For some time now, John (aka ForeSam to the uninitiated) has been crying that he’s been banned from this blog and been using that ban as an excuse. I’ve decided to call his bluff.
For this thread, and this thread only, John will be free to argue, debate, insult, rage, pontificate and generally be the John Best we know and love.
In this thread will be discussing the following:
1) John’s belief that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931. John says autism did not exist before Jan 1st 1931.
2) John’s belief that all autism is mercury poisoning from thiomersal in vaccines.
3) John’s belief that there was no autism in China prior to 1999. John says autism did not exist in China until Jan 1st 1999.
4) John’s role as speaker at mercury militia marches and his position with Generation Rescue
5) John’s opinion on homosexuality, which he believes is ‘a perversion’, and his subsequent opinion of David Kirby.
6) John’s belief that as an adult male, fist fighting with his eight year old autistic son is a sign of good parenting.
7) John’s belief that there has been an epidemic of autism.
8) John’s belief that because Dan Olmsted didn’t find any autistic Amish, this proves thiomersal causes autism.
9) John’s belief that it is acceptable to state that women he disagree’s with should be ‘horsewhipped’
10) John’s belief that phoning people he disagree’s with at their homes to abuse with them is acceptable.
11) John’s belief that the word ‘muslim’ is interchangable with the word ‘terrorist’.
Go for it. Either now, or wait for the man himself to defend himself. Just remember that John is typical member of the thiomersal/autim connection. I of course am open to correction on that from other believers of the thiomersal/autism connection along with an explanation of why.
Also remember John is a fully ‘paid up’ Generation Rescue Rescue Angel and his views on _all_ the above should be taken as representative of that organisation, unless of course, anyone from that org would like to deny John’s involvement with them on record.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Loopy Lisa should not put her name in public if she can’t stand the criticism. I never called her. Others did and I agree with them. She deserved whatever calls she got.
So any person with a published phone number deserves threatening phone calls? Try calling the White House John, the number is in the book.
Clone;
We already know a new condition was started in 1931 called autism. Was something worse started in 1991 with HepB by giving mercury to kids so young? It might be interesting to compare symptoms with autistic kids who had HepB and older ones who missed it.
Some say Lincoln was gay. Maybe that was caused by the mercury.
Clone;
If Bush took all those phone calls, he’d never have time for golf.
Some say Lincoln was gay. Maybe that was caused by the mercury.
Did you really just say that?
Clone;
Yup, it’s normal for men to be turned on by women and vice versa. Who knows what happens to people to make them get turned on by their own sex. All I know is it isn’t normal.
We already know a new condition was started in 1931 called autism.
More accurately, we already know you like to pretend that a new condition was started in 1931.
And it wasn’t called autism until 1943, remember? Gotta keep your lies consistant with the undeniable reality.
If autism existed before Kanner named it, then maybe it existed for a LONGER TIME before Kanner named it.
Keep that in mind.
“Some say Lincoln was gay. Maybe that was caused by the mercury.” I need a version of that as a comment sig. Must also trace mercury input that made Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde gay. Because, dude, if that’s what mercury does to you then bring it on.
Back to the plot. Historical disease and mortality is a particular interest of mine, so I’ve got some of my books out. The first book linking occupations to particular illnesses appeard in 1700 (in English in 1705); this led to the idenfication of symptoms associated with hatters. The contemporary name was ‘Hatter’s Shakes’, which does not call to mind autism.
‘Saracen Ointment’, containing mainly mercury was used as a treatment for both leprosy and syphillis from the Crusades; since these were wildly misdiagnosed it was probably used for a lot of skin conditions. It’s quite possible therefore that ‘cradle cap’ and eczema were treated with mercury ointments. The real jump came post Paracelsus (early 16th century); his followers were fans of ‘chemical’ rather than ‘natural’ medicine, and used mercury much more than previously (medieval medicine got more of its pharmaceuticals from plants). So if autism is mercury poisoining, you should see a big jump in the Elizabethan/Stewart aristocracy. At this distance any sort of diagnosis is impossible; but the pre-Paracelsus Henry VI shows far more ‘autistic’ characteristics than, for example James VI/I.
