EDDINS, AND ALAN R. HINMAN, MD”
AJPH November 1980, Vol. 70, No. 11

The downward trend is marked and because the plot is logarthmic the trend tends to a straight line which validates forward extrapolation. By between 2005 to 2010 US measles mortality would have fallen on that trend to less around 1 in 25 million. And you would also expect adverse effects like MR to have fallen in line with that.

So basically, this data shows infectious disease like measles would not have serious consequences for the vast majority. This is to the extent that the harm from the vaccines has likely taken over and by a large margin.

So the choice you ask me to make – between complications of infectious diseases is not really a valid one to apply today on the data you cite.
Kev
March 1st, 2008
21:52:03

” with features of autism spectrum disorder”.”

“But the facts are the child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines as conceded by the US government”

Once more into the breach….in order to have symptoms (A subjective indication of a disorder or disease) one has the disorder or disease. What Zimmerman and others talk about are features i.e. presentations. For example Reactive Detachment Disorder and autism both have features of poor eye contact but we could never diagnose a person with either if that was all they had. thats why there is a diagnostic criteria at all David. One matches it or one doesn’t.

“So Kev, if you want to say she is not autistic or whatever you want to say, that is fine.”

You also need to get this. If there is no autism, there is no case. If you really believe it is ‘fine’ that this girl is not autistic (something I have not claimed) then you are, by definition, removing her from the Omnibus hearings with or without the concession.

“Many people believe all the vaccine damaged kids are not suffering from autism but from autism like disorders.”

Which is interesting. However, the omnibus hearings are about whether vaccines cause autism.
bones
March 1st, 2008
22:29:12

“The child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines. The US government conceded that in the case.”

No, the govt did no such thing.

David, your argument is full of contradictions. You should take a step back, re-read everything you just wrote, maybe have a martini, and reformulate your position. I’d be happy to list them for you, if you like. Let me know.

Any primary care physician, nurse, psychiatrist, etc..will tell you that individuals often present with symptoms of ‘X’, only to obtain ‘Y’ diagnosis upon a complete evaluation.

And I’m really tired of this whole “govt, courts, and pharma” conspiracy shit. Where was this supposed brotherhood during phen-fen, breast implant, and Vioxx litigations (to name a few)?
Anne
March 1st, 2008
22:47:40

The injury in this case was encephalopathy, which is a recognized compensable injury under the vaccine table if it occurs during a certain time period after certain vaccinations, regardless of whether there are developmental sequelae. In a case like this, causation is presumed. According to the respondent’s Rule 4© report, “The DVIC “concluded that the facts of this case meet the statutory criteria for demonstrating that the vaccinations … significantly aggravated an underlying mitochondrial disorder … and manifested as a regressive encephalopathy …”. Although the respondent can try to rebut the presumption of causation with evidence that something other than vaccines caused the encephalopathy, there was no apparent evidence in this case of a non-vaccine cause. So it makes sense that causation was conceded in this case. I don’t see it as a big deal with respect to autism causation.
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
00:16:29

Kev,

CHILD was evaluated by Alice Kau and Kelley Duff, on May 16, 2001, at CARDS. The clinicians concluded that CHILD was developmentally delayed and demonstrated features of autistic disorder.

This appears to be an evaluation of developmental delay. Is it your opinion that the developmental delay didn’t occur as a result of the vaccination, or that she was already developmentally delayed, or she was never developmentally delayed?
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
00:19:02

I don’t see a diagnosis anywhere at all.

Zimmerman refers to her as Autistic on several occasions. Is it not correct to say there was a diagnosis of Autism at some point?
HCN
March 2nd, 2008
00:20:44

David you did not answer my question, and did not address Hib. So be it. You obviously are cherry picking the information and have no reason to be here other than to parrot the “vaccines cause autism” mantra.
bones
March 2nd, 2008
01:06:13

Schwartz, developmental delay could be anything or nothing at all – literally. You’re erroneously attempting to equate developmental delay with developmental disorder. The two are qualitatively different.

Furthermore, is it now your position that vaccines cause(d) developmental delay – whether in this child specifically, or in any child generally? I ask because that’s a much much much broader brush than the “vaccines cause autism” dogma, and really only serves to further weaken the “thimersoal causes autism” claim.

Not that it needs any more help….
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
05:10:43

Kev

You must try to read and take on board in your comments (Mar 1st 21:52:03) what is being said by others including the US government.

Your argument is that despite the US government agreeing the child should be compensated in damages for getting vaccine damage which presents as symptoms of autism, the child is not autistic. That is fine. You are welcome to your view, but it does not change the facts.

The child is vaccine damaged and it is agreed her symptoms, which present as symptoms of autism, were caused by the vaccines and is entitled to financial compensation as agreed by the US government. You are stuck in a semantic loop. This is because you cannot admit you are wrong.

The US government agrees this child’s autistic symptoms were caused by the vaccines. They did it in secret and they threw the towel in without fightng the case. No one cares what zillion and one intepretations Kev Leitch wants to put on it. The vaccines caused that damage as admitted by the US government. You can squirm all you like and you are squirming as anyone can see. You can quote as many manuals written by as many psychiatrists as you like. What goes in DSM is voted on every year – yes voted on. It is not science.

And the people who vote on it – psychiatrists – can’t even make their minds up about what causes psychiatric “illness” and have been poisoning people for years with drugs that are now being acknowledged to be useless. Psychistrists have not got two pieces of science to rub together to justify their existence.

But of course, if Kev Leitch wants to doggedly stick to his position – in his expert opinion – for a disorder that is acknowledged to be a spectrum disorder – ranging from one extreme to the other, that is fine. But it changes nothing.
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
05:16:16

bones,

The developmental regression in this case was quite specific and well documented so we’re not talking hypothesis here and I’m referring to how the data in this specific case might apply generally because that’s what everyone is arguing about.

It certainly appears that the patient is considered Autistic (both by Zimmerman and based on the therapy being applied), so I guess development disorder diagnosis eventually applies in this case. However, your point on the difference between disorder and delay is noted.

I’m not yet taking a position, I’m trying to reconcile Kev’s position with the admitedly sketchy data and wordsmithing.

Even if we can agree based on specific wording that the vaccines didn’t directly cause “Austism” in this case (despite a later diagnosis), Zimmerman is certainly concerned that this type of circumstance can lead to Autistic regression.

It is unclear whether mitochondrial dysfunction results from a primary genetic abnormality, atypical development of essential metabolic pathways, or secondary inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation by other factors. If such dysfunction is present at the time of infections and immunizations in young children, the added oxidative stresses from immune activation on cellular energy metabolism are likely to be especially critical for the central nervous system, which is highly dependent on mitochondrial function. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time. Although patterns of regression can be genetically and prenatally determined, 9 it is possible that underlying mitochondrial dysfunction can either exacerbate or affect the severity of regression.

This is certainly a far cry from the position that vaccines don’t ever contribute to Autism or Autistic regression.

However, I do note, that it is impossible to determine whether it was a component, adjuvant, metal, or live virus in the vaccine that created the problem given the huge variety of vaccines given to this girl at one visit.
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
05:17:30

bones,

This should have been blocktext as it is extracted from the discussion of the case study:

It is unclear whether mitochondrial dysfunction results from a primary genetic abnormality, atypical development of essential metabolic pathways, or secondary inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation by other factors. If such dysfunction is present at the time of infections and immunizations in young children, the added oxidative stresses from immune activation on cellular energy metabolism are likely to be especially critical for the central nervous system, which is highly dependent on mitochondrial function. Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time. Although patterns of regression can be genetically and prenatally determined, 9 it is possible that underlying mitochondrial dysfunction can either exacerbate or affect the severity of regression.
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
05:19:05

Bones,

Like Kev, you are stuck in denial – your comments Mar 1st 22:29:12 are simply a denial.

We have the words in black and white that the US government agreed the child got her autistic symptoms from the vaccines. And you just deny it.

That is called “being in denial”.

I am sorry you are tired of “government, courts and conspiracy”. When people start to introduce “conspiracy”, that is when they are licked. Thanks for that buddy. There is plenty of evidence showing that drug companies push drugs knowing they don’t work and cause harm. There are zillions of examples and lots of court cases and loads of people complaining how the FDA is in the pocket of the drug companies.

Of course, you can call it conspiracy and pretend it does not exist. That is fine. Just like you pretend the US government did not agree this child’s autistic symptoms were caused by the vaccines.
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
05:30:27

HCN,

I did answer your question. You just don’t like the answer. So be it.

You want me to say which are more dangerous – the vaccines or the diseases.

But let me add something else to my answer. You do not acknowledge that on the one hand there have been systems for systematically collecting data on the diseases but that when it comes to vaccines, the adverse effects are notoriously under reported. That is aside from the point made that medics are not keen to report vaccine damage cases because of litigation and the pressure to keep the lid on vaccine damage.

So true extent of the severity of vaccine damage is not recorded and the data on severity of diseases is old and out of date.

Like it or not, the decision to vaccinate should be left to the parents – not the government – and should be taken on a case by case basis. This is an issue of child health safety. The diseases have never been milder and the vaccine damage issues never been more prevalent.

If you don’t like it, complain to the CDC and your elected representatives to government that they are using old data for the diseases and not taking notice of parents who see adverse reactions to vaccines and are ignored.

That’s why we have around 5000 cases before the omnibus autism proceedings and kids whose parents have difficulty getting the evidence together because it is not easy in this environment.

