And so, the latest fire-storm in the autism blogosphere continues to rage. If you’re unaware of the story I’ll offer a brief recap (as unbiased as I can make it) before trying to offer up some commentary.
Briefly, JB Handley of Generation Rescue bought the domains supportvaccination.com, oracknows.com and autismdiva.com. Why? I don’t really know. On a practical level they can’t be doing him much good at all so one is left to consider the possibility that he did it as either a joke or to be spiteful. I sincerely hope that the team who is working on his search engine marketing hasn’t recommended that he does stuff like this as if they are then they’re moving him into the realms of what is termed as ‘black hat SEO’ – this refers to doing lots of bad stuff that is against acceptable internet policy to get a good rank on a search engine results page. The penalties for this can be severe if search engines catch you at it and include blacklisting the sites in question and terminating any associated AdWords accounts. From what I know of JB he loves to push the envelope a bit so I wouldn’t be surprised if he is doing this. He is playing with more fire than I think he knows about though.
Anyway, the unsurprising upshot of this is that most people on ‘his’ side of the debate think that a) his methods are questionable but seeing as he’s promoting such an important message the ends justify the means or b) that its downright hilarious. People on ‘my’ side of the debate (please note by using the phrase ‘my side’ I’m not assuming ownership of it) think that a) its all very childish and a bit sad or b) that what he’s doing is tantamount to willfully misleading people.
What are the definite results of JB’s actions? Well, he’s polarised two sides that were beginning to listen to each other a little better. He’s created a new battlefront where none existed before and he’s upset people.
Lets look at JB’s sides claims that even though his methods are questionable that its OK as the message he’s relating is so important the end justifies the means.
First, that is a very dangerous argument to apply to anything. If we call ourselves a society that has a moral base then ‘the ends justify the means’ is at best, ambiguous as a reason.
Secondly, lets look closely at what JB’s message actually is to see if it is indeed justifiable to use methods such as these. Lots of people, particularly JB’s supporters either don’t know or seem intent on ignoring JB’s message. It is this: autism is mercury poisoning. Not _may be_ , not _in some cases_ , not _might be triggered by_ but simply *is*. Now and forever. This is an absolutist position and its the main thing about Generation Rescue that I believe it is imperative to challenge. Why? Because autism is *not* only mercury poisoning. The vast majority of the information on the GR site revolves around the idea that thiomersal in vaccines causes autism. Lets leave the debate as to the scientific validity of that belief to one side for now. I’m quite happy to entertain the possibility that he may well be right. I’m equally happy with the science that as of this time, states that he is not. For my argument – its irrelevant. The fact is that even if JB is right and thiomersal does cause autism _it is not the *sole* cause of autism_.
Big deal say people – why does that matter? It matters because if that viewpoint comes to be accepted fact then the standard treatment for autism will become chelation. And seeing as it is a verifiable scientific fact that autism existed _long_ before thiomersal was ever used this would mean that there were a very large number of autistic children undergoing chelation totally unnecessarily. Question: Is it stupid or clever to subject children to unnecessary medical procedures?
The irony of this message is that it is a standard complaint of the mercury = autism belief system that they couldn’t get their Doctors to look beyond their narrow treatment options. This is _exactly_ what will happen should mainstream medicine ever accept the GR viewpoint that autism is mercury poisoning to the exclusion of everything else.
Let me reiterate once more – I have no issue with any group that calls for more investigation into the use of thiomersal in vaccines and that I’m glad that it is no longer in vaccines. I also fully accept that there are occasions that vaccines have damaged children. I also fully accept that mercury is a known neuro-toxin. What I do not want however, is for my daughters treatment to be a) enforced and b) an unnecessary and dangerous procedure when there is no basis for such absolutism.
So I ask you again Dear Reader – is JB’s absolutist message so good that it justifies his actions? Lets not forget that his actions also include name-calling (JB referred to friends of mine as ‘trailer dwelling coo-coo’s’ and me personally as a ‘wanker’ – a phrase for the non Brit-slang understanding amongst you that means that JB believes I masturbate to excess – roughly equitable to ‘jerkoff’ in US parlance I believe). This is as well as buying up domains that belong to sites that disagree with him.
Many claim that JB has apologised (although I fail to see where he apologised to me) and thus should be forgiven. I agree and disagree with that. I agree that for the debate to progress we all need to forgive and move on. However, this is not a one-off circumstance for JB. This is his MO. At some point, we have to stop making allowances and start holding people to account.
