Remember this old Bhuddist parable?
Five blind men of Savatthi are all describing an elephant. The problem is that one grabs the tail, the other a leg, the other the side, the other an ear and the fifth, the tusk. Each, remaining blindfolded, seeks to articulate the attributes of an elephant. The one who grabbed the tail insisted that the elephant was like a rope. The one who grabbed the leg was as certain that an elephant was not like a rope, but a tree. The one who was feeling the side of the elephant was convinced that an elephant was like a mud baked wall. The fourth blind man, feeling the ear, was shocked that the others could not understand that the elephant was like a banana leaf. The fifth denounced them all as he held to the tusk, insisting that an elephant was most like a brandished sword.
Every time I hear talk about the ‘autism epidemic’ I remember this parable.
The only way we can _definitively_ establish if thiomersal (or any other vaccine ingredient) causes autism is to take a hundred kids and do a double blind study involving injecting them with either an applicable amount of thiomersal containing vaccines or a control over an established time period.
Obviously, thats never going to happen. Firstly there are the obvious ethics of such a thing – with the prevailing beliefs about what autism is, no parent is going to risk ‘causing’ autism. Secondly there is the more practical reason that there aren’t really any thiomersal containing vaccines left in the West anymore – hence Burbacher’s need to get vaccines and then _add_ thiomersal to them. I suppose our ficticious study could do that but nobody really knows what confounders there may be in such an action. Burbacher certainly didn’t control for them.
So, what else can we do to try and establish if thiomersal (or whatever) can cause autism?
We can examine the symptoms of mercury poisoning (in the case of thiomersal) and see if there seems to be a relationship with autism. This is in essence what the Bernard et al paper tried to do. They concluded there _was_ a link but a closer examination of the paper shows that there is _not one_ common symptom between the diagnstic symptoms of mercury poisoning and the DSM(IV) diagnostic criteria for autism. This fact usually results in two counter-claims. Firstly that the DSM(IV) is not ‘up to the job’ of reflecting the current state of knowledge about autism. Secondly, that autism is such a novel form of mercury poisoning that autism is totally different from all other forms of mercury poisoning.
The first objection is essentially a call to retro-fit the DSM(IV) to fit one persons own beliefs about autism and thiomersal. This is pointless. The DSM criteria (which _are_ periodically adjusted) reflect the symptoms it requires to fulfil a diagnosis of ASD. This means the symptoms are common to _all_ autistic people. People have quoted gut issues, constipation and various other issues to me as ‘evidence’ of the damage resulting in autism, that thiomersal can do. Trouble is, none of the things that get quoted at me are common to all autistic people. These things may be comorbidities. If people have found ways to treat debilitating comorbidities then more power to them I say. I do exactly the same every time I administer a puff of a ventolin inhaler to my daughter. People then go on to say, well, maybe we should start sub-dividing autism into different ‘types’. However, we have no idea what prevalence these ‘sub-types’ might have. As far as we know they might only exist in statistically insignificant numbers that wouldn’t justify a sub-type categorisation. One of the biggest comorbidities is epilepsy. Should we create a sub-category of ‘epileptic autism’. Why? The underlying autism would be just the same. No – this is the very reason why secondary conditions are called comorbidities and not subtypes.
The second theory – that autism is so unique it doesn’t resemble any other form of mercury poisoning – is very hard to take seriously. Anorexia appears to be common across all types of mercury poisoning (its mentioned in Mad Hatters Disease, Pinks Disease and typical mercury poisoning) – why would it skip autism? Occams Razor applies here. The simplest explanation is one which requires no mangling/disappearing/ignoring of known facts – autism doesn’t really resemble mercury poisoning.
So whats next? Epidemiology. We’re left with looking at the numbers.
The ‘autism epidemic’ is central to the thiomersal hypothesis. The argument goes that as thiomersal useage increased both temporaly (vaccines were administered in shorter time frames) and in amount (maximum body burden in the US was 187.5 ug of Hg) that the number of autism diagnosis increased.
The main problem with the epidemic idea is that this chain of events is _far_ from established. The reason is mainly the quality of the underlying data.
There are three main US sources for prevalence data – the Dept of Education, VAERS and CDDS.
Many autism advocacy groups use the data collected by the US Department of Education (USDE) to show a rapidly increasing prevalence of autism. Closer examination of these data to follow each birth-year cohort reveals anomalies within the USDE data on autism. The USDE data show not only a rise in overall autism prevalence with time but also a significant and nearly linear rise in autism prevalence within a birth-year cohort as it ages, with significant numbers of new cases as late as 17 years of age. In addition, an unexpected reduction in the rise of autism prevalence occurs in most cohorts at 12 years of age, the age when most children would be entering middle school. These anomalies point to internal problems in the USDE data that make them *unsuitable for tracking autism prevalence*.
This is a shame but Jim Laidler is absolutely correct that we must use good, accurate data – USDE data clearly isn’t.
VAERS has massive problems. It allows anyone to enter any data at any time. I recently demonstrated this when I, a UK citizen, managed to submit a VAERS entry stating that a vaccine had turned my daughter into Wonder Woman. Clearly, this is not an acceptable source.
