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Kevin Leitch: Big Pharma Shill

25 Jun

I’m involved in a protracted discussion with a bunch of anti-vaccinationistas on what claims to be an autism support forum. Amongst them is the hilarious srniath who is treating is child with Lupron but who didn’t know what CPP or PPP was and didn’t know that excess testosterone could be caused by vitamin and supplements.

Another one is someone one calls themselves ‘respect’ and who is an out-and-out anti-vaxxer:

I think we are missing the forest for the trees. Will we all go out and vaccinate our kids with 20 vaccinations before the age of 18 months just because there is no mercury in them? The issue here must the vaccination, and not just the mercury.

Source.

Other regulars there include Erik ‘PR for the Geier’s’ Nanstiel and various other posters – I’ve heard various conspiracy theories totuted around including the eye-popping theory that the World Trade Center terrorist attacks were perpetrated by shadowy US government figures.

Basically, there’s a few good people there but they are drowned out by the louder wingnuts.

Anyway, I’m involved in a discussion regarding the nature of neurodiversity (srinath is again involved so you’re assured of the odd good belly laugh) and it seems that I’ve been outed as a pharma shill! Again!

‘repect’ googled for “kevin leitch pharmaceutical” and damn – got a result!

Department for International Development (DFID)

Kevin Leitch
Programme Officer
Department for International Development (DFID)
HPD, Level 8 West, 1 Palace Street
London SW1 5HE
United Kingdom
Phone: 44.020.7023.1121
Fax: 44.020.7023.0428/0174
Email: k-leitch@dfid.gov.uk

Oh man – who would’ve thought that using my real name would’ve led me to being outed? I would’ve gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you darn kids!

I admit this really tickled my funny bone – how desperate do you have to be to discredit a broke web developer from the West Midlands?

Anyway, just in case there’s any confusion in the future I’d like to make clear that I am not Kevin Leitch. Nor am I Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch, or Kevin Leitch and sadly not Kevin Leitch.

The National Autism Association: You’re Not Helping

21 Jun

Its no secret that there are big questions over the legitimacy of the science behind the spurious claims that thiomersal causes autism. What’s not often discussed in the mainstream media is the extent to which blatant fallacy and misrepresenting occurs within so called advocacy groups.

The self-styled ‘autism community’ especially in the West are blatant hypocrites when it comes to promotong their own agenda. I aim to start highlighting some of the hypcricy and outright lies perpetuated by some.

The National Autism Association

The NAA first came to my attention when I discovered that Wendy Fournier, their President, was the web designer who designed (and I use that word in its loosest possible sense) David Kirby’s Evidence of Harm website. On this website there are claims from reviewers that Kirby:

explores both sides of this controversy

and that his book:

Walk[s] the middle line

It’s quite difficult how any book that has a supporting website designed by the President of an organisation that believes thiomersal cuases autism can be thought of as exploring both sides or walks the middle line. Its also difficult to see how the NAA gets so irate about what they percieve as non-impartiality.

On April 3rd of this year, Wendy Fournier and Rita Shreffler of the NAA put their names to an NAA press release regarding researcher Paul Shattuck’s study that said it was impossible to confirm or disprove the idea of an autism epidemic based on current knowledge. As this didn’t fit with the NAA’s agenda, they decided to play nasty:

In addition to the study’s weak methods and erroneous conclusions, questions have now arisen over possible failure to disclose conflicts of interest

So its interesting that the NAA are concerned about conflicts of interest only when they’re not their conflicts of interest.

So what about Shattuck’s conflict of interest? What was it exactly?

Although the article states that Dr. Shattuck has indicated he has no financial relationships relevant to the article, NAA has learned that he was a Merck Scholar Pre-doctoral Trainee from 1999-2003, and in 2003-2004 he successfully applied for $530,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Neither of things are true. As Orac commented at the time:

Oooh, Shattuck received money from the evil Merck to support his training! Except that the Merck we’re talking about seems to be not the evil drug company but rather a nonprofit organization, the John Merck Fund, which supports research into a variety of areas, particularly developmental disabilities

and as regards the half a million plus dollars, Paul Shattuck himself had this to say:

As for the $540,000 from the CDC…it’s not entirely clear what they are talking about. I certainly don’t have a grant that big from anyone. They are probably talking about the autism surveillance grant that our center received from the CDC…a proposal which I helped prepare but am not listed as a co-investigator and am not funded from. Our University is one of several sites around the country funded to do prospective monitoring of the prevalence of autism and other disorders…am not sure why that is so horrible in the eyes of some advocates. I do have a small grant for about $12,000 from the CDC to investigate racial and socioeconomic disparities in the timing of autism diagnosis and service utilization. Prior research has indicated that the timing of identification and the level of service receipt can vary as a function of race and class. This is not a good thing in my opinion. So, I’m trying to find ways to do something constructive about it. I cannot imagine why some people would think that’s such an awful thing.

