But then again, so is ‘love’.
Do you know what? I’m tired of fighting with people. I’m coming off the worst flu I’ve had for nearly 6 years, my wife’s had it, our kids have all had it and I’m physically, emotionally and motivationally drained.
All I wanted when I started this was to document my autistic daughters progress, make the odd little web development post here and there and stand up for what I believe is right. What I believe is right is that autistic people should be respected. I believe society should change to accommodate difference. In the same way that women are equal to men, people of different cultures and creeds are equal to the dominant population in whichever country you live in, senior citizens are as important as young people, homosexuality is as normal (whatever the hell that is) as heterosexuality – people with a different neurology *irrespective of its cause* are just as valid and deserving of rights, consideration and an equal voice as those of us with a typical neurology.
_Is that really so difficult to deal with?_
Autism is not a childhood condition. It first _occurs_ in childhood. Take a look around you. Read the reports. Study the science. Examineour history.
Look, I’ll give you this – its entirely possible autism could be caused by mercury. In some cases. But please try and _think_. All the Amish in the world don’t add up to an autism/vaccine epidemic. All the recovered children in JB’s PDF’s and Erik’s AVI’s don’t add up to a cure.
Why? What is it you think you are curing? If your child doesn’t smear, or headbutt or have constipation – does that mean they are not autistic? _No_. It means they’re not constipated or headbutting or smearing anymore. If thats your child then I offer you my sincere congratulations. I don’t want your child to be in pain any more than I want my child in pain. But I would urge you to be very careful – your child almost certainly still thinks and interacts in ways that are very different than you do. Would that be enough justification for you to carry on ‘curing’? If so, why?
Ginger presents the best argument of all. She says that if a child is likely to grow into an adult that cannot communicate their needs – especially when that person is in danger – then it is worth it to attempt a ‘cure’. And she certainly has a lot of very good evidence that autistic people are routinely abused.
I have no easy answer to this argument. When I read it, I’ll freely admit it, I want to remove everything that threatens my daughter. But is that right? In one way its absolutely right – every parent has a duty to keep their kids safe.
But, I agree with Susan Senator who said:
The “must eradicate” attitude drives parents to be nothing but nutritionists, behaviorists, and therapists, for their children. These parents, however motivated by doing their children good, end up spending most of their parenting time trying to subjugate aspects of their children.
No child – of any neurology – can be kept 100% safe unless you want to take them and wrap them up in cotton wool. Pre-empting Ginger, I think she’d say that this isn’t a case of wrapping them up but of giving them every chance to be independent enough to recognise danger and be able to do something about it. Certainly when I read some of what Amanda Baggs has had to endure at the hands of ‘carers’ my blood boils and my heart quails.
But. I believe that autism is not the cause of this misery. Attitude is. Institutionalised and abusive staff are. The non-recognition of autistic people as having a valid existence causes these attitudes to grow. When someone says ‘all autism is mercury poisoning’, that is essentially taking someones existence and traducing it as poison and invalidating it as viable. As can be seen from the links provided – thiomersal cannot be responsible for all cases of autism. Autism existed before thiomersal. Thats simply a fact. To deny it is not only bizarre it is akin to taking someone by the scruff of the neck and telling them that because they are ill, they are not fit to make decisions and thus abuse is legitamised and around and around we go.
I don’t expect anyone who believes autism is mercury poisoning to give up on their idea. What I am asking is that you can try and at least meet those of us on the ‘other side’ halfway. Try and understand that painting everyone with one brush is tantamount to little more than bigotry. I asked JB once to recant just one aspect of his belief – that all autism is mercury poisoning now and forever. I ask him again, with all respect. If you are an advocate for autism then please try and see that in this one respect you are wrong. All autism is _not_ caused by thiomersal. This isn’t a game. Nobody’s keeping score. I’m more than happy to entertain the possibility that for some children who have become autistic that there is an environmental trigger. If there is ever science that conclusively demonstrates a causative link I swear to you that I will be as vocal in going after the guilty as I am now in going after people like Rashid Buttar. As I say, what I ask in return is that you _see_ that you truly look at the world of autism beyond your child. Look without melodrama and look without preconception. I am deathly afraid that one of the things you are doing is making the world for autistic people less safe. You’ve seen some of the things that a certain Rescue Angel of our mutual acquaintance has written here. JB himself expressed unease at what this person had said. Do you think that such a person is interested in advocating _for_ autistics?
