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Is there a point to blogging Age of Autism – the book?

18 Oct

Recently Sully asked if there was value in continuing to report of a certain AJ Wakefield’s exploits. It got me to thinking – is there continuing value on blogging Age of Autism, the book?

The most recent chapters have descended into very very familiar territory with the Somali and Amish episodes being regurgitated to seemingly little or no point. Are LB/RB readers of the opinion that this sort of material requires review?

Don’t get me wrong, I would continue to blog about _new_ material in the book but as I have come to the section of the book where phrases like:

The obvious risk that immigrants to any Western country face is over-vaccination.

Page 250

are tossed around without any reason or evidence to back up the implication that ‘over’-vaccination is dangerous, or indeed there is such a things as ‘over-vaccination’, then I begin to question the worth of this material to LB/RB readers.

What do you think Dear Reader?

Safeminds defends treatments the FDA deemed “dangerously misleading”

18 Oct

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently announced that they had sent warning letters to eight groups who were promoting chelation products without prescriptions and with unproven claims of efficacy.

Chelation is a mainstay of many alternative medical practitions, especially in autism. There is a hypothesis that autism is caused by mercury poisoning. Autism symptoms don’t look like mercury poisoning and multiple studies have been performed testing the hypothesis and shown no link. But the idea lives on. Autistics, mostly children, are subjected to chelation “therapy” to remove heavy metals from the body. After over a decade of this practice, there is still no demonstration that chelation does anything to help autistics. There are studies on Peruvian hamsters which are used to support the idea that autism is caused by mercury poisoning. No, seriously, one of the supports for the mercury/autism link is a study on Peruvian Hamsters. Just goes to show how tenuous the “science” backing chelation is.

Here is part of the FDA statement:

Federal regulators are warning eight companies to stop selling so called ‘chelation’ products that claim to treat a range of disorders from autism to Alzheimer’s disease.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says the companies have not proven their products are safe and effective in treating autism spectrum disorder, cardiovascular disease, macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease or any other serious illness. Some of the companies also claim their products can detect the presence of heavy metals in the body in an attempt to justify the need for chelation therapy.

One of the more vocal organizations promoting the mercury/autism “link” is a group called SafeMinds. So it isn’t a surprise that they would respond to the FDA warnings..

Here is the opening paragraph from the SafeMinds response:

The FDA issued a media release and held a press conference on over-the-counter chelating products. A recording of the press conference was made available this afternoon (recording available at 800-839-7073). FDA issued warning letters to 8 companies promoting over-the-counter nutritional supplements for chelation therapy (HERE). Chelation is a method of removing heavy metals from the body. The FDA warning has no bearing on prescription chelation drugs which are used under the supervision of medical professionals.

“Nutritional Supplements”? How does a chelator count as a “nutritional supplement”? The human body does not produce chemicals like DMSA which are used for chelation. SafeMinds is well aware of the falacy of the “nutritional supplement” argument after the recent debacle over the chelator turned “supplement” OSR, which had to be pulled from production.

So, SafeMinds starts downplaying the fact that chelators are drugs and, as such, should be regulated.

But they quickly change the tune and acknowledge that these are drugs: “The FDA warning has no bearing on prescription chelation drugs which are used under the supervision of medical professionals.”

As I read this, I had to ask myself “Why did SafeMinds chose such imprecise language?” Let me explain:

Assume a medical professional, say a chiropractor or a nutritionist, “supervises” my use of the prescription drug DMSA, but sells the drug to me without a prescription (as these professionals can not write prescriptions). That would fit into the SafeMinds interpretation, but is clearly not the intent of the FDA statement.

Here is an accurate statement: The FDA warning does not have bearing on the use of chelation drugs prescribed by and supervised by a medical professional.

Continuing with the SafeMinds statement:

In its press conference, the FDA implied that chelation products were being used by parents of children with autism without a doctor’s supervision, but on questioning by reporters, FDA representatives were unable to back up the claim with any evidence of use of OTC chelation products by autism parents or of their use without medical supervision. The FDA asserted that the OTC products being promoted were dangerous and could lead to kidney damage, dehydration and death. On questioning by reporters, the FDA admitted that it had received no reports of adverse reactions to the products or to chelation in general, other than 1 death 5 years ago which was due to a medical error and in which a prescription drug was used.