So, not only are the NAA hypocrites that only abhor conflicts of interests that don’t suit them, they’re also at best, wrong and at worst, knowingly lying.

Just as a follow up to this, I had a brief email exchange with Lenny Schafer where he said he was going to ask the NAA about this:

*Schafer to Leitch (Apr 27th 2006):*
I have forwarded Shattuck’s response to NAA and await their response. Thank you for making me aware of it.

*Leitch to Schafer (Apr 28th 2006)*
The NAA are already aware of these issues. I know of at least one person who has mailed them directly. They elected to ignore it and not to issue a correction or apology.

*Schafer to Leitch (Apr 28th 2006)*
I communicated today with the person who did the research for NAA. I am told a response is being prepared.

That was almost two months ago. The press release is still in place on the NAA website, along with the following quote from Claire Bothwell who it should be noted, given the NAA’s distate for conflicts of interest is either employed or at one time was employed by Waters and Krauss who are thiomersal litigant lawyers.:

Given the rocky history of the CDC and the autism community, failing to mention the author’s ties to this agency is a glaring omission that requires an explanation

I would suggest that given the obvious propensity of the NAA to be economical with the facts, their inability to research a subject properly and their failure to put the record straight is both irresponsible in its implications for autism research and its implications for people like Paul Shattuck who now finds himself grossly unfairly painted in a very negative light.

In a more recent Press Release, the NAA quote Wendy Fournier as saying:

In understanding that the court of public opinion sits in the driver’s seat, entities such as the General Medical Council discredit sound research in the name of a supposedly well-perceived vaccination program. Yet, this is a compromise. Compromise has no place in science, even science surrounding vaccinations.

Dr. Wakefield is one of the few that conducted research in truth, and yet the leaders in medical authority continue to compromise the health of subsets of the population that have negative reactions to shots like the MMR. Are we supposed to view these children as acceptable losses?” asks Fournier. “Dr. Wakefield’s willingness to find answers for these subsets is a testament to his scientific integrity.

Yet again, the NAA seems more than willing to bend the known truth and be incredibly hypocritical into the bargain. Certainly compromise has no place in science, which is why we should never compromise knowledge with bad science such as the original Lancet study or seek to bolster bad science with unpublished and unverifiable science such as that performed by Krigsman – a partner of Wakefields at Thoughtful House and thus someone who one would assume that the NAA, given their dislike of conflcits of interest, would be highlighting in as equally negative a light as they did Paul Shattuck. They also state unequivocally the Wakefield condicted research ‘in truth’ – which is an eyebrow raising statement given the fact that he gained his studies participants via vaccine litigants.

Good science does not require ‘assists’ such as skewing the population. And advocates like the NAA have no place in placing themselves at the center of a debate they obviously have little understanding of and which they are patently prepared to misrepresent.

This post has been sent as an email to Wendy Fournier, Claire Bothwell and Rita Shreffler. I’ll be asking them for a response either via email or via this blog.

Mark Geier and David Geier: Carry On Misrepresenting

20 Jun

Less than a fortnight ago, Kathleen provided evidence that Geier and Geier were guilty of fallaciously misrepresenting themselves by claiming a false affiliation with George Washington University. She promised at the time that this was far from the end of the matter and now she reveals the second (but far from the last) of her evidence against the integrity and honesty of the Geier’s.

Both the abstract and text of Dr. Mark Geier and David Geier’s article in Hormone Research, A Clinical and Laboratory Evaluation of Methionine Cycle-Transsulfuration and Androgen Pathway Markers in Children with Autistic Disorders, indicated that, The Institutional Review Board of the Institute for Chronic Illnesses (Office for Human Research Protections, US Department of Health and Human Services IRB number: IRB00005375) approved the present study.

