Archive by Author

Dear Mercury and MMR Militia

21 Jun

I want to write you all an open letter to offer you my opinion as to where you are going wrong. Before I do, I fully realise that this is a massive generalisation and that some of you won’t hold all the opinions I’m about to go through. I think though, that many of you do.

Three things prompted this open letter. First of all was David Kirby’s trip to the UK. Second was a comment from Kelli Ann Davies where she expressed surprise that some of us might know/guess/whatever the intentions of the science and medical community. Third was Ginger Taylor’s recent sulk about the AAP. I’ll touch on these things as I go through this.

You have a truly massive credibility issue which grows with every passing year. Once upon a time it was an issue with the science/medical community but now it is an issue with the general public. There are a number of reasons why this is so.

1) You cannot keep your story straight. You have (as I said to Kelli Anne) some first class marketing and PR people. As I recall, Lynn Redwood, Mark Blaxill and Sallie Bernard all have marketing qualifications. You also have numerous leading lights who are very, very rich. This means you have ample opportunity to lever your message into the heart of the US media system.

But that means nothing without a coherent story to sell. You don’t have one. I understand that you have recently talked about how the ‘story of vaccines’ has _evolved_ . That is stretching things more than a little. Its mercury, no its MMR, no its both, no its Aluminium, no its all three, no its all ingredients, no its the very vaccines themselves, no its the schedule they’re given. No – its ALL the above. And don’t forget the mitochondria!

The more ingredients you add to the pot, the more you have to explain why they are causative of autism. You didn’t even manage to do this when you were concentrating on just _one_ thing (thiomersal). The above is not an example of an evolving hypothesis. Its an example of an ever widening hypothesis as one after another, your original ideas have been taken down.

Nowhere is this better illustrated than David Kirby’s stumbling backwards and backwards:

In 2005, David said in a FAIR Autism Media interview:

It’s now 2005…..[W]e should see fewer cases entering the system [cdds] this year than we did last year.

When that didn’t happen he then said:

if the total number of 3-5 year olds in the California DDS system has not declined by 2007, that would deal a severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis…..total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.

That didn’t happen either.

You started off by pointing an air pistol at a target 20 feet away and missing. You worked your way through Magnums, Shotguns and Miniguns and kept missing. You currently have a canon wheeled right up to within a foot of the target and you’re _still_ missing.

2) Your science is weak and getting weaker. Sadly for you, the onus was (and still is) on you to provide evidence that vaccines in any of the myriad of hypotheses cause autism. Lets hypothetically agree with you that vaccines are in fact, fashioned by Satan and are in fact, tools of population control. That is not the point. The point is: _do they cause autism?_

There is not one paper that passes muster as valid science that offers corroborating evidence that any vaccine, any ingredient of vaccines or any schedule they are administered in causes autism. This is after over 10 years of trying to find one. What you are increasingly left with is a double conspiracy theory. In one barrel of the conspiracy theory, brave maverick doctors are having their research suppressed. In the other barrel of the conspiracy theory, Big Pharma shills are publishing science to refute the various vaccine hypotheses.

Of course, neither barrel is true. The brave maverick docs are not having their science suppressed. It is simply not good enough to pass peer review.

A good example of this is the science experts being presented at the Omnibus Autism proceedings. No Geier’s. No Jim Adams. No Boyd Haley. No Andrew Wakefield. At least, not so far anyway. And this is in the Vaccine Court, where standards of evidence are way lower than in a civil court, where – by the way – not a few of these same researchers science was not good enough to even be entered as evidence.

And you have this nasty habit of shooting yourselves in the foot. Only today David Kirby posted on the Huffington Post about how rubbish the VSD database was. The very same database the Geier’s recently used to allege a link between vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders.

And the list goes on. The Hornig study? Refuted by Rick Rollens MIND Institute. The Nataf paper on Porphyrins? Liz Mumper, head of DAN! medical admits that even ‘normal’ children have raised Porphyrin levels. The Bernard et al paper? Refuted. Richard Deth’s work? Exposed and questioned.

3) Your choice of media people to represent you is doing you harm. I am not sure how the idea of latching onto Jenny McCarthy as a spokesperson for the anti-vaccine/autism connection came up. There are a few other celebs I can think of with more gravitas than McCarthy. In truth, you couldn’t have chosen worse. Already, she has made a public fool of herself (and you). As has her partner, Jim Carrey, with his ‘lazy ass’ FUBAR and calls to notice ‘warnings from the universe‘.

I understand that these events feel terribly cathartic to you but I would urge you to take off your rose tinted glasses and see how the real world perceives these kind of things. Its not good. Don’t take my word for it, go to a _mainstream_ news source, discount the people you know as friends/associates who are leaving comments and then see what people think.

You have also latched onto the words of Bernadine Healy. I can see why but she (is/was) a member of a paid lobby group that advances the ‘science’ of Philip Morris to put forward the idea passive smoking isn’t dangerous. How desperate do you have to be to turn to _this_ ‘authority’ for backup?

4) You cannot see that you are being humoured. I know that some of you have been very proud of your success in getting involved with things like the IACC and y’know, thats great – well done to you. And then there’s the ‘coup’ of getting the AAP to attend a DAN! conference and ‘work with’ them. But there’s one thing you seem to have forgotten. AAP members are medical scientists. They will go with the decent science.

I read a blog post from Ginger Taylor today which seemed to be telling the AAP their ‘window of opportunity’ to work with DAN! et al had closed due to the fact they endorsed a letter that a paediatrician had written on how to tackle parents who were nervous about vaccination.