So if you want to be like Kev and Bones you can but it changes nothing.
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
06:08:31

HCN,

I notice it seems to be you who asked similar questions here
http://www.scienceblogs.com/in....._claim.php
(ORAC’s blog) where I have also been contributing.

Just so that you know, I have not contributed further there because whoever controls that page has since invoked cookies to track privacy information – which of course includes mine. So unless I drop the security on my computer system, I cannot contribute further there.

It is interesting that has been done. Now why would anyone want to do that? Heh, Heh.

And it is interesting that out of all the several billion people in the world who could contribute, you seem to appear here after contributing there, what with it being ORAC’s blog and Kathleen Seidel popping up there too. So the wires have been burning a bit today.

But here is a note for Kathleen Seidel. She makes claims there for things I have not said. Like she talks about “big fat press releases” in the context of them being issued by the court. No court normally issues press releases.

She then goes on to claim that the concession filed by the US government admitting vaccines caused symptoms of autism will be published in full detail on the court’s website. Now why would they do that? They normally just publish the decisions and in this case the decision would be an award of damages stating the parties have agreed.

But if the full details are ever published, I would be interested to know. Can Kathleen Seidel produce an example of that happening in any other case where it is conceded the vaccines caused the autism? If not can she show that happening in any other case? It would be helpful because then we can all look forward to seeing all such concessions published.
Matt
March 2nd, 2008
06:12:00

Well, it sounds like there will be a press conference on Monday with the parents. Perhaps that will answer some questions (as well as raise a lot more).

A big question is whether “autistic features” equate to autism.

Take, for example, a child who is very late in social development. Say she smiles very late (four to six months of age). Say she is very slow in developing language. Doesn’t actually use language, but repeats a few words. What if this child had a “lack of relatedness” in that she doesn’t respond when her name is called? Doesn’t join in on joint excitement.

Add to that delays in motor develpment. Add other “autistic features”.

The above describes Michelle Cedillo before her MMR, as reported from the videos by Dr. Fombonne.

It is a complicated task drawing the line between “autism” and “autistic features”. One that the petitioners need to walk very carefully.
isles
March 2nd, 2008
06:56:20

Boy, David Wright is giving Schwartz a run for his money in the competition over who can be the most logorrheic denialist infester of autism blogs! Way to go, guys!

Seems to me that people whose genes predestine them to become autistic can have encephalopathies, just like anybody else…and sometimes those encephalopathies manifest themselves in symptoms that also appear in autism.

Do we really have to re-teach the “correlation doesn’t equal causation” lesson one more time?
Ms. Clark
March 2nd, 2008
07:07:30

I have yet to see any parent from among the merry band of biomedders or the mercury phobes come forward and say, “why yes! this is just like all our kids!” or “why yes! I know dozens of kids who have this point mutation that can cause developmental problems!” or even, “My kid is just like this CHILD, mine, too had the same reaction because of a mitochondrial problem! Show me the money”

Even the lawyers didn’t bother to bundle this CHILD in with one or two others that experienced the same regression following a vaccine.

So far the other cases (which apparently were really hard to find from among the nearly 5,000 cases) are totally unconvincing. There is not even a blurry line that one can draw between their vaccines and their autism.

In the case of this CHILD there is a blurry line that can be drawn, and there’s also another line that can be drawn from “no matter what they did, this particular kid would have ended up with the same regression because even otitis media can cause this kind of mitochondrial crisis, and the kid had had several ear infections prior to the vaccines that seemed to have prompted a fever and rash. The kid has an unusual problem. A rare problem. Even if you want to make the case that all mitochondrial disorder kids shouldn’t be vaccinated because they might regress… well, they still could get sick and even die from wild-type measles, so it’s better to vaccinate the kid that watch her die of measles. And if the kid didn’t die of measles the wild-type germ would have initiated the same regression.

She’s not an example of vaccine caused-autism and her lawyers knew it and her parents knew it apparently. So if you think she’s an example of vaccine caused autism, then maybe you should take it up with those lawyers. ‘Cuz, they let your team down big-time if she’s an example of vaccine-caused autism.

And where are all the DAN! dox now? Where are all their published papers of how they saved even one mito kid by not vaccinating them? Or how they saved a mito kid with chelation? Huh? Remember how mercury makes kids autistic and chelation (or gold salts) cures ‘em, just like that (snap your fingers) or in two years at the latest.

The only doctor I have ever heard talk about mitochondrial kids and autism was Dr. Margaret Bauman (not a quack) and she said she thought about 1% of the autistic kids she sees (she didn’t have hard data at that time) had mito diseases. If she found one it was because the kid had low energy and was really sickly and didn’t progress at all with any lessons/training. She’d send this kind of kid to a specialist for a muscle biopsy. If the kid had mito problems she prescribed a mixture of supplements (which are known to help with mito problems) and she has never seen a kid cured of autism, she said. Not even one of these rare mitochondrial disorder kids. So… DAN! probably ain’t gonna be jumping on this bandwagon, because you can’t really have parents sending off tissue biopsies to DDI Inc. and they know the kid isn’t going to be one of those that becomes almost normalish in time (with or without intervention) just by developing. In other words, your basic mito kid isn’t going to be a “wow” kind of model patient, and what works for the “mito” kid isn’t going to work in the same fashion for a non-mito kid. And they have no business being the primary caregivers of kids who could die of mito disease when they are not specialists in mito disease (none are that I have ever heard of).

And if the kid is identified as having a mitochodrial disorder, can you still charge the parents a thousands of bucks for all the scoping, the saunas, and the faux “expertise” in treating “yeast”? And can you claim to cure a “mito” kid with the GFCF diet or some “young coconut kefir” or olive leaf extract? How about some oregano oil? Camel milk? Magic glutathione-making radio wave patches? And what if it turns out that they’ve been giving idiotic prescription meds like valtrex and naltrexone and pentasa to a mito patient and ignoring the fact that the kid needed to see a mitochondrial disease specialist and get a muscle biopsy?
Matt
March 2nd, 2008
07:15:53

But here is a note for Kathleen Seidel. She makes claims there for things I have not said. Like she talks about “big fat press releases” in the context of them being issued by the court. No court normally issues press releases.

Besides the strange crossover posts nature of this, it is just a bizarre statement on it’s own.

“Big fat press releases” is a quote used by Ms. Seidel. She is quoting you Mr. Wright.

If courts don’t normally issue press releases, and you know that, why did you bring it up in the first place?

Can Kathleen Seidel produce an example of that happening in any other case, where it is conceded the vaccines caused the autism?

Assuming facts not in evidence? The statement by the government is quite clear that they are not ‘conceding’ vaccine injury resulting in autism. There isn’t a single case, let alone any “other case”.

Unless this quote from the DVIC posted on Mr. Kirby’s blog is either incorrect or outdated:

“...and has never concluded in any case that autism was caused by vaccination.”

there is very little to be gained from continuing any exchange that assumes that the government has ‘conceded’ that ‘vaccines cause autism’.

One can discuss whether the actions of the government make sense given the few facts before us, but to ignore one of the few hard facts we do have—that the government has not conceded vaccine injury causing autism—reduces this discussion to nonsense.
Kev
March 2nd, 2008
07:36:04

David, Schwarz – Sorry guys, I haven’t the time or inclination to keep going over the same thing. I say one thing, you disagree. Such is life.

However this:

“Just so that you know, I have not contributed further there because whoever controls that page has since invoked cookies to track privacy information – which of course includes mine. So unless I drop the security on my computer system, I cannot contribute further there.”

is quite possibly the most asinine thing I have read for quite awhile. All blogs use cookies, including this one. Did you not notice how you don’t have to keep entering your name and email address David? Take three guesses how that works and the first two don’t count.

And hey, guess what David? None of them are set up to track you specifically. I think I speak for most blog owners when I say we don’t give a monkeys who you are or what you do. They’re set up to make visitors lives a bit easier and for the blog owner to track spam.

If this is the depth of your web security related knowledge I have no trouble seeing why you struggle so much with health related information.
Do'C
March 2nd, 2008
07:46:37

“I think I speak for most blog owners when I say we don’t give a monkeys who you are or what you do.”

I’ll second that Kev.
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
08:50:49

Matt,

Thanks for showing just how Kathleen Seidel confuses people – including you, Matt – (or are you trying to assist her confuse everyone?).

Kathleen Seidel was not quoting me on “big fat press release” as you claim (Mar 2 07:15).

I never used that expression in relation to the courts. She did because she took what was said and used it for something I did not say – I did not say the courts issued press releases.

Well done Matt for pointing that one out.

Then, Matt decides to misrepresent what was said all by himself. I invited Kathleen Seidel to produce an example of any other case where the text of a concession filed by government has been part of a published decision of the vaccine court. She was trying to make it look like this concession made in secret would be published. So I asked her to produce any example of that happening for autism or any other case.

But then, Matt, you knew that all along, didn’t you.

Matt then insists that the government admitting vaccines caused symptoms of autism is not an admission that vaccines cause autism. Kirby says on that “If the government is claiming that vaccines did not “cause” autism, but instead aggravated a condition to “manifest” as autism, isn’t that a very fine distinction?”

It sure is. Thanks again Matt for helping to clear that up.
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
09:05:03

Kev seems to be in denial about more than autism. And some ignorance is showing.

He claims the most asinine thing he has ever heard is that unless I drop the security on my computer system, I cannot contribute further on a different blog – ORAC’s – because contributions have suddenly been blocked unless privacy is dropped.

Well, Kev, that just goes to show how much you know (and don’t).

Fortunately, not being blind or deaf or dumb or stupid I happened to notice that access was suddenly blocked unless privacy was dropped.

