Archive | May, 2008

The Bernadine Healy Card

31 May

Last month, ex NIH leader, Bernadine Healy came out of her semi-retirement to weigh in on the autism/vaccine hypothesis:

….the rise of this disorder, which shows up before age 3, happens to coincide with the increased number and type of vaccine shots in the first few years of life. So as a trigger, vaccines carry a ring of both historical and biological plausibility.

It was a credulous article designed, I suspect, to have a bit of a snipe at HHS – currently embroiled in the Autism Omnibus. Why do I say that?

Well, being a UK citizen I’d never heard of Bernadine Healy so I did a bit of looking around to see if I could adequately explain to myself why such a luminary would say such plainly silly and unscientific things.

It seems that:

on 10 Feb [1993], Healy, who is known for her bluntness, went to her new boss, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Donna Shalala and asked about her future. Shalala apparently matched Healy for bluntness. “She let me know it wouldn’t work out in the long term.” Said Healy.

So possibly there is some lingering resentment towards HHS. Who knows. It seems doubtful that this would entirely (if at all) explain Healy’s decision to parrot pseudo-science but – people do silly things sometimes.

What I found fascinating was that this is not the first time Healy has taken an active role in direct opposition to science and the scientific process:

…..patients are forced into a one-size-fits-all straitjacket…..EBM [evidence based medicine] carries its own ideological and political agenda separate from its clinical purpose.

Dr. Bernadine Healy, a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and former director of the National Institutes of Health, falsely claimed that “several” neurologists who “evaluated” Terri Schiavo determined that she had “a functional mind” and was “minimally conscious.”

Dr Bernadine Healey, former director of the National Institute of Health said, “Blenderizing these diverse trials into one giant 232,606-patient-strong study to come up with a seductively simple proclamation is just silly….”

That latter was Healy’s attack on a study that highlighted the dangers of vitamins.

So we can see that Healy has a history that is peppered with leanings toward a credulous approach.

It also seems that she is first and foremost a politician, willing to sacrifice her scientific credibility to support her party (she is a Republican):

Healy was appointed director of the National Institutes of Health in 1991….when Healy assumed control, the agency was beset with problems…..[s]cientists were leaving in record numbers because of…..politicization of scientific agendas (a prime example was the ban on fetal-tissue research because the Republican administration believed it encouraged abortion)

Healy had, at that time expressed support for fetal-tissue research:

….she had been a member of a panel that advised continuation of fetal-tissue research, her appointment was also seen as a move away from politicized science.

So, it must’ve come as something of a shock to NIH scientists when:

….she lobbied against overturning the Bush Administration’s ban on fetal tissue research, despite her previous support for such research.

She also had to defend herself against charges of mishandling a scientific misconduct case:

Healy demanded that OSI (like internal affairs for the NIH) rewrite a draft report that found misconduct on the part of Popovic. The OSI report also severely criticized Gallo.

“When her order for a rewrite was refused, Dr. Healy replaced the chief investigator [Suzanne Hadley] with one more malleable,” the subcommittee report said. The resulting OSI report was “watered down,” the subcommittee document said.

……….

In 1992, the National Academy of Sciences’ panel completed its investigation and produced a report critical of Gallo.

Healy chose to ignore the findings of the NAS panel and commissioned her own ad hoc committee of top NIH scientists, whom she called her “wise men,” the report said. Healy required the members to sign a secrecy agreement.

(Full story also here).

Maybe the biggest question mark against Healy’s scientific credibility and ability to be impartial as this. She was a member of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition:

The Advancement of Sound Science Center (TASSC), formerly the Advancement of Sound Science Coalition, is an industry-funded lobby group which promotes the idea that environmental science on issues including smoking, pesticides and global warming is “junk science”, which should be replaced by “sound science”.

Notably, TASSC promote the interests of tobacco companies:

Initially, the primary focus of TASSC was an attempt to discredit research on Environmental Tobacco Smoke [passive smoking] as a long-term cause of increased cancer and heart problem rates in the community — especially among office workers and children living with smoking parents. It subsequently advanced industry-friendly positions on a wide range of topics, including global warming, smoking, phthalates, and pesticides. Later still, they extended the role of TASSC to Europe using Dr George Carlo. TASSC used the label of ‘junk science’ to criticise work that was unfavorable to the interests of its backers.

TASSC’s funders included:

3M
Amoco
Chevron
Dow Chemical
Exxon
General Motors
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Lorillard Tobacco
Louisiana Chemical Association
National Pest Control Association
Occidental Petroleum
Philip Morris
Procter & Gamble
Santa Fe Pacific Gold
W.R. Grace

More can be found here.

So, all in all, I am disposed to not trust the words, or ‘beliefs’ of Bernadine Healy very much. Anyone who campaigns against the dangers of passive smoking to children or who is prepared to block science they allegedly once supported when it is politically expedient doesn’t seem that good a judge of what constitutes good science.

Dr John Briffa is wronger than wrong on vaccines and Hannah Poling

30 May

Media nutritionism is a crowded field, but John Briffa has managed to carve out a niche for himself. And Briffa’s take on vaccines stands out, even among media nutritionists. JDC takes a broader look at Briffa’s take on autism, but I’m going to focus on Briffa’s claim that:

the US Government recently looked at such evidence relating to just one girl (Hannah Poling) and concluded that vaccination had contributed significantly to her autism.

As readers of this blog can probably spot, almost every word of that statement is inaccurate: impressive work, indeed. Continue reading →

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Autism Conference and Autism Science

29 May

First of all, I want to let people know that the second USD Autism Conference involving Autism Hub members Has been announced.

There is a Facebook Event to allow the Autism Hub Facebook Group to disseminate information about the conference.

This is, once again, due to the tireless work of Steve. Thanks are due to him.

Secondly, an interesting piece of new science has been announced:

A Long Island researcher has pinpointed for the first time brain regions in children with autism linked to “ritualistic repetitive behavior,” the insatiable desire to rock back and forth for hours or tirelessly march in place.

…..

In children with autism, Shafritz found deficits in specific regions of the cerebral cortex, the outer layer of gray matter linked to all higher human functions, including repetitive behavior. He also mapped deficits in the basal ganglia, a region deep below the cerebral hemispheres.

So this would seem to be yet another area of autistic behaviour that has been ‘reclaimed’ from the anti-vaccine people who claim that the repetitive behaviours were a symptom of mercury poisoning. This is, of course, all to the good as it means that accuracy has replaced supposition.

Dean Jones PhD- oxidative stress and the Omnibus Autism hearing

28 May

Dr. Dean Jones testified on the topic of oxidative stress in the morning of Day 9 of the Thimerosal-only portion of the Omnibus Autism Proceedings hearing. Dr. Jones is a professor at Emory University. He received a Nobel fellowship to do research in molecular toxicology in Stockholm. He is currently a peer reviewer for the journals Toxicology, Nutrition, Science, and Nature Methods. He also has been the chair of a “study section” at the NIH, as such it was his job to oversee peer review process of grant applications.