That said, up until this incident, I believed JB’s latest apology was sincere. I still hope it was.
People have also referred to JB’s behaviour as a bull-in-a-china-shop and expressed admiration for his go-get-em approach. I can’t see how such an approach is particularly admirable. Bulls loose in china shops breaking everything indiscriminately and certainly I feel less sure of the shaky common ground that had just started to be secured between the two sides. Lets also not forget _my_ message: that autism is not solely thiomersal poisoning and that bulls loose in _that_ particular china shop run the risk of doing very great damage to the delicate objects inside it.
Now lets move on to the point about upset. People from JB’s side of the debate cannot seem to understand why this action has upset Camille so much. As she is very much smarter than me she doesn’t need me to speak for her but I do wish to add my opinion as to why whats happened might cause her distress.
As a blogger who comments particularly on the science behind the debate she stands or falls on the accuracy of that science. If anyone was misled into thinking she endorsed the GR view then that person may well have further doubts about her validity. I hesitate to speculate as to whether or not that might be one of the reasons JB did it of course.
Secondly, there is an issue here of implicit control. An ugly image is called to my mind of a rich businessman laughing uncontrollably at the image of a less affluent woman as he dangles her on puppet strings. Fanciful? Yes. Exaggerated? No doubt. Based in some element of truth? I’m afraid I think it is.
Thirdly, again, lets look at the GR message and think about why those who are autistic particularly might not want to be associated with it. They believe GR is wrong. Further though, they see GR reducing who they are to a set of mercury related symptoms. Lets not forget that GR believe that autism is *only* mercury poisoning.
Once upon a time (in fact less than 40 years ago) psychologists ‘knew’ that homosexuality was *only* an illness that could be ‘cured’. How do you think that – at the time – that made gay people feel? Imagine a blogging community of parents desperate cure their gay adolescents (who ‘know’ that their children are just ill) – would gay adults be horribly offended and fight back? Or would they sit on their hands and do nothing?
For us parents, the outcome of this debate is very important – our kids depend upon it. For those people who are autistic, the outcome of this debate is absolutely crucial. Their continued survival depends upon it. I ask you once more: in an area of such vital importance, is the method really unimportant when the method denigrates so much? Is it something to be brushed aside as we smile indulgently at its instigator when its tantamount to an attempt to control a debate that affects peoples very right to exist?
Is this message so right that such a total lack of respect for a differing view is at best readily embraced and at worst tolerated in the way we would tolerate a favourite but slightly spoiled child?
Left Brain Right Brain 
“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.â€
–Anatole France
Andrea wrote:
““If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.â€â€”Anatole France
-That foolish thing being thimerosal in vaccines is safe, right Andrea?
-Sue M.
SueM: “-That foolish thing being thimerosal in vaccines is safe, right Andrea?”
If we can say that the foolish thing is that autism=mercury-poisoning (and only that), as has been made clear on teh GR pages.
Not just foolish….
SueM: “Feeling pretty dumb here.”
Good.
Should act as negative reinforcer: when you start thinking the right way and get stuff, that will disappear (demonstrating negative reinforcement as an aid to learning).
SueM: “-That foolish thing being thimerosal in vaccines is safe, right Andrea?â€
::whoosh!:: That went over someone’s head.
My intent got scrambled in the reception or the interpretation. I meant that thimerosal causing autism is a wrong thing, no matter how many (or how strenuously) people say it.
andrea
Andrea:
The Queen of denial …
-Sue M.
Sue M.- “The Queen of denial …”
Buy a mirror hun.
Now, if we can move beyond this personal snipping, let me explain that I’m a biologist, and the purported science just does not hold up.
Real science checks the theories against the research data. It does not pick-and-choose data and slant suppositions to support the pet theory. Real science has repeatable results. The research results that keep getting repeated are those showing no rise in autism related to thimerosal, nor causality between it and autism, AS, ADD et cetera.
Coincidence does not equal causality. A vaccination does not “cause” autism; kids are getting vaccinations on a regular basis for at least a couple of years! Saying that the timing of noticing autistic behaviours is correllated to, and caused by, vaccinations is like saying that washing your car makes it rain.
andrea
SueM:
“Andrea:
The Queen of denial …
-Sue M.”
Get real, will you?
