Acceptance. It is a word that some use to describe their relationship with the reality of their children, or their own, autism. We accept the fact our daughter is autistic.
For people who claim to ‘fight autism’ this acceptance is a weak passivity. An act of giving in.
This, of course, is rubbish. Those who have accepted the reality of their own or their children’s autism know that the work starts right there. We do not attempt to carry on deluding ourselves and using quack treatments such as chelation etc as shields against the reality of who our kids really are.
Parents like Brad Handley of Generation Rescue claim at one point in time that:
“autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning…..The whole notion of autism is mythical. It didn’t exist before thimerosal in vaccines”
and then later say:
The argument is being spun by focusing exclusively on a single ingredient used in vaccines, Thimerosal (which is made from mercury), while forgetting to mention a number of key points about the differences between the vaccine schedule of 20 years ago and today….Thimerosal is only one of the possible ways that the vaccine schedule could be the primary trigger behind the autism epidemic…
are simply in denial. When their first belief is established to be untrue, they simply move on to another belief.
From the videos I posted a link to above, Brad is asked:
Q: This therapy (chelation) is it something he (Jamie) will be on the rest of his life?
Brad’s answer is:
A: Absolutely not. Its at maximum a two year process. Probably less.
As of next month, Jamie Handley will have been undergoing various treatments for three years. His story is not, as far as I can tell, listed anywhere as a ‘recovery’ story. He is still autistic.
Brad has made no effort to go back onto TV and explain this inconsistency. This is because he cannot. It is not explainable. I will be honest. Brad and I regularly exchange verbal barbs but I often feel sorry for the Handley’s. Because of their inability to accept the reality of their sons autism they have been unable to move on. They have instead – as I think is the case with a lot of the autism/vaccine parents – sublimated their failure to ‘cure/recover’ their kids in a proxy-fight with the ND’s, the CDC, the FDA – whatever.
I read a lot of blogs from the likes of Wade, Ginger, Kim Stagliano etc and whilst I often read about their anger and I often read about their love for their kids, I never ever read about them being happy. Do they love their kids? Of course they do. Do they enjoy their time with their autistic kids? I don’t know. I don’t think so.
There is a curious emphasis in a lot of these blog posts. Take Kim Stagliano’s most infamous blog entry – The Crappy Life of the Autism Mom – in which she says:
Recovering your kids doesn’t mean denying their value as people. To the contrary, it means we are willing to devote our lives, our savings, our sanity to their improved health, development and well being.
The jarring difference between stating that she is not denying their value and describing her life as their mum as crappy never occurs to her. It is also sad beyond belief that Stagliano feels that the measure of a persons value is the suffering of their parents.
Of course, the truth is that any decent parent will devote their lives, savings and sanity to their kids well being. That is not a situation that is the sole province of autism or even disability. Just parenting. However, I think that as well as lives, money and sanity, a parent should also invest respect and reality. Sublimating a continued tilting at the windmill of your child’s condition into an increasingly dirty and violent fight against a giant conspiracy is sad. Not sad in a sneering way but genuinely sad. It must be so miserable to be simply unable to accept the reality of the nature of your child.
This inability manifests itself in some strange ways. There have been a spate of articles fairly recently which examine the possibility that older parents are more likely to have autistic kids, or that autism might be due to a ‘corrupted’ (in the medical sense) gene. The outbursts these research papers have generated on EoH are amazing:
You forgot to mention that we’re damn old TESTOSTERONE-laden refrigerator mutant moms……………Here’s more from Autism Speaks funded research. So now the theory is it’s you damn old moms with your refrigerator mutant genes that causes autism. You are such horrible people. Tsk-tsk. Clearly, you aren’t feeling guilty enough, no matter how misplaced.
Any hypothesis which mentions or refers to parents is given equally short shrift. It doesn’t take much to work out why. Even when there is no hint of ‘blame’ (as in dear old Bettlehiem) to parents, any intimation that the genetic/physical make up of parents might have something to do with causes is pounced on and denounced in increasingly hysterical overtones.
Personally I don’t see the issue. Does it matter? No, not to me. But it seems to these parents that the idea that they might carry some responsibility for the fact their kids are autistic fills them with an utter horror. Even to the point that they have to delude themselves.
Take the cases of Erik Nanstiel’s daughter and John Best’s son. Here are two fathers who regularly sing the praises of their children’s doctors (the Geier’s and Andy Cutler respectively) and yet…
When we look back at everything we pay out of pocket… and for everything we pay as a co-pay… it’s several THOUSAND a year.