He is the recipient of grants to do research. One of his major grants for looking at oxidative stress in cell nuclei. He is one of the asst. program directors for a $22 million award from the NIH for translational research. Dr. Jones oversees two labs at Emory, one is his own research lab focusing on redox chemistry. He lectures on nutritional biochemistry, pharmacology and metabolism and has written many articles on sulfur metabolism, and he estimates that he has written over 100 original research articles on oxidative stress.

Dr. Jones testified that sulfur is the 5th most common element in biological systems and sulfur is ubiquitous in living systems. All this sulfur beneficially affects how our bodies deal with heavy metals.
The following is more of my rough transcription of what Dr. Jones said as he was examined by Ms. Renzi. Words in parentheses are my summary of what was said, the rest is more of an attempt to get what was said word-for-word. Keep in mind, there is a lot more than this. I haven’t tried to transcribe all the testimony by Dr. Jones wherein he explains a lot about what Glutathione is and details the reasons for his conclusions about Dr. Deth’s hypothesis and the idea that thimerosal in the doses contained in the vaccines given to even the tiniest babies ever could do anything vaguely like harm:

Ms. Renzi: …. Glutathione does more than just detoxify heavy metals, is that correct?

Dr. Jones: Glutathione has a very important role in metabolism. It is the major thiol. (It’s a major) sulfur containing chemical…. maybe 1/3 of the total sulfur (in the body is found in glutathione) the most abundant thiol.

Ms. Renzi: What is the role of glutathione in the body?

Dr. Jones: … The one that has probably received the most attention in the past 50 years is the function of glutathione as an anti-carcinogen. Glutathione is used to counter reactive chemicals that would otherwise cause mutations in the DNA and cause cancer. A little over 50 years ago it was recognized that many chemicals we are exposed to are activated in the body to reactive chemicals, the most central way that the body gets rid of these is by reacting these with glutathione. Glutathione is the most anticarcinogenic chemical we have in our body.

It is also an antioxidant….Hydrogen peroxide is produced in the body all the time, about a pound a day of oxygen consume, about 1% of that is converted to hydrogen peroxide– a large portion of that is eliminated by glutathione.

…there is a coenzymatic function of glutathione. One of the main ways we get rid of formaldehyde is through a catalytic action, involves using glutathione as a catalyst. The glutathione is not used up (in doing that).

Ms. Renzi: Deth’s hypothesis is thimerosal containing vaccines disrupt sulfur metabolism and causes autism. …

And Based upon your knowledge and research in the area of sulfur metabolism and glutathione do you have an opinion as to whether thimerosal at the doses administered in thimerosal containing vaccines can significantly affect sulfur metabolism.

[This is about the 22 minute mark.]

Jones: What the data show is that the dose of thimerosal (under discussion) will not affect in a significant way, sulfur metabolism.

Renzi: Why is that?

Dr. Jones: (He gives the amount of sulfur in a human body. He gives estimated total body glutathione.) 1 millimolar (is) 1000 micromolar. (He gives the amount of sulfur in sulfur containing foods a typical baby would eat: 500 micromoles per kg of body weight.) … We have a huge total thiol content in the body.

Ms. Renzi: (In your scenario that compares sulfur exposure to mercury exposure from vaccines,) how did you calculate the thimerosal dose?

I took the cumulative dose (that) was 180 mcg. I rounded it up (apparently to 200 mcg). (I calculated it as if) that were given all at once to a 1kg child, so that would be a two pound child. This is a very conservative way to look at this, the exposure would probably be six-fold lower than this. If you calculated it this way that would be equivalent to one micromole per kg of body weight. The more realistic would be 0.1 micromole per kg. The cumulative dose of thimerosal is considerably less than that daily intake of sulfur amino acids would be… 2000 fold lower than the total body thiol.

Renzi: Do food items also contain reactive materials that our body use glutathione to deactivate.

Johnson: … if we look at the amount of reactive materials in a 8 oz glass of 2% cows milk that number is 21,700 nanomoles. If you assume that a child would consume 4 oz in a serving would be the equivalent of 10 micromoles. One 4 oz serving would contain more than 10 times as much of the reactive materials (as is in the estimated 200 mcg of mercury from thimerosal.)

Renzi: The amount of reactive materials (in those common foods are) above that cumulative dose in a thimerosal normally administered over a 6 month period.
…
(1 hour 36 minutes)

Dr. Jones: (summing up) … at 4 critical sites in this scheme the pieces don’t fit together that that’s a plausible hypothesis and plausible mechanism that changes in sulfur amino acid is a cause of autism

Ms. Renzi: So, the data that Dr. Deth presented actually in formulating his hypothesis doesn’t support his hypothesis is that correct? …

Yes. … Slide 28 is Dr. Deth’s slide 41… What I think that the data show, uh, you know, to me fairly clearly in, you know, that that there really is not appropriate evidence, this is just not, the data, saying that the dose of thimerosal is enough to alter the sulfur metabolism, this is not, not established by the data. And similarly if you had a perturbation in the sulfur even if a very minor effect happened it really wouldn’t be of a magnitude that one could consider that that is the cause of oxidative stress. I think you have to conclude that this is not established, either, the second point. And finally then if you look at the subsequent aspects of that the variations, the oxidative stress, there’s a normal variation in oxidative stress and that the magnitude of effects are really not appropriate, and in fact the mechanisms that he’s drawn can not account for changes in the methionine synthase activity and the in vitro data he’s provided without in vivo data supporting it, really you have to conclude that this step in the pathway is also not established. That is the oxidative stress to the methionine synthase.

…And so from that summary, from my standpoint there really is no plausibility to this hypothesis at all. It’s what I would consider a, a scaffold without a building. there’s a lot of components to it but it really doesn’t have the strength, solidity of being solid science, of being reasonable or plausible. …

So, this is my final slide, slide 29 … I think in terms of the overall, you know, my overall consideration of this:

I think the point one is the cumulative dose of thimerosal is too low to cause the magnitude of effects on glutathione metabolism that would be required to conclude that there’s any likelihood of effect there. It’s not plausible.

Point two, the natural variations are greater than one would expect from the low dose of thimerosal that are present in thimerosal containing vaccines.

The third point, … if you did have an effect, you’d have to conclude that the low non-toxic dose would probably be protective, because that would be activating protective mechanisms that ubiquitously occur.

Fourth, the in vitro studies show that thimerosal disruption of metabolism is probably occurring under non-specific conditions–ones that were you simply have the cellular conditions set up so that you are going to be disrupting lots of things–that you are not going to be giving any specificity. That’s simply because they are at irrelevant concentrations, irrelevant amounts.

I have to conclude that the data really don’t support this hypothesis that there is an effect on the glutathione system that’s causing oxidative stress and that that’s the cause of autism.

Ms. Renzi: Thank you.

Special Master Vowell (addressing PSC lawyer, Mike Williams): Are you prepared to begin cross examination or would this be a good time for a break?