CDDS is the most contraversial. Rick Rollens has toally misintrpretted the data time after time. CDDS themselves state that their data should not be used for tracking autism prevalence. However, if it is insisted that we _do_ use CDDS data then we need to be clear about its use. Rick Rollens lumped all stats from all age groups together – quite obviously this results in meaningless data. As David Kirby conceeded:
…total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.
When one does isolate this cohort things are very different. In this cohort, nnot only are autism cases still rising, in the last quarter, the increase in the rate of increase is climbing.In other words, when one uses the correct group of cases to examine, data that David Kirby has referred to as ‘the Gold Standard’ for testing prevalence, shows that autism cases are still rising despite his statement in the New York Times in *2005* that:
Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child’s third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year.
However, despite all this, we need to rememember that CDDS disclaimers appply to our interpretation of the data as well as Rollen’s or Kirby’s. However, ours are more accurate and at least are preformed on the right section of the data.
Make sure to read Joseph’s first comment in this thread which addresses another failing of this data I forgot to address.
So there are very large problems with the epidemiology as well. This is vexing and means, as Paul Shattuck recently concluded, that the true growth of autism cannot be realistically determined. So we’re left with the opinions and research of experts – people who study autism. What do they say?
Almost to a man they say that the idea of an epidemic is questionable. They state there may well have been a rise in _numbers_ but not necessarily a rise in _prevalence_. The distinction is important.
What they say is that improved tests and more recognition adds up to more diagnosis. This is simple common sense. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find more of it than you would if you _didn’t_ know what you were looking for.
What do we know that might support this opinion? Here are a few ideas from my neck of the woods.
In 2004, an ‘autism audit‘ was performed in Scotland. One of the questions the audit asked was how accurate they thought the prevalence rate estimates were for their area. 45% of authorities who responded made a point of noting that they felt diagnosis for adults was very underrepresented. For example, Perth and Kinross council stated
Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.
Also, in a New Scientist piece last year, the findings of the University of Nottingham were reported. The team reexamined data from the 1970’s which resulted in five diagnosis. Using modern diagnostic criteria, the team found 56 cases, a ten-fold increase.
Lastly, earlier this year, Health Minister Liam Byrne reported figures that demonstrated autism diagnoses for children have nearly doubled in 8 years from 3100 to 6170. Meanwhile adult diagnoses have nearly tripled in the same period from 1120 to 3000.
That seems to pretty firmly establish the idea of widescale underdiagnosis. What about misdiagnosis? From its very start as a categorised diagnosis, autism has been misdiagnosed. Kanner mentioned several of his patients were diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, as Shattuck _also_ concluded, its not possible to ascertain to what degree diagnostic substitution in the past has resulted in more cases now we know better.
A fascinating news article caught my eye this morning and led to this post. It seems that even _after_ we factor in more availability of diagnosis and better tests for it, most doctors still don’t screen for autism because a lot don’t know how.
The study of 255 Maryland and Delaware pediatricians found that 209 (82 percent) said they regularly screen their patients for general developmental delays, but only 20 (8 percent) of them said they regularly screen for ASD. Of the pediatricians who said they do not routinely screen for ASD, 62 percent said they didn’t do it because they weren’t familiar with the screening tools.
Remember that this is in a time when awareness and screening tools are better than they’ve ever been – if they’re like this now, just imagine how bad they must’ve been 10, 15 or 20 years ago.
Do you see a rope? A tree? A wall? A leaf? Maybe a sword? Or do you put these things together and percieve an elephant?
Left Brain Right Brain 
Hi Kev
I will return at night about. BTW, I am sending to you some files I have prepared about by e-mail. Please let me know if you received them .
Thank you very much
Ma Luján
hi maria i don’t have your email address but i might be interested in an analysis you have done. I am not sure you understood my point though. The web page you provided only gives the vaccination schedules and changes in the vaccination schedules, i.e., the adding of different vaccines and ages at which they were given. What I am interested in is something else, the rates of vaccination, i.e. were only 50% of kids vaccinated with DPT in 1970 as opposed to more than 90% in 1986. This is the explaination that mark geier gave when i corresponded with him. He also claimed that the average number of shots increased from an average of 3 in 1970 to an average of 5 in 1986. I thought it was always 4 shots between birth and 18 months. And there was a 5th shot which is a booster shot given at the age of 5 which would be inconsequential as far as getting an ASD from that, but i am not sure of that.
Changes in the vaccination schedule are abrupt, whereas changes in prevalence are gradual. The trends before a schedule change continue as expected after a schedule change. MarÃa thinks she sees a pattern, and she sent me some graphs. I frankly don’t see a pattern of correlation at all.
This is the explaination that mark geier gave when i corresponded with him.
You might be interested in my analysis of Geier & Geier (2004). Honestly, anything Mark Geier says about vaccination schedule changes and how they relate to the prevalence of autism should be taken with great skepticism.
Hi DoC,
Thanks for the kind words.
You said: “I’m open-minded to the idea, but scientific evidence is required. I also think Maria provides some very valid input in this respect, in that she is open-minded and in pursuit of additional knowledge, yet she also insists on valid science.”
Agreed. Just for the record (not that anyone is disputing this), I too am waiting for the scientific evidence. As I stated above, “I support legitimate peer-reviewed scientific research into the role – if any – of thimerosal in autism causation”. I should probably also add the word ‘replicable’ in case it is not implied.