Why would anyone suddenly decide to block access to their blog unless privacy was dropped on the user’s firewall and do it in the middle of exchanges?

Now why would anyone want to do that? It is an interesting question.

Kev says he has no interest in doing that, so why would ORAC on his blog? Kev, don’t worry about that last question – its called a rhetorical question – which means you don’t need to answer it (but somehow I have a feeling you might).
Kev
March 2nd, 2008
11:36:34

Isn’t it obvious? Orac is part of The Big Pharma Shill Illuminati conspiracy. We all are, didn’t you know?

Let me go through it for you again. You are worried about cookies storing data about you on Orac’s site. I am telling you that all blogs do that. Why your home software decided to warn you about Orac’s and no-one elses I couldn’t say. Possibly because it is rubbish.

This does however, clearly demonstrate how willingly you are to waffle on about subjects you clearly know nothing about.

Also, you don’t need to refer to me in the third person. I’m right here.

Because I’m feeling generous I’ll show you how to manage cookies so you can visit whereever you want without the fear of the Black Helicopters swinging by your house.
Joseph
March 2nd, 2008
15:40:07

I honestly don’t think it’s that important, in the grand scheme of things, if the child precisely meets the laundry list of DSM-IV criteria for ASD. What if the next time there’s regressive encephalopathy in Mito disorder, the child has additional symptoms and meets the criteria? Then does Kirby have a point?
isles
March 2nd, 2008
16:26:42

Joseph – I don’t think so. I think the important point here is that, as I understand it, the regression was inevitable because of the mitochondrial disorder. The fact that it seems to have been a vaccine which precipitated it rather than one of the other factors which could have done so means that it is arguably correct to have compensated it under the VICP yet not grounds for claiming vaccines cause autism per se. Make sense?
Kev
March 2nd, 2008
16:40:58

Thats exactly how interpret it Isles. the fact that the Mito disorder presented with some features (not symptoms David) of autism is also pretty irrelevant, save from the fact that its interesting.
John Fryer
March 2nd, 2008
17:08:27

Mercury is still used in the form of thimerosal both in the USA and in the form of vaccines made for other countries.

It is standard science that this chemical in one vaccine will be at the concentration when evenly diluted through the body that will destroy brain cells.

This will not cause specifically one illness but a range of illnesses dependent on many factors.

The admission by the US Government of harm from vaccines is a start on the road to recognition of truth as being truth.

No people on any side with right of wrong ideas or good or bad ways of saying what is happening will change one thing.

Thimerosal has no place in our childrens vaccines. So why dont we ban it today and see what happens?

The rise of autism spectrum illness to the present level of 1 500 000 in just one country alone does not begin to justify the use of mercury vaccines often for illnesses either going out of popularity by other health measures less hazardous or for illnesses which are minor and for which herd immunity would best come from a strong immune system instead of vaccine induced immunity which again standard science tells us comes at the price of destroying or weakening other immune responses.

Vaccination should be restricted for the few illnesses that are dangerous and not repeated ad nauseum just to make sure the child has got an appropriate response. Repeat vaccination increase anaphylaxis to the level of certainty eventually.

The removal of unsafe vaccines continues apace with another UNSAFE vaccine very recently.

Only unsafe when removed. Why did the regulators say it was safe for the past decades and only admit it was safe when they had a replacement? How many million bad doses to the scrap heap?

Any amateur who defends vaccines with this sort of back door political goings on is on very shaky ground.

Regulators sit and watch the adverse records head towards the million mark but I am not sure what the amateur sleuth gets out of this by advocating more to the autism mill of life?
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
17:38:05

Isles,

I was wondering when the bastion of critical thinking was going to show up.

I don’t think so. I think the important point here is that, as I understand it, the regression was inevitable because of the mitochondrial disorder.

I would like to understand what evidence (preferably from the case study) leads you to draw this conclusion. The quote from the case study does not indicate that Autism was a foregone conclusion at all. There is certainly wording that Autism might have also occured, but your position requires it to be a certainty, which it is not.

Young children who have dysfunctional cellular energy metabolism therefore might be more prone to undergo autistic regression between 18 and 30 months of age if they also have infections or immunizations at the same time.

Please note the words in particular: “might be more prone to undergo”

This is clearly NOT stating that Autism is a foregone conclusion.

So what evidence are you using to support your position?
Joseph
March 2nd, 2008
17:48:04

Thimerosal has no place in our childrens vaccines. So why dont we ban it today and see what happens?

Already done, and nothing (absolutely nothing AFAICT) happened. What you’re saying is “OK, nothing happened, but why don’t we really really ban it this time and see what happens?”
David Wright
March 2nd, 2008
19:56:01

Kev on March 2nd 11:36 shows just what a truly nice person he is – apart from being wrong – again.

Unpleasant personal attacks and sarcasm and accusations and allegations which are false.

It is helpful to point this out – how pleasant Kev is because you have to be a certain kind of person to do what he is doing.

This is about child health safety. If Kev thinks the vaccines are important, then instead he should be shouting really loud that we need all these kids closely clinically examined and to stop what is happening and as fast as possible. But the odd thing is Kev, you aren’t doing that.

Looking at the “nice” Kev’s approach, no one would ever know that underlying all this is the fate of millions of children around the world who suffer as a result of toxic vaccines that few, if any of them, need.

I have already pointed out that Kev expresses little interested in saving anyone’s kids from the harm that is being caused.

So lets take a little look at his frame of mind.

This is in the context of my pointing out, as little more than an aside, that my access to post on ORAC’s site has been blocked. The mechanism for this was the privacy information. My system is set up not to compromise the privacy information. In the middle of exchanges of postings to that site, the access was changed so that only people who compromise the privacy information on their computers can post there.

But the “nice” Kev starts out with sarcasm and a patronising tone:-

“Isn’t it obvious? Orac is part of The Big Pharma Shill Illuminati conspiracy. We all are, didn’t you know?”

So the “nice” Kev wants to make out he is dealing with some conspiracy theorist nut. Thanks Kev. As I pointed out before, once people start the “conspiracy theory” accusations, we know they are licked.

Then we have from the “nice” Kev some sarcasm:-

“Let me go through it for you again.!

Then some more patronage – in the guise of telling me what I am supposed to be concerned about:-

“You are worried about cookies storing data about you on Orac’s site.”

This all again is to give the impression the “nice” Kev is dealing with an imbecile who needs to have explained to him what his concerns are really about. Thanks again Kev.

But really what the “nice” Kev is doing is reframing what I said to set up what the “nice” Kev wants to say instead. And of course, as with most of what Kev says, it is wrong too.

The “nice” Kev goes on to say:-

“I am telling you that all blogs do that.”

Sorry, “nice” Kev. They don’t. And ORAC’s blog changed in the middle of the exchanges of postings.

Then the “nice” Kev goes on to suggest, with more patronising that my systems are junk, which is also to plant the idea I must be a little bit of junk too.

Kev alleges (without any justification or evidence – as is his habit) that this is just my systems doing this – not the systems running ORAC’s blog (although that is clearly what it is):-

“Why your home software decided to warn you about Orac’s and no-one elses I couldn’t say. Possibly because it is rubbish.”

Thanks again “nice” Kev.

Now Kev wades further in to the personal attacks having set the scene (fallaciously as usual from the “nice” Kev) that he is dealing with an imbecile:-

“This does however, clearly demonstrate how willingly you are to waffle on about subjects you clearly know nothing about.”

Thanks buddy. It all goes to build up the picture of just how “nice” the “nice” Kev is.

And the “nice” Kev rounds it all off with more patronising and insulting personal attacks:-

“Also, you don’t need to refer to me in the third person. I’m right here.”

“Because I’m feeling generous I’ll show you how to manage cookies so you can visit whereever you want without the fear of the Black Helicopters swinging by your house.”

Great stuff Kev. Keep it up. Now you are on to this stuff, we know you are licked. You have run out of anything useful to say so you just attack people personally. That is because you are just so “nice”, Kev.
bones
March 2nd, 2008
20:43:05

Ms. Clark said “She’s not an example of vaccine caused-autism …”

That is exactly WHY it was removed as a test case.

David, you’re really grasping at straws. At this point you’ve completely strayed from the original point of this post, and are now sounding like a paranoid man – or maybe I should say “exhibiting features of paranoid schizophrenia”.

All this talk about cookies has made me hungy.
Schwartz
March 2nd, 2008
20:56:00

Bones,

You never answered my ealier post. Dr. Zimmerman’s study does the following:

1) clearly describes the patient as autistic after the medical event
2) clearly describes a hypothesis for how the medical condition combined with vaccination resulted in the Autistic regression
3) shows through another study that there is a good possibility that a non-trivial portion of the autistic population that could suffer from similar problems
4) clearly warns about the scenario whereby vaccination could contribute or exacerbate Autistic regression in children with this dysfunction.

So how exactly do you reconcile the information in the case study with your and Ms. Clark’s position?

Or perhaps you’re content (like Isles) with just sniping instead of addresses logical points of discussion?
bones
March 2nd, 2008
21:49:48

Schwartz, spare me. If you’ve read any of my posts re the decision at issue, you know full well that my points have been valid, and completely ignored by the likes of you and David. I choose to not go round-and-round perpetually restating my position because it gets tiring after awhile.

Every statement in this thread, made by yourself and David, has been speculative and ambiguous at best, if not downright disengenuous (see below).

Besides, if you seriously consider such statements as “...there is a good possibility that a non-trivial portion of the autistic population that could suffer from similar problems” a logical point of discussion, then we really have nothing further to discuss.