Mike;
The kids were 10 to 12 years old so the autism began when they were shot up with mercury in 1931 and later. Kanner was an expert in the field and would have known of it if it had existed. Nobody else had found it because it did not exist.
Of those first 11 kids, there were 8 boys and 3 girls, pretty close to the 4 to 1 ratio we have today that we know is caused by testosterone making the mercury more potent. Interesting, isn’t it?
All Kanner did was reclassify it as a separate disorder.
As I read John Best, Jr., his position is that kids who are diagnosed with “autism” today are in fact mercury poisoned, and that you can go down to the health food store and buy Alpha Lipoic Acid for $30, and that is the cure. End of story.
This is what he says. I reserve judgment on whether it is actually what he believes.
Kev,
All of J. Best’s diatribes in one place.
It’s an embarassment of riches, I tell you. Now instead of pointing the media to a whole bunch of links, you can just send them to this one thread. 😉
Anne;
You misquoted me. ALA is only about $5 a bottle and lasts some months. ALA and all the other stuff only runs about $30 per month. One should rely on Andy Cutler for the proper dosage of these things.
Of those first 11 kids, there were 8 boys and 3 girls, pretty close to the 4 to 1 ratio we have today that we know is caused by testosterone making the mercury more potent. Interesting, isn’t it?
It would be to folks like you. After all, how many kids did Wakefield have in his study? 12, was it? I guess studying tens of thousands of kids is way less pervasive than studying a dozen.
I think I get it now. John Best, Jr. is applying homeopathic research techniques – the fewer subjects you study, the more potent the research is.
Wow. JBJr, the great diagnostician *snorts* seems to think I’m not autistic! I mean, I have the Rett gene and all…
Just tell any of my doctors that I’m not autistic. They’ll laugh in your face. Hard. Just tell me when you do it so I can watch, I need the entertainment.
On another note, heavy metal poisoning hasn’t changed. It’s miserable. It isn’t autism.
JBJr: “Here’s where you need something you lack. It’s called common sense.”
You are *so* hopeless, aren’t you?!
Mouse: “I think I get it now. John Best, Jr. is applying homeopathic research techniques – the fewer subjects you study, the more potent the research is.”
Ah… I see now…. yes… research that is about as useful as homeopathic stuff too!
clone3g; “Try calling the White House John, the number is in the book.”
He daren’t… he’s too chicken for that!
Kasiane;
Do you have Rhett’s and MP or just Rhett’s?
anonimouse wrote “I think I get it now. John Best, Jr. is applying homeopathic research techniques – the fewer subjects you study, the more potent the research is.”
Yes, especially when those kids were not randomly selected in the first place. Hello, Texas Sharpshooters…..
Andrews;
I’ve called the White House. Nixon wouldn’t answer. Neither would Bush.
I make a comment that it’s interesting that the numbers of boys to girls happoened to be in line with today’s numbers and you people want to turn it into a study. Typical neurodiverse reasoning. Calling me hopeless when you’re the one with no common sense doesn’t enhance your position Dave. It just shows that you have to resort to name calling since you’re fighting a losing battle (I’m not referring to your battle with sanity). Suggesting kids are not being cured just because a study hasn’t been done to confirm is not a poor reflection on the sane parents who help their kids. It does however, reflect poorly on the CDC and the Medical profession who are not doing those studies. Because the people who caused the epidemic are trying to cover it up, our only source for good information is from those intelligent and sane parents who have realized they are being lied to and are helping their kids climb out of the abyss of autism. It may be too late for you Dave but I’ll send you a bottle of ALA and instructions on how to use it if you’d like to join those of us who do not live with a diminished capacity. Who knows, your IQ may even creep up a few points.
JB – While I am not Dave I do take my Omega3s – and I’m not sure about your dosage, because my local dietician who specialises in autism suggests a very high dose. I think that the equivalent of $5 worth would last you about 3 days on his doseage! I still see that your reasoning is full of holes. I’m not seeing the hordes of autistic Stewart aristocrats 🙂
Rett, John, *Rett*. Kasianne doesn’t have Rhett it’s Rett, prefered to Rett’s as I understand it.
Sorry Ms Clark. I’ll try to be a better speller.