Note that SafeMinds chose their words carefully. They don’t state that the practice doesn’t occur. SafeMinds just states that the FDA didn’t have the evidence on hand of the “use of OTC chelation products by autism parents or of their use without medical supervision.”

Is Safeminds so out of touch with the online autism community that they can’t find groups promoting over-the-counter (OTC) chelators by autism families? The practice is common. Surely SafeMinds members peruse the exhibitor booths at the parent-conventions (like Autism One).

Google search: “how to buy DMSA without a prescription”. Lot’s of hits.

Here is hit #2: dmsachelation.com/autism/. Pretty clear they are targeting autism treatment there, just from the URL. The blurb on Google for this site? “This page IS intended to show you where to buy DMSA without a prescription. You can get DMSA prescribed, however the cost will range from $2-3 per pill. …”

I didn’t capitalize “IS” in that statement, they did. They wanted to emphasize that one could buy chelators without a prescription.

SafeMinds states that the FDA has received no reports of adverse events from chelation in general. I find this odd. The FDA must not follow online autism parent groups such as those on Yahoo. The FDA must not have read transcripts of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, which included a description of a child who regressed after being given chelation therapy (under the watchful eye of a prominent alt-med doctor). The FDA must not have performed a google search on chelation deaths with site set to CDC.gov.

First hit, “Deaths Associated with Hypocalcemia from Chelation Therapy — Texas, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, 2003–2005“.

When it comes to the question of “why” adverse events are not commonly reported I am again reminded of the OSR fiasco. The company that sold OSR specifically told their clientele to contact the company in case of adverse reactions. No mention was made of contacting the FDA (which can be done here). I guess I could search the websites of the groups that promote OTC chelators to see if they inform their clients of the ability to report their drug/supplements to the FDA. Somehow I feel confident that I would be able to find groups (possibly many or most) do not give that information.

SafeMinds posted their statement on the blog they sponsor, The Age of Autism. Another sponsor of that blog is Lee Silsby, a compounding pharmacy. They list chelators such as DMSA and EDTA under the category “autism treatments” (Specialties | Autism Treatments | Transdermal DMSA Cream, or Specialties | Autism Treatments | EDTA (calcium)). Not under “heavy metal poisoning” treatments, autism treatments.

The Autism Research Institute, a group which promotes much in the way of alternative medicine as therapies for autism, has a chart that is often used to promote chelation. In their survey, they claimed that over 70% of parents reported that their child got better with chelation. The survey has been often criticized as being unscientific and very biased. Even with this biased sample, 3% of parents reported that their child “got worse” with chelation.

A couple side notes are worth mentioning. First, in that survey the ARI list chelation under “Biomedical/Non-Drug/Supplements”. Non drug? Supplement? I doubt the FDA will agree. Second, the ARI survey lists secretin therapy as beneficial for autism. Secretin hit the news in the 1990’s as a potential autism therapy and has since been shown to be no more effective than a placebo. The survey is very, very biased towards “biomedical” treatments.

Surely SafeMinds is aware of this survey. As in, definitely they are aware of it. Just as Safeminds are certainly aware of the child in the Omnibus proceeding who suffered after chelation. But SafeMinds pretend as though there are no adverse reactions. It is disingenuous, to say the least.

SafeMinds ends their statement with this paragraph:

SafeMinds agrees with the FDA that products being promoted as drugs and biologics should have thorough and unbiased assessments for safety and that parents should work with their healthcare professionals when considering health interventions. SafeMinds feels that FDA has tried to cast autism parents in a negative light without any supporting evidence, by implying that autism parents were giving their children dangerous products without medical oversight. Only on questioning by the media did the FDA have to back off from its wild claims. SafeMinds feels the FDA owes the autism community an apology.

Basically, SafeMinds have taken the Human Shield defense. Rather than actually discuss the facts, SafeMinds attacks the FDA for “wild claims” and claims that the FDA owes the autism community an apology.

From the perspective of this autism parent I would say, yes, the FDA owes us an apology: for taking so damned long to address this issue. The abuse of chelation as a “treatment” for autism has been going on for many years. It is about time that the FDA cracked down and made the “wild claim” that a prescription drug should be given by perscription.