Mr. Williams: I would very much enjoy a break, if that would be alright with you.

One can only imagine how much Mr. Williams needed that break.

I’m running out of adjectives to describe how thoroughly the dead parrot hypothesis has been demolished by the Department of Justice’s experts up to this point. I would not like to be Dr. Deth or even Dr. Wally. There work in cell cultures was described as basically not worthy of publication and it puzzles experts on how it got past peer review. Even the Petitioner’s Steering Committee’s own experts are doing serious damage to their own hypotheses from my observation, via sloppy testimony, bad evidence, citing what amount to speculative essays by absolute non-scientists “published” in non-peer reviewed magazines, experts with unusual ties to unusual funding sources, shaky sources for “data” in testimony that most would consider plagiarized because the real source was not cited, self plagiarism from previous reports, inflated–bordering on fabricated–credentials, extreme lack of expertise in the area where they are testifying, lack of preparation, and a lack of agreement and coherence between the petitioners own experts’ stories. Oh, and they keep bringing up new stuff, new ideas, new papers at the very last minute, which is just not done.

And … I have to ask, if the PSC lawyers were confident in what they were presenting, would they really need to be insulting to the experts for the DoJ? Seriously. Dr. Jones started to get impatient with the way Mr. Williams was badgering him on the cross examination and acting as if he, Jones, should already know what was in a paper that Mr. Williams just handed to him a minute previously, one of those last minute introductions of “evidence” that is totally out of bounds, normally. What I keep hearing on and off from the PSC lawyers, is a tone of voice that implies, “You’re just an idiot, aren’t you? You don’t know this???” Maybe that’s how lawyers are supposed to talk, but I didn’t hear it coming from the DoJ lawyers on cross examination of the PSC experts. The Special Masters have been very generous. I hope the Special Masters can see what a flimsy structure the arguments are that the PSC has constructed.It's just sleeping!

I hope parents who buy into the whole vaccine/heavy metal causation hypothesis and its accompanying “biomed” insanity are listening to these hearings because they will see how they’ve been led around by the nose by “experts” using big words and “healers” making big promises. I also hope that people don’t ever avoid vaccinating their children just out of fear of autism or vague fears of “toxicity.” The stuff to fear is not the vaccines. The stuff to fear is the sometimes deadly germs that vaccines can help protect their children from.

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Neurological diversity

28 May

It is a common tactic of some people who believe that autism should be cured at all costs to state that ‘the neurodiverse’ are a small minority of adults with Aspergers Syndrome, intent on preserving themselves at the expense of their ‘low functioning’ cousins.

Take a recent post from Harold Doherty railing against Andrew Solomon’s piece in New York Magazine:

The Alleged Autism Rights Movement isn’t much help for the severely autistic, the truly severely autistic….. like my son Conor who wondered (sic) across a busy main street oblivious to the dangers of traffic; or those like the 10 year old severely autistic boy in North Carolina who was struck by a train and killed Saturday half an hour after police received a report he was missing from his home. [Or] like the 50 year old autistic woman who could not communicate to tell the world she was being abused by staff in the residential care facility in which she lives in Long Island…

The sad fact is that, if Harold Doherty would allow himself to see it, no-one from ‘neurodiversity’ is suggesting that people like his son, the 10 year old boy he describes or the 50 year old woman he describes, should not be helped to the fullest possible extent. The trouble is, that Harold (and people who hold similar views) are so caught up in what they _think_ they never actually _see_ . The other fact is that the basic tenet of neurodiversity as _I_ understand the term is that people like Conor Doherty deserve respect. The whole ‘cure’ thing is a fairly trivial side issue. Respect is what comes first.

There is no cure for autism. Does this mean then, that we should not fight for the rights of autistic people of _all_ ages, abilities and expressions? That because they are not neurotypical they do not have rights? or deserve respect?

_That_ is what (to me and I think to very many people) neurodiversity is about. Take Alex Barton – the five year old voted out of his class. That is a _lack_ of respect. There is absolutely no justification for that teacher to behave in that way toward a five year old child. Neurodiversity says ‘this little autistic boy deserves to be treated as if he were the same as anyone else in terms of his right to belong’. I fear that some people who call themselves autism advocates think the problem is easily remedied by curing Alex Barton’s autism (hypothetically of course). I think that that entirely misses the point. People used to look for cures for homosexuality – that was wrong too. The _person who is autistic_ deserves as much of a chance to be judged for who they are with their own set of unique abilities, shortcomings and character as the person who is not.

Does this mean we should ‘leave the autistic child as he/she is’? Of course not! That is the largest of red herrings. If someone cannot communicate, you help them communicate. If someone cannot use the toilet, you help them to learn.

And then, when they have reached the upper limit of the potential for learning on each of these subjects, you accept that that is who they are. For some, that might mean they can now speak. For some it might mean they can barely use one Makaton sign. The _amount_ they have learnt is not the measure of how much respect they deserve. They deserve respect regardless. So we must all work to make the environment safer for young autistic children. We must all work harder to make autistic adults living arrangements safe. These are basic human rights.

It should also be noted that, far from being an autism related term, neurodiversity touches on a whole range of things. Of course, they’re not all called ‘neurodiversity’ but well….

Are voices a symptom of illness or a variety of human experience?

Research has shown that there are many people who hear voices, some of whom cope with their voices well without psychiatric intervention, it has also been found that there are many people who hear voices who can cope with their voices and regard them as a positive part of their lives. Neither is it the case that voices have always been regarded as a negative experience.

Throughout history and even today there are people who hear voices who find their voices inspirational and comforting. These are facts that on the face of it are hard to square with the extremely negative way that the experience is regarded by psychiatry. The researchers, practitioners and involved voice hearers believe it is mistaken to regard voice hearing as part of a psychopathic disease syndrome. Rather, they consider it to be more akin to a variation in human experience – if you like, a faculty or differentiation – something like homosexuality, that it is definitely not open to cure.

Thats taken from a page on Hearing Voices from the Mental Health Foundation. I would suggest that you go read that entire page. Like neurodiversity, some members of the hearing voices community acknowledge that their condition (or the condition of a loved one) can be disabling and distressing. However, they all realise that their can be a unique benefit and comfort in knowing who they are. They believe that who they are can be best expressed as a variation in human experience.

A little closer to home (for me anyway), there is something called Mad Pride which is a movement again neurodiversity in all but name. Its a loose conglomeration of self advocates who are (or have been) diagnosed with mental illness:

About 5.7 million Americans over 18 have bipolar disorder, which is classified as a mood disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Another 2.4 million have schizophrenia, which is considered a thought disorder. The small slice of this disparate population who have chosen to share their experiences with the public liken their efforts to those of the gay-rights and similar movements of a generation ago.

Just as gay-rights activists reclaimed the word queer as a badge of honor rather than a slur, these advocates proudly call themselves mad; they say their conditions do not preclude them from productive lives.

