Hi Everybody!
Wow! OK, so here I am again – I’m Dr. Nick Riviera, and I will perform any major operation for just 129.95!
So today I’m supposed to tell you about CDDS data and how, just like VAERS, you can use it to say anything really. And hey – if there’s any Autism Omnibus lawyers reading – You don’t have to make up stories here. Save that for court.
Now there’s this guy called David Kirby who once said that CDDS was the gold standard of autism epidemiology (long word friends – just means numbers) but it seems that now, after the numbers started to disagree with his hypothesis (long word friends – it just means any old thing you want to make up) that they’re suddenly not so important. That makes perfect sense to Dr Nick friends – who wants to be caught right? In fact, Mr Kirby – did you go to Hollywood Upstairs Medical College too?
So, I wanna show you some more number examinations from CDDS – see what you think of them friends.
OK, so, the autism epidemic is thought to be demonstrated by the ever-increasing number of entries to the 3 – 5 age group (side note: the sci-guys only had 1.9% of mercury containing vaccines available by Feb 2002 and the 3 – 5 year olds are still increasing….even Dr. Nick can make the obvious conclusion from _that_ fact friends).
Those people who think that there _isn’t_ an epidemic say that the increase is just due to diagnosis catching up to the actual rate.
Those who say there _is_ an epidemic (man this is tiring) say, if that’s true where are all the older autistics? Some say there can’t be any autistic people over 75 as Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931.
Dr. Nick presents his first graph – ta da (click for bigger version)!
This is 62 – 99 year old autistic people in CDDS from 1992 – 2005. First thing that seems pretty clear, even to Dr Nick, is that having a reporting category that goes up to 99 years old takes care of the claim that autism was invented by Eli Lilly in 1931.
But _man_ look at that graph – look at that rate climb! Just for your information friends, what you’re looking at there in the 62 – 99 category is a 16 times increase. Woah.
OK! Next graph friends – (click for bigger again, you get the drill right?)
So this one shows 52 – 61 year olds in CDDS. Another pretty impressive climb there friends! This one shows a 15 times increase. Phew!
So what about the 3 – 5 year old category? They key category? Well this is where Dr Nick gets a bit confused friends. Here’s the graphs (clicky!!)
So this one shows a climb too but – I dunno – what about the rate of increase? Well, unlike the 62 – 99 year olds which showed a 16 times increase (the biggest of all categories) and unlike the 52 – 61 year olds which showed a 15 times increase, the 3 – 5 year olds showed a 12 times increase.
So from what Dr Nick can _tell_ – it would seem that the age category that’s made the biggest gains since 1992 would be the 62 – 99 year old group.
Damn, Dr Nick just had a delivery of sun cream to put into medicinal looking bottles as well.
Left Brain Right Brain 
See, he never did answer my questions. I’ll take that as a vote for “No. I, Brad, haven’t read the book I trashed on Amazon.com under the pseudonym, ‘Frist Stratton’ and compared to toilet paper on the EoHarm group.”
I know of a surrogate test, we could see how many people are buying “Unstrange Minds” without a campaign for parents to buy a dozen of them at a time, like the EoHarm gang did with the Kirby book. We can see how long it takes for the major media outlets in the US to start admitting that there hasn’t been an epidemic. No epidemic, no need to discuss a contemporary “environmental trigger” for it. Notice Brad’s question in the survey assumed that everyone believed in the “epidemic.” Heh.
_”Set up an online survey. Keep people from voting more than once from the same ip address. Post the survey location here and on EOH – and anywhere else you want.”_
Why? I thought this wasn’t about the numbers to you?
If you want the answer to this question, pay someone to set it up. I’m sure you know how.
_”Still waiting for all the parents who read your blog to chime in here, one should expect HUNDREDS to post if you’re right”_
Why? I think we firmly established some time ago that you’re not too smart about the online population. For those of us who work with the web for a living, its a given that online response runs somewhere in the vicinity of 2%.
_”So, you assertion is that a much smaller number of autism parents (this was just American adults) agree with that statement than the general population?”_
No Brad, I’m saying asking loaded questions in a bad way skews results. Its like that laughable online survey ARI did about the efficacy of chelation etc. If you survey 100 biomed parents on how effective biomed is, you’re going to get 100 positives. I sincerely doubt you have the ability to set up a properly controlled scientific survey.