I also agree with the “currently unknown†regarding etiology, as distinct from presentation. I have an opinion, which is that I believe that there are multiple paths to idiopathic autism, but at this point it is just that, an opinion. I do want the science to catch up and determine whether or the opinion is correct. I believe that this can happen without a corresponding move towards ‘prevention’, but I know that the view in this last sentence is not universally held.
David Andrews writes:
“I am trained to make this diagnosis.â€
This, not the DSM-IV, is the appeal to authority I was referring to. The issue is the interpretation of the statement at hand. Your training is not the issue. Neither are the letters behind your name, which if I remember correctly from Kev’s blog, you explicitly stated that you include so that people know your qualifications (which to me is also an implicit appeal to authority). Personally, I’m more interested in the content of peoples’ comments and their overall conduct than I am in their education (which is not meant as a judgment on yours).
Again, I stand by my point that it is possible for two people to have an autism diagnosis without a single ‘item’ (as distinct from criteria) in common. Technically this is correct. The meaning and importance of the items and criteria is a separate but obviously related issue. We can discuss whether someone with 3b “apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals†is displaying the same behavior as someone with 3c “sterotyped and repetitive motor mannerismsâ€. I’d agree that they are both demonstrating “restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activitiesâ€, but I’d suggest that they are significantly different behaviors that have been grouped into one ‘bucket’. And as a father with a child with 3c and not 3b, I am very happy that they are not the same behaviors. 3c is a communications vehicle for us, while 3b would introduce the possibility of significant routine and logistical issues that we (fortunately) do not have to deal with.
I would also suggest that the authors of the DSM-IV spent a considerable amount of time crafting the individual items within the categories rather than letting the categories (sorry, criteria) stand for themselves. The requirements for six items (including at least 2 items from 1 and at least one each from 2 and 3 – why not just 3 or 4 items overall and 1 from each?) suggests that while there may be ‘categories’ of behaviors, the authors recognized significant variations within them, as well as a need for a demonstrated level of ‘severity’ (sorry, not meaning to be pejorative, but I can’t think of a better word right now) as reflected by the fact that e.g. 2 items in ‘criteria’ 3 are different from 1 item in criteria 3, or that ‘severe’ 3c does not count for ‘more’ than mild 3a and 3b and an absence of 3c.
An interesting editorial I stumbled upon this morning:
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=051806E
Hi DoC
Thank you very much
MarÃa Luján
Ian,
I’ll deal with this when I have some time (this is not a cast off… I’m in the middle of my MEd thesis…) – so it is a very bust time for me… but I thank you for not being like one regular here whose hobby was to be a bastard concerning my training and qualifications. I am sincere in this.
I shall print it out, and answer on that first before I come back in here to do so.
I respect you enough to do this, and this is because you respect me enough to accept that I might just know what I’m talking about (or, at least, that’s the impression I get…. do correct me if I’m wrong).
Thank you for your patience….
Hi David,
That’s cool. And re: your impression, there’s nothing to correct.
Unlike Anne, who if I recall correctly, referred to this blog as Kev’s kitchen (kitchen party, anyone?) I have an image of it as ‘the Pub’, although sometimes I think it is in a rough part of town (no disrespect to the proprietor intended). I’ll just get Kev to pour me a pint while I wait… You’re buying 😉
David N. Andrews: but I thank you for not being like one regular here whose hobby was to be a bastard concerning my training and qualifications.
Hey Andrews, you callin’ me a bastard? 😉
!http://www.browncardigan.com/random/images/news/jonnyraces3.jpg!
!http://oregonstate.edu/research/Images/sinnh.jpg!
That’s clone3g there.
Look out for these guys, they hang around in this rough neighborhood. The first guy is carrying a concealed graphing calculator, armed and dangerous.
clone3g: “Hey Andrews, you callin’ me a bastard? ;-)”
Nah…. just some pisswit whose name should never sully this blog again….
Ms Clark: I guess maybe he learned on the rugby team that mercury is the second most toxic substance on earth, ‘cuz he didn’t learn that in any science class.
Venture capitalists are required to take classes in chemistry and toxicology these days. Haven’t you heard?
How could mercury possibly be the 2nd most toxic substance. Logically if it was it kill these ‘non-excretor’ babies rather than just cause autism.
Serious flaws in logic.
there is a form of mercury that it horrifically toxic, even so, “most toxic” depends on how you want to define “toxic” and if you want to include botulinum toxin, or serin and there are poisons like in fugu (pufferfish), that are more toxic per molecule as I understand it. Even so, botulinum toxin which is rated as the most toxic, as I understand it, by most people using some kind of general definition of “toxic” is used for medicine. Mercury can be used medicinally as can aresenic. All medicines are toxins. “Toxin” is in the dose.
The mercury parents make a big hairy deal out of the skull and crossbones on a bottle of pure thimerosal. Yeah, well, I wouldn’t drink a bottle of pure thimerosal. Who knows how many vaccines can be preserved with one little bottle of thimerosal?
I just bought a bottle of thimerosal-containing merthiolate. The concentration is 1:1000, if I remember right. I don’t have the bottle with me. Everyone had this stuff in their medicine cabinets when I was a kid. I poured some on my hand and rubbed it in. Didn’t even die. The red stain stayed there for a day or so, the red being mercury. I ate food with that hand, did all the usual hand stuff with that hand. Didn’t die. I touched my dog and my ASD child with that hand and they didn’t die, either. — Gosh. We must be good mercury excreters. I have plenty merthiolate left and some merthiolate ointment, too. Next time I get a cut, I’m going to put merthiolate on it. (gasp!!)