John,
I am absolutely stunned that the President of the United States wouldn’t be jumping all over themselves to take a phone call from you. Although I’m confused as to why you’d be calling Richard Nixon – either you’ve had long-standing animosity towards the government or you still think he’s alive.
I also enjoy your diatribe about how the CDC and medical profession have to “do these studies”. Let me say this one more time – THEY ARE NOT THE ONES USING THESE TREATMENTS. The buren of proof needs to be one the chelationists who use DMPS or EDTA to show that their treatment protocol actually works. They can apply for grants from the NIH to do the kind of research necessary. Or they can do like Dr. Adams from Arizona State and put together their own clinical trial.
However, I do have one major quibble. At no point in your postings should you ever equate yourself with both intelligent and sane. I think it’s 50-50 that one of those adjectives apply to you.
Say it with me now: “There is no H in Rett”. Googling with an H in there won’t give you any information worth having. PubMed doesn’t recognize it at all.
Autism does not equal mercury poisoning. *sighs*. Emedicine did a really good article on mercury poisoning. None of the symptoms are like autism. Nowhere close. But people who don’t trust doctors aren’t going to look at REAL sites for their medical information. It’s better to make it up as they go along.
Ah the joy of arguing with monkeys…or perhaps parrots?
I think I called Nixon in 1972 when he froze wages but allowed universities to keep raising tuitions.
Mouse;
It would seem that you are not intelligent enough to know that a generation or 2 or 3 of kids have been poisoned. A sane and intelligent person who learns this removes the poison from his children by whatever means are available. An insane person would side with criminals who want to continue to poison children. An unintelligent person would believe the lies told by said criminals. Which category do you put yourself in, Mouse?
Ah, Mr. Best. Your logic chain breaks.
First, you must prove that children have actually been poisoned. That would mean doing large-scale tests that show that these “children in the abyss” really have some kind of mercury excretion abnormality or are otherwise overburdened with heavy metals. Your side can’t even come up with a consistent standard as to what constitutes mercury poisoning. Is it too much mercury in a urine test? Too little?
If you can’t even prove THAT simple fact with any degree of certainty, then the rest of your claims are irrelevant.
But let’s say that it really is true, and autistics have a higher mercury burden. The next question to ask would be whether those children exhibit signs of mercury poisoning. They exhibit some of the non-specific symptoms for sure, but the tell-tale signs of MP are not often present, if at all.
And EVEN IF you can illustrate the autistics have problems excreting mercury, you still have to prove two more things – that it’s the mercury causing their autistic behaviors and that removing said mercury makes any sort of difference. There’s no clinical basis to believe that removing the mercury will improve neurological function. It may resolve some of the secondary symptoms, but chelating mercury isn’t going to reverse the damage done to the brain.
Seeing as you haven’t even gotten to step #1 yet, claiming that steps 2-4 are complete and in the books is ludicrous.
In all seriousness, if mercury is a cause of autism, my guess is that it would be through pre-natal exposure, most likely in the first trimester during critical periods of brain development. It is plausible that environmental factors during this period play a role in autism.
But it sure as heck isn’t happening when the child is a year old, and chelating the child when they’re five or six isn’t going to mean a damn thing. Any improvement that happens during that time period is almost undoubtedly related to other therapies.
“Or they can do like Dr. Adams from Arizona State and put together their own clinical trial.”
Which ASU’s IRB REJECTED (after previously allowing the prior Bradstreet, Geier, Adams et al. DMSA study).
Kasiane;
You didn’t answer my question. That says you aren’t arguing, period. You’re dodging, a distinct neurodiverse quality. I’m not making any comments about monkeys on this blog. Sallie Bernard et al did a nice study on mercury poisoning. If you don’t have those symptoms, you must just have Rett’s. I hope that helps and I hope they find a cure for you.
DofC,
I knew that. The point I was making was that even people on Best’s side feel that doing some kind of clinical trial is necessary. Whether the trial is poorly designed and inappropriate is something for scientists to debate, but it’s at least better than just shouting from the rooftops “chelation workz c my kid is awesum now”.
Mouse;
You can also refer to Sallie Bernard. It’s common knowledge that the kids were poisoned with mercury. It’s just a question of which kids could tolerate it. It looks like 5 out of 6 tolerate it. The rest are somehow affected.