Some people think that if you can communicate you cease to be autistic. Again, I see that as a willful and purposeful denigration of people who’s crime seems to be that they can communicate – the punishment is excommunication from who they are. Invalidated people. And for what? Why would anyone think such a thing? As Tolkein said: “what can we do against such reckless hate?”.
At the core of who I am is a belief in personal responsibility. I take responsibility for who I am and what I do. I believe its the cornerstone of what makes us free people. I will do everything I can to ensure that my kids all have that same belief. We have a duty to our society as well as our children. And society has a duty to us and them. Everything in life works better when its driven by reciprocality. I say society must change for the good of all our children _and_ adults as well. I reciprocate by doing my best to raise self-aware, self-confident children to adulthood. I cannot do that if who they are is withdrawn from them on the basis of political need. I don’t try and stop you from curing (if thats the word you choose to use) your kids. All I ask in return is that you stop insulting mine. If you are right and thiomersal causes autism then I will fight beside you. Will you fight beside me if I ask you to advocate _for_ autistics, instead of _against_ autism? Can you turn some of that energy and anger I see in chatrooms and blogs directed into action to enhance the lives of adult autistics? Can you do it without talking about mercury?
I’m not asking you to change your beliefs. We both know you don’t agree with mine and I don’t agree with yours. But there should be lots we can agree on. Can we?
Left Brain Right Brain 
“No amount of evidence to the contrary will change his mind, including hundreds of thousands of people with permanent brain damage who are never going to get much better.”
Yes, bonni… that is true… sadly. No neurologist or neuropsychologist worth their paycheck would even claim that brain damage can be reversed. *Effects* might be reversable, given that the brain is (neural-pathways-wise) quite plastic. Indeed, it has to be, or education would be a waste of time… (having said that, one must wonder… given some people who go all dogmatic when they can’t understand the science).
“On the matter of self-esteem, teaching a child that they are defective has a very serious negative impact on them. Teaching them that they won’t be as good as everyone else until they’re just like everyone else is downright destructive.”
Absolutely. And, in many ways, this can have a more destructive effect on quality of life than any actually brain damage might have. This is why the likes of Wakefield are dangerous, and need to be stopped. I have no problem when people try to use whatever they can to support development… it’s the least a parent can do. But *no* amount of chelation/ABA/TEACCH/FloorTime/anything will make an atypically-developing child become a typically-developing one.
It is only the human ability to delude oneself (which is wishful thinking taken to its entirely illogical extreme) that does that.
The paper referred to by Ms Clark is:
Bertone A, Mottron L, Jelenic P, Faubert J (2005). Enhanced and diminished visuo-spatial information processing in autism depends on stimulus complexity. Brain, 128, 2430-2441.
You can get a pdf of this study here http://vision.opto.umontreal.ca/pdf/2005/BertoneBrain2005.pdf
Autism is curable. Please help yourselves. You all need help.
Right. I’m going to let that one by ‘Socrates’ stand (for now). I can’t say for a fact that its JB Jr as a) its not full of abuse b) its semi-lucid and c) its not from his usual ISP. It could be him posting from somewhere else other than home of course but what the hell.
Socrates – can you address some of the points made in the post you’re commenting on please. At the moment you’re simply making meaningless noise.
Kev to Soe-crates: ” At the moment you’re simply making meaningless noise.”
Bit like fartin’ intae the wind, eh? 😉
Socrates, Hemlock, Yasas!
Yeh…. up all night last night coughing… asthma 😦
Usually *can* usually spell my name…. ‘onest, guv!
Maybe it *is* him. clone3g! weird…. no abuse! :O
😉
There is also the interesting thing another autistic person once pointed out to me. Which is that there is “regression” in neurotypical development that does not always occur in autistic development. But in NT development it’s not considered regression.
That is, for instance, the time when a child’s ability to make various sounds narrows down to the sounds of the languages the child has been exposed to. (I did not lose the ability to make sounds in other languages the way most children do, nor did I gain the ability to make certain sounds in my own language. So that is an example of an autistic not “regressing” at a time when NTs do.)
Susan Senator: “Bottom line for me is, I think that we need to learn from our different children as much as they need to learn from us.”
Yes.
To be honest, I think that this is a universal, really. Nobody on earth can possibly afford not to learn from their children.
Amanda, I know what you mean.