A good possibility? Non-trivial? I don’t even know what that means, nor would I know where to begin in responding to it.
Ms. Clark
March 2nd, 2008
21:55:09

So someone thinks that something like 7% of autistic kids could also have a mitochondrial disorder? The real world experience and descriptions of autism do not seem to bear this out.

Most autistic kids are not laying around and all sickly, or even heading toward death because of a mitochondrial disease. Quite the contrary, the “typical” autistic kid is healthy, so healthy that the parents worry about the kid outliving them and so healthy that they can figure out locks on doors and RUN away. So healthy that they stay up all night and have energy to burn during the day. Not that that describes ALL autistic kids but autism is certainly not mitochondrial disease in general.

So…. about 20% of autistic kids “regress” and over-all they have the same outcomes as those autistic from infancy. The 20% of regressive autistic kids aren’t more likely to die of some organ disease caused by an undiagnosed mito disorder.

And… if there were 7% of autistic kids who are like the CHILD in this case, then one would expect that they all would or nearly all would have regressed following a vaccine in the way this child did, right?

So Clifford Shoemaker and Sylvia Chin-Caplan and whatsizname the millionaire antivax lawyer- Thomas Powers(?), not to mention Bob Krakow and the rest of the mercury parents who are also lawyers… should have had no problem with bundling a thousand or more kids just like the one in this case who was removed from the Omnibus by her lawyers because she didn’t fit the vaccine autism model.

I really want to know why the parents didn’t settle long ago, why did they tag along with the Omnibus when they could have had a table injury payoff a long time ago?
Schwartz
March 3rd, 2008
01:13:14

Bones,

Since you seem to ignore the information in the case study:

To determine the frequency of routine laboratory abnormalities in similar patients, we performed a retro-spective study including 159 patients with autism (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV and Childhood Autism Rating Scale) not previously diagnosed with metabolic disorders and 94 age-matched controls with other neurologic disorders. Aspartate aminotransferase was elevated in 38% of patients with autism compared with 15% of controls (P

Feel free to paraphrase what that means in your words—I look forward to your explanation of it’s importance. So far, you seem to ignore the points raised in the case study quite effectively.
Schwartz
March 3rd, 2008
01:14:11

bones,

Here is the full quote:

To determine the frequency of routine laboratory abnormalities in similar patients, we performed a retro-spective study including 159 patients with autism (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV and Childhood Autism Rating Scale) not previously diagnosed with metabolic disorders and 94 age-matched controls with other neurologic disorders. Aspartate aminotransferase was elevated in 38% of patients with autism compared with 15% of controls (P less than .0001). The serum creatine kinase level also was abnormally elevated in 22 (47%) of 47 patients with autism. These data suggest that further metabolic evaluation is indicated in autistic patients and that defects of oxidative phosphorylation might be prevalent.
Schwartz
March 3rd, 2008
01:36:15

Ms. Clark,

I’m certainly not saying this case even applies to the majority of autism cases, as there is no evidence to suggest this at all. However, I think that 7% is a number that merits attention.

If you read the case study very, then you’ll see that it does not require mitochondrial disorder, but mitochondrial dysfunction. A dysfunction (vs disorder) does not imply that the condition is persistent.

And… if there were 7% of autistic kids who are like the CHILD in this case, then one would expect that they all would or nearly all would have regressed following a vaccine in the way this child did, right?

Not at all. From what I understand, mitochondrial dysfunction can be a spectrum of issues and severity, thus the outcome is not expected to be homogenous. Additionally, the case study implies that the timing of the insult on the system is also important.

It also states that infections or vaccinations could have a similar effect, presumably because the immune response itself raises oxidative stress.

However, in support of part of your statement, the paper notes that if the described conditions occur during the timeframe of 18-30 months, that one might expect to see Autistic Regression.

I really want to know why the parents didn’t settle long ago, why did they tag along with the Omnibus when they could have had a table injury payoff a long time ago?

I suspect that it had a lot more to do with the government than the plaintiffs. My understanding is that all of the Autism related cases have been grouped together and are pending the resolution of the Omnibus hearings. This one was probably stuck with the rest, until the plaintiffs pursued it as one of the test cases. At that point, I would guess the real investigation began.

... the millionaire antivax lawyer- Thomas Powers(?)...

Are you implying that Mr. Matanowski is not a millionaire?
Ms. Clark
March 3rd, 2008
05:02:52

Back to the mito thing, Mr. “I’m not really an antivaxer” “Schwartz”. So they found some biochemical differences (of which I have very little understanding) in 7% of autistic kids, and in those kids this thing is transient, and they just happened to pick it up during the testing for this marker?

But CHILD doesn’t have a transient mito thang. She has a genetic problem on her mitochondrial DNA, what she did get from her mama. That is if I understand mitochondrial DNA.

So now kids with a transient mito thang can regress because of either a germ thang or a vaccine germ thang (the live virus vaccines being implicated as I understand it), but surely there are a bunch of these transiently sickly kids out there who got made autistic by vaccines,..... and no one has identified this group up until now?

Hmmmmmm. I don’t think so. And why haven’t the scum bucket vaccine sharks found more clients like CHILD to push forward into the “pay me too,” line.

And notice that the vaccine scum bucket sharks realized that CHILD doesn’t really have autism, which is why they took her out of the Omnibus! Heh.
HCN
March 3rd, 2008
06:05:46

Ms. Clark said “So now kids with a transient mito thang can regress because of either a germ thang or a vaccine germ thang (the live virus vaccines being implicated as I understand it), but surely there are a bunch of these transiently sickly kids out there who got made autistic by vaccines,..... and no one has identified this group up until now?”

So this means if herd immunity is reduced through the hard work of Wakefield, SafeMinds and Mr. “I’m not really an antivaxer” “Schwartz”, and measles starts to spread with a vengence (UK, San Diego, Switzerland, Japan, Pakistan, Israel and other places have regurrent measles outbreaks), then kids with mitochrondrial disorders would have a greater chance of getting the actual disease.

Now tell me again (I must have missed the answer the last time I asked) what real evidence there is that the MMR vaccine (which has been in use in the USA since 1971 and has never contained thimerosal) is more dangerous than measles, mumps or rubella. What papers written by someone other than Wakefield have devinite evidence.
HCN
March 3rd, 2008
06:10:49

Oops, let me continue this sentence: then kids with mitochondrial disorders would have a greater chance of getting the actual disease.
.... and suffering even more neurological damage.
David Wright
March 3rd, 2008
13:45:49

HCN asks loaded questions knowing that no one is compiling the evidence she demands.

HCN asks “what real evidence there is that the MMR vaccine (which has been in use in the USA since 1971 and has never contained thimerosal) is more dangerous than measles, mumps or rubella”

and “What papers written by someone other than Wakefield have devinite evidence.”

Here is the proof you won’t get the evidence and it comes from a leading European Expert on vaccines who was one of the founders of the Brighton Collaboration (in which US CDC vaccine representatives et al participate in). [1]

Dr. Thomas Jefferson (one of the authors of the Cochrane MMR review) said when head of the vaccine division of the Cochrane Collaboration and board member of EUSAFEVAC:

“Most safety studies on childhood vaccines have not been conducted thoroughly enough to tell whether the jabs cause side effects …”

“––[T]he issue was the ‘Cinderella’ of public health research and Government officials had failed to make it a high priority.”

“There is some good research, but it is overwhelmed by the bad. The public has been let down because the proper studies have not been done.”

“[T]here was a ‘dearth’ of sound studies on the risks and benefits.”

“[I]nformation available on the safety of vaccines that are routinely given to babies and toddlers was ‘simply inadequate’.”

” ... future vaccination programmes were likely to involve giving children five, six, even seven vaccines all at once.”

“For people like me, it is becoming more and more difficult to tease out what problems may be due to an individual vaccine. It is almost becoming impossible to do this. We have to think very carefully about how we will monitor these vaccines. We have a responsibility to these children; they are our future. It is no use having a situation where someone suggests a possible harm and
everyone runs around frantically trying to find bits of evidence. What is required is good-quality information that has been systematically collated and assessed.”

So HCN is in difficulty claiming this is conspiracy theory or other such allegations. These people just ignore the adverse reactions. And if you want to see a classic example of dismissal of adverse reactions here it is from the British Medical Journal [2]:-

These comments relate to deaths and adverse reactions to Gardasil and the whole piece is about what a calamity for drug company share prices it is that people die and get sick from getting vaccines:-

“The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s Stephen Downes argued in the Australian online media service that the incident indicated “mass sociogenic illness”, the medical euphemism for mass hysteria, whereby contagion transmits by “line of sight,” rumour, and anxiety (Drug Safety 2003;26:599-604)”

“Medical and government authorities who were interviewed consistently explained the incidents as commonplace anxiety reactions to vaccination.”

Obviously, there is more that can be said on this but we can wait to see what HCN has to say in reply. And we can also ask, why is HCN not concerned to ensure adverse reactions to vaccines are fully explored so that the true risk/benefit ratio is better known.

This is after all about child health safety and if you believe vaccines are important you will want to ensure everyone is satisfied they are safe and that the risks do not outweigh the benefits.

[2] Fainting schoolgirls wipe $A1bn off market value of Gardasil producer
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7605/1195
grenouille
March 3rd, 2008
16:00:36

On a dev. delay board that I used to belong to there were three kids who had a primary diagnosis plus additional characteristics:

-Sotos syndrome with significant autistic features

-22q deletion syndrome with significant autistic features

-cerebral palsy with significant autistic features

None of these parents would describe their child as autistic. The addendum to diagnosis described other symptoms the child displayed.