Deth taught us that it was impaired methylation that causes autism, not simply neuron damage. Neubrander showed us that over 90% improve with Methyl B-12 which proved Deth wrong. Deth said only 80% would improve.
I saw my son stop dragging his leg when he walked after chelation so that told me the mercury did not cause permanent damage and that was at age 8. Some of the damage might not be fixed but HBOT is proving to be helpful for some. I’m not well-versed on that to say more. These things are certainly worth a shot since doing nothing isn’t going to help these kids. I know you folks like to play up the two deaths caused by malpractice. I’m not concerned with that myself since I don’t rely on doctors to give my kid the drugs.
I’ve said it before but here’s your choice. You can wait for the medical profession to help you while your kid rots or you can keep up with the science yourself and help your kid now before he winds up like poor David Andrews and starts sending pictures of his groin to people.
Pulled out my 1906 Materia medica. Under syphilis, preferred treatment is bichoride of mercury, by intramuscular injection. So doctors have been injecting mercury salts into adults since at least 1906. For kids with dysentery, 3 mg Calomel every half hour. Mercury was a common treatment. People probably had higher levels of Hg from medical treatment 100 years ago than the trace found in vaccines.
Uta Firths book on autism mentions a disciple of St. Francis who showed many autistic traits. He was valued as being holy and above material thoughts.
John,
Oooh. I can refer to Sallie Bernard…the marketing expert for knowledge of mercury poisoning in children. Sign me up for that lecture.
Deth’s work says NOTHING about autism. It barely says anything about methylation.
Neubrander hasn’t published his work in a peer-reviewed journal and hasn’t had his finding corroborated by ANYONE. That’s just his claim, similar to Buttar’s claims, Cave’s claims, Wakefield’s claims, etc, etc.
I saw my son stop dragging his leg when he walked after chelation so that told me the mercury did not cause permanent damage and that was at age 8.
OMG…your son stopped dragging his leg when he walked so it MUST BE THE CHELATION! Here’s an alternative explanation, John. Your son stopped dragging his leg because, well, he developed to the point where he stopped doing it. You have this bizarre notion that kids with autism don’t get better on their own and can’t be helped without expensive biomedical treatments.
Mouse;
$30 a month is only expensive to trailer dwelling coo-coos.
Of course, the standard call for studies instead of blatantly calling parents liars is a good response. Reread Deth. Bernard’s marketing expertise has nothing to do with her mercury poisoning expertise.
John Best: Reread Deth
Save us the trouble John. Tell us what it says about autism or methylation for that matter.
I have the Rett mutation, manifesting as autism and a few other things that are none of your damn business.
That’s right. Phenotypically it’s autism. Genetically it’s Rett. My dad DOESN’T have the mutation-men with it don’t grow up to be in their 50s and well thought of engineers-and he’s autistic too. Don’t even try to argue this one with me unless you’re prepared to argue the genetics. My paternal grandmother is also autistic. Since you’re the expert on everyone and everything, their lack-of-vaccination status is none of your damn business either.
*New Theory:* Secretly JBJr hates GR and all those folks. That’s why he spends oodles of time online making them look bad.
I think the more interesting debate is not whether autism existed prior to 1931 but whether or not it was extremely rare. Century makes some good points that I agree with. It’s hard to imagine scientists not communicating in the first quarter of the 20th century. Wasn’t Kanner among the top in his field during his time? The fact that he had never seen anything like autism before and that no one else in the field contacted Kanner after reading his articles to state that it wasn’t a new condition is very telling. I would never say it means that autism didn’t exist prior to Kanner diagnosing it but it certainly makes a strong argument that autism was extremely rare.
It makes a strong an uncontested argument that diagnosis was rare or not defined, depending how far back you go in time (see Bleuler and Schizophrenia), it says absolutely nothing about prevalence whatsoever. Does lack of mention about neutrinos prior to Fermi and Pauli (about the same time as Kanner) make a strong argument that neutrinos were extremely rare prior to that?
_”Am I getting any closer to making you understand? MP is autism. The other stuff is other stuff. Asperger’s is other stuff. Weirdness is other stuff.”_
_”So, to say that MP existed before 1931, you need to show that the person so afflicted was exposed to mercury. You have not done that which voids your position.”_
I see. So really, your argument that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931 is supported by your belief that all autism is mercury poisoning, for which your proof is that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931?