Heck, the FDA isn’t even making the “wild claim” that toxicology treatments should be performed by toxicologists. Just someone with a prescription pad.

Why isn’t SafeMinds telling autism families to seek out medical toxicologists to test and treat heavy metal poisoning? The answer is painfully clear. The methods of diagnosis and treatment that groups like SafeMinds promote do not compare to the methods used by those trained specifically to treat heavy metal intoxication.

Should make one pause to wonder.

Reading Age of Autism Part 5 – hodge podge of ideas

14 Oct

Chapters 5 and 6 are quite difficult to blog about. On the surface they carry a surfeit of information but somehow all that useful information gets lost in the authors determination to make the facts fit their ideas.

In Chapter 5 we’re introduced to the idea that ethylmercury in two forms was invented. Fungicide and medicinal. And thats about it. There’s little that’s contentious to blog about.

In chapter 6 however we finally start to meet Kanner and Asperger’s case study kids. This had the potential to be one of the most thrilling episodes of the book but from a literary standpoint it is badly botched and badly edited. It starts off reasonably well with condensed histories of a few of Kanner’s kids but then starts to degenerate into the realms of silliness desperately shoehorning the kids parents into two categories – ‘the fungicide cluster’ and ‘the medical cluster’. For example, Kanner’s Case 1 – Donald T – is placed by the authors into the fungicide cluster….why? Because he lived in the vicinity of Forestry work.

They have better luck with Fredrick W (Case 2) as his dad was a plant pathologist but even this is still not evidence. Correlation does not equal causation after all and the authors give no real insight into _how_ they think these kids were made autistic by ethylmercury, just offering some fairly scant evidence that one parent might have worked with mercury or that they lived fairly close to where fungicide was used.

The authors get going with gusto when they reach the medical cluster – why? Because now they can finally get their teeth into the _real_ source of their displeasure – vaccines.

The city’s residents were bombarded…

Page 180

…heightened risk of infant vaccination…

Page 181

One child had a mum who was a Paediatrician. However as they also state:

…there is an association in time – one we concede is speculative – with…the first thiomersal containing vaccine.

Page 184

Four of Kanner’s kids had dads who were psychiatrists. The authors claim this is more evidence as the standard of care for neurosyphilis was still mercury. But not, you’ll note ethylmercury. Blaxill and Olmsted have spent three chapters outlining the symptoms of mercury poisoning via neurosyphilis and hammering home the point that autism is _new_ with a _new_ set of symptoms and that various types of mercury poisoning produce differing symptoms. To go back all of a sudden and claim that now its _not_ new is more than a little duplicitous.

Four of Kanner’s kids have no connection to either fungicides or medicine via parent occupations. Blaxill and Olmsted attempt to explain these away by saying that these kids probably lived in areas where universal vaccination was in place. This is worse than speculative – its tenuous.

And speaking of tenuous:

Donald…underwent a series of treatments with Gold Salts that lasted several months…[which were]…the standard remedy for JRA [Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis] .

….

His arthritis cleared up…[b]ut something even more remarkable happened…the defining features of his disability lessened dramatically and permanently.

Page 197, inserts mine

What Blaxill and Olmsted fail to mention is that it would be _impossible_ to chelate mercury from the body using Gold Salts. Why? Because gold only dissolves mercury when both in their metallic state. Donald was administered Gold _Salts_ .

And lets look at these features of Donald T’s which defined his disability: nervousness, extreme anxiety and lack of sociability. The latter, yes, that’s obviously a clear autistic trait but the former two? What have they got to do with autism from a diagnostic _defining_ stance? The answer is nothing.

So here we have much ado about nothing. Donald was given a substance that could not _possibly_ have chelated him and even if it had, the most it did in terms of ‘curing’ his autism was to make him more social and even if it _did_ make him more social even the authors admit it only ‘lessened’ his unsocial nature, it didn’t remove it.

The book overall is starting to edge into familiar AoA (the website) territory now. Things that really shouldn’t be left unsaid are being so and things that are said are being squeezed dry of factual content in order to meet a pre-conceived agenda. Thats no good for a scientific approach.

