Lisa Jo Rudy has a post on the “what next question”
On beyond the Vaccine Court: next steps in the vaccine-autism legal process
In it, she quotes from Law.com where they also looked into the question. One of the petitioner’s lawyers is indicating that they may appeal.
I seem to recall there being mention of a possible appeal in the Omnibus Docket, but I can’t find it right now. Basically, the next step would likely be to take the U.S. Court of Appeals. One of the petitioner’s attorneys is indicating that this may happen, with the argument
“I think the special masters were imposing a standard and imposing a burden on this evidence in these cases that was higher than what is called for under the statute.”
Seems a stretch to me. When a Special Master makes a point that it was “not even close”, it doesn’t seem as though it was a matter of changing the standard.
There are many more comments in the decisions making it exceedingly clear that the Special Masters didn’t think these cases had even close to the merit required, but I don’t expect that to stop people from appealing.
After that, or for some people even before the appeal, there is the chance that the cases could be taken to civil court. Similar cases have worked in civil court in the recent past–with cases dismissed before trial even begins based on the lack of evidence. Now, civil court judges will be able to refer to the Special Master’s decisions, which are quite detailed and quite clear.
But, in civil court, will they be able to assemble the “Dream Team” of expert witnesses that the DoJ put together for the Omnibus?
They may not have to.
One of the entries in the dockets for the Cedillo, Snyder and Hazlehurst cases was this:
NOTICE, filed by SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
SERVICES RESPONDENTS CONSENT TO DISCLOSURE OF
EXPERT REPORTS. (Babcock, Alexis) (Entered: 01/30/2009)
Yep, we may get to read the expert reports. It could help slow down any civil cases.
Much more, it could give new families to autism something to read besides the websites of the orgs promoting vaccine causation.
I can’t wait to read those reports.
Left Brain Right Brain 
First appeal from a special master’s decision is a review by a judge of the Court of Federal Claims. The judge’s decision can then be reviewed by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
For an example of a judge’s review of a special master’s decision, look at the recent decision of Judge Wolski in Moberly v. HHS, in which Ronald Homer, the attorney for the Cedillos, sought review of Special Master Edwards’ decision denying compensation to his client in a DPT case.
In Moberly, Homer argued that the special master had committed error by requiring “scientifically certain proof of causation” rather than following the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Judge Wolski didn’t agree with Homer and upheld the Special Master’s decision that the petitioner hadn’t proved causation.
Judge Wolski explained that, when a judge reviews a Special Master’s decision, there are two standards of review. For the special master’s findings of fact, the judge can set them aside only if they were “arbitrary and capricious.” This is a very deferential standard of review. At this level of review, as Judge Wolski pointed out, “[a] special master’s ‘assessments of the credibility of witnesses’ are ‘virtually unchallengeable on appeal.'” The second standard of review is applied to the special master’s conclusions of law. The judge can overturn conclusions of law if they are “not in accordance with the law,” and make his or her own conclusions of law.
In the Moberly case, Judge Wolski said that the special master’s evaluation of scientific evidence is a factual issue involving the weight and probative value of evidence and the credibility of expert witnesses. Therefore, the special master’s determination is entitled to deference and won’t be disturbed unless it is arbitrary and capricious.
It’s hard to imagine any appeal from the OAP decisions that wouldn’t involve the special masters’ determinations about the weight and probative value of evidence and the credibility of expert witnesses. As far as I can see, there’s no issue about conclusions of law, such as the interpretation of statutes and case law. It’s all about the facts. So the standard of review would be “arbitrary and capricious.”
All three of the OAP decisions contain thorough and exhaustive assessments of the evidence. The special masters appear to have considered everything that was presented to them, and they went out of their way to give the petitioners every possible opportunity to present the evidence they had, including evidence submitted after the close of evidence. To me, these decisions are as far from arbitrary and capricious as you could get. I think an appeal would be a waste of time and resources.
Thanks for the comments, Anne.
It is clear to this reader that the Special Masters bent over backwards to include everything in their consideration. One example, Dr. Bradstreet submitted something like six expert reports–even though he wasn’t acting as an expert witness. The Special Master also noted that Dr. Bradstreet has failed to meet the Daubert standard in, as I recall, two proceedings outside of the Omnibus.
But, rather than throw out the Bradstreet expert reports on either reason (not being an expert witness, or possibly not meeting the expert witness standard), they accepted his reports.
The SM’s have worked in a similar mode for the thimerosal hearings. They allowed rebuttals by Aposhian even though the reports that Aposhian rebutted had been withdrawn.
