Autism Blog - Wakefield, distortion and the Sunday Times

03 Jul 2009

Author: Mike Stanton
Comments: 80

Wakefield, distortion and the Sunday Times

The journalist Brian Deer has done as much as anyone to investigate the background to what Ben Goldacre describes as the MMR Hoax. In the course of his investigations he discovered undisclosed conflicts of interest by Andrew Wakefield that led to most of the authors of the original paper in the Lancet withdrawing their names and the editor publishing a retraction.

Then in February this year Deer published his latest investigation. The Lancet paper had already been dismissed as bad science. Now, if Deer’s findings were correct, it would seem that some of the data had been deliberately falsified. Wakefield responded by complaining about the article to the Press Complaints Commission. The Times stood by its story and also forwarded all details to the General Medical Council who are still investigating Wakefield over allegations of misconduct.

And that was it until this week, when Thoughtful House, the clinic that Wakefield has established in Texas, issued a press release announcing

Press Complaints Commission Orders Sunday Times to Remove MMR journalist’s Stories on Dr. Wakefield from Paper’s Web Site

It goes on to suggest that this “interim order”

appears to indicate there are questions about the accuracy of the Deer stories.

Of course it does no such thing. Thoughtful House even quote Stephen Abell of the PCC as saying that

Given the ongoing nature of the dispute the articles should be removed from the newspaper’s website until this matter has been concluded. This would not be an admission of any liability on the part of the newspaper.

The wording reveals what actually happened. The Sunday Times has not been ordered to take down the articles. The PCC decided to postpone its investigation until after the GMC reaches a decision on the allegations of misconduct. This makes sense. If Wakefield is found guilty the complaint will fail. Meanwhile the PCC has asked the Sunday Times to remove the article from its website until matters can be resolved and the Sunday Times has agreed. That tallies with the email I received from the PCC

The PCC has considered the matter initially and has elected to stay its investigation until the conclusion of the GMC inquiry. It has reached no formal decision on the substance of the complaint and there is no published ruling on our website.

The Commission has asked that the paper remove the articles temporarily until the conclusion of the PCC investigation. This is without any admission of liability on the paper’s part.

So no order was issued, no judgement was made and there is no suggestion of impropriety by Deer or the Sunday Times. All the suggestions come from one source, Wakefield himself. His friends on the web may try to pretend that this is further proof of the brave maverick doctor’s innocence in the face of a vicious campaign against him. I think they are clutching at straws.

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Comments

80 Responses to “Wakefield, distortion and the Sunday Times”

autismjabberwocky
July 3rd, 2009
03:51:13

I find it very strange that four months after the complaint was filed with the PCC that it has not been resolved. It really doesn’t matter what the outcome of the GMC case is – if you are going to publish something making serious charges of fraud and professional misconduct you really have to the facts to back it up. So either Brian Deer had the facts to back up his claims when the story was published or he didn’t.

If he does have the facts then you would think that the complaint would have been resolved by now or would be resolved without waiting for some unrelated event. If he didn’t then the story was, by definition, fabricated and should be retracted.
Chris
July 3rd, 2009
07:09:19

Did you read the article above your comment? It quoted the PCC saying they were going to wait until AFTER the ruling of the GMC in August to make a decision.

Why do you say it is unrelated? It is on the same data and information.

Essentially, they are waiting for the official ruling so they do not have to do one of their own. Since it is only about a month away, why do the extra work?
Mike Stanton
July 3rd, 2009
19:30:14

Autismjabberwocky,
have you read Wakefield’s complaint to the PCC? It is 56 pages long. One week later Wakefield issued a 16 page addendum with fresh accusations against Deer! Little wonder that the Times spent a month taking legal advice before issuing a response.

Wakefield’s complaint against Deer is threefold
1. That he has published unfounded allegations against Wakefield, unsupported by the evidence.
2. That he has breached journalistic ethics by handing over his evidence to the GMC. This is the same evidence that is not supposed to exist according to point 1.
3. That Deer lied when he said he did not initiate the GMC complaint against Wakefield. Therefore he has an undeclared conflict of interest and canot be trusted to be impartial in his reporting.

It was Wakefield who included the GMC hearings in his complaint and the PCC has wisely decided to defer judgement until those hearings are over.

On your blog you accurately report that the PCC requested that the Times remove those articles that are the subject of the complaint until such time as the issue could be decided. The Times was under no obligation to remove them but agreed out of common courtesy. Do you have any suggestions as to why Wakfield would lie about this and claim in his latest press release that the Times was ordered to remove the stories?
autismjabberwocky
July 4th, 2009
02:58:43

Mike,

Actually I think the Times took three months to respond, not one, at least according to the information that I have seen. Regardless, if Brian Deer had the facts to back up his story it should not have even taken a single month to get them ready to submit to the PCC.

If he had the facts then there would be no need to wait for the GMC hearing to complete (if it ever does).

If he has the facts then the articles would not have been taken down from the Times web site.

Given the fact that both of these have come to pass it seems like Brian Deer did not have the facts to back up his articles.

As for the matter of “requested” vs “ordered” and Wakefile “lying” about it I don’t think there is enough information available to make that statement. I have not seen any official correspondance from the PCC so it would be premature at best to say that they “requested” rather than “ordered”. If you have any reference to material directly from the PCC, please provide a link.
Mike Stanton
July 4th, 2009
08:33:19

Jabberwocky,
there is no link because there is no order. There is the email I received from the PCC that I quoted in full in my article above stating that the PCC, “has asked that the paper remove the articles temporarily until the conclusion of the PCC investigation.” Wakefield’s press release which I link to in the article above is headlined

Press Complaints Commission Orders Sunday Times to Remove MMR journalist’s Stories on Dr. Wakefield from Paper’s Web Site

If lying is too strong a word allow me to rephrase. Why would Wakefield misrepresent a request as an order? And why pretend that a goodwill gesture by the paper is evidence of liability? There are two statements from PCC representatives (the email to me and the correspondence quoted in Wakefield’s press release) stating that no liability is implied by this action.
Another Voice
July 4th, 2009
19:01:54

Are we expecting too much from the GMC hearings regarding Dr. Wakefield? These are fitness to practice hearings not trial procedures. If the GMC allows Dr. Wakefield to continue practicing does that mean that his study numbers were honest; that he didn’t collect blood samples from small children at a birthday party, or that they don’t view the those things as reasons to stop him from practicing medicine?
Mike Stanton
July 4th, 2009
21:30:55

Another Voice

You are right to express caution about the GMC hearings.

As I understand it the GMC will establish matters of fact before deciding whether these constitute professional misconduct. Only then will they decide what, if any, sanctions are appropriate. So he could still be free to practise medicine even if the GMC finds against him.

Although the charges against Wakefield all relate to his research into possible links between MMR, bowel disease and autism the GMC will not adjudicate on the merits of his theory. That has already been thoroughly dismissed by subsequent independent research. Even if the GMC exonerates him completely this will not affect the fact that there is no credible scientific evidence for a link between MMR and autism.
dr treg
July 4th, 2009
23:01:57

It is interesting that autism and journalism seem to result in a black and white perception of problems and solutions. Hopefully after evaluating the evidence, the GMC will adopt a more sober view and some form of justice will prevail. It is anticipated that the journalists involved are ready to write profit making articles to decimate Dr Wakefield whatever the outcome. Their quills are ready. One does wonder how much profit these journalists are making from the case and if they will then go on to write books about the case in order to enhance their profits. One man`s misfortune is another man`s fortune. That is journalism. The best outcome to sell their papers is Dr Wakefield`s erasure and professional ruination.
Mike Stanton
July 5th, 2009
00:46:53

Dr Treg

in my world most journalists are paid a salary to write for their employers. They do not profit from increased newspaper sales. In fact the current situation is one of declining profits, salary cuts and redundancies. As to writing books, you have to shift at least 10000 copies a year to realize any sort of living wage.

Regarding media coverage of Wakefield, the tide has only recently turned against him. He has enjoyed a free ride from papers like the Mail and the Telegraph for years. Melanie Philips continues to defend him in the Spectator. Even the Observer gave him an easy ride a couple of years ago.

Wakefield has managed to orchestrate his own professional ruination. The GMC will judge him on the evidence of his own actions, not those of the press.
Joseph
July 5th, 2009
04:15:00

One does wonder how much profit these journalists are making from the case and if they will then go on to write books about the case in order to enhance their profits. One man`s misfortune is another man`s fortune.

That concern is a bit baffling, considering that Wakefield made about $800,000 from vaccine injury litigation.

The part about journalists trying to make money off of books about the controversy is kind of funny too.
dr treg
July 5th, 2009
14:53:40

You seem to be saying that Wakefield needs to have his claret tapped or nose bloodied to teach him a good lesson. Thank goodness the biased journalists who built him up are not judging him.
Will you also be seeking
1. To ask Tony Blair why he didnt come clean about which jabs Leo had. As you will see in the MMR hoax reference by Ben Goldacre most of the articles related to Leo.
2. To investigate the irresponsible reporting by journalists to sell their papers as described in the MMR hoax article.

