“It’s understood that Hollywood sells Californication”
~ Red Hot Chilli Peppers
In this section I want to look at Kirby’s presentation regarding what he terms as the first of seven skeptical rebuttals to the autism/thiomersal hypothesis. He says that skeptics say:
Hmm. Not really. I think most people are agreed that autism is a ‘mix’ of genes and environment. However, this is a popular and recurring strawman from the anti-thiomersal hypothesisers – that thiomersal and environment are interchangeable. They’re not. Maybe ice cream is the environmental trigger for autism. What science _is_ pretty sure about however, is that thiomersal (i.e. one _possible_ environmental ‘trigger’) is _not_ in the frame. So straight away we can see the Kirby is proceeding from a misleading position. If his argument is so strong, why does he feel the need to do this I wonder?
However, the point Kirby is (misleadingly) making is to try and push the idea of there having been an epidemic. Lets see how he does this.
(A lot of the next section has been amply covered by Mike – I won’t repeat his work)
NB: The years Kirby refers to here are between 1988 – 1992.
Guess what else happened around that time?
In 1987, one year before the time period Kirby is talking about, the DSM (III-R) was published. This was a revision to the previously published (1980) DSM (III). Here’s what the DSM (III) criteria was for what it called ‘Diagnostic criteria for Infantile Autism’- this is in full by the way:
A. Onset before 30 months of age
B. Pervasive lack of responsiveness to other people (autism)
C. Gross deficits in language development
D. If speech is present, peculiar speech patterns such as immediate and delayed echolalia, metaphorical language, pronominal reversal.
E. Bizarre responses to various aspects of the environment, e.g., resistance to change, peculiar interest in or attachments to animate or inanimate objects.
F. Absence of delusions, hallucinations, loosening of associations, and incoherence as in Schizophrenia.
So that is the sole and only reference for autism in 1980. Next up, this is the 1987 revision – DSM (III-R):
Diagnostic Criteria for Autistic Disorder
At least eight of the following sixteen items are present, these to include at least two items from A, one from B, and one from C.
A. Qualitative impairment in reciprocal social interaction (the examples within parentheses are arranged so that those first listed are more likely to apply to younger or more disabled, and the later ones, to older or less disabled) as manifested by the following:
1.Marked lack of awareness of the existence or feelings of others (for example, treats a person as if that person were a piece of furniture; does not notice another person’s distress; apparently has no concept of the need of others for privacy);
2. No or abnormal seeking of comfort at times of distress (for example, does not come for comfort even when ill, hurt, or tired; seeks comfort in a stereotyped way, for example, says “cheese, cheese, cheese” whenever hurt);
3. No or impaired imitation (for example, does not wave bye-bye; does not copy parent’s domestic activities; mechanical imitation of others’ actions out of context);
4. No or abnormal social play (for example, does not actively participate in simple games; refers solitary play activities; involves other children in play only as mechanical aids); and
5. Gross impairment in ability to make peer friendships (for example, no interest in making peer friendships despite interest in making fiends, demonstrates lack of understanding of conventions of social interaction, for example, reads phone book to uninterested peer.
B. Qualitative impairment in verbal and nonverbal communication and in imaginative activity, (the numbered items are arranged so that those first listed are more likely to apply to younger or more disabled, and the later ones, to older or less disabled) as manifested by the following:
1. No mode of communication, such as: communicative babbling, facial expression, gesture, mime, or spoken language;
2. Markedly abnormal nonverbal communication, as in the use of eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, or gestures to initiate or modulate social interaction (for example, does not anticipate being held, stiffens when held, does not look at the person or smile when making a social approach, does not greet parents or visitors, has a fixed stare in social situations);
3. Absence of imaginative activity, such as play-acting of adult roles, fantasy character or animals; lack of interest in stories about imaginary events;
4. Marked abnormalities in the production of speech, including volume, pitch, stress, rate, rhythm, and intonation (for example, monotonous tone, question-like melody, or high pitch);
5. Marked abnormalities in the form or content of speech, including stereotyped and repetitive use of speech (for example, immediate echolalia or mechanical repetition of a television commercial); use of “you” when “I” is meant (for example, using “You want cookie?” to mean “I want a cookie”); idiosyncratic use of words or phrases (for example, “Go on green riding” to mean “I want to go on the swing”); or frequent irrelevant remarks (for example, starts talking about train schedules during a conversation about ports); and
6. Marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others, despite adequate speech (for example, indulging in lengthy monologues on one subject regardless of interjections from others);
C. Markedly restricted repertoire of activities and interests as manifested by the following:
1. Stereotyped body movements (for example, hand flicking or twisting, spinning, head-banging, complex whole-body movements);
2. Persistent preoccupation with parts of objects (for example, sniffing or smelling objects, repetitive feeling of texture of materials, spinning wheels of toy cars) or attachment to unusual objects (for example, insists on carrying around a piece of string);
3. Marked distress over changes in trivial aspects of environment (for example, when a vase is moved from usual position);
4. Unreasonable insistence on following routines in precise detail (for example, insisting that exactly the same route always be followed when shopping);
5. Markedly restricted range of interests and a preoccupation with one narrow interest, e.g., interested only in lining up objects, in amassing facts about meteorology, or in pretending to be a fantasy character.