I get the feeling that the Special Masters took this very seriously, knowing that this would be challenged on any possibility. Also, they are setting a very clear decision for future judges to refer to.
What next – things will get much worse before they get better. Those decisions were much more than just statements for the court record, they provided analysis. The analysis was not complementary of some of autism’s familiar names, who earn their living on the anti-vaccine band wagon. They will not walk away quietly.
The attorneys will be paid by the U.S. government, without concern for winning or loosing in this matter. One firm has already submitted their bill for over $2,000,000, for representing one of the plaintiffs. The bills for the other two plaintiffs have yet to be published, that I am aware of. The attorneys surely want this process to continue. They are already talking about the next round of cases and appeals of these decisions.
I would encourage the plaintiffs to read these decisions closely. These describe a lawsuit that lost not by a little but lost big. During the extremely protracted trial the legal team for the plaintiffs did not come close to proving causative linkage between ingredients in vaccines and autism. Not even close!
Please step back for a moment and think about that. Not even close! Your legal team has let you down, they knew they had nothing. The “expert” witnesses let you down. They folded under questioning and simple requests to put the proof on the desk. All talk and nothing to back it up. But from their point of view it was good, they were billing for their time and their names were being circulated for future speaking engagements and possible book publications.
The parents paid the emotional price. They opened their lives to the public, they believed the people that told them there was enough evidence to carry the day. Please reflect upon what you were told and question if the situation was portrayed accurately before taking another step.
This court is not one that states vaccines are safe, quite to the contrary, they have paid out over $913,000,000 to over 1,000 plaintiffs where it was established that persons were damaged by vaccines. If the case can not be made in that environment, I can not envision a venue that will treat the subject more kindly.
When it comes to the correlation of vaccines and autism, the autism community is best served by the truth. If there is no correlation between autism and vaccines then a false positive hurts the autism community. Conversely, if there is a correlation between autism and vaccines then a false negative hurts the autism community.
The medical community has long maintained that there is no connection between autism and vaccines. The medical community has long maintained that they have science on their side. The medical community has maintained that there is no correlation based on statistical analysis. Yet I can find no measure of the control group, the group of people who have never been vaccinated. I do not understand how the medical community can claim that they have science on their side and not have a control group measurement in their statistics.
If you look at the last measurement of autistic children among the unvaccinated, you have to look before the great vaccination push at which time the rate was 1/2500, far less than the 1/160 reported today. That means one of two things: the autism rate and vaccines are related; the autism rate and some other factor that came at the same time as the great vaccine push are related.
Without the control group measurement, the jury is still out. For scientific rigor, the medical community requires a control group measurement.
Ed, do you mean children born before about 1945?
During the first half of this century, mercury was used in teething powder, about 65,000 micrograms of HgCl per dose. Many tens of millions of doses were sold per year. Over 1,000 children died of mercury poisoning (now known as pink disease).
If mercury caused autism, then autism rates would have been sky high before 1950, and would have dropped precipitously (as illnesses and deaths due to pink disease dropped when mercury was removed from teething powders).
The jury is not out. There is no evidence that mercury or vaccines cause autism and lots of evidence that they don’t. It is well past time to move on.
“I do not understand how the medical community can claim that they have science on their side and not have a control group measurement in their statistics”
Well, if there is a vaccine-autism link, then one can surmise that increased exposure to vaccines would result in increased risk of autism.
So far no such link has been found, with autism rates being fairly consistent across variance in vaccine schedule and ingredients.
When there is no evidence where there should be, it’s reasonably safe to provisionally accept that the claim is false, until further evidence comes along to back it up.
“the autism rate and some other factor that came at the same time as the great vaccine push are related”
Well, the diagnostic definition that stands today came about becuase people – qualified, experienced people – went out into psychiatric institutions, group homes, universities, colleges, special needs schools, hospitals etc and took a look around to see just how many people have autism. It was repeatadly found the number of people with autism was higher than expected, that people with autism were being underdiagnosed, and that there were large numbers of people with ‘autism-like’ traits under other diagnosis’.
The diagnostic definition has changed and expanded radically – I myself would not (could not) have been diagnosed pre-1993 as my type of autism was not included in the diagnostic manuals until then. This also holds out for many of the people I work with, with those with ‘older’ diagnoses often being noticably more impaired than those with ‘newer’. This also holds out for many older people in the health care system displaying similar autistic symptoms (and a history of doing so, with symptoms evident in their parents and children) but diagnosed with general learning disabilities.
you mean some other factor like progress in the way we deal with information, knowledge, science and technology? Nah, I don’t think there was such a thing during the second part of the last century. Never mind.