Reading Age of Autism Part 4 – Stretching the truth

13 Oct

Over the last few days, I’ve tried to show how the authors of Age of Autism have retro-fitted the symptoms of mercury poisoning to try and make them await a diagnosis of autism. They have suggested things like tremors, paralysis, reddening of extremities and various other things are very similar to symptoms of autism. Or at least, they _will_ suggest these things in upcoming chapters (I’ve already noted a large passage on the thoroughly debunked Bernard paper later on in the book). They are also working hard throughout Chapters 1 – 4 to enforce the idea that things like schizophrenia, bipolar, Down syndrome and of course autism are _new_ things.

Nowhere (so far) in the book is this more apparent than Chapter 4 (entitled Pollution):

But were these men really seeing something that had been missed for centuries? Or did they happen to be in a position to observe a cluster of cases of chronic disease as it first appeared?…What if they were diseases born of the newest phase of human civilization, children of coal combustion, distributed mechanical power and the Industrial Revolution?

Page 125

However, a large block positioned itself in front of Olmsted and Blaxill in the shape of Dr John Haydon Langdon Down. The first person to classify what later came to be called Down Syndrome. However, as is clear from the work Of Dr Darold Treffert, he also found both early onset and late onset autism.

The authors don’t like this. It puts the carefully emerging hypothesis in grave danger. Why? If autism existed before the emergence of ethylmercury then their ideas are moot, the part of Chapter 5 I have read so far makes this clear. This is the very hypothesis they are working towards. So in order to protect their hypothesis, they rubbish Darold Treffert’s findings.

Down classified two groups that contain descriptions of autism. Groups he called ‘developmental’ (what might be called ‘regressive’ today) and ‘accidental’ (autistic from birth). First Blaxill and Olmsted tackle the problem (from their viewpoint) of ‘accidental’ autism.

Unfortunately, none of these accidental cases are ever fully described and so its impossible to distinguish between true autism cases or just the scattered presence of autistic behaviours.

Page 129

And then ‘developmental’ autism.

In making the case for Down as an early observer of autism, Treffert relies on his idiosyncratic willingness to set aside the timing of onset as a relevant marker for an autism diagnosis. Most of the cases he proposes as autistic wouldn’t pass that bar for other observers.

Page 129

However, in regard to ‘accidental’ autism I urge the reader to look at the following passages Treffert quoted from Dr Langdon Down:

“bright in their expression, often active in their movements, agile to a degree, fearless as to danger, persevering in mischief, petulant to have their own way. Their language is one of gesture only; living in a world of their own they are regardless of the ordinary circumstance around them, and yield only to the counter-fascination of music.”

…

“I know nothing more painful than the long motherly expectancy of speech; how month after month the hopes are kept at high tension, waiting for the prattle which never comes. How the self-contained and self-absorbed little one cares not to be entertained other than in his own dream-land, and by automatic movements of his fingers or rhythmical movements of his body… they have well-formed heads, finely-textured skins, well-chiseled mouths, sparkling eyes, features when in repose leading one to augur only brightness and intelligence… he runs to you when called but makes no response in words. He returns your kiss with a bite, and runs away with agile steps, rolling his head with a horizontal swaying motion…”

This is the group Blaxill and Olmsted claim are not described enough. Hardly. This is autism.

In regard to the ‘developmental’ group, Treffert quoting Langdon Down describes them thus:

In these children the early months of childhood were uneventful and “intelligence dawned in the accustomed way.” But later, around age six or so, ” a change took place in that the child’s look had lost its wonted brightness; it took less notice of those around it; many of its movements became rhythmical and automatic.” There was “cessation of increasing intelligence”, deferred speech and “lessened responsiveness to all the endearments of its friends.” Dr. Down writes “I have had many examples of children who had spoken well and with understanding, but who lost speech at the period of the second dentition, and had also suspension of mental growth.” Dr. Down provides several examples. One was a boy who “attracted no particular attention during the first six years of life” but then “during the period of second dentition” suddenly lost speech. “He heard everything that was said, but never replied to a question.” This child did gradually regain some speech but “afterwards always spoke of himself in the third person.” The other case example was that of two brothers who also “both lost speech at the period of second dentition.”

Blaxill and Olmsted dismiss this second category because of the phrase _first dentition proceeding_ stating that this means these kids were too old for an autism diagnosis. However, late regression is far from unknown in modern times. The author and ex-Guardian columnist Charlotte Moore describes her son Sam undergoing several regressions way past the modern ‘cutoff’ age of three.