D. Onset during infancy or early childhood
Specify if childhood onset (after 36 months of age)
Slight difference huh? Of key importance – in 1980 we only had ‘infantile autism’. In 1987, we had ‘autistic disorder’.
The DSM (III-R) is a quantum leap in diagnostic precision (far from perfect of course and as we all know the DSM (IV) came along in 1994 and the DSM (IV-R) came along in 2000) but surely it is blindingly obvious what a massively more accurate and precise set of criteria must mean – better recognition. More diagnosis.
Now Kirby says that this increase ties in to the ‘spike in mercury in vaccines’ over the same time period. Could be. But lets _also_ not forget that – as Kirby says in this debate – you need clinical science to support a clinical idea such as thiomersal causing autism.
Nine years now and there is _not one_ paper that even suggests that the symptoms of autism can be attributed to thiomersal (or MMR, or both together come to that). Nine years. In terms of science this hypothesis has four papers that might be considered of publishable quality. One shows that if you take a strain of mice known for aggressiveness and severely overdose them with thiomersal then they get more aggressive. Another shows that if you take a control group high in mercury levels and compare them with new born babies then the babies will look like poor excretors of mercury. The third shows that ethyl mercury and methyl mercury cannot be used to represent each other. The last one shows that thimerosal might cause methionine synthase dysfunction (MSD) – a condition that bears no resemblance to autism.
So here we are with the thiomersal hypothesis resting squarely and solely on epidemiology. Once upon a time, Kirby said CDDS epidemiology was ‘the gold standard’ – now he says its not enough. However, make no mistake. Epidemiology is all this hypothesis has.
So what is the state of this epidemiology? Is it of good quality? Well, no. As Mike has shown (see link above) Kirby’s presentation numbers are awful. As I have shown, his opinion of CDDS fluctuates depending on whether the numbers work for him or not and as Jospeh has shown, his new source is equally as badly reported on as his initial take on CDDS was.
Another example of the epidemiology not only not working for Kirby but being actively manipulated is this:
Have a close look at that graph. Remember in the previous slide Kirby said that the biggest increase in thiomersal was between 1988 and 1992. Take a close look at the dates in _this_ slide. They start in 1993. That’s pretty misleading Mr Kirby. Tut-tut-tut.
Also in this slide I want you to notice that according to this data that Kirby is using, the numbers are continuing to climb in 2001, 2002 and 2003. However, we know from a recently discovered CDC set of meeting minutes that according to a survey, in September 2001, only 5.6%1 of _all vaccines_ contained thiomersal. By Feb 2002, only 1.9% of _all vaccines_ contained thiomersal.
So apparently, Mr Kirby is happy to use data from two sources that shows an increasing amount of autism. CDDS and IDEA data. Both show climbing autism against a backdrop of miniscule amounts of mercury in the general population.
Danger, Will Robinson. Does not compute.
(More Californication to come soon….stay tuned…)
Left Brain Right Brain 
I have not watched the video yet – have to lay in a supply of Imodium first – but what got me was one of your clips from an earlier post where Kirby is saying that epidemiology and biology are equally important and valid ways of answering the question of whether thimerosal was associated with autism.
They’re not! He’s just MAKING THAT UP! I have half a mind to offer to debate him myself, but doubt it would provide the media coverage he requires.
Kirby is in quicksand here, digging himself in deeper the more he flails. I have the delicious feeling that this is all going to come to a denouement in the next six months.
Excellent, Kevin. Wonderful deconstruction of Kirby’s argument.
Pity he never thought to run such a check on it himself…
But then… we’d have lost out on getting to laugh at him! 😉
Hornig’s study showed that if you chronically overdose mercury sensitive autoimmune disease prone mice with thimerosal and take a set of measurements meant to show something like autism in mice, that the thimerosal dosed mice don’t become “autistic like.”
Mady Hornig had several things she was looking at, like how adventurous the mice were in a sort of mouse play-ground thing, how often did they do certain motions repeatedly, and how coordinated they were. The mice did NOT meet her pre-set criteria for “autism” and when she cut open the brains of three of them she found changes, but they were NOT of the sorts of changes you might compare to an autistic brain (all of this is pretty silly if you can’t imagine an autistic mouse).
So Hornig et al published the findings and spun them in the abstract and introduction (as I rememember) so that it sounded like she had found something interesting, but there’s no THERE THERE in the data.
Having produced nothing of use for her little pals at SAFE MINDS (who funded it along with the MIND institute) she then kept the SJL-J mice who are not only autoimmune disease sensitive but are one of the strains that are prone to being violent and are known to kill their cage mates if males are kept together past as certain age… the females of breeding age are known to bite their own wounds, too.
So, apparently, Dr. Hornig and perhaps a few colleagues, kept the SJL-J mice in cages together past the time they were supposed to be separated and when they started to kill she or another person video taped the killing and also videotaped some self-destructive chewing on feet or tails… which might have been a result of the overdose of mercury causing them to have peripheral nerve pain…
So, she didn’t pick the SJL-J mice because they were violent, to begin with, most likely, it was just a happy coincidence that she could set them up to be killers and video tape it and turn that into something like this- ‘Hey these are autistic mice!” “See how they mindlessly chew (groom) through their cagemates skulls? See how they repeatedly harm themselves with self-grooming…. THAT’S JUST WHAT AUTISTIC KIDS DO!” Or as David Kirby wrote, “Everyone in the audience grimmaced in dark recognition…” that what the mice did was just like what their autistic kids did.
