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Disturbances in certain genes play a role in autism

19 Aug

OK, so not ‘new’ news. I want to look at this story’s opening as a kind of case-study into what binds and separates the autism community.

[researchers have]…found in a new study that autism can be partially explained by abnormalities in certain genes. The group’s results could, in the long run, pave the way for more appropriate treatments for autism.

Now, camp one, to which one could add the Age of Autism anti-vaxxers would snarl at the uselessness of this study. They ‘know’ that genes play little to no part in autism and that the real issue is that of vaccines.

Camp two, to which one could say shades into camp one and who you could add Harold Doherty to would bemoan the fact that yet another gene study had been done, would ignore the successes it has brought in terms of giving us more data and grump about how ‘the environment’ had been ignored.

Camp three, to which you could add Lisa Jo Rudy’s autism.about.com site would acknowledge that this was an interesting study but maybe ask valid questions about the context into which you could place this one single study. Knowing Lisa Jo she would also be interested in what exact therapies might be on offer as a result of this study.

Camp four, to which I would hope you could add LBRB and which possibly shades into camp three a little too, would be interested in the the story behind the science as well as the science itself, would hope to get an interview with one of the authors and would ask them what future science might ‘spin off’ from this study. Depending on the answers we might also editorialise a little on the need to be responsible with the science.

Just an interesting little game, of no import, as to how the community – itself a spectrum – is separated. Some say this is a bad thing and that we need unity. I disagree. I think we need diversity, as I do in most things. We even need an Age of Autism to play the token fool.

A clarification

7 Apr

The following post was written by a group of LBRB authors

LBRB is produced by team of writers who do not always agree on everything. But we each expect the others to ensure that statements of fact can be corroborated. Mostly this works. But once in while these expectations are not met and one of us is so certain of their opinion that it is presented as fact. This happened recently with a story about Danish scientist Poul Thorsen, who is at the centre of investigations into the disappearance of $2 million in research grants. Because he was one of the authors on two studies that showed no evidence of a vaccine autism link anti-vaccine campaigners at The Age of Autism blog seized on this story as soon as it emerged and argued that Thorsen’s alleged dishonesty regarding the missing funds meant that these studies were tainted.

At the time, coming soon after Wakefield’s disgrace at the GMC and the withdrawal of his now discredited Lancet paper, this seemed a little too convenient. Was the story a fabrication? Were Age of Autism the willing victims of an elaborate hoax? One of our authors thought so and wrote a post which proved to his satisfaction that it was so. A second post by him compounded the error. Both posts were removed (as they were incorrect) and this one https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/03/autism-study-doctor-facing-grant-probe/ stands in their place.

Age of Autism is now trying to use this to attack LBRB founder Kev Leitch, saying he is to blame for allowing the now withdrawn posts to appear in the first place. And the rest of us are guilty by association. We are in good company.

Age of Autism regularly lies about those it sees as opponents. It famously exaggerated Paul Offit’s earnings from the vaccine, Rotateq, stated that he voted for its inclusion in the vaccine schedule and was reprimanded by a congressional committee. All false. None withdrawn.

Another bete noir for AoA is Richard Roy Grinker, whom they regard as an “epidemic denialist.” GRINKER’S STINKER: HIS WIFE RUNS THE IACC was their response to the news that Joyce Chung was the new executive secretary of the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee. Apparently being married to someone AoA disagrees with makes you open to corruption.

They accused Simon Baron-Cohen of lacking humanity because he wrote about the positive aspects of autism. Eric Fombonne, Catherine Lord and Bennet Leventhal were called parasites because they gave evidence against the vaccine autism connection. They have campaigned against Julie Geberding when she was director of the CDC because, like Simon Baron-Cohen she “lacked humanity” for failing to agree that there was a vaccine induced autism epidemic.

None of these posts have been taken down. No corrections have been published. No apologies have been made. LBRB will continue to make mistakes and when they are pointed out we will correct them. We will continue to allow open debate in the comments to our posts. But we will not be lectured by the anti-vaccine fanatics and autism haters that infest The Age of Autism.

New LBRB Feature

10 Mar

Never one to rest easy when a new technology becaome popular, I wanted to find a way to harness Twitter to make it appealing to LBRB readers. I think I have now. If you go to https://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/tweets/ you’ll see a live updating list of the latest tweets from and about a selection of Tweeters including myself, Liz Ditz, Orac and others. Just leave the page open it’ll update itself as these individuals tweet. If it become popular enough I’ll port it into its own site.

If you tweet about autism and/or science that discusses autism then please contact me and I’ll add you to the list of contributors.

Google Buzz – follow Left Brain Right Brain

12 Feb

If you’re a Google Buzz user you can now follow LBRB on our own dedicated Buzz account. Search for lbrainrbrain@googlemail.com and start following at your leisure 🙂

This accompanies our Twitter and Facebook accounts which you can use to follow us too.

Anthony Cox published in PJ Online

11 Feb

Our very own Anthony Cox was published today in PJ Online (gateway to the world of pharmacy and medicines) concerning the MMR saga. I’ll copy and paste a key paragraph then urge you to go read the whole piece which is an excellent summation of events thus far.

In US court testimony in 2007, Chadwick stated that he had tested all the samples from Wakefield’s ASD children and found no MVV present. Wakefield was made aware of this before the publication of the 1998 paper, but saw fit not to draw attention to this negative finding that undermined his hypothesis.

Blog housekeeping

24 Nov

Just a little update on LB/RB news.