Not true. The medical community accepted the possibility that there was a link. Hence the multiple studies that were made looking for evidence of such a link.
The jury is not out. The jury never heard it–special masters did. And they came back and came back decisively: “it isn’t even close”.
Somehow the point was missed. Statistical methods require a control group. The control group is missing. When you don’t do the statistical experiment correctly then you get anything you want. The medical community clearly wants no connection.
@daedalus2u
The question was whether there is a relationship between vaccines and autism, not mercury and autism. It is one of the common mistakes made in the autism vaccine debate.
@Dedj
The change in diagnostics is a theory presented to explain the rise in the autism rate. It is a theory and it has not been tested and yet it is presented as factual. It is another common mistake made in the autism debate.
@Sullivan,
There have been numerous mistakes in the autism/vaccine research. Some have been brought up in previous postings. The fact that these mistakes go unquestioned says that the medical community is doing their research with an agenda and that they have not accepted that there might be a connection. This is, of course a generalized rule and does not mean that the inability to accept the possibility is universal.
“Statistical methods require a control group. ”
Actually they don’t. All that is required is that all other factors can be accounted for, leaving only the one you’re testing.
Again, if vaccines = autism then one would expect more vaccines = more autism. Thus one can design a study that looks for this relationship, without a negative control group. So far none has been found.
No person has yet managed to propose a mechanism by which we would see the relationship in a ‘non-vaccine vs. vaccinated’ study , but somehow miss it in a ‘less vaccinated vs. more vaccinated study’
So far only hand-waving has been offered.
“It is a theory and it has not been tested”
Really? At least one team has looked at people diagnosed with a language disorder a few decades ago and found that they would fit the criteria for autism today.
Another team has looked at the rise in autism and found that a significant proportion is due to diagnostics.
At least several authours – not just Wing and Gould – have looked and found autism in people who do not display the ‘classical’ traits, and have gone onto – successfully – argue that such people should be considered autistic. It is because of their work that we have multiple conditions under the umberella of ‘autism’ today.
It is also blatant from comparing the current issue of the ICD or DSM with previous issues. Your local medical library should have at least the last 3 editions of each – possibly all of them. They may be glad to let you have a look for a small fee.
“The fact that these mistakes go unquestioned says that the medical community”
Some of these mistakes were only caught by the vaccine-skeptic community because they were mentioned in the initial papers, or in commentaries in the same publications. We must remember at this point that “We could have done it better” is not the same as “Our data has no value”.
It remains that the papers that meet the best standards for research are overwhelmingly the ones supporting a lack of a connection, whereas the only ones found to lack any of the standards usually applied have turned out to be exclusively the work of vaccine skeptics.
Saying things have not been tested – when they have been , and rather famously at that – or that mistakes have been made – without making a valid arguement for what this means for the data – is not a worthy endevour.
You mean a control group that is completely unvaccinated is missing. They have looked at children with and without a particular outcome at different exposure levels. Take, for example, Thompson et al. (2007). It comes to reason that there should be a dose-response relationship, so that works. It would be difficult, otherwise, to recruit a big group of completely unvaccinated children for a study.
There are also ecological studies (“natural experiments” if you will) that have looked at children who have never been vaccinated with a particular vaccine. For example, look for studies on the MMR vaccine in Japan. There are also studies on autism after removal of thimerosal.
The vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated case-control study that is proposed is also potentially harmful if not done right. Here’s a concrete example. Suppose the study is done across the whole US. You will no doubt find that in poor states like Mississipi and Alabama, they have relatively low vaccination rates. For similar reasons, you might also find that in those states autism is under-recognized. The difference is probably big enough that the “risk ratio” would be significant.
It’s not that such a study could not be done, but if it’s done by someone who does not understand methodology and how to control for confounds (like the Geiers) it would be a terrible thing to do.
Bottom line, it would not be as conclusive a study as people who push it would like us to believe. Nor would it work to convince the anti-vaxers of anything they don’t already believe, so what would be the point again?
@Dedj
“Actually they don’t. All that is required is that all other factors can be accounted for, leaving only the one you’re testing.”
That statement brings me back to my original statement. A control group is required.
“Thus one can design a study that looks for this relationship, without a negative control group. So far none has been found.”
The control group is the unvaccinated group. They exist.
“So far only hand-waving has been offered.”
It is not hand waiving to call for the study of the unvaccinated population which is what I am calling for.
“Another team has looked at the rise in autism and found that a significant proportion is due to diagnostics.”