I am a layman here, but doesn’t this child fall into the same type of category? Mito disorder with significant autistic features? It seems like Kirby and Schwartz are trying to make autism her primary diagnosis. To me, it seems very different, not just semantically.

Can anyone here explain this better? I can see how it’s a fine line and I want to understand this a little better.
Kev
March 3rd, 2008
16:40:03

Please don’t post JPANDS crap on here David. It will be removed immediately.
Kev
March 3rd, 2008
16:41:57

grenouille, I think you’re definitely on the right lines. The fact that Zimmerman and others in the so-called concession report refer to ‘autistic features’ rather than a diagnosis of autism demonstrates that they do too.
Tom
March 3rd, 2008
17:16:34

Kirby and Shwartz lack an understanding of medicine. They don’t let that get in the way though.
HCN
March 3rd, 2008
17:30:57

Mr. Wright also lacks any understanding of medicine. I asked for evidence that the MMR was more dangerous than measles, mumps and rubella and he went off on all sorts of stuff (Gardesil, conspiracy stuff) and did not even come close to attempting to answer the question. Even though I am perfectly fine with European research (like Dr. Bustin and Dr. Chadwick and their assessment of Wakefield’s results).

He even says “This is after all about child health safety and if you believe vaccines are important you will want to ensure everyone is satisfied they are safe and that the risks do not outweigh the benefits.”

So where is the evidence that the MMR is more dangerous than measles, mumps, or rubella?
David Wright
March 3rd, 2008
19:21:20

See, HCN is doing exactly what I predicted (in addition to resorting to personal attacks instead of answering the points made).

I provided clear evidence that adverse reactions to vaccines are ignored so you just don’t have the formally published data in the medical literature and she goes ahead and still demands it.

What a nice person. It tells you so much about the kind of people you are dealing with here when the matter is an issue of child health safety. Instead of addressing these issues and being concerned for the children, this is the stuff people like HCN get up to.

I quoted a leading European authority on vaccines who tells us no one is looking into the problem properly and s/he ignores that too.

And if you cite all of the cases reported by patients and parents, s/he will say “anecdotal – I won’t accept it”. Large case series are not “anecdotal” but never mind, that is what HCN will say.

And then if you point out that the medics, government and drug companies are not reporting adverse reactions, s/he will claim “conspiracy theorist”. And that is even though it is true and the problems are acknowledged to be vastly under reported.

And even though she has been cited a paper showing that measles in the US has become a much milder disease, is now rarely life threatening, and that its severity diminishes inversely proportionately to the wealth of the parents, she ignores that too.

So here is the position in summary. No one is properly recording the adverse reactions. This means formally published data is denied to the public in order to see clearly and openly the extent to which the vaccines are causing harm. But HCN demands it knowing it is not there.

HCN’s problem is that if you do not have that evidence, that means s/he does not have any valid scientific or other evidence proving the vaccines are safe and do not cause the problems the parents and some doctors are brave enough to bear testimony too.

So here is what I will do to help HCN. I will provide a link to a paper which shows that the claims the MMR is safe is bunk and here it is:-

And that paper states: “The conclusions of the Cochrane review on the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccine violate the standards of evidence-based medicine and are not supported by the body of the review. There are material concerns that the conclusions were influenced by efforts of the British government to avoid liability in claims brought on behalf of allegedly vaccine-injured children.”

The paper also concludes:-

“The conclusions of the Cochrane MMR review are not supported by, and contradict, the evidence presented in the review. ”

“Having found inadequate evidence of safety in the papers studied, the review’s conclusion that the millions of doses of MMR vaccine administered worldwide are safe is not science based.”

“It is based on the circular assertion without cited evidence that the vaccine is safe because millions of doses are administered.”

“The review also shows that studies into the extent of the adverse effects are too limited to say how extensive these adverse effects may be, and consequently to say whether the vaccine is “safe”.”

“The review provides no comparative evaluation of MMR vaccine safety and effectiveness against other measures, such as single vaccines, placebo, no vaccine, or modern treatment options.”

“It provides no evidence to refute the Wakefield hypothesis of an association between MMR vaccine, regressive autism following previously normal development, and a novel form of inflammatory bowel disease.”

The Cochrane review duplicates an almost identical paper published in 2003 by members of the same team, yet contains no reference to the earlier paper. According to a separate publication by one of the authors, duplicated publication can be considered unethical or fraudulent when the authors attempt to conceal the existence of duplicated publication from editors and readers.”

Now what people like HCN do is then claim the paper is not published by a reliable source or some such other nonsense. Isn’t that right HCN?
bones
March 3rd, 2008
19:56:49

“Now what people like HCN do is then claim the paper is not published by a reliable source or some such other nonsense.”

The understatement of the year, but count me in that category, please.

Anyone claiming that piece of trash even falls within the realm of scientific journals – with trite articles such as “Liberalism Is a Mental Disorder”, and ” American Physicians and Meiji-Era Samurais: Is History Repeating Itself?” – might as well stay out of the discussion altogether.

It’s like a PhD astrophysicist telling you there are other planets in the universe and, as proof, cites to an article in the National Enquirer.
Ms. Clark
March 3rd, 2008
20:03:07

The parents agreed that she doesn’t have autism, apparently, otherwise why did they allow their lawyers to take her out of the, note the name, Autism Omnibus? In fact as I remember the PSC stated officially in their briefs or statements or whatever that their cases were to prove that Autism and stuff like autism are all caused by vaccines. This girl didn’t even qualify to make it into the Omnibus group as having something like autism.

It should be noted that non-autistic Deaf children occasionally get diagnosed with autism. Their deafness, going unnoticed, amazingly, leads people to think they are merely unresponsive to their names, etc. I can think of two studies that found Deaf kids misdiagnosed as autistic in a pool that was assumed to be entirely comprised of real autistic kids. I wonder if this girl had hearing loss from her repeated ear infections and this is what they were seeing as “autism”? Even if that’s not the case, it goes to show how kids can get a mistaken diagnosis of autism based on their fitting “criteria” from the ADOS or DSM or something else.
Leila
March 3rd, 2008
20:16:57

IMHO those children were born with either the mito or autism genes, and the condition/regression was triggered by the high FEVER, and not a specific virus or toxin.

I think in some cases the fevers are caused by vaccine reaction, but in others it may be some other virus or bacteria that the baby picked up at daycare or at home around that same time. The average baby/toddler gets sick A LOT, and I know my autistic kid wasn’t any more prone to being sick than all his NT peers.
David Wright
March 3rd, 2008
20:39:01

Kev (March 3 16:40) and “Bones” *March 3 19:56) both attack the journal in which the paper I cited to HCN was published. All as predicted.

Look at how angry Kev gets:-

“Please don’t post JPANDS crap on here David. It will be removed immediately.”

The reason for this is that they cannot answer the points made.

Clearly, if the paper I cited was not itself reliable that would be immediately apparent. And people are not stupid and can make their own minds up. But Kev does not want them to read it because they might find out it is telling them sensible and reasonable information.

Bones adopts the same approach as Kev. In fact when you look at whatever “Bones” says, it pretty much all attacks and nothing of substance – which speaks for itself.

For these people it is clearly important to attack the journal. Citing a peer reviewed medical paper from a medical journal carries with it the imprimatur of the journal. To counter that Kev and Bones attack the journal instead rather dealing with anything the individual paper says.

And the paper I cited seems to make a look of good points.

And it is in a peer reviewed medical journal which sets out its stall to debunk. The journal is not there to be popular and it is not popular with Kev and Bones. But that is not because it is not a reliable source. That is because it is a reliable source, but Kev and Bones don’t like what it says.
Tom
March 3rd, 2008
22:02:56

David,

JPANDS is fish wrap. The journal is so bad it isn’t even indexed in Pub Med. That’s a an accomplishment. Seriously, you have no understanding of medicine. Just accept that you are unqualified to discern the difference between quality research and junk science.
bones
March 3rd, 2008
22:17:23

David says, “Citing a peer reviewed medical paper from a medical journal carries with it the imprimatur of the journal”.

Absolutely, I couldn’t agree more. Now if you would only cite to one (a peer reviewed medical paper from a medical journal, that is), we could talk.

That rag is not listed on PubMed, Ovid, has absolutely no impact factor rating per Thomson Scientific (formerly ISI).

It IS the very definition of a non-scientific magazine.
bones
March 3rd, 2008
22:29:52

BTW…just one more thing, David.

The impact factor to which I refered above, that’s out of 1,500 science journals.

That’s right, not even a mere mention – not so much as a breathless whisper – in 1,500 other science journals.

But you go on reading…it suits you.
Evil Spock
March 3rd, 2008
23:30:38

Kev,

so many people are looking for Mr. Wright, and here he came looking for you.

In all the discussion of “good Kev and bad Kev” (does the Kev in the evil universe have a little beard like Mr. Spock did?) I have to ask if you are being “Bad Kev” here?

Are you allowing his comments to foster a discussion, or leaving them here to document the lack of good arguments that are so common to the those claiming vaccines cause autism.

For example, here we have people depending on JPANDS. A journal that gives voice to people who deny HIV causes AIDS.

http://www.jpands.org/vol12no4/bauer.pdf
HCN
March 4th, 2008
00:47:06

JPANDS is a journal of a political group, not a medical group. Their legal counsel is the same guy who runs Conservapedia, an internet joke of a “wiki”. Neither websites have much to do with any real science. Read about them more here:
http://neurodiversity.com/webl.....bedfellows

Could you please try to use actual science in telling us how dangerous the MMR is? You could start here: http://www.pubmed.gov
HCN
March 4th, 2008
03:40:34

Mr. Wright, I did decide to click on your JPANDS link… Good Grief, man! I asked for science, that paper is written by a LAWYER!

