In any event, if one wishes to keep in touch with upcoming meetings (there is a link to the agenda of the March meeting in Luxembourg, which was referred to by the AS blogpost).

European Commission page on “major and chronic diseases” has the list of related events, and links to registration for the Autism Europe IX International Congress
http://ec.europa.eu/health/maj.....dex_en.htm

12 November 2010
European Autism Action 2020: Working Conference on a Strategic Plan for Autism
Dublin, Ireland
(tbc)

08 October 2010
Autism Europe IX International Congress
Catania, Italy
http://www.autismeurope2010.org/

11 March 2010
3rd Panel of European Experts on Autistic Spectrum Disorders

Thanks for that—please post a link to the comments somewhere on LBRB when you do.

Unfortunately I have reason to believe the Autism Speaks UK to Autistica metamorphosis is nothing more than a PR job. I’ll be posting on the subject soon.

apologies for the delay in responding.

I appreciate at some level the link. On another level, reading the Autism Speaks blog is not something I like to do. I didn’t know about this event. But, that doesn’t mean that “none” of the readers here did.

That said, Autism Speaks is not limiting itself to the US and Europe. They are, sadly, taking their message internationally. I hope that as time goes on, more groups go the way of Autistica and disengage from autism speaks (http://www.autismspeaks.org/pr.....istica.php).

My guess is that Autism Speaks will not make the same “mistakes” in the future and will have a greater control over their foreign namesakes.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSa.....115644.htm

You would get more than 62 micrograms of mercury from 6.5 ounces of tuna fish.

I have eaten more than 6.5 ounces of canned tuna fish in a single day. I presume that many other people have too.

Per capita canned tuna fish consumption in the US is 3.3 pounds per year. At 0.35 ppm, that is over 500 micrograms per year.

http://www.foodreference.com/h.....ption.html

http://www.ic.nhs.uk/statistic.....2006”; rel=”nofollow”>Immunisation statistics, England 2005-2006

That link was broken. Note that they list coverage for individual vaccines, which is roughly 95% for each, except MMR, which had a low in 2003-2004. MMR coverage has been recovering since.

Coverage is – I believe – comparable to the US coverage of individual vaccines. Hence, I’d suggest that the rate of complete lack of vaccination in the UK is similar to that of the US, i.e. around 0.3%.

And to put this in further perspective, the prevalence of children who are unvaccinated and autistic should be 0.3 in 10,000. That’s rarer than, say, Rett Syndrome.

Petitions are filed with NVICP on an individual basis with each individual case needing to be reviewed. The PSC is treating the 500+ petitions, already on file as a “class action suite” and summarily dismissing the 500+ petitions based on the outcomes of the 3 or 4 that already have decisions. That is the bastardization of the process. By my accounts 4 cases down 4,996+ cases to go. If all the cases are not individually reviewed then the system is highly flawed, bureaucratically ineffective, and highly biased, making it completely impotent in the intended results it is regulated to resolve.

@Chuck, the OAP only treated the cases as a ‘class action’ in the sense that the claims fell under, essentially, 2 theories of causation. Test cases were selected as the best (and supposedly strongest) representations of the claims, by the PSC. Let me repeat, this was done in order to expedite all of the subsequent cases, so expert testimony would not have to be repeated thousands of times. This makes perfect sense and the petitioners stood to greatly benefit from this process had their test cases prevailed.

The other cases were not dismissed; they can still go ahead with claims although they stand to not be compensated for legal fees unless they have new evidence to present. It would be outlandish to hear all of the cases with full-fledged expert testimonies in each case and would bankrupt the NVICP. That may be worth it to you but it makes no sense from any way you look at it.

There were also 5 test cases combined for the 2 claims of causation, which were allegedly consistent with all of the claimants. Your only complaint is that they lost and trying to wave your hands at a non-existent conspiracy. I can only conclude that you haven’t bothered to read any of the testimonies, nor the decisions because it doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see how utterly implausible the claims were.

And the VAERS reports that were submitted by parents with supporting medical documentation? Those babies were thrown out with the bathwater.

What supporting medical documentation would that be? The PSC’s experts were heard, given tremendous latitude with their submissions and they still couldn’t meet the low burden of proof. So please tell me, what was so compelling that was dismissed by the Special Masters?

And the VAERS reports that were submitted by parents with supporting medical documentation? Those babies were thrown out with the bathwater.

The government and all it’s bureaucracies never had any intention of assisting ASD individuals. Never has and never will.

Flu vaccine uptake amongst pregnant women is quite low. From a recent paper in The Lancet:

The USA reached just 16% influenza vaccination coverage of pregnant women in 2005. Improvements in vaccine uptake will require practical efforts to reduce barriers and address any concerns of pregnant women and their health providers.