Amusingly, Taylor also chided the AAP for not turning up to the ‘green our vaccines’ rally:

I warned that the window would only be open for a short time unless we saw real action, and would probably close around the time of the Green our Vaccines Rally if they didn’t show up for us in some respect.

Well the AAP didn’t show up for the rally and well… this certainly signals that the window is closed. They want it closed. And it looks like they may be locking it.

Can you not understand that to expect the AAP will turn up for a rally which touts such anti-science as Aluminium and Formaldehyde being at singularly dangerous levels in vaccines and Anti-Freeze being in them at all is the height of arrogant stupidity? Surely you cannot be that naive?

The truth is – and I get this from speaking to AAP, NIH, FDA and NHS members – that you had, and always will have, an opportunity to impress them with decent, peer reviewed science. That’s all you’ve ever needed. And that’s what you’ve never had.

5) The future. The person you’ve decided will be your public face is writing another book. <a href="http://stopthinkautism.blogspot.com/2008/06/today-autism-recovery-tomorrow-crystals.html"She says that:

It’s really an Indigo book…….We’re definitely the Indigos, you know, breaking down these walls so this, you know, New Earth behind us can happen.

And what’s your role in this?

…But people aren’t quite there yet and I kinda had to, not lower my vibration, change my vibration to focusing on the world hearing that message. Hearing that biomedical treatment does help these kids.

And then, slowly, you know I can put it in my speeches. and then in my last book I talked about the indigos and crystals. And I’m just like, I’m really following source, kind of I felt the need to do that, I’m just kind of dribbling it here and there until people, you know, have that spiritual awakening of spirituality.”

That’s where you’re going. You’re close to abandoning any kind of rational basis for your beliefs and just becoming Jenny’s followers in an Indigo Spiritual Awakening to herald in the New Earth..

The Irrelevant Objection Fallacy – I’m Insulted!

21 Jun

In some cases, the irrelevant objection fallacy can also bee seen as the, “shoot the messenger” fallacy, or in this case, maybe even, “shoot the straw messenger”.

Over at Age Of Autism, Ginger Taylor writes:

The American Academy of Pediatrics now recommends that pediatricians tell parents who don’t vaccinate their children that they:

Are “Selfish”
Are “Self-Centered”
Are “Complacent or Lazy”
Are often “Emotional” decision makers
Have “Unacceptable attitudes”

But they do not believe that insulting you like this is in any way coercing you to vaccinate your child.

Does the American Academy of Pediatrics really recommend that? Ginger’s assertion is based on is a sample letter from a private pediatric practice (All Star Pediatrics). The sample letter does in fact clearly communicate this practice’s position and opinions about the importance of vaccination and probably does serve a healthy portion of a ‘not-so-pretty look in the mirror’ at attitudes surrounding vaccination refusal. Yes, this sample letter is available on the AAP website, but, is it really a “recommendation” from the AAP?

This sample document was created by All Star Pediatrics. It is provided only as a reference for practices developing their own materials and may be adapted to local needs. This document does not represent official American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy or guidelines and the AAP is not responsible for its use. You should consult an attorney who is knowledgeable about the laws of the jurisdiction in which you practice before creating or using any legal documents.

If the sample letter from All Star Pediatrics is not official policy or guidelines, what is?

This maybe? (from the AAP Policy website).

What is the pediatrician to do when faced with a parent who refuses immunization for his or her child? First and most important, the pediatrician should listen carefully and respectfully to the parent’s concerns, recognizing that some parents may not use the same decision criteria as the physician and may weigh evidence very differently than the physician does.21 Vaccines are very safe, but they are not risk free; nor are they 100% effective.22 This poses a dilemma for many parents and should not be minimized. The pediatrician should share honestly what is and is not known about the risks and benefits of the vaccine in question, attempt to understand the parent’s concerns about immunization, and attempt to correct any misperceptions and misinformation.23–25 Pediatricians should also assist parents in understanding that the risks of any vaccine should not be considered in isolation but in comparison to the risks of remaining unimmunized. For example, although the risk of encephalopathy related to the measles vaccine is 1 in 1 million, the risk of encephalopathy from measles illness is 1000 times greater.22 Parents can also be referred to one of several reputable and data-based Web sites for additional information on specific immunizations and the diseases they prevent (see pages 52 and 53 of the Red Book25 for a list of Internet resources related to immunization).

Many parents have concerns related to 1 or 2 specific vaccines. A useful strategy in working with families who refuse immunization is to discuss each vaccine separately. The benefits and risks of vaccines differ, and a parent who is reluctant to accept the administration of 1 vaccine may be willing to allow others.

Parents also may have concerns about administering multiple vaccines to a child in a single visit. In some cases, taking steps to reduce the pain of injection, such as those suggested in the Red Book,26 may be sufficient. In other cases, a parent may be willing to permit a schedule of immunization that does not require multiple injections at a single visit.

Physicians should also explore the possibility that cost is a reason for refusing immunization. For a parent whose child does not have adequate preventive care insurance coverage, even the administrative costs and copayments associated with immunization can pose substantial barriers. In such cases, the physician should work with the family to help them obtain appropriate immunizations for the child.

For all cases in which parents refuse vaccine administration, pediatricians should take advantage of their ongoing relationship with the family and revisit the immunization discussion on each subsequent visit. As respect, communication, and information build over time in a professional relationship, parents may be willing to reconsider previous vaccine refusals.