After a search for the IRB of the Institute for Chronic Illnesses, Kathleen found that the following people were memebrs of the IRB panel:

Mark Geier, David Geier, Lisa Sykes, Kelly Kerns, John Young, Anne Geier, Clifford Shoemaker

The two Geier’s are obvious. Anne Geier is Mark Geier’s wife. Lisa Sykes is parent to a child on the Lupron protocol. Dr Young is Mark Geier’s business partner, Kelly Kerns is a petitioner in the vaccine/autism lawsuit and Clifford Shoemaker is a vaccine injury lawyer. How very convenient. Go to Kathleen’s site to read the rest of this debacle.

UPDATE (24-06-06): Kathleen made another discovery about one of the above – John Young: It has just been called to my attention that John L. Young is not only an OB-GYN; his name appears on the Autism Research Institute’s list of DAN! practitioners. According to his ARI listing, Young completed an eight hour Intensive Training by the DAN! Physician Training Team at the 2006 DAN! conference in Washington, DC. He offers vitamin/mineral supplementation, essential fatty acids, gluten and casein-free diet, antifungal pharmaceuticals and nutriceuticals, heavy metal detoxification (i.e., chelation), antiviral medications, and last but not least, Lupron injections to autistic children.

Rashid Buttar And the Autism Industry

17 Jun

Its a few days short of a year since I wrote my original piece on Rashid Buttar – a piece that drew equal amounts of amusement and hostility depending on one’s viewpoint. I received many comments regarding how nasty I was to a poor, dedicated doctor and so I thought it fit to take another look at Dr Buttar and re-examine some of my comments and look at some things I didn’t previously look closely at.

TDDMPS Revisited

In my previous posts I was skeptical of the efficacy of Buttar’s TD-DMPS product, however I noted that Buttar had stated that:

In a study due to be released by the winter of 2004, conclusive data was accumulated regarding the efficacy of a specifically formulated transdermally applied combination of DMPS conjugated with a number of peptides, called TD-DMPS

And yet, a search of PubMed still – 18 months after the stated release date – reveals _no_ such study. If anyone has a copy of this elusive study I would love to see it.

Interestingly, as I (and Orac) also reported, Dr Buttar seems to be moving away from TD-DMPS, once lauded as the holy grail of autism treatments, in favour of an IV EDTA protocol. The reader can make up his or her own mind about why that might be.

Rashid Buttar: Man Of Letters

Rashid Buttar has an impressive amount of letters after his name and an equally impressive amount of fellowships and board certifications on his CV.

Fellow – American Academy of Preventative Medicine
Fellow – American College for Advancement in Medicine
Diplomat – American Academy of Preventative Medicine
Diplomat – American Board of Chelation Therapy
Board Eligib – Board Certification in Emergency Medicine
Diplomat – American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology
Diplomat – American Association of Integrative Medicine
Diplomay Candidate – Board Certification in Emergency Medicine
Diplomat Candidate – American Board of Anti-Aging Medicine
Member – National Metals Task Force
Member – American Association of Physician Specialists
Member – International College of Integrative Medicine
Member – International Hyperbaric Medical Association
Member – International Hyperbaric Medical Association Foundation

Wow! Thats pretty impressive. Until we actually look a little closer.

In the US, its the American Board of Medical Specialities who oversee which boards are legitimate and which are not. They have a full list of accepted board certifications online. Of the ten individual associations listed as being ‘American’ or ‘national’ above, *only one – the American Board of Emergency Medicine – is recognised* and this is one that Buttar lists himself as simply being eligible for, not a member, diplomat or fellow of.

So the ‘veneer of respectability’ Rashid Buttar has constructed for himself reveals itself as not in anyway officially recognised. Is such official recognition important? I guess that would depend on who you asked. If you asked autism/thiomersal believers then its not important at all. they would say that such omissions reflect the ongoing conspiracy to ensure only mainstream medicine keeps itself in business by excluding pioneering mavericks like Rashid Buttar. If you asked everyone else they’d probably say it was important because recognised board certification reflects the fact that a member, diplomat or fellow has a certain, scientifically valid level of expertise within a given subject. Or that a given subject is recognised to have a beneficial effect. There is a lengthy document explaining what a medical specialty has to do to gain ABMS approval.

Boards not recognised by ABMS are self appointed and thus free to offer membership based on whatever criteria they see fit.

I did note that there were a few certifications Dr Buttar has missed out on – however he can easily rectify that situation with certification that is as equally – if not more – credible as his current certification.