“In my world most journalists are paid a salary to write for their employers. They do not profit from increased newspaper sales. In fact the current situation is one of declining profits, salary cuts and redundancies. As to writing books, you have to shift at least 10000 copies a year to realize any sort of living wage.” – this may explain the resentment of many journalists and why they need scapegoats to write about in order to achieve promotion in their system. Books are quite profitable.
Mike Stanton
July 6th, 2009
07:31:10

Dr Treg
I am not investigating Wakefield, I am responding to his press release which makes false claims about the actions of the PCC. I have no wish to teach him a lesson. I do wish that the public could learn the lesson that there is no connection between MMR and autism and that MMR is a safe and effective vaccine. Wakefield is promoting the opposite message. That makes him a danger to public health.

Regarding the media, If you visit my personal blog you will find a history of posts by me taking the media to task for misreporting every aspect of autism, including MMR. Try this selection for starters.
Wakefield med et (mindre) selvskudd – nok en gang « Skepsis blog
July 7th, 2009
12:18:56

[...] anmodning om å ikke la teksten ligge ute mens granskningen pågikk, ikke noe pålegg. Hvilket Left Brain/Right Brain kommenterte tidligere i uken. Med behørig påtale av det ikke helt etterettelige i tolkningen [...]
Wakefield’s false claims backfire « Skepfeeds-The Best Skeptical blogs of the day
July 8th, 2009
16:13:15

[...] As I reported previously, the PCC is waiting on the final outcome of the GMC disciplinary hearing against Wakefield before conducting its own inquiry over the articles and felt it would be fairer all round if the material was temporarily removed from the Times website. The Times agreed and removed the articles as a courtesy to the PCC. The Times was not impressed by Wakefield’s ungracious response and as a result the material is now back on their website. [...]
laura James
September 1st, 2009
01:30:48

How can Wakefield’s insistence on using single does spaced out vaccines be a danger to the public? The drop in vaccinations were due to the fact that single dose vaccines were no longer made available to the public.
Sullivan
September 1st, 2009
01:50:17

How can Wakefield’s insistence on using single does spaced out vaccines be a danger to the public? The drop in vaccinations were due to the fact that single dose vaccines were no longer made available to the public.

That’s a nice bit of blameshifting.

Dr. Wakefield claimed that the MMR vaccine was causing autism. Not only that, he made it appear that this was not a rare event, but happened to a large fraction of children. He incited fear in the vaccine, and he was wrong.

Dr. Wakefield is reported to have stated in an interview on the US program, 60 Minutes:

I would have enormous regrets if [my theories] were wrong and there were complications or fatalities from measles.

He was wrong, there have been deaths.
michael0156
January 4th, 2010
10:53:50

Dr Andrew Wakefield is a hero of modern medicine, maligned & persecuted for speaking the truth. Part of his story is here-

http://www.melaniephillips.com.....01468.html

Even after reading about autism/vaccines for over a year I was shocked to see the heinous acts to deny identifying the problems that may cause autism. This delays true efforts to stop the damage from occurring & getting the best help & research for the children we’ve already injured

In 2004 the GMC started looking into these ALLEGATIONS made against Dr Wakefield & his study , 6 years after publication-
1 Researched w/o ethical approval
2 Violated ethics guides
3 Performed questionable clinical procedures
4 Reported ethics approvals inaccurately
5 Didn’t disclose patient recruitment method
6 Violated childrens’ clinical interest
7 Didn’t disclose MMR litigation link or vaccine patent to The Lancet
8 Unethically drew blood at a party (with parental permission)

All of the ALLEGATIONS come down to interpretation of ethics, standards for publishing & opinion whether clinical procedures performed on children were necessary

The data from the study is not in question. The conclusions that Dr Wakefield et al came to are not in dispute

The allegations are an attempt to whitewash the whole MMR/autism/enterocolitis issue, which has been found to be a reproducible clinical study also supported by challenge re-challenge data when boosters are administered
Chris
January 4th, 2010
16:04:26

This is not an allegation: The MMR has been used in the USA since 1971.

Now answer these questions: What data shows that there has been an increase in autism in the USA starting in 1971? Where is the study that has replicated Wakefield’s study?

Also, news articles do not count as real evidence. Try with something more substantial like:
http://www.plosone.org/article.....ne.0003140
Antaeus Feldspar
January 4th, 2010
16:41:57

It’s not even a news article; it’s an op-ed by Melanie Phillips. It’s not even one on which she did her homework, obviously, since she claims “Wakefield never suggested a link between MMR and Crohn’s disease, a disorder of the bowel” and five seconds with a search engine will show anyone that he did.
Catherina
January 4th, 2010
17:48:40

The data from the study is not in question. The conclusions that Dr Wakefield et al came to are not in dispute

Whether someone lied in a research paper does just not fall under the remit of the GMC, therefore it is not investigated here. However, that Wakefield’s findings are irreproducible is not in dispute.
judy merrill
January 10th, 2010
21:40:12

I am wondering if Dr. Wakefield responded to the report that aired on 01/04/10 on cnbc wherein they discussed a lack of evidence supporting the need for special diets for children with autism. I have a 3 1/2 year old autistic child that is autistic and apraxic and who is on a gf/cf low carb organic diet that is helping his brain. I am in the courts in wayne county michigan fighting with my ex-husband so that the diet can remain in place. I have lost my entire life savings to attorney fees. I feel that this warrants a response from Dr. Wakefield as I believe the report took bits and pieces of his study and tied it falsely to a lack of evidence supporting dietary intervention as part of a treatment plan for autism. Please repond – thank you -contact details redacted.
Mike Stanton
January 10th, 2010
23:22:54

Judy
it is not a good idea to post personal contact details on a public website. I have removed your address and phone number for your protection.
Regarding the substance of your comment, you should note that there is very little published evidence to support a GF/CF low carb organic diet as a treatment for autism. This site is highly critical of Andrew Wakefield and we do not subscribe to his theories.
If you want to contact Andrew Wakefield you should start with Thoughtful House http://www.thoughtfulhouse.org/
Brian Deer
January 11th, 2010
14:45:05

By the miracles of modern technology, I’ve just noticed this thread, brought back to life by a recent reply.

Visitors need have no worry that our response to Dr Wakefield’s 74 pages of spurious complaint has long been ready to go. I can assure you that it will be amongst the most shocking documents in modern medical history, and certainly THE most shocking document in modern medical journalism.

We didn’t take three months to initially respond, as Dr Wakefield alleged, although it did take us some time to deal, on a preliminary basis, with some of his disingenuous points. He tried, but failed, to get a summary adjudication, based only on his complaint, and without us having a chance to reply in full, but that, obviously, was thrown out.

The PCC adjourned consideration of the matter until after Wakefield’s GMC since Dr Wakefield had made claims that the GMC panel was adjudicating, and it would have been impossible and undesirable to hold two hearings into the same issues, running concurrently. Whatever the verdicts, the GMC case will settle at least a few points.

Visitors never fear. The PCC, as with the civil courts, operate to the standards of the civil law, and not to the criminal-plus standards of the GMC, which has in-built protections to ensure that doctors are protected as far as possible from their patients (no surprises there, then).

As soon as the GMC case is concluded, we will strike at the heart of Dr Wakefield’s research, and show exactly what he did, how he did it, and who paid him to do it. At that point, if not following the GMC, I’d expect that the Royal College of Pathologists, the Lancet and the Committee on Publication Ethics will all have a bite at this one.

In any event, the PCC hearing will be the first time ever that a medical journal has been exposed to scrutiny by a media watchdog. So we’ll all be able to compare the standards of my work with those of Dr Wakefield.

My latest summary of my investigation is here:

http://briandeer.com/mmr/lancet-summary.htm

Happy new year
Cara
February 6th, 2010
02:19:46

Judy, I too have an autistic child. I would encourage you to continue your son on a GF/CF diet and seek advice from a “professional” who is concerned with healing our kids. Dr. Wakefield is one of those pioneers who cares and is making huge sacrifices to his career to stand for the truth. His studies and results have been duplicated world over and no one, including Mr. Deer or the GMC, care to mention this. Autism is primarily a gut issue, immensely affected by the ever increasing vaccine schedule as well as other toxins in our environment. What we have here are elitists and power hungry individuals bent on their own selfishness rather than truly helping our kids. What does it hurt to find out whether vaccines negatively exasperate these children and for heaven’s sake SAY SO! The is a cover-up and witch hunt in the works and I hope and pray for the sake of our children IT WILL STOP and TRUTH will win out! Many children are being “recovered” using the very findings and treatments found by doctors such as Dr. Wakefield. My daughter is improving. Believe those trying to help and actually putting themselves on the line instead of the arrogant and selfish.
I am so sorry you are battling this out with your ex and do not have a united front to help your child. I hope and pray that will change for you soon. Keep the faith and keep on fighting!
Cara
February 6th, 2010
02:31:03

PARENTS are providing the “EVIDENCE!” They are the BEST source for that kind of evidence … don’t you think?
Chris
February 6th, 2010
03:25:42

Actually, no. The problems with parents providing anecdotes is that there are recall bias, problems with recall, and various other issues. Plus they are not objective.