Continued refusal after adequate discussion should be respected unless the child is put at significant risk of serious harm (as, for example, might be the case during an epidemic). Only then should state agencies be involved to override parental discretion on the basis of medical neglect. Physician concerns about liability should be addressed by good documentation of the discussion of the benefits of immunization and the risks associated with remaining unimmunized. Physicians also may wish to consider having the parents sign a refusal waiver (a sample refusal-to-immunize waiver can be found at http://www.cispimmunize.org/pro/pdf/RefusaltoVaccinate_2pageform.pdf). In general, pediatricians should avoid discharging patients from their practices solely because a parent refuses to immunize his or her child. However, when a substantial level of distrust develops, significant differences in the philosophy of care emerge, or poor quality of communication persists, the pediatrician may encourage the family to find another physician or practice. Although pediatricians have the option of terminating the physician-patient relationship, they cannot do so without giving sufficient advance notice to the patient or custodial parent or legal guardian to permit another health care professional to be secured.27 Such decisions should be unusual and generally made only after attempts have been made to work with the family. Families with doubts about immunization should still have access to good medical care, and maintaining the relationship in the face of disagreement conveys respect and at the same time allows the child access to medical care. Furthermore, a continuing relationship allows additional opportunity to discuss the issue of immunization over time.

I read the sample letter from All Star Pediatrics, and in my opinion, it follows the Clinical Practice paper on the AAP Policy website pretty closely. I encourage everyone to read it in its entirety before commenting.

Let’s take a look at what the sample letter from that pediatric practice states, that apparently “insulted” Ginger:

Re: “Selfish,” “Self-Centered,” and “Unacceptable”

Furthermore, by not vaccinating your child you are taking selfish advantage of thousands of others who do vaccinate their children, which decreases the likelihood that your child will contract one of these diseases. We feel such an attitude to be self-centered and unacceptable.

Ouch. Unguided by sound science or logic and reason, parents who refuse to vaccinate probably rely heavily on beliefs and things like communal reinforcement to internally justify their decisions. Having one’s beliefs challenged in an ethical context (social responsibility), but based on science (herd immunity) could be quite uncomfortable for some. Is it easier for someone to acknowledge a potential lack of social responsibility, or is it perhaps easier to cry, “I’m offended!”?

Re: “Complacent” and “Lazy”

The vaccine campaign is truly a victim of its own success. It is precisely because vaccines are so effective at preventing illness that we are even discussing whether or not they should be given. Because of vaccines, many of you have never seen a child with polio, tetanus, whooping cough, bacterial meningitis or even chickenpox, or known a friend or family member whose child died of one of these diseases. Such success can make us complacent or even lazy about vaccinating. But such an attitude, if it becomes widespread, can only lead to tragic results.

Hmmm. This looks more like a reasonable concern, and it’s expressed as a possibility.

Re: “Emotional”

We recognize that the choice may be a very emotional one for some parents.

Not too inflammatory in my opinion, but perhaps that’s just me.

At any rate, here’s the bottom line – this sample letter from All Star Pediatrics (which is not in and of itself an AAP policy or guideline), clearly communicates the position and professional opinions of All Star Pediatrics. In my opinion, this practice’s outlined policies seem mostly in-line with the Clinical Practice paper on the AAP Policy website. How it oulines those policies is direct, and very possibly quite uncomfortable for those who would refuse vaccinations. Objecting to that direct and potentially ‘uncomfortable for some’ tone, is irrelevant to the importance of preventing childhood disease.

What does any of this have to do with autism? Well, nothing really, but don’t shoot the messenger.

Omnibus Autism testimony: Dr. Lord on what makes autistic kids improve

18 Jun

The following is transcribed by me from the first mp3 file for May 28th. This part starts around 41 minutes 24 seconds.

Ms. Ricciardella: Do children with autism, in general, improve?

Dr. Catherine Lord: Absolutely.

Ricciardella: What percentage? Do you know?

Lord: I mean I think that all children with autism improve in some ways, and how much is highly variable.

Ricciardella: Would that include children who have a regression in autism? Do they improve as well?

Lord: Yes.

Ricciardella: Do we know why?

Lord: No. I mean, some of the improvement seems to be getting back on developmental course. It’s like asking why do normal kids learn to do the things that they do. We can describe how they learn things but that process of how do kids learn to walk or talk when no one is really teaching them, we don’t know. And that’s the same for autism. We know that behavioral treatments make some difference but it’s a relatively small amount of difference compared to that force of development.

I’m not so sure that it’s only behavioral treatments that make “some” difference, but I agree that whatever therapy or teaching is provided, professional or parental, it’s the “force of development” that is the main thing that causes children to…. develop, which I believe is another way of saying, “improve.” I don’t believe there’s anything that one can do to speed up that force of development. Though I think it’s obvious that judicious use of reasonable kinds of therapies would probably help any autistic child make full use of what abilities he or she has to work with at any given point in time.

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Nigerian Neurodiversity

17 Jun

Its refreshing to realise sometimes that there is a world ‘out there’ beyond the West and that they are living with autism too. And whats more, they aren’t considering it soulless, or sucking the marrow out of families, or organising pointless marches for people to exercise their right to blame others, or forming organisations that concentrate on blaming vaccines, or claiming that denying autism was anything except mercury poisoning in the past and now claiming its the vaccine schedule is just the evolution of a hypothesis, or making a tidy profit of the ignorance of parents.

No, what they’re doing is ‘serving humanity’:

Mr. Babatunde Willouhby,a masters degree holder, left his lucrative job to serve humanity by taking care of autistic and children with Down syndrome, amongst others. He is an administrator in an autistic school, named Hope House School, here in Abuja. While chatting with him recently in his office, I saw in him a man with passion for dealing and caring for a special group of children with slightly different behavioral pattern from those who the society will tag ‘normal children’.

and

Mr Ayiem……said the value he attach to the welfare of his son does not make him see the money spent as expensive, but an investment which is worth giving any individual with confidence that, though it will take time, his son will be independent some day.

and most of all

….socially people see it as a stigma, but I don’t. I have had occasions where I go out with her to supermarket, church and social gathering and you notice people looking at you in a particular way, but I don’t care because she is my daughter. I give her all my love and I display it publicly. I want her to know that she is one of the must loved children in the world.