But – prove me wrong. Fund some science. Not phone polls.
Hi Mr. Mercury,
“While I have your rapt attention, please, feel free to critique Mr. Rollen’s comments below.â€
I am game…
“I for one am really sick and tired of the current stock of “the world
is flat†thinkers who continue to spew the notion that there has been
no real increase in autismâ€
Mr. Rollens offers a false equation comparing those who believe in a flat earth, to those who point out problems with the theory of an “epidemicâ€. By caricature those who donot accept the epidemic of autism theory, Mr. Rollen’s misrepresents them.
“I believe that applying a little common sense and facts provided by
our California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) we can once
and for all drive the spike of fact and truth into the heart of these
modern day flat earth society members who may be living in our world,
but seem to be far removed from it’s obvious realities.â€
Hammer away sir, you have my full attention.
“Premise : If there has not been a true, dramatic increase in the
incidence of autism creating an autism epidemic, then we should have
among us a proportional and sizeable number of adults with autism.
Since DDS’s data only includes those persons with autism who have a
professional diagnoses of full syndrome (i.e. worst form) of autism,
we can assume that hiding, misplacing, loosing or not recognizing
thousands of adults with moderate to severe behavioral issues,
extremely apparent bazaar social behaviors, and moderate to severe
language deficits would be impossible.â€
This is a false premise. Not only is the 62+ age group growing every quarter as of late, this age group were chidlren during a peroid of supposed stability in the descriptive epidemiology. Moreover, the 3-5 cohort consistantly underestimates the size of the same cohort as it becomes the 6-9 group by 60%. This grows another 30% when this group becomes the 10-13 crowd. If this is truly “Autistic Disorder†then these kids must have met criteria by age 3. They could be diagnosed later, but age 3 is when they first must have met criteria (A bit more leeway in given for PDD-NOS).
If these children are “trainwrecks†and unmistakable as you have suggested before, then it does not follow that the major growth will happen after the pre-school years? They should have recognized and dx’ed from the get go. Even with waiting lists being extensive, 2 years is long of enough time to strain credibility of this argument, especially for something that is “obviousâ€. As the the growth that happens in mid-childhod can actually be used to reduce this argument to absurdity.
“Facts: According to the latest data from DDS, there are 32,809 persons
with autism in California’s DD system…16% or 5125 are adults over 22
years old. That means for the autism population that 84% are under the
age of 22, with 78% under the age of 18. It is a remarkable fact that
adults with autism make up only 16% of the autism population, while in
the same DD system 55% of the cerebral palsy population, 61% of the
mental retardation population, and 63% of the epilepsy population are
adults over the age of 22 years old. Using an average of the CP, MR,
and epilepsy populations, it is safe to assume that adults over the
age of 22 with moderate to severe autism should constitute roughly 60%
of the total autism population, not 16% as they do and have for many
years.â€
Is it? The defintion of autism has changed, in a way that may have expanded it. This is not true of CP and epilepsy and I would argue, less true of MR (although the criteria for MR has also changed). This change may not have resulted in broader screening for the older population and may preclude credible diagnostic techniques depending if a person who meets criteria for autism having been grandfathered in, under an another category via an older diagnsotic system.
“So, rather then having just 5125 adults currently in our system with
full syndrome autism, we should have somewhere around 19,685 adults
with full syndrome autism if you believe the flat earth folks that
there has been no real change in the incidence of autism. We do know
that there are a very small number of adults with autism in
California’s five remaining state institutions… 358 to be precise.
So doing the math leads me to these conclusions:â€
Mr. Rollens current accounting of older autistic adults does not account for change in diagnsotic criteria between periods of time, nor does it account for the steady increase in this group. Nor does it accoutn for anamolies like growth within a cohort.
Also, Mr. Rollens is engaging in ad hominem arguments at this point. I propose there is a relationship between the number of times Mr, Rollens accuses those who diagree of being “flat earth folks†and Mr. Rollen’s credibility.