Clinical practice in psychology depends on defining typical development as what happens in most cases, and what doesn’t; but what gets missed out in this approach is that no two people ever have the same developmental trajectory: this is essentially the same as Pauli’s Exclusion Principle, in which no two fermions in the same atom can occupy the same quantum state… so they can never experience the same internal and external factors in how they behave, and because of this they will never behave in the same manner.
The upshot here is that the only development that matters in regard to any given fermion is its own trajectory through space.
So, for the non-autistic kid developing one way, and losing certain skills (as per your example) at a time when most NA kids do… that is typical purely from a statistical viewpoint (which has bugger all to do with anything like right or wrong: it’s just how they do it). For that reason, clinical psychology should forget its ideas based on norms as showing “the way God planned it to be” (Galton’s view) and move to a more ipsative position, in which one measures a kid’s development in relation to his/her own previous development. This may sound a little behaviouristic, but not everything in the behaviourist tradition sucks (MD may well disagree but I don’t think I could care less about this after all the way she’s gone to disagree with everythign I say: I am a practitioner, and I have to figure out ways to use *what we know so far* as support for clients to be able to understand their situations better… not as damaged or fucked-up individuals, but as people trying to make some headway in the world).
Same thing applies with people. Nomothetically-contructed tests (e.g., personality/intelligence/blah-di-blah) can give some information but really… in order to understand a person, one has to understand that person in his/her own terms.
George Kelly knew this; he trained as a mathematical physicist prior to switching to educational sociology, educational psychology and then clinical psychology. Particle physics has a great deal to teach psychologists, I think…. and yes, I had a start in mathematical physics too (which may explain my liking for Kelly’s work).
Kelly would have been more interested in what your experience of your own situation was, and what you felt you might need, rather than just decide – as a certain someone else did – that you needed a different something (as in what that certain someone else had decided).
I have a feeling you’d have liked him over a certain someone else.
I know *I* do!
Kev wrote:
“Look, I’ll give you this – its entirely possible autism could be caused by mercury”.
— Let’s just work with this premise for a few minutes. Let’s just say that it is possible and true (pretend, for those of you who don’t believe it for a second). What are we dealing with here?
– It’s a full 6 years after PARENTS brought this to the attention of our government.
– Flu shots (with thimerosal) are still being injected into pregnant women and children. They are, in fact, being recommended more so than I ever remember.
– The AAP refused to warn pregnant women about flu shots.
– The fully loaded thimerosal-containing vaccines are being shipped overseas. Aren’t we nice?
– In 2001, Dr. Marie McCormick stated, “We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect” of thimerosal exposure. [That’s cowardly].
– In 2001, the IOM saw a possibility of a relationship and recommended further studies be done. In 2004, they abandonded this idea.
– As far as I know, little government money has been spent on looking into this issue or biomedical treatments for children.
– The best “evidence” that the government has is based upon very flawed epidemiological studies.
– Children who may in fact be mercury poisoned are still being diagnosed as “autistic”.
Are you really going to tell me that I should feel bad that there are people who are insulted because some parents are getting together to spread the word that autism is mercury poisoning? Are you kidding me? I’m not sorry in the least.
-Sue M.
Sue M: “… getting together to spread the word that autism is mercury poisoning?”
Yeh, right.
The moon is green cheese and George Bush is a philanthropist.
The middle paragraph of my above post was supposed to be separated by different line items. It didn’t come out like that. I’m sure that you’ll figure it out.
-Sue M.
David-
Any other productive comments about the items that I wrote about above?
-Sue M.
Um…
“autism IS mercury poisoning”?
No it isn’t.
There has never been a study that gave a significant result on that.
As for mercury poisoning is mercury poisoning, I’d be the first to agree with you; I’d even be prepared to discuss possible mechanisms by which mercury in thimerasol might be able to cause damage to brains and bring about similar behavioural results to those seen in autistics. Sure…. no problem with that.
But a blanket statement of “autism IS mercury poisoning” really is taking the piss.
Sorry, but that’s how it is.
SueM: “Children who may in fact be mercury poisoned are still being diagnosed as “autisticâ€.”
The MAY in there suddenly got changed in you post to IS.
That’s my issue with you on this.
David –
It looks like you are unconvinced of the autism is mercury poisoning idea (understatement). The good news is that for every one of you there are 10 who are now getting the message loud and clear. Finally.
-Sue M.
SueM: “The good news is that for every one of you there are 10 who are now getting the message loud and clear. Finally.”
Um…. dogma and science don’t mix.
What evidence do you have for that statistic?