………..

autistic children and children with Down syndrome can contribute significantly to the society ,if only they are accepted. When we are at home for instance, we help her with her school work by showing her what to do and what behaviour is proper. Of course, like any other child she may go off the track but we help her to do the right things.

……….

If you play any song on radio or on CD and ask who sang it, whether American or Nigerian, she will tell you the name of the artiste. How she knows the name of the artiste and their songs, I don’t know. So if she wants to take that line, I will encourage her all the way. Wendy to me, is one in a million and for me she is a normal child.” From this discussion with Mr Ojugbuna I saw the picture of a father who believes in his child and that was reflected in the behavior of Wendy.

Nigeria is classed as a developing nation (what used to be called ‘third world’). I’d say that in my opinion it has developed a whole hell of a lot further and faster than some people I can think of over in this supposedly enlightened culture.

More Talks for David Kirby

16 Jun

According to his HuffPo blog David is giving some more talks. This time not in the uninterested UK but in the NE US.

David says:

I sincerely encourage any and all vaccine-autism skeptics, critics, agnostics and cynics living in the northeastern US to please consider attending one of these talks, armed with all of your most pointed, difficult and critical questions.

I have some questions which, had family circumstances allowed, I would’ve liked to have asked David when he was over here. What I hope is that NE US skeptics who might be attending, will ask some of the following questions.

1) Given your book is subtitled ‘mercury in vaccines and the autism epidemic’, do you feel it has now been scientifically established that mercury in vaccines does not cause autism? If not, what peer reviewed journal published science touching on mercury in vaccines do you believe supports your books subtitle?

2) You say that during the talk(s) you will discuss ‘The Poling Case – in which the government conceded that vaccines induced autism in one little girl…’. Could you read out the statement from the government where they provide this concession – that vaccines induced autism – and also tell us where we can read it for ourselves, including the location of the source document.

3) Do you agree with Professor Sander Greeland (PSC witness for the families in the continuing Omnibus Autism Procedings) that if vaccines did cause autism and were responsible for ‘an autism epidemic’ that would be detectable in the epidemiological literature? If so, how do you account for all peer reviewed journal published science not establishing an autism epidemic?

4) IN 2005, you said in a FAIR Autism Media interview: ‘It’s now 2005…..[W]e should see fewer cases entering the system [cdds] this year than we did last year.’ – was that the case? If not, does this explain why you then said in a reply to blogger Citizen Cain: ‘if the total number of 3-5 year olds in the California DDS system has not declined by 2007, that would deal a severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis…..total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.’. Do you consider a severe blow has been dealt to the autism-thiomersal hypothesis?

5) Do you consider yourself a fair and impartial journalist on this issue? If so, could you explain how Wendy Fournier of the National Autism Association built your website? Could you further explain to us where you feel the vaccines-autism hypothesis falls down?

6) You state in your literature that a ‘former NIH director’ has stated autism is an epidemic. Is this Bernadine Healy, former member of The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition who are lobbyists for Phillip Morris and Lorillard Tobacco (amongst others) and claim that second hand smoking is not dangerous? Do you feel comfortable with her stance on medical science issues?

What about you Dear Reader? What skeptical questions would you like to ask – or have someone ask – David?

Omnibus Autism hearing: Dr. Lord on autism and regression

16 Jun

Dr. Catherine Lord is widely viewed as the world’s foremost expert on autism diagnosis. The Department of Justice lawyer who examined Dr. Lord in the thimerosal portion of the Omnibus hearing spent what seemed to me to be a very long time just going over Dr. Lord’s credentials and accomplishments as they are considerable.

I was listening to the recording of her testimony yesterday, again, and was reminded of how much I had learned from listening to Dr. Lord’s testimony about what is now known about the early months and years of autistic children. I already knew the basics of what she was explaining but there were some fascinating details that I didn’t know. Links to two audio clips that contain the following testimony are found at the end of this blog entry. Once again, I did the transcribing of the audio, and once again I’m guessing the Dept. of Justice lawyer is Ms. Ricciardella:

Ms. Ricciardella: Does any of your research or research of others support a distinct subtype of regressive autism?

Catherine Lord: No. I mean as especially as we have looked at the toddlers… it’s clear that even, even these very large studies where we felt like we were asking parents many, many questions in great detail probably do not get at what the essence of what happens in those early months because the changes are more subtle and our ability to observe them is so much dependent on the context. It dependent on when do you see a child and what are you looking for. So I think that that has that has moved us, and I think much of the field, toward a sense that there isn’t a regression or not a regression the question is the degree and type of worsening that occurs, how long it lasts and how many skills a child has before that occurs.

Ricciardella: Now in terms of the clinical outcome of a 5 or 6 year old with autism. Is there any marked difference in the clinical outcome of a child who had what I’ll term “early onset autism” versus a child who did indeed have regression.

Lord: Most studies have found no difference at all. The studies that have found differences have found these relatively small differences in verbal skills.

Ricciardella: Now you touched on earlier doctor that you are continuing to research the phenomenon of regression is that correct?

Lord: That’s right

Ricciardella: And you are conducting a longitudinal study. Is that correct?

Lord: That’s right.

Ricciardella: And what information is emerging from that study with regard to regression?