For comparison, some LD50 values (in mg/kg)
Phenobarbital 150
Thiomersal 45
Strychnine 2
Nicotine 1
Tetrodoxin 0.1
Dioxin(TCDD) 0.001
Botulinium toxin 0.00001
So TCV’s are safer than Botox and tobacco. The legal system has already extracted money from the tobacco merchants, will wrinkle treatments be next?
Quick, discredit this BRITISH Scientist before it’s too late!!
Heavy metals may be implicated in autism
27 May 2006
URINE samples from hundreds of French children have yielded evidence for a link between autism and exposure to heavy metals. If validated, the findings might mean some cases of autism could be treated with drugs that purge the body of heavy metals.
Samples from children with autism contained abnormally high levels of a family of proteins called porphyrins, which are precursors in the production of haem, the oxygen-carrying component in haemoglobin. Heavy metals block haem production, causing porphyrins to accumulate in urine. Concentrations of one molecule, coproporphyrin, were 2.6 times as high in urine from children with autism as in controls.
Autism is thought to have a number of unknown genetic and environmental causes. Richard Lathe of Pieta Research in Edinburgh, UK, says he has found one of these factors. “It’s highly likely that heavy metals are responsible for childhood autistic disorder in a majority of cases,” he claims. The study will appear in Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology.
Lathe says these porphyrin metabolites bind to receptors in the brain and have been linked with epilepsy and autism.
The researchers restored porphyrin concentrations to normal in 12 children by treating them with “chelation” drugs that mop up heavy metals and are then excreted. It is not yet known whether the children’s symptoms have eased, but Lathe cites anecdotal reports suggesting the drugs might do some good.
Note:
Richard Lathe is a molecular biologist and a former professor at the University of Strasbourg and Edinburgh University, where he worked for the Centre for Genome Research and the Centre for Neuroscience. Lathe is the primary inventor of the vaccine that eradicated rabies in France. Extension of this work included the development of vaccines against tumors including cervical and breast cancer.
In Autism, Brain, and Environment (2006, ISBN 1-84310-438-5), Lathe proposes that autism is largely a disorder of the limbic brain, balancing evidence that environmental factors may trigger autism with a recognition of genetic vulnerability. In his book, he analyzes biomedical evidence pertaining to the genetics, endocrinology, immunology, toxicology, virology, and neuroscience essential for understanding the causes of autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). Lathe contends that the autism epidemic and rise in ASDs has resulted from increased exposures to environmental toxics, combined with predisposition to genetic vulnerability. While nothing in his book contradicts research implicating genetic vulnerability as an underlying cause of ASDs, Lathe instead uses evidence showing autism is more prevalent in urban than rural areas to bolster his contention that pollution is a likely culprit as well. Lathe argues that most children on the autistic spectrum have additional physiological problems, and that these, rather than being separate from the psychiatric aspects of ASDs, can produce and worsen the condition. “I aim to show how genetics and environmental factors might come together,†he says.
Link for Brad’s story.
clone3g:
testy, testy. you’re always so hostile towards me, and the only person who has ever called me brad. posting anonymously really brings out the worst in you. Why don’t you just use a fake name, like “jim”?
i emphasize he is british because kevin is british.
i haven’t seen a copy of the study yet, guess that means a retraction and apology is warranted.
jb
“Samples from children with autism contained abnormally high levels of a family of proteins called porphyrins”
Sounds to me like they found differences in the levels of porphyrins, not heavy metals. From porphyrins they then make a connection to heavy metals. I don’t see how they go from correlation to causation here.
Diva wrote:
“The mercury parents make a big hairy deal out of the skull and crossbones on a bottle of pure thimerosal. Yeah, well, I wouldn’t drink a bottle of pure thimerosal. Who knows how many vaccines can be preserved with one little bottle of thimerosal?”
ATSDR says:
“Mercury’s harmful effects that may be passed from the mother to the fetus include brain damage, mental retardation, incoordination, blindness, seizures, and inability to speak. Children poisoned by mercury may develop problems of their nervous and digestive systems, and kidney damage.”
Diva, I think you should keep up this productive argument about mercury and its relative toxicity. Silly of us to think that a neuro-toxin and a neuro-developmental outcome (aka “autism”) might be related.
JB
Diva:
Just to continue your line of thinking here…
If, hypothetically, a “mom was exposed to a sufficient amount [of mercury] early in her pregnancy with a baby that would later be diagnosed with autism”
In this hypothetical situation where the mercury was early enough, the baby was diagnosed with autism, what do you think the parents of that child should do?
A. Accept that it’s too late, damage done, love thy child
B. Consider treating child to try to reverse the impact the presence of mercury may have caused on development
If you can accept that early maternal exposure COULD be a cause of autism, why is it so hard to consider that what we are doing in terms of treatment may be both rational and logical?
And, while I am on the topic, what do you make of the stories of recovery from biomedical intervention. Are they:
A. True and believable
B. Made up by the mercury militia
C. Parents confusing normal development for biomedical success
D. Children who must have been misdiagnosed and never had autism in the first place
Thoughts welcome,
Brad, a friend of Ashley’s
Ms. Clark:
While it is somewhat amusing to torment you, I must make you aware that I am not Ashleigh Anderson, never have been, she is not my sock puppet, not someone I have created, etc. Any actions, emails, discussion groups, etc. attributable to her are not me.