Why are we still doing biomed after six long years? Because we’ve seen our daughter go from failing-to-thrive to a pretty healthy kid. From a kid who couldn’t balance her copper and zinc… who had lead and mercury through the roof, with very little glutathione… who had constant diarrhea and wouldn’t sleep at night… and terrible eyesight…
to a kid with darn-near normal mineral levels, whose heavy metals have been more than half depleted, is thriving on a good nutritional program… and whose glutathione levels are now higher than daddy’s… is sleeping wonderfully through the night and has seen a 60% improvement in her eyeglass prescription.
She’s also nearly lost her tactile-defensiveness, loves attention (much more than before), stims a LOT less… is beginning to potty train and needs less “prompting” from us for life skills that she’s learning (like using silverware at meal time and dressing/undressing, etc.)
She is still considered low-functioning…
Like Brad and I, Erik and I have also had our fair share of verbal jousts but when I read this I want to weep. How can a man who so obviously adores his daughter fail to see that which is right in front of his face? They’ve been doing biomed for six years and his daughter is still low functioning (Erik’s words). The improvements he describes have little to no bearing on autism.
I waste no pity on John Best but once again, his denial is as plain as the autistic son in front of him:
I’ve done 55 rounds of chelation safely following the advice of Andy Cutler. My son keeps improving. I advise everyone that contacts me through GR to read what Cutler has to say and consider his protocol over what some DAN doc’s say. He has answered all of my questions at no cost and this chelation for a severely autistic child is working.
Whereas today, John made a post on EoH that stated:
In the time it took me to type my last reply, my son smeared feces all over himself and his room again. I’ve long since lost track of how many hundreds of times this has happened.
By the standards of Kim Stagliano – smearing (A Crappy Life remember) equals not cured. How exactly is the chelation working for John’s son? Or is it merely a panacea for the denial that ails his dad?
Left Brain Right Brain 
Where do you think the initial idea came from? It certainly wasn’t the mainstream medical community. They only finally looked at the idea at least a decade after the alternative community had started suggesting supplements like fish oil.
Are you sure? Cod liver oil has been used for health reasons for quite a number of generations, and there’s a ‘folk knowledge’ (e.g. the perception of fish as ‘brain food’) that goes back a long way. Hugh Macdonald Sinclair is often credited with first showing the benefits of certain fats, and he suggested this in a Lancet letter in the 1950s.
but I have seen books which discuss ‘training’ your child not to do them. Why? Because it will make them seem less ‘weird’.
Anwen: That’s correct. For example Lovaas goes as far as arguing that a child “does not have the right” to be weird — pretty much in those words.
But it certainly wasn’t doing any good. I think that most rational people would agree here that it is a good thing that it was removed from vaccines (at least in the US).
1) Thimerosal was there to keep contaminant bacteria from growing, causing serious disease and even death.
2) it was not removed. It was replaced. It’s an important distinction.
Matt
The theory here is that in the late 90’s each vaccine could have 25 mg of mercury in it.
That theory would be incorrect.
Here are three vaccines from the 1997 childhood immunization schedule.
Measles, Mumps, Rubella
Polio
Variacella
They never contained any thimerosal.
I think you will find that just about every substance out there has killed. How many people die from vaccines every year? How many people die from aspirin?
MJ: What’s the death rate of vaccines? (I don’t believe death from vaccines has been demonstrated, BTW). It’s not a fair comparison unless you consider the whole treated population.
No, it is called malpractice – ie a medical mistake. These are (unfortunately) very common.
A medical mistake would be if he gave him the wrong type of Ritalin or something. What Roy Kerry did in this case is the equivalent of sending the patient to be exorcised and the patient dying due to the procedure.
However, to take it a step further, if there are thousands of people saying, hey, this seems to work and if I observe the effect first hand, I would be much more likely to believe it – even without a medical research paper that managed to verify the same time. (That is not to say that having research is a bad thing).
That’s where you and I differ. I’d check the double-blind studies of Secretin instead and see that it doesn’t work, despite all the great anecdotes, testimonials, case reports and uncontrolled studies. If there were no double-blind studies, unfortunately, it’s not possible to draw a conclusion (given what is known about autism and the placebo effect).
Now the “safe†daily limit (according to the FDA) is .1 mg/kg per day.
I believe that’s micrograms. But do you realize this is the daily intake limit proposed by the FDA for every day of your life? Also, despite this, people in average get about 5 micrograms a day from the environment without doing anything special.
Quoting these guidelines is always kind of iffy. A typical one is the EPA ppb limits on mercury for drinking water. Clearly you could have a 500,000,000 ppb mercury solution (highly toxic in ppb terms) but one that is perfectly safe to drink: it could consist of 1 microgram of water and 1 microgram of mercury.
So the amount given was about 220 times over the guideline amounts.
OK. Let’s say that was true in 1995. What do you estimate it is now and what should the effect of that be in autism presentation or incidence in your opinion?
I think that most rational people would agree here that it is a good thing that it was removed from vaccines (at least in the US).