I know that I have misremembered events. I would have in my mind that my oldest child was doing something before the hospital visit, but then I look at the records and it was after. Or that he was not doing something by some date, only to have a video showing that he was doing it earlier.

Cara, you said “His studies and results have been duplicated world over and no one, including Mr. Deer or the GMC, care to mention this.”

Then perhaps you could provided papers of those replications. Please post the journal, title, date and authors so that we can look them up in PubMed. An example of a study is this:
http://www.plosone.org/article.....ne.0003140

Thank you.
Dedj
February 6th, 2010
04:07:41

Indeed Chris, parental report tells us what the parents believed happened. Thats it.

Without corroborating evidence, there isn’t much reason to take the arguement seriously.

Now, the fact that parents even have these views must be taken into account during all dealings with the parents. Parents must never be allowed to determine what is perceived as the truth on the basis of the fact that they say it is.
Chris
February 6th, 2010
06:13:52

Do not forget that the average parent is not an expert in child development. I know that I was not.

There is a series of books on child development that I would check out of my local children’s hospital resource library. They had titles like Two Year Olds: Terrible and Terrific, which I used to figure out if my oldest son’s behavior were age related or due to his disability (he had seizures as a newborn, he had issues from the very start, then more illness and another seizure!).

What really brought that fact parents are not experts to my attention was attending a meeting of parents of learning disabled students at the school. We were there to learn of our rights under IDEA, and to learn about community resources for our kids (one of which I support each year because they provided my son about three years of free intensive speech therapy, Rite Care).

Every child who enters kindergarten in our public school system is tested for various things to catch “children of concern” because some parents do not notice essential clues. One pair of twins was referred to the school that deals with deaf and hard of hearing children after the testing found that they were profoundly deaf. They showed up at their local kindergarten at age five with no speech. It seems the parents thought they would speak when they were ready.

At the meeting of parents of kids who were learning disabled, I heard one mom tell how she got the call assumed her child was going into the “Gifted and Talented” program, and was dumbfounded to find out her son had some severe learning disabilities. She learned to accept that and was there to get information on resources outside of the school that were available.

Oh, wait… it is not just the public schools! The parents of one of my son’s special ed. classmates told us in a meeting that the nuns at their local Catholic school noted that their daughter did not speak, and then directed them to my son’s special ed. program. This has a happy ending… by the time she was in fifth grade she could both speak and sing beautifully (I had tears in my eyes when she sang during a school talent show!). She was later able to enter her parent’s choice of parochial high school.
Dedj
February 6th, 2010
06:32:55

Another curiousity I noticed the other day:

One ‘autism mom’ was trying to claim that none of her extended family had any ‘funny’ members – and then proceeded to identify two much older members who had ‘sharp’ memories.

It immediately struck me that if the most distinctive thing about them was that they had ‘sharp’ memories at an age when many people experience memory issues, then their memories are exceptionally ‘sharp’ or otherwise distinctive in some way.

In other words, the ‘autism mom’ was using a characteristic seen in a sizeable minority of people with aspergers and HFA as evidence that none of her family have characteristics found in people with autism.
Cara
February 6th, 2010
07:48:34

Chris, Here are references to the duplications/replications of bowel diseases Dr. Wakefield and others have found in children with developmental disorders:
Krigsman A, Boris M, Goldblatt A. Frequency of histologic enterocolitis and lymphonodular hyperplasia in autistic children presenting for ileocolonoscopy. IMFAR. May 7th, 2004.

Balzola F, et al. Autistic Enterocolitis: Confirmation of a New Inflammatory Bowel Disease in an Italian Cohort of Patients. Digestive Diseases Week, Chicago, May 2005.

Balzola F, Barbon V, Repici A, Rizzetto M, Clauser D, Gandione M, Sapino A. Panenteric IBD-like disease in a patient with regressive autism shown for the first time by the wireless capsule enteroscopy: another piece in the jigsaw of this gut-brain syndrome? Am J Gastroenterol. 2005 Apr;100(4):979-81.

Sabra A, Bellanti J, Hartmann D, Zeligs B, MacDowell-Carneiro AL, Menendez F, Colon A, Guo Wu A, Sabra LF, Romero M, Sabra S, Ebecken R, Madi K. The GUT-CNS Connection: a new Domain for the Clinician. Gastrointestinal and Behavioral Dysfunction in Children with Non-IgE-mediated Food Allergy, Ileal-Nodular-Hyperplasia and Low Th1 Function: a New Clinical-Immunologic Constellation. Annals of Allergy.

Gonzalez L, Lopez K, Navarro D, Negron L, Rodriguez R, Flores L, Villalobos D, Martinez M, Rodriguez G, Sabra S, Bellanti J, Sabra A. Alteraciones immunologicas e immunohistoquimicas en la mucosa del tracto digestivo en ninos autistas. Venezuelan Medical Society presentation
Cara
February 6th, 2010
08:16:08

Dedj, I can’t disagree more with this statement: “Parents must never be allowed to determine what is perceived as the truth on the basis of the fact that they say it is.” Can a parent not percieve that something is “not right” with their own child? For the parents of children who witnessed “regressive autism” you can be assured these parents have this etched in their memories forever. For my situation, my daughter did not have the regressive type but still I think I was a pretty good judge of the situation … probably better than her pediatrician and even the specialists. When my daughter was not meeting her developmental stages appropriately, the doc referred us to specialists. The neurologist who saw her at 3 said nothing appeared to her as wrong even though she was a late walker (26 mo) and her word bank was very limited. She also did not smile much. This “wait and see” prognosis by “specialists” caused us to loose precious time to get her what she needed. I noticed odd play and styming at age 4 and then had her tested through the public school system. They gave her a diagnosis of Nonverbal Learning Disorder. I looked it up and knew this wasn’t right. I knew she was autistic. Last year we were finally able to get her officially diagnosed through two seperate agencies … high functioning autism. I have kept her on a GF/CF diet for the last 2 yrs and began her on a brain organizing program this past year. I “know” she requires biomedical treatment (her dark circles under her eyes tell me so) but so far we haven’t been able to afford it. As far a her bowels go, she has “always” suffered constipation … so, there it is, a form of “bowel disturbance” similar to what most if not all autistic children present.
In writing all this, I think I was and continue to be a pretty good judge on my daughter’s condition … better than some of the “experts” we saw. Parents should not be kept out of the loop in diagnosis and treatment. Doctors and other experts need their assisstance. It is a travesty to make them feel unnecessary or even stupid, or even worse, “to be blamed” for their child’s disorder, or as I like to put it, “injury.”
Dedj
February 6th, 2010
16:22:01

You can disagree with my statement all you like, but if you follow that on with a series of arguements that have little relationship to my statement, I can only conclude you did not understand it.

Parents can report their perceptions to their Dr all they like, but no-one is under any obligation to treat parental inferrences derived from their perception seriously unless there is colloborating evidence.

“I think vaccines cause autism” is the claim that people need to find evidence for. It cannot act as evidence for itself.
Chris
February 6th, 2010
19:14:37

Cara, those are papers are not replications of Wakefield’s study. They are just case studies, letters and opinion pieces, and don’t even address the MMR vaccine. A couple are not even indexed in PubMed (which I pointed out to you on the Science Based Medicine blog, but you seem to have forgotten that already).

Also, you seem to be ignoring the fact that it has been noted in US Federal Court that Wakefield was told that the PCR data was showing false positives. Dr. Chadwick testified that the samples were contaminated and that he gave Wakefield that information, and Wakefield ignored it.

That is called fraud.
Chris
February 6th, 2010
20:35:53

Sorry, Cara, it might not have been you, it was someone posting as “Reynaud 5” or something similar. But that list of papers is very familiar (must have been posted at the same Yahoo group, though no one really bothered to look at them). Here is why I know what they are:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicin.....ment-41199
Mike Stanton
February 6th, 2010
21:21:46

Cara
you seem to have misunderstood Dedj’s point. Let’s take a non-vaccine example to illustrate the point.