Behind the author’s name is “esq.”, that means he is a lawyer, not a scientific researcher.

Here is a reading suggestion to help you figure out what to look for when researching science/medical papers:
http://www.amazon.com/Snake-Oi.....195313682/
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
06:25:38

There, look, what did I tell you. You cannot deal with the facts in the paper so round on the journal.

And let us note first that none the the facts from the paper concerned are contested by anyone here. And attacking the journal is not attacking the paper and what it says. So the paper stands.

So let’s deal first with Tom (Mar 3 22:02) who says “The journal is so bad it isn’t even indexed in Pub Med. That’s a an accomplishment.”

Around 80% of journals are not indexed on Pubmed:-
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/pubs/fa.....aq.html#a7

So not having a Pubmed listing does not make the journal “fishwrap”. It also does not make the content of papers in a journal rubbish.

So Tom is wrong – just like the rest of you here – spouting the first thing that comes into your heads without any factual basis for it.

And only 140 journals a year are considered for inclusion out of the thousands of journals that exist – so it could take fifty years or more at that rate for a journal to get a listing.

And there is plenty of scope for politicking to prevent journals that debunk from being listed. And judging by the ferocity of the attacks, the journal being attacked looks like it is not shy when debunking.

And as one professor of medicine says – always read the debunkers first.

So Tom, if you cannot critique the critique, tough luck buddy. And this paper looks a good one.

Then Tom says “Seriously, you have no understanding of medicine. Just accept that you are unqualified to discern the difference between quality research and junk science.”

Well that is just fine and Dandy, Tom. You have no idea what I am qualified to discern or not. So there we go with more nonsense being published.

And if you want to know about how reliable the journals are that are published and you want to know about how drug companies manipulate the journals, how about reading what the former editor of the British Medical Journal has to say about it:-

“Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies”
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0020138

and

“Medical journals and pharmaceutical companies: uneasy bedfellows”
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/326/7400/1202

So who is relying on false and manipulated data? Yep, that is right – you people and those nice Pubmed indexed journals.

It is so bad now you cannot rely on what is published on Pubmed and have to look real hard to see where they place the smoke and mirrors on those nice papers that hide the proper data and results and put in fake conclusions, just like someone did with the Cochrane MMR review to claim MMR was safe when there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support that assertion.

But then, that Richard Smith and all those other BMJ editors – they are all conspiracy theorists/nuts aren’t they.
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
06:32:56

“bones” (March 3 22:17) – I think my reply to Tom deals with you.

You attack the journal but cannot critique what the paper says that I cited. Looks like I win as you cannot handle the fact.

You say of the journal “It IS the very definition of a non-scientific magazine.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Get back into the real world.

And why are you so excited about all of this anyway. Drug companies can stand up for themselves. What about all those kids who are being harmed. I don’t see you screaming as loud for them as you do here for the drug companies.

So “bones”, why is that? This is about the health and safety of children. You seem more concerned about protecting the drug companies than the kids.
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
06:42:35

There, what did I tell you. Now onto HCN.

HCN also cannot deal with the facts in the paper cited and also gets it badly wrong (Mar 4 03:40)

S/he complains “Good Grief, man! I asked for science, that paper is written by a LAWYER!”

Behind the author’s name is “esq.”, that means he is a lawyer, not a scientific researcher.”

Lost your eye glasses have you HCN?

I looked a little closer at this claim and guess what. “Behind his name” BSc, ARCS (Hons) (Physics).

So it looks like the author is a physicist as well as being a lawyer.

Well, HCN, how is that for cherry-picking by you? You look “behind his name” and only see “Esq” which is three letters. And you do not see “BSc, ARCS (Hons) (Physics)”
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
06:53:39

HCN says (Mar4 00:47) “JPANDS is a journal of a political group, not a medical group.”

What? It is a medical association with 4000 members.

And are you saying other medical associations are not political groups the American Medical Association is not a political group?

Get real, babe.

Then s/he says “Their legal counsel is the same guy who runs Conservapedia, an internet joke of a “wiki”.

So I took a look at Conservapedia and I found “Conservapedia has about 23,300 educational, clean, and concise entries, with more than 350 lectures and term lists. There have been over 51,500,000 page views and over 392,000 page edits.”
http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page

So what else is new. HCN casting around to attack anything that does not agree with her/him? Nope – not new. Same old, old.

And then HCN says “Could you please try to use actual science in telling us how dangerous the MMR is? You could start here: http://www.pubmed.gov”;

But I have already shown HCN that the data on harm is not being collected and a leading authority in the vaccine business complains the area is not being looked at.

So for at least the third time HCN claims I must find the evidence when it is admitted it is not being collected.

And what that means of course is that when HCN claims the vaccine is safe, s/he is talking through the ground facing orifice because if you don’t collect the data on harm – it is totally illogical and unscientific to claim something is safe when you refuse to collect the data on the harm it causes.
Genevieve
March 4th, 2008
07:13:38

Please join me in Blogging For Autism Awareness this April. http://momologue.blogspot.com/.....utism.html
Matt
March 4th, 2008
08:43:54

I guess if David Wright is impressed with JPANDS—the ‘journal’ arm of a group of 4,000 doctors, he must be in awe of Pediatrics, journal of the AAP. Not only does the AAP represent a large number of doctors, but it is indexed, has a high impact factor and is highly respected.

But, then again, when people are reduced to “ground facing orafice” comments, one has to assume that the gentleman has reached his limit of valuable contributions.
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
08:51:08

Matt Mar 4 08:43 makes a non point. The point is a peer reviewed paper was cited and you all scream about how lousy the journal is instead because you cannot criticise what the paper says.

So now you have all had your hissy fits, let us take a look at the kind of medical publications you people rely on.

It cannot get more unscientific than this, as described in the paper I cited:-

“The conclusions of the Cochrane MMR review are not supported by, and contradict, the evidence presented in the review. ”

“Having found inadequate evidence of safety in the papers studied, the review’s conclusion that the millions of doses of MMR vaccine administered worldwide are safe is not science based.”

“It is based on the circular assertion without cited evidence that the vaccine is safe because millions of doses are administered.”

“The review also shows that studies into the extent of the adverse effects are too limited to say how extensive these adverse effects may be, and consequently to say whether the vaccine is “safe”.”

http://www.jpands.org/vol11no4/millerc.pdf

Looks like it is “groundward facing orifice” stuff from the PubMed type publications, then.
Kev
March 4th, 2008
10:09:32

David, for the reasons expressed above by others I will not tolerate mention of that non-scientific journal which borders on fascism in my opinion.

If you don’t like that, please feel free to shove it :)
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
13:07:00

Kev says (Mar 4 10:09)

“I will not tolerate mention of that non-scientific journal” ... “If you don’t like that, please feel free to shove it :)”

Aside from such an extraordinarily emotional outburst, I did not mention the journal. It was all you folks who did. I cited what is a reasonable paper with a reasonable analysis.

Your response is to become emotional and angry.

People can judge the quality of the paper from reading and making their own minds up. If what it says does not stand up then tell us what you disagree with.

I find this extreme reaction counter logical and surprising. Why don’t you get emotional and angry about the children instead. It is an unusual reaction.
Kev
March 4th, 2008
13:33:49

Once more David, it is not a reasonable journal. It is a rag. Don’t cite it on here. And once again, if you don’t like that, you can shove it :) – - you can consider that your last chance to cite science, not puerile rubbish.

Surely it must be clear by now why I don’t get emotional about ‘the children’ – its because I’m a Big Pharma Shill of the Illuminati blah blah blah.

Seriously, people like you have worn out my ability to get too emotional.
David Wright
March 4th, 2008
16:11:27

Kev,

It does not make sense that on the one hand you give the impression of inviting debate and then cut if off when serious publications are cited from a serious journal which just happens to be willing to publish information not to your liking.

The only sense it makes is that you want to exclude evidence being cited from journals willing to publish that which does not support your case.

Your remarks (“puerile rubbish”, “it is a rag”) do not work. They do not justify your position and the refusal to consider serious publications in serious medical journals calls you and your approach into question.

If the journal were a “rag” and it it published “unscientific” “puerile rubbish” that would very rapidly be apparent.

But you give no examples to back up your claims. The only example anyone gives is the Bauer paper

And that too is a thoughtful and interesting paper by Henry Bauer a professor emeritus in the departments of chemistry and science studies and dean emeritus of Arts & Sciences at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University (Virginia Tech).
Kev
March 4th, 2008
16:14:02

I warned you David. Sorry dude, you can consider yourself sin-binned for one week. When (if) you come back, refrain from linking to JPANDS or other poor science.
Schwartz
March 5th, 2008
04:43:59

test
Schwartz
March 5th, 2008
04:47:29

Ms Clark,

You shouldnote the following from the case study:

It is unclear whether mitochondrial dysfunction results from a primary genetic abnormality, atypical development of essential metabolic pathways, or secondary inhibition of oxidative phosphorylation by other factors.

So your assertion that the conclusions of the study only apply to genetic abnormalities does not agree with the documented assessment of the medical doctor in this case.