Rashid Buttar: Man of Science

One of the most intriguing statements on Rashid Buttar’s CV is this:

Visiting Scientist, North Carolina State University

So I popped along to NCSU to have a look and sure enough, Rashid Buttar is listed in his role as ‘visiting scientist. However, what his CV fails to mention is that his chosen specialty is ‘Food Science’, a science that up until now I’d never heard of. Luckily, NCSU have a handy page that defines it for me:

Food Science is what happens to food from the time it’s harvested (or from it’s beginning in a lab) until you swallow it

I think we can all see just how vital this sort of science would be in autism research. Why do I get the feeling that at some point we’ll be seeing the emergence of Buttar Bread? Tasty and Gluten Free!!

Rashid Buttar: Crusading Maverick

In an amusing piece of one-sided propaganda, Rashid Buttar is portrayed as a poor, hard done by hero:

Buttar and eight other integrative doctors from across the state decided they’d had enough. They formed the North Carolina Integrative Medical Society and hired their own lobbyist to work on changing state law. At an April press conference attended by a mere three members of the media, plus lawyers for the medical board and members of the medical society, Buttar’s hand shook as he blistered the medical board for the way it treated integrative doctors.

Two weeks after Buttar’s blistering testimony at the legislature, a letter arrived in the mail from the medical board inviting him and his attorney to appear before the board to answer questions about his practice of medicine and advising him that his rights would be read to him when he appeared. When Buttar declined the invitation, the board subpoenaed him to appear before them.

After two years of harassment and $20,000 in legal fees, Buttar emerged from the hearing poorer but with his clean record intact.

Poor Rashid couldn’t quite seem to grasp why he and his fellow ‘integrative practitioners’ should have to answer to medical authorities like everyone else. And how about that $20,000 legal fee? Ouch.

Rashid Buttar: Fairly Recompensed?

So there’s our hero, 20 grand out of pocket. What does a crusading maverick with an interest in picking food and invented board certifications do? Why he starts getting some money of course! He either set up or joined V-SAB medical labs, which is again listed on his ‘autism buster’ CV….except that just like his ‘visiting scientist’ status, this position doesn’t seem to have much to do with autism. Chemidex lists V-SAB under _’Personal Care & Cosmetics’_ . Go figure.

He has also established ‘Advanced Medical Education & Services Physician Association’ (AMESPA), which is essentially a training facility to allow other practitioners to learn at the feet of Rashid Buttar all the secrets he knows to cure autism, cancer and reverse old age. For this service he charges $20,000 for a five day course. Coincidentally the same amount as two years worth of legal fees when being investigated by North Carolina health authorities. Dr Buttar has no less than 15 testimonials on his site from satisfied practitioners. Thats a cool $300,000 – but not to worry, I’m sure those practitioners will easily recoup their investment from their patients – the autism industry is a growing one after all!

But Buttar hasn’t forgotten his patients. Oh no.

Rashid Buttar: Caring and Sharing

While Dr. Buttar….is also one of those practitioners who receives a lot of complaints. In my opinion, Dr. Buttar’s latest chelation protocol is too invasive and risky. His rates are obscene, too.

(Autism-Mercury Yahoo Group)

Obscene rates? Surely not! Lets take a further look.

Dr. Buttar is asking for $800 for consultation fee (1 hr max) on his Dallas conference on June 16th-17th. I fell off my chair when I heard it.

(‘dingwendy’ CK2 yahoo Group)

We started with Dr. Buttar and $20,000 out-of-pocket expenses later (yes,in a little over a year!)…

(‘plumbrok’ CK2 Yahoo Group)

Wait, $20,000 _in a year??_ Thats…what….the same amount as _two_ years worth of legal fees when being investigated by North Carolina – guess Buttar was easily able to get that money back.

‘plumbrok’ continued:

..he had an unusually strict set-up, as Tracy put it, “My way or the highway” – every supplement had to be purchased through his office and at the time we saw him, he would not accept any substitutes.

Well of course! Only his products = only his profits. This is not a stupid man. However, for that $800 per hour I bet these people get _great_ service!

I do want you to become aware Dr. Buttar treats Cancer and Heart Disease patients. It is his Nurse Practioner that handles all the Autism children and Dr. Buttar reviews the files each week. Very rarely do patients get to see Dr. Buttar. I understand he is trying to see new patients the first time they are in the office, but there is no guarantee as he travels around the country lecturing on various topics and may not be around.