“43% of the population missing? Over 14,000 adults in California
suffering with full syndrome autism and no one has seen or heard from
them?â€
No one has ever done a systematic look as they do for children from time-to-time.
“Is this possible, or is it that they simply do not or ever
existed.â€
Both are possible, both need to provide supporting evidence.
“Is it also a fact that DDS has documented, in two separate
Reports, that California’s autism epidemic began roughly 22 plus years
ago.â€
I have seen one of those reports. They did not use the term “epidemicâ€. Perhaps you have taken some liberty in your summery here. In fact, the CDDS put out a very helpful pdf advising data analysts of problems within their data and explicitly stating that these data are not to be used for purposes of incidence or prevalence calculation. This position by the CDDS, is one you repeatedly seem to ignore or even acknowledge the existence of.
“Believe me when I say….The world is round.â€
Luckily enough, I don’t have to. I can view objective evidence that shows the world to be an (imperfect) globe, right now. I look forward to a point when you are able to gather similar objective evidence for your theory on autism.
Is it impolitic to point out that some (many?) small children who are firmly within the autism diagnosis will not stay obviously autistic as adults?
I have noticed several instances of adults commenting on the autistic traits they had as kids, but now they are living independently, raising families, not on anyone’s caseload. Not that they’ve undergone some miracle cure, just learned to function in the world, whatever differences and difficulties they may retain.
It seems like the hidden horde search party never acknowledges this. One would think they’d be encouraged at what it may portend for their own kids, but I guess they’ve got more important things on their minds.
MercuryDad wrote
“You guys would bug me more if you weren’t all so pathetic. Keep up the great work jacking each other off, and perhaps if you scrape the nickels together of all 6 people who post here..”
Well said.
Makes you wonder who NOW writes most of this blog for Kev. If you look back at the archive, you can detect a change in syntax and grammar.
_”Makes you wonder who NOW writes most of this blog for Kev. If you look back at the archive, you can detect a change in syntax and grammar.”_
Well, Big Pharma obviously – or maybe the Illuminati?
OH NO! WHAT HAVE I SAID???
Grow up.
“Well, Big Pharma obviously – or maybe the Illuminati?
OH NO! WHAT HAVE I SAID???
Grow up.”
Touchy, touchy , Kevin
I find it really interesting how these anti-vaccination people often display a tendency to falsely characterise the positions of the vast, vast number of experts in all kinds of fields, and then deride that false characterisation in abusive terms.
You see this at conferences and on bulletin boards, again and again. You see Wakers doing it for hours at a time, and even the lowliest grunters using exactly that technique.
See above, for instance. I mean, I actually don’t know of any credible scientist, doctor, parent, journalist or whatever, who states as fact that there isn’t an increase in autism prevalence. What everyone says is it’s very hard to know what’s going on. Changes in service provision, diagnostics and whatever are such enormous confounding factors that it’s phenomenally difficult to answer that question. Changes in the DSM for instance, MUST have had a huge impact, but how much? Countless studies have failed to fully untangle this. So what happens – as in all areas – is that the studies accumulate (as with thimerosal or MMR) that ALL point the same way, but each with its own – usually unavoidable – methodological difficulties. This is just how science generally works.
It’s so deplorable that decent people, trying their best to answer such important questions, are abused and insulted in the way they are.
_”Touchy, touchy , Kevin”_
No thanks :o)
To Jennifer, Kev and the other experts who report information that they don’t really understand (but it fits their mantra).
First, I would like to know why the hell you would use a preservative early in the manufacturing process and then remove it? Please explain it to us laypersons who lack your intellectual firepower.
Secomd, your big pharma report reads like the reformulation was designed to get the mercury level below the detection levels so they can call it Thimerosal free.
Plus, your Big Pharma report was from December 2006, ONE WHOLE MONTH BEFORE they were allowed to say it was Thimerosal free. Show me something from 2003, 2004 or 2005 and I might believe your reading of this report. Until then, it reads like they just reformulated to get their Thimerosal-free cert.
Last but not least, I love all of the other crap they’re using in this vaccine, aluminum, formaldehyde and phenoxyethanol. That’s some good shit. Pass the pipe. Got a light?
