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Reading Age of Autism Part 1 – An Unhidden Agenda

10 Oct

The first chapter of Age of Autism (called The Age of Syphilis) could easily have been summed up in one short sentence: Mercury is bad m’kay? Well no shit Sherlock(s). We all know that.

Taking us an a tour (and the book _is_ reasonably well narrated and edited) through the insane asylums of various European countries, through the lack of association of mercury poisoning and indigenous races of various countries, the two authors end up in Vienna and (place tongue in cheek) in a bombshell moment of horror, reveal their idea that Mozart might’ve died of mercury poisoning. Hardly a new idea. According to Wikipedia, Mozart has been suggested to have died from over 100 different things but the most likely is acute rheumatic fever.

What makes Age of Autism different from most is that they posit that Mozart’s mercury poisoning (if he was which is in doubt) came about whilst he was trying to cure Syphilis. Indeed, you could get the idea from reading Age of Autism that just about everyone in the world from the 1600’s onwards died of mercury poisoning whilst treating syphilis.

Lurking underneath this first chapter with its autism-free mundane plodding from situation to situation is where the authors reveal one of the main themes of the book.

…the best medical minds in Europe were slow to realize…

Page 24

But the notion that medicine might have been that habit just didn’t occur to [them] – perhaps because it could only mean that doctors were causing the worst manifestation of syphilis. And that was simply inconceivable.

Page 29

Not using ‘recognized forms of treatment’…may have spared the American Indians the brain lesions symptomatic of neurosyphilis.

Page 30

Despite all the evidence and concern, the heart of the medical profession remained committed to mercury treatment, and mainstream physicians rose strongly to its defense.

Page 32

I’m sure you don’t need more examples but trust me – they’re there. Anyway, as you can see Age of Autism is not _just_ a book about mercury being bad (m’kay?) its also a book about mainstream medicine and how stupid and purposefully evil it is as well as how frickin’ great complementary medicine is. Take a look at those quotes again. “See?” B & O seem to be screaming hysterically, “See? Look – even back then they were useless, these ‘doctors’…its just like now with The Vaccines!!!”

I mean don’t get me wrong – the mercury treatments of Syphilis were frequently worse than the disease but lets compare the trace amount of mercury in paediatric vaccines these days to a passage from Age of Autism:

Patients coated in mercury often stayed wrapped in bedclothes for weeks…[t]hey sat in baths saturated with mercury or squatted on stools above a steaming cauldron of it…

Page 31

So lest we forget, these two medical procedures, one commonly known as a ‘targeted precise injection’ and one known as ‘slopping that shit on with a spoon’ are not really comparable. So far, this is one of the main (though not only) weakness of the book – its comparing apples with oranges.

My latest book

9 Oct

I’d like to thank the anonymous donor who sent me a copy of Age of Autism – the book. It arrived this morning. So for the next few days I’m going to put aside the unabashed joy of reading Under the Dome by Stephen King and take up this newer work of fantasy. I promise to blog everything I can.

A look back on autism blogging

6 Oct

A post on Autism Street is entitled “Epilogue“. In it, Do’C gives a look backwards on his experiences online in the past few years. Autism Street was one of my mainstays when I first started reading blogs. Before reading autism blogs I had almost no exposure to blogs. I can’t recall how exactly I got into reading blogs but I recall some of the ones I read.

Obviously, I’ve read Kev’s blogging for some time. I was reading when the domain name was under his name and not LeftBrainRightBrain. I met Do’C once and he asked me how I used to find the blogs to read. I told him that I would take some of the sites with long blog rolls (LBRB being one, Neurodiversity.com being another) and would just go down the blog roll, reading whatever was new on each blog.

A lot of the blogs I’ve read have either stopped or slowed down. A lot of them I don’t remember. But here are some of them.

AutismDiva. The Diva has retired. For those who keep speculating, yes, she is retired and not morphed into some other online persona. The Diva was a persona, not the personality of the actual blogger. The Diva had an amazing wit, and it bothered many who were the target. I think it sometimes masked the fact that the Diva cared a lot about autistic people. The Diva gave me some of the best advice I got as a blogger. One piece was that bloggers should give themselves permission to stop.