The people in all these movements are autistic, manic depressives, schizophrenics, tourettes and many more. None of us deny the bad things that being the way we are can bring. But we do not believe that the fact that we are the way we are means that we are second-class or fodder for nothing more than quack therapies and misplaced pity.

All these peoples – and many more – are the neurologically diverse. The Neurodiverse. Belonging to neither nation, nor politics but simply belonging to the simple idea that everyone is _not_ equal but everyone can advocate best for themselves if supported and respected:

“Broken down it means ‘speaking for yourself’, ‘communicating in other ways’, but it’s personal. For me it means that I can speak for myself. It means I’ve got a voice and even without a voice I can communicate in other ways. It means yes and no- most important- ‘No, I don’t want tea, I want coffee, I don’t want sugar’- all the things we take for granted. It means people must listen to me, I can take a risk, I can have a relationship, that can be hard. I can think for myself, I can go to the shop with support and if I need help, people can help me….

Jackie Downer, Down’s Syndrome Self Advocate.

‘Neurodiversity’ in New York Magazine

26 May

The journalist and author Andrew Solomon (author of the truly excellent and personally recommended Noonday Demon) has written a long piece for New York Magazine entitled The New Wave of Autism Rights Activists in which he paints us a picture of the heavily fractured tripod of autism activism.

Its far, far too long for me to summarise but I will try and give a very brief overview of how Solomon sees these three groups:

There are in reality three sides in this debate: those who believe autism is caused by environmental toxins (especially vaccines) and should be cured by addressing those pollutants; those who believe it is genetic and should be addressed through the genome; and the neurodiverse, who believe that it is genetic and should be left alone. These camps are blatantly hostile to one another. Gerald Fischbach, the scientific director of the Simons Foundation, one of the largest private funders of autism research, says, “I’ve never seen an advocacy community as intense and demanding. The mercuries get livid when people talk about genetics. The geneticists get furious when people talk about environmental toxins. And these activists get angry at both.”

That is a fairly accurate picture although not without it faults (ND’s believing autism should be ‘left alone’….not sure about that – and Solomon does qualify that statement later on)

I don’t really want to talk that much about Solomon’s piece. Its very, very good overall in my opinion. What I _do_ want to talk about is my reaction to it and how my slightly changed view of what ‘neurodiversity’ means to me is.

Ever since I had a large public disagreement with certain people last year about how I and other parents on the Autism Hub allegedly advocated (this disagreement led me to ‘outing’ myself as a manic depressive, handing over ownership and control of the Autism Hub and taking time away from blogging for a week or two), I have been thinking off and on about ‘neurodiversity’ as a practical construct.

I will come clean and say that Andrew contacted me for a statement about what I thought about neurodiversity as someone both neurologically different and also parent to someone neurologically different. That I didn’t make it into the final piece is testament to his skills as a journalist and my own growing ambivalence regarding neurodiversity. I started off by saying:

I felt that I had a good handle on the meaning of neurodiversity – to me it was simple: the diversity of neurology or, to lengthen that out to a truly epic state of pedantry, the many differing states of being that could be neurologically encompassed.

and I still do think that. I also said:

…what neurodiversity was, was a concept that could be embraced by people who valued difference and respected those who were different. It didn’t matter to me that those who embraced the concept were parents or professionals or autistic people or blind people or bipolar people or any mixture of the above. The important thing was that here was a group of people who were saying that being different wasn’t bad. That it (whatever ‘it’ happened to be for you) was a state of being worthy of respect in its own right. It is vital to me that my child grows up to think of xyrself as a person who is entitled to respect.

Beyond that, I am unsure what – if any – of the other things associated with neurodiversity apply to me. I am not ‘anti-cure’. I agree with Alex Plank who states in the article:

Alex Plank, who founded the Wrong Planet Website, which has over 19,000 members, says, “Since no cure exists, I don’t have to be opposed or for it. The thing now is to deal with the autistic people who are already on this planet.

What I want to do is raise my child to a point where xe can advocate for xyrself. If there was a cure invented tomorrow I would want xyr to able to ask the question xyrself: ‘Do I want this?’. This is because, as a parent, just as it is not my right to make xyr not autistic, it is neither my right to keep xyr autistic against xyr own wishes. I am a parent first and advocate second. Let me go even further. If a cure was discovered tomorrow I would not advocate against it. I would try and debate its use as something that should be used with extreme caution but I would not advocate against it point blank.

I come from a viewpoint that views a cure for autism as something that should not be necessary, not as something that should not exist.

What I mean by that is that I do not think it should be _necessary_ for someone who was autistic to be made not autistic in order to enjoy their life. I see plenty of autistic people clearly enjoying their lives and who they are. I want to see respect, tolerance and caring to come _first_ – not only after someone has been ‘cured’. This is (to me) at the root of the recent issue involving Alex Barton. One argument is that because Alex is autistic this is only to be expected. I disagree with that totally. I think that Alex was/is worthy of respect whatever his neurology. Its the same reason I don’t really like the heavy NT bashing that goes on at some ASD forums – two wrongs never make a right.

I also come from a belief that science is important. I therefore recognise that we cannot pick and choose what science we like and what we don’t. Science is either valid or it isn’t. So, when a scientist writes a _good_ paper that states MMR doesn’t cause autism I have to (by definition of science) agree with it. Likewise however, if a scientist writes a _good_ paper that states that Facilitated Communication is not valid, I have to accept that also. I do think that some neurodiversity activists are guilty of picking and choosing what science they like and saying its good and vilifying science that they don’t agree with. Which is fine if the criticism is valid. But not if it isn’t.

If a scientist works on a cure for autism should he be stopped? No way. To me, that’s pointless. If science is interested in a subject they’ll do it. Not always in the best interests of humanity I grant you but all the same – the debate about what to do with the results of said science are more practical than simply trying to stop it.

So, I’m not sure if I am ‘ND’ anymore. Or maybe I’ve just re-interpreted what I think being ‘ND’ means for myself. I don’t know.

Edit: Missed a bit

The closing of Andrew Solomon’s piece is a bit of a dichotomy.

Severe autism is a ghastly affliction that should be cured

I’m afraid that I entirely disagree with Andrew there. They key word is ‘should’. To me, the sentence would be more representative of my own personal definition of ‘nd’ if it read:

Is it important to cure ‘severe’ autism or look more carefully at how the rest of society operates around ‘severely’ autistic people?

.

However, it seems as though Andrew was reading my mind when he wrote:

It is unproductive to rail against the incurable; if you can learn to love it, that’s your best chance of happiness. For some people, the love is self-evident; for others, it is acquired through struggle; others cannot do more than pretend to it. Though neurodiversity activists can get in the way of science and sometimes wrap themselves up in self-important, specious arguments, they also light the way to such love—a model of social acceptance and self-acceptance that has the capacity to redeem whole lives.

Rodier on Bernard et al. and environmental causes of autism

25 May

The idea that mercury poisoning causes autism was first put forward in a paper by Sally Bernard and others entitled Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning.