I emailed Dr Treffert to see what he made of Blaxill & Olmsted’s claims. Here is his email to me quoted in full.

The authors, to the contrary, understate the remarkably perceptive and accurate observations Down made of what is unmistakably early onset and late onset autism. I discuss those highly accurate before-their-time observations by Down
in my internet posting of an article titled “Dr. J. Langdon Down and Developmental Disorders” in the articles section of the savant syndrome website at www.savantsyndrome.com. The authors omit many of Down’s terms and traits which apply so often to autism–
speaking in the third person; “fearless as to danger”; “living in a world of their own”; fascination with music; “self-contained” and “self-absorbed”; in a “dream-land”; “automatic movements of fingers or rhythmical movements of the body” and “runs to you when called but makes no response in words”. And so on and so on. Likewise Down makes clear reference to what we now call “early onset” and “late onset” forms of autistic disorder. I refer your readers to the article above where Down, while not using those present day terms, clearly lays out the existence of those two differing-onset scenarios.

Of equal interest is the fact the Down choose the term “developmental retardation” to describe this form of disorder separate from “congenital” and “accidental” types of “retardation”. Now in fact, over a century later, autistic spectrum
disorders are classified as “Developmental Disorders”. Another before-its-time credit to Dr. Down.

I read Down’s lectures in my effort to trace the beginning descriptions of savant syndrome. As I read about savant syndrome, I was surprised to find such an early description of “developmental retardation” which we now call autistic spectrum disorder by Dr. Down more than a century ago. I wrote my article above to provide some context for present day consideration of an ‘epidemic’ of autism. I wanted simply to point out that autism did not begin with Dr. Kanner’s description of it in 1943, but rather has no doubt been present in some portion well before that time. Dr. Down’s accurate description of both early onset and late onset autism, while he did not use that terminology, provided some documentation, and perspective, that autistic disorder has been around for a very long time. And that fact needs to be considered in looking at incidence and prevalence at present day levels.

The best way to answer the book’s portrayal of my observations and conclusions regarding Dr. Down and autism, is for the reader to go to my article and draw their own conclusions. I am sure they will agree that what Dr. Down described was early and late autistic disorder in unmistakable terms.

*Please note my conversation with Dr Treffert is ongoing, I’ll publish the whole conversation in a separate blog post* .

Later on, with irony so thick you could almost taste it, Blaxill and Olmsted after waving aside clear descriptions of autism say (regarding a separate matter):

There was no evidence, no proof, just an elaborate exercise in anthropological speculation that was also at odds with the facts.

Page 134

So far, that’s the best description of Age of Autism I’ve yet heard.

End of the R-word?

12 Oct

The following is a press release from The Arc of the United States. It discusses a new law which will change the wording in many governmental uses from “mental retardation” to “intellectual disability”

E-Newsletter Issue Date: Monday, October 11, 2010

On Friday afternoon, President Barack Obama put his pen to work signing the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 into law, delivering brief remarks on the impact of the law on people with disabilities and celebrating Rosa’s Law. The law, which was enacted by the President on Tuesday, substitutes the term “intellectual disabilities” for “mental retardation” in many federal laws.

Self-advocates William Washington (The Arc’s national office receptionist), Jill Egle (Co-Executive Director, The Arc of Northern Virginia) and Jeremy Jacobson (son of The Arc’s Chief Development and Marketing Officer Trudy Jacobson) joined Paul Marchand, Director of the Disability Policy Collaboration to represent the intellectual and developmental disability community whose advocacy resulted in this bill.

Nine-year-old Rosa Marcellino, for whom the law was named was in attendance with her family and received a hug from the President. Also in attendance were the bill’s sponsors, key policy leaders and musician Stevie Wonder.

Rosa’s Law was passed by the Senate earlier this year and passed the House in September. Self-advocates and The Arc have led the effort to get the bill enacted as part of a nationwide effort to remove the stigma of the “r-word.” The majority of states have altered their terminology by replacing the term “mental retardation” with “intellectual disability” in state laws and in the names of state agencies that serve this population.