I find it very strange that it has been three years since the last Diva post.

Asperger Square 8. A different brand of humor than the Diva, but amazing humor at the same time. Again, the real message was under the humor. Square 8 is not very active these days and I miss that very much.

I recall when Kev first blogged about a Autism News Beat. This is not a high-quantity blog, but again a sharp wit and some amazing pieces. ANB works from a journalist’s perspective. He has attended alt-medicine conferences and reported on them.

A Photon in the Darkness blog is and has been a great resource. Prometheus has been blogging since 2005. Prometheus has an a level of scientific expertise which is rare in blogging. Not absent, but rare.

No blogger is as thorough as Kathleen Seidel at Neurodiversity.com. Her series on the Geier’s revealed questionable institutional review boards, questionable therapies, well, lots of questions about the Geiers. Lots of answers too. Those answers prompted a subpoena from a vaccine-injury lawyer who often hires the Geier team. A subpoena which was quashed, but not until after it made nationwide news.

The Autism Natural Variation blog is and has been one of my favorites. There was a time when every three months the California Department of Developmental Services would put out new statistics. David Kirby and Rick Rollens would immediately use those statistics to claim that vaccines cause autism, and Joseph and Do’C would desconsruct the spin. I recall one time when Mr. Kirby and Mr. Rollens couldn’t agree. One claimed that the autism count went down, one claimed that the count went up. Both claimed this as proof that vaccines cause autism. Joseph and Do’C were always there and always solid with responses.

I could go on and on. There have been so many really good blogs. The ones above are just the few that came readily to mind. What strikes me is that the ones that did come readily to mind are blogs which have largely dropped off in output over time.

What is very interesting at this time is the reformulation of the Autism Hub. Many of the older blogs, some very good newer ones. One new one that caught my eye is Corina Becker’s “No Stereotypes Here” and another “new” blog is Kristina Chew’s “We go with him“. Krisina Chew amazed me with her prolific blogging in her old blog.

The above are just observations and memories, not a list of “top” blogs or anything of that sort. Just a few of those which stand out in my memory today. Tomorrow the list may be different.

Katie Wright demonstrates AoA mentality

30 Sep

Over at the Clown Blog, Katie Wright pens a sulky screed targeting Peter Bearman. Lets go through it.

Dr. Peter Bearman, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, recently released a research paper alleging that half of the meteoric rise in ASD cases is an artifact. You know- “better diagnosis” and “greater awareness.” A blind, non-medical professional, could have diagnosed my son. Nevertheless in the case of HF ASD and aspergers (which comprise a small % of overall ASD) certainly greater awareness has played a role in the increasing number of those diagnoses. Still- 50%? Ridiculous.

And why ridiculous? Well….just because. Wright offers no evidence to counteract Bearman’s. No science is referenced to challenge Bearman’s work. It simply is ridiculous apparently. One can almost hear the foot stomp of a poor little rich girl out of her league intellectually.

After Dr. Bearman concludes that 50% of the increase cannot be attributed to greater awareness Insel asks what Bearman believes is driving the other 50%. Bearman answers: “genes, old parents and possibly a virus.” This is the best he has got? The NIH gave this guy millions to come with that?

Well no Katie, thats not what the NIH gave him his research money for. According to _you_ Insel asked Bearman what he _believed_ was driving the other 50%. He gave his answer as to what he _believed_ . But these beliefs were just that – beliefs. He presented the science he had done and then shut up on the evidence and opined and on what he was asked to opine on by Insel.

And even his opinion, his beliefs, are rooted in science. There _is_ a genetic component to autism, thats simply a fact. There _is_ research that links ASD to older parents. Katie Wright’s beliefs revolve around one extremely unscientific thing. Vaccines.

Yes, Bearman does acknowledge the possible role of some kind of toxin. Bearman is not sure what that toxin is but he is sure what it isn’t. Take a guess.