“First, I would like to know why the hell you would use a preservative early in the manufacturing process and then remove it? Please explain it to us laypersons who lack your intellectual firepower.”
According to FDA:
“Secomd, your big pharma report reads like the reformulation was designed to get the mercury level below the detection levels so they can call it Thimerosal free.”
Really? Which part of it reads like that?
“Plus, your Big Pharma report was from December 2006, ONE WHOLE MONTH BEFORE they were allowed to say it was Thimerosal free. Show me something from 2003, 2004 or 2005 and I might believe your reading of this report. Until then, it reads like they just reformulated to get their Thimerosal-free cert.”
Uh, if you’re talking about the Meeting minutes then they’re from Feb 2002. If you’re not referring to that document than I have no idea what ‘big pharma report’ you’re talking about.
“Last but not least, I love all of the other crap they’re using in this vaccine, aluminum, formaldehyde and phenoxyethanol. That’s some good shit. Pass the pipe. Got a light?”
By this strawman are you suggesting that these have a causative role to play in autism? Anything to back that up?
“First, the CDDS can rule out thiomersal as a causative agent. Its ridiculous to suggest thiomersal causes autism when numbers are rising and thiomersal use stood at 1.9% in Feb 2002.”
Absoluelty, postiively, 100% untrue statement for anyone who knows anything about statistics. Kirby is a dope, but just because he is stupid that doesn’t make you right.
The 3-5 age group is so severely undercounted that is it worthless. This group could continue to rise for years simply through better reporting. The 6-9 age group has much more solid data and you will see the 10-13 age group “shadows” the 6-9 age group by about 3 years. The perfect match up would be a 4 year lag, but this shows some consistency in the reporting of these two age groups. The pattern for the 3-5 age group is clearly f*cked up. You will notice the same 3 year “shadow” emerging with the 14-17 age group relative to the 10-13 group. This would indicate some level of consistency in the diagnosis between these age groups.
LIKE MR. KIRBY, LEARN TO READ DATA. YOU HAVE NO EXPERTISE IN READING THIS KIND OF INFORMATION. IT IS PAINFUL OBVIOUS TO THE TRAINED PROFESSIONAL.
The 1.9% figure is based on heresay with no actual data (that I am aware of) to back it up. I have heard it repeated several times, but where’s the data?
BTW, I am not saying thimerosal causes autism. I am saying your arguments lie on very unsound foundations based largely on your belief system and have little to do with the actual facts.
OK, first of all – politeness amigo. Don’t shout on my blog. Ever.
Secondly, please read my newest post. Please try and understand what I was doing in this post by reading that one. Lastly:
_”The 1.9% figure is based on heresay with no actual data (that I am aware of) to back it up. I have heard it repeated several times, but where’s the data?”_
The 1.9% figure is made in the minutes of a meeting. I see no real reason that they would make this up and no real reason to doubt it. They have their own data which they gained by sending people out to count vaccines and then examining what these people brought back. I agree it would be nice to see the source data but I don’t see what’s wrong with this particularly. Are you suggesting that this debate should do away with each and every piece of anecdotal data?
Please could you confirm which ‘big pharma report’ you were referring to that was published in 2006?
Pot
“OK, first of all – politeness amigo. Don’t shout on my blog. Ever.”
Kettle
“OH NO! WHAT HAVE I SAID???”
Black
Century my good friend as I’ve explained time after time. Politeness is an expendable commodity. I won’t be rude to anyone until they’re rude to me. You exhausted my patience on that score long ago.
I think that 666Sigma is referring to the physician prescribing information provided by the manufacturer of Pediarix which I linked to way up there in the comments, repeated here.
Yes, this information is dated December 2006. So, they put the most recent version up on their website. This is what physicians are injecting now. But your newspaper article on making the Pediarix completely preservative-free was dated January 2007, and stated that “Glaxo removed trace amounts of the preservative in its new Pediarix formula and plans to phase in the new products “in the near future,””
Sorry, 666Sigma, the trace amounts they are removing are the tiny residual amounts of thimerosal ( < 12.5 ng per vaccine), which they will now remove as well. How do I know this? Here is a document dated July 2004 that states: “However, a trace amount of thimerosal ( < 0.0125mcg/0.5mL) is present".