First and foremost, the Crowdscience popup asking for opinions is gone. I’ve got enough data now to take over the world ensure any future realignment of the design meets users needs better and better. Apologies for the length of time it stayed and the oddness of some of the questions. I really don’t care how much you earn for example 😉

Secondly, this is sadly the first year I’ve had to put advertising in place. I’ve tried to keep it as unobtrusive as possible and I’m a good way to covering site costs now which means LB/RB will shortly not be hitting me personally in the pocket. If I ever get into the position of having meaningful excess (hahahaha) I’ll donate it to charity or buy a curry 😉

Future plans include the possibility of an LB/RB Social Network (like a Facebook/Twitter type thing), more authors and maybe a mini-wiki type affair where ‘newbies’ to the world of autism science can come and get the basics under their belt before joining in the heated debate in the comments sections. Any other ideas more than welcome, naturally.

If I don;t speak to you before, have a super Xmas and 2010.

All change

9 Apr

A new design (more a realign than a redesign really) for LBRB and the alteration of some functionality.

The biggest change in functionality is that from now on you’ll be offered the chance to sign in to comment. In order to make this as easy as possible I’ve signed up with the RPX service which allows LB/RB to offer you several easy passwordless ways to comment. If you have a Facebook, GMail, Yahoo, Flickr etc etc account then you no longer need to do anything but click. This does not store your passwords anywhere, its simply an easy way for technology to talk to each other to make life easier for you the user. If you’re still not happy with that you can still elect to sign in anonymously. The biggest advantage for LB/RB for doing this is making the site harder to spam.

The biggest change in interface is I guess the ad placeholders. LB/RB has to bow to the inevitable and do all it can to get some money through the door. But please rest assured the ads will be vetted and will not feature anything contrary to the editorial direction of this site. Its the first time in its nigh on 6 years online adverts have been placed. A necessary evil I guess.

If you have a Gravatar your goods will be displayed 🙂 If you don’t – go get one!

Its been made easy for you to add LB/RB to various Social Networking apps and sites. If we’ve missed one out your want to see please contact us.

Efforts have been made to make the site work primarily on Firefox, IE6, 7 and 8, Opera, Chrome and Safari. There are still some very minor niggles in IE6 but mainly we’re good to go. I’m also aware that Archives aren’t available right now.

You might also note that there is no search box. There’s a reason for this 🙂 keep watching the top right column just above the block of four ads.

Go and play with it, you won’t break it and if you do or you find a bug please contact us.

Creativity

15 Oct

I was motivated.
And I was creative. I was in a process of creating a world record.
My Creativity had nothing to do with aesthetic taste that expects an applause or get some kind of price tag attached to it.
My creativity was provoking much stir and turbulence rocking all the boats that came in my way. I was taking big steps.
I was taking big steps as I was trying to test how far my longest footstep would and could reach. My footsteps were breaking their own created record that they made just moments ago. It was not my concern where I was breaking my record and creating a new one. I was in the middle of my classroom and I was supposed to complete some work sheet that was lying on the table like an anchored boat in the midst of a very turbulent sea. Creativity can happen anywhere. I was that hurricane tossing those dolphins up and down the air to sea and back to air again right under the suspicious gaze of the whales.’All will get a chance.’
I was walking through the class around those desks and chairs, knees and elbows measuring my footsteops breaking record after record.
“Can someone please stop Tito?” Who knows whose voice it was!
Wasn’t that unjust? I have seen all kinds of world records getting created. Longest nail, longest mustache, longest stare, longest time under water and longest time hanging upside down. Creative people fill the wonderful world with all kinds of presentations that are displayed in world record books.
Just because I was in a classroom did not mean someone should stop me from being creative.
Someone did stop me.
So I had to postpone my world record for a new moment. I came back to the anchored boat. The whales could have their time later.

–

Tito Rajarshi Mukhopadhyay

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Sunday Solution – No.4 plus update

12 Oct

No PDF to download this week. Instead I want to post my own review after I saw one from Mashable today about the excellent Savvy Auntie website.

As the name suggests Savvy Auntie is a way to keep Aunties (and grandmas, grandads, uncles, cousins, friends – not to mention parents) very firmly in the loop as to what is cool for kids in terms of presents and gifts. You can sort by price, age, colour – even personality!

However, these are not the best bits of the site. the absolute best bits are the Social Web (Web 2.0 for you Old Skoolers) aspects of the site. They have given all users the ability to ask actual parents about the toy in question – quite reassuring. So you as a user can leave reviews, star products, recommend toys for particular sections such as the Special Needs section. There are also forums, blogs etc if you really want to get involved.

Savvy Auntie is basically Amazon for toys/gifts – but an Amazon that is organised, nicely laid out and easy to navigate. Its going to grow so getting in now will reap you dividends.

Now – a minor update. Left Brain/Right Brain has its own Twitter account but now for you radicals who don’t Tweet but do use something else, we’re there too – so if you use Meemi, Pownce, Gozub, Plurk, Identica, Rejaw or Hi5 search for user ‘lbrainrbrain’ and you’ll get our updates too.

Sunday Solutions – No. 1

21 Sep

And now for something completely different.

I’m introducing ‘Sunday Solutions’ as a total change of pace from the usual material on the blog.

The Sunday Solutions will be an ongoing series in which I’ll introduce parents and other interested users into some technological solutions that can help address some of the key worries parents have about their kids using a computer or the internet, especially their autistic kids who can be very vulnerable to certain people and/or scenarios.

For this first Sunday Solution, I’ve shown people how easy it is to use the Firefox web browser to control what content is available to their kids. I (and I assume you) don’t want to stop your kids using key websites like YouTube etc but you don’t want them exposed to some less than savoury elements of it. Using this first Sunday Solution you will be able to retain total control over what your children can and can’t see.

You can download the PDF to read at your leisure.

Hope you find it useful. Don’t forget to @follow Left Brain/Right Brain on Twitter for further announcements and please – if you find this of any use, please pass it on to a friend and vote for LB/RB in the Bloggers Choice Awards!

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