I think it was the right thing to do. It also happened to be a good test for the hypothesis. (Though the believers say that something else replaced thimerosal at the right time and in such a precise way that no incidence effects could be noticed). Removing it elsewhere is not warranted given what we now know.
Are you sure? Cod liver oil has been used for health reasons for quite a number of generations, and there’s a ‘folk knowledge’”
Sure about vitamins in general in recent history, yes. In the recent past (end of the last century) they were not accepted as a something that added value. The mainstream medical community laughed at the idea. Until it because more widely accepted. If you want some background, look up the holistic health movement .
“That theory would be incorrect.
Here are three vaccines from the 1997 childhood immunization schedule.
Measles, Mumps, Rubella
Polio
Variacella”
Correct, the MMR and as far as I know the other two never contained it. I am not sure if the variacella was on the vaccination schedule in the late nineties, I know that currently the MMR and variacella is being combined into one shot.
However, some of the others contained more than 25 micrograms, some had less. I was making a generalization about what the theory was not trying to provide an exact figure. Also I was referring to a newborn, which means that the MMR would not enter into the equation since it is not commonly given until 12 months or later.
“MJ: What’s the death rate of vaccines? (I don’t believe death from vaccines has been demonstrated, BTW).”
I have no idea what the exact figure is. I do know that it is higher than 2 in five years though. I believe that there was a fatality during the testing on the new HPV vaccine in the US (I could be wrong there), and I believe the original strain of the polio vaccine tended to give people polio, which did kill. But the point was that any and almost every medical treatment can or does kill. Calling one a “killing treatment” is just hyperbole unless there are wide spread deaths. And as much as chelation is disliked around here, it doesn’t fit that description.
“What Roy Kerry did in this case is the equivalent of sending the patient to be exorcised and the patient dying due to the procedure”
And how does exorcism relate to chelation exactly? I assume you did see the news articles recently where an autistic child was killed by someone attempting to perform an exorcism? If you did than this point is in truly bad taste.
“I believe that’s micrograms. But do you realize this is the daily intake limit proposed by the FDA for every day of your life? Also, despite this, people in average get about 5 micrograms a day from the environment without doing anything special.”
Yes, you are correct, it is micrograms. I also realize that this is the environmental guideline – meaning exposure in the environment (air, water, food). All of which are processed by the body in different ways (lungs, digestive system). However, an intramuscular injection is absorbed through the muscle then into the bloodstream where there the body doesn’t have as strong mechanisms to filter toxins. But as as general illustration of the theory, it does apply.
“but one that is perfectly safe to drink: it could consist of 1 microgram of water and 1 microgram of mercury.”
How would you drink 2 micrograms of water?
“OK. Let’s say that was true in 1995. What do you estimate it is now and what should the effect of that be in autism presentation or incidence in your opinion?”
Actually it was true up until 2001, possibly longer. The vaccines were never recalled just phased out. And I have not seen any figures on how long the older vaccines were in use, so I could easily imagine that some rural areas around the country could have still been using then in 2003 or later.
However, as I said in my last post, since I don’t think it has that much to do with autism except in some few number of cases. So I don’t think the effect will be seen much at all.
“Removing it elsewhere is not warranted given what we now know.”
No, removing it period is warranted. Mercury is not the sort of preservative that should be used. Call me crazy, but I don’t even buy food that has MSG in it and I think that is far, far safer than thimersol.
Note: the chicken pox vaccine became available in the USA in 1995, so, yes, it is one of the vaccines of the late 1990s. If you need to know about a specific disease, about its vaccine (including when it was introduced) or even about vaccine safety you should read the chapters in this online book:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/pink-chapters.htm
If you use that book as a general guide, you would not have to say “I don’t know” again. You would also be able to answer this question “Which vaccine in the present pediatric schedule is more dangerous than the actual disease?”
You may want to give us more detail on the HPV death. I think I read somewhere that the child had a pre-existing heart condition. It is kind of like saying that my son’s hypertrophic cardiomyopathy was caused by his tetanus shot when he was 14… when it was actually the finding of the heart murmur at that particular “well child checkup” that lead to the discovery of that particular genetic heart disorder (just to let you know, that there are several heart disorders that unfortunately do cause sudden cardiac death in children…. the most common way HCM is diagnosed _is_ after sudden cardiac death — something we were spared by bringing him in for his tetanus booster).
Anyway, come back with some kind of documentation on the HPV vaccine death. Details could be very important.
There were deaths caused by some early vaccines. Smallpox for one, but that is no longer included in the pediatric schedule. The Cutter incident was a case of bad manufacturing of a polio vaccine. The present IPV does not have the same issues as the OPV. That is all spelled out in readable detail in Arthur Allen’s book _Vaccine_, and of course in Paul Offit’s book _The Cutter Incident_.