This statement says that diagnostics cannot account for all of the change. Again, it is a nice theory but it will not account for the difference between 1/160 and 1/2500.
For years the CDC sited the Danish study that showed that with the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, the autism rate continued to rise. From that the conclusion that there is no connection between autism and vaccines does not follow. But that was their conclusion. Actually, you can conclude that a little thimerosal makes the autism rate go down or you can conclude that there was another factor that was not accounted for. Neither of these were compatible with the pro-vax agenda. The CDC stood on its statistic of 1/2500 until Feb 2007. Each of these is a testiment to the pro-vax agenda of the medical community.
Note that I am not saying that there is a connection. I am saying that the homework is not complete and it is not done well. I am calling for the study of the unvaccinated population. So far, I have seen no valid reason that it should not be done.
You mention that it would be difficult. But that is what is required and it is what I am calling for.
BTW, the people who do not vaccinate their children are for the most part well off making over 75k$ a year. The Mississippi argument does not hold.
I’ve seen the CDC data on vaccination coverage. State wealth and vaccination coverage do correlate.
The homework will never be complete for many people until there is a test, sanctioned by god, which can be given to each and every child with 100.00% accuracy of identifiying vaccine injury.
Even then, some subset will say, “I didn’t know god was in the pocket of Big Pharma”.
The vaccine question has diverted good researchers and research funding away from projects that could have born real fruit.
The fact of the matter is this–the data are good enough to decisively state that the rise in autism diagnoses was not caused by thimerosal or MMR, the two candidates which had a hint of biological plausibility. The fact that people are switching to “too many too soon” is a clear statement that even they recognize this. It would be good for them to grow a spine and admit to the world that the MMR and thimerosal hypotheses were false, so that families can move on and so that children will no longer be subjected to “therapies” which have no basis in science.
Ed, if you really want to discuss your points based on statistics, try taking it over to Prometheus at photon in the darkness. He has covered the huge problems with the vax/unvaxed study in detail. Given that you stick to the idea that no control group invalidates a statistical argument, I suspect Prom will make rather quick work of you.
Ed, for more information on that type of study check out this page:
http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=154
Take note of this comment: “Another suggestion made was to have a study where children are placed into “no vaccination” and “vaccination” groups. This, of course, would be rejected out of hand by any Institutional Review Board because the risks of not vaccinating are well known and quite serious. On the other hand, the connection between vaccines and autism is tenuous at best. It would be unethical to expose adults to a known serious risk in order to test a weakly-supported (again, at best!) possible risk. In children, it would be unthinkable.”
The MMR has been used since 1971, and the data show that it has reduced the number of measles, mumps and rubella cases during that time. The data also show that when vaccination goes under a certain level (Japan, UK, Austria, Germany, certain communities in the USA) the diseases do come back, and children are injured and worse.
I would suggest you pick up a copy of Paul Offit’s book “Autism’s False Prophets”, and read the chapter on epidemiological studies and the comparison with other studies.
The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)
“That statement brings me back to my original statement. A control group is required.”
A control group is not required if the proposed mechanism has a dose-response element.
Again, if an ingredient or concert of ingredients in vaccines if responsible for inducing autism, one can expect an increase in vaccine actions to result in a corresponging increase in vaccine reactions. The literature does not indicate this.
A unvaccinated control group (which you indicate may not be comparitive and thus less useful as a control group anyway) is only required if one is looking for a binary reaction.
Again, it is handwaving to repeatedly call for a unvac’d vs vacc’d study, when you cannot propose a mechanism for harm that would show up in a unvacc’d/vacc’d study but not be even indicated in a -vacc’d/++vacc’d study.
“This statement says that diagnostics cannot account for all of the change”
Of course not, it’s entirely possible that social changes – such as deinstitutionalisation, personalised health care, increased health spending and increased technology have also contributed.
This statement has of course been extensively looked at – something you imply the medical world is somehow unwilling to do.
To say that “it cannot” account for the changes – whilst claiming it has been untested – is jumping your own gun. To continue to use noncomparable figures when you have been informed of what changes have occured to make the figures incomparable as well as where to look for these changes smacks of academic laziness.
I have a feeling this is going to be a straight out rehash of your old arguements over at AutismVox. You have had several months to seek out any form of evidence or reference to validate your claims. You have not done so.
Because this discussion is a rehash you should not expect any reply unless you do the unlikely and come up with something new.
Yes, there have been dose response measurements. I wonder if the ones who did the study ever looked at the Danish statistics. Denmark is a population that does not have anywhere near the number of vaccines that the US has and does not have anywhere near the number of autism cases.