Changes in terminology are another stepping stone toward realizing a more inclusive society. The Arc was instrumental in the passage of Rosa’s Law by galvanizing support across the nation and through vigorous advocacy. “We have achieved another historic milestone in our movement. We understand that language plays a crucial role in how people with intellectual disabilities are perceived and treated in society. Changing how we talk about people with disabilities is a critical step in promoting and protecting their basic civil and human rights,” said Peter V. Berns, CEO of The Arc.

The Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act increases accessibility for people with sensory disabilities to modern communications, such as internet access over smart phones. The Arc also advocated strongly for this legislation and celebrates its enactment.

Reading Age of Autism Part 3 – Building the case

12 Oct

Chapter 3 of Age of Autism (Age of Acrodynia) concentrates on two things. Firstly the text discusses Pink Disease which is:

…a disease of infancy and early childhood marked by pain and swelling in, and pink coloration of, the fingers and toes and by listlessness, irritability, failure to thrive, profuse perspiration, and sometimes scarlet coloration of the cheeks and tip of the nose. It is due to absorption of mercury. Called also erythredema polyneuropathy and pink disease.

Source

OK so thats all well and good. However the _subtext_ of this chapter is a little bit more paranoiac. Oh and when I say ‘subtext’ I’m being kind. It’s really not subtle enough to be a subtext.

Point one of the subtext – establish the idea that all forms of mercury poisoning are different from each other:

Over centuries of misuse, wide variations in formulation have generated a wide variety of symptoms, symptoms disparate enough to generate consistent controversy over whether they resulted from mercury exposure or something else. Anyone who believes he or she has isolated mercury’s specific effects and pinned one on an exact dose of a particular formulation is….showing a naive and inadequately respectful grasp of the dangers of quicksilver and its progeny.

Page 94

Here Blaxill and Olmsted begin to build the case that autism is _different than any other form of mercury poisoning_ and that those of us who believe it looks nothing like mercury poisoning are ‘naive’.

However, what Blaxill and Olmsted fail to grasp- or tell the reader – is that there are symptoms common to all forms of mercury poisoning which just do not apply to autism.

Methylmercury poisoning
– impairment of the peripheral vision;
– disturbances in sensations (“pins and needles” feelings, usually in the hands, feet, and around the mouth);
– lack of coordination of movements;
– impairment of speech, hearing, walking; and
– muscle weakness.

Elemental mercury effects
– tremors;
– emotional changes (e.g., mood swings, irritability, nervousness, excessive shyness);
– insomnia;
– neuromuscular changes (such as weakness, muscle atrophy, twitching);
– headaches;
– disturbances in sensations;
– changes in nerve responses;
– performance deficits on tests of cognitive function.

Inorganic mercury
– skin rashes and dermatitis;
– mood swings;
– memory loss;
– mental disturbances; and
– muscle weakness.

Source.

None of these symptoms look anything at all like autism to me. Sorry boys, swing and a miss.

Point two of the subtext – establish the idea that all forms of mercury poisoning were unique to their times.

Pink disease was _new_ . Once again the remedy was the disease and once again the clues were there.

By attempting to establish that Pink disease was new, it will be easier later on in the text for Blaxill and Olmsted to pretend knowledge that posits _autism_ as new. Once again though, they are troubled by the fact that autism doesn’t look like mercury poisoning…or are they?

Perhaps the most affecting evidence of calomel’s tragic legacy comes from the testimony of those who suffered from Pink disease and are now adults, many of whom still suffer from severe side effects. A high profile survivor is Heather Theile of Australia. She founded the Pink Disease Support Group in 1989. She describes her life today:

n particular, I have a terrible sense of position of both my body and hands. For example, it takes me ages to line up a clothesline, the clothes and the pegs to hang out clothes. I have to have a rope hanging down from the ceiling of my car port to be able to have a guide to park the car in the correct place. I am hopeless with any locks, catches, car seat catches etc. I go to open a door, but miss the catch by inches. I drift when walking and often bump into walls and doors. I cannot cope with verbal instructions at all and have to write “everything” down. This is known as “thinking in pictures” (Temple Grandin).

Grandin is probably the most famous person in the world diagnosed with autism; Thinking in pictures is the name of her best known book.

Well Dan and Mark, Heather Theile also says:

…As you said “mercury is mercury is mercury”, and I would add, “mercury poisoning is mercury poisoning is mercury poisoning”.