When my son was first diagnosed I went online and joined an autism discussion groups. A number of mothers raised the fact that they had a difficult time giving birth to their autistic child. Was this significant? What could it mean? Perhaps the birth trauma caused the autism. Perhaps being autistic caused the difficult birth. Some parents reported unremarkable births or even very easy ones. (I am only a father and I realize that “very easy births” is a relative term. Bearing children is never easy.) Perhaps it was a chance occurrence that had nothing to do with autism. We could not know the truth on the basis of our shared experience on the group. The only way to find out would be a proper scientific study.

I do not know if those studies have been done. But they have been done with vaccines and no relationship between vaccines and autism has been found. That does not mean that parents should be ignored. But researchers and clinicians have to take account of all the evidence and not just the information that parents provide.

It is an easy mistake to think that our experience of autism with our one child makes us an authority on autism. You give an example when you refer to the “bowel disturbance” which affects “most if not all autistic children.” There is no justification for that statement in the literature. There is conflicting evidence about whether or not bowel disorders are more prevalent in autistic children. But even then the point of issue is whether there is a significant minority. I am not aware of any studies that support the contention that “most if not all autistic children” are affected.
Joseph
February 6th, 2010
22:38:43

Catherina over at justthevax goes over almost the same list that Cara just posted. Unsurprisingly, not one is actually an independent replication.
Chris
February 6th, 2010
22:41:17

In the same Science Based Medicine thread I posted a study that basically says autism and GI issues do not always go together:
http://pediatrics.aappublicati.....ement_1/S1
Cara
February 6th, 2010
23:09:55

Here are some links to autism studies:
http://adventuresinautism.blog.....-link.html
http://www.talkaboutcuringauti.....n-2009.pdf
Cara
February 6th, 2010
23:53:35

Mike, There “is” literature about autism related bowel disturbances. Google it. Where have you been looking … at places that reject this as an autisic symptom. Yes, all the literature I have read about autism includes this every time. My daughter would not poop for 5-6 days as a diapered toddler and continues to not have a consistent bowel movement in her 7 yrs of life. My pediatrician said to just give her suppositories whenever needed … which was bi-weekly. This is not “normal” and not typical of a normal child without autism as “some” studies suggest. It is very normal and to be expected for a child to poop once a day at least. Anything less is open to suspect.
We will have to disagree on this subject.
Andrew Wakefield
February 7th, 2010
01:19:07

Dr Treg

I do not need allies like you. I am superman.
Dedj
February 7th, 2010
01:21:09

“Mike, There “is” literature about autism related bowel disturbances. Google it.”

As that wasn’t the discussion, nor Wakefields specific hypothesis, Mike is under no obligation to ‘google it’. As he is a respected paraprofessional in this field, I also doubt he’d need to fall back on google.
Laurentius Rex
February 7th, 2010
01:22:29

Brian me deario,

Don’t get caught up in the headlights, go for the guts of the beast.

The Royal Free are not the ones to answer for nothing!
David N. Brown
February 7th, 2010
02:10:56

I can’t imagine that “Andrew wakefield” is the poster’s real name. WE don’t need this kind of thing.
Mike Stanton
February 7th, 2010
02:35:47

Cara
I never said there is no literature. Just that there is conflicting evidence and nothing to suggest that a majority of autistic children have bowel problems. The most up to date survey of our knowledge is “Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Gastrointestinal Disorders in Individuals With ASDs: A Consensus Report.” http://pediatrics.aappublicati.....ement_1/S1
I recommend it.
Chris
February 7th, 2010
05:21:20

Cara, links to blogs are not evidence. Provide the actual name of the journal, title, date and author. Also make sure that you have looked at it on PubMed. That would avoid the problems you had with your first list that you lifted from another blog.

There is a reason that there is no real replication of Wakefield’s “study.” It is because there was no measles DNA found in the gut. When it was found it was due to contamination, causing false positives. He was informed of these false positive and chose to ignore that information.

That is called fraud.
Chris
February 7th, 2010
05:38:32

Cara, just post the papers that show measles virus was found in the guts of kids with autism. Do not do a “Gish Gallop.”

Also a word of Internet manners: if you provide a link to a 500+ page pdf file that is several megabytes long, give a warning. The TACA file is a classic Gish Gallop. Ginger’s list of websites are also a Gish Gallop, which really do not provide a list of replications of Wakefield’s set of case studies.
michael0156
March 11th, 2010
19:47:40

A lot of folks here have a lot of time on their hands and “live” on this board because they are independently wealthy or are OCD regarding the subject matter or they are somehow compensated for their efforts. What the situation actually is we will never know unless some of these folks get a twang of conscience and bear their souls.

The only studies pro-Big Pharma folks can come up with are epidemiological negative correlations for a vaccine autism link. That is the weakest of all “scientific” arguments. I can see Paul Offit stumbling around his lab, eyes duct taped shut, cotton balls in his ears crying “Eureka, I have found no evidence!!”

All such negative correlations are manipulated pieces of garbage, not following scientific method. I challenge anyone to produce the 2 best studies they can find which they claim shows vaccines are safe. Just 2 please, preferably from Mike Stanton. I don’t have the luxury of time you pro-Big Pharma folks apparently do and cannot follow up on dozens of epidemiological studies. Just 2 should suffice, yes? While you are at it produce any clinical studies you have that show vaccines are not involved in autism.

There is a simple way out of this mess, which Big Pharma and their minions oppose. A clinical study using a toxin free vaccine schedule. The amount and variety of toxins in vaccine are terrifying. That we inject these concoctions into our children is abuse.

Most of the toxins in vaccine are there for one purpose, to increase the per dose profit Big Pharma makes. Whether directly contributing to profit or as a consequence of changes to the manufacturing process to increase profit, these toxins are unecessary and easily recognized as possibly damaging to our children.
1. Preservative, used in some vaccine to permit inexpensive shipment of large batches rather than individual doses, increasing per dose profit. Preservatives haven’t been clinically studied in children. Ironically one of the environmental triggers being looked at in ongoing studies is mercury pollution.
2. Adjuvants are relatively inexpensive chemicals that prolong and intensify an infant’s immune reaction to antigens. Antigen production is the most expensive process in making vaccine. Using adjuvants reduces the amount of antigen needed for a “proper” immune response from children. Reducing the amount of antigen increases the per dose profit. in additon to any toxic effects the adjuvant may directly cause, it will prolong an infants reaction to any other immune reactive substance in vaccine, which brings us to immune reactive substances being added to our vaccines…
3. Antigen production involves creating live pathogens or proteins associated with pathogens we vaccinate against. In the late 80’s and early 90’s a new production method was introduced for a variety of substances such as tryptophan, enzymes used in HFCS production and antigens. It was the genetic engineering of bacteria and other organisms to produce these substances. The cells have to be lysed to release the desired substance which floats in a soup with the guts of the cells. Sometimes chemical lysing is used adding to toxicity.

Various stages of “purification” take place trying to make the end product “safe”. The end product is ALWAYS contaminated with various combinations of non-self DNA fragments, non-self endotoxin, other non-self cell debris and other substances from the soup these mini-factories are grown in. Some purificatin methods add chemical toxins to the mix.

In 1989 these contaminants poisoned and killed thousands of people in a “natural” pill of tryptophan. This was ingested, while injection of these substances will have a more dramatic effect at much smaller concentrations. Not everyone who took the pills became ill. The ingestion of these contaminated pills caused an autoimmune “disease” named Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome and the cause was tied by the FDA, the CDC and the Mayo Clinic to only one new batch of tryptophan produced by genetically alered bacteria. The company responsible was Showa Denko. They destroyed the bacteria before they could be studied. The CDC and FDA blamed the poisoning on a cost saving reduction of filtration, while quietly admitting the gentic engineering could have played a role. Other batches of Showa Denko’s tryptophan (not produced by gene altered bacteria) did not apparently harm anyone.

Substances produced in this way are continuing to enter our food supply today, including “natural” flavors. I have given up anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup in it for this reason. Enzymes added to corn starch in a 3 step process to produce HFCS are all from gene altered organisms, and all similarly contaminated. One such company, Novozymes, was recently fined for a fish kill involving pollution from their plant.

As late as 2007 there was an application for a patent for a process to improve purification of pharmaceuticals. From the patent – US Patent 7226775-June 2007 “...there remains a pressing need for removing endotoxin from pharmaceuticals. In particular, vaccines…” The amount of toxins that have entered our food supply and our pharmaceuticals through the genetic alteration of organisms to produce a variety of substances (including the genetic alteration of our crops to contain pesticide) is probably the smoking gatling gun of environmental triggers responsible for the dramatic rise in autoimmune diseases such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, lupus, eczema, allergies et al AND autism.

That you Big Pharma minions continue your denial of vaccine involvement using paul Offits investigatory techniques, outlined earlier, is heinous and sociopathic and unforgivable.
Dedj
March 11th, 2010
20:04:31

“A lot of folks here have a lot of time on their hands and “live” on this board because they are independently wealthy or are OCD regarding the subject matter or they are somehow compensated for their efforts. What the situation actually is we will never know unless some of these folks get a twang of conscience and bear their souls.”