I think, having demonstrated your total, unflinching idiocy on this point we can move on.
_”Are you really saying that an American physician publishing in the USA in 1943 would not be read by other American physicians?”_
Um, no I’m not. I’m saying that the records from the 1880’s were probably not widely available.
_”Also, bear in mind that European scientists from approx 1500 AD (and before) kept in close contact with each other to share theories, views and ideas – notwithstanding the fact that they did not have Pubmed, email etc.”_
And how long an average did it take for letters to get passed from continent to continent? Few hours? Days? Weeks? No. Months.
In the 16th Century in the UK, religion and consequently what was ‘safe’ to assign to science and study openly switched around with the death and coronation of a monarch. Your view is far too simplistic.
_”I think the more interesting debate is not whether autism existed prior to 1931 but whether or not it was extremely rare. “_
That _would_ be an interesting debate David but this is a thread for John Best, Generation Rescue Rescue Angel, to wallow in his ignorance.
OK all, we’ve established that John only allows unsubstantiated anecdotes to carry weight when he’s the one making them. We’ve also established John can only reason in circles. Lets move on. I think we can safely skip point two.
*John says autism did not exist in China until Jan 1st 1999.*
On Prometheus’ blog, John claimed that :
_”Do you suppose the people in China are happy going from zero autism in 1999 to 5 million cases now thanks to our thimerosal laced vaccines?”_
Infantile autism study in Hong Kong 1998
Teaching chinese autistic children in Hong Kong 1997
Assessing autistic children 1993
Fragile X positivity in Chinese children with autistic spectrum disorder. 1992
A follow-up study of infantile autism in Hong Kong. 1990
Rett syndrome in China: report of 9 patients. 1988
Infantile autism in China. 1987
John?
JBJr: ” It may be too late for you Dave but I’ll send you a bottle of ALA and instructions on how to use it if you’d like to join those of us who do not live with a diminished capacity.”
I think I might add practising medicine without a licence to the litany of charges I’m having prepared against you, Mr Best.
I don’t have any corroborating evidence, so you’ll have to balance this on my credibility. In early 2001 or late 2000… when the MIND institute was drumming up support for itself, Dr. Randi Hagerman gave a presentation at the Davis High School library to promote the MIND insitute. At that meeting I met a Chinese woman with a daughter about 10 years old. Since I was “into” Mandarin at the time I went out of my way to try to talk to Chinese people. Her daughter was autistic. The woman was from Mainland China and her husband was also, he worked at UC Berkeley. This girl was born in China. The family had not been here that long, maybe 3 or 4 years. It’s unlikely that the family still lives here, the visiting scholars aren’t usually able to stay in one place too long. Anyway, I met a Chinese autistic girl born around 1990.
A few years later I met an Egyptian family that had an autistic son, he was born in Egypt and came here at about age 3, he had twin little brothers also born in Egypt. When I met them the autistic boy was close to 4.
—
In the Middle Ages, there was some sharing of medical information, but not everything WE think is interesting or important was described. For instance there are plagues that went through areas where ancient “physicians” lived and recorded their observations. But since they thought of things in mostly superstitious terms, they looked for the symptoms that were crucial to their system of thinking… the lungs did this, the lungs were like that… if the system considered the lungs to be key, then the doctor didn’t bother to record what was going on on the skin (so it’s possible that an epidemic was measles, but that the existence of the thing WE think is the most crucial to discuss – the spots, weren’t recorded.
Just like allopaths don’t record how a patient’s Qi is likely to be flowing…”qi” is irrelevant. A traditional Chinese physician wants to know what you’ve been eating and will judge it according to whether it is too yin or too yang (hot, cold, wet, dry, male, female…)
Sooo, in 1378 if physicians are looking right at an Asperger’s or PDD,nos kid who is staring or pacing or slow to answer or… the reaction might be “so what?” If the kid is echolaling, maybe he’s referred to a priest for an exorcism (hey, Bradstreet did the same thing and that was just a few years ago) or maybe it’s considered a very cool thing…. It’s not necessarily recorded by doctors who are keen on disussing the 4 humors–yellow and black bile, blood and phlegm.