Chris,
Offit’s book is a case in point where the theory that the rise in autism cases is due to a change in diagnostics. It is offered factually and without any support. He also has an interesting section where he cites a study done in 1937 by Eli Lilly that shows that an adult male can take 2,000,000 micrograms of thimerosal without harm. For me, that falls under the category of “Don’t trust the source authority because it does not make sense.” But this crowd is protective toward all things vax just as a mother bear is toward its cubs. I expect that it went unnoticed.
BTW,
Do we have anyone here who can offer anything medical about what autism is?
Ed said “Offit’s book is a case in point where the theory that the rise in autism cases is due to a change in diagnostics. It is offered factually and without any support.”
There is more support for that than the vaccine hypothesis. If you want a list of studies that support that you should look at this article with a list on the end:
Anyway, I was pointing out the information on the value epidemiological studies, something you failed to understand. I also doubt you even went to the website pointed out by both Sullivan and me (at the same time!).
By the way, this blog had noted that case report of the man who attempted to commit suicide with thimerosal… it did not work. Use the search box above to look for it. Plus it is a stupid argument to even bring up thimerosal up again and again, the levels that used to be in vaccines was minuscule… and even less today. Also, it was never in the MMR vaccine (oh, and neither is aluminum!).
Oh, by the way you are saying “But this crowd is protective toward all things vax just as a mother bear is toward its cubs”…
Well considering I have seen the damage done by the real diseases in my own children (my oldest are both adults), it is more a way to avoid that happening to other kids again. I have known people who have been deafened by rubella and mumps, knew of a child who ended up in the hospital with a very real chance of losing a limb to a bacterial infection during chicken pox (which my children just had recovered from, it is not “mild” for a disabled kid!), many people just ten years old than me who had been crippled with polio, and have known parents who had to bury children due to Hib. The “privilege” of being older than many of you guys is that I have seen what these diseases do first hand.
By the way, we are the ones arguing with actual science, where is yours? You make guesses, and suppositions but seem to forget there is a risk in everything. Right now there is more of a risk of leaving a large “control group” of children without vaccines than there is in vaccinating them.
The science has been done… it points to the factors noted above (changing diagnostic standards, deinstitutionalisation, expanded technology, genetics, etc… and may I say “awareness”, you do not know how difficult it was to get a non-speaking preschooler taken seriously in the early 1990s). That was also lacking in the testimony of the “experts” during the Autism Omnibus proceedings. Go up and read the rest of the transcripts, look at the difference between the two sets of testimony, it is quite striking.
Again I say there is NO real science that supports any vaccine with autism. It is a dead link… that parrot is dead.
Ed in Colorado writes:
“The change in diagnostics is a theory presented to explain the rise in the autism rate. It is a theory and it has not been tested and yet it is presented as factual. It is another common mistake made in the autism debate.”
Incorrect.
There hasn’t been a scientifically demonstrated general rise in the actual prevalence of autism.
There are demonstrably significant increases in diagnoses. It’s crystal clear that what constitutes an “autism diagnosis” has changed significantly over time – from published changes in the diagnostic criteria to be more inclusive for autistic disorder (1994) to expansion of the scope of the criteria to include a spectrum of disorders: PDD-NOS (1987) and Asperger’s (1994).
In addition to these very factual changes in definition and criteria, there is good evidence that diagnositic substitution probably plays a siginificant role in the increase in diagnoses. There is also evidence that earlier age of diagnosis may play a role in some frequently discussed populations. Awareness and recognition undoubtedly have effect as well.
There is no “theory” that seeks to explain any real increase in autism prevalence, because no such increase has ever been substantiated with good scientific evidence.
It’s quite possible that there has been some sort of real increase in autism prevalence – do you have any evidence of such an increase?
Ed continued: “Do we have anyone here who can offer anything medical about what autism is?”
Why? Have you not kept up with the medical, educational and psychological literature on it yourself. There have been lots of papers on trying to find the differences of the brains in autistic people. Personally I don’t care, my kid is too old to be diagnosed as autistic. He had other names for his condition, he only entered the autistic spectrum after they redefined it.
Maybe I should ask you this: Is there any ONE medical thing that can be associated with seizure disorders? Why do so many kids on the autism spectrum have seizures? Are they related, or does have a history of seizures mean you are not really autistic, even though you meet the latest diagnostic criteria? Would you consider a child autistic if his seizures came from an actual disease (like my kid), or claimed from a vaccine (like Jenny McCarthy, though the timing for that is fishy)? What about the effects of anti-convulsants? Should they be considered a cause or a side-effect (they can cause developmental delays, but since seizures can cause essentials functions like breathing to stop, it is kind of “choose your risk” decision)?