Lord: With that study we have been doing is seeing children who are at risk for having autism, either because they have a sibling with autism, so they may not have any behaviors associated with autism but they have a sibling and their parents are eager to have somebody follow them, or something has occurred, or something has has been seen, often identified by parents, but sometimes by a pediatrician, for example the child has had seizures in the first year of life and so someone is concerned that this child might develop autism.
And we see the children once a month, have parents fill out the same forms each month and then we do standardized assessment, a toddler version of the ADOS. So we do a standardized observation of the child’s social behavior with us and with the parents every month.

What has come out of this is that the trajectories are much less clear than we would have thought from retrospective descriptions years later of what the children are like, and when we have tried to sort that out, I think that there a number of implications. One is that different skills are changing at different rates and at different times. So that you have, for example, eye contact is typically getting worse for almost all of the children for from 12 month to 24 months. And social engagement responsiveness to someone trying to get the child to interact with them typically is getting worse in children who have autism diagnoses say by the time they are 2 1/2.

So those things are changing but they actually cycle back around, so they get worse for a while and then for some children they start getting better again.

We also have other skills, for example response to joint attention, or response to somebody pointing, or trying to get the child to look at something, and that for a number of kids gradually gets better even at the same time that some of these social skills are getting worse.

So I think what we’ve realized is it’s just much more complicated changes in development than we thought.

And that these things we used to think only happened in kids who had regressions are actually happening in almost everybody who has autism, because there are some children who look very different from typical children at 12 months, but those are few and far between, and in fact in our follow up study that is not necessarily predictive.

The kids who are not making eye contact at 12 months are not the most autistic kids at age 3. So many things change during that toddler period and I think our conceptualizations of what regression is are partly based retroactive trying to figure out what happened and didn’t happen, which is quite different than when we can see it happening right before our very eyes.

…
(the second audio clip)
Ricciardella: Doctor are you are aware of any evidence showing that the etiology of regression in autism is different from that in “non-regression” for lack of a better word.

Lord: No. And I think again that the idea that there aren’t these clear patterns makes it much harder to draw conclusions about etiology. Because basically could arbitrarily divide these kids up in millions of different ways. So far, … people have tried to divide them up and haven’t found differences in etiology. But it’s not even clear that we know how to divide them up, or that they can be divided up.

Ms. Ricciardella: Doctor before this litigation had you ever read in any published literature that thimerosal containing vaccines cause regressive autism only.

Dr. Lord: I had not.

Ricciardella: Are you aware of any study that has ever suggested that hypothesis?

Dr. Lord: No.

Ricciardella: Doctor did you review the report submitted by Dr. Marcel Kinsbourne in this litigation?

Lord: Yes.

Ricciardella: On page 14 of his report, he states that the, “late onset of the regressive subtype and the subsequent remission or relapses become more understandable if autism is due to disease than if it is the aftermath of congenital maldevelopment.” Do you agree with this statement?

Lord: No

Ricciardella: Why not?

Lord: There are many different disorders where the onset occurs later on. We have Huntington’s disease and schizophrenia and sickle cell anemia and all kinds of disorders… where in some cases we know are genetic, but which occur later on. So I think we can’t make a simple inference that because something emerges later that means that somehow someone has caught a disease or had some kind of particular environmental event that caused it.

Ricciardella: Dr. Kinsbourne also draws a distinction between what he terms as classical or congenital autism and regressive autism. Is this a proper distinction?

Lord: I think the term congenital autism means nothing. Because, I mean, as I said it’s a developmental process. We can’t diagnose autism in a brand new baby. And so in all cases something is developing that would lead us into autism. So to make this distinction between congenital and regressive is a false dichotomy.

Ricciardella: … Dr. Kinsbourne has also describe what he terms his “over-arousal model” as an explanation for autistic behavior. Does his over-arousal model accurately describe what is known about autistic behavior?

Lord: I don’t believe so, I mean the over-arousal model has been around for 40 or 50 years and used to describe many different disorders. I think one of the hard things is that it’s becomes very circular. And children with autism do respond to being over-stimulated as do many other kids, and children with autism may respond in more conspicuous ways, and may have a lower threshold. But the problem is that often the behaviors are used to say that a child is responding by over-arousal, for example by flapping or getting very physically excited, or distracted, are the same behaviors that occur when the child is under-aroused. You know, we can get children who have a lot of self-stimulatory behaviors to do these behaviors by putting them in a situation where there’s nothing to do. We also see children do these behaviors when they are very happy or when they are not so happy. So that the behaviors that used to define over-arousal are behaviors that occur in many different contexts.

Ricciardella: Thank you. That’s all I have.

…

PSC Lawyer, Tom Powers: … I do have some questions to ask you as you might imagine based on the report you filed and the testimony you gave today. …Your testimony … is that there’s no phenotype for regressive autism. … Regression within autism is not a distinct phenotype with in autism spectrum disorder, is that correct?

Lord: Yes.

Powers: You’ve also describe regression in autistic children as a striking phenomenon. … How would you describe the difference between a phenotype and striking phenomenon?

Lord: My point about the striking phenomenon is that it is a remarkable experience to watch a child who has been able to do things not be able to do those things. Or to watch a child who has been relatively socially engaged become less engaged and be more and more difficult to engage or attract. But I think that is different from a phenotype because a phenotype implies that there are a cluster of behaviors that are associated with each other, and that there’s something unique about that cluster of behaviors. I think regression is a real phenomenon in autism, but there’s a continuum of regression. … And we can create a phenotype, I can say, well I’m only putting kids who lost words into this group and I’m going to call it the Lord phenotype. But there has been no, nobody has been able to show that that phenotype is associated with anything other than the characteristics which I used to define the phenotype.

