Comments on: Autism treatment: Science hijacked to support alternative therapies

By: MT

MT — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 21:18:06 +0000

I’ve been taking my son to Dr. Neubrander for several months now. My only regret is not doing it sooner. The positive changes I’ve seen in my son are nothing short of miraculous.
~~parent of a 12 year~~old Asperger’s kid- Ringoes, NJ

By: maggieaustria

maggieaustria — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 22:09:26 +0000

There is a great video on you tube called “severe autism when there is no answer” The video is made by a man with Aspergers (a fellow aspie) who also has an autistic son. Very enlightening. Youll be surprised.

By: Chicago Tribune leads the way on autism coverage | MNH Kids Camp.com – Ideas & Advice on Child Autism

Sat, 02 Jan 2010 20:18:23 +0000

[...] lot of time to prepare these articles. They cite the experts in the field,” notes Sullivan at LeftBrainRightBrain, “Let’s face it, the supposed experts in the alternative medical “treatment” of autism [...]

By: Mike Stanton

Mike Stanton — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:35:50 +0000

Of around 2500 treatments covered 13% are rated as beneficial, 23% likely to be beneficial, 8% as trade off between benefits and harms, 6% unlikely to be beneficial, 4% likely to be ineffective or harmful, and 46%, the largest proportion, as unknown effectiveness

The point being that for those treatments were Clinical Evidence has reviewed the evidence 24% are rated beneficial, 43% are likely to be beneficial and 15% have a trade off between benefit and harm.

All new treatments have to be evidence based or they are not funded by the NHS. The alt med crowd introduce new treatments all the time that are not evidence based, and in the case of neuroinflammation in autism, the researchers from John Hopkins have said that their research should not be used to justify this quackery.

By: dr treg

dr treg — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 00:23:38 +0000

23% or 25%?
Article or study?
Slight variation in study/pie chart figures?
Which treatments studied?
The study or article is not about achieving perfection but is used to demonstrate that not all conventional medicine is evidence-based. You may have missed the point somewhat.

By: Mike Stanton

Mike Stanton — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:31:26 +0000

I followed the link and was a little perturbed by three things

The 25% that you cite is not mentioned anywhere in the article. (NB it is an article and not a study. This is a website that summarizes the results of other people’s studies and the article you link to carries no references and so is technically an opinion piece.)

The figures in the article are different to the figures in the pie chart on the same page. OK some are rounded up and some are rounded down. But it is still sloppy.

There is no indication of how common the different treatments are. How do the percentages translate into patients treated? If only 8 per cent of treatments are known to be effective but they are given to 80 per cent of patients we would get a very different pie chart. Conversely, what if the 3 percent that are thought to be dangerous are routinely administered to lots of patients?

Very sloppy.

By: dr treg

dr treg — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:24:35 +0000

This is the study in the British Medical Journal – not sure of the details of the different treatments.
http://clinicalevidence.bmj.co.....wledge.jsp
Splitting hairs?

By: FreeSpeaker

FreeSpeaker — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 23:28:37 +0000

“25% of conventional medical treatment is scientifically based”

If I am not mistaken, that comes from someone who includes surgery in the 75%. It is a bogus claim.

By: dr treg

dr treg — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 13:55:50 +0000

“Except that autism is not a neurodegenerative disease. It is a developmental disorder that improves over time.” Severe autism characteristically deteriorates with time in the acute phase resulting in developmental regression.
Severe autism is characterised by
1. Immunological abnormalities – published in many papers not just by Johns Hopkins.
2. Genetic abnormalities – increasingly identified.
3. Structural brain abnormalities
i) Macroscopic – increased brain size in first 3 years.
ii) Microscopic – dendritic spine density abnormalities
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu.....t=Abstract
4. Clinical hyper/hyposensitivity low I.Q. and obsession-compulsion.
Autism probably will be confirmed as an immuno-genetic disease in the future if not already.
I find it interesting that Johns Hopkins deter treatment of autism with traditional immunosuppressants in their Internet site, but that there have been anecdotal reports of improvement with prednisone, IV immunoglobulins and even gold.
http://www.neuro.jhmi.edu/neur.....m_faqs.htm
http://www.aheadwithautism.com/research.html
http://www.plioplys.com/medici.....rticle.pdf
http://photoninthedarkness.blo.....-rush.html
A double-blind controlled clinical study of prednisone and IV immunoglobulins could be worthwhile in severe autism.
I would also be interested in the effect of methotrexate in severe autism in doses used for other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis – but is unlikely to pass an Ethics Committee. Perhaps severe autism will eventually be treated with a combination of immunosuppressants which synergise rather similar to the induction treatment phase of childhood leukemia.
Meantime rapamycin, pioglitazone and TNF-alpha blockers are being prepared to be trialled in autism based on similar limited evidence but they have Pharmaceutical Company money behind them which traditional generic immunosuppressants do not.
It must be remebered that only less than 25% of conventional medical treatment is scientifically based and a significant percentage is harmful without benefit.

By: FreeSpeaker

FreeSpeaker — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:30:43 +0000

When the woo-meisters hijack good science, the Good Scientist remain silent. They have got to speak up and tell the world that they have been hijacked. When this is done, it will affect the bottom line of the woo-meisters.