See what I mean. If it ain’t a vaccine, it ain’t worth considering according to Katie Wright.

…unbelievably Bearman says: “it isn’t autism that parents are worried about. They know they can deal with that, they know they can help their child, (and he would know this a non parent of an ASD child?) but it is autism organizations scaring parents!” I had no idea that a bunch of stay at home Moms with no money, no federal backing, no million dollar grants- who are already busy parenting autistic kids- have this kind of extraordinary power! Wow, what’s next for us? Ending the recession, solving the mortgage crisis, creating electric cars?

And hot damn Katie Wright, guess what? In my opinion he _is_ right! I’m not scared of autism. I’m scared of one note zealots stealing away research monies, scaring away legitimate researchers with their threats of violence and scaring the public into believing that autism is some kind of tsunami of evil ready to engulf them all in a tide of social security claims.

As for Katie Wright personally, it makes me sick to think of this little rich girl, who’s children will want for nothing, playing the ‘poor little me’ card. There are families out there struggling to get by on a day to day basis and she has the temerity to liken herself to a ‘stay at home mom’. Feh.

As far as blaming the parents for the national crisis of confidence in vaccine safety- grow up Dr. Bearman. The problem is the problem- not people talking about the problem.

Nice quote from that intellectual giant Jim Carrey there. Oh and guess what Katie Wright? You and people like you *are the problem* . Whilst you play offended at legitimate science, there’s a whooping cough outbreak in California that is killing children. You do know that don’t you Katie Wright?

Here’s what you need to do Katie Wright. You need to accept the fact that the science is against you. You need to accept the fact that you are a small scaremongering minority of the autism community. Sounding off about stuff that you clearly have absolutely zero knowledge about (science) makes you look foolish and all it does is show you to be frightened. You are behind the times. Get out of the way of progress.

Florida access to service bill morphed into vaccine bill

30 Sep

A recent story in the Miami New Times caught my eye recently. The story is about how a wealthy Florida chiropractor was attempting to gain access to Florida Department of Health records so that Mark and David Geier could use them for vaccine/autism research.

In the story, Penn Bullock and Brandon K. Thorp write:

But Kompothecras has all but bragged of his ability, via generous giving, to enlist politicians in the anti-vaccine fight. The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported last year that he donated more than $15,000 to state Rep. Kevin Ambler and state Sen. Mike Bennett; both have backed legislation that would weaken Florida’s mandatory vaccine regimen.

Kompothecras told the paper that his personal lawyer had helped Bennett write an anti-vaccine bill. When he sent the irate email to DOH, the doctor copied Bennett. Whether Kompothecras’s political friends can enforce his will at the DOH is unclear. What is clear is that the DOH is afraid they might.

I tried to find this bill. A news story from 2009, Major GOP political donor Gary Kompothecras backs bill to alter Florida’s vaccine rules, had this to say:

SB 242 would give parents more authority to delay the pace at which their children are vaccinated against illnesses like measles, mumps and polio — as long as they are up to date with their shots by the time they enter the public school system. (Florida law already provides for exemptions from school vaccine requirements in the cases of religious beliefs or medical risks determined by a physician.)

The proposal, sponsored by Tampa Republican Rep. Kevin Ambler in the House, also would prohibit the use of vaccines for pregnant women and young children if the vaccines contain even a small percentage of ethyl mercury. Better known as thimerosal, it is used as a preservative in some vaccines, including flu and tetanus shots that are made in advance and in large quantities. Some people, including Kompothecras, believe thimerosal is the vaccine ingredient that makes their initially healthy children become autistic.

Senate Bill 242 was entered into the record on February 26, 2009. Here is a segment of that version:

11 Section 1.?If the parent or legal guardian of a minor who
12 is an eligible individual, as defined in s. 627.6686, Florida
13 Statutes, believes that the minor exhibits symptoms of autism
14 spectrum disorder, the parent or legal guardian may report his
15 or her observation to a physician licensed in this state. The
16 physician shall immediately refer the minor to an appropriate
17 specialist for screening for autism spectrum disorder.