Powers: And that would be because, as I understand it, is because autism diagnostically is entirely a symptomatic diagnosis that is there’s not a biomarker … is that correct?

Lord: It’s not, the problems with defining the phenotype aren’t because autism is defined by purely by behavior, it’s because we haven’t been able to find an association between any of these particular phenotypes that people have pulled out, and the ways in which people have pulled out the phenotype.

I realize now that if my own (now adult) ASD child been a part of Dr. Lord’s baby siblings study that they would have been able to document a “regression” because, basically all autistic children regress, depending on how strictly you define “regression”. I remember my ASD child as an infant apparently losing the ability to respond to the sound of his/her name, and then regaining that ability. Looking back, I doubt that I could isolate the dates when this “regression” started and when it ended, since is was just aggravating to me at the time and not something I brought to the attention of our family doctor.

(Edited to fix some errors my transcribing. Also, I just listened to the second clip I uploaded to boomp3.com and realized that it is a little shorter than I thought.)

Click here for the first clip.

Click here for the second clip.
For some reason I can only embed one “player” and it must be at the very end of the post. This plays the second clip:
http://static.boomp3.com/player.swf?song=by6i9hwl7_0<a style=”font-size: 9px; color: #ccc; letter-spacing: -1px; text-decoration: none” target=”_blank” href=”http://boomp3.com/listen/by6i9hwl7_0/lord-2″>boomp3.com</a&gt;

Tags: ,

Quag-Geier

14 Jun

I propose that any researcher or scientist who unwittingly gets into a quagmire with the Geier’s should be referred to as being ‘quag-geier-ed’. Its a handy way of referring to people who’ve (possibly accidently) stumbled into a great big pile of shit.

I therefore nominate Professor Heather Young as the inaugural QuagGeier. She has published a paper with the Geier’s which alleged to find:

associations between neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs) and exposure to mercury (Hg) from Thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) by examining the automated Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD)

One would imagine that any serious researcher who valued her career would be reluctant to associate with the Geier’s who have odd ideas about what is valid research but maybe Professor Young simply didn’t know.

Anyway, I forwarded the paper itself onto Epi Wonk, a blogger who:

…has a Ph.D. in epidemiology from an Ivy League university. Before that I got a bachelor’s degree from a different Ivy League college, a master’s degree in developmental psychology, and a master’s degree in medical sociology from another Ivy League University. I worked for more than 30 years as an epidemiology professor in medical academia and schools of public health, and in the senior biomedical research service at the Centers for Disease for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During my career I have been the editor of two epidemiology journals and one more general biomedical journal. I am now retired.

So very, very bad was the quality of this paper that Epi Wonk took three (and possibly a couple more in the future) posts to tackle the numerous issues with it. I plan to recap them here but here is Epi’s take on the paper itself.

So in part I, Epi found the following:

dubious “imputing” or imputation lies at the bottom of the author’s little trick…..

Imputastion is simply – using known data to ‘guess’ at unknown data. Epi gives an example:

…let’s say a researcher has a file of data on children and 8% are missing data values on parent’s household income, 4% are missing data values on gestational age at birth, and 1% are missing data values on birth weight. She decides to use an imputation procedure to impute values for parental income, gestational age, and birthweight where they were missing. Perfectly fine, legitimate, and scientifically valid under most circumstances.

However, when we are dealing with something like autism….

She examines the data and sees that in certain cohorts in her study population the distribution of autism isn’t quite what she would like. So she “imputes” autism cases into the data set. Except that she’s not imputing a value on a variable for an existing study participant. She’s adding imaginary autism cases into the analysis. This isn’t imputation — it’s cooking the data.

Epi was very disturbed about this to the point that xe said:

This is just not done. It’s not valid. It’s not ethical. Adding imaginary cases into a data set borders on scientiific fraud.

Later on in the comment thread that developed, commenter Andrea asked:

Does this mean that Young, Geier and Geier added 45 and 80 cases that were not in the original data sets, that they MADE UP those 125 cases just to add imaginary data points to make the stats results look more like what they wanted?!

Thats exactly what happened.

In Part II of xes detailed look at this paper, Epi concluded that when it come to controls and particularly controlling for any confounding variables:

….there’s no attempt to control for, or adjust for, the confounding effect of birth cohort. Just one look at Figure 1 (or a basic knowledge about trends in autism) tells you the regression coefficients (slopes) are being driven by increases in autism risk over time. Given the increase in frequency of autism (and other neurodevelopmental disabilities) during time time period, you could do an ecological regression analysis of almost any factor that varied over time and you would find an an association with autism. I would bet that you could enter number of sushi bars per capita into an ecological regression and you’d find an association with autism rates.

This is not a good or valid paper. It seems, based on the expert analysis of a professor of epidemiology that this paper is fundementally flawed.

Data Obtained By MM Show There’s No Association Between DTP Vaccination and Autism

14 Jun

Jon Mitchell brought to my attention some data I hadn’t seen before on DTP coverage from California. The data come from a post by JB Handley over at AoA where we find he’s still complaining about a Simpsonwood “cover-up” of sorts (decisively debunked back in 2005). The data, apparently obtained via FOIA, was being analyzed by the CDC back in 2001, at a time when an association between thimerosal and autism was still considered an open question.

What I think is interesting about the data is that I’ve found they convincingly show there’s no association between 4+ DTP vaccination coverage by age 2 (not just thimerosal) and autism. By extension, I believe this is fairly good evidence that there’s no association between vaccination in general and autism. As usual, my analysis can be easily replicated by readers. The only data outside of that provided by JB Handley that I will use is population data from California EPICenter. Since EPICenter doesn’t provide population data for all those born between 1980 and 1994, I’m using data on 11 year-olds from 1991 to 2005. This should be a good approximation.