This was published in a journal called Medical Hypotheses. As you might tell from the title, Medical Hypotheses presents hypotheses-not proven ideas. The journal has no peer review process. Instead, they basically print “…will publish radical ideas, so long as they are coherent and clearly expressed”. If you write well and pay to publish, it will likely get in. Keep that in mind with any paper from “Medical Hypotheses”.

In this paper, the put forth the hypothesis that mercury causes autism. To support this idea, they compare the symptoms of autism and mercury intoxication.

In the Autism Omnibus Proceedings, Dr. Patricia Rodier spoke on specifically the Bernard paper. Dr. Rodier has a unique position in the United States, and likely the world: she is an expert on both mercury poisoning and autism. Below is a rough transcription based on the audio recording of that testimony.

She starts out by stating that she has many criticism of the Bernard paper. She also mentioned a response to that paper had already been published by Nelson and Bauman. That paper is worth reading, and it’s free on the Pediatrics website.

Dr. Rodier then discusses the comparisons made between mercury poisoning and autism, based on her experience with both. If you want the short version: there is no comparison.

First, many of the symptoms or characteristics that are discussed in the Bernard paper are not specific to either autism or mercury poisoning. These include, nausea, vomiting, irritability and temper tantrums. Basically, these are things that happen for all of us at times.

Other symptoms are common across many disabilities: mental retardation, depression and abnormal gait. Again, these are not specific to either autism or mercury poisoning.

Almost all the symptoms used for mercury poisoning are taken from “Mad Hatter’s” disease: the result of a very high exposure to inorganic mercury vapor. Only a few symptoms listed were from ethyl mercury exposure. Since the exposure from vaccines is due to ethyl mercury (thimerosal breaks down to ethyl mercury) that would be the valid comparison.

Dr. Rodier, in her testimony, then discussed how the Bernard paper doesn’t actually do what it purports to do. The comparison isn’t valid since the actual symptoms of autism and mercury poisoning do not match up in a comparison.

She then goes on to discuss many of the comparisons made by Bernard, et al., and show that the comparisons are not valid.

1. Under psychiatric disturbances, the paper discusses depression, flat affect, depressive traits, mood swings, impaired face recognition

1a. Depression is a symptom of acrodynia. This is an exposure to inorganic mercury, not ethyl mercury. While some, possibly many, autistics suffer from depression, it is not a characteristic of autism.

1b. Mood swings are a characteristic of Mad Hatters disease. Again, this is not an autism symptom or characteristic.

1c. Flat affect is a diagnostic trait for autism but not mercury poisoning . Also, this is the opposite of mood swings, a characteristic of mercury poisoning noted in ii, above.

1d. Impaired face recognition occurs in autism, but hasn’t even been tested in any kind of mercury poisoning.

So, in this first group of four: there is no overlap for the above 4 ‘symptoms’. If it happens in mercury poisoning, it doesn’t happen in autism and vice versa.

2. Under speech and language deficits, the paper describes:
2a. Verbalizing and word retrieval. This is a problem is observed in Mad Hatters disease but not autism. But, this is compared to ecololia and word use and pragmatic errors. These never happen in mercury poisoning. It is an autism trait.
3. Again under psychiatric disturbances, the paper lists “Lacks eye contact”, and “impaired vision” under mercury toxicity, compared to “problems with joint attention” as the ‘similar’ autism trait
3a. “lacks eye contact” is a symptom of autism, but not of mercury poisoning. Likewise, impaired visual fixation is a symptom of methyl mercury poisoning-the brain control of the eye muscles are impaired which doesn’t allow you to fixate on something-but is not a symptom of autism. Joint attention has nothing to do with vision. It is not a feature of any kind of mercury poisoning. It is a social impairment, not a vision issue.

4) Under CNS structure, they compare “progressive microcephaly” for mercury poisoning with “progressive microcephaly and macrocephaly” for autism.
4a. progressive microcephally is given as a symptom of mercury poisoning. The idea of ‘progressive’ is incorrect here. Also, microcephaly is a sign of methyl mercury toxicity prenatally, not postnatal exposure. Children are born with it.
4b. Progressive macrocephally is a sign of autism. However, it has never been reported in mercury poisoning.

5) Under Neurochemistry, they list “Causes demyelinating neuropathy” under mercury poisoning.

5a. Demyelinating nerorpathy results from a chronic exposure to inorganic mercury. It is not reported in autism.

5b) They list “demyelination in brain” as a characteristic of autism, but no one has ever listed this in autism and the reference doesn’t address it.

Dr. Rodier posed the question: since the authors are trying to show a connection between thimerosal containing vaccines and autism, why don’t they compare autism and ethyl mercury poisoning? Keep in mind, there are various forms of mercury (ethyl and methyl being two types of organic mercury). In their comparison, Bernard et al. have picked from ethyl, methyl and inorganic mercury symptoms. Dr. Rodier suggest the reason they didn’t stick to purely ethyl mercury symptoms because “It doesn’t make a good story”.

1) For example, in a paper by Zhang , 41 people were exposed to ethyl mercury from tainted rice. They knew dose from how much rice they ingested. The authors documented the symptoms. Doses varied from mild to death.

1a) The three most comment symptoms documented by Zhang were:

1a.i) Muscle Weakness

1a.ii) Loss of appetite

1a.iii) Dizziness

Dr. Rodier notes that “those don’t sound much like autism”.

1b) The next 10 symptoms listed by Zhang are

1b.i) nausea

1b.ii) abdominal pain and diarrhea

1b.iii) fever

1b.iv) numbness of the extreminties

1b.v) peresthesia and ataxia

1b.vi) vomiting

1b.vii) thirst

1b.viii) unsteady gait

1b.ix) ringing in the ears

1b.x) headache

Dr. Rodier: again, none of these sound like any of the symptoms of autism that are used in diagnosis.

Dr. Rodier stresses at this point: there is really no correspondence between the symptoms of ethyl mercury poisoning and autism

The government’s attorney asked: the current hypothesis is that low levels of inorganic mercury cause oxidative stress or an inflammatory process which cause autism. Does that make sense? Dr. Rodier answered quite directly, “no”. In the opinion of that autism and mercury poisoning expert, the logic does not work.

She went on to point out that scientists try to disprove hypotheses, not just find support for their given hypothesis. (author’s note here: this is quite true. You need to test a hypothesis and make sure it doesn’t fail, not just collect the evidence that implies it is correct).

She points out that there is one piece of evidence that completely refutes the Bernard et al. hypothesis. There have been autopsy studies performed on people with acute ethyl mercury poisoning. While they indeed had high levels of organic mercury after the ethyl mercury was gone, these people recovered from the mercury toxicity symptoms after the ethyl mercury was gone and the had inorganic mercury was left.

This was the end of the discussion on the Bernard paper and mercury. It is pretty clear when an expert in both fields-mercury toxicity and autism-speaks on the comparison. Compare this to the authors who wrote the paper. Of the three, only one had a background in medicine. That is Lyndelle Redwood, a nurse. None of them are researchers, none experts in either autism or mercury poisoning.