“However, we know from a recently discovered CDC set of meeting minutes that according to a survey, in September 2001, only 5.6% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. By Feb 2002, only 1.9% of all vaccines contained thiomersal.”
I checked that document and I was wondering if you could clear up an inconsistancy?
Copied from the report (P51):
“The decline in thimeresol-containing vaccines went from 5.6 percent to 1.9%, from 33,500 doses out of 63,600; to 2,796 doses out of 149,147.”
Not saying there is any grand conspiracy, I just can’t figure out where the 5.6% came from…the number was more 52.6% if I do the division…
Bill
Camille,
If she had kept non-thimerosal vaccinated SJL-J mice together for that length of time, they would likely have groomed though each other’s skulls too, no?
How is this any kind of reasonable study?
If the quantities on page 51 are to be believed, then no doubt, definite decimal deficiency demonstrated. The question is who has that deficiency – the person who transcribed the notes at the meeting? The history of how that document came to be might illuminate, ie was it hand-transcribed by a private citizen who posted the pdf to the net or is this file directly from the government?
This is why I think government documents really ought to be pushed online asap, because many people eying the text will be more effective in spotting a problem. Had it been combed through better, then an errata section could have been appended (maybe it has?).
Your presentation is great, Kev. If this drop is from ~50% down to 1.9%, it demonstrates that Kirby’s slide are even more inaccurate than originally thought.
Nice work integrating changes in the DSM with the way Kirby changes the data (and now, it seems his story—from mercury in the shots to mercury in the environment) to suit his argument.
Bill: I noticed the seeming numerical error too. I think it’s more likely that the 33,500 figure should have been 3,350, which would yield 5.27%. Only DTaP, Hib, and HepB ever had thimerosal in them, and the removal process had started well before the survey commenced, so I doubt half of all vaccines contained thimerosal by late 2001.
BC: I get the feeling the document was produced by a transcriptionist hired by ACIP (the committee whose meeting it was).
Jennifer, Apparently males of this mouse strain will attack each other, no matter what they get or don’t get. Thimerosal has nothing to do with it. I don’t know if they typical chew through each other’s skulls or if they usually do something else. I guess I could contact the mouse supplier and ask what they know about this skull chewing thing.
I just read the paper again, it includes behavioral observations of the mice up to 24 weeks. And the aggression was supposed to have happenen by 24 weeks (6 months)… but it’s not described anywhere in the paper.
This is from a ppt slide from Jeff Sell’s website. Jeff Sell is on the board of directors of ASA and sent that cranky email out to local ASA group directors or something lambasting Dr. Grinker’s book…
He’s a vaccine litigation lawyer.
“Hornig used one mouse strain with genetic Hg sensitivity and
autoimmunity and two strains without them, then replicated the
immunization schedule using thimerosal-containing vaccines.
…
• 40 percent of sensitive mice were “self-mutilatory”at six months, ie, frantically grooming or biting tails.
• One mouse groomed through partner’s skull.”
She had a total of 55 SJL-J mice that were exposed to thimerosal. It looks like some of the tests were just done on 30 of the SJl-J thimerosal exposed mice.
So she kept some mice until 6 months and at some point they became “self-mutilatory” and someone was waiting there with a video camera to catch it on tape… She had euthanized 3 of the thimerosal exposed SJL-J mice at 5 weeks in order to slice up their brains and look at them. I don’t know how many were still around at the end of the 6 months, but it look like a bunch (mayb 52 were) and out of that bunch 1 chewed through it’s cage mate’s skull.
I can’t remember if she says how old the mouse was who “groomed through” it’s partner’s skull, but it seems like it happened during the 6 months of the experiment, but it wasn’t reported in the paper. What I do remember is she refers to the mouse that “groomed through *his* partner’s skull” as a male, and since the “partner” was a “partner” and not a “mate” as would be implied if it was a female, then I have to conclude that they were 2 males left together far beyond the time period they were supposed to be housed together (6 weeks).
Basically, it looks like she blew off the protocol for the treatment of these animals and did what she pleased in order to manufacture “evidence” that thimerosal makes mice autistic.
According to UC Davis, they replicated Dr. Hornig’s thimerosal experiment. I asked the researcher who conducted that experiment if the animals had self mutliated or attacked each other. They did not.
I have the name of the scientist who replicated it, if someone wants to ask him.
Which tells me that Mady Hornig did something fishy, like leaving the males together deliberately to catch their violent/gorey “autistic behavior” on tape… which would tell me that she knew for a fact that her experiment showed nothing that could be used to support her friends at SAFE MINDS or their legal case against vaccine manufacturers or the gov’t and she knew she would need something big to present to the IOM and she did, she presented film of the mice self-mutilating and killing… Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, she was so calm as she described their behavior… you can see it on video, and it’s described in the slimey book by the slippery DK.
_”Not saying there is any grand conspiracy, I just can’t figure out where the 5.6% came from…the number was more 52.6% if I do the division…”_
Good spot Bill. Fascinating. I guess I hope for Kirby’s sake that the error was with the data not the percentage. The drop from 50+% to 2% would be even less forgiveable….but we don’t know that so I guess I’d better note this in the piece.
