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And now we know…

22 Jun

I had a snarky version of this all planned out and then realized this is too important to risk burrying it in my own strange humor.

The CDC has had two big studies on thimerosal in vaccines ongoing as a part of their response to the 2001 IOM report. One of these came out last year, looking at neurological disorders except for autism. In the post on that study, by Thompson et al., Isles noted:

A CDC study released yesterday found no evidence to support “a causal association between early exposure to mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines and immune globulins and deficits in neuropsychological functioning at the age of 7 to 10 years

But what of the sister study? The one on autism? It is expected this year, but we have yet to hear about it…until now. A hat tip is in order to David Kirby, who unearthed this document. Mr. Kirby selectively quoted it, made a few mistakes and reposted a corrected version here.

OK, now it’s my turn to selectively quote. I’ll admit upfront, I make mistakes, maybe this is one…but I don’t think so. When I read Mr. Kirby’s original blog post Friday evening, I had to read the CDC document. And when I did, I noticed that it basically tips CDC’s hand as to the results of the thimerosal/autism study.

The document is a report by CDC director Dr. Julie Gerberding entitled:

REPORT TO CONGRESS ON VACCINE SAFETY DATALINK

It mentions the followup study to the Thompson study:

Another VSD study that builds upon the 2003 thimerosal screening study and was recommended by the IOM in 2001 is the VSD thimerosal and autism study. This case-control study is being conducted at three MCOs in which children with autism are being evaluated by certified specialists using standardized diagnostic assessments. Medical records and interviews with the parents of both the cases and their matched controls will be used to verify vaccination histories and information on other potential confounding factors. This study is in progress and the expected date of publication is September 2008.

I am not a very patient person, I don’t want to wait until September. I really don’t want to wait until September and find out at the end of the month that the paper was delayed for some reason. Well, as far as the conclusions go, we don’t have to wait.

Based on what Dr. Gerberding write, we now know that the study is done and submitted to a journal. CDC, and likely other parts of the government, know the results. So, how is CDC responding? Dr. Gerberding tells us:

In 2004, the IOM performed a comprehensive review of the scientific evidence regarding thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism newly available since its initial review in 2001. In its 2004 report, the IOM concluded that “the evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism,” and further stated

While the [IOM Immunization Safety Review] committee strongly supports targeted research that focuses on better understanding the disease of autism, from a public health perspective the committee does not consider a significant investment in studies of the theoretical vaccine-autism connection to be useful at this time.

Although CDC concurs with the 2004 IOM findings, CDC is committed to completing its research undertaken in this area. CDC is currently completing the vaccine safety studies it undertook in response to the 2001 IOM report.

OK, so, with the data from their new study in hand, the CDC still agree with the 2004 IOM report. Further, they will continue the ongoing studies, but no mention is made of new studies to look specifically at thimerosal and/or mercury and autism.

Now, I realize that there are people out there who think that the CDC might sit on data and not react. But, let’s face it, the only result of the thimerosal/autism study that makes any sense given the actions at CDC is this:

Thimerosal Didn’t Cause an Epidemic of Autism

Based on the reaction from the CDC, there is no evidence of any increased risk for autism from thimerosal.

Yep, I’ve gone out on a limb on this. But I contend it is a pretty sturdy limb. Not like the feeble limb of thimerosal causation that got us to this point in the first place. That concept (it should no longer be graced with the title ‘hypothesis’) was based on methods that would have to take a few steps up the quality ladder to reach the level of the Verstraeten study that Mr. Kirby’s blog post is attempting to bash.

Thimerosal Didn’t Cause an Epidemic of Autism

Sorry, it just looks so good I had do it again.

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.

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.

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.

Competition Time

11 Jun

Icon Books sent me a review copy of the UK release of Unstrange Minds which is how I was able to review it so promptly.

However, this means I now have (count ’em) _three_ copies of Unstrange Minds – the galley Professor Grinker sent me, the US edition (never read it) and the UK edition.

Now I don’t need three copies so I’m going to give away the US edition (which is also personally signed by Professor Grinker – as evidenced by my pointing digit) to one lucky person (willing to post anywhere in the world).

grinker

So how to choose who to give it to?

Here’s a photo of the Green our Vaccines brightest lights. What I want you to do is caption it. The rules:

1) Nothing defamatory!
2) No swear words that begin with c or f
3) No reference to Evan McCarthy
4) Do as many as you like
5) Funny = good
6) No photoshopping the image
7) Post your entry either in the comment section of this post or in a separate post on your own blog and post the link to that here.

Go!

(click for bigger version).