I have corresponded with Ashleigh but never met her.
So, please refrain from inferring that I am someone who I am not.
Thanks,
Brad (JB)
Ms. Clark:
I think the appropriate thing to say re: mercury:
“The second most toxic metal on earth.”
How’s that?
Everything of merit that I learned in life I learned from television, so there’s my answer to your question. While my answer may not be the one you are looking for, it appears I have satisfied your condition for a return reply, I look forward to any insight you may provide on the questions posed to you.
Trying to establish whether mercury is exceptionally, extremely, or really toxic seems like a bit of a time-waster, but, hey, you have a blog to fill.
JB
Mercury in Childhood Vaccines: What Did the Government Know?
WFAA-TV Dallas
It’s a question that has divided doctors, parents and government scientists for more than a decade: Do childhood vaccines or additives cause neurological damage?
Next month, a congressional committee will hear testimony on the subject. A California university has a huge government grant to research it.
And the possible link has been the focus of a three-month News 8 Investigation.
At the center of the investigation: a preservative put into many vaccines. It’s called thimerosal, and it’s made from mercury, the second most toxic metal known to man. Uranium is the most toxic. For years, thimerosal has been extremely controversial because there were alternatives to preventing vaccine contamination. And, questions remain about how pharmaceutical companies conduct vaccine research and how the government regulates those companies.
Centuries ago, the shimmering properties of mercury captivated the philosopher Aristotle, who called it “quicksilver” – and the name stuck.
If you can accept that early maternal exposure COULD be a cause of autism, why is it so hard to consider that what we are doing in terms of treatment may be both rational and logical?
It would be rational if valid test results confirm mercury toxicity. Consider JB Jr. who started chelating his kid without ever having tested for heavy metal toxicity. I don’t know if this is the norm among mercury parents, but I do know that they tend to use labs on the internet that are not reputable. When using these labs, I’d at least send a couple of unmarked control samples just to have some idea if the tests are valid.
Second, it’s not rational, given current knowledge, to equate autism with mercury toxicity. So while a kid may be mercury toxic for whatever reason, expecting chelation to cure autism is to have an unreasonable expectation.
I wonder why JB handley, if he believes thimerosal caused a huge increase in the prelalence of autism by thimerosal won’t comment on my previous post. Since then i have acquired data from the CDC that claims that DPT vaccination rates were morethan 76% in children ages 1 to 4 in the early 70s and if anything there was a downward trend that continued into the mid 1980s after the survey stopped. Also, the first Hib vaccine that was developed in the mid to late 1980s was not given to children younger than 18 months. Also, most of the Hib vaccines that were licensed never contained thimerosal, even the ones used in the 1990s. Therefore, the only thimerosal containing vaccination that was given to children less than 18 months of age prior to 1991 was DPT and vaccination rates did not go up and went down if anything. yet in birth year 1970 according to california data autism’s prevalence was 4/10,000. in 1986 birth year 9/10,000 and in 1990 12/10,000.
Also, we are asked where is the hidden horde of autistics born before the 1980s that was never found. Well my question is where is the hidden horde of all the huge amounts of children that must have contracted pertussis before the 1980s. Where are they? There should have been a corresponding decrease in pertussis of much greater magnitude than the autism increase. I wonder what JB or other anti-mercury proponent’s explaination is. What mark geier told me does not seem to be true.
JB,
Do you accept that a number of birth year cohorts in the U.S. received a extremely low dose of thimerosal per child? Some time in the future we should be able to see this effect in a graph of prevalence by birth year cohort, shouldn’t we?
I understand California is banning thimerosal altogether. What do you think should happen to the autism (3-5) caseload in California? Is it going to drop a little or is it going to drop to near zero? And when should the caseload start to decline? What is currently causing it to grow at a rate of 10% annually in your opinion?
“In this hypothetical situation where the mercury was early enough, the baby was diagnosed with autism, what do you think the parents of that child should do?
A. Accept that it’s too late, damage done, love thy child
B. Consider treating child to try to reverse the impact the presence of mercury may have caused on development”
If you can show that it was mercury exposure that caused and embryo to shift from potentially normal embryo to potentially autistic embryo, and you can show which mercury source it was, mercury is all around us all the time. Then the whole world should know that that particular kind of exposure to mercury can cause autism.
I guess the parents would have a right to sue if there was some kind of negligence. But the thing is, that moms have had massive mercury exposure in the Faroe and Seychelle Islands and there is no increase of autism at all. If you want to show thimerosal exposure at 3 weeks to 8 weeks of pregnancy causes autism, man, Brad, go for it. I don’t think you’ll find any correlation anywhere, but go for it.
Just don’t pronounce it as a fact until you have some data. Cart before horse, and all.
And don’t push urine injections or HBOT, or high dose vitamin A, or B12 injections or Low Dose Naltrexone or pretty rock necklaces, or exorcism, as a cure with NO peer reviewed evidence for their actually being cures.
There has been no autism epidemic, Mr Handley.