Since the thimeresol free vaccinnes were licensed between Aug of 1999 through March of 2001, I’m not sure how long it takes to manufacture, distribute and bring down levels of inventory. I’m also not clear on the shelf life of TCV’s, but it could be reasonable that the 52.6% was correct, considering their March 2002 deadline to be thimeresol free. Corporations are notoriously effecient at targeting dates and meeting them with maximum use of existing stock.
Still I wonder about the combinations of TCV’s in both mother and infant and live viruses and what their impact on a very immature immune system might be. Not all, but some…
Another interesting stat from that survey:
Of the 447 interviews, 83.5 percent reported no thimerosal-containing vaccines in stock at any time since October 2001.
As for shelf life:
Rain Man came out in 1988. The fact that it was made probably reflects something, and once it came out it must have had some cultural impact.
Criteria changes can certainly raise the prevalence ceiling, and the changes themselves probably result in some additional awareness, but the cultural changes that actually drive increasing recognition are most important in my opinion. There’s probably a reason other than criteria why Oklahoma, as of 2005, has an administrative prevalence of autism of only 4 in 10,000. It was 2 in 10,000 in 2004.
Re: “Remember in the previous slide Kirby said that the biggest increase in thiomersal was between 1988 and 1992.”
This seems to contradict Mark Blaxill and Geier & Geier. I believe there’s a big factual mistake in Kirby’s claim.
That 447 was the Feb 2002 group that the received the 1.9% figure, so we can extrapolate that the major ‘push’ of the thimeresol free vaccines was occurring in Sept 01 through Feb 02 with the major rush occurring in Sept/Oct, take the 5 month shelf life and that ties in roughly to their target date of March 2002. That is, if we take the 52.6% as the figure. It certainly demystifies the myth of major stockpiles of TCV’s after 2002. It makes logical sense from the business standpoint too…
_”I have the name of the scientist who replicated it, if someone wants to ask him.”_
Yes please :o)
The scientist’s name is Rob Berman, he’s with the Center for Neuroscience at UCD.
Personally, I think the mice were paid to behave erratically.
As far as stockpiling vaccines, the trend in manufacturing for several years now has been “lean manufacturing”. That is you don’t stockpile anything. If you are making a widget and it takes 6 parts to make the widget, and your buyers are buying 10 widgets a week, you get the 60 parts delivered once a week, assemble them into the 10 widgets and get them into the hands of buyers, ASAP. You don’t think, “well I’ll stockpile the parts and assume that the market will be 10 widgets a week and I’ll make 500 widgets ahead of time and store them, just in case.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing
I don’t see why vaccine manufacture would be any different, except they need a whole ton of vaccine seasonally, and they might need to stockpile it until that season came but still they would make what they expected to be used very quickly, not that it would sit on a shelf anywhere for more than a month or two. Just because the stuff COULD sit on a shelf for some time doesn’t mean that it WOULD.
I keep picturing the antivax lawyers discussing how to spin this information to make it look the most damning, then calling up Kirby and telling him how it goes. “Tell them that the HMO’s in California have vast refrigerated warehouses in the most polluted section of Tijuana where they have a decades worth of mercury loaded vaccine sitting there… yeah… that’s the ticket!”
I’m really getting tired of people pretending that they know immunology better than an MD. This “overloading” their tiny systems thing is bunk. We are surrounded by nasty germs, they are EVERYWHERE. A few years ago I remember someone cultured the germs found on a fliter for an airconditioner or swamp cooler or something… it had gobs of scary stuff including the bacteria that causes leprosy growing on it. We are eating germs all the time and breathing them into our lungs, rubbing them into our eyes, they get into our bodies through cuts….
Most vaccines don’t have “viruses” in them they have parts of dead viruses in them. An inactive virus is not a virus. People would rather their kid have a quantillion gajillion measles viruses in their kid from a real measles infection than let the kid get a miniscule amount of the weakened live measles virus… oh but wait, there are those horrific ajuvants!!!
We eat aluminum all the time. It’s in most baking powder, so it’s in most cookies and crackers and cakes. It’s in all kinds of products, a tiny bit more isn’t going to make any difference is it? It’s there to make up for the fact that there is so little germ in the injection, as I understand it.
People with HIV who really are immune compromised get vaccines to protect them from all the germy unvaxed surrounding them, don’t they? I guess they wouldn’t if they thought that the CDC was part of a conspiracy to give gays HIV through the Hep B vaccine… but that’s a different conspiracy.
Mr. Deer,
They could have used ABA to train the SJL-J thimerosal exposed mice to behave erratically… little electric shocks for every nose poke and an m&m for every Z plane sterotypy. (You have to read the Hornig paper if that doesn’t make sense.) But the mice didn’t really have any significantly different behaviors. My favorite is the ‘rotarod” test, they put the mouse on a rotating rod to see if it will fall off. http://www.teoloyucan.com/imagenes_farmacologia/rotarod.JPG The thimerosal overdosed mercury sensistive mice did just as well as the others in this test. I’m guessing Dr. Hornig thought they’d have autistic-like coordination problems.
There was a shortage of vaccines in the USA in 2001/2002
1. the FDA introduced more regs to govern manufacture that cost the drug companies a small fortune and interfered with production.
2. They introduced the ban on thimerosal which meant the drug companies had to retool poduction.
3. Wyeth deided enough was enough and quit the vaccine market.
Less kids were vaccinated during the shortage years. Even if every vaccine contained thimerosal, less kids got it in those years and from 2003 no kids got it because the new thimerosal free vaccines were all that were being produced.