The Art of Green Our Vaccines

9 Jun

Before the “Green our Vaccines” rally (already much discussed–such as here, here, here, here, here), I spent a lot of time thinking about what sort of questions I would ask Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey if I had the chance.

I don’t know how much time Arthur Allen put into thinking about the problem, but I do know he nailed it with two succinct questions.

As part of his story on the rally, he recounts his brief opportunity to pose questions to the couple. Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Carrey passed near him at the same time that they were allowing an opportunity for “sound bites”. Art saw an opportunity and got a few quick questions in, as he recounts:

At which point I saw my opportunity and after checking for rally monitors, asked, “How many vaccines, exactly, is too many?”

“Too Many, Too Soon” is the slogan. It’s on the back of about 500 T-Shirts (with one each on Jenny and Jim). Given that, you’d think they’d have a damned good answer. At the very least, a reasonable, on-topic “sound bite”. Instead they answered (again as recounted by Art):

“In 1983,” McCarthy said, “our kids only got 10 vaccines. Now it’s 36” (actually, it’s 28, max, by age 2). I asked, “So should they only be getting 10? Which ones shouldn’t they get?” I saw McCarthy turning and asking someone, “Who is this guy?” Carrey responded, gamely. “Kids aren’t a bottomless pit you can pour toxins into, there has to be a limit,” he said.

Was that a sound bite or were they just caught flat-footed? Thankfully, Art had a great followup question which shows us the answer:

“So what’s a vaccine they shouldn’t get?” I asked. “A lot of parents of autistic children would have opted not to get the tetanus shot,” he said.

Huh?!? Tetanus? Wow, did I miss the Andy Wakefield study on Tetanus in the guts of autistic kids? Or, was it the Mady Hornig rats with Tetanus study? No, wait, isn’t the Generation Rescue motto, “It’s the tetanus, stupid”?

The answers are “no” to all of the above.

Generation Rescue (who have Jenny as their board-member/spokesperson) doesn’t mention “tetanus” at all on their vaccine page. As in, no “tetanus vaccines cause autism” statements. However, in the link to their “favorite” vaccine schedule (which is a recipe for disaster in this person’s eye), they include tetanus. Yep, they “recommend” kids get tetanus shots. In their number II recommended schedule, they include tetanus 5 times, starting at 2 months (is that “too soon”? as in “too many too soon”?). Their number III (and final) schedule has tetanus 3 times.

Is it possble the Generation Rescue spokespeople don’t know about their own recommended vaccine schedules? Is it possible that in months of planning, Jim and Jenny never prepared for what is one of the most obvious questions?

Jenny. McCarthy has awarded herself an honorary doctorate from Google U in vaccines and autism. From the above exchange with Arthur Allen, it looks like she and Mr. Carrey just failed their “Google SAT” in the “alt-med” view of autism and vaccines. (Let’s not even go down the path of how badly they would fail the entrance exam to Google kindergarden on the actual science of autism and vaccines.)

Don’t look for them to get caught like this by a journalist again. First, don’t expect real journalists to get access often. If they do, all future questions will likely be met with “Generation Rescue has some alternate schedules on their website”. (without noting that “alternate schedule” means “measles outbreaks are Jim-Dandy”).

This time, however, there was a real journalist and he caught them unprepared. Now we know that Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey have basically no depth to their understanding of even the alt-med version of vaccines and autism. Anyone surprised?

But, hey, the day wasn’t a complete waste for Jenny. Access Hollywood named Jim and her the “Green Couple of the Week”. Can someone find this Grand Award on the Access Hollywood website? I admit I didn’t try hard (I’m not trying for a Google Ph.D. in “Access Hollywood”), but is this a…dare we say it….fake award? Sorta like Dr. Corbier and the “Rock Award”? (OK, that one is kinda obscure–tossed in for those who followed the Omnibus too closely.)

Which leads me to the last thought–Jenny has a Google Ph.D. and a fake award…heck, if she could just use the library and go to a couple parties at UCSF, she could be an expert witness for the Autism Omnibus. (Think Vera Byers).

Art, should you read this, I (without consultation with anyone) award you the “LeftBrainRightBrain” Award for Excellence in Journalism. For those who will accuse me of making it up right now–ha!, I made it up a few weeks ago and secretly gave it to AutismNewsBeat.

Autism Recovery

8 Jun

I don’t get autism recovery. I don’t get what its supposed to be. I’ve been told (as has the world) that chelation can offer a 100% recovery, leaving the child indistinguishable from their peers.

I’ve been told that recovery means that a child no longer carries a diagnosis of autism.