Probably none.
Supposition and wishful thinking aren’t good enough for me.
You don’t like?
Tough.
For every one of you there are now 10 who are getting it was simply a made up number by me. No science involved.
Wishful thinking isn’t good enough for you? You could have fooled me. I think that your wishful thinking is all you have in this controversy…
-Sue M.
SueM: “For every one of you there are now 10 who are getting it was simply a made up number by me. No science involved.”
Wow…. I’m impressed. Dunno what with yet…. but maybe it’s to do with the lack of science in your debate; oh and I think I have an idea who you are.
“Wishful thinking isn’t good enough for you? You could have fooled me. I think that your wishful thinking is all you have in this controversy…”
Um…. nah, except a shitload of studies on many things to do with autism, including those which demonstrate a serious lack of evidence for brain damage in autism (w/out learning disabilities; Nieminen von Wendt et al as an example, as well as one I have to re-find from Johns Hopkins Unioversity Med School).
Um….
Go home, will you?
University… typing here after midnight…
Sue M. said, “For every one of you there are now 10 who are getting it was simply a made up number by me. No science involved. ”
And we’re supposed to be impressed or persuaded by MADE-UP NUMBERS? Give me a break!
Intelligent Design being rammed through school boards, and mercury poisoning causing autism. We’re surrounded by crackpots advocating junk “science”!
how’s that song go? “Fools to the left of me, jokers on the right — here I am, stuck in the middle with you…”
andrea
andrea: “Intelligent Design being rammed through school boards, and mercury poisoning causing autism. We’re surrounded by crackpots advocating junk “scienceâ€!”
Yeh….
Bit iffy, I thought.
One day…. all thinking will be like that.
Humanity as we know it will be fucked.
– It’s a full 6 years after PARENTS brought this to the attention of our government. – Flu shots (with thimerosal) are still being injected into pregnant women and children. They are, in fact, being recommended more so than I ever remember.
This is an incongruity of the anti-mercury position. On one hand, they say that it was parents who brought it to the attention of the government. On the other, they use the fact the CDC was conducting their own study of thimerosal safety as proof of a “cover up”. What is it? Was the government ignorant, duplicitious, or cruel?
As to flu shots, here’s a reality check. Go to the CDC website and look up how many infants and pregnant women actually get flu shots, and then compare that to the number of thimerosal-free doses available. You’ll be shocked that there actually IS enough thim-free flu vaccine for the amount of kids and pregnant women that will actually get vaccinated. Whether that vaccine is appropriately distributed is another story, obviously, but the supply is there.
In any event, why should the AAP “warn” pregnant women about flu shots when there’s NO CONCLUSIVE PROOF thimerosal in flu shots causes any harm?
– The fully loaded thimerosal-containing vaccines are being shipped overseas. Aren’t we nice?
So what’s your alternative? In places where diseases are endemic, countries are cash-strapped and thimerosal-containing vaccines are the only option – we’d be better off doing what? Letting those people get sick and die from those disease?
I know, I know. We need to improve medical care and sanitation and water supplies and all that. I get it. But those are entrenched problems that will take years, if not decades, to fix. Vaccinating kids helps save lives today, and by comparison is far easier and cheaper.
Again, if you actually had strong evidence that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause neurodevelopmental disorders, that would be another story. But you don’t.
– In 2001, Dr. Marie McCormick stated, “We are not ever going to come down that [autism] is a true side effect†of thimerosal exposure. [That’s cowardly].
You basically cut-and-pasted this quote from all the other anti-mercury/anti-vaccine websites, didn’t you? Because a google search brings that quote up about, oh, a billion times or so. The quote is taken out of context – what the discussion was surrounding was how you define relative risk and what level of association you can make with regards to autism and vaccines.
What they’re saying is that autism is NOT a side effect of vaccines, not that there’s no possibility of an association. Other than JB Handley, who really vaccination is the only reason a child ends up autistic?
– In 2001, the IOM saw a possibility of a relationship and recommended further studies be done. In 2004, they abandonded this idea.
They wanted better epidemiological studies. They got them, and the question was settled (as a matter of public health) to their satisfaction. The biological evidence that was presented was circumspect and tangential, so it carried less weight.
– As far as I know, little government money has been spent on looking into this issue or biomedical treatments for children.