It is a bill expanding access to services for parents of young autistic children. I’m sure we could have some interesting discussions about that bill, but it died. Well, even before it died, it morphed. Here is the second version after a series of amendments on 4/15/2009. It amends the vaccine statutes in Florida. Here is an excerpt:

36 499.005?Prohibited acts.—It is unlawful for a person to
37 perform or cause the performance of any of the following acts in
38 this state:
39 (30)?The sale, purchase, manufacture, delivery,
40 importation, administration, or distribution of any human
41 vaccine used for children under age 6 or pregnant women which
42 contains any organic or inorganic mercury compound in excess of
43 0.1 microgram per milliliter.

and

51 (6)?In vaccinating his or her child, a parent, legal
52 guardian, or other authorized person, in consultation with his
53 or her pediatrician, has the right to choose an alternative
54 immunization schedule to the immunization schedule recommended
55 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as long as
56 the child completes the required immunizations before beginning
57 kindergarten or initial entry into a public or private school,
58 whichever occurs earlier.

So, a bill that would expand access to services is completely scrapped. In its place a bill is created which seeks to change the laws on vaccines.

Leaving aside whether thimerosal should be allowed in vaccines. Leaving aside the fact that parents already have the right to an alternative schedule. Leaving aside that the language of that second section is so vague that parents might argue that any alternative vaccine schedule (including none) could be used for admission to school. Leave out whether the bill in its original form is good or not.

Leave all that aside for the moment.

Someone scrapped a bill expanding services in order to take on vaccine legislation.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: many “autism advocates” and “autism organizations” don’t really focus on autism or disability rights.

They are willing to abandon autism legislation in order to focus on vaccines.

Incidence of autism in Berkshire

30 Sep

A Reading Borough Council report has shown that the incidence of autism in a borough of Reading, Tilehurst has increased over a period of eight years (2000 – 2008) from 68 to 186, more than doubling.

Lets put these figures in context of a few things. Firstly, thiomersal. Thiomersal was removed from all UK vaccines in 2004. The average age of autism diagnosis is five and a half (PDF) in the UK. This would mean that if thiomersal caused autism, a significant drop off in autism incidence would have been reported to have been occurring during late 2009 early 2010. This was not reported. This could be because the report did not go beyond 2008 but again there’s no mention of that either and I can’t find the relevant document on the Reading Borough Council website

Secondly, the report seems quite clear to refer to diagnoses of ASD which includes PDD-NOS and Aspergers Syndrome. Kate Manton of Berkshire Autism Society says:

People are being diagnosed much earlier now than they were 10 years ago. Children at two and a half are being diagnosed, if the condition is fairly severe.

Thirty years ago [someone] who was disruptive in class but fairly bright would be called naughty.

All good points and ones which mitigate against the obvious simplistic claims that there is some sort of epidemic of autism. There may well be some sort of ‘epidemic’ of _recognition_ of autism in all its many forms but thats not the same thing at all.

I’m left wishing I could get hold of a copy of the same data that the BBC did so to that end I have requested that the BBC send me a copy of the report. Hopefully they’ll reply.

The Age of Autism before thimerosal

28 Sep

Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill have written a book, The Age of Autism. It expands on Mr. Olmsted’s UPI series of the same name and uses the same logic: build a narrative that links mercury to illnesses and claim this as proof that mercury is the cause.

One can download the first 46 pages of the book for free on iTunes, buy the book, wait for it to come to your library or used book story (don’t count on the used bookstore route. Last report I got was only about 600 books sold in the opening time for this book). Or, one could just not read it ever.

If you want just an idea of what the book is about you can read a short excerpt on the publisher’s website. It starts with this simple statement:

We believe that autism was newly discovered in the 1930s for the simple reason that it was new.