Exorcism relates to chelation in that they both have the same effectiveness in “curing” atherosclerosis and autism. NONE.
Plus they are only touted as treatments by “true believers”. Chelation for real heavy metal poisoning is only used when the level of lead or mercury are at a certain level. It is too dangerous to do unless the heavy metal levels are at a level high enough to warrant the risk of subjecting the patient with the nasty chemicals used as chelators.
Thimerosal has never been proven to be a hazard in the use of vaccines. It was only to attempt to quell any questions that it was removed from European (in the early 1990s), Canadian (in the 1990s) and the USA (in 2001). The use of an effective preservative is still crucial in certain areas where cost and storage problems are an issue (check out the World Health Organization’s stance on vaccines and thimerosal… I would include a link, but I have found that the Kev’s spam filter kicks me out if I do more than one).
“I am not sure if the variacella was on the vaccination schedule in the late nineties”
You can find schedules here:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/mmwrpubs.htm#3
Scroll down to the bottom. See 1997
_”If you want to categorize treatments via chemicals into groups that have killed vs the ones that haven’t killed, I think you will find that just about every substance out there has killed. How many people die from vaccines every year? How many people die from aspirin?”_
MJ – try and hear me. This isn’t about categorisation except in one way – what _is_ and what _isn’t_ a side effect or adverse reaction to a genuine, warranted medical procedure. This makes your next comment:
_”No, it is called malpractice – ie a medical mistake. These are (unfortunately) very common. In Pittsburgh, the area where this case takes place, there are a dozen major hospitals – how many people do die every day due to medical mistakes?”_
Utterly ridiculous. Joseph is quite right to compare what Kerry did to exorcism as a treatment (as recommended by Jeff Bradstreet by the way). They are both non-warranted, non-indicated experiments. A death from a side effect – be that from a vaccine, aspirin or whatever – would be from a proper medical procedure. *That* would be malpractice. A medical mistake. What Kerry did was medically no different than exorcism.
_”And I have not seen any figures on how long the older vaccines were in use, so I could easily imagine that some rural areas around the country could have still been using then in 2003 or later.”_
By September 2001, only 5.6% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. By Feb 2002, only 1.9% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. Direct quote:
Source
Are you sure? Cod liver oil has been used for health reasons for quite a number of generations, and there’s a ‘folk knowledge’â€
Sure about vitamins in general in recent history, yes. In the recent past (end of the last century) they were not accepted as a something that added value. The mainstream medical community laughed at the idea. Until it because more widely accepted. If you want some background, look up the holistic health movement .
You believe what? For example, vitamin C was discovered in the first half of last century (by ‘conventional’ scientists) and the awareness of the need to eat some sources of vit C goes much further back (e.g. ways to avoid scurvy while at C). The ‘mainstream’ medical community has been aware of the need to eat certain vitamins (i.e. to eat a balanced diet) for a long time, although there has been debate as to what constitutes ‘balanced’ (e.g. appropriate fat content).
If what you mean is that the ‘mainstream’ medical community has been pretty sceptical about the benefit of vitamin pills, you might be right. Generally, though, this scepticism was justified – e.g. it appears that some antioxidant pills may increase mortality
Sorry, that was badly put. The paragraph beginning “Sure about vitamins in general in recent history, yes….” was a quote from MJ. I also *meant* to refer to the benefits of many vitamin pills, for most people, rather than vitamin pills per se (e.g. the benefits of folic acid supplementation during pregnancy are pretty well-established).
Are you sure? Cod liver oil has been used for health reasons for quite a number of generations, and there’s a ‘folk knowledge’â€
Folk knowledge is not sufficient to say if cod liver oil is good for you or not. There is quite a bit of science on omega-3, including double-blind placebo controlled studies.
Sure about vitamins in general in recent history, yes. In the recent past (end of the last century) they were not accepted as a something that added value. The mainstream medical community laughed at the idea. Until it because more widely accepted. If you want some background, look up the holistic health movement.
I don’t know if they laughed at the idea. (No one here is laughing, BTW – it’s pretty serious when people experiment with kids using unproven drugs and such). The mainstream acceptance of vitamins did not come about because the medical community just grew to like them, given all of the great testimonials and all. That’s not how knowledge advances. The benefits (and adverse effects) of vitamins were studied scientifically.
By September 2001, only 5.6% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. By Feb 2002, only 1.9% of all vaccines contained thiomersal.
The second number is accurate, but the first one was mistaken. They should’ve said 56%.
Exorcism relates to chelation in that they both have the same effectiveness in “curing†atherosclerosis and autism. NONE.
They also relate in that DAN! doc Jeff Bradstreet is a fan of both 🙂
Folk knowledge is not sufficient to say if cod liver oil is good for you or not. There is quite a bit of science on omega-3, including double-blind placebo controlled studies.