It takes very little effort to check this board a few times a day.

Some of the people here are primary care givers for autistic or otherwise disabled children and adults.
Some of the people here are autistic adults, some with additional disabilities.
Some of the people here are professionals or paraprofessionals involved in autism care.
Some of the people here are academics or researchers in autism studies.
Some of us are, or have been some or all or the above.

If you’re seriously struggling to think of a reason why someone might have an interest in autism beyond OCD or being paid – and why they might like to discuss it – then that may be why it also took you a month to come up with a horrific mash-up of a reply.

That you would freely admit to having neither the time or knowledge to speak about this subject, yet still openly make quite serious accusations agianst other people on a subject you clearly cannot deal with rationally, then that is all that has to be said about your lack of morality.
Laurentius Rex
March 11th, 2010
20:05:25

Mikey, just what do you wash your socks in?

Scientific method be damned, you know that a negative study can never be proven any more than you can prove that a tree that falls in Berkeley when no bishop is blessing makes a rumpus.

Here is my challenge to you.

Just prove to me that water is safe, you can’t can you, it contains dihydrogen monoxide, never mind that fish fornicate in it.

So I dunno what you must be drinking, cos the Rooskies have got your essence all right.

I’d have given your post a less frivolous reply if it actually had any science in it.

A subscription to age of autism on the one hand and your cursor in the google search box on the other, does not science make.
Sullivan
March 11th, 2010
20:33:24

Did he really quote a patent as some sort of proof? Has he no idea that patents are not reviewed for scientific accuracy?

If I am a “big pharma minion”, they are way behind on their payments. (in other words, I’m not a pharma shill)
Mike Stanton
March 11th, 2010
21:45:47

@ michael0156

A lot of folks here have a lot of time on their hands and “live” on this board because they are independently wealthy or are OCD regarding the subject matter or they are somehow compensated for their efforts.

Using mental illness as a slur on the character of your opponents does you no credit. You will get no studies from me. Instead try http://www.mhra.gov.uk/index.htm
Laurentius Rex
March 11th, 2010
22:51:58

It is not shame to me to carry an additional diagnosis from the can of Alphabet soup.

My obsession is Truth, my Compulsion Freedom, and the Disorder is the Chaos I seek to dispel.

It is a two edged sword, but it is sharp enough to cut the Gordian knot.

I won’t say it has never caused me a great deal of distress or that it doesn’t get in the way of things from time to time, but it is that very determination, compulsion, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, drive, and drive, that drives out the drivel and the devil, it is the engine of the researcher and the perseveration of the explorer in lands unknown.

Some call it obsession, others call it dedication, some call it compulsion, others call it duty.

I was always ‘driven’ and thank God I still am.

There is a lot of bull written about the supposed difference between OCD obsession and Autistic obsession, that one gives pleasure, and the other pain, but that is not true of neurology, that which causes inertia, the tendency to go on unless stopped, is always there in both cases. The only difference I can really see is attribution. The judgement being upon those who determine what is useful, and what is trivial, what is funtional and what is not.

Every human has to live with dysfuntional elements of there neurology, for some it is the delusion of group think, but that is not in DSM though I reckon it maybe ought to be, it needs to be cured!!

Good heavens, dysfuntion is normality (or normalcy if you have a language disorder called American English)
michael0156
March 11th, 2010
22:52:56

I just love all the science in the replies. left brain, right brain, and … the responders to my post

At dedj
“That you would freely admit to having neither the (1)time or (2)knowledge to speak about this subject, yet still openly (3)make quite serious accusations agianst other people on (4)a subject you clearly cannot deal with rationally, then (5)that is all that has to be said about your lack of morality.”

What in the world are you trying to say?
1. I haven’t the time to deal with refuting the dozens of manipulated studies you folks rely on to “prove” vaccines do not cause autism.
2. I have the knowledge necessary to raise some questions which many of you are apparently unable or unwilling to answer and I have stated simple facts all of you are avoiding addressing
3. Instead of addressing the issues and information I have raised you choose to disingenuously deflect that I have made serious accusations against individuals here (maybe you mean the OCD comment, or the others I directed at no one in particular?)
4. Considering you refuse to address anything I have said regarding autism and vaccines you have no ground to state I am unable unable to deal with the subject rationally. Through that unsupportable statement you lead people to believe YOU are the one unable to deal with the subject matter rationally.
5. Claiming I am immoral is simply more deflection rather than addressing the issues before all of us which is the health of children. Condoning the toxic vaccine schedule while more than 1% of our children are being taken from us, mentally, is a heinous act possibly to go down in history as the most unconcionable act performed by people entrusted with the health and care of children.
No dedj, if anyone lacks morality here it is you (and others) by ignoring the information I have offered in this forum, thereby further condemning children and their families to endure more suffering without hope or help.
Dedj
March 11th, 2010
23:25:32

1. I didn’t say you don’t have the time. That was a statement by you.
2. You haven’t really asked any serious questions. Indeed, your orginal post contains no questions. As stated, your post was a bizarre mash-up of half related posts. You have no right to demand answers to issues that are not supported or even correctly phrased.
3. You called the participants of this blog ‘Big Pharma’ minions, and insinuated that the only reasons for participation on this blog were either pathological in origin or derived from financial conflicts. To deny that you freely made sweeping accusations is to lie.
4. This point is just bunk. That you are clearly incapable of properly verbalising your opposition to the multiple studies that you are already shown awareness of is your fault and no one elses. If you can’t properly and concisely state what it is your point actually is, then there is no substance to address.
5. Unfortunetly for you, your broad sweeping insults and accusations and overwrought emotional language, and your convoluted defence of said behaviour when called out on it, is evidence of lack of social morality.

If you cannot competantly verbalise exactly what it is you find wrong with the current scientific consensus then you cannot expect an answer. Your post is far from the quality you think it is.

Do not come back until you have something of substance and of actual relevance to the thread topic, and until you can learn not to cast aspersions like confetti. Deliberately targetting a month old thread for off topic trolling is not acceptable behaviour in any forum or blog.
Joseph
March 11th, 2010
23:32:04

A lot of folks here have a lot of time on their hands and “live” on this board because they are independently wealthy or are OCD regarding the subject matter or they are somehow compensated for their efforts.

I bet not a single regular here or in any blog gets compensated for their “efforts.” That conspiracy theory gets old pretty easily. Who in their right mind would pay for people to post blog comments, and who would take that as their job? Why wouldn’t it be common knowledge that companies pay shills to post blog comments, as if they were regular commenters? That’s beyond ridiculous.

If some of us are able to spend a fair amount of time in blogs, it might be because we have flexible jobs and work hours, and we might be good enough at said jobs that we can goof off much of the time and still do what’s expected of us.
michael0156
March 11th, 2010
23:44:01

To Laury rex
“Here is my challenge to you.
(1)Just prove to me that water is safe, you can’t can you, it contains dihydrogen monoxide, never mind that fish fornicate in it.”
(2)”you know that a negative study can never be proven”

1. Laury compares the safety of water to the safety of vaccines. But she doesn’t really say anything about either. More avoidance and deflection and no science.
2. Negative correlation in epidemiological studies is all you folks have. You never quote a clinical study on the safety of vaccines. Blinded and deaf to scientific method you simply say, “We have found no evidence”.
Well no evidence is exactly that. the other problem with your “no evidence” is the way your researchers go about manipulating and falsifying data to get the “no evidence”. Where’s the honest scientific method? It doesn’t exist on your side of the fence.

I already challenged you to post your 2 best pieces of evidence that vaccines are safe, yet you attempt to trivialize what I post instead of addressing the facts or posting your own. You deflect and baselessly insult instead of trying to honestly reason and debate. While you may have considered some of what I said insulting, I didn’t address you or anyone in particular, nor were any of my statements false, misleading or deflecting.

Get a grip Laury and take a course in logic
Joseph
March 11th, 2010
23:44:09

michael is clearly just a troll trying to provoke or probably even a Poe (note his “Pharma minions” reference.) But I’ll bite.

I challenge anyone to produce the 2 best studies they can find which they claim shows vaccines are safe.

OK. I’ll give you just one. Address Thompson et al. (2007). Note: Don’t just parrot out SafeMinds propaganda and such. Tell us, in your own words, why this study is invalid.

You can’t just give us a laundry list of limitations. Anyone can do that. You have to provide something of substance that the authors failed to consider and which explains away the results.
Dedj
March 11th, 2010
23:49:26

Or that:

we are at home as the primary care givers for an autistic person
we are at home due to incapacity
we have a interest in autism and make time to read blogs
Dedj
March 12th, 2010
00:00:46

The odd thing is, it took less than 30 seconds for me to find multiple results for clinical trials that look at the safety of various vaccines, including meta-studies.