Look for the change in diagnostic criteria here:
http://unstrange.com/dsm1.html
I would also suggest you read that book.
Not everybody believes vaccines cause autism.
Four words
Rett Syndrome
Mitochondrial Disease
Now if you antivaxers would let up there could be more research dollars going into finding otherREAL causes of autism.
About that, it seems that these days a lot of anti-vaxers are saying that dose-response does not matter. I note that this position is impossible to reconcile with the notion of an autism epidemic.
I am in awe. This group is so focused on what it cannot be that there is no clue on what it can be.
I know that if I offered the research of anyone who is deemed anti-vax it would automatically be wrong. So I won’t. Start with the work of Rosemary Waring. But be forwarned. If you follow it to its logical conclusion you will not be as sanguine as you are about the use of thimerosal especially among autistic children.
“This group is so focused on what it cannot be that there is no clue on what it can be”
Really? Had you asked, we could have discussed genetic studies that discuss the various loci believed to be behind some autism. We could even have discussed genetic drift, or how the techno era could have benefits for those with BAP.
But you didn’t. We can’t be blamed for only discussing the points you brought up.
There isn’t anything automatically wrong with anti-vax research. Research that comes from overwhelmingly irrelevently qualified (if qualified at all), irrelevantly experienced (if experienced at all) people with known connections to majorly interested parties isn’t neccisarily biased.
The fact that trained, qualified, experienced experts perform lit reviews and overwhelmingly (i.e. exclusively) find the poorest quality research to be the anti-vax research obviously has no reflection on the content of the arguement.
Ed in Colorado: I looked at the information for Dr Waring. I don’t see how her studies support you. She found a biological marker in many autistic children and was (is? the last article I found authored by her was 2005; a long time for a researcher not to publish) discussing its possible implications.
Unfortunately, I don’t see any newer research from her with additional information. If you know of any, post a link, please.
You have been told many, many times that your “research requires a ‘no-vaccine’ control group” idea is unethical medically. Please drop the subject if you want to dialogue honestly. Studies have compared non-vaccinated children, undervaccinated children and fully vaccinated children and found no differences (including the phone survey done by ?Kirby? – forget who it was). Ethics would not permit researchers to take newborns and split them into groups.
I think that phone survey was done by Safe Minds.
There was a lower incidence of autism amongst those that had been vaccinated.
Of course, we’re talking about 1 case versus 2 cases, but that wouldn’t have stopped them howling it from the rooftops had it been the other way around.
That’s true. If you offered something by the Geiers, for example, it’s only natural that it should be considered wrong a priori. But that’s only because their prior work is so fatally flawed, and not in a way that you could say “maybe they are wrong” – no – it’s not every funny.
But you’re welcome to try. Post anything you want. Maybe someone will explain the problems with the “science.”
It was done by Generation Rescue. There’s a reason why you don’t hear a lot about that survey. It was very poorly executed too. If you Google “generation rescue phone survey,” my analysis is the second search result.
Ed,
you are assuming that we haven’t looked at the studies or the theories. You are assuming we automaicaaly reject studies based on who wrote them.
You assume wrong.
Many of thre people who comment on this site have looked at the studies, and in some cases the raw data, extremely close.
If we are skeptical of certain authors, it is because they have demonstrated that they deserve skepticism. Dr. Wakefield being a prime example.
Ed said “I know that if I offered the research of anyone who is deemed anti-vax it would automatically be wrong.”
No, the problem with most of it is that it does not follow the rules of science, especially that silly Generation Rescue phone survey and it has been shown that cherry picking wrong data was what Wakefield did wrong (that was before he put different medical histories than what was in the subjects’ real records in his now totally debunked paper).
There are rules, read this to learn what to look for:
One thing that Harriet Hall doesn’t mention, and that the special masters have made clear is a big issue in vaccine science, is this. You have to determine if the research was specifically crafted to support litigation, as opposed to normal scientific research that is carried out to advance scientific knowledge, and to answer questions that have arisen.
Ed in Colorado asks:
Ed, see:
Madsen et al, Thimerosal and the occurrence of autism: negative ecological evidence from Danish population-based data. Pediatrics 2003 Sep;112(3 Pt 1):604-6.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/112/3/604
and:
Madsen et al. A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. N Eng J Med 2002 Nov 7;347(19):1477-82.
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/347/19/1477
In case you don’t have time to read them, both studies found no association between autism and either thimerosal (Madsen 2003) or the MMR vaccine (Madsen 2002).