(‘punkinsmama1999’ CK2 Yahoo Group)

Yes, Dr Buttar does not see a lot of his autism patients more than once but oversees the protocol.

(‘Susan Fund’ CK2 Yahoo Group)

So it seems that your $800 per hour gets you an hour with Buttar’s nurse and that you probably won’t get to see Buttat himself above once. It also transpires that to be on his protocol you must buy _all_ supplements from him and him alone. Is his reputation suffering?

Is he really reversing Alzheimer’s? I find that Dr. Buttar talks a lot but produces little evidence.

(‘noaholiviaian’ CK2 Yahoo Group)

The crown seems to be slipping.

Im sorry, but I cant help but to think that with such an outrageous hourly rate, it is praying on parents who are desperately seeking the comforting assurance of a medical practitioner….I know that most parents would willing cut off their own right hand if it would help their kids… and Dr. Buttar knows that as well.

(‘rheaton_stormcast’ CK2 Yahoo Group)

As touched on above, Dr Buttar also treats cancer. I made mention of this in my first blog post about Buttar and discusses his biggest fan – Cajun Cowboy – who had this to say about Dr Buttar:

He (Dr Buttar) told me that most of his patients were much worse off than I and that God had Blessed me by giving me a wake up call and that he could enable my body to heal itself! Now that is the first time I have ever heard a Doctor say he could enable my body to heal cancer.

So I thought I’d drop in on Cajun Cowboy’s site to see how things were going. I was a little surprised by what I found:

All the information about Dr. Buttar is still on this site but I no longer am one of his patients and I do not recommend him to any one for any reason. If you go to him for treatment BEWARE, BEWARE and read Roger Mason’s books first and go to QuackWatch.org first!

Seems like Cajun Cowboy has had something of a change of heart.

Now as far as Dr. Buttar goes read what is said about almost every modality that he practices at QuackWatch.org. Now I new (sic) what was on this site and I new (sic) you have to take it with a grain of salt but for me, most of their opinions concerning Dr. Buttar’s treatment may be true! What I can say for sure is that they did not work for me after over $150,000.00 dollars and two years of treatment!

$150,000 worth of ‘treatment’ that appears to have done nothing at all. Cajun Cowboy sounds quite bitter about the whole thing. Why for $150,000, Buttar could afford to be pursued over 7 times over 14 years by the North Carolina medical authorities and _still_ make a $10,000 profit.

Rashid Buttar: Living The American Dream

Business and free enterprise are the American ideals. On a much smaller scale we could easily equate the level of success Rashid Buttar has had with say a company like…oh I don’t know…Enron. They were successful for quiet some time.

Rashid Buttar is making a very very good living out of his autism cottage industry and so far he’s managed to do it on the back of some fake respectability generated from meaningless board certifications, without publishing any studies (despite repeated promises to do so) into the efficacy of his treatments and by charging people who consider themselves as desperate a lot of money for receiving an ‘interesting’ level of personal service. Along the way he’s keeping his friends sweet by teaching them his methods and is also getting a good slice of money from them too.

Wonder what things will be like a year from now?

A Dateline Participant Speaks

14 Jun

_This comes from Autism Street. The whole post is here. I’m going to reproduce the post then shut off comments here. Please comment at Autism Street._

My wife recently told me about an acquaintance of ours (through a local online parent group) who had just withdrawn from the Arizona chelation study at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine. It had been I long time since I had exchanged any sort of messages with her or the group, so I sent her an e-mail to ask her about it.

Boy was I in for a wonderful surprise – a return message full of love and acceptance for a wonderful child! This was interesting to me, because I was curious how the influence of media like NBC’s Dateline or Autism Speaks may or may not have played a part in her decision, especially since her daughter had actually appeared in the Dateline segment. I did not specifically mention Dateline or Autism Speaks in my original e-mail to her, but did ask if media was an influence.

We exchanged several more e-mails and discussed her guest blogging about this. Without any further ado, I’d like to welcome a guest blogger to Autism Street who will go by the name Belle. She’ll refer to her daughter as Mulan. I’ll ask Belle two questions, and she’ll provide her answers. Whether or not she fields any comments will be entirely up to her.