You also think that all of the Autism sub-groups have been found? Given that the etiology is completely unknown, how is this a logical position? We can’t even agree on prevalance, let alone document sub-groups appropriately.
Schwartz
March 5th, 2008
04:53:32

Ms. Clark,

The case study (in addition to the title) clearly refers to the patient as Autistic. I don’t know why you keep stating that she was not?
Kev
March 5th, 2008
08:07:16

Schwarz – careful with your connection of words. Its not your fault but you’re tripping my spam filter heavily.
Ms. Clark
March 5th, 2008
10:31:51

I realize that the CHILD was called “Autistic” by someone, Zimmerman? My point is if she was even plausibly autistic in any sort of convincing sense, then why remove her from the Omnibus? As I said, the Omnibus sharks set out to prove that vaccines could cause autism or something that looks like autism.

Here’s the quote which I have been too lazy to dig up previously…
It’s the “Court” speaking at the beginning of the Hazlehurst case (day 1).

“The OAP is an efficient method of proceeding on the nearly 5,000 individual vaccine claims filed by families on behalf of their children who have autism or a similar condition.”

So, logically, the CHILD case didn’t consist of evidence that would prove that a vaccine “gave her” autism or a similar condition, otherwise she would have stayed in the the OAP.

We don’t have all of CHILD’s records, we have a paper that her FATHER wrote or helped to write, (excuuuuuse me?), and we have the document that the court made and was leaked illegally or put out legally… I still don’t know what happened, but I sure would get a giggle out of knowing that a certain known liar was in jail for contempt of court (I don’t think that’s going to happen, but we all have our little entertaining thoughts…)

I never said that all subtypes of autism are known, or anything of the sort. I’m saying that apparently the child’s slime bucket lawyers and her parents agreed that she’s not autistic and doesn’t have a similar condition, but that what she has might have been caused by a vaccine, or might not have been caused by a vaccine at all. We don’t know.

I think some people absolutely salivate at the idea that vaccines could cause autism and that this beclouds their thinking, but that’s just my opinion having watched the absolutely vile behavior of the mercury malicia and the antivax activists. They scare me, and they have intended to intimidate me veiled threats and harassment in my home (and I don’t mean people making cranky responses to me on the Internet).

I believe that such people lie through their teeth often and that they feel entirely justified in doing so. So when parents say, “my baby…. after the vaccines…. (sobbing) regressed… and he’s merely a husk now” I don’t believe it any more.

I’m glad that CHILD’s mito problem was properly identified and that she’s getting custom help. I seriously doubt she could have gotten top quality help from any DAN! whacko. Amy Yasko would have had her sucking down expensive bottles of yeast soup. Bradstreet would have done a spinal tap looking for measles with a test the finds measles when they aren’t there, Buttar would have sold her parents a non-chelating chelating cream, Neubrander would have had her injected with B12 and have tried to sell or rent to her parents a toy HBOT balloon. Stan Kurtz would have told the parents that the girl was yeasty and needed a prescription for an anti-herpes drug. Jang would have had her on high vitamin A doses and magnetic clay baths. Andy Cutler would have had her on “ALA” and who knows what else. A dozen Zeolite distributors would have been after to parents to try Zeolite drops… but Andy Cutler would have told them to forget Zeolite… the TACA activist moms would have had the CHILD on the GFCFSF and maybe phenol free and specific carbohydrate diet…. I think that combination of diet restrictions allows only water, organic ostrich and Jerusalem artichoke as “legal” foods. Yum.

Someone else would have sold the parents a water filter and a sauna. Someone else would have sold them a mother camel to keep in their back yard and milk daily. Someone else would have sold them chelating foot pads and magic radio wave glutathione boosting patches.

So how many kids like this CHILD have been misdiagnosed with “yeast” and “metals” using fraudulent lab reports? How many kids have been made sicker by DAN! quacks not seeing a mito disease that was there?

Who knows? I think I remember there being one mom who said her child had a mito disorder or some kind of metabolic disorder. She wanted Thoughtful House to “scope” her kid with a pill cam because she believed that anesthesia would kill him (because of his problem), and TH said, “no we don’t want to do the pill cam, we want to knock him out and scope him….” The mom was livid because they had told her that they would do the pill camera, and they seemed to be trying to get her to do the more expensive (and possibly deadly) scoping.

You’d think with all of Kirby’s charm and connections (he’s got friends at the UN even!) that they’d come up with hundreds of kids like this CHILD. But… no. And the lawyers can’t come up with even one other, apparently. I mean… they added two of the causation categories at the last minute. I think originally it was the all thimerosal channel, then they wanted an MMR only channel and an MMR and thimerosal channel, too. Why didn’t they add a “chickenpox vaccine and mito disorder” channel? Like I said, they’ve had CHILD’s case for some time.
Rob43
March 5th, 2008
20:20:53

Ms. Clark is incorrect in her assessment of the record. What was leaked was the government’s sysnopsis and quoting of the medical record, as the essential points they thought worth recording in making their decision to award. This case was not heard in court; it was decided out of the blue by HRSA of Health and Human Services. You need to ask DVIC/HRSA/HHS what they meant by their wording of their decision. If you look at it as a legal tactic, what they did is very smart. They took a case that was likely to be one of the three upcoming test cases to be heard, the one most likely to be the ‘slam-dunk’ case, awarded it on more narrow grounds, and got it out of the way. That’s my guess.

The girl is diagnosed with autism/ASD. The government doesn’t recognize autism as a disease but calls it ASD. Dr. Zimmerman did not diagnoss her with ASD, but immediately referred her to the experts within the Johns Hopkins hospital who do make that firm diagnosis. The record shows they did that—they call it ASD, again not autism because it is not something you get proved by a blood test and there, voila, is proof. But they are among the best experts in the world on it.
The girl has a mitochondrial disorder; she does not have mitochondrial disease, otherwise she would be regressing constantly. She is not; she is getting better; except for the later development of seizures; otherwise improving constantly.
So all of you, rethink your positions on this case; and ask DVIC/HRSA/HHS what they think they mean by their (narrow)decision, and more importantly, why did they take it, decide it, and take it out of the Omnibus group without forwarning the attorney’s and family.
Fiona Sacchetti
March 5th, 2008
20:35:14

I am in total agreement with Rob43 and would be most interested in seeing the information that allows Ms Clark to come to the conclusions that she does. She presents her personal opinion as though is based on facts, but it appears that she is assuming and speculating only.
Ms. Clark
March 5th, 2008
22:23:00

So please respond to this that I wrote, Bob and Fiona: “My point is if she was even plausibly autistic in any sort of convincing sense, then why remove her from the Omnibus?”

Rob’s fussing about the difference between ASD and autism is silly because the “Gov’t” in the person of the Special master said they were looking for the cause of “autism” and “similar disorders” in the Omnibus… which of course, would include the other “ASDs” aka “autism spectrum disorders.”

Don’t put words in my mouth, Fiona dear. I am only pointing out that logically the child must not really have autism or anything “similar” to autism otherwise why did they take her out of the Omnibus?

The greedy antivax lawyers agreed to it, in fact they gloated about it as a victory in that letter to the Special Masters… or that’s how I read it and that’s how antivax and mercury phobic parents spun it back in November (or ???) when that letter was posted to the docket.. They said that this CHILD’s case had been conceded, their words not the SM’s as I understand.

The toxic sleaze-buckets-in-suits didn’t whine that the mean old Gov’t had kicked the kid out of the Omnibus… this idea is a new addition to the conspiracy theorizing, I guess.

It’s a simple question guys. If she ever was really autistic, as opposed to developmentally delayed, why voluntarily remove her from the Omnibus? Why not put up a screaming fuss to leave her in and thus pave the way to that pot of gold at the end of the five years of stalling on the part of the PSC? Huh???

Why haven’t the Lenny’s and the Kirby’s been sreaming about the gov’t conspiracy to cover up millions of mitochondrially disordered kids made autistic by vaccines???? Why all the wasted time on (fraudulent) MMR claims and fraudulent and patently ridiculous thimerosal claim about autism looking just like mercury poisoning… how come the GR spin hasn’t been, “Autism is just a misdiagnosis for the repercussions of mito problems that can be triggered by any old, garden variety virus with which all humans are coated, that we rub in our eyes and breath in and eat daily”?

No really. I want to know.

Why is it suddenly about mito and not about a childhood deficiency of valtrex or antifungals? Why is it suddenly about mito and not about allergies to milk and wheat that make the kids act stoned and that’s mistaken for autism?

Why?

And do you all really think that the rare cases of mito-whatever can be blamed for the hysterical false “epidemic”? Really? How does that work?
Kev
March 5th, 2008
22:28:07

Rob I’m sorry but you are incorrect. Please look at the wording of both the so-called concession statement and the Case Study. These describe features of autism. They do not, at any point, refer to a diagnosis of autism (or ASD) being made as a result of a vaccine.

Does this child have autism? Maybe. Does she have it as the result of a vaccine? No, not according to these two documents.
Rob43
March 6th, 2008
01:17:43

Kev, She has autism or ASD, as CARDs concluded. The government did not “try” the case, or even hear the case, under the special master of the court. The attorneys headed by Peter Keisler, Assistant Attorney General, cited the DVIC as deciding the facts were sufficient for conpensation under the act, and he headed the signing group from HHS.
I’m not advocating one theory or the other as the one causing this child’s problems, but the government’s theory, poorly as it is put forward in justifying its action, is untenable based on the skimpy evidence it cited, and ignores any problem with the first day of birth injection. It should be noted however, that very year, the vaccine schedule was hastily modified to recommend no Hep B injection with thimerosol until at least two months of age. I’ve always wondered why they did that?
Nevertheless, they, the government, decided to remove this case from the Omnibus, not the parents or the lawyers for the parents and child in the case.
Schwartz
March 6th, 2008
02:16:47

Kev,

Thanks for the info! I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on.
Schwartz
March 6th, 2008
02:34:31

Ms. Clark,

I have not seen anything to indicate that the parents removed the CHILD from the Omnibus. There is no court hearing required if the defending party conceeds the case.