I’ve been told that recovery simply means a previously non-vocal child now speaks.

I’ve been told that recovery is not the same as cure, but nobody gave me a cogent reason as to why not.

I’ve been told that recovery means a child can attend a mainstream scholastic setting.

There are so many ‘recovery’ merchants on the web (and also in Washington DC last Wednesday) who all want to tell the world that ‘recovery is possible’ and that their child is ‘recovered’.

On a popular biomed site for example there is a section where parents have sent in stories of their kids recovery. Oddly however, only 7% of those stories recount a child no longer having a diagnosis of autism.

Over on Kristina’s blog, a discussion regarding Jenny McCarthys latest interview turned up this nugget:

Jenny was jumping all over the board last night in the interview with Greta. She used “recovered” and “recovering”, then seemed to say that he was still autistic, but didn’t have any symptoms at all any more.

She stated that Evan had been diagnosed as autistic in the past, but that his current neurologist says that he never had autism. She reconciles this discrepancy as proof that Evan has been cured by her interventions.

McCarthy (who maybe concidentally was apparently still smoking in 2003/04 – two years after her sons birth) related an incident from May 2007 at the recent Autism One event:

Evan still suffers from seizures, the last one, he just had last May that no one kind of knows about yet, was horrible. He seized on and off for seven hours and then we had to put him in a coma for four days to make him brain dead to stop the seizing because he’d previously gone into cardiac arrest, and there’s so many kids out there with seizures had passed because of that reason. We had to induce a coma, it took him another month to walk again or talk again.

First off that is terrible. My heart went out to McCarthy when I was sent this. I cannot imagine how terrifying that must have been for her – and of course for young Evan too.

But does this sound like a recovered child to you? A child indistinguishable from his peers?

Thank goodness those (no doubt AAP members) mainstream doctors were there to help this poor little boy.

So what is recovery? To me, in all the YouTube videos I’ve seen posted by people convinced their child has recovered it seems most commonly to mean a clearly autistic child who has improved in certain key areas over time and has learnt a variety of coping mechanisms. Beyond that I have no idea.

Green Our Vaccines – the reality

4 Jun

Green our vaccines at 09:15

Contrary to the press reports and the frenzied claims of Jenny McCarthy of rally participants numbering between 8 to 10,000 it seems according to police who accompanied the rally that there were between 500 – 1,000 participants. I cannot source that quote, for which I am sorry. I hope to be able to source it very soon but where I got it from is not available just yet.

The above photo was taken at 09:15. The below photo was taken at the end of the rally.

Green our vaccines crowd

It certainly doesn’t seem to be a very imposing crowd.

People who watched the start of the rally via webcams (my ISP decided to go down today of all days) say that a very loose straggly crowd walking very slowly took about 20 mins to pass a fixed point.

Someone else attending the rally said (again, in confidence):

There were about 500 people at the rally today, about half of whom were children. The press conference lasted for about an hour and a half. The speakers were, in order: Dr. Jay Gordon, Boyd Haley, Dr. Jerry Kartzinel, RFK Jr., Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy. RFK Jr. spoke at length about the science disproving a link between vaccines and autism. He said that all that science is paid for by the pharmaceutical industry and that top vaccine advocates such as Renee Jenkins and Paul Offit are in the pockets of these companies.

Other notables in the crowd included JB Handley, Scott and Laura Bono, the Hazlehursts and Jim Moody.

Update: seems the media are cottoning on to the low turnout. As noted by Catherina in the comments, News Channel 10 say:

Hundreds rally against child vaccinations

Seems like the saw through the pretence this wasn’t an anti-vaccine rally too. Well done them.

Apparently, the stupidest quote of the day comes from Jim Carrey:

If fire engines were running over people on the way to a fire, we wouldn’t say there shouldn’t be fire engines. We would ask the fire engines to slow down. That’s our message to the CDC – that we need to slow down the vaccination schedule.

There you have it, fire engines should slow down on their way to a fire. Jim Carrey’s other invaluable contribution was apparently taunting ‘big pharma’ for not finding a cure for autism whilst at the same time:

finding cures for “that great scourge restless legs syndrome, also known as lazy ass disease.”

Thats the same ‘lazy ass syndrome‘ that is associated with pregnancy, varicose vein or venous reflux, folate deficiency, sleep apnea, uremia, diabetes, thyroid disease, peripheral neuropathy, Parkinson’s disease and certain auto-immune disorders such as Sjögren’s syndrome, celiac disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Oh and ADHD of course. The same ADHD that is included on the front page blurb of Groups Jenny McCarthy is on the board of.