Any more questions? Or were you not looking for information?
Prometheus
For those looking for a possible explanation of autism, I subscribe to the low NO hypothesis of autism which I discuss in detail on my blog.
As far as I know it is consistent with everything that is in the literature on autism. NO physiology is complex, autism is complex, the autism literature is complex. A mapping showing that they pretty much overlap is large and cumbersome and difficult to follow. That does not make it wrong.
A great difficulty I have had in getting researchers to talk with me is the sway the “mercury causes autism” and the “vaccines cause autism” memes have had over them. With those now pretty much off the table, perhaps we can discuss things that might be relevant.
As Sherlock Holmes said, “Once you have eliminated the impossible, what ever remains however improbable must be the truth”.
@Sullivan,
You tell me that I assume wrong and then you talk about Wakefield as if his spirit is in everyone who has an inkling of doubt about vaccine safety. Thanks for proving my point.
@Dawn,
Tell me why it is unethical to gather the statistics on children of parents who refuse to vaccinate. They exist.
The marker you refer to says several things:
1. It means that medically there is a way to identify autistic children. To date, the medical community says that there is no way to do that.
2. It says that autistic children do not have as efficient a mechanism for toxin clean up.
3. If you follow the thread, this mechanism is also one that latches onto heavy metal compounds. That makes autistics more vulnerable to heavy metal poisoning.
I do not expect this to go anywhere on this site. People who flock here seem more interested in proving wrong than finding something that is right
@Prometheus,
I ask the question regarding autism and vaccines, not mercury, not MMR. That question requires a comparison of vaccinated children and unvaccinated children. Somehow, that causes people here to swarm like bees.
@Chris,
Generation Rescue had the right idea and went about it in the wrong way. I am simply calling for it to be done right.
It doesn’t. And I think it was Prometheus who suggested it’s probably less expensive and more feasible to do a dose-response vaccine study, as opposed to a vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study, which would be very difficult unless it’s something like a phone survey.
The only reason such a study could be problematic is the same sort of reason why the GR survey was – the results will probably be misleading if the authors simply ignore confounds.
Note that there are very few completely unvaccinated children in a country like the US. Whatever children you manage to find will probably be very different to children from the general population in many respects. It’s unclear if such a study could be interpreted at all if that’s the case.
In fact, it’s possible you’ll find autism to be common among fully unvaccinated children, kind of like the GR survey found, for reasons I’ve explained.
@Ed – I doubt that medical professionals could condone or be party to a study in which a control group would be expected to remain unvaccinated for a number of years. I think it would present an M.D. with an ethical issue.
Also, not that it is of interest to you, but the topic of this thread was “Vaccines in court, what next?” This thread is a demonstration of what to expect next. Since the decision didn’t fit the agenda, ignore it.
Part of what the court pointed to was research which was only undertaken to prove a point as opposed to research that is done to understand and fully explore medical questions. The study you are suggesting is exactly what the court was pointing to as inappropriate.
I am a long way from being able to hold vaccines harmless in this whole debate but I do feel the benefits far outweigh the negatives. I want research but not the type you suggest. I want researchers free from pressure, to pursue autism down any path, to understand it, to help all of us deal with our children, our schools, and adult society far more effectively than we do today. If that results in identifying causes so be it.
I want the researchers who pursue things honestly to be held up as heroes, no matter what the answers. Those who falsify data should be kicked to the curb without further consideration. There is so much we don’t know and so much more we could be doing to improve the services that in many cases are not available at all to families.
If you wish to sue a drug company; go for it. I would, however, read those decisions from federal court before spending too much with an attorney.
Oh, the “you prove my point” gambit.
Followed by belittling others comments rather than addressing them. E.g. “swarm like bees”
What works really well in this situation is to give a reason for the study. For example biological plausibility. There is none for “too many too soon”. Just vague “overwhelming the immune system” type comments, followed usually by anecdotes (my child is my science), and references to Hannah Poling. Guess what, the only valid one is the Hannah Poling question, and that is being studied. No complaints here on that. However, I find it beyond amusing that people will on the one hand bash the MMR decisions from the court as not relevant, but will cite Hannah Poling–a concession, not an argued case–as proof.
The reason why people answer MMR and thimerosal instead of all vaccines is that there is a vast intellectual dishonesty that always pops up in this discussion. When people will own up to the fact that the idea that thimerosal and MMR have been exhonerated from being causes of the faux epidemic, then we can move forward.