This was without using any professional or academic database that I have access to. This was not including the well known studies that Micheal has admitted knowing yet still – bizarrely – demands we point out the existance of.

When a person fails to find such easy to find evidence – and fails to substantiate their accusations and dismissal of the evidence they have admitted knowledge of – then they are not in a very strong position to go around criticising other people.

So, Micheal, with your supposed love of science, perhaps you might get around to telling us exactly – with adequate references to peer-reviewed articles – what you think is wrong with the current state of science.

No more dodging now – you’ve already admitted to knowledge of the mainstream articles (whilst claiming to not have the time – it’s clear consistancy is not your strong point).

Tell us – as sciency as you like – what your actual objections are.
Laurentius Rex
March 12th, 2010
00:29:22

“Get a grip Laury and take a course in logic”

Aristotelian or Boolean? or perhaps you don’t know the difference.

Have you read, Popper, Kuhn, Goedel or Quine? there is a lot more to it than you might suppose.

I don’t know your academic background and you may well have a lot more going for you than appears in the odd posts in the blogosphere, but this much, I am not an agent of big Pharma, indeed I have much to say against big Pharma concerning the over medication of children. I am not funded by anybody (I wish I were not that it would compromise my dedication (obsession if you are you want to give it a diagnosis)

If you can give me sound mathematical proofs of error in vaccine safety research I will listen. I am sure we all will.
Mike Stanton
March 12th, 2010
01:57:21

It’s a troll. Its opening gambit was that we are either rich kids using LBRB as a playground, mentally ill or pharma shills. Then it moans because we do not take it seriously! And its classical education is as lacking as its science education if it thinks Lauerentius Rex is a “she.”
Laurentius Rex
March 12th, 2010
02:25:04

That’s Laurentia Regina, which rhymes with … oh never mind ..
passionlessDrone
March 12th, 2010
02:36:34

Hi Joseph –

If some of us are able to spend a fair amount of time in blogs, it might be because we have flexible jobs and work hours, and we might be good enough at said jobs that we can goof off much of the time and still do what’s expected of us.

Hehe. The day LBRB, Insolence, SBM and/or Lisa Jo Rudy get blocked by Websense is the day my employers get a ten percent productivity hike. Autism Speaks forums and AOA are already blocked.

– pD
michael0156
March 12th, 2010
12:20:48

dedj posts “The odd thing is, it took less than 30 seconds for me to find multiple results for clinical trials that look at the safety of various vaccines, including meta-studies.”

More deflection and no substance. Clinical trials conducted/funded by pharmaceutical companies… Of course that is what dedj would pretend is a satisfactory response to a call for independent clinical studies instead of epidemiological studies.

dedj should stop wasting everyone’s time, including the children and families affected by autism. To give such a disingenuous reponse demonstrates where dedj’s true allegiance lies.

the rest of dedj’s post is a litany of personal insults and inuendo, tactics of a person without intellectual ammo

Still not one aspect of my recent original post has been addressed by any of the responders here. Personal attacks and refusal to post anything except a blatantly manipulated study by Thompson. Just the abstract exposes it as a manipulation, as are all studies proposing to have found “no evidence” of an autism/vaccine link.

Far from being anti-science as dedj implies, I have been the only person insisting on using scientific method and proof. Everyone else’s efforts are apparently directed at burying my post with a mountain of deflection/insult rather than logical argument or facts. But this is what I have come to expect from leftbrainrightbrain. Although I do hold out hope that you folks will come around and draw on the humanity that is within you, genetically. I don’t understand how you can so effectively ignore the damage you are doing to others. Do you think you are simply superior and that those so easily trampled deserve their fate? Are some of you getting priveleged treatment for your afflicted family members in exchange for your blog participation on behalf of the pharmaceutical companies? Let’s face it folks, you are clearly supporting the pharmaceutical agenda here. That some of you decry things Big Pharma does, it is probably only those acts that have been undeniably proven that you will criticize. Your unfounded attacks against Dr Wakefield all these years are just another example of where your true allegiance lies. it is definitely not with autistic kids and their families. Your pushing solely for a study on a genetic cause is the most glaring exposure of your lack of conviction to find the cause, the triggers, for autism.

Try responding to my recent original post and the facts in it rather than making personal attacks and deflection from science and autism

Vaccines are the only proximate correlative cause of autism currently known. This relationship needs to be effectively and independently clinically studied using a toxin free vaccine schedule so that the truth can be known. This is a simple, this is logical, this would be true science.
Laurentius Rex
March 12th, 2010
12:52:39

It is always a hopeless endeavour trying to persuade the terminally misinformed and I doubt if Michael will ever change.

The accusations of OCD were below the belt, but I wonder what you call a dogged refusal to acknowlege error when it is clear.

The scientific method Michael appeals to is heavily dependent upon a branch of applied Mathematics known as statistics.

Even anyone with a most elementary understanding of statistics and probability must know that there are such things as “odds”

The fact that two or more things occur together (such as in an accumulator bet) do not indicate any causal connection between the two.

Given the odds of one event occuring and another occuring that both occur with regularity, there is bound to be co-incidence.

For example a certain number of crimes of violence will be committed when a national news show is on TV. Or a certain number of fatal accidents will occur at the same time as other people are giving birth.

That is the only connection between vaccines and autism, there is no other beyond that fact that autism occurs and people are vaccinated and that the maths will inevitably come up with the number of co-occurences.

In order for statistics to prove something there needs to be another element to the science, and that is a testable hypothesis, the hypothesis has to include a possible mechanism for the connection in order to prove it is greater than chance.

No such mechanism to connect autism to vaccines exists, it is scientifically not possible.

The problem is basic human psychology, something philosophers have been trying to get round for centuries.

First person observation allways scores higher in perception than any rigorous proof. In ancient Roman times, you took the augury and if you had bad luck on that day, you believe the omens were against you because you remember the event and give it significance beyond what it would have if the same augury had led to nothing.

It’s the principle by which y fortune tellers work, if you make it vague enough it is bound to happen to someone, indeed lots of people, and they will of course make good anecdotal witnesses to the truth of fortune telling.

Rigorous research and observation will show however that there is a greater number of times that the fortune telling is wrong, but those who are convinced will remain convinced because of that quirk in psychology.
michael0156
March 12th, 2010
13:07:26

To no one in particular

A child has autism with regression, asperger’s, or …

Autism with regression is the most difficult of all afflictions to face. Parents of average intelligence and social skills hoping to have children who are above average. They seem to be on their way to being a happy loving family when something happens and they lose all hope of the normal life they expected. Their child loses some or all skills she/he has acquired and never fully recovers, but does regain some skills. Like maybe being able to feed herself, or get dressed…

Aspies could be the product of 2 parents with superior intelligence and social skills that may have been a complete genius if she/he had not been adversely affected by some random environmental trigger degrading that intelligence and ability to socialize. Is that possible? Or do you think that one or both parents genes are not all what they thought they might be?

a matter of degrees…
Joseph
March 12th, 2010
14:29:15

michael0156 is all hat, no cattle.

Aspies could be the product of 2 parents with superior intelligence and social skills that may have been a complete genius if she/he had not been adversely affected by some random environmental trigger degrading that intelligence and ability to socialize. Is that possible?

I don’t think so. Someone would’ve noticed that the parents of Asperger children generally have superior intelligence.

More importantly, there are indications from cognitive science that autism is not simply “smart + neurological damage.”

See, when cognitive scientists study autism, they match groups of autistics and non-autistics for IQ (verbal or non-verbal, as the case may be.) Your simplistic explanation (‘’they would’ve been geniuses if not for autism’‘) just doesn’t cut it. To see what I mean, you can look up information on, say, the embedded figures test. Also look up “autism hyper-rationality” for some peculiar interpretations of certain findings.

Note that I’m not saying autistics never have neurological damage. In fact, it’s quite possible that neurological damage makes an autism diagnosis more likely. I’m simply saying that autism is not just that.
Laurentius Rex
March 12th, 2010
15:31:07

Joseph it depends what is meant by damage anyway.

One can maybe surmise that a cerebro-vascular accident produces damage, or alcoholic poisoning causes damage, that is to say there is fairly widespread destruction, but can an insufficiency of neuronal growth in a particular area be called damage, fewer dendrites damage, or an unusual development in a particular cortex damage? All of those might be more or less dysfuntional but they are of a different order to damage.

Losing a finger could be called damage, being born with only four, or perhaps six would not be damage but difference, and in the right circumstances might even according to the Darwinian model be selected for as confering some advantage.

We have to get away from loaded notions of “damage” and realise too that difference can be either neutral, positively or negatively nuanced.

Enhanced performance in the embedded figures test is not damage, it is difference, for example.

The trouble is that people who place too much reliance upon words to convey meaning and explanation often fail to grasp the nuances of those words and how they get in the way of a proper understanding of anything as they carry all that social, cultural and historical baggage with them.