Update II: If anyone would like to pass on Carrey’s kind words to the RLS community, you can do that at their website.

Later on Carrey apparently asked the rhetorical question ‘how stupid do you think we are‘. Heh.

Here is Jim Carrey’s quotes in the full context of his speech, courtesy of Autism News Beat – once again, venturing into the heart of woo-land.

Green Our Vaccines Coverage Elsewhere

Me
Kristina
PalMD
Kristina (again)
Ginny Hughes
Mike Stanton
Orac
Liz Ditz
Orac (again)
and again!
and again!!!
Kristina (once more)
Stifled Mind
Sharon
Seeing Beauty
S.L.
S.L. (again)
Mike Stanton (again)
Steve
Clotted Cognition

In honor of the “Green our Vaccines” rally: facts from the Omnibus Autism hearing

4 Jun

The lawyers for the parents in the Omnibus Autism hearing (thimerosal portion) have been claiming that one cause of “clearly regressive” autism is thimerosal at vaccine doses, even the dose of thimerosal in one vaccine. One of their supports for this odd claim is that whatever DAN! docs do to help their patients deal with “mercury toxicity” makes the kids less autistic or healthier or something. It’s all pretty vague. Dr. Mumper spoke confidently of what chelation had done for autistic kids and the boys under discussion in this portion of the trial were chelated multiple times in spite of never having shown any elevated mercury levels in their urine tests (even their chelated urine mercury levels were what would be expected for a typical person being chelated).

So what about this claim? If you do any old treatment and you think it makes the patient better in some perhaps very vague, undefined way, is this evidence of anything? Eric Fombonne, expert in autism epidemiology and clinician who works with autistic children and adults says, “Mais non.” Well, actually he said the following

Ms. Ricciardella (?): Are there standards that are used by the medical and scientific community before a treatment is recommended?

Dr. Fombonne: Yes, there are different kinds of standards to evaluate the efficacy of interventions the rule is to rely on the evidence that is the most robust that stems from a randomized clinical trial which are usually double blind placebo controlled for this method there is no study which has been relying on this method for the practices and treatment that have been discussed this morning [by Dr. Mumper]

Ms. Ricciardella: Do you have experience with randomized clinical trials?

Dr. Fombonne: Yes actually, I do. I started my research career and did my thesis my first two publications, I think, have to with randomized clinical trials.
And I am currently, we have tested the efficacy in a randomized clinical trial of a treatment which is not which is not biomedical which is a language based intervention to improve communication skills in young children with autism.
And we did a randomized clinical trial. It’s a 12 weeks treatment and we allocated at random parents and their children to a group where they were immediately treated with this intervention and there was a waiting list for the control group and 36 families in each group so it’s quite powerful in terms of it’s statistical power.
I just wanted to share with you my, my, our findings that it’s an intervention that everybody likes, eh and when we did the trial we had all the impression that it was actually achieving some positive results. The parents were happy and were convinced that the methods were showing some efficacy, and we did too.
But as we did the study well we didn’t analyze the data before the data were finally collected and when we broke the blind and looked at the results and there is no difference between the two groups–which is breaking my heart, in some ways–but this also shows that our experience as clinicians and as parents can be misleading.
And I think the field of autism has been replete over the last 30, 40 years of treatments and interventions that practitioners engage in when the parents apply to their children. And the story has been that when you take these practices and put them to rigorous empirical test, that of a randomized clinical trial, usually the story is much more disappointing. And a case in point is the secretin trial.

I don’t know if it was Ms. Ricciardella asking the questions, but that’s my guess. After this portion he explained about how many parents and clinicians from all over the world had been so excited about secretin when it became popular, and how for about 5 years clinicians used it and had some great stories to support it’s use. But when the double blind, placebo controlled studies were completed it turned out to be no more effective than placebo. And if someone tells you that there were “responders” you can tell them that there were “responders” to the sterile-saline injections, too, so why not just go with those, since they are cheaper than secretin? Besides which there’s no reason to expect that secretin (much like sterile saline) ever would do anything for the symptoms of autism. Further, the Mead boy got one or two injections of it but the family didn’t continue with them, apparently they weren’t so great for that child. Perhaps they decided to go with worm eggs, maternal fecal implantation enemas or even Eskimo oil (possibly purchased from Dr. Green’s office) instead.

http://static.boomp3.com/player.swf?song=bjsb2fd<a style=”font-size: 9px; color: #ccc; letter-spacing: -1px; text-decoration: none” target=”_blank” href=”http://boomp3.com/listen/bjsb2fd/fombonne-randomized-control-trial”>boomp3.com</a&gt;

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