Ms. Clarke
It all comes back to whether one believes or not whether there are factors outside of genetics which may cause certain types of autism, doesn’t it? Since nothing has been proven either way, I tend to BELIEVE that there are outside carcinogens, whether it be vaccines, pollution, viruses or whatever in either the child’s or the mother’s past that COULD be a factor.
I did not intend to berate the fine education of MD’s (who incidently ALSO do not have a clue as to what causes autism); I do not pretend to know any more (or, in the case of autism, any LESS) than our fine medical community about anything to do with immunology. It’s just one of my pet ‘causations’ to blame vaccines since we had regression in my daughter soon after some vaccines.
I simply want to know IF there is an outside influence causing some of the autism, and if there is, what can we do to prevent it. You may think it is a fruitless search, I do not. Let’s move past all these idiots like Kirby throwing darts at the board and get on with some REAL research…
livsparents,
I actually believe that it is plausible that environmental factors play a role in the development of autism. I tend to think (simply based on what we know about the brain) that it is far more plausible that any environmental insult is pre-natal rather than post-natal. I base this on the fact that mothers who have rubella in the first trimester of their pregnancy are substantially more likely to have children that are autistic.
Kev
I do not agree that “The DSM (III-R) is a quantum leap in diagnostic precision.”
DSM III was very precise or specific in the epidemiological sense. The problem was that it was not very sensitive. It was virtually guaranteed to pick up all the Kanners autism but would miss a lot of other people on the broader autistic spectrum and all of the asperger types.
DSM III(R) tried to correct that and probably went too far the other way. It was highly sensitive but not very specific. DSM IV was an attempt to correct this and also added Asperger to the list of diagnoses.
I think that DSM IV probably picks up the majority of autism spectrum cases. Where it falls down is that its attempts at differenial diagnoses for autism, PDD-NOS and Aspergers are laughable.
This is partly because such distinctions are not well founded in clinical science.
But your general point that there was a sea change in the diagnois of autism after 1987 is well founded. DSM III(R) broadened the criteria for autism considerably and DSM-IV(1994) admitted able autistic people for the first time.
Very good point Mike. I think on reflection I like your;
_”highly sensitive but not very specific”_
“I think most people are agreed that autism is a ‘mix’ of genes and environment.”
Kev:
I think that statement is the first one you have written that I agree with.
In the case of your own experience with your daughter, what’s your best guess as to what the environment did to cause her autism? Or, heck, just give me a top 5 culprits. What do you think?
M.D.
No idea. None at all.
Bill,
You must forgive me for being pedantic, really you must, but you mean teratogen, I think, not carcinogen. Carcinogens cause cancer, teratogens cause birth-defects. Like, thalidomide is a teratogen and rubella is a teratogen.
Believe me, I can not imaging that scientists are going to stop looking for what causes autism. I am not sure they’ll figure what other teratogens besides alcohol, rubella, thalidomide, valproic acid and maybe terbutaline, but they might.
The thing people really don’t get is that it’s not just “genes” that make a genetic defect, it’s genes and epigenetic effects which can include things that the parents’ parents’ ate, or were exposed to. So far the epigenome hasn’t been mapped, but maybe it will be. Also, the way genes and gener products (hormones, etc.) interact with each other after the baby starts to grow is partly random. So identical twins can have similar but different brains, without invoking a nefarious chemical as the cause of the difference.
The way the brains grow is somewhat random, just like identical twins have different fingerprints. They have the same “finger tip” genes, but epigenetics and chance formed their finger prints differently. Two babies are hearing and seeing and feeling different things even in utero, their brains are wired according to experience. One baby might have a different set of hormones in it’s system, I don’t know if that’s been tested. Do two babies have identical levels of nutrients, etc.? Are the differences enough to make on kid more or less autistic than the other? Possibly.
Still, remember, even if scientists do find causes for 90% of what we now call autism spectrum, they might not find what caused YOUR children’s ASD. I’m not hoping that they DON”T find it, I’m just saying, scientists might not ever find the magic bullet for your family, on the other hand they might, but it doesn’t seem like it would do that much for your kids now.
In my opinion, what you need is research that will help your girls have the best life possible, and that research is probably in the field of cognitive psychology. They can help you help your girls make the most of their talents and possibly minimize the less desirable “issues” or problems whatever those are for you family. Maybe there’s some great food supplement or drug that will make the changes you’d like to see in your girls, but it doesn’t seem so likely, to me. Even so, I’m not going to try to stop ANY research in ANY way other than communicating what I think is right to people who might want to hear.
I can’t imagine that people will stop looking at vaccines and their possible side effects. “Mercury dad” from scientology.org will invoke the Ultra Sneaky Vast International Conspiracy to Thimerosal Manufacturers Shield (USVICTMS) and say that no one will ever look at vaccines to check what they do or don’t do, but he’s pretty much bonkers, we all know that. His website says that all autism is mercury poisoning. “Mercury dad’s” kid was supposed to have been cured by now, he’s been chelating him etc for 2 years now… Buttar promised that TD DMPS would make an autistic kid 100% normal in two years at the outside. Hmm. Guess he was wrong. Guess Hg dad was played for a fool. None of the bloggers have said that autism is always “purely genetic” this was a lie invented by Eli Lilly in 1931… oops… I mean it was invented, probably by Lenny Schafer or David Kirby a year or two ago.