Also, MMR and Thimerosal prove one thing–people can be utterly convinced of vaccine causation theories that are wrong. “My child is my science” is wrong.
So, if one wishes to push the idea of vaccine causation, one must address why one has a better reasoning than MMR and Thimerosal. The data are much more weak for “too many, too soon”, than for MMR or thimerosal.
Also, one needs to include the true cost of a study. Not just the time and money. But, should a vaccine/autism study be approved, it will be taken as “proof” that there is validity to the theory, “proof” that the government knows something. This will be used to pull more people into the vaccine ideology for years while the study is ongoing.
If such a study were performed and were it to find no link? If history is any lesson, people will simply cry foul and ignore the results while continuing to push the idea that the fact that the study was called for in the first place is “proof”.
The problem is that the vaccine/autism community has proven itself unreliable as sources of information and unreliable as recipients of information.
Ed, get a clue:
The science has been done, the link between vaccines and autism does not exist. It is a dead link… “It’s not pinin’! ‘It’s passed on! This link is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life, it rests in peace! If you hadn’t nailed it to the perch it’d be pushing up the daisies! Its metabolic processes are now ‘istory! It’s off the twig! It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-LINK!! ” (hat-tip to Monty Python and the dead parrot sketch)
I don’t have your faith, Chris
You have never watched your child go from social to sick to autistic or lose academic skills or start seizures after vaccination and then get patted on the head with patronizing comments like “It is just anecdotal” or “Post hoc ergo propter hoc”
There are many of us who have and not just from the MMR and not just from vaccines that contain mercury.
Measurement of the autism rate among the unvaccinated, who exist without anyone forcing them not to vaccinate, is a reasonable step in the science. So why is this a problem for you who claim to be scientists?
I take it you haven’t surfed over to Prometheus’ site and read about selection bias. Not to mention the statistical problems doing this within the US.
And, if you want to play the “none of you” game, you are asking for people to think you shoot from the hip without information. Not a good image to project when you are trying to make yourself out as a person who thinks rationally. Your assumption was wrong.
Another reason why the Omnibus and the MMR and thimerosal stories keep coming up. There are clear examples in these of people for whom the parents believed that everything happened post vaccination when, in fact, there were signs pre-vaccination.
It is interesting that the stories of things happening not just from MMR and thimerosal are increasing as the MMR and thimerosal theories are disproven.
A good example–the founder of generation rescue. Previously the story was absolute, “autism is just another name for mercury poisoning”. In recent interviews, it is the “too many too soon” story.
One can change his/her mind. But, intellectual honesty would have one explain why. Especially when it was so absolute and led to incorrect therapies. Are there still people being pulled in by the YouTube video explaining how in 2 years of chelation you “get your kid back”?
Ed,
would you like to address the issue of selection bias? Here are but two possible scenarios.
Consider the HomeFirst practice that is so often brought up with this idea.
Consider families that pick this practice because they want to avoid autism. Consider families who have autistic children anyway. Isn’t it reasonable to consider that some of these families would be disillusioned and leave the practice? Wouldn’t that reduce the measured incidence of autism within the practice?
Consider families who have a first child with autism. Wanting to avoid autism in their subsequent children, they join the HomeFirst practice. However, since there is a higher prevalence of autism in siblings, some fraction of these families would likely have autistic children, unvaccinated, within the practice.
How would you decide if either of these factors is at play? How would you correct for it?
While we are at it, consider the Amish, another favorite subject pool ever since Mr. Olmsted incorrectly reported that they shun vaccines. The Amish are genetically isolated. Not only are they isolated from the main population, but they must be considered “island populations”, genetically distinct from each other. How do you account for this in your study? As an example of how this could be an effect, what is the prevalence of Cystic Fibrosis amongst the Lancaster County Amish? What is the prevalence of Maple Syrup Urine Disease? (Hint, zero in the first case, higher than normal in the second case).
Now, consider that the vaccination rate amongst the Lancaster County Amish has changed dramatically over the last 15 years. And, yet, amongst Amish old an young, it is claimed that there is no autism. Got an explanation for that?
Ed moaned: “You have never watched your child go from social to sick to autistic or lose academic skills or start seizures after vaccination”
Hey, Ed… my kid started his seizures two days after he was born! Can I just say that birth is dangerous that we should somehow limit its use. Yeah, that’s the ticket… let’s have everyone stop giving birth, that way those types of neonatal seizures will go away.
By the way, as noted above… the parents did not remember everything correctly. What they claimed happen did not jive with the recorded medical histories (often written BEFORE the vaccination!).
Get a clue, or at least some idea of how science works.