Well, I don’t know about anyone else but Sue’s eloquent and cohesive arguments have convinced me. Autism is actually mercury poisoning. Congratulations Sue. Put another notch in your autographed first edition hard cover copy of EoH. I’ve seen the light and it’s a baleful mercury vapor fluorescence.
Was that a bell? Did a GR Angel get their wings?
clone3g: “Well, I don’t know about anyone else but Sue’s eloquent and cohesive arguments have convinced me. Autism is actually mercury poisoning. Congratulations Sue. Put another notch in your autographed first edition hard cover copy of EoH. I’ve seen the light and it’s a baleful mercury vapor fluorescence.
Was that a bell? Did a GR Angel get their wings?”
As if! LoL
c3g: “Was that a bell?”
Or was it the cloney one taking the piss? 😉
Andrea wrote:
” let me explain that I’m a biologist, and the purported science just does not hold up”.
– Congratulations. Let’s review what you, Andrea, have added to this discussion. This is it in total (minus one or two other lines of foolishness). Andrea wrote:
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.â€â€”Aldous Huxley
“Say good-night, Gracie.â€
“We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.â€â€”Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If we cannot end our differences at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.â€â€”John F. Kennedy
“Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival.â€â€”Rene Dubs
“Bartholomew, just line your room with copper windowscreen to turn into into a giant Faraday cage, wear your tinfoil beanie and then you’ll be safe”.
I’m still trying to figure out how mice can be “autisticâ€.
“Even butterflies can learn, and they have very, very small brains”.
“If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.â€
“My intent got scrambled in the reception or the interpretation. I meant that thimerosal causing autism is a wrong thing, no matter how many (or how strenuously) people say it”.
– That’s it. So, now you want to parade out the fact that you are a biologist? Are you kidding me? Give me some biology. Show me the experiments that you have done specifically as it relates to thimerosal/autism. You have NOTHING, Andrea.
-Sue M.
“
SueM: “Show me the experiments that you have done specifically as it relates to thimerosal/autism. You have NOTHING, Andrea.”
Um…. somewhere up there, now waaaay far away up in the heights of this thread I talked about Good Autism Research. How there was very little of it, and how any good research was A Good Thing. Um… you haven’t presented any. You’ve presented some opinion pieces and quotes; mentioned the ‘rain mouse’ study (which then brought up a lot of other animal experiments, which showed that the picture is much more complicated).
Of course, we are just interested geeks (I’m generalising here. If you would like to exclude yourself from that, please do). Here are some websites for you:
http://www.nice.org.uk/
http://www.sign.ac.uk/
NICE and SIGN, the people who make the big policy decisions about treatment for the UK. Convince them, and you might convince me (I’d have a look at the methodology etc of course).
New GR ad
clone3g – FNHTML
friday night html
/actively reducing his [EtOH]
g’nite
his = me
SueM: “Show me the experiments that you have done specifically as it relates to thimerosal/autism. You have NOTHING, Andrea.
-Sue M”
Do *you* have any actual experiments that you have done? I don’t mean “we tried this and it worked” crap which is currently being tripped out by the GR lot. I mean a serious, double-blind, random-assignment, controlled study?
No? I didn’t think so.
On that basis, you don’t really have a right to demand information on any experiments that Andrea might be expected to do. You show her a study first…. go on, I dare you to!
Quite frankly, from what I have seen of your interactions here, I dobt that a proper study would satsify you in any case: hasn’t done so far. You and others like you expect science to come up with perfect studies to show where your ideas are flawed, yet you rely for your own satisfaction on deeply flawed and nonsubstantiating “studies” by your favourite gurus on the issue.
Why should Andrea even bother then? You want everyone to accept your line of thinking without even considering that there’s any merit in any opposing view.
That’s not a science-based way to think. That’s the beginnings of bloody tyranny…. you want it “your way or everybody should bugger off”, basically.
You start showing real science first to demonstrate the validity of the claims made on the GR site and *then* ask the rest of us for real science to rebut them.
The reason for Andrea’s not putting a lot of text on here is that she has work to do at the time she’s looking here. You might be able to get far more biology when that’s done.
Meantime, conduct a study.
M: “Of course, we are just interested geeks…”
Actually, I get asked this sort of thing a fair bit in my practice.
M (to SueM): “you haven’t presented any…”
Indeed she hasn’t.
M (to SueM): “You’ve presented some opinion pieces and quotes; mentioned the ‘rain mouse’ study…”
Yeh, real science…. the sort she’s demanding from Andrea? Nah… Sue wants to be able to use this constant stream of garbage to try to convince us, but demands real science from us.