JB Handley,
Have you read all of Dr. Grinker’s book, “Unstrange Minds: Remapping the world of autism”? Do you have a copy?
JBHMD: I think that statement is the first one you have written that I agree with
The difference being that environment to Brad means thimerosal in vaccines or more recently broadened to include Chinese crematorium forest fire plumes.
In the case of your own experience with your daughter, what’s your best guess as to what the environment did to cause her autism? Or, heck, just give me a top 5 culprits. What do you think?
What is your head circumference, Brad? Head circumference not 100% heritable or close. What’s your best guess as to what the environment did to your head to be the size it is? Or, heck, just give me a top 5 culprits. What do you think?
“No idea. None at all.”
Kevin:
OK, let me get this straight.
1. You concede that autism is some part genes and some part environment
2. You spend umpteen hours blogging, researching, arguing, debating about what HASN’T caused your daughter’s autism.
3. And, you have NO IDEA what part of the environment might have played a role?
I give the benefit of the doubt that your reply was simply sarcastic and shows a lack of interest in deabting, but for God’s sake, if that’s really what you think, what in the hell are you doing with your time?
You are clearly a guy with a logical (albeit misguided) mind. You clearly take understanding autism and maximizing your daughter’s life as priorities in your life.
You think genes and environemnt have played a role in her autism, and yet you have no clue what it might be? Unbelievable.
While I am on my soapbox, and just to give you bozos something to blog about. A couple comments for you:
1. Would one of you geniuses care to spell out, as clearly as possible, the proper study design that can demonstrate whether or not thimerosal causes autism? And, in this case, I am talking about a BIOLOGICAL study, not epidemology.
2. You all seem to be dancing on the grave of the “Thimerosal” theory about autism’s cause. And, when someone like me says, “We need to look at vaccines in general”, you somehow view that as proof that we are either running away from the Thimerosal theory or simply pointing everyone in a new direction so we can keep our hope alive.
In the meantime, MANY mainstream scientists are finally conceding that environment plays a role in autism, as even the tallest midget, Kevin, has just done.
Yet, you avoid considering vaccines like the plague. Why? Because that’s OUR turf, and even going there would get you closer to our POV, and closer to the implication that the treatment modalities we use for our kids may be sensible and, gasp, helpful to the kids.
That’s a lot of crow to eat.
Kevin. If you concede this is some part environment. And, if kids used to get up to 10 vaccines and today they get up to 33, ISN’T THAT A SENSIBLE PLACE TO START?
OK, fine, not start, but al least look?
And, if you look, you know what you will find. That NO ONE else has. There is not one single piece of epidemeological data or study anywhere comparing vaccinated kids to unvaccinated kids. NOT ONE.
It’s been interesting. As we’ve initiatied a study of unvaccinated kids to vaccinated, many mainstream scientists have all given me the same feedback: Oh, that’s already been disproven, why waste your time?
They think the study the CDC did comparing RELATIVE anmounts of thimerosal exposure, for VACCINATED kids is the same study we are doing. It’s unbelievable. As you know, that sole study of American kids is now under serious review by none other than our own NIH, and has effectively voted “no confidence” to what CDC did.
Kevin, you can argue all day that we have no studies that PROVE that thimerosal in vaccines cause autism. I agree. I think many lead you strongly down the path, but none that say: caught you, 100% true, scandal of the century. I’d also welcome anyone to tell me what the BIOLOGICAL study design is that can prove, yes or no, the Thimerosal theory.
In the mantime, vaccines have been DEMONSTRATED to cause side effects that look suspicoiusly like many of the DOCUMENTED things our kids suffer from including heavy metal toxicity, immune system disregulation, gastrointestinal distressetc., etc., etc. Vaccines cause adverse events, in some kids way worse than others, and we’ve more than TRIPLED the numbers we give, increased compliance rates, never tested the vaccines in combination, and people think something in the environment may be involved?
What the fuck is wrong with you people and why is this so hard for you to consider! How many more parents have to report a fully recovered child before you open your minds to the possibility that you MIGHT BE WRONG?!?
Uggh. It’s just such a fucking waste of time to post here. I really hope this is the last time I do, but I’ve said that before.
Some stubborn hope that one or more of you will regain your senses and help your kid keeps me coming back.
MtotheD
“The difference being that environment to Brad means thimerosal in vaccines or more recently broadened to include Chinese crematorium forest fire plumes.”
Plus aluminum in vaccines and everything else in vaccines.
Speaking of heavy metals (not Al)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16655168/
The Hg parents regularly ask their little kids to swallow vast numbers of vitamin and supplement pills and potions and sometimes these parents report high lead levels from the quack labs… makes me wonder if some of that lead isn’t real and coming from vitamin/mineral pills, not to mention the odd ayurvedic herbal treatment as were (are?) recommended by NAA.
This may be more scandalous than when the Hg parents found out that some Epsom salts they were soaking their kids in had mercury in it.
I still find it amazing that Hg parents will subject their kids to all sorts of wild biomedical treatments on the flimsiest of evidence, while at the same time demanding almost impossible oversight and scrutiny of pharmaceutical companies.
“while at the same time demanding almost impossible oversight and scrutiny of pharmaceutical companies.”