Why was it new? If I understand the logic, the idea is that a new mercury compound was invented and tested around that time: thimerosal. From a recent interview, here are Dan Olmsted’s words:

What we did really was try to trace the rise of autism and that led us to look at the first eleven families who had children diagnosed in the 1930’s .. in the famous paper. We were able to identify seven of those first eleven kids, who were only known by their first name and last initial. When we did, we found what we thought was significant exposure of the family to mercury, in particular a new kind of mercury that came on the market .. that was used in fungicides for agriculture and in vaccines. So, we think as that happened, the first cases appeared. Then it seemed reasonable to believe that when the vaccine schedule that included much more mercury exploded in the 1990’s and so did autism .. there’s probably a connection that has been missed here.

First eleven kids? First studied or first with autism? They seem to be asserting that these are, indeed, the first autistics ever.


Thimerosal was invented in 1927. What strikes me odd about the position of Mr. Blaxill and Mr. Olmsted is that ten years before the invention of thimerosal, someone was born who would later be diagnosed with autism and receive support from the California Department of Developmental Services (CDDS) under the label “autism”. I know this because the data are publicly available. The CDDS data have been used for years to promote the idea of a vaccine-induced autism epidemic. Of course Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Blaxill are aware of these datasets as their colleague David Kirby made use of them many times over the years in his promotion of autism as vaccine injury, starting with his book “Evidence of Harm, Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Controversy.”

Here is a list of the birth year and the number of people for each birth year who were getting services from the CDDS (note that these data were from the 1990’s. Some or all of these autistics may have passed on):

Birth-year number of CDDS consumers under the autism label
1930 1
1929 2
1928 3
1924 1
1923 1
1922 3
1917 1

There were not a lot of autsitics born before 1930 and still alive receiving services in the 1990’s, this is true. But, the oldest person in that group was 78 at the time. That’s one year older than Donald T. is this year, for those following that story. .Be that as it may, there are a number of CDDS consumers who were born before thimerosal was invented. It would be unwise to assume that these are all the people born before 1930 who were diagnosed autistic. They are but an example.

From what I’ve read, Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Blaxill spent about five years looking for the origins of autism (the time since Mr. Olmsted’s original UPI series of articles). They traveled internationally and, from their description at least, appear to have left no stone unturned in their search.

I wonder, did they ever challenge their assumption that autism was new? Did they seek out autistics who predated thimerosal and/or those who weren’t research subjects of Dr. Kanner? Or did they merely rework and expand on Mr. Olmsted’s previous work on Kanner’s subjects?

In their statement attempting to distance themselves from anti-vaccine groups, Mr. Olmsted and Mr. Blaxill state:

We don’t want crops to wither, or houses to rot, or children to die of vaccine- preventable illnesses. We simply want to stop an autism epidemic whose origin we believe can be discerned from a careful examination of its environmental history.

“Careful” examination. I wonder.

Donald Triplett – Autism’s Patient Zero

27 Sep

Donald Triplett is (for he is still alive) Kanner’s Case 1. Recently the story in a lovely portrait in The Atlantic, Donald has also had the sad misfortune to slowly but inexorably become a poster child for the autism/anti-vaccine movement. As one of the leading autism/anti-vaccine proponents, Ginger Taylor, writes:

While Kanner’s other cases had poor outcomes, Donald did not. It turns out Donald received a medical treatment that Kanner never recorded when, as a boy, he fell victim to crippling juvenile arthritis. Donald was treated with gold salts and his brother reported that as a result, Donald not only recovered from the arthritis, but “the proclivity to excitability and extreme nervousness had all but cleared up.”

Donald began to recover from “autism.”

This is highly relevant to the autism debate because gold has an extreme affinity for mercury and pulls it from the body. It is also significant because arthritis links his “nervous disorder” to his autoimmune disorder. It is historical evidence that the claims that parents have been making, that their children with autism had regressed after their mercury-containing vaccines, and that treating them for their autoimmune symptoms makes their “autism” better.

Sigh. And so we see the same old merry-go-round that has engulfed Hannah Poling – a determination to see one end and one end only for causing autism – vaccines.