Is tyranny a bad word here?
MsC (all quotes):
“Hi David,
Yeah, I wish you could have that private jet, and you could get it if somoone paid you by the word, me too.”
Hi…. yes… we do a lot, me ‘n’ thee, hen.
“maybe I can visit his wee mousies and commiserate with them for their needless torture.”
Tell the poor wee buggers “Hi” from me too….
“As for what actions Hornig (mom of an autistic child…) was looking for in the mice, one of them was some sort of clumsiness. She didn’t find any (see her reference to the rotarod test in her silly paper). She found fewer “stereotypical behaviorsâ€.
Ahuh. Sue M. are your reading this? Fewer stereotypical behaviors in her mercury sensitive mice chronically overdosed with thimerosal. Fewer than the stereotypical behaviors in her normal control mice.”
Now *that* is seriously fucked up!! Fewer stereotypies, and still claiming that she’d made Rainmouse by the dozen???? Shitting Nora!!!!!! That’s ridiculous!
And Sue’s telling Andrea to come back with a study she’s done herself????? This is way past ridiculous.
Time SueM grew up, methinks.
Oh and, SueM, in your review of Andrea’s postings you missed something seriously scientific.
Wanna see it?
Okay… here it is:
“Real science checks the theories against the research data. It does not pick-and-choose data and slant suppositions to support the pet theory. Real science has repeatable results. The research results that keep getting repeated are those showing no rise in autism related to thimerosal, nor causality between it and autism, AS, ADD et cetera.
Coincidence does not equal causality. A vaccination does not “cause†autism; kids are getting vaccinations on a regular basis for at least a couple of years! Saying that the timing of noticing autistic behaviours is correllated to, and caused by, vaccinations is like saying that washing your car makes it rain.”
That is scientific thinking. It is quite easy to do, and it is done in order to stop people from falling victim to their own biases in observation and reasoning.
But you know that Andrea’s right there, of course, don’t you? So instead, to score points you have to go in for an ad hominem attack on her.
Shows what a lack of real science you have on your side, though.
Sue M.,
Here’s the tipoff, in case my previous postscript slid by you: some comments, like the one about “tinfoil beanies” are jokes, silliness, humour, levity, comedy, jocularity, farce, satire, irony, quips et cetera.
The quotes in contrast, are pithy expressions by generally-famous people that I feel summarise what I am feeling at the moment.
And David’s right; I’m busy writing up my research stuff right now. If you really, really want, I can post one of the Abstracts when it’s finished, but I rather doubt that much anyone here cares about the specific focus of electrophysiology I’ve been working on. The findings relate behaviour to genetics, and compare the reactions of different sub-populations. The particular technique itself is more than a little abstruse, and would take some paragraphs to properly explain, especially to a non-technical audience.
andrea
Andrea,
Maybe the National Autism Association will invite you to speak at one of their conferences…. naaah. 🙂
Too many facts supported by science.
I watched a half hour or more of Wakefield’s powerpoint presentation (how many slides did he have???) He was flashing these clips from studies and stringing them together, one really fascinating one was published in …. MEDICAL HYPOTHESES … woooo hoooo! Pay them 115 bucks a page and they’ll print anything… just about.
But having work printed in Medical Hypotheses is a death knell to a serious career in science, from what I hear.
It was amazing that Wakefield would quote from it with a straight face.
I hope I can get copies of your papers online when they’re published. 🙂
The only comment I have as a parent of a child of autism who has watched this parade for quite a number of years is…
What is the doughboy afraid of? If the truth is in the mercury advocates’ corner, why buy up the domains, why so much vitriol, why the parody and personal attacks?
I applaud if child(ren) recover(s )from “mercury poisoning”, but this is not one person’s opinion uber alles, no matter how much money can be flung at glossy websites and domain buyouts..
I have seen secretin, FC, tomalis, AI, etc. etc., etc. rise and fall, and rise again as a new generation of parents rise with the wave of diagnoses.
I am tired of it all. If you are right…congratulations. If you are wrong…thank you so much for diverting attention from those things that many folks have worked for YEARS through lawsuits and personal hardship to have accepted so that we can get effective educational therapies and interventions for our children. At the end of the day I am afraid that if this all turns out to be just a lot of nonsense, that I am going to labelled as a “crank” as a parent of a child with autism. That is a tragic diservice to everyone.