Ok, show me all the grants that have been applied for and all the rejection letters. How about the pilot studies done by the “pioneers” in this field that have shown up in reputable medical journals…where are they? Oh, that’s right. There are none. I’d like to see tangible proof that the government isn’t interested in promising biomedical treatments for autism other than the assertions of the biomedical practitioners themselves.
– The best “evidence†that the government has is based upon very flawed epidemiological studies.
I don’t think they’re as flawed as people make them out to be. Imperfect? Sure. But they’re far better than, say, the Geier’s work. I’ve shown on my blog, for example, that the complaints about the Verstraeten study that are commonly brought to bear are fairly weak and easily refuted.
– Children who may in fact be mercury poisoned are still being diagnosed as “autisticâ€.
Argument by assertion. Without any tangible, reproducible scientific evidence that autistic children have a higher mercury load than non-autistic children, it’s just speculation. Again, I make the challenge – prove your case with real scientific evidence that goes right to the heart of the question. Not speculative, tangential science that flits around detoxification pathways and test tubes and higher levels of inorganic mercury in a handful of monkey brains. But the big question of whether children diagnosed as autistic are really mercury poisoned.
If it’s such a time-critical question, the science should be going to the heart of that question. And if it’s so obvious, the proponents of that theory should be able to easily (in relative terms) provide the necessary evidence.
And we’re supposed to be impressed or persuaded by MADE-UP NUMBERS?
Yes. Just like we’re supposed to be impressed by made up theories of brain development with no supporting scientific studies. We’re supposed to just believe, and if some of it is made up, well, that’s okay, because if you believe, it will all be magically better. Damaged brain tissue with miraculously regenerate, unusual numbers of brain cells in some structures of the brain will redistribute themselves, and all will be normal, because we all know, different is bad…
Oh, and if you paint black and white stripes on a horse it becomes a zebra. It’s a fact!
Sue M. said: Are you really going to tell me that I should feel bad that there are people who are insulted because some parents are getting together to spread the word that autism is mercury poisoning?
No Sue. Your moral compass is your own. If it’s pointing at the magnets in your shoes it’s none of my concern. What does bother me is that your well intentioned but misguided efforts are derailing legitimate autism research. How would you feel if you had a child with Rett syndrome and you became convinced that it was caused by vaccines? Suppose other radical parents of children with RS were busy scaring away the best scientists and spending money on ads in the NYT and CGI videos? How would you feel if the true causes of Rett Syndrome remained undiscovered because a minority of parents were certain they new the one and only cause? Would you still say “Are you kidding me? I’m not sorry in the least.” ?
bonni: “Oh, and if you paint black and white stripes on a horse it becomes a zebra. It’s a fact!”
I think they went to a pet shop and asked the guy “Got any Manx cats?”, and he said, “No, but I can make you one…”
Seriously…. Procrusteanism at its best: make the facts fit the fuck-up.
David wrote:
“but maybe it’s to do with the lack of science in your debate; oh and I think I have an idea who you are”.
— Go to the “What Am I Missing” thread here. You will see my science and you will also see that those from “your side” had NO legit science on their side. We had HN try, but it was a bit pathetic. Some flawed epidemiological studies, a med school term paper on the genetics of autism, some junk from Prometheus and Autism Diva, etc. No one else even tried, I wonder why?
— As for knowing who I am… please let me know. That should be interesting. You are paranoid…
Andrea wrote:
“And we’re supposed to be impressed or persuaded by MADE-UP NUMBERS? Give me a break”!
— Looks like your side basis it’s whole argument on made-up numbers. Did you ever hear of the Danish epidemiological autism studies?
JP wrote:
“On the other, they use the fact the CDC was conducting their own study of thimerosal safety as proof of a “cover upâ€.
— Oh yes and I’m sure that the CDC was just about to announce that they had been injecting the country’s infants with a crapload of mercury. The parents just beat them to it, right? Yeah, sure.
JP wrote:
“Whether that vaccine is appropriately distributed is another story, obviously, but the supply is there”.
— So who is responsible for making sure that the pregnant women and children don’t receive thimerosal-containing vaccines? Nothing like playing Russian roulette with children’s brains.
JP wrote:
“They wanted better epidemiological studies. They got them, and the question was settled (as a matter of public health) to their satisfaction”.
— Which epidemiological studies, JP? The Danish trash?
Clone wrote:
“How would you feel if the true causes of Rett Syndrome remained undiscovered because a minority of parents were certain they new the one and only cause? Would you still say “Are you kidding me? I’m not sorry in the least.†?