And yet…theres no evidence Donald Triplett was ever vaccinated with anything. Certainly not thiomersal. Indeed, those who ‘discovered’ that Donald was treated with gold salts – Messers Blaxill and Olmsted, had to find another method of Donald being exposed to mercury. They claim that Donald:

…lived in an area where a water-soluble form of mercury was first used in forestry.

Bit of a stretch much?

There are a few reasons I really think this is debatable at best.

1) Why was Donald Triplett the _only_ person in Forest, Mississippi to ‘get’ autism from pesticides used in Forestry?

2) The only person who has suggested Gold Salts could theoretically chelate mercury is one Boyd Haley. In fact as Prometheus said way back in 2005:

The gold used to treat Donald T’s RA was a salt – the gold was an ion and not able to amalgamate with metallic mercury. In addition, mercury in animal tissue is also either ionized or chemically bonded with organic groups (e.g. methyl, ethyl, phenyl…) and also not able to form an amalgam.

3) Lets say that the gold salts performed the impossible and chelated the mercury. Why didn’t Donald Triplett simply ‘get’ autism straight away since mercury continued to be used in the Forestry industry? Chelation is not a preventative.

So here is this young boy who’s exposure to water soluble mercury seems in extreme doubt to me, who’s vaccination record seems to be zero but who was also autistic.

I’m afraid that only points one way to me.

Why are autistic people mainly male?

17 Sep

Excluding the ever humorous ideas of the Geier’s and more serious ideas of Simon Baron-Cohen regarding testosterone, the reasons as to why there are (or seem to be) many more autistic males than females have not been adequately explained. However that might be about to change.

A new study gives the first starting point as to why this situation might come about.

As we all know, males have an X and a Y chromosome whereas females have two X’s. This new study postulatesthat this fact plays an important role.

If a boy’s X-chromosome is missing the PTCHD1 gene or other nearby DNA sequences, they will be at high risk of developing ASD or intellectual disability. Girls are different in that, even if they are missing one PTCHD1 gene, by nature they always carry a second X-chromosome, shielding them from ASD…

The PTCHD1 gene is responsible for determining the development of human embryo’s and is already associated with autism. Because males only have 1 X chromosome, if this is defective then they – obviously – don’t carry that secondary level of shielding that females – with 2 X chromosomes – do.

However, this is very much preliminary. It should be noted that:

The researchers found that about one percent of boys with ASD had mutations in the patched domain containing 1 (PTCHD1) gene on the X-chromosome.

1% is not a very high number but as LBRB interviewee Stephen Scherer says:

The male gender bias in autism has intrigued us for years and now we have an indicator that starts to explain why this may be…

In other words, no one is saying this is a done deal – merely that its a strong possibility with some decent science behind it.

New thimerosal/autism paper – signal vs noise

13 Sep

The new thiomersal paper that Sully has blogged will be attacked by the antivaxxers in at least one key area. The area that will be attacked is – to those well schooled in the way good science operates – a standard way to improve the signal to noise ratio of the results. Or to put it another way, ensures ‘cleaner’ results.

From the paper:

…Children were excluded if they had the following medical conditions with known links to ASD traits: fragile X syndrome; tuberous sclerosis; Rett syndrome; congenital rubella syndrome; or Angelman syndrome…

So first of all why were children that fell within these groups excluded? As I said, the answer is to ensure better data. In order to get a cleaner signal, the more noise that can be eradicated the better.

In this instance, children who already have existing medical conditions known to be related to autism would produce noise. We already know what caused their autistic traits hence establishing a clear link to thiomersal would not be possible. In a very meaningful way, doing this does a large favour for antivax group. If these children were eradicated from the study and a clear link to thiomersal _had_ been established then denying the link would be very much more difficult.

However don’t expect the antivaxxers to see this. Or even if they _do_ see it, they will look away purposefully. They will use the fact that these children were excluded and say _”See? ‘They’ have to hide the autistic children!”_ .

When you see this tactic – and you will see it – see it for what it is. It’s simple noise generation to obscure the clear signal coming through. Thimerosal in vaccines doesn’t cause autism. And it never did.

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