A scan of the brain, a model of a neural network, all these fortunately exist independent of words as descriptors of the world, and what is seen is not damage because for damage there has to be a stereotype, nay dare I say it with all the baggage and connotations “archetype” of the ideal that has been damaged, and it’s back to Plato’s cave again isn’t it or Kants “ding an sich”

Sorry to be so obtuse I can’t help it, my brain won’t let me think in other ways, and that the blessing of my particular autism, and the curse of those who can’t understand what and why I write from within that perspective of a personalised expression of neurological diversity.
Dedj
March 12th, 2010
18:09:17

“Try responding to my recent original post and the facts in it rather than making personal attacks and deflection from science and autism”

I did. I pointed out that the quality of your posts is no where near the quality you demand in the responses. Far from delivering science and facts, you have merely repeated your opinions. This is so far removed from what you demand of us that it is no longer big, hard or clever. You may as well just spam some urls and be done with it, for you aren’t adding anything of value to this conversation (you have yet to explain why you decided to resurrect a month old thread with a off topic post that appears to serve no purpose other than for you to shout your opinion – I guess online social etiquette only applies to other people huh?).

I have asked you to live up to your own standards and tell us – with appropriate references – what your actual ‘facts’ are. You have thus far failed at all oppourtunities. You have been given several now, even though your aggressive behaviour and predisposition to making crass and insulting smears against people would have seen you IP banned from most autism blogs.

The fact that you continue to aggresively bluff and bluster and contiune to incorrectly assert that you have delivered ‘facts’ is a very good indication that you have merely cribbed your knowledge from some other source. Bear in mind, some of those people have been known to visit and discuss their beliefs here, in a much more civil and coherent way than you have.

Anyway :

“Aspies could be the product of 2 parents with superior intelligence and social skills that may have been a complete genius if she/he had not been adversely affected by some random environmental trigger degrading that intelligence and ability to socialize. Is that possible?”

First, you should be aware that autistic traits (including non-diagnostic traits) have been observed in a higher-than-usual rate in parents of people on the autism spectrum, and that this has been reported in peer-reviewed journals.

Secondly, Aspies can be geniuses, depending on how genius is defined. It is not unheard of for aspies to possess genius level skills in areas of special interest.

Thirdly, parents of people with aspergers have not been noted for high rates of superior intelligence, as pointed out by Joseph. However, that doesn’t mean that parents in reciept of services do not have a high rate of high intelligence. This imbalance in service provision to favour children of high earning, high education and high intelligence parents is well known throughout all conditions and all service areas, as was originally noted way back in the first few decades of autism service provision.
michael0156
March 13th, 2010
00:08:00

dedj says “If you cannot competantly verbalise exactly what it is you find wrong with the current scientific consensus then you cannot expect an answer. Your post is far from the quality you think it is.” And a lot of other tripe irrelevant to autism and vaccines

Where’s your science, where’s your response to a toxin free vaccine schedule, where’s your comment on the toxins we are introducing into our pharmaceuticals and food (toxins, some of which, are known to cause autoimmune disease when INGESTED), where’s your 2 pieces of evidence?

Instead of addressing any of those issues you simply attack me repeatedly, deflecting from your apparent inability to address the ideas or issues I have raised/

That you claim there is a scientific consensus is evidence of the color of your blinders (Assuming, by consensus, you mean that vaccines do not cause autism, though you haven’t clarified)

Without addressing anyone in particular the minions that I spoke of have come forward, without science, without compassion, without evidence, without empathy, without logic, without reason.

I did challenge the minions to post evidence that vaccines are safe and not the cause of autism. You all have miserably failed in that simple task. Only one of you attempted to test the waters with a blatantly manipulated study from Thompson. What next folks Fombonne or Madsen. If you want to see a prime example of why conflicted/industry-funded science cannot be used as you folks portray just read Walboomers re-study of cervical cancer samples where he concludes that virtually all cervical cancer contains traces of HPV. This corrupted piece of garbage is now used as the primary reason to vaccinate with gardasil or cervarix

Regarding Laury’s defense of statistics I wonder if it defends Walboomers, Bosch, Fombonne and Madsen?

You folks ever heard of paroxetine? Glaxo Smith Kline frudulently got that approved for use in kids using a ghost written clinical study and paying a prominent researcher to sign off on it. Merck used the same technique promoting Vioxx and tampered with data in both vioxx and pargluva studies. Peer review did not stop Vioxx from wading through loyal Merck customers creating a swath of 180,000 casualties (up to 60,000 dead). Merck, in spite of numerous peer reviews exposing the deaths and injuries Merck executives knew were being caused, managed to get Vioxx approved for use in children. They withdrew it one month later, not because of their own study showing cardiac risks, but because David Graham (Associate director of Drug Safety at the FDA) went against his superiors wishes and published his own exposee of the murders Merck committed.

Merck and Glaxo make over 25 vaccines between them, most pediatric. Merck is being exposed in Australian litigation. They and over 20 other pharmaceutical companies paid Elsevier to produce fake journals. 9 were published, including one by Merck promoting Vioxx among other of its drugs. Elsevier refused to voluntarily give out the other pharmaceutical companies’ names but sropped publication of those 8 other journals and stopped work on 13 more that were in the planning stages. Glaxo now has James Murdoch on its board. He controls a variety of media companies including The Sunday Times. You folks know about the Sunday Times, where Brian Deer works. It’s now called The Sunday Glaxo. Of course you folks are smart enough to know where I am going. Now we have come back to Dr Wakefield. Murdoch was appointed to the Glaxo board during the GMC actions against Dr Wakefield as part of the Corporate Responsibility Committee charged with “the regular review of external issues that might have the potential for serious impact upon the group’s business and reputation” he is paid £75,000 per annum for his participation. Glaxo has more connections. The judge who made the decision which effectively ended the UK MMR litigation, Judge Nigel Davis, is the brother of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) board director Sir Crispin Davis.

Now you good folks here want to ignore the individuals that run these two irresponsible companies that bribe, murder, fraudulently publish, manipulate data and people, and aid in malicious and false prosecution and allow them to do their own clinical studies of over 25 vaccines most of which will be injected into our children. You want this to continue despite the rise in autism that is in lock-step with the rise in vaccination load in these children?

You folks don’t merely have blinders on, you know you are wrong to support the pharmaceutical companies like you do. No one would do that without some sort of compensation. Of course your denials would be there is you were paid or if you weren’t paid. We just have to take your word for that, don’t we? As we have to take your word that you have family members that are autistic, yet you offer no real hope or evidence that anything you support will help explain, stop or help autistics and their families.

By the way for those of posting here and claim to be autistic… Asperger’s is not autism… Not yet anyway. It will be combined into autism in the DSM-V, a classification that most Aspies are fighting. We don’t have autism, regardless of any label the DSM may try to impose. That reclassification appears to be designed to water down the definitiveness of regressive autism and lend more weight to a genetic cause. There was some initial discussion of a higher importance put on to the regressive type of autism coming out of the February 08 conference, but that has now vanished

you folks go on fooling most people and patting yourselves on theback. there’s some of us that see right through you
Sullivan
March 13th, 2010
00:15:33

“dedj should stop wasting everyone’s time, including the children and families affected by autism.”

Michael, I don’t recall giving you permission to speak for my autistic child.

That said, I will state that from my point of view, it is the vaccine-autism groups that have wasted HUGE amounts of time and HUGE amounts of money and HUGE quantities of well being for autism families.

If you want to go places and question the diagnoses of adult autistics, find other blogs. There are plenty that will welcome you.

There is no “regressive type” of autism. Regression appears to be a continuum—with some children undergoing much larger amounts of regression than others. And, yet, when they watch baby sibs closely, they find much less regression than when they rely on parent reports. Why is that, do you suppose?

If you want to make statements like “Asperger’s is not autism” be advised that it only demonstrates your own ignorance.

If you have a good argument for how vaccines cause autism, please contact the Petitioner’s Steering Committee. They spent millions of dollars of the taxpayers’ money and put together the best cases they could—and failed.
Joseph
March 13th, 2010
00:52:39

Only one of you attempted to test the waters with a blatantly manipulated study from Thompson.

Told you so. All hat, no cattle. He thinks using the adjective “manipulated” is an argument worth considering.
Dedj
March 13th, 2010
00:59:27

Micheal, you have no idea whether I ‘address the issues’ or not, and you are still wrongly conflating taking issue with your attitude and behaviour as somehow refusing to deal with the issues.

You still don’t get it. You have demanded a level and quality of debate that has been entirely absent from all of your posts. You have yet again provided us with a mish-mash post with zero substantiation and zero references, yet plenty of insults.

You have been asked – repeatedly, by several people – to put your money where you mouth is and meet your own imposed standards of debate. You have failed yourself at every turn, yet still demand we answer your issues, even though you have failed to substantiate them at all.