Sure – folk knowledge can be an interesting place to start, but certainly isn’t sufficient to show that something’s good for you. However, the fact that there were such long-running associations between fish and health does give the lie to the claim that these ideas originated in the ‘holistic health’ movement.
“If you use that book as a general guide, you would not have to say “I don’t know†again.”
Of course I would, I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject. But thanks for the link, I will take a look at the material.
“That is all spelled out in readable detail in Arthur Allen’s book Vaccine, and of course in Paul Offit’s book The Cutter Incident.”
Judging from what I have read of Arthur Allen (on Slate and the like) and heard about Paul Offit, I would have to give them as much credence as I would Kirby’s books.
“Thimerosal has never been proven to be a hazard in the use of vaccines”
True, but on the flip side it has never proven to be safe. Nor has it been proven to be an especially good preservative either.
“MJ – try and hear me. This isn’t about categorisation except in one way – what is and what isn’t a side effect or adverse reaction to a genuine, warranted medical procedure.”
I hear and actually understand you, what I don’t do is agree with you. If you can’t understand why I see a difference between beating a child to death while performing an exorcism and an MD performing what is, in their best professional opinion, a valid procedure which unfortunately is done in error than I am at a loss for words. So on this point we may have to agree to disagree.
“By September 2001, only 5.6% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. By Feb 2002, only 1.9% of all vaccines contained thiomersal. ”
Actually the minutes you referenced had a few interesting things in it. Like it reported that at the survey sites that the Heb B vaccine containing thimersol increased over the survey period. Plus it does not disclose where the sites visited are except to say “a convenience sample of providers”. Were these in large cities, rural areas?
I would also have to ask myself, if you had an older product and a newer product, which are you more likely to use? Since the vaccines with thimersol decreased substantially yet only 2.9 percent exchanged them, where do you think they went to?
So I would have to conclude that the minutes you are referencing only show a decreasing inventory level and don’t have anything to say about the types of vaccines that were actively being injected into children in 2001. Do you have any figures on which vaccines were actually being used during that time period?
Irregardless, let me say this one more time in case anyone would like to listen. I do not think that thimersol plays a major role in new autism cases. It is good that it is mostly out of them but doesn’t really change the debate either way.
“Generally, though, this scepticism was justified – e.g. it appears that some antioxidant pills may increase mortality”
Wow, that soundly disproves what I said. And completely proves the point that the skepticism was justified. Not.
“The mainstream acceptance of vitamins did not come about because the medical community just grew to like them, given all of the great testimonials and all. That’s not how knowledge advances. The benefits (and adverse effects) of vitamins were studied scientifically.”
I think you need to go back and revisit history.
“Thimerosal has never been proven to be a hazard in the use of vaccinesâ€
MJ says: “True,…”
Well, if you agree with the first statement, then the implication is that it is safe. You can’t have it both ways.
Irregardless, let me say this one more time in case anyone would like to listen. I do not think that thimersol plays a major role in new autism cases. It is good that it is mostly out of them but doesn’t really change the debate either way.
Actually, it’s critical to the debate. If thimerosal played a role in autism, removing it from vaccines should reduce the incidence of autism. The fact that autism incidence hasn’t declined should tell you all you need to know.
I hear and actually understand you, what I don’t do is agree with you. If you can’t understand why I see a difference between beating a child to death while performing an exorcism and an MD performing what is, in their best professional opinion, a valid procedure which unfortunately is done in error than I am at a loss for words. So on this point we may have to agree to disagree.
MJ, the only valid procedures associated with the use of Endrate are the emergency treatment of hypercalcemia. and the control of ventricular arrhythmias associated with digitalis toxicity.
Error? It looks more complete absence of regard for the indications, instructions and safety precautions for the use of Endrate. There’s a black box warning on the package, and the package insert makes the safety precautions quite clear. If you’re inclined to suggest you think Kerry used Endrate by “mistake”, I’d suggest that you might be quite wrong.
From the Order To Show Cause
71. Respondent admitted to using Disodium EDTA to chelate Tariq.
72. Respondent stated to Investigator Reiser that Disodium EDTA is the only formula of EDTA he stocks in his office.
73. Respondent admitted that CaNa2EDTA is available but that he has never used this agent.
_”If you can’t understand why I see a difference between beating a child to death while performing an exorcism and an MD performing what is, in their best professional opinion, a valid procedure which unfortunately is done in error than I am at a loss for words.”_
Then you need to learn more words. In the context of medical necessity – which is the context we are talking about – both the exorcism and chelation are equally (in)valid.
I’m not sure what you believe is interesting about the meeting minutes beyond the answer to the question you posed so I’m going to have to assume you’re moving your goal posts. Bottom line: according to these visits, by Feb 2002, only 1.9% of vaccines contained thiomersal. So, the answer to your implied question, which was:
_”And I have not seen any figures on how long the older vaccines were in use, so I could easily imagine that some rural areas around the country could have still been using then in 2003 or later.”_
these stats provide an answer that some rural areas could have TCV’s at a rate of 1.9% or less.