Anonimouse:
That’s a ridiculous statement. They don’t test vaccines for:
– Risk of co-administration
– Delayed onset conditions like asthma or autism
Responsibility for that actually resides with the FDA.
Do you believe the environment plays a role in autism? If so, what role?
MD
““We need to look at vaccines in generalâ€, you somehow view that as proof that we are either running away from the Thimerosal theory or simply pointing everyone in a new direction so we can keep our hope alive.”
Bradford, you said, “all autism is is mercury poisoning.” You said, TD-DMPS a sham chelator could cure a kid in a few months 2 years at the latest.
You said autism had increased 6000% in you USA Today ad. Then there’s the domain name debacle where you were supposed to be living across the street from the White House…
You have no credibility boyo.
You come across as someone who is more than willing to lie to get his way, and definitely as the boy who cried wolf.
Do you have a copy of Grinker’s book or did you decide to trash it without reading it?
Mr. Handley,
Kev has demolished you pretty completely. I’d just like to add that one of your staunchest supporters is a person (Kim S.) who has three autistic daughters, and one of them has NEVER been vaccinated. Right there, you have the evidence, that in any thinking person, would have lead Kim to the conclusion that vaccines were not responsible for the autism in her family. Instead she says that “she” must be mercury toxic. The logic escapes me. If your child had vaccines and has autism, it must be the vaccines. If she has NO vaccines and still has autism, it must be that the mother is toxic. If the child has thimerosal-free vaccines, it must be other vaccine components. Do you have her in your telephone survey? Huh?
“How many more parents have to report a fully recovered child before you open your minds to the possibility that you MIGHT BE WRONG?!?”
A tad more than 8, particularly considering that in the 1980s a study recognized that about 25% of nonretarded autistics had an outcome such that they were considered “recovered” by the authors.
Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal- Containing Vaccines
Available on the Generation Rescue and Put Children First websites.
Nothing further your honor.
That’s hillarious. On one hand you guys have Holmes et al. suggesting based on a hair test, that they provide a “look” at a “maybe’ that “might” could increase risk and all based on a big “if” – better known as the “non-excretor hypothesis”. On the other hand you have Bradstreet et al. demonstrating that 221 autistic children had superior excretion of mercury after only a few doses of DMSA compared to non-autistic controls. The path you suggest is a circle!
What Thimerosal theory? It’s a hypothesis (and a weak one). Go back to science 101 JB, all science is provisional. There isn’t a “no”. Until you understand that simple 10th grade aspect of science, you’re screwed. The options provided by science are “yes”, “most likely, no”, and “unknown”. Guess what? The “most likely, no” looks like it’s taking pretty good roots.
“I’d also welcome anyone to tell me what the BIOLOGICAL study design is that can prove, yes or no, the Thimerosal theory.â€
What if someone were to inject a bunch of animals, say, I don’t know, monkeys or something, with the same quantity of thimerosal as the highest dose ever received by children in the US.
No immediate and apparent change in health, no sudden lapse into autism or any of the other conditions attributed to thimerosal by the anti-vax crowd, could we conclude that it’s fairly safe?
Oh, I know. Here’s another one. We could try removing thimerosal from the majority of pediatric vaccines and see if autism rates drop. Would that convince you?
Neither does “Medical Veritas”.
That’s exactly what you’re doing, running away from a failed idea, an idea that the scientific and epidemiological evidence does not support. (I will no longer dignify it by referring to it as a “hypothesis” or “theory.) After all, GR has said for years now that “childhood neurological disorders such as autism, Asperger’s, ADHD/ADD, speech delay, sensory integration disorder, and many other developmental delays are all misdiagnoses for mercury poisoning.”
Sigh. One tries, one really tries.
Kev, when you get the first inkling of what role something in the environment may have played in your daughter’s autism, give me a buzz.
Cheerio,
MD
Kev, when you get the first inkling of what role something in the environment may have played in your daughter’s autism, give me a buzz.
Excellent choice of weasel words, skidmark.
How do you think Marwa Nadama may feel about that “may”?
Gonna check the Urban Dictionary…
I came here for the first time a few months ago. I have lurked on and off ever since.
For the life of me I can’t understand the level of hatred between the two factions of parents. You Kev and your group of like minded people and Mr. Handley and his group aka “mercury militia” really seem to despise each other with a passion.
I really don’t see either groups winning their argument, or being overly persuasive at least to me.
Maybe I don’t understand the issues as well as you do since I don’t spend much of my life blogging about them. But, I don’t really understand where you stand on a couple of things. So I hope you will answer my questions.
I understand you feel autism has not increased, but has remained constant (I must say I think you are wrong on that). So regardless of incidence rates do you think the environment can play a role in someone having autism. Yes or no?
I know you have said Epidemiologcial studies are what indicate whether something should be looked at more closely. So if the avaiable epid. studies say vaccines/thimerosal have nothing to do with autism then no further research is warranted. I live in the United States it is my understanding the studies were based in Europe and that their vaccine schedules we not identical to ours. How can that be considered valid if we are not comparing the same situations? Even with people I know our chldren have been vaccinated at different times then my own children. I always took my kids on the early end of things. If a vaccine was recommended at 12-18 months my kids got theirs the day they turned 12 months. Friends of my kids may have received that vaccine almost a year later. They may have also received other vaccines that my kids did’t get with that vaccine at that visit, or vice a versa. A lot has to do with changing recommendations, their doctors beliefs (my doc didn’t believe in Hep B because I was going to be home with my children, so they didn’t give it at birth). Anyways, no two children are necessarily vaccinated exactly the same- different times, in combination with different vaccines, different manufacturers, different lots (I have heard of bad lots- and I do believe there can be problems with lots-mistakes can be made, there can be problems with production etc.)So, why is epidemiological studies the end of the line in the autism quest?