From the above it is pretty clear: the hypothesis put forth by Bernard et al. was a poorly formed and is definitely incorrect.

In the Omnibus Proceeding, the discussion then moved away from mercury directly and into the question of environmental causes of autism. The question was posed: when does autism begin? The answer was that it almost always is determined pre birth.

This led to a discussion of known environmental factors that lead to autism. Dr. Rodier listed them and listed when the exposure has to occur to result in autism.

The known environmental causes are: Rubella, thalidomide, valproic acid, ethanol, misoprostol. All are involved during gestation. The timing of exposure to increase autism risk is:

1) Rubella (German measles): before the 9th week

2) Thalidamide: week 3 and 4

3) Valproic acid: week 3 and 4

4) Ethanol: week 3-5

5) Misoprostol: week 6

She noted that tuberous sclerosis is an example of autistic symptoms developing after birth as the tumors progress.

Terbutaline has been brought up a number of times by the plaintiffs (petitioners) in the Omnibus as an example of an environmental cause of autism. The question was raised as to why Dr. Rodier didn’t discuss this. She described that it is not an environmental cause study, but a genetic study.

Twin pairs were studied. Some were exposed to terbutaline and some were not. They compared the concordance: the rate of one twin having autism if the other did not. No significant increase was found in general in this study. So, the authors looked at a smaller subset, and still found no increase. Then, they looked only at male twins, where no autistic siblings were present in the family. In that case only, they found a significant effect.

Dr. Rodier goes on to discuss that even interpreting this part is difficult because we don’t know if the increased risk was due to the terbutaline, or the fact that the children were at risk of being born early (terbutaline is given to prevent premature delivery).

The judge (Special Master in this court) asked if this was because without the terbutaline the children would not have survived to be born. Dr. Rodier agreed and pointed out that the interpretation the plaintiffs are supplying is further confused because low birth weight is also an increased risk factor. This is from a very recent paper in Pediatrics. Since the turbutaline twins were low birth weight, that could be a factor in the increased autism risk found.

The plaintiffs lawyers have been using a study on rats as an example of a post-natal environmental exposure. The government lawyer asked if this was a valid interpretation. Could this be used to suggest a post-natal exposure could cause autism in humans? Dr. Rodier answered that this is not valid. Newborn rats are more developmentally immature than newborn humans. Newborn rats have closed eyes, no hair, and in other ways are very much more developmentally like prenatal humans. The study would compare better to late-gestation humans.

There was much more in her testimony, but that gets even farther away from the Bernard paper, so we can end this discussion here and let others pick up the rest of her testimony.

Dr. Brent – Toxicologist at the Autism Omnibus hearing

25 May

Listening to Mr. Williams (lawyer for the parents) cross examine Dr. Brent the toxicologist (from May 19, Day 6) was difficult most because after 45 minutes of discussion of the toxicokinetics of ethyl-, vs. methyl, vs. inorganic-mercury all I could hear was “Blah, blah, don’t you agree that the Charleston monkey adult brain study showedgreaterinflammationoftheinorganic glutamaturgicneuron silvergrainsBurbacherinfant paper? Blah blah and further, isn’t it true thattheVahtergroup onlygave80milligramsperkilogramsperdayofmercuricchloride because the defensereferencemasterlist 436page8 indicatesthatSeychellesIslanders spoke at the IOM?”

Nevertheless, I forced myself to listen to portions of it again and again until I thought I understood what they were talking about exactly. There were several times, maybe 8 or 10 even where it seemed obvious to me that Dr. Brent had totally demolished the point that Mr. Williams was attempting to make and Mr. Williams continued on as if it was of no consequence. I kept getting this picture of King Arthur and the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail after King Arthur has sliced off the Black Knight’s arm:

ARTHUR:
Now stand aside, worthy adversary.
BLACK KNIGHT:
‘Tis but a scratch.
ARTHUR:
A scratch? Your arm’s off!
BLACK KNIGHT:
No, it isn’t.
ARTHUR:
Well, what’s that, then?
BLACK KNIGHT:
I’ve had worse.

.

The following is more of my rough transcribing of the audio. I have no idea what that word is that sounds like “AT-trib-ated.” If you know I’d be happy to correct my spelling of it. I believe this first paper he’s referring to is one of the Charleston or Vahter adult monkey studies where they gave very large doses of methyl mercury to the monkeys every day, orally. Click here to hear this segment of the cross examination of Dr. Brent.

.

Mr. Williams: It’s says: “the microglia population is a responsive cell type. Once damage has been repaired following activation after injury microglia are known to return to a quiescent state. However, the number of attribated (sp?) microglia remained elevated … in the monkeys of the clearance group which were kept unexposed for 6 months following 12 months of methyl mercury exposure . This group had very low concentrations of methyl mercury, but retained elevated concentrations inorganic mercury at levels comparable to the 12 month exposure group and this suggests that inorganic mercury may be the proximate species of mercury responsible for microglial activation…” a situation similar to that proposed for the cortex study we already looked at. Now, do you agree that normally microglia have a protective role, they come in and clean up whatever’s there and then they return to their quiescent state?

Dr. Brent: To the extent that I understand microglia… which is limited, I would say, yes.

Williams: And if they stay activated then they can become toxic to neurons and astrocytes.

Dr. Brent: Once again, my, my understanding of microglia is more limited than other people who will be testifying later… my understanding is that microglial activations is not necessarily a bad thing and that … the effects here are not necessarily indicative of any neuropathology.

Once again, you know, we are talking about inorganic mercury effects at the concentrations they give here, and if the inorganic mercury is causing adverse effects at the concentrations, then it’s the seafood and the chicken that people are eating and not the vaccines because that’s where the far greater exposure comes from. And that doesn’t make any sense, because everyone is eating seafood and chicken, including children who are getting mercury via breast milk, and we don’t think of breast milk as a neurotoxin!

Williams: If we go down the column on the same page to about 4 sentences above… yeah about where you have it highlighted…
It says: “Further loss of astrocytes would be expected to have deleterious effects on the neuron population, for example through a excitotoxic mechanism. You were here when Dr Kinsbourne testified that that was his … understanding of the mechanism that could likely be at work here that you would have astrocytes no longer able to take up glutamate, so yyou’d have excess of glutamate and have neurons get over excited. Right?

Dr. Brent: Once again your getting a little out of the mercury area, so my answer here is going to be quite limited, what I took away from Dr. Kinsbourne’s testimony was that he was hypothesizing it was excitotoxic mechanism, related to astrocyte effects. But here for example it says, “further loss of astrocytes,” in this study there wasn’t even that much loss of astroycytes! And certainly, uhm, well we talked about the exposure scenario, so I won’t bring that up again …

Williams: And although, you want to talk about the methyl mercury dose here, you recall that the authors of the infant monkey study made a point of saying that the levels of inorganic mercury in these adult monkeys was only 5 times higher on average than the levels they found in those infant monkey brains, right?