*Belle, what influenced your decision to participate?*

_”I had read a lot on chelation, and I was at one point in my life, ready to do “whatever” it took! It’s easy for parents to get hooked on all the hype and “doom and gloom” out there. If at one point I had read that I could get a child as cool and great as Mulan, then maybe I wouldn’t have been so quick to do “whatever” it took.”_

*How did you arrive at the decision to withdraw Mulan from the study?*

_”Thanks to time, discussion with friends, and Mulan herself, I decided to withdraw. I signed up for this about a year ago, got approved for it, and started the process. Since signing up, I had a lot of time to listen to others and to think more about what I was doing.”_

_”Then there’s Mulan. Mulan is doing soo well! I couldn’t ask for a child to be doing as well as her. If I had been told that she’d be doing as well as she is, I wouldn’t have believed what anyone was telling me. I know another local research nurse who has a son who is also doing really well. Sometimes it seems she’s the only one I know who doesn’t talk “doom and gloom”. I am taking her attitude. I do believe that with a lot of hard work on the parents’ part, discipline, and reality, your child can do a lot!”_

_”When I read about someone’s child who is doing such and such, and they attribute it to pills or chelation, I think, oh yeah, Mulan is doing that. And it’s not because of a pill or chelation, it’s because of good old-fashioned hard work! There’s a short movie that someone at [name removed] suggested I watch. It’s about how chelation has supposedly helped their children. It’s horrible! I thought that Mulan could easily be on that as well – I have pictures of her freaking of getting her picture taken, and then I could use her kindergarten picture, before hours of therapy and hard work, etc.”_

_”After seeing the piece on Dateline, and that clip from autism speaks, I am sick and tired of the “doom and gloom” attitude. Dateline showed Mulan for approx. 4 seconds. Both times, it appeared they tried to make her look like a freak. The first time she was up close to the camera and making a face. Those of us who know her, know that she’s vain and loves the camera. My dad always has the video camera and will turn it around so Mulan can see herself. Mulan was just doing her thing in front of the camera. I could see any and all of my kids doing what Mulan was doing, especially if it’s edited carefully. I’m sure I could find all three of my kids looking like freaks – they’re kids! Then they showed her getting her ears checked and she’s hand flapping. Yes, because of autism Mulan is a hand flapper when she’s excited. They couldn’t show the whole story let alone the fact that she’s a child with autism that has never seen this Dr. before, and was excited to have a check up.”_

_”They could have shown Mulan socializing with her siblings or communicating with the doctor, but they didn’t do that. Apparently Dateline would think it okay to have people believe that people with autism don’t socialize or communicate! Now I am going off on a totally different tangent, but I was sort of hoping that after seeing the show I would have changed my mind and decided to “go for it” with Mulan. Instead, it just made me more adamant that I wasn’t going to do this to Mulan. Before the show I just had a lot of fear.”_

_”Mulan has always been healthy. I’ve had her at the Dr. more than once convinced she had strep, and she didn’t. Actually, her siblings get strep, and she doesn’t. It’s weird in a way, but I’m not complaining! Mulan also hasn’t had any surgeries since she’s been diagnosed. She’s had nothing medical done to her, so I have fear of doing anything medically unnecessary to her. Not that I wouldn’t do anything for her medically, I would in a heart beat if she needed it. She doesn’t need DMSA, so I am choosing not to give it to her.”_

_”I want to clarify that I don’t blame the medical community for Mulan’s autism – she was born with it, I know that. I have seen my child take such great steps forward, that I fear giving her anything that might hurt her. I still give her McD’s, and candy with all the food coloring in the world. She will get an Icee at Target on occasion, just like her siblings. I guess some might say those things might hurt her, but that’s called living, and Mulan is living and functioning in her own cool way.”_

_”I just had Mulan’s first habilitation worker quit. This woman is the coolest woman ever. I thanked her for helping Mulan become the weird free spirit that she is. I love my weird free spirit, and I hope others can see how her free spiritedness is actually pretty cool, and not necessarily as weird as they first might think!”_

Dan Olmsted and Andrew Wakefield. Rumour Mongering Ahoy!

14 Jun

UPI journalist Dan Olmsted has released another in his series of autism related pieces. This one is entitled: *The Age of Autism: But is Wakefield Right?*

The piece then goes on to discuss Olmsted’s belief that he may well be. Lets take a critical look at Olmsted and also Wakefield’s beliefs and contrast them with what we know and strongly suspect about Wakefield and the whole MMR debacle. Olmsted begins with:

Let’s put aside the issues surrounding the Lancet paper and concerns about a measles epidemic and go straight to the heart of the matter: Does the MMR cause autism? In other words, is Wakefield right? After looking into the topic for more than a year, I’m very concerned that he may be — that, especially in children whose immune systems have been rendered susceptible by any number of possible exposures, the combined live-virus vaccine has its fingerprints all over numerous cases of regressive autism.