I apologize for not replying to the comments directly, but I have watched Kevin’s and Orac’s and AutismDiva’s blogs for awhile…and all I can say is thank you for some sane counterpoints to the hysteria that has seemed to have swept a vocal component of the autism community. It will be very interesting to look back in a year and see how the worm turns.
Thanks for the opportunity to get that off my chest.
Regan
…I’ll hold my tongue (so as not to be deleted), but his actions are of the lowest form.”
What’s the alleged impropriety JP’s actions at supportvaccination.org?
Also what is the connection between Orac, HCN, Prom, JP other than same beliefs?
David N. Andrews said: Fewer stereotypies, and still claiming that she’d made Rainmouse by the dozen????
But she saw stereotypies in rats back in 2000. Here
Hi clone3g….
“David N. Andrews said: Fewer stereotypies, and still claiming that she’d made Rainmouse by the dozen????
But she saw stereotypies in rats back in 2000. Here”
Odder and odder!
Regan wrote:
“At the end of the day I am afraid that if this all turns out to be just a lot of nonsense, that I am going to labelled as a “crank†as a parent of a child with autism. That is a tragic diservice to everyone”.
– Who would be calling you a “crank”. As it stands now, no one really cares about this issue other than people in the Autism community and I would suggest a very small portion of that community. Nobody cares, Regan. Even so, from the sounds of your post it’s not like you are out there pounding your chest about the dangers of mercury… so who would bother calling YOU a crank? Now the situation may change within the next few years. The movie based upon Evidence of Harm should be coming out within the next few years and at that point it may get some more attention. At that point, however, I think that people would not consider the mercury parents as “cranks” so much as parents with some real and justified concerns.
-Sue M.
Hey Sue
What’s your belief on the supportvaccination.org permanent hiatus?
What’s with this Parody?
Legal issues?
Regan said: “I have seen secretin, FC, tomalis, AI, etc. etc., etc. rise and fall, and rise again as a new generation of parents rise with the wave of diagnoses.
“I am tired of it all. If you are right…congratulations. If you are wrong…thank you so much for diverting attention from those things that many folks have worked for YEARS through lawsuits and personal hardship to have accepted so that we can get effective educational therapies and interventions for our children. At the end of the day I am afraid that if this all turns out to be just a lot of nonsense, that I am going to labelled as a “crank†as a parent of a child with autism. That is a tragic diservice to everyone.”
Exactly. I’ve seen the same sort of things. A new “miracle” cure is banted about, and then it goes away. I remember melatonin, secretin, primrose oil and other things that came and went (all of which I avoided since my son had a seizure disorder, and now he has a severe genetic heart defect, so I would just prefer to not muck around with his biochemistry).
All the while we are trying to get the specialized school program he was in to go further than 3rd grade, making sure that our kids get testing accommodations (NOW they want kids to write out long explanations of how they get answers, this does not work well when he has an expressive language disorder!) — and right now with a teenager trying to get some kind of goog vocational education program in a district that seems to assume EVERY kid goes to college.
Oh, and I have no other relationship with Orac, JP and Prometheous other than what you see online. I do not even know who Prometheus is or where he lives. The only thing I know about all four of us that we all live in 4 different states of the USA. I am sporaticlly active on Usenet where I’ve seen Orac and some others who have posted on Orac’s blog. I remember JP from a short lived forum at http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles .
ooops, make that “scene” not “seen” dratted English spelling.
Casting preference: George Clooney for Orac.
Oh, and AD, how will they make this film without using trailers … ‘cuz you know that would be verboten. BTW, Tom Sizemore as the ArchRescueAngel.
Captain Mojan wrote:
“Hey Sue
What’s your belief on the supportvaccination.org permanent hiatus”?
– Ah, basically, I couldn’t care less. I’ve never visited that site so I certainly don’t miss it. Should I care?
-Sue M.
Ms. Clark wrote:
” No, they wouldn’t want to include any of the evidence that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism”.
-Wow, you have some evidence that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism? Please post it.
Ms. Clark wrote:
“I want to know who will play the part of Mady Hornig, her autistic child, Ian Lipkin and Sallie Bernard in the movie”?
– For any casting information you can ask him:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/PersonOfWeek/story?id=1367665
– His company bought the film rights. He was also featured last night on 20/20 or Primetime Live (one of those shows). It should be good.
-Sue M.