Dr. Brent: That’s right, and that’s very good evidence therefore, that the inorganic mercury is not acting as a neurotoxin, or else we are being poisoned every day, and we are having autism being formed every day, from breastmilk, from seafood, from chicken.

Williams: (Clears throat.)

.

I don’t know if it’s immediately obvious to those who haven’t followed the discussion closely, but basically, Mr. Williams had pointed out that inorganic mercury is the “proximate” cause of damage to brain cells. Which is to say that, it doesn’t matter if the original source of the mercury was methyl-, ethyl- or inorganic mercury, because the mercury doesn’t hang around in the brain as either methyl- or ethyl-mercury. Those forms get changed into inorganic mercury, and it’s the inorganic mercury that hangs around. Inorganic mercury (referred to sometimes in the hearing as “Hg-plus-plus,” Hg++) is the same stuff whether or not it started out as methyl-, ethyl-, thimerosol, breast milk, or chicken. And the exposure to breast milk and chicken for the infant and toddler set is much higher than their exposure to thimerosal from vaccines, now or ever. Dr. Brent had said earlier in the cross examination that over the course of 6 months and infant gets “about 250 micrograms of methyl mercury.”

macaque monkey

Besides that the PSC keeps bringing up these studies where macaques were given significantly higher doses, even massively higher doses, of mercury, either thimerosal or methyl-mercury, than babies ever got. The monkeys in the Vahter study were given 50 mcg per kilogram per day of methyl mercury, which Dr. Brent explained is the equivalent in a 70 kg person getting 3,500 mcg a day of methyl mercury. The average diet for that 70 kg person would expose him or her to 11,000 mcg a year. A year! So essentially, the monkeys got a level of mercury in 3 days what they’d get in a year if they had been eating a typical American diet. But some of the monkeys were fed like this for a year. That’s the “12 month exposure group” referred in what I transcribed (above).

And even though they had had that large continual dose of mercury for a year and many of their brain cells were pretty much impregnated with mercury, the monkeys were normal behaviorally. Even if you wouldn’t expect them to become autistic because they were exposed as adults, surely they’d show some outward sign of brain damage if that much mercury were extremely dangerous to brain function.

It was also interesting to me that Burbacher had used 3 or 4 times the amount of thimerosal to dose his infant monkeys as humans got. Had Burbacher used the equivalent amount of thimerosal in the human vaccine schedule the outcome would likely have been that the levels of mercury in the monkey’s brains would have been so low that it wouldn’t have been detectable. (Clears throat.)

There was also some fun discussion about how there’s no increased autism in the Faroe and Seychelle’s islands in spite of the fact that infants have high levels of mercury in their brains (from maternal diet). Mr. Williams stated that “fish is very good for brains” as if that was a point for his side.

Dr. Brent was the first of the respondents expert witnesses to testify in this portion of the Omnibus hearing. He also had testified in the Cedillo hearing. Some of the points about Kinsbourne’s hypothesis regarding astroglial activation, glutamate excess, and cell death were dismantled by Dr. Johnson, and by other experts who testified in the past weak. Dr. Deth’s hypothesis about autism being the result of oxidative stress was pretty much smithereened by two or three of the petitioners experts. I’m still catching up with listening to all of their testimony, but of extensive portions I’ve listened to so far, well, I think it’s looking really bad for dead parrot hypothesis.

Pupil Idol

24 May

I’m a big fan of the original reality TV show Big Brother. Shameful to admit but true.

But I utterly hate Pop Idol (American Idol) and all those utterly vacuous shows where Simon Cowell is paid to crush people whilst the chavs of the UK and the rednecks of the US yuck it up.

And look what its spawned: Pupil Idol:

Melissa Barton said she is considering legal action after her son’s kindergarten teacher led his classmates to vote him out of class.

After each classmate was allowed to say what they didn’t like about Barton’s 5-year-old son, Alex, his Morningside Elementary teacher Wendy Portillo said they were going to take a vote, Barton said.

By a 14 to 2 margin, the students voted Alex — who is in the process of being diagnosed with autism — out of the class.

I’m going to rant and swear quite a lot now so if you’re not into that I apologise.

What the *fuck* is going on when a _teacher_ – an educator (allegedly) is allowed to humiliate, segregate and bully a five year old boy? Is this America? Or os this America?

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Which is it?

I really like America and Americans. I like the fact their speech truly is free. I like the fact that they are proud of their (admittedly short) heritage. I like the fact above all that Jews, Hindu’s, Christians, Asians (near and far east), Hispanics and good old WASP’s (as well as a multitude of others) all mix together and produce America. That rocks.

This doesn’t. This is the underside. This is a country that has allowed five year old children to _vote off_ a fellow five year old (who happens to be autistic) like he was a contestant in a frigging game show.

I would just like to say in the strongest possible terms that it is my considered opinion that the teacher, the school system and the community that allowed this to happen are scum with no redeeming features.

Dr. Johnson testifies in the Autism Omnibus Hearing

24 May

Dr. Johnson’s testimony was fabulous and I think it’s safe to say that it wreaks more devastation on the petitioners'(the parents) case. As of this moment, I can’t give you a lot of detail about Dr. Johnson’s qualifications, unfortunately. For some reason a portion of the audio recording (MP3) that would have included Dr. Johnson’s statement of his qualifications is missing.

One thing I think is important to point out here is that the respondents experts’ (written) reports, and even the list of the respondents’ experts has not been posted to the Autism Omnibus docket. The parents’ lawyers (the Petitioners Steering Committee, or PSC) do have their experts list posted to the docket. Some time ago (I think it was more than a year ago) the Department of Justice attorneys asked the Special Master if the Federal Court would refrain from posting the lists of the respondent’s experts for fear that their experts would be subjected to harassment. That request doesn’t seem to be on the docket now, but it used to be. It’s likely that after the experts were listed the first time the experts for the government were harassed. This would be in keeping with the way different experts, and even parents such as myself and Kevin Leitch and others, have been harassed by “mercury parents” or their friends. You can see from the Autism Omnibus Proceedings Docket Here: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/node/2718 that the there are no more postings of lists of respondents’ experts after mid 2006. There’s an entry from March of 2007 that is called, “Respondent’s Notice of Expert Witnesses,” but there’s no document now linked to that entry.

The point I’m trying to make about the missing expert list is: I can’t pull up the list of expert witnesses for the respondents (the US government, essentially) for this hearing because it’s not available. So I can’t find out easily who Dr. Johnson is, though he is a professor at university, and has a lab, and has published on neurophyisology and neurodegenerative diseases, and he uses tissue slides and tissue cultures. Worse, “Johnson” is a very common name so if you go looking for experts named Johnson who publish in neurodegenerative diseases, you’ll find 3 or 4 of them in pubmed. The DoJ lawyer here is one of Mr. Matanoski’s team of attorneys. As far as I can tell the junior attorneys on the team are Bo (Beau?) Johnson, Ms. Ricciardella, Ms. Renzi and Ms. Espinoza (Espinosa?).