— I would feel compassion for them. If you re-read my post I said:
“Are you really going to tell me that I should feel bad that there are people who are insulted because some parents are getting together to spread the word that autism is mercury poisoning”?
— A bit different from the scenario that you describe above. Still not sorry…
David — It has to be about 3 am there. Get a life, go to sleep…
-Sue M.
“A bit different from the scenario that you describe above”
Yeah, I guess you’re right. I wonder how This mother feels about it.
Her mother Catherine worried about whether a vaccination before symptoms started had caused Nicole’s illness.
Scientists finally gave them the answer in February this year – she died of a rare condition known as Rett Syndrome.
Sue M “David—It has to be about 3 am there. Get a life, go to sleep… -Sue M”
Since when was it your job to tell me what to do? I’m in the middle of a nice seasonal asthma gig. I *can’t* bloody sleep.
“You will see my science and you will also see that those from “your side†had NO legit science on their side. We had HN try, but it was a bit pathetic. Some flawed epidemiological studies…..”
Um… and the autism=Hg-poisoning research is pristine quality research, eh? Why isn’t it in BMJ, then? Or in Autism? Many studies are flawed, but significantly valid provided they follow a protocol we know as scientific method. Your science???? The Geiers???? Discredited by anybody worth anything in the scientific world! Yeh, sure that’s science. And I’m the bloody pope.
“As for knowing who I am… please let me know. That should be interesting. You are paranoid…”
Actually… on this issue, you’re correct… not about the paranoia, but interestingness… similar crap to a troll who used to frequent this blog, but I figure that – since you haven’t used some of the things he has said (at least you *try* to put evidence up there, and I’ll respect that; he just went in for abuse and hatemongering) – you can’t be him.
Still, the evidence you present hasn’t convinced me. As a trainee psychologist in Leeds, many years ago, I had actually pondered on the MMR vaccine issue and autism, but when teh studies came out and so on, and nobody could replicate the studies and get the same data that Wakefield got, I thought, “Well, bugger that for a theory, then!”
Best lesson I ever had.
Unless I see proper, independent studies (double-blind), with clearly operationalised variables being measured and including fMRI scans, at least two different autism rating scales, repeated measures design with control group(s) and experimental groups (nxm, where n and m depend on the variables being measured and the hypotheses being tested…. ) … and so on…
Well, unless at least three such studies come up with the “results” you buggers are touting wildly about the place, then it’s highly unlikely you’ll get my vote as scientists of the year.
Clone –
Yes, that is a sad story. I feel great compassion for any family that goes through something like this. Whether the child dies from a genetic condition such as Rett’s or a vaccine reaction. Tragic.
Hopefully, you won’t go down the road that HN tried to take when she basically said that anyone who questioned vaccinations or warned people of the dangers was essentially a “baby killer”. You weren’t going to go there, were you, Clone? I’m probably paranoid…
-Sue M.
Not at all Sue. If you are so certain that all autism is mercury poisoning that you are willing to bet the futures of all children with autism on your beliefs, who am I to judge? I’m sure your conscience is as clear as your science.
clone3g; “I’m sure your conscience is as clear as your science.”
Shit, maaaaan! You nearly had me choke on my tea!!!!! LoL
My conscience AND my science are both very clear. Why don’t you do some more reading, guys. I must say, I was actually shocked after coming on to this blog and posting on the other thread to see just how little you guys even knew about “my side”. I am talking about the BASICS of my (our) argument.
No one had read EoH, Kev thought that Blaxill was a doctor, HN considered the Denmark epidemiological studies to be sound “science”, the Verstraeten confusion, etc. I really can’t blame you guys, you just haven’t done your research. You need to.
-Sue M.
_”Are you really going to tell me that I should feel bad that there are people who are insulted because some parents are getting together to spread the word that autism is mercury poisoning? Are you kidding me? I’m not sorry in the least.”_
Can you show me where I said that please Sue? Just as you were in the other debate, you’re putting your words into the mouths of others. No doubt you’ll later on try your other tactic of narrowing down the debate to that which you feel comfortable arguing.
This isn’t a question of insult Sue. I’m afraid the _science_ shows that people who believe in the mercury hypothesis are a) in the minority and b) don’t keep on believing it. I documented a study that showed that chelation (indeed all types of detox) only accounted for about 7% of all known interventions parents use. And the rate of people of used it then discarded it is greater than the rate of people who use it today. So, sorry Sue. You and your comrades are very much in the minority. I’m willing to bet that 18 months/2 years from now when your comrades kids fail to be ‘cured’ we’ll be hearing a lot less about teh wonders of chelation – thats if the science is anything to go by.