Casting preference: George Clooney for Orac
I don’t know, I’ve seen Orac’s avatar. Clooney just isn’t, well, rectangular enough.
I think that Hugh Fudenberg should be played by Martin Landau.
Mady Hornig is a no-brainer: that’s Sigourney Weaver with scaled-down verisons of her aliens.
LOL, Anne, very good point about the, um, “rectangularness”.
Trying to tie this into the theme thread, A Means to an End, does a film producer have a responsibility to tell a story truthfully? Would he be wrong to simply make a movie that basically read from the book?
The book is paraded as a balanced piece yet I’ve never read a review where someone convincingly states that they were a well-read nonbeliever and turned into a believer after reading the book. And not surprisingly, I have yet to see someone describe themselves as a former believer who was convinced after reading the book that the theory is bunk. It seems to have solidified already staunch positions with a net gain of nothing. Caveat – I don’t listen to radio or watch TV so maybe I’m missing it.
So if a literal interpretation of the book is made, is that unethical, unprofessional, or just annoying?
btw, I’ll look around for some stats, but I believe that only a tiny fraction of stories whose rights have been bought, actually get made into movies.
Also, if I was making the movie, I couldn’t look myself in the mirror without researching the other side of the story. I wonder then if Diva, Kathleen S, Orac, Prometheus, Kev and others would be interviewed? I wonder how the Dr. Proffit website would impact the screenwriter?
I was seeing it more as a satire or black comedy. You buy the rights, you can do with it what you like. However, there’s a contract and there could be some stipulations in it — but basically it becomes your (ie the buyer’s) property as a film. Remember what happened when the Texas-Cheerleading-Mom-Who-Hired-a-Hitman woman sold her story rights to HBO?
Cubbins, you are overanalyzing the whole thing. The story isn’t really about thimerosal and autism, it’s a story about this small group of impassioned parents who steal fire from the gods and give it to humans, only to have their livers pecked out by eagles. No, wait, that was Prometheus.
Anyway, it’s about heresy! It’s just like Galileo vs. the Catholic Church, only the parents are Galileo and the US Dept. of Health and Human Services is the Catholic Church! Julie Geberding is, like, Pope Paul V. See, as far as accuracy goes, if you are telling the story of Galileo, it doesn’t really matter whether he was right. Does it?
By the way, I think M. Knight Shyamalan should direct this movie. He could give it an eerie ambience and also make a cameo appearance as Rashid Buttar.
Ane: “I think that Hugh Fudenberg should be played by Martin Landau”
I think HFF prolly plays (with) himself…
BTW….
This I from Link got (had mind-dstroying time last-night listening to Billy Connolly)…
Resource is no longer available!
The requested URL is no longer available on this server and there is no forwarding address. Please inform the author of the referring page that the link is outdated.
If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 410
http://www.nitrf.org
Sun Dec 4 01:19:51 2005
Sorry, David… it works now.
Ah…. sound…. unless he’s someone I’d not wish to set eyes on…..
how did the blog get onto a weird film idea????
Still can’t see it…. my browser knows and loves me and protects me from those I’d feel ill after seeing them… 😉
Evidence that thimerosal doesn’t cause autism is in the form of many studies on the shape of the brain in autism. Of course, the information would most likely be wasted on you, but basically, there are significantly more minicolumns in the frontal cortex, those minicolum numbers are set by day 40 post conception (the baby is beensy weensy).
Many, but not all autistic kids have signs of early embryonic development issues, they display this developmental disruption or change, on their faces. They tend to have low-set posteriorly rotated ears, wide set eyes and malar hypoplasia… also one or two drooping upper eyelid (sort of like Dr Wakefield’s) Lot’s of times the person learns to compensate by raising the eyebrow of that eye, so you can look for uneven eyebrows.
Vargas’ study referred to gliosis as a possible cause for skull enlargment, but she doesn’t think it’s mercury. She’s one of them who signed the “leave us out of this JB Handley” letter to the NYT. So there may be an issue with brain infection, this is totally cutting edge and not established. Anyway, there’s no reason to think that mercury can cause a bigger head that is found in some autistic toddlers, it should be the opposite.
The form that Purkinje cells and their neighboring cells take demonstrate that yes, there are fewer Purkinje cells but they were already gone at 32 weeks gestation (8 weeks before birth)… Doesn’t matter if thimerosal can ruin Purkinje cells, the relationship between the Purkinje cells and their neighbors is different, you can see that they were killed off after birth.
There is not a shred of even marginally convincing evidence that thimerosal causes the conditions found in autistic brains. Not that you will ever see that. You have your mind made up.
It’s like your parents told you that there is a tooth fairy and you “know” it’s true, you have friend’s who believe it’s true, and so all the evidence in the world is not going to make any difference. It’s your denial, it’s a psychic mechanism that can help you to cope with a difficult situations. Then there’s projection, like where you projected a lack of scientific arguments and your denial onto Andrea.
I don’t think there will ever be an *Evidence of Harm* movie, it would be a really dumb one anyway. I mean, no one makes a Hollywood movie these days without some kind of sex scene. Who would they pick for that? (shudder)
There aren’t any Hollywood car chases or explosions, in EoHarm the book, though the threatening letters written by the mercury parents are close to violence, but the script writer wouldn’t want to show mercury parents sitting home cyberstalking and writing death threats now would he? Not unless they could show that those particular parents just needed to have their amalgam fillings removed and how the parent was contrite and insightful after chelation (make sure to show a bottle of RNA drops and Buttar cream with the label prominent).
A study in Texas showed that if they tested for every known genetic disorder that might cause autism (Frag X, tuberous sclerosis…) that they could give 40% of the autistic kids a specific syndrome or genetic defect diagnosis. If you think you can pick some fraction of those kids who are provably sensitive to levels of mercury in thimerosal, go for it.
If they are so senstive that that much mercury they probably won’t survive the normal assault of toxins we live with every day. (hint: mercury is ubiquitous)
Medicine is moving away from your hypothesis, medicine is moving away from the epidemic belief system. Not fast enough, but when everyone realizes that the epidemic was a lie, then the demand for a movie about a vast worldwide conspiracy to 1 in 166 children to the
“hell that is autism” (David Kirby)
disappears.
Anyway, you have to explain how it is that the parents have higher rates of mental illness and “broad autism phenotype” and flat out autism. You can’t just say that it must be that the parents were exposed to a blast of mercury, because it still doesn’t change the fact that the brain shapes are formed before birth… which lets childhood vaccines totally off the hook.
And that’s where the lawsuits are, not against the tuna industry.
I have a pdf of a new paper written for Dentists, it’s called: Autism: Acknowledging the Heritable Aspects of Illness as Possible Barriers to Successfully Marshaling Family Assistance, by Arthur H. Friedlander, DMD
He points out that it can be hard to deal with the parents of autistic patients because the parents are frequently on the spectrum themselves, and so can be hard to communicate with.
Yay! Oh dear, he’s part of the worldwide conspiracy because he’s a dentist, right?
There were a lot of papers presented at the IMFAR this year that discussed parents and their mental status and brain status and genetic status (yeah, I know, it’s all a part of the worldwide conspiracy….)
Did you figure out that there has been no epidemic in China?
(sorry in advance for any spelling errors, I tried to catch them all)
“Ah, basically, I couldn’t care less. I’ve never visited that site so I certainly don’t miss it. Should I care?”
-Sue M.
I care less as well. Except one of the s entrenched provax mouthpieces JP apears to have a co participated in low standards & fled. The provax parody Prometh, Hcn, Orac could be connected to JP or have supported him (co commenting co ranting) in the past.. We should know if these loud relentless rants of theirs include unethical behavior or ties.
Looks like the absolutionist stance on chelation HASN’T GOT A LEG TO STAND ON after this articlehttp://www.bioportfolio.com/news/Integragen_10.htm
In a way I’m kind of relieved as it’s saved me me the time energy and money which, (being a university student with is just as important) trying to disprove you guys as well as getting some peace of mind by going to get myself tested for mercury. It’s also a relief as judging I do have a sort of genetic heritage too:)
But in other ways it’s to say the least not so good as we’ve Aspies just lost an pretty important vestige of control over living our lives. After all you can’t destroy knowledge can’t you?
http://www.bioportfolio.com/news/Integragen_10.htm
Sorry for the double post but just needed to try and activate the link.
Some thoughts, offered to Sue M. and others:
It’s Sunday, meaning that I’m taking a wee break from my MSc research work to be with my family.
Now, here are some expanded explanations about my comments on correlation vs causality. These are from a magazine article of mine, “Sunk by Bunk and Junk” that had appeared in a gardening magazine (hence the horticultural references). Because it was in a popular-press magazine, it’s non-technical in nature, and contains references that are easy for the average person to understand. Hopefully they will be easier to understand than are genetics, biochemistry, epidemiology, et cetera. (These are just excerpts from the article.)
“Correlation does not equal causality.
This is from whence many of those over-the-fence pieces of nonsense originate. One event is observed, and another event is observed, and someone assumes that the first event is the cause of the second one. Sometimes this is true, but often it is not. For a simple example, there is old joke that “washing your car makes it rainâ€, which is an entertaining joke because many of us have washed our cars, then seen it rain and gotten the resultant mud on our formerly-clean vehicles. However, every single day there are cars washed, but it does not rain every day.
For a more down to earth example: a friend tells you, “Oh, I planted garlic next to my roses last year, and I did not have any aphids on them!†There could be many reasons why our (well-intended but confused) organic-minded rose grower did not have aphids on her roses: she was using a weekly natural fungicide treatment on her roses and washed off the few aphids that had started to colonize the plants, or perhaps her avoidance of pesticides allowed the natural enemies to survive and keep the aphid population down, or maybe it was simply a year with a low population of rose aphids! In other words, the supposed cause (planting garlic nearby) may have had nothing at all to do with the supposed effect (no rose aphids).
Very similar to the first two is Mere anecdotes are not scientific proof.
One or two examples — or even several – are not enough to prove something. This is especially true if the results are not compared to controls. You cannot be sure that the results are due to the variable being tested. For example, you decide to plant antacids in your soil along with all of your tomatoes. Your neighbor Joe also tries the same thing. Neither of you get any blossom-end rot on your tomatoes, happy-happy-joy-joy! You tell all of your garden club friends; after all, neighbor Joe did it too – it must be true, right? Gee, are antacids the cure for blossom-end rot [BER]? Not really. Although BER is caused by a calcium deficiency in the fruit, it is usually the result of a younger tomato plant trying to grow vines and fruits at the same time, and the calcium gets allocated to vine growth instead of the fruits. Actually, most of the local soils are not deficient in calcium (the limestone rocks that riddle our soils are calcium carbonate). Also, there are some varieties of tomato plants that are genetically much less prone to BER than others. BER is also more likely when the soil moisture is inconsistent. And not surprisingly, once plants get a little older and focus growth more on fruits instead of vines, the BER generally disappears.
If you wanted to test the antacid theory, you could plant a bunch of tomatoes, all the same variety, with half of the plants being randomly selected for planting antacids and half not. If antacids really “cured†BER, then we would expect to see that the plants with the antacids do not have BER on the fruits, and the plants without do have BER on the fruits. By using the same tomato cultivar, you know that it is not the cultivar itself that provides the resistance. And if you tested this over several years, you would also know that the weather was not a factor in BER (e.g. inconsistent moisture). If you did the test in several fields with different natural levels of soil calcium (as determined by a soil test before planting), you could test if the antacids provided supplemental calcium for the plants.” (C) 2004 Andrea Ray-Chandler
In much the same vein, noticing autistic behaviours around the same time of life as getting immunizations does not mean that the shots (or any ingredients in them) are causal of autism, any more than are toilet-training, playing with finger-paints, cutting molars, or any number of other events in a toddler’s life.
Moreover, a few anecdotal stories does not guarantee the pronouncement of a cure. That the stories are anecdotal in nature does not even guarantee their validity; were such various purported “cures” valid, there should be hundreds of children with (third-party documented) improvements that cannot be ruled out by the ordinary process of eventual, if not slower* maturation and learning.
See if that helps reduce some of the confusion there.
andrea, who does not *want* to be “indistinguishable from [her] peers” and who in fact goes to great efforts to be “distinguished from her peers”
* “developmental disorder” means that the developmental rate is affected; amazingly, people still grow and learn, albeit at different rates.
Anne: You’re brilliant, I’m much more, um, literal (albeit twisted). I thought it was more about a washed-up, former pretty-boy travel writer who finally gets the fame he seeks by writing a poison pen story about all those same kind of people (scientists) who think that AIDS was NOT really a laboratory-manufactured-agent designed to destroy some group of fun-loving party boyz. In the beginning, the travel writer gets the revenge he’s sought for twenty years — but as he realizes who his fan-base actually is, he is aghast. There’s more, but I don’t think anyone here wants to hear it … although there is a totally killer fight scene.
David: Some of us got onto the weird film thang when AD mentioned who would play whom in one of her posts last night [US time].