I don’t know which lawyer is examining Dr. Johnson. From her voice, I’m guessing (again) that it’s Ms. Renzi. Again this is my transcribing of what was said, some of it is word for word, some of it is a close paraphrase of what was said you can find the following somewhere around 8 minutes 43 seconds on the second MP3 file from Day 7 (May 20). Here is some of the very interesting testimony from Dr. Johnson:

Ms. Renzi: Dr. Deth cited a paper by Mady Hornig in support of his arguments. You mentioned that the mouse strain Dr. Hornig used was selected because it had a stronger immune response, but took issue with Dr. Deth’s explanation of the rationale behind the use of the strain. … Deth said hers was a mouse strain harboring genetic deficits in redox related enzymes… What strain of mouse was used?

Dr. Johnson: It was an SJL-J mouse. (Dr. Deth) was inferring that there was a redox enzyme differential, or some kind of differential (in this strain) and that’s absolutely not true. The mice have a this increased immune response and that’s why they were selected. … There’s absolutely no data supporting the fact that there is a redox enzyme differential. Now I can understand the reason that it’s in there because it supports his hypothesis… but it’s not an accurate representation of these mice.

Renzi: Do you have confidence in Dr. Hornig’s reported results?

Johnson: Uh, no.

Renzi: Part of that has to do with the hippocampal sections, correct?

Johnson: The quality of the images,… I’ll point this out, (the sections from the Hornig paper) .. What you can see is when you look at these images–to me these images are absolutely awful, now the staining here is hematoxylin and eosin, and it’s supposed to stain for architecture and cell integrity and a variety of other things. The pictures are diffuse, there’s no clear neuronal fields. Right here there is weak staining. … If you look here, the cells that are dark right there, those are the neuronal fields. The quality is just extremely low. … Quality of the sections themselves are low. … Let’s put it this way, I’ve seen this in my lab before. I’ve seen people come to me with sections stained like this. I’ll say: Something’s wrong. OK? The tissue wasn’t prepared right. There’s something definately wrong here. Because these do not maintain the nice cellular architecture that you should see if the experiment is done right and the tissue is harvested correctly.

Renzi: Problems with these slides led you to doubt the findings of the Hornig paper? Has a recent paper contradicted Hornig’s findings? …

Johnson: The… comparable fields in the Berman paper. To me they are absolutely beautiful. … It looks very, very, very good.

Renzi: … What dose of thimerosal was used in the Berman paper?

Johnson: …They also used a does that was 10 times higher…

Renzi: Did both studies (stain with antibodies)?

Johnson: There is a distinct difference between Berman and Hornig studies’ slides… If you look at the architecture of the tissue in the Berman study…. (there is) nice staining in the hippocampus….

Special Master:… (interrupt for clarification)

Johnson: … Berman sections are the two sections on the left side… What you can see is there’s very nice staining in the field, the neuronal field are not staining intensely (which is what they are expected to show)

Now if you look at the upper 4 panels on the right side these are from the similar panels from the Hornig study. The first thing that I want to point out is that if you look at the tissue, it’s full of holes… Look at this enhanced image right here, the bottom two panels C and D from the Hornig. You can see that the tissue almost looks like it’s disintegrating, It’s breaking down. There’s holes all over in the tissue.

I know from experience when you see tissue like this the amount of nonspecific staining by antibodies could be intense.

Basically, if someone came to me with this kind of staining in my laboratory I would say to go back and do the whole experiment again,… I would not want… for one these are unpublishable to me, and two the potential for artifactual data to be generated from this kind of (poor quality tissue) is extremely high. … This is very important. You know, you can do whatever you want after you’ve got the tissue, but it’s the process of getting the tissue so that the quality is extremely good. You need to start with high quality tissue.

… The Berman tissue was absolutely perfect. … The sections are beautiful.

One thing I took away from Dr. Johnson’s testimony is that there’s no way that the Hornig paper should

have made it past a competent peer review and into a “peer reviewed” publication. The Hornig paper has a few other problems that have been discussed before, but these problems never been reported in into a letter to the journal that published that paper, Molecular Psychology, as they should have. (Click here to download a copy of that paper from the SAFE MINDS website.)

Hornig wrote that paper with her main squeeze, Ian Lipkin, and with David Chian. This research was funded by the UC Davis MIND Institute, SAFE MINDS and by part of an NIH grant of Ian Lipkin’s. Surely someone knew how bad those tissue slides were even before it was submitted to the journal. Surely someone at the journal should have had a person with some kind of expertise review the article. Surely in 2004 some person with expertise would have noticed the problems with the degraded and uninterpretable tissue slides in the Hornig paper. I didn’t notice any problems with the slides when I read the paper because I don’t know what stained tissue of mouse hippocampus is supposed to look like and neither would most of the mercury parents who have tried to use this paper to show that their own child was made autistic by vaccines containing thimerosal.

The MIND Institute scientists must have seen the problems with Mady Hornig’s study, but they invited her to come speak about her thimerosal-causes-susceptible-mice-to-become-mindlessly-violent-killers hypothesis at the conference I call the “MIND’s mini-DAN!”. Video of her speaking at that conference is still available on the MIND’s website here: http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/mindinstitute/events/toxicology_recorded_events.html

And you can see video of John Green speaking there, too. He was described in the most glowing terms by Dr. Robert Hendren. Maybe Dr. Hendren didn’t know about the “earthworm eggs” and “fecal implantation enemas” that Dr. Green had prescribed to some of his patients. After Green spoke, Dr. Hendren knew about the problems with Green’s citing of a provoked urine toxic heavy metals lab result from Doctor’s Data Inc that was in Dr. Green’s slides, because I told Dr. Hendren about the problem with that lab report. As far as I could tell, Dr. Hendren wasn’t particularly worried about that. The video of Dr. Green “explaining” what that lab test meant to him is still on the MIND’s website. I have a problem with that, since parents can watch those videos and make poor treatment decisions for their children based on them. On the other hand, those videos seem to stand as a testimony to something less than scientific that seems to be going on at the MIND Institute. To UC Davis’ credit however, the Berman (2008) study that totally contradicts the Hornig (2004) study was also conducted at UCD.

Dr. Johnson has plenty of interesting things to say about Dr. Richard Deth and his neuroblastoma cell line experiments. Apparently, Dr. Deth will be back to testify again in the autism omnibus. Perhaps he will explain why he seemed to cut his experiments short (time-wise) and why he called neuroblastoma cells “neronal cells” when they should not be called neuronal cells, and why he didn’t show critically important “dose response curves”.credit: taminsea

I may have to devote a separate post to the issue of Deth taking data from (but not citing) a 1958 paper (pdf) that reported the level of cystathionine in duck brains (besides duck, also, human, cat, rat, guinea pig, horseshoe crab, chicken, cow and monkey).

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