You have failed to address any of the concerns with the opening post being on a month old thread and woefully off topic, you have failed to addresss any concerns regarding your habit of freely casting about insults and accusations, and you have failed to address any of the concerns regarding your inability to meet your own standards of debate.

Just because you think you have a point, that doesn’t make it our responsibility to prove you wrong. Substantiating your claims is your responsiblity.

You have failed in that. You have no right to demand of others what you have failed – despite direct repeated requests that are derived from your own demands – to provide.

You will provide at least ‘2 pieces of evidence’ from peer reviewed sources for each and every one of your claims in your next few posts. No other response will be acknowledged. Failure will be pointed out.
Mike Stanton
March 13th, 2010
01:41:41

I have no time for Michael’s nonsense. I am too busy reading this. http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/5026
Oriel
March 13th, 2010
12:17:49

Michael

What “ended the UK MMR litigation” was an acknowledgement by the claimants QC’s that as things stood, they couldn’t bring a case to show a causal link between the MMR and ASD and the Legal Services Commission removed funding. Why do you and many others like you find it difficult to accept that ‘no case’ means ‘no cash’? How could any appeal judge irrespective of his family connections, order the LSC to reinstate funding for the child litigants when their own lawyers were standing there saying that they couldn’t make a case for them?. That’s just crazy.

What really ended the MMR litigation was the fact that despite the millions invested in the case by the LSC,the experts chosen by the childrens own lawyers could not provide the goods to support a claim that the MMR caused ASD, on their behalf.

The claims were dependant on individual experts, including Dr Wakefield, being able to provide research, evidence and sound argument to prove a causal link between the MMR vaccine and the childrens conditions. Clearly they could not do that since the legal team were forced to admit they had no case to bring and that’s what ended the MMR litigation.

With Dr Wakefield and many of his followers now trumpeting the fact that he never said there was a link between the MMR and autism,it’s questionable what possible merit there was in him being an expert witness for these children in the first place.He was clearly never going to implicate the MMR vaccine as causing autism in his expert reports. The claims were entirely dependant on experts being able to do just that, so it’s little wonder the litigation collapsed and the children lost out big time.
michael0156
March 24th, 2010
09:25:18

“However, this litigation is very unlikely to prove their suspicions.” This is how Clare Dodgsen, in 2003, dismissed parents belief that MMR causes autism and thereby pulled funding from the investigation. This of course allows the statute of limitations to run out leaving Glaxo free and clear of blame, for that crop of victims.

The Legal Services Commission, according to Brian Deer (Big Pharma shill), has given over all of the investigative materials to the Medical Research Council. The MRC, in the latest report before the LSC decision to withdraw funding, is of the opinion the causes of autism “remain, to a large extent, unidentified” This decision to terminate funding was made by the LSC less than 6 months before the trials against Glaxo were to begin.

The solicitors appealed, remaining firmly convinced that MMR causes autism. First, the Funding Review Committee refused to continue to support investigation into MMR as a cause of autism, then Judge Nigel Davis dismisses the appeal to force the LSC to continue MMR research funding. Judge Davis is the brother of Glaxo director Crispin Davis, who was also CEO of Elsevier which owns The Lancet.

So with the solicitors ready to go to trial and the Medical Review Committee unable to offer any clue as to what causes autism, the LSC decided that vaccines are not the cause and cannot ever be proved to be the cause.

This kind of heinous illogical reasoning and behavior is what people like you on this blog support as the correct path to take. While millions more kids become victims of our efforts to protect them, the LSC denies the only obvious correlation to autism, which is vaccines.

Dedj once posted – “Some of the people here are primary care givers for autistic or otherwise disabled children and adults.
Some of the people here are autistic adults, some with additional disabilities.
Some of the people here are professionals or paraprofessionals involved in autism care.
Some of the people here are academics or researchers in autism studies.
Some of us are, or have been some or all or the above”

Little of that is believable, as most of the people on this blog blindly support Big Pharma’s position on the vaccine autism issue and care little for the kids with regressive autism or those who will be rendered autistic in the future.

Toxin free vaccines should be used in independent clinical trials to resolve the autism issue. Anything less is unacceptable, unethical and unscientific. The mass of manipulated epidemiology used to hide the truth is well known by the people on this blog. In spite of their dishonest calls for the production of evidence, they know the evidence. They are practiced at denying it, disseminating mis-information, deflecting or merely lying. This defines their sociopathic behavior… The deliberate actions of avoidance and obfuscation that result in hurting and killing children while tens of millions are burdened to a degree I believe that most on this blog could not face.

I’m not going to change the minds of sociopaths. I was aware of that since the day I read the callous illogical rants and taunts from many persons here. I will stand and remind everyone of the pain and hopelessness to which you help condemn innocent children and their families. This will reach some of you, but not the majority, who will lash out with a vicious venom disregarding the lives lost to the shadow-world of regressive autism.
Julian Frost
March 24th, 2010
10:24:24

@michael0156: “I am not going to change the minds of Sociopaths”.
With that one remark, you show that you are not interested in debating the issue, and simply attack anyone with a different opinion.
“[S]ince the day I read the callous illogical rants and taunts…”
Hello pot, meet kettle.
You also attack the court rulings but fail to give Reasons why they are flawed. As to your comments about toxins, seafood is very good for brain development, but it contains mercury. Breastmilk contains aluminium. It is impossible to remove all toxins even from food. I don’t know what you mean by a “toxin free” vaccine schedule. I suspect that it would be impossible.
If you want to be taken seriously, do what dejd and Laurentius Rex asked you to do and back up your claims with EVIDENCE.
Oriel
March 24th, 2010
13:41:30

The decision to “terminate funding” by the LSC for the MMR claimants was based on the fact that there was no EVIDENCE to support a causal link between the MMR vaccine and ASD. If there had been, the lawyers would not have advised that they could not make a case, the LSC would not have removed funding, and the entire matter would have progressed to trial.
The arguments lodged by the claimants to support the claims that the MMR had caused autism had to contain sound scientific evidence to support the explanations for how the MMR when given to children, then went on and caused them to be autistic. Clearly that couldn’t be done.
If any party could be said to have left Glaxo “free and clear of blame” it was the experts appointed by the lawyers who used up public money on investigative research which failed the children miserably by not providing adequate proof of a link between the MMR and autism, allowing the case to go to trial. An article from the Sunday Times March 7 2004 by Brian Deer highlights how John O’ Leary of Unigenetics Ltd, hired by the lawyers to carry out the testing of samples, was forced to admit in a letter to the Sunday Times, that his findings “did not support the MMR/autism hypothesis”

It wasn’t the Court, the LSC, FRC or the Defendants who said the case couldn’t be brought to trial, but the Claimants own legal team when they admitted that as things stood, there was no prospects of success and with O’leary’s findings, it wasn’t hard to see why.

Faced with that unsavoury set of circumstances who would argue that it was unjust for the LSC to remove the funding or for the FRC to uphold their reasons for doing so? The FRC said by Michael to have “refused to continue to support investigation into MMR as a cause of autism” could hardly find the LSC wrong in their decision to remove funding when they had been advised by the claimants own legal team that their case had no prospects of success.
Lord Taverne hit the nail on the head when in 2004 he said of the MMR litigation “After 10 years and the expenditure of more than £15 million, not surprisingly, no evidence has emerged to provide a prima facie case. Earlier this year, the Legal Services Commission withdrew support and declared that the failure to find evidence meant that the case was very likely to fail. It also observed that aid should never have been granted , because the courts are not the place to prove new medical truths”.

Lord Taverne further stated that” From the start it was a disgrace that legal aid was ever granted. The so-called research was, and always was likely to be, a farce”. (Hansard 16 June 2004 Column 789)
A Verdict on the Vaccination Boogeyman | BlogHer | Sophrosyne Life
January 20th, 2012
16:24:58

[...] gone on the offensive, using the media arm of Thoughtful House, his US autism organization, to try to discredit Brian Deer, the journalist whose ongoing research first revealed the extent of Wakefield’s questionable [...]
Andrew
January 21st, 2012
02:30:43

“I’m not going to change the minds of sociopaths. I was aware of that since the day I read the callous illogical rants and taunts from many persons here. I will stand and remind everyone of the pain and hopelessness to which you help condemn innocent children and their families. This will reach some of you, but not the majority, who will lash out with a vicious venom disregarding the lives lost to the shadow-world of regressive autism.”

I wonder if you’ll ever realize how deep your hypocrisy is; you take advantage of the openness of this blog to spew your lies, trusting that the blog-owners will allow it to remain visible to all, while anti-health blogs like AOA boast that they censor all opposing views, to protect their readers from hearing any facts that might unsettle their preconceptions. I hope that when you realize how vile your behavior has been, that you can forgive yourself. Meanwhile, stay away from our children with your lies.