Why wouldn’t you want biological studies just to shut the Mercury parents up?
I am concerned about the amount of vaccines children receive. I am scared to death of the new HPV vaccine. Do you have any concerns about types and the number of vaccines children receive? I’m pretty sure you wil say “no” to be true to your position.
Do we really understand how the immune system of infants and children handle all the vaccines, all the medicines (my son was on lots of antibiotics, cough medicines, anti-histimines, Tylenol etc..), all the pollution, all the chemicals in the environment etc….
The other night I was watching Animal House it was filmed in ’78 I think. There was a scene in a grocery store. I noticed on the shelf all the products were in glass. Cooking oils, ketchup, mayonaise, mustard etc…Most products are in plastics today. Very few products are still in glass. Could exposure to plastics harm our health? This is just one example. We could probably make a list together of all the new exposures via our technological advances.
I hope I don’t get made fun of for asking these questions, but I really am concerned about these things.
I honestly want to know if anything in the environment has contributed to the increase in autism vaccines included. Along with other neurological and behavorial disorders and other immune related diseases.
The bickering and character assassinations between parents doesn’t really help parents sort it out either. JMO.
Brad’s problem is that he starts out with a faulty assumption: There has been an autism epidemic. Fautly assumptions will naturally lead to dead-end ideas. His thing is vaccines. The size of the vaccination schedule has increased recently, so that must be it in his mind. To others it’s french fries, or the number of TV channels, and most recently crematoriums, forest fires and toxic plumes from China. All these ideas are the result of a dubious premise.
The real environmental factors in autism probably won’t come from the epidemic idea. They will be things like the stress the mother experiences during pregnancy, or infections the mother has, nutrition, and so forth. And there’s also random phenotypical variation. What we are is not just the result of genetics plus environmental insults.
But Brad is so invested in his anti-vaccination stance that I don’t think he’ll notice when an actual cause of autism is found even if it hits him in the face. He says he’s interested in finding out about the cause of autism so he can help his son. I think he is way more interested in having his beliefs confirmed by any means necessary.
They’re good questions. I’d like to respond to some of them, along with anyone else who might, for your consideration.
This is a straw man (you’ve misrepresented the position of many of us). For many of us, it not a matter of “feeling” one way or the other. There is no evidence of any epidemic. While high stable rates of autism, based on the descriptive epidemiology, look very likely, it’s definitely possible that there has been a small actual increase in true autism prevalence. There are several hypotheses about this, but no data to support nor refute the idea currently, so it remains “unknown”. For an answer to your question about environment, you’ll need to better define “environment”. Do you use it to include things like fetal nutrition, or other of the millions of factors that may come into play during pregnancy? Or are you just talking about environmental toxins? At any rate, identical twin studies make it fairly clear that there are probably extrinsic factors at work. What those factors might be in many cases, is probably unknown (except to Generation Rescue of course).
Because that would require that said studies provide a definite “no” as a conclusion. Something science is not equipped to provide. All science is provisional. As long as the answers of studies are “no for now”, “not likely”, or “no for this group”, the anti-vaccine crowd will cling to the possibility (however miniscule) that still exists. Yes, the possibility, in science, never ever goes away. Why should it be anyone’s responsibility to shut the mercury parents up? They claim mercury causes autism or that autism is mercury poisoning, THEY BRING THE PROOF! Don’t ask us to spend resources like time, money, and attention to something that lacks any scientific promise for the betterment our children. Those resources could be put to much better use. Suppose there were a group of parents who insisted on biological proof that absolutely no autism is the result of an alien abduction. Why wouldn’t you want any and all studies (at whatever expense monetarily, socially, etc.) just to shut them up?
Do you have any evidence that suggest that your fears about the amount of vaccines are well founded and based on science?
Please consider the population as a whole in answering this.
What increase in autism? Are you referring to a hypothetical increase in true prevalence, or the “known” increase in diagnoses?
Margaret said “So if the avaiable epid. studies say vaccines/thimerosal have nothing to do with autism then no further research is warranted. I live in the United States it is my understanding the studies were based in Europe and that their vaccine schedules we not identical to ours. How can that be considered valid if we are not comparing the same situations?”
There have actually been several population studies in the United States… and they say the same thing: Vaccines have nothing to do with autism, or other neurological disorders. If you had read my complete rant you would have noticed I included the USA in my list of countries.
Here are a couple of them:
http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/159/1/37
and
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/reprint/112/5/1039
I should add that if I sound angry it is because I have a child who has several medical issues and is dependent on herd immunity for his health. As the “vaccines are the cause of _insert ailment here_” crowd gets bigger and bigger… the herd immunity in the community is eroded.
This has a very impact on the chances my child will get an infection that could cause serious harm, even though it may barely effect your child. To understand this read this article (and my son is not as affected as these two boys):
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1061838,00.html