Of course, I cannot prove that extremely rare cases of vaccine injury don’t manifest as autism. This is not demonstrable with ecological data of this nature. Obviously, JB Handley’s intention in the first place is to show that fluctuations in vaccine uptake have a very noticeable effect in autism prevalence by birth year. This is the type of claim I will scrutinize.

First, let’s look at what I call the “naive” correlation between DTP coverage and autism prevalence by birth year.

The figure above (click to enlarge) shows two upward trends, one for DTP coverage and one for the administrative prevalence of autism by birth year. Some people might argue that the coincidence of upward trends indicates there’s a potential association. That the administrative prevalence of autism was on an upward trend is not surprising. It has been on an upward trend pretty much since records have been kept in California. Is it surprising that vaccination uptake was on an upward trend as well during the years graphed? Let’s consider this question. How many things were not in an upward trend during the 1980s and 1990s? How many of those are associated with modernity and scientific progress?

It’s interesting that such naive and expected correlations are exploited to this day, for example, in the recent Young-Geier study.

After taking a closer look at the graph, an actual association is not clear at all, at least as far as I can tell. We could leave it at that. After all, these sorts of graphs are not evidence of an association at all. But I think we can do better and get to the bottom of this.

Since the graph is supposed to show that a change in vaccination uptake can significantly alter the administrative prevalence of autism, I think it’s fair to assume that small fluctuations in the uptake would tend to be associated with small fluctuations in prevalence, in roughly the same direction. But let’s be clear here. I’m not saying that every year there’s a DTP fluctuation, there should be a matching autism fluctuation. After all, some randomness is expected. What I’m saying is that we should expect to find a statistical trend in the association between the fluctuations, even if it’s a weak trend.

Let me describe the methodology I will use. I will have Excel produce order-2 polynomial models for both the DTP and autism trends. (These give excellent fits, with R2=0.94 for DTP and R2=0.99 for autism, but I think other types of models would produce basically the same findings.) Then I will obtain DTP and autism deltas by subtracting actual DTP and autism values minus expected values based on the corresponding model formulas. (A delta will be a small positive or negative number whose meaning can be thought of as “how different from expected the value is in a given year.”) Finally, I will have Excel produce a scatter graph of DTP deltas vs. autism deltas. Using this graph we will determine whether there’s a trend.

The polynomial models are the following.

Autism: y = 0.1013x2 – 0.2352x + 4.4526

DTP: y = 0.1598x2 – 0.3683x + 51.3715

The variable ‘x’ is the year of birth minus 1980. The variable ‘y’ is the expected prevalence or DTP coverage value. With the help of these formulas, we obtain the following deltas. The reader is encouraged to visually confirm the validity of these deltas using the figure above.

(Year, Autism Delta , DTP Delta)
1980, -0.48 , -0.47
1981, 0.06, 4.24
1982, 0.26, 0.83
1983, 0.22, – 4.0
1984, 0.16, – 3.56
1985, 0.40, 0.77
1986, 0.66, -0.81
1987, -0.68, -1.32
1988, -0.50, 2.25
1989, -0.73, 1.20
1990, -0.53, 2.23
1991, 0.10, 0.64
1992, 1.52, -0.16
1993, 0.14 , 0.01
1994, -0.58, -1.84

The following figure (click to enlarge) is a scatter graph of the autism vs. DTP deltas.

This is a completely random scatter of dots. In fact, if we try to fit a linear model to it, we get a slight downward trend. If DTP vaccination coverage were associated with autism, I would expect to see a more clear scatter and an upward trend.

I don’t know about my readers, but I personally find this data quite convincing, and I’m glad JB Handley brought it to our attention. Vaccines (at least the DTP vaccine) are not associated with autism at the population level.

Upcoming autism/science related reading material

13 Jun

There are three soon-to-be-published books that are coming out that all discuss similar subjects. I’ve proof-read one of them and am very much looking forward to the other two being published.

The first one is Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion (UK) (and also US) by Michael Fitzpatrick, a GP and father to an autistic son himself.

Here’s the synopsis:

Autism: disease, disorder or difference? What causes autism – genes or environment? Can biomedical treatments cure autism, and are they safe? An increased public awareness of autism has resulted in a rising trend of diagnoses, creating the impression of an ‘epidemic’. Many parents of children newly diagnosed with autism have been impressed by plausible theories blaming vaccines and other environmental causes. Many have also been captivated by claims that ‘biomedical’ treatments – including special diets and supplements, detoxification and medications – can achieve dramatic results.In “Defeating Autism”, Michael Fitzpatrick, a family doctor and father of a son with autism, questions the scientific basis of environmental explanations of autism and exposes the incoherence of unorthodox ‘biomedical’ theories and therapies. This book reveals that these therapies are far from pioneering interventions and they remain unsubstantiated by scientific authorities. Campaigns promising to ‘defeat or cure autism now’ have attracted much support among parents struggling with their difficult children.

But the crusade against autism risks dehumanising and stigmatising those who are identified as autistic and their families. This compelling book is essential reading for students and professionals working in the field of autism, as well as academics concerned with the public understanding of science and the treatment of scientific and medical controversies in the media.

Its available on pre-order now, due for publication in October this year.

I’m pretty sure this will be a very good book. Mike and I have swapped emails on numerous occasions and I have benefited from his medical expertise in writing some of my blog posts. I’ve also read and enjoyed his earlier published works on MMR .