From my perspective, it is pretty simple. 1) The plaintiffs applied in vaccine court and were put in the Autism queue by the government because she was Autistic
2) They were selected as a test case for the Omnibus hearing because they were originally 3) After evaluating the evidence, the government decided to conceed the case instead of contesting it (which is what they do in court)
4) The settlement precluded their participation in the Omnibus hearing because the government wouldn’t contest the case.

Two of your points are flawed here:

1) She was diagnosed as Autistic

a) Confirmed by the case study published in a peer-reviewed journal which should meet your standards and by her own doctor

b) Confirmed by the fact she was originally grouped into the Omnibus hearings by the government

2) The defendents didn’t choose to pull her from the Omnibus—the government stopped contesting the case, thus negating the need for a trial hearing.

a) Only the defendant can conceed a case like this

From the discussion of the test case, it looks like Dr. Zimmerman was really on the ball, and performed a lot of tests to determine if a Mito dysfunction was happening. Unless you’re looking for such a problem and did a battery of tests, you won’t likely find groups of children that match this scenario many years after the fact, especially if it’s not a genetic Mito dysfunction.
Ms. Clark
March 6th, 2008
07:03:33

Schwartz,

These parents were deep deep in to DAN! quackery by 2001, from what I can tell from what the mom wrote to an autism board back then. Her husband had considered becoming a DAN! doc, hmmmmmmmm.

Biased toward seeing what they want to see, maybe?

Anyway, they would have been aware that people like Clifford Shoemaker were taking autism clients to try to prove that vaccines were a cause of autism. This was handy because it rid the parents of any implications that their own genes were inferior in some way.

For some reason instead of just going after a table injury, way back like 5 years ago, which would not be that hard to prove in this kid’s case, I think… they threw their lot in with the rest of Clifford Shoemakers clients. I mean really, you think the gov’t told them to hire Shoemaker…. really? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying?
Kev
March 6th, 2008
10:12:58

Rob, she may well have autism. That is not the issue (as a general stance I would hope every child in the Autism Omnibus has at least a diagnosis of autism!). The issue is, was that autism caused by vaccines? No such wording appears. As I stated in a previous post, the following are the only references to autism (or ASD) in the so-called concession report:

He diagnosed CHILD with “regressive encephalopathy with features consistent with an autistic spectrum disorder, following normal development.

‘features consistent with’ is not the same as ‘diagnosed with’.

CHILD was evaluated by Alice Kau and Kelley Duff, on May 16, 2001, at CARDS. The clinicians concluded that CHILD was developmentally delayed and demonstrated features of autistic disorder

Once again, ‘features of’.

These diagnosticians (of which Jon Poling by the way cannot possibly be impartial seeing as this is his child and he has already bought into the vaccine hypothesis by this point in time) did not diagnose this child with autism or ASD resulting from her vaccines and in point of fact did not diagnose her at all aside from regressive encephalopathy.

You have previously stated Rob that the Poling family are being ‘silenced’ by the gvmt. How is it then that they are holding a press conference today? Why is it that they still haven’t fired off a quick email to Dr Zimmerman – and the other doctors named – to give them permission to discuss this case publicly?
century
March 6th, 2008
10:49:50

“Why is it that they still haven’t fired off a quick email to Dr Zimmerman – and the other doctors named – to give them permission to discuss this case publicly?”

Or you could say
Why hasn’t Zimmerman – or the other Drs – asked for permission?
Kev
March 6th, 2008
13:03:51

Why do you assume they haven’t?

I emailed Terry Poling yesterday to ask them to remove the gag from Zimmerman. No reply. Maybe they don’t want to for genuine reasons but its beginning to resemble a media stitch-up more and more.
Fiona Sacchetti
March 6th, 2008
13:12:42

Ms Clark said;
“Don’t put words in my mouth, Fiona dear. I am only pointing out that logically the child must not really have autism or anything “similar” to autism otherwise why did they take her out of the Omnibus?”

I don’t see the logic considering the current lack of information. I think it is more jumping to conclusions than coming to logical conclusions.

I don’t know for sure why this case played out the way it did, and neither do you. I cannot answer your questions any more than you can. I prefer to refrain from wild speculation in such a serious and personal matter as child health.

Why do you constantly use personal attack in describing the people involved in these serious matters?

Minor point but why are you calling me ‘dear’? Are you trying to patronise me?
century
March 6th, 2008
13:31:05

“Why do you assume they haven’t?”

(I could ask you the same -with the “n’t” removed)

I don’t know what has been asked, of whom, if anything. And neither do you.

So you can shout “gagged” and “barred” as much as you want, but you have nothing to back it up with except speculation.
Kev
March 6th, 2008
14:34:38

Its a simple fact century. If Zimmerman has not been given permission to speak then he is being gagged. Either explicitly or implicitly, but it is happening.
century
March 6th, 2008
15:10:55

“Its a simple fact century. If….”

Exactly – IF

Has Zimmerman asked permission?
Was permission granted?
Does he want to talk about it?
etc etc

You (we) can speculate all day long, but it still remains speculation.
Fiona Sacchetti
March 7th, 2008
08:48:46

Yes but hey, why try to be factual or admit that we don’t actually know, when it can be so much more fun to speculate, make up stories and engage in personal attack.
Kev
March 7th, 2008
10:07:44

“Exactly – IF”

But there is not if about it. He cannot speak until the family give him permission.
Kev
March 7th, 2008
10:14:21

Fiona, you are new here so I will cut you some slack for your rudeness towards me. You should know however, that my view on autism aetiology is dominated by what is factually evident.

I will give you a chance to explain yourself however – what am I not being factual about? What stories have I made up? What personal attacks have I made towards you?
century
March 7th, 2008
11:15:09

“He cannot speak until the family give him permission.”

Agreed ->

see my previous post ->

speculation ->

end.
Kev
March 7th, 2008
13:53:13

????

century I’m not going to to keep going over and over the same point. Whether Zimmerman is asking for permission or not is irrelevant. Unless he is given it, he is being constrained.

Using your argument, every Iraqi who never asked Saddam to step down approved of his leadership.

There is a difference between being actively disuaded or constrained, which I have no knowledge is happening one way or the other, or covertly restrained, which is definitely, indisputably happening now.
century
March 7th, 2008
14:14:30

“century I’m not going to to keep going over and over the same point.”

Neither am I, so you can have the last word if you want.

The last 2 things i’ll say on this topic are
1. your analogy is not valid
2. your last sentence is conjecture
Kev
March 7th, 2008
14:21:43

Thanks for letting me have the last word century ;)

I’ll savour that last word as I ruminate on the irony of someone conjecturing that I’m invalidly conjecturing.
Fiona Sacchetti
March 10th, 2008
09:39:59

Hi Kev, thanks for the slack.

My comment was aimed at everybody on the blog not at you personaly (apologies for any misunderstanding). You have not attacked me, nor has any other poster.

However, there are posts that contain speculation, fabrication and personal attack towards others on the blog. I could look them up but as you are possibly going to be removing some material from the blog due to the new comments rule, I’m guessing that some of the comments I take issue with are going to disappear. I will be watching with interest to see if the images you posted of Nazi experimentation and the comparison you made to parent’s of autistic children will be removed.

I logged on today and saw the new rules about comments (that they must be factual). Surely this, however it has come about, is testimony to the influence this blog has. My view is that those who post here should bear that in mind and be careful with how they present their personal interpretation of events. I think anyone who engages in the debate surrounding ASD has a duty to conduct themselves in an honourable, truthful and fair manner.

There are some posts on here that are downright offensive. I respect the right of others to express themselves in such a fashion, but I maintain the right to express my distaste of such actions.

Kev, you said;

“You should know however, that my view on autism aetiology is dominated by what is factually evident.”

Then why all the speculation about the Poling case? Somebody on here once said that David Kirby had missed his real calling; that of a spin doctor. When I read this blog, the same comes to mind for your good self Kev!

I don’t have an axe to grind here, like you, I am interested in the truth. I don’t agree with your interpretation of events most of the time, but I can’t help but admire the skill you have in presenting that interpretation.
Kev
March 10th, 2008
09:54:54

Much as I would very much like to Fiona, I simply cannot discuss reasons for the new comment policy.

That said, piccies like the nazi experimentation one will continue to be fair game. They represent how I felt about what I read, not about the actions of one person, named or not.

I speculate about the Poling case, as there is an awful lot that is not being discussed and an awful lot being presented in a way that is disingenuous. I don’t think I’m spinning anything but if you think I am, thats fine – but if you want to take me to task over it, please be specific. The one person you (generally, not you specifically) can slag off without fear of recrimination is me!

This whole Poling situation reminds me of the early days of the MMR debacle when people were running around making more and more outlandish claims about what the implications were for autism, for vaccine policy etc and there was 99% noise to 1% signal.

What I would like above all else is to make sure that on this site that we consider as many implications and possibilities as possible. You, Schwartz, pD and whomever else who disagree are totally free to contribute to that, speaking your mind. Please compare that to the Age of Autism blog for example where I am aware of at least six people who’s comments are simply not allowed to be published.

I am not suggesting a cover up, more a fear of open discussion.