The 1 in 166 number is mostly composed of kids who are not easy to spot as “classic autistics” I know the mercury parents work really hard to conceal this fact, but it’s true.
Autism is the most heritable of all mental/developmental disorders… that means “it tends to run in families”.
I guess we need to send out an investigative team to look into the ASD status of John and his wife and their parents and grand-parents. I wonder if we could talk to John’s mother and find out how old he was when he started to talk and if he spun coins and plates or if she dropped him on his head or if he was kicked in the head by a horse at any point… you know he hangs around the horsetrack… I mean, it’s a hypothesis, and John DID introduce the “kicked in the head by a horse” thing.
http://www.drdisk.com.hk/archived/nina.htm
http://www.drdisk.com.hk/archived/asperger.htm
Here’s a little girl who is 11 now and was born in Hong Kong. She has some ASD, her parents thought she had Williams syndrome at first, then someone told them she had AS. The descriptions sound like she’d be called PDD,nos. Her face looks really close to normal, to me. She doesn’t look very much like a WS kid.
Anyway, this girl is older than 7. She was autistic before 1999.
John not only calls presidents of the US he also emails China. John, did China ever email you back?
Might there be parallels between Kanner and dentistry? Ok, sounds weird, bear with me. In the US dentistry to preserve teeth (fillings, oral hygeine) developed relatively early in the 20th century. In the UK on the other hand, dentists were much more into agressive teeth removal – having all your teeth knocked out when you were about 18 to get a nice set of falsies that wouldn’t cause you trouble was certainly practiced! The UK dentists were well aware of their US colleages methods, but they didn’t accept them. Just because a renowned professional publishes a work doesn’t mean it is accepted. Probably the only way to track this would be by looking at US vs UK medical journals. The NAS was founded in 1962, which is a good date to start with 🙂
How about Down Syndrome? There are artistic representations of people with DS right back to the 16th century (I think). Most interestingly, the first really good one is an angel. But it wasn’t until Langdon Down that all these individuals were classified as having the same condition. Given the genetic basis for DS, the numbers are likely to have been stable, but no-one noticed them, even with an obvious facial dysmorphia. How much more difficult would it have been to spot autism which is much less obvious?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12522800&dopt=Abstract
The important part to note there is “Langdon Down’s description of the condition occurred only after evolution of concepts regarding the clinical significance of physical appearance and measurement”
You’ve got to look to find something.
In previous generations, autistic kids were just dismissed as “idiots” (i.e., retarded) and that was pretty much the end of it. Nobody paid much attention or bothered to write down the activities and behviors of the “feeble minded”. Why should they? So the kid is flapping hands, spinning plates, doesn’t talk, he’s feeble minded, nothing to be done for that, right?
The belief that autism is “new” because it has never been previously described in current medical terms is pretty short sighted and shows a very distinct lack of understanding of history and how historical documents are assessed.
And while we’re at it, what did Mozart die of? The physicians of the time gave it some strange name (some sort of fever that we now don’t even recognize as a disorder or disease), but what was it really? Was it poisoning? Was it kidney disease? Why didn’t the doctors in late 18th century Vienna just write it all down in terms that a 21st century physician could understand, dammit!
I see. So really, your argument that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931 is supported by your belief that all autism is mercury poisoning, for which your proof is that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931?
Did you miss some posts. The proof is that Kanner told us it did not exist. It took about 60 years but Bernard, Holmes and Geier found the reason it did not exist. Your 19th century autistics had genetic autism not MP.
Ms Clark;
You didn’t tell us anything about the vaccinations of the Chinese and Egyptian kids.
I had a grandmother with Alzheimer’s and my wife’s mother had Alzheimer’s and probably OCD. Sounds like an inability to excrete mercury is in the genes. My grandfather was a bookie so gambling must be genetic too.
Kevin;
I’ll have to look at your links this afternoon about China. Time to go golfing.
JB: “The proof is that Kanner told us it did not exist.”
Mmnkay… medical profession now = evil (or at least misguided and blinded by the Big Conspiracy). Single doctor, making single assertion in the 1940s = Unassailably right.