Now. This isn’t about a few people being offended and thats a very simplistic stance for you to take. This is about the passing on of negative stigma. I’m afraid that as I’ve shown, autism _isn’t_ solely mercury poisoning in the form of thiomersal. In your zeal and dogma you and your comrades who believe otherwise are in the process of creating a situation wherein *all* people who are autistic will be treated as mercury poisoned – irrispective of whether they are or not. Isn’t one of the underpining ideologies of your comrades that doctors won’t accept the possibility of other causes for autism? Funny, because thats exactly the situation the absolutists amongst you are promoting.
I find it amazing that people like you, who have proably seen first-hand the sort of stigma and abuse autistic people endure are disinclined to stand up for their rights. A case of ‘I’m alright Jack’.
Thankfully, you are a minority within a minority. Enjoy your intolerance.
David wrote:
“As a trainee psychologist in Leeds, many years ago, I had actually pondered on the MMR vaccine issue and autism, but when teh studies came out and so on, and nobody could replicate the studies and get the same data that Wakefield got, I thought, “Well, bugger that for a theory, then!â€
— Really, so what did you think after Krigsman replicated Wakefield’s work? See here:
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:UbLkoY6ZBYcJ:www.altcorp.com/DentalInformation/krigsman.htm+krigsman+autism+testimony+&hl=en
-Sue M.
Sue M…. “http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:UbLkoY6ZBYcJ:www.altcorp.com/DentalInformation/krigsman.htm+krigsman+autism+testimony+&hl=en
-Sue M.”
Ai vittujumalautaihanoikeeeesti!!!!!
Altcorp? That the best you can do?
::rushes off to toilet trying not to spurt out more tea::
Wakefield’s publishing pals…. 11 of them recanted and the 12th couldn’t be found, apparently….
I think he’s flipping burgers in Mumbai….
I hope that tea is Decaf, David. What the hell time is it there? No wonder you are so slow to catch on, lack of sleep.
The information that I linked to was Krigsman’s testimony before the Committee on Government Reform in the U.S. House of Reps. The fact that I linked to AltCorp shouldn’t really make a difference, should it? Do you think that they messed around with his testimony?
-Sue M.
SueM: “I hope that tea is Decaf, David. What the hell time is it there? No wonder you are so slow to catch on, lack of sleep.”
LOL…. yeh, right….
Um… you have had everything explained to you over the last few months, even, maybe…. and still you can’t handle science, so you prefer to resolve cognitive dissonance by rejecting the evidence…. nice tactic.
Silly Sue…. honestly…. and incidentally, I’ve always been a night owl…
As for Altcorp.blx, well…. two words…. “Boyd” and “Haley”… Mad Child Disease himself!
Hi Sue,
You wrote “Go to the “What Am I Missing†thread here. You will see my science and you will also see that those from “your side†had NO legit science on their side. We had HN try, but it was a bit pathetic. Some flawed epidemiological studies, a med school term paper on the genetics of autism, some junk from Prometheus and Autism Diva, etc. No one else even tried, I wonder why?â€
Well, I have been quite so far, but since you put it like that.
That science you referred to; would you include Dr. Buttar’s study that he presented to the US Congress. That study was not only never peer reviewed, it wouldn’t meet qualifications even for a quasi-experimental design. It was pre-experimental in design.
You wrote “Looks like your side basis it’s whole argument on made-up numbers. Did you ever hear of the Danish epidemiological autism studies?â€
Your comment was a Tu Quoque logic fallacy. That said, you are correct, the Danish epidemiology had some significant flaws and some of the criticisms of it have had merit.
I understand that the use of thimerosal was discontinued in the UK some time ago. The prevalence rate of autism in the UK is 1 per 166. This rate is high and stable since the 90s. I refer you to Chakrabarti and Fombonne (2005) for the details. This is interestingly comparable to the US prevalence rate which is also 1 per 166 (Bertrand et al., 2001). The US as I think you have noted, continues to use Thimerosal.
Interestingly, Krigsman was fined, what was it $5,000 dollars for misrepresenting himself as able to see patients in Texas. It took a very long time for him to get a license, and from what I hear, that was very, very unusual. Usually the state medical board will rubber stamp any doctor who has a license in another state to permit him or her to practice in Texas.