JB-
If an embryo is exposed to thalidomide at 27 to 31 days, arms and legs will be stunted. Exposure at 23 to 26 days, only the arms are affected. At days 20 to 24, autism can result. Do you believe then that exposure of a 6 month old infant to thalidomide will result in loss of arms and legs?
Please do a Pubmed search of methyl mercury and Iraq, and look at the data of children exposed to actual methyl mercury and treated with chelation. The doctors from U of Rochester reported that chelation with several chelators failed to reverse nerve damage that had already occurred. Bakir’s paper (Science, 181:230-241, 1973) is very good.
At age 2.5, my daughter lost most of her speech and became very withdrawn. At 5 she was diagnosed on the spectrum. Now at age 9, she still receives tutoring in writing, but participates in a regular classroom for all other subjects. She has never had biomedical treatments. Four years ago I first heard about the Hg hypothesis, and I reviewed the science with hope. It didn’t take long for this chemist/toxicologist to to be convinced the evidence was weak. I will get a copy of New Scientist and read the paper you alerted us to. If there is new, compelling evidence, I will change my mind. If not, not.
The recovered kids in the GR video look a lot like my non-chelated kid.
Diva:
I guess we’re kind of arguing the entire deal at once then, eh?
I’d love to keep this going, and I do appreciate your reply, and you also know that I disagree with most of what you say.
In my case, what I do believe is fully documented at generationrescue.org and putchildrenfirst.org
The beautiful thing about this argument is that we can’t both be right. One of us therefore MUST be wrong.
A. Autism is epidemic because it is caused by an external/environmental event and therefore treatable.
If A is true, you parents will end up feeling rather rotten for not having treated your children.
B. Autism has always been here. It’s just a genetic difference in brainwiring/being. You can’t treat it, you just accept it.
If B is true than the mercury militia like me will have unnecessarily scared parents out of vaccinating and helped push quackery that did nothing to help autistic kids.
I think measuring the rates of autism in unvaccinated children will move us closer to A or B, and it is our only focus for the next few months.
Diva, I respect your stubborness. And, I think you’re wrong.
Best,
JB
Click to access 4.6.pdf
Jon:
I believe this email exchange, between CDC and California, completely contradicts what you are saying.
Please review and respond, I welcome your input.
Email from Dales to Simpson: “Looks like a graph”
June 8, 2001
Email from Dr. Loring Dales, California Dept. of Health, to Dr. Diane Simpson, Deputy Director of NIP, CDC
Dr. Simpson’s communication with the State of California (where autism data is the best in the country) produced a stunning data set, and one quickly buried. The data provided here by Dr. Loring Dales from the California Dept of Health shows the relationship between the vaccination rates of DTP by second birthdays, and the number of autism cases in California. One of Dr. Simpson’s colleagues mentions “this looks like material for a graph.” The graph is created, page 3 of the email, and there is a clear, linear relationship between the increase in vaccination rates (from 50.9% to 75.7%) and the number of autism cases per year (from 176 to 1182, a 6.7x increase) between 1980-1994. Needless to say, California was not the source of additional follow-up.
Source: FOIA filing by parents.
The graph is created, page 3 of the email, and there is a clear, linear relationship between the increase in vaccination rates (from 50.9% to 75.7%) and the number of autism cases per year (from 176 to 1182, a 6.7x increase) between 1980-1994.
I’d like to see that graph if you have it. Is this correlation maintained after 1994? (I suggest that’s impossible given the numbers above, and given that the bulk the ‘epidemic’ occurred after 1994).
Any such correlations are meaningless, BTW. For example, let’s graph the number of microwave ovens (or computers, or cell phones) in some year range between 1980 and 1994. We might find that as the prevalence of autism increased, so did the number of such items.
“Any such correlations are meaningless, BTW. For example, let’s graph the number of microwave ovens (or computers, or cell phones) in some year range between 1980 and 1994. We might find that as the prevalence of autism increased, so did the number of such items.”
Joseph:
Then a study of the unvaccinated should provide the exact same rate of autism.
I know, you are going to try to perform some “psychology of parents who don’t vaccinate” argument, but over tens of thousands of kids, that shouldn’t hold any weight.
JB
i tried reading that email that supposedly took place between dales and simpson but i was getting a message my PDF reader was not reading it. There is certainly data from the CDC and from the california state department of health that i have stating that DPT vaccination rates were quite high in the early 70s well above 70%.
JB: Perhaps you could post the actual text of the e-mail from dales in this thread since my computer is unable to read the link you provided I would really like to read itAn additional comment that i would like to make is that although I was not able to read the letter that Dales allegedly wrote to that woman because my computer says that I will not read it. Your argument really makes no sense at all in that a less than 25% increase in vaccinationations during this time period would lead to a 6.7 fold increase in autism in that period (actually the 2003 california report shows the prevalence going from 5/10,000 in birth year 1980 to 25/10000 in birth year 1994 for only a 5 fold increase), so you are alleging that the less than 25% increase in vaccinations lead to about a 500% increase in autism especially given the fact that even if you claim the highest prevalance rates of autism at 1 in 166 and all of them were caused by thimerosal that means less than 1% of the population has this sensitivity to thimerosal. No, your data on putcihldren first is absolutely impossible even if those vaccination rate increases are correct (which my sources from CDC and California department of health tell me they aren’t) that there is no way that such a small increase in vaccination would lead to such a huge magnitude of increase in autism. Also, from most of the web sites i have seen on pertussis, the incidence of pertussis has been quite low in the early 70s and if anything pertussis has been on the rise since the early 80s’, I suggest that SAFE MINDS and generation rescue find that “hidden horde” of pertussis cases.