MJ- am I misunderstanding you here? You’re not saying that the acceptance of the importance of vitamins by ‘mainstream’ science and medicine didn’t come about till the end of the 20th century, due to the work of an ‘holistic’ movement – are you? Vitamins like vitamin C have a much longer history of scientific study and acceptance as important.
Re. the JAMA meta-analysis showing an increase in mortality with anti-oxidant vitamin pills, I find it slightly odd that the same people will often dismiss good evidence that some ‘alternative’ treatments may be harmful, while maintaining the belief in, e.g., the dangers of thimerosal in vaccines. I’d worry rather less about whether a vaccine shot I was getting contains low amounts of thimerosal than I would about the (slight) risk from taking a supplement containing the RDA of vitamin E every day…and that’s before thinking about the risks of megadose vitamin therapy.
Vaccines, sad to say, do cause injury and even death. However, the point of vaccination is that it is – on the whole – safer than the disease it is intended to prevent. This is true of all vaccines.
In the Western world, we have been shielded from vaccine-preventable diseases for decades, to the point that there are few people still alive who remember the horrors they used to inflict. My own dad still talks about how terrifying it was when the annual summer polio outbreaks would occur in his city. How frightening it was to see the quarantine signs go up on neighbourhood houses. The sadness of seing school friends limping along on crutches and in braces.
We will soon have the opportunity to revisit those “good old days” as the uptake rates for vaccines continues to fall. Already, outbreaks of measles, mumps and pertussis are occurring in the US and UK. For the past few decades, vaccine-phobic people have been protected by “herd immunity”, but the “herd” is no longer as immune as it used to be.
As for Dr. Kerry’s “malpractice” – this was not a “medication error”. The patient got exactly the drug Dr. Kerry ordered, at exactly the prescribed dose and route of administration. What happened was also exactly what the package insert for Endrate:
“Rapid intravenous infusion or attainment of high serum concentration of edetate disodium may cause a precipitous drop in the serum calcium level and may result in fatality.”
In addition, Endrate (NaEDTA) is not a first-line drug for treating lead, mercury or aluminium toxicity – and it is certainly not been shown to be of any help in the treatment of autism.
So, let’s see if we’ve got it all.
[1] The drug administered (Endrate) was exactly what Dr. Kerry prescribed.
[2] The dosage was exactly what Dr. Kerry prescribed.
[3] The route and rate of administration (IV push) was exactly what Dr. Kerry prescribed.
[4] 1,2 and 3 were what Dr. Kerry had been doing in his practice for several years, so it was not an error of calculation or a case of Dr. Kerry mis-speaking his orders.
[5] The outcome (fatality) was exactly what the package insert warned might happen if Endrate was given as Dr. Kerry prescribed.
[6] The drug is not indicated for lead, mercury or aluminium toxicity – which is what Dr. Kerry alleges he was treating.
[7] The drug has not been shown to help the condition (autism) that the patient was actually being treated for.
This wasn’t malpractice – it was far worse than that.
Prometheus
“Well, if you agree with the first statement, then the implication is that it is safe. You can’t have it both ways.”
No, there is proven, disproven, and not enough evidence (neutral). So far, from my prospective at least, it is neutral. As in not enough evidence to prove or disprove.
“Actually, it’s critical to the debate. If thimerosal played a role in autism, removing it from vaccines should reduce the incidence of autism. The fact that autism incidence hasn’t declined should tell you all you need to know.”
Where are you basing your statement that “incidence hasn’t declined”? Is there any information about incidence rates in children born since 2001? And since these children are going to be age five or younger, and there are a number of cases diagnosed after this age, how can you make this statement?
“From the Order To Show Cause…”
As I think I pointed out in a another post, the order to show cause is not a balanced document, it is what the state is going to attempt to prove. Without seeing the response from the defendant, the original deposition, or the actual outcome of the trial, it is completely inappropriate to use this document to “prove” what the doctor did or didn’t do. What happened to all of the talk about evidence that I read so much about?
“I’m not sure what you believe is interesting about the meeting minutes beyond the answer to the question you posed so I’m going to have to assume you’re moving your goal posts”
Actually the goal posts are exactly where they started from and you didn’t answer the question I asked. The main question was how does inventory levels relate to actual usage? The minutes you linked to talks about inventory dropping. It does not address in any way, shape, or form what vaccines are actually being used, only which ones are available for use. Under normal circumstances, if an item is being depleted from the inventory, I would assume it is because it is being used.
“these stats provide an answer that some rural areas could have TCV’s at a rate of 1.9% or less.”