Of course, the predictable response is, “He’s not a crook or a quack, he’s being persecuted!”
No one has ever proven that MMR is the cause of even one case of autism, it’s a bogus idea. But apparently you love it, and so will stand by it no matter how much harm you might do be spreading it around.
Wakefield’s been doing some might shady doctoring down there in Texas. He has patients get all kinds of tests done by any doctor who will cooperate and then bring him the results to discuss them. He’s not licensed to practice in Texas, though. Interesting… why not? Oh, yeah, he’s beeeeeeeiiiiiinnnnnggg persecuuuuuuted! wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh.
Nice to see you, Jonathan…. 🙂
Nice parry and repost there 😀
bed time…. 🙂
Sue M. wrote, “Go to the “What Am I Missing†thread here. You will see my science and you will also see that those from “your side†had NO legit science on their side.”
So I went to the thread and slogged through it (I’m sorry I missed it). There you wrote,
“You claim that this is the only science paper that I’ve cited. Let me acquaint you with the 26 others which I posted in response to Kev:
http://www.generationrescue.org/evidence_reports.html”
Regarding the first citation of that fine *cough* bibliography, I’d remind you what Ned Ryerson said, “Watch out for that first step, it’s a dooooozy!”
The Burbacher paper, the Hornig paper, and anything from Medical
HypothesisHypotheses (que pasa Diva) are not the turtles you want supporting your Earth.Without a silver bullet paper, the purveyors of the autism-mercury theory must rely on numerous “little stones” to build the wall. The problem is that each little stone is subject to review and scrutiny – and often the most intense review an article receives is *after* it’s been published. This is especially true for journals of not-top caliber. As Clone3g, I, and probably countless others have said, doesn’t it bother you that none of these little stones are in top-tier journals? The answer isn’t the conspiracy theory talking point that’s been thrown at me before. Really, give it some thought.
clone3g *golf clap* for magnets in shoes/moral compass. That might be the funniest thing I’ve read in weeks. You will catch me using it.
Jonathan Semetko said: ” We had HN try, but it was a bit pathetic.”
Gee, thanks… I think.
And who is “we”?
The only thing I will say is that the ONLY people who say that mercury is the cause if autism are either:
1) Unqualified (Mr. Blaxill’s MBA may be helpful in financial planning, but not in medicine)… and has never ever seen a real case of mercury poisoning.
or
2) Has a financial stake in some form of chelation: real or fantasy. This would include Boyd Haley and his “Altcorp” business, and Rashid Buttar and his “cream” which no one has shown to even penetrate the skin — much less chelate anything.
As far as chelation… in cases of REAL heavy metal poisoning, it has never been shown that it does anything but stop FURTHER neurological degradation.
And I will repeat, again… MMR has never had thimerosal. The absolutely only reason that MMR was ever a “suspect” in autism was because some lawyer in the UK thought it might be something to sue with (it had been used in the USA since 1971, but in the UK only since 1988)… so he paid Wakefield for specific test results.
And as far as the pertussis vaccine… it was never really a big problem, except as portrayed by lawyers. From:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/111505/offit.html …. _Initially, vaccines were unaffected by the Gottsdanker verdict. But in the late 1970s and early 1980s lawyers in the United States successfully sued vaccine makers claiming that the pertussis (or whooping cough) vaccine caused permanent brain damage despite a series of studies at variance with those claims. To meet the demand for increased liability insurance, the cost of the pertussis vaccine increased from 17 cents to $11 per dose and the number of companies making it decreased from eight to one. Vaccines — a medical intervention that had increased the lifespan of Americans in the 20th century by 30 years — were the first medical product about to be eliminated by lawsuits._ … which has probably contributed to several infant deaths due to pertussis in Japan, the UK and the USA.
HN – Jonathon was quoting Sue :o)
To all – when I quote people I put them in emphasis tags which are italicized to people with vision. In order to do this, type an underscore then paste teh passage you want to quote then type another underscore – see the ‘Textile available’ link just above the comment box for more markup examples.
Ah, thanks, Kev… NOW I see it. I guess I was reading a bit too quickly while taking a break from getting cross-eyed at financial statements (second order differential equations are much more fun than trying to figure out where all the funds are going!).
HN: “(second order differential equations are much more fun than trying to figure out where all the funds are going!).”
They’re much more fun than most things…. but only when you haven’t forgotten how to do the bloody things! 😦
Way too long since I did any serious maths, and I’m missing it ….