I've shown you a documented dated 2004, will you now insist on a document dated 2003?
666sigma,
“To Jennifer, Kev and the other experts who report information that they don’t really understand (but it fits their mantra).â€
It is now up to you to show how they don’t understand this. For myself, I admit that although I am receiving training in statistics, I am still a novice. You are welcome to point out all those naïve errors that may occur in my analysis. However, the flip side is, you are going to actually have to do it. A sweep of the hand dismissal isn’t going to do the trick in this case and if you try, you will probably get called on it.
“Absoluelty, postiively, 100% untrue statement for anyone who knows anything about statistics. Kirby is a dope, but just because he is stupid that doesn’t make you right.â€
Not necessarily, if one will use the 3-5 age group as the data set, then we can indeed kick the legs off this argument.
“The 3-5 age group is so severely undercounted that is it worthless. This group could continue to rise for years simply through better reporting. The 6-9 age group has much more solid data and you will see the 10-13 age group “shadows†the 6-9 age group by about 3 years. The perfect match up would be a 4 year lag, but this shows some consistency in the reporting of these two age groups. The pattern for the 3-5 age group is clearly f*cked up. You will notice the same 3 year “shadow†emerging with the 14-17 age group relative to the 10-13 group. This would indicate some level of consistency in the diagnosis between these age groups.â€
The 3-5 data, as we have previously discussed, undercounts by about 60%, but it is a consistant undercount. Also, the 6-9 group does not shadow the 10-13 group, there is still a 30% growth we typically see. I did not extend my analysis to the 14-17 data, as doing so goes back (at the most recent) to 1993, before we began to see the data growth. The pattern may not hold as well here.
“BTW, I am not saying thimerosal causes autism. I am saying your arguments lie on very unsound foundations based largely on your belief system and have little to do with the actual facts.â€
I think you try to explain away our position by appealing to our imagined, psychological state of mind. For that reason I would say you argument is fallacious, while at the same time, managing to misrepresent our position.
I suppose, as easily, I could accuse your arguments of being “mantra†and yourself of being a “true believerâ€. This sort of fallacy is easily reversed after all.
I am curious about Century’s participation. Why waste one’s intellectual resources on one-liners. Isn’t there some sort of excellent contribution this person can make?
If this person wants agreement and a supportive environment, couldn’t that be had on some other group, which is better aligned to this person’s point of view?
Or if this person wants to debate, couldn’t they put their intellectual skills to work and produce a competant critique (irregardless of whether it is constructive).
Or perhaps if this person merely wishes to vent a bit, isn’t there excercises they could participate in; yoga perhaps?
Mercury Dad,
Three paragraphs more than I should spend on you:
1. You are right. I have no conclusive proof that you have a financial stake in the whole mercury-autism hypothesis. But using the logic of the anti-vaxer, since you cannot prove you do NOT have a financial stake in quacks or lawsuits, that means that it is possible that you do. You like that logic? You should know, mercury militia zealots use it all the time.
2. Your organization has said repeatedly that autism is a diagnosis for mercury poisoning and pointed to thimerosal as a prime culprit. Many of your “Rescue Angels” still espouse that theory. Are you now suggesting that mercury may not be the prime culprit, or even a culprit at all? Because right now, the CDDS data (nor any legitimate epidemiological data, for that matter) fails to support your conclusion.
3. And finally, what I do for a living is none of your business. I am not stupid enough to disclose what I do for a living to you, because your ilk’s track record of propriety in such matters is pretty sketchy.
666sigma: “Please explain it to us laypersons who lack your intellectual firepower.”
Why? You lack our intellectual firepower!
Jonathan, Century is probably a professional troll… getting paid lots of benefits to sit at home and troll blogs.
Simply can’t get into real work, like most of the rest of us.
THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF AUTISTIC PEOPLE IN CALIFORNIA WHO NEED SERVICES…
Just wanted to make sure that doesn’t get lost in the discussion…
Just printed off that survey report.
Looks very iffy, from a methodological point of view. Breaks every rule of good survey design, form what I see at first glance.
I’ll report back.