Again, these states do not imply any such thing. They imply that of the sites surveyed this the percentage. And since we know nothing about the sample of sites surveyed, we cannot extrapolate into the inventory level of every clinic in the country.
“In the Western world, we have been shielded from vaccine-preventable diseases for decades”
And why is this, exactly? Do you think the entire shielding process has been from vaccines or do you think better living sanitation, nutrition, and health care played a large part as well?
“We will soon have the opportunity to revisit those “good old days†as the uptake rates for vaccines continues to fall”
Do you know what the phrase FUD means?
“the patient got exactly the drug Dr. Kerry ordered, at exactly the prescribed dose and route of administration. ”
I’m sorry, what exactly is the source of your knowledge here? According to the CDC (via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) :
“Dr. Mary Jean Brown, chief of the Lead Poisoning Prevention Branch of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said yesterday that Abubakar Tariq Nadama died Aug. 23 in his Butler County doctor’s office because he was given the wrong chelation agent.
“It’s a case of look-alike/sound-alike medications,” she said yesterday. “The child was given Disodium EDTA instead of Calcium Disodium EDTA. The generic names are Versinate and Endrate. They sound alike. They’re clear and colorless and odorless. They were mixed up.””
As far as I have heard, except for the “Order to Show Cause”, which I commented on above, there has not been any other information available.
Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Where are you basing your statement that “incidence hasn’t declined� Is there any information about incidence rates in children born since 2001?
You are right that there’s no rigorous data *from the US*, but that’s nitpicking really. Autism diagnoses are more common than ever before in the US — everyone knows that. There’s pretty good data from Canada where thimerosal was removed very quickly much earlier.
From the California DDS 3-5 cohort it’s also clear that thimerosal removal didn’t even make a dent. Of course, you can object to that too since not all autistic kids are registered with CDDS, and CDDS numbers are generally behind the epidemiology.
Should we wait for a study to tell us the obvious here? Oh, I know, we don’t need studies to believe in anecdotal hunches, but the patently obvious does need to be proven.
“You are right that there’s no rigorous data from the US, but that’s nitpicking really. Autism diagnoses are more common than ever before in the US —everyone knows that. ”
So that means it is an epidemic, right?
“From the California DDS 3-5 cohort it’s also clear that thimerosal removal didn’t even make a dent. Of course, you can object to that too since not all autistic kids are registered with CDDS, and CDDS numbers are generally behind the epidemiology.”
I thought from the rants here and elsewhere (like Autism Diva) that the California data isn’t reliable enough to show this.
“Should we wait for a study to tell us the obvious here? Oh, I know, we don’t need studies to believe in anecdotal hunches, but the patently obvious does need to be proven.”
Actually I do believe that the incidence of autism is still increasing and increasing fast. What I find hilarious is that on one hand, the nd movement categorically denies that there is large increase in autism incidence citing such factors as better diagnostics, a wider criteria, available information isn’t accurate enough to be used and then I read statements like the one I quotes that “incidence hasn’t declined”. Talk about not staying on message.
MJ, you are transposing logical positions here.
When Joseph, or any commenter for that matter who understands the problems in using CDDS data to draw conclusions about autism incidence rates, refers to this data, he is only operating from the same playing field as the autism-thimerosal theorists within the limited scope of the discussion of incidence.
In other words, a primary piece of supporting evidence of the hypothesis that autism is caused by TCV’s was pseudo-epidemiological data derived from analyzing CDDS numbers. These numbers have been repeated over and over in support of the ‘epidemic’, and have become “the source” of oft-quoted figures. Sometimes, to make the type of point Joseph is making – that removal of Thimerosal did not change autism incidence – one must fall back on the original, though flawed, premise in order to provide context.
While just about anyone who is marginally well-versed in the debate knows that utilization of CDDS data has well-documented problems, I think most also assume that the problems remain stable over time. So if the CDDS numbers were trending correctly back then – even if quantitatively erroneous in terms of their ability to pinpoint incidence rates – then by the same measurement they would be trending correctly now.
To state that:
…”I thought from the rants here and elsewhere (like Autism Diva) that the California data isn’t reliable enough to show this.” … is clearly oversimplifying the issue.
I think most people agree that the data cannot show incidence rates with any validity, but can show incidence trends with reliability if one is able to pinpoint and account for changes and differences in data collection. And, if one uses the same measurement that was utilized to support the correlation between TCV’s and autism incidence originally, today’s data will show that the hypothesis was categorically wrong using its own set of definitions.
Of course, that whole discussion is just a sidenote to the real issue, which is how to differentiate between incidence and prevalence based on CDDS data.
_”Under normal circumstances, if an item is being depleted from the inventory, I would assume it is because it is being used.”_
Correct MJ. And after it has been used, it can’t be used again. Thus levels deplete _past_ the 1.9% level.