Given that you’ve worked so hard to shake off that very notion in the last three chapters, would you say Heather Thiele is _really_ someone you can rely on to be objective?

The game stepped up in this last chapter. Blaxill and Olmsted are working hard to prepare the ground for their main idea – autism is both new and a new form of mercury poisoning. However so far, they’re not doing all that well.

Reading Age of Autism Part 2 – Mercury still not good for you

10 Oct

OK, so you might’ve seen by my tweets that I struggled a bit with Chapter 2. I hope the narrative picks up in upcoming chapters.

Anyway, the overall gist of Chapter 2 is that of Chapter 1 – mercury is bad for you, m’kay? To which the the retort is still – Holy Obvious Batman!

The tale of Chapter 2 is how the beginning of the Psychoanalysis movement (an easy mark, being bollocks) missed the ‘obvious’ signs – that Freud/Charcot/Breuer etc diagnosed hysteria when they should’ve diagnosed (you guessed it) mercury poisoning.

Now call me picky but isn’t this book, called The Age of Autism, supposed to be about ‘y’know, autism? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the authors are setting out a hypothesis here and doing a bit of scene setting but who really gives a shit these days if Anna O. Dora etc were really cases of mercury poisoning when what we’re supposed to be doing is linking mercury poisoning to _autism_ ?

In fact, this scene setting is doing quite a lot of harm to the Blaxill/Olmsted hypothesis. They go through some of the symptoms of the respective case studies in painstaking detail. Lets look at them in the context of _autism_ shall we?

Charcot diagnosed hysteria in a nurse called ‘Etch___’ a Nurse in Bordeaux. She was nearly raped and descended into a ‘nervous state’ and a convulsion a year later was attributed to the near rape. She returned to work (in Paris though) but suffered:

…repeated and more frequent convulsions, urinary retention, paralyses and other complications…

Page 66

Blaxill and Olmsted claim these as symptoms of mercury poisoning. They may well be. But I tell you what – they sound *nothing* like autism.

Charcort also examined another patient who showed the following symptoms:

…comatose for half an hour and in bed for two days; afterward he continued to exhibit classic symptoms of decreased sensation, twitching and vision loss…

Page 67

I mean, does that sound anything like autism to you?

Blaxill and Olmsted recount a myriad of other symptoms including limb paralysis, hallucination, a relentless cough, paresis and many many more. They’re unified in Blaxill and Olmsted’s minds by their obvious connection to mercury poisoning – maybe they are. But vastly more obvious to me, if not to them, is that they’re unified in presenting a medical picture that is about as far removed from autism as its possible to get.

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 sense of civil discourse

8 Oct

Mark Blaxill and Dan Olmsted have been on a book tour for their new book, The Age of Autism. In a radio interview they were asked about being attacked, Mr. Blaxill responded:

“We get attack on a regular basis. I think we have become accustomed to that. I think that one things we really need to recover in this debate is a sense of civil discourse”

Mr. Blaxill made a similar call for a more civil discourse about a year ago. This was in regards to a post that was so offensive that the Age of Autism blog had to pull it down. Before it was pulled, Mr. Blaxill defended the piece. Mark Blaxill’s comment? He supported the attack as “edgy”.

The irony is fairly thick. Toadies who do hit jobs in the media?!? What was that blog piece but a hit job in a form of the media?

What is strange is the repeat of the statement that the discourse should be more civil. In that, I agree with Mr. Blaxill’s commentsl. Where we part ways is in the definition of civil discourse. I just don’t think he and his team at the Age of Autism blog have promoted a civil discourse in the last year (or ever).

Dan Olmsted owns/runs the Age of Autism blog. Mark Blaxill is an “editor” blogger there and frequent commenter. They are

Shall we go down the list of the people who have been personally attacked by that blog? Peter Bearman, Tom Insel, Story Landis, Richard Grinker (and his wife), Ari Ne’eman…the list goes on.

These are not “edgy” blog posts. These have included false claims of pharmaceutical ties levied against a blogger combined with an effort by Age of Autism readers to make the blogger lose his day job.

A more civil discourse would be welcomed. Even an edgy discourse would be welcomed. I encourage Mr. Blaxill and Mr. Olmsted to put substance behind the words. Stop the hot pieces. Stop the attacks.

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