New question, Mr. Handley: What percentage of autistic kids actually regress and what percentage of those kids have diarrhea almost all the time, or more frequently than typical kids have diarrhea, and what part does stress have to do with it? Citations of peer reviewed literature will be appreciated.
Tim Buie says it’s all about discacharidases or something, not measles and not mercury. Sounds a lot like lactose interolerance (caused by not enough lactase), lactose intolerance causes all kinds of gut pain, gas, and diarrhea, I can explain it to you if you want. I suppose that if a kid was constantly fed milk when he had lactose intolerance he might get damage to his intestines. I wonder.
Any takers from scientists on your phone poll so far Mr. Handley? I hope you will fund another one that just looks into early prenatal exposure of drugs and metals and stuff like PCBs.
The beautiful thing about this argument is that we can’t both be right. One of us therefore MUST be wrong.
A. Autism is epidemic because it is caused by an external/environmental event and therefore treatable.
If A is true, you parents will end up feeling rather rotten for not having treated your children.
B. Autism has always been here. It’s just a genetic difference in brainwiring/being. You can’t treat it, you just accept it.
If B is true than the mercury militia like me will have unnecessarily scared parents out of vaccinating and helped push quackery that did nothing to help autistic kids.
There are more options than A and B. Multiple causes, for example. Certainly, some causes of autism are already known – all, incidentally, are genetic.
The argument is weak in general. For example, the cure might be something you are not trying (and let’s face it, it’s unlikely you happened to nail it).
Finally, it’s possible to turn the argument around. When your kid very likely joins us in the future, I don’t think he’ll be proud to have a prominent curebie dad. And I don’t think he’ll appreciate having treatments tried on him whose effectiveness and safety is unknown.
in case anyone is interested i posted data from the california state department of health on my webpage at:
http://www.jonathans-stories.com/journal
They show very high DPT immunization rates in california in the early 1970s. I anxiously await JB Handley’s documentation of his data.
Joseph:
“When your kid very likely joins us in the future, I don’t think he’ll be proud to have a prominent curebie dad. And I don’t think he’ll appreciate having treatments tried on him whose effectiveness and safety is unknown.”
Hmmm..them’s almost fightin’ words, but I’ll keep it cool.
There are 3 boys in the elementary school I hope Jamie will attend. They have all lost their label, their diagnosis, and they receive no help in school. They are social, verbal, NT by all appearances I could discern, and I have a decent eye. One of them does playdates with my older, very NT son.
They were all diagnoised autistic, all three. All three have had their labels removed. They were all treated by a local DAN Doctor, and their parents attribute their recoveries to biomedical intervention.
I think they are quite proud to be living normal lives without the need for aides or assistance.
That’s who, in the future, I expect my son to be. I think suppositioning about how my son may feel about me someday is something you are not in a particularly good position to do.
Brad
Then a study of the unvaccinated should provide the exact same rate of autism.
I do hope you include additional questions, as I suggested. They could be:
* What is the occupation of the head of household?
* Was _____ ever homeschooled?
* Did a health care professional ever evaluate the development of _____?
* Do you own a DVD player? (Or some other socio-economics question).
Note that it’s on the record that additional questions were suggested.
I’d be very interested in the results, BTW. I think the CDC should mirror this survey, and compare notes with you.
There are 3 boys in the elementary school I hope Jamie will attend. They have all lost their label, their diagnosis, and they receive no help in school. They are social, verbal, NT by all appearances I could discern, and I have a decent eye. One of them does playdates with my older, very NT son. They were all diagnoised autistic, all three. All three have had their labels removed. They were all treated by a local DAN Doctor, and their parents attribute their recoveries to biomedical intervention.
It’s funny. When the kids of biomed parents grow out of their autism, it’s called a “cure”. When the kids of non-biomed parents grow out of their autism, it’s really not called anything – like Ruth’s kid some messages back.
“Recovered” autistic kids these days seem to be fairly common. I think this is a testament to how autism is diagnosed left and right these days. In the 2020s they will have to redo studies on outcome – because kids labeled autistic today are not labeled for the same reasons kids in the 1970s were labeled autistic.
And they will find that the outcome of autistics has changed. Most will be like me or Camille or Abfh; some might even be like Dan Aykroyd, Bill Gates or Stephen Spielberg. And many will have lost their diagnosis (many more than 15%).
Unfortunately, there are significant cofounding factors to consider. Kids today are being pumped full of vitamins, chelators and things of this nature. They are enrolled in various therapies of dubious value. Their self-esteem is being attacked with labels such as “brain disordered”, “train wreck”, “devastating”, and so on.
Joseph:
You have developed a “closed-loop” argument:
– If the kids gets better on biomed, it was due to natural course, misdiagnosis, etc.
I think you don’t give our side enough credit. I think if you were in a house where you were witnessing daily and clear cause and effect relationships between biomedical intervention and improvement in your child, you may feel differently.
You make “pumped full of vitamins” sound like torture. Sure beats “pumped full of bad food” or many other things we give our kids, no?
My son used to wake up 12-15 times a night.