_“Again, these states do not imply any such thing. They imply that of the sites surveyed this the percentage. And since we know nothing about the sample of sites surveyed, we cannot extrapolate into the inventory level of every clinic in the country.”_
Science is done based on the premise of sample size every single day MJ. Unless you feel that this is not a good way for science to proceed (thus invalidating that whole scientific process from its inception up until right now) , you’re simply going to have to accept that using a sample size is an acceptable way to get a result. Wheterh you _like_ the result or not, the result is that as from Feb 2002, TCV’s stood at 1.9% of the vaccine inventory.
The argument that most doctors had huge stockpiles of really old vaccines and kept using them for years seems ridiculous to me, with or without data.
As to the CDDS argument, I realize that when “NDs” say that CDDS is not a reliable source of epidemiological data, it might sound as if they are saying “CDDS data is useless”. This is not true. There is a wealth of useful information in the CDDS report. I think it’s important to not simply accept the caveats layed out by CDDS, but also understand the rationale behind them.
So it’s true that you cannot get *true* prevalence (much less incidence) numbers from the CDDS report. But I think it’s also true that if a significant autism environmental cause were to be removed, a dent should be noticed in the 3-5 cohort of the CDDS data. (I could go into a statistical argument as to why I believe that).
“Under normal circumstances, if an item is being depleted from the inventory, I would assume it is because it is being used.â€
I don’t agree. Expired stocks were being actively destroyed.
All this vaccines had an expiry fdate, and furthermor the authorities knew the stock was to be replaced with new thimerosal-free vaccines. And that they were expected to destroy the remaining stocks at a certain date.
The people in charge didn’t wait till the last possible day before destroying obsolete lots, even knowing that thimerosal has’t been removed out of safety concerns.
“Science is done based on the premise of sample size every single day MJ.”
The sample selection is an important part of the process. If the sample is not random or distributed across the universe, the end result will be invalid or skewed. So without the sample being documented, the statistics are meaningless.
“I think most also assume that the problems remain stable over time. So if the CDDS numbers were trending correctly back then – even if quantitatively erroneous in terms of their ability to pinpoint incidence rates – then by the same measurement they would be trending correctly now.”
So if I am understanding you correctly, the yoy change demonstrated by the CDDS numbers is a valid trend showing a generally increasing incidence of autism because the numbers, flawed though they are, are internally consistent wrt the general trend?
“And furthermor the authorities knew the stock was to be replaced with new thimerosal-free vaccines. And that they were expected to destroy the remaining stocks at a certain date.”
I have never heard this before. Clinics could be expected to destroy the vaccine after it expired, but the replacement of the vaccines with thimersol-free versions had no specific cut-off date. There wasn’t (as far as I am aware) a specific date past which they could not be used.
“The people in charge didn’t wait till the last possible day before destroying obsolete lots,”
No, I expect that it they were going to destroy them instead of using them they would have taken advantage of the exchange program to exchange them for new ones so that they would not have had to pay for them.
MJ,
You are mistaken.
The CDC’s report on Tariq’s death assumed that it was a medication “swap” when, in fact, Dr. Kerry’s office never stocked the CaNa2EDTA. It couldn’t have been a case of “look-alike/sound-alike medications”, since there was only one variety (disodiumEDTA) in the office.
Let me quote the “Order to Show Cause”:
71. Respondent admitted to using Disodium EDTA to chelate Tariq.
72. Respondent stated to Investigator Reiser that Disodium EDTA is the only formula of EDTA he stocks in his office.
73. Respondent admitted that CaNa2EDTA is available but that he has never used this agent.
Now, it may be that the state’s investigator is lying about what Dr. Kerry (“respondent”) said, but I think that is a very slender reed to rest much hope on.
Besides, not even CaNa2EDTA is a first-line drug for mercury, lead or aluminium toxicity (or autism).
This isn’t a simple case of malpractice – it’s much worse than that.
Prometheus
I just happened to run across this post while doing a Google search for Candex.
I can speak from personal experience that chelation works. I had an autoimmune disease that was BROUGHT ON by chelation with cilantro and subsequently cleared (at this time) at about 90% by chelation. I also was treated by a doctor who helped a lot of autistic kids with chelation. He was a total prick, but the families saw a lot of improvement from his protocols. Obviously, if improper development occurred as children were growing, chelation alone is not going to cure improper neural pathways. That takes other modalities. I strongly believe in alternative/complementary medicine and I suggest trying EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) to address some of those issues.
It’s sad when people want to close their minds to the possibilities that something can really work that the mainstream society has not yet accepted. There are personality types that display this behavior, so I guess you can’t help it. However, not even trying to imagine what is truly possible for your child because your thinking is limited is such an injustice to your child. I am truly sorry for him/her.
dm: That was a very nice story. But the plural of anecdote is not data.