There are a lot of autistic people all over the world who deserve services. And all of them are being shortchanged by all this BS. Whether it is the autism/mercury BS or the ABA/cure BS, it’s all deflecting resources away from the real issue.
Who over there will nominate Kevin Leitch for the Royal Society Kohn Award for Excellence in Engaging the Public with Science?
I’m not kidding. Someone or several people need to nominate Kev. I’d nominate Kathleen but the nominee has to be a person in the U.K.
http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/kohnaward.
I’m totally serious. Kev fits the criteria very well, in my opinion and he’d get a big chunk of cash, too…. he probably should get a feifdom, too, but he cash would be nice, ten thousand pounds.
_”THERE SURE ARE A LOT OF AUTISTIC PEOPLE IN CALIFORNIA WHO NEED SERVICES…”_
Yup. That is the single most important fact. Poor services is, like causes, cures, education and advocacy in general, an international phenomenon.
What would be nice would be certain parent-led organisations who are committed to ploughing tens of thousands of currency into the white elephant of vaccine causation and maybe looked at fighting for provisions for kids and adults.
_”he probably should get a feifdom”_
I was going to buy myself a title – just for a laugh, you can get them for about £20 and they mean absolutely nothing – but a fiefdom would be marvellous ;o)
Kev, if you get the 10,000 GBP maybe you can upgrade from Laird to Marquis or something.
Marquis….oh man, if I get that I may have to change my last name to ‘de Sade’ ;o)
30 quid for the title over one square foot of land?
My message to the scottishestates.co.uk team: Póg mo thóin!
I was going to buy myself a title
Do it, Kev! You know you want to! And start calling yourself Sir Kevin Leitch and parade your title in front of the curbies and watch them squirm as they assume you were knighted for services to ASD’s! YES!!
Seriously, I mentioned this on the more recent thread – I’m battling to get services up and running properly in Australia, and I’ve been at it since 2002. The Autism and Aspergers groups out here have had similar struggles over time, but Autism has been mentioned in the House of Reps (our House of Commons for Kev). The trouble is disabled services are a state responsibility. But the man who I am presently in contact with, who was just promoted from parliamentary secretary to junior minister in a recent reshuffle, is apparently talking about sending a letter to all the state reps of disabled services. I’ll wait until I see the content before commenting on whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing.
David,
The survey methodology itself isn’t that bad on its face. (if a bit irrelevant) The problem is the questions are so horribly phrased and loaded – probably intentionally – that they become meaningless as a true evaluation tool.
anonimous: “The problem is the questions are so horribly phrased and loaded – probably intentionally – that they become meaningless as a true evaluation tool.”
Question-writing is actually part of methodology. Or, at least, it was when I did my studies in research methodology.
Loaded questions is a means by which to get the answers one wants. It is therefore a method and, as such, falls within the whole issue of methodological considerations. If a survey has leading questions in it, it is – practically by definition – methodologically flawed.
So, if a survey includes questions that are clearly leading (which this survey does), it is methodologically flawed. As a means of evaluating some aspect of public awareness, using this type of question as part of the methodology of the survey renders the survey (as you eloquently imply, in your comment about the actual questions) “… meaningless as a true evaluation tool…”
David,
My point was that if you phrased and ordered the questions differently, the types of questions used wouldn’t be bad. I’m a touch surprised Zogby would be willing to engage in this kind of obviously flawed survey, unless somehow he’s got a political/economic dog in this fight. Either that, or maybe if you pay him enough, he’ll ask whatever you want.
“My point was that if you phrased and ordered the questions differently, the types of questions used wouldn’t be bad.”
Aha. Mind you, I’m not entirely sure… I’d have to check for myself (when I get chance!) on that one… certainly the phrasing of them (on the basis of a scan over the questions) is pretty ropey… very much suggesting the ‘right’ answer.
“I’m a touch surprised Zogby would be willing to engage in this kind of obviously flawed survey, unless somehow he’s got a political/economic dog in this fight. Either that, or maybe if you pay him enough, he’ll ask whatever you want.”
I’ll go with the second option there… it is a remarkably flawed survey. Too much so for it to be a coincidence.