Within a week of treating his gut and giving him proper minerals and amino acids, he was sleeping through the night.
Today, he goes down at 8 and gets up at 7.
That wasn’t coincidence due to natural development, and that’s only one of dozens of examples.
You guys here caricature what we’re doing so you can dismiss it all as quackery. You forget that many of the biomed parents have been to dozens of doctors, researched things to death, and watch everything we do with our kids carefully. Many have medical backgrounds, many are exceptionally bright, and many are seeing unbelievable results with their kids – we hear from dozens of them every day.
You can close your ears and rev yoursleves up with some nonsense about “urine injections”, but our kids are getting better.
And, Diva, I see how disappointing it is for you when I’m not saying things confrontationally. You guys really are the pot calling the kettle black, I’ve been amazed how abusive the anonymous posters are willing to be, and I’m certainly willing to return the favor.
Sorry, I really have lost my interest in fighting with other parents. I save most of my venom for the CDC.
JB/brad, same dude
I think you don’t give our side enough credit.
The reason we don’t give your side credit is simply that your side has not demonstrated that a single treatment is beneficial, with few side-effects.
I think if you were in a house where you were witnessing daily and clear cause and effect relationships between biomedical intervention and improvement in your child, you may feel differently.
You must not be familiar with placebo-controlled studies involving Secretin. For example, Sandler (1999) found that kids improved more on placebo than on Secretin. Despite this, 69% of the parents remained interested in Secretin as a treatment for their children. Coplan (2003) found that placebo is indistinguishable from Secretin. Yet, 77% of the families reported the treatment was beneficial.
You make “pumped full of vitamins†sound like torture. Sure beats “pumped full of bad food†or many other things we give our kids, no?
Yes, nutrition is important. But vitamins are drugs. They should not be just given like they are pop corn based on the “medical” advice from quacks and charlatans.
My son used to wake up 12-15 times a night. Within a week of treating his gut and giving him proper minerals and amino acids, he was sleeping through the night. Today, he goes down at 8 and gets up at 7. That wasn’t coincidence due to natural development, and that’s only one of dozens of examples.
It sounds like the kid had a gut/sleep disorder, which you may or may not have treated successfully. I believe we’re discussing autism here.
Too much niacin can cause peripheral neuropathy, which is also one of the first signs of real methyl mercury poisoning. Some DAN doctors have given toxic levels of vitamin A, so kids had to be treated for liver damage. Just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s safe at any dose.
Why did the Rochester group have such poor luck in treating the kids exposed to methyl mercury with chelation months after the exposure, when you claim such good results in chelating years after? Maybe real mercury poisoning doesn’t respond well to the placebo effect.
My daughter started improving when we focused on what she did well and stopped nagging her for stuff that didn’t matter. We were lucky that the autism label came later (age 5). She was diagnosed first with ADHD. Behavior mod is a very positive option that doesn’t treat her as a defective thing in need of repair. OT was a great help as well as a great speech therapist. My sofa needs recovering, not my kids.
Joseph:
It seems to me we both have a lot of conviction, and I doubt our interaction has moved either of us one inch closer to the other.
The science must happen. I hope you’ll watch Dateline on Sunday, June 4th. I know they will cover Dr. Adams double-blind control of Oral DMSA in Arizona.
I also believe he’s discussing preliminary results at Autism One. I have no idea what the results are, I hope we all listen closely.
Click to access BHInterview.pdf
This link is Professor Haley talking about the recent study of the French children.
In an email to me, Kevin Leitch said:
“By her own friends (and Erik’s) statements we can see that she was heavily invested in the Biomed circus. When her daughter didn’t improve at a speed to suit her (or at all) she killed her.”
And, Mr. Anonymous noted:
“A courteous jacka$$ is still a jacka$$.”
I’m not sure either side is winning any points in the courteous department, and I’m not sure Kevin’s comments are the sign of tolerance.
I respect those of you like Joseph, Diva, Kevin, who post in their own name.
Having taken my pulse on the utility of spending time posting here, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s doing nothing for my son, and I’ve done nothing to change the minds of any of you.
I’m out, you hearty bloggers, I’m sure few tears will be shed.
Brad
written in 2004:
“Today, my 2-year-old son has more than 100 words, he makes eye contact, he’s completely in this world, he has no behavioral issues, he appears NORMAL. Four months later he does all this!!! Why? How? Quite simple: we are removing the Mercury.”
Anyone care to guess who wrote this?
(sniff, blows nose, wipes tear)
That’s ok, I’m sure Ashleigh will be able to pop in here and blast us all with “her” special brand of vitriol.
I can’t wait to see what kind of damage Dateline does. How many people will die as a result of their pushing chelation? How many dollars will be wasted in Buttar’s office and how many urine injections will be people end up getting for their children just to see if they help, once they are they are there, they might as well have a side order of urine injections, just in case.
How many will end up with kids damaged by Lupron and chelation? Dateline doesn’t care if they cause deaths of autistic children, no one cares about deaths of autistic children. Dateline has a job, bring in viewers. If they trash chelation, it will be because it was good to bring in viewers.
A producer’s office is not where scientific questions are resolved.
We should have a chelation blogging day. Perhaps Google will index before Dateline happens.
What’s the word on this?
“US scientists back autism link to MMR”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/28/wmmr28.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/28/ixnews.html