The second one I’m really looking forward to is Autism’s False Prophets: Bad Science, Risky Medicine, and the Search for a Cure (UK) (and also US). Here’s the synopsis for this one:

A researcher in London was the first to assert that the combination measles-mumps-rubella vaccine known as MMR caused autism in children. Following this “discovery,” a handful of parents declared that a mercury-containing preservative in several vaccines was responsible for the disease. If mercury caused autism, they reasoned, eliminating it from a child’s system should treat the disorder. Consequently, a number of alternative therapies arose, and in one such treatment, a doctor injected a five-year-old autistic boy with a chemical that bound to mercury, only to stop his heart instead.

Children with autism been placed on stringent diets, subjected to high-temperature saunas, bathed in magnetic clay, asked to swallow digestive enzymes and activated charcoal, and injected with various combinations of vitamins, minerals, and acids. Instead of helping, these therapies often hurt those who are most vulnerable, and particularly in the case of autism, they undermine childhood vaccination programs that have saved millions of lives. In this book, Paul A. Offit, a national expert on vaccines, challenges the modern-day false prophets who have so egregiously misled the public& mdash;and exposes the opportunism of the lawyers, journalists, celebrities, and politicians who support them. Offit recounts the history of autism research and the exploitation of this tragic condition by advocates and zealots. He considers tha manipulation of science by the media and the courtroom, and he explores why society is susceptible to the junk science and dangerous therapies put forward by anti-vaccination activists.

I’ve talked to people who have proof-read this and they say it is very, very good and definitely going to raise a few eyebrows when its published (September this year).

Like with Mike, I have swapped courteous emails with Paul Offit and his science has helped inform several of my blog posts. I’ve also read the truly excellent ‘Vaccinated’, Offit’s biography of Maurice Hilleman.

Lastly, we can turn to the upcoming book I have proof read.

Do Vaccines Cause That?! A Guide for Evaluating Vaccine Safety Concerns (US) is one of the most clearly written and accessible books I’ve read regarding what vaccines do and don’t do.

It doesn’t just discuss autism, it also touches on Asthma (something else pertinent to my family) and Diabetes. Step by step it walks the reader through a jargon-free and yet non-patronising look at both the good science and bad misinformation put out about vaccines.

Although I have an electronic copy of this I can assure you I’ll also be buying a paper copy and I’ll be recommending it to my local GP and autism support group. I think its going to become an absolutely indispensable guide once its published (later this month).

There’s also a sample chapter available for free on the accompnying website. I can’t recommend this highly enough.

Green This

11 Jun

OK, so here’s the back of the t-shirt:
Green our vaccines

(click for bigger – I want you to read the ingredients list).

First of all – who’s decision was it to use Impact as a font? Whoever it was shoot them, they’re uncreative and uninspired. It looks shit. Seriously. it looks like you stepped back in a time machine to 1999 and decided it looked ‘kewl’. It doesn’t.

Anyway, as you can see, plenty of scare mongering went on. I think they forgot to include Eye of Newt though.

So lets actually go through what’s on that list and how true it actually is.

Aluminium

Yeah, there’s Aluminium in vaccines.

There’s also Aluminium in breast milk so lets compare the two.

According to this paper (which is from 1990 – any more up to date papers welcomed) the amount of Aluminium in breast milk is 49 μg/L. The average amount of breast milk expressed per day is 0.85 liters.

This means that 41.65μg Aluminium per day is in breast milk.

Now, according to this paper, there is between 125 – 850μg of Aluminium per dose in a vaccine.

Using this page and this page I estimated (and I’m welcome to correction) that by the time a child reaches 6 years old they will have received 17 Aluminium containing vaccines.

So, for a 6 year old, total Aluminium is between 2,125 – 14,450μg.

In real terms this means that after between 51 and 346 days breast feeding, a 6 year old will have taken onboard the same amount of Aluminium as from the total US vaccine schedule.

Now I couldn’t find out what vaccines contained the lower amount or which contained the higher amount. Even so, this means that if every vaccine a 6 year old has that contains Aluminium contains the highest possible amount, within a year of breast feeding they will have matched that.

Or to put it another way, an anti-vax tree-hugger soccer mom who doesn’t vaccinate her baby will have given him the same amount of Aluminium he would’ve had in six years after one year of breast feeding.

And thats of course, not even touched on the fact that:

In the Earth’s crust, aluminium is the most abundant (8.13%) metallic element, and the third most abundant of all elements (after oxygen and silicon)

And is found naturally occurring in sea water, fresh water, the human body etc etc.

Formaldehyde

Yeah, there’s Formaldehyde in vaccines.

There’s also Formaldehyde in Apples, Apricots, Banana’s and….ah, I lost interest. Lots of stuff. Including the human body.

So – how much is in vaccines?

According to this and using it in combination with the US vaccine schedule referenced above, we can see that the total amount of Formaldehyde in vaccines from the vaccine schedule for a 6 year old child is 1.2016mg (again, do your own maths, correct me if I’m wrong).

For comparison to that 1.2mg in all vaccines for a 6 year old, 1 (one) banana contains 16.3mg Formaldehyde.

So, what I’m saying is that nanaslices this is a picture of 3x the amount of Formaldehyde you’ll find in the entire vaccine schedule of a 0 – 6 year old US child.

Anti-Freeze

There’s no anti-freeze in vaccines. A single component of antifreeze – polyethylene glycol – is used to inactivate the flu virus in one brand of that vaccine; it is also used in the purification of certain vaccines. Its also used in some skin creams and toothpastes.

Thats all I can be bothered to do. If anyone wants to tackle the rest, be my guest in the comments.

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