I can well understand Olmsted wishing to slide the inconvenient retraction by the Lancet aside. Unfortunately they cannot be so readily shunted away. This (does MMR cause autism) is at heart, a scientific question. Only well designed, thorough, replicable science can support or refute it. The Lancet paper was _not_ good science. The study group was tiny. It seems that not only were the group of subjects sourced via anti-vaccine lawyers but I have heard rumours that there were not twelve subjects in Wakefield’s original group but actually sixteen and that the ‘extra’ subjects were ignored when their outcomes didn’t support Wakefield’s hypothesis. I hasten to add that that is total rumour but if its true, it raises more questions about this study.

I can also well understand Olmsted’s wish to put aside concerns about a measles epidemic. After all, already this year one life has been claimed by measles and hospitalisation rates are exactly in line with those predicted by experts in 2004. These cannot be comfortable truths for a journalist as one-sided as Mr Olmsted to face.

However, Mr Olmsted wishes us to ignore these things – pretend they don’t matter – so lets humour him and discuss only his narrow view.

Mr Olmsted states that he’s been looking into the matter for over a year. I’ve been looking into the matter nearly three times as long as that. Does that mean I ‘trump’ Olmsted? He says that childrens immune systems have been compromised and that the MMR live virus has ‘its fingerprints’ all over numerous cases of regressive autism. However, as is usual in these reports, Olmsted fails to back up these unsubstantiated claims. Indeed, these are part of the same belief system that has led to the point where Wakefield is being investigated by the GMC.

Does MMR cause autism – its a matter of science, not propaganda. If Olmsted wishes to convince people capable of rational thought then he needs to provide the science.

Has any science so far managed to substantiate Wakefield’s claims? Here’s Ben Goldacre:

But let’s not forget, the Daily Mail was promoting Krigsman’s research back in 2002 as well: at that time, he was putting endoscopes into the bowels of young children with autism, and said he had found evidence of inflammation. 4 years later, looking on PubMed, the standard database for all medical papers, it seems this research still has not been published in a peer reviewed academic journal. Forgive my bluntness, but it seems a shame to go poking around up there if you’re not going to write up your findings properly. Meanwhile the Telegraph says that Krigsman’s most recent unpublished claim is replicating similar work from 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield, and 2002 by Professor John O’Leary. But there is no such work from 1998 by Wakefield, at least not in PubMed (in that year he publishes his infamous, very different, and partially retracted Lancet paper on MMR, of course). Meanwhile it is well documented that other labs have tried to reproduce the 2002 O’Leary study and come out with different results, and that the protocol was likely to have problems with false positives because of the tests used: two perfect examples of the importance of research being fully written up and published, so it can be replicated and assessed. Oh, and the newspapers didn’t mention that Andrew Wakefield was also an author on the 2002 study along with O’Leary, nor that Wakefield is also very closely associated with Krigsman (they are doctors together at Thoughtful House, a private autism clinic in the USA).

Bad Science.

So despite the claims of scientific verification from Krigsman’s work lets be clear: this work has not so far met the most basic standard of scientific credibility. Olmsted fails to mention this. It bears repeating: *Does MMR cause autism* is a scientific question. It can only be answered with good science. Krigsman’s work is not good science.

After talking about all the families he’s talked to, Olmsted adds:

You get the picture. “Anecdotal evidence.” But you have to wonder how many of these stories — one is tempted to say, bodies — must pile up before the medical authorities go back and take a fresh look at the issue. This blithe disregard for case histories — for what parents, the supposed bedrock of our “family-friendly” society, say — is one of the most appalling features of the current climate surrounding autism research.

Firstly, I have to say I am _not_ tempted to use the word ‘bodies’ in connection with autistic kids. Given recent events Mr Olmsted would do extremely well to choose his words with a little more care.

Lets also note that the ‘medical authorities’ _have_ taken repeated looks at this issue. The truth is that they can look until the cows come home. If there’s nothing there to find, nothing will be found. Ben Goldacre again:

in the May issue of the Journal of Medical Virology, there was a very similar study, only this one has actually been published. It looked for measles RNA