Yesterday, my fellow countryman Mike Stanton left the following comment in response to a previous commenter about his belief regarding how his child had become autistic:
There may not be a single answer. But that does not mean we can pick any answer we like. There has to be some scientific validity to any hypothesis.
This is such a good comment. It reflects something I’ve felt increasingly over the last year or so – the increase in pseudo-scientific theories posed as a ‘menu’ for parents to choose from. It reminds me of sauntering up to the counter at McDonalds and saying – “I’ll have one of those, one of those and one of those.”
I recently came across a post made on the Onibasu list which illustrates my point. This is the signature of the poster in question. Its a list of treatments she’s trying on her child:
My son is using M-B12 (Hopewell) since Dec 2003, Wellness Essential GSH (had been using TD-Glut but levels were always low), TD-DMSA (3 on and 4 off – 8 hr schedule) (Lee Silsby) since Oct 2005, (Used TD-DMPS Jan 2005 ?Oct 2005) TD-ALA (Lee Silsby) since Oct 2005, TD-LDN (Wellness) Since Oct 2005, (High Tech Health) FIR sauna, Magnetico bed, High Tech Health’s water machine, and a lot of supplements.) GFGFSF diet.
The post in question is also asking about Lupron. Thats a total of 12 separate treatments, ‘a lot of’ supplements and she probably is in the process of adding Lupron to that list as we speak.
And can you Supersize me please?
What worries me is even a bog-standard bottle of Asprin has a warning on it about responsible use. Is it really sensible to risk giving one’s child such a massive cocktail of drugs on the word of someone who quite obviously is more interested in money than science?
Medicine shouldn’t be such a pick and mix affair. Its quite worrying about what this reveals about how the West’s perception of doctors has changed. Doctors who have undergone 7 years plus of training are viewed with suspicion and sued at the drop of an opinion whilst ‘doctors’ who have shops rather than practices are lauded as heroes.
How did it come to this? When did McScience start to replace science? How did it come to pass that the process of peer review (designed to give a good _starting point_ to a paper) meant nothing and the process of buying an entry in a pseudoscience rag or buying a misleading advertmeant everything?
I’m nobodies scientist. It takes me longer to understand the science because I need to go through it time after time so I understand all the words and understand the implications. I ask questions of actual scientists and get them to translate for me so it stands to reason to me that for an article to be peer reviewed in a decent journal assures that the standard of science in that article will be fairly high. It might not make the paper _right_ , but at least we can be sure its been thought through properly.
Surely that needs to be the absolute baseline of quality we should come to expect for papers that discuss such important questions. Otherwise we really do end up at the counter of McScience – like kids in a sweet shop, taking what we think we’ll like rather than what we need.
Left Brain Right Brain 
BC Said: People who do this stuff for a living have lined up and spat on the work.
Says it all.
Many of them with no interest in autism or mercury, just real folks with real names able to recognize fake science.
Erik,
Considering that a favorite pastime of the EOH board and the autism-mercury crowd is to “out” anyone who dares to object to their points of view (to the point of publishing their home telephone number and address), it’s not surprising that most people would choose to use psuedonyms.
A big yawn on use of (“aliases”) pseudonyms which Erik raised. Many of us value our family’s privacy. Somewhere down the line, Erik, you may change your mind about some things. Trust me; it happens. You are still a little new to all of this. You may think it’s the honorable position or something to have all your opinions out there for anyone to google on at anytime, but as time passes, you may not be so pleased with this decision. Some of are thinking about what happens when our children go to google on our name or their names and have already long-since pondered what kind of right do we have to put their personal information out for all the world to see. You may not *think* that you have discussed your child so much, but to some searching on your child or your family (for whatever reason) they could find your child’s age/sex/diagnosis/medical history. Maybe you’ve weighed all that , I don’t know. I can only speak for myself, I have visualized my child googling on her/his name in Jr High and what kind of emotional fall-out there would be if my child’s story where on-line for, let’s say, all her/his Jr High classmates to view. So, a lot of us will keep up with our ‘nyms. The use of one does not make our experiences, thinking and opinions any less valuable. In some ways, it may make them more-so.
I find it interesting how the mercury debate has caused such a divide in opinions. My son received three MMR shots because of an error made by the hospital and he now suffers with Asperger syndrome. I could spend a life time searching for someone to blame or debating which metal to remove from his body but settle instead for coming to terms with him as a person. This I find far more rewarding.
Thanks for a Great Blog
Ben
What “metal” would be in the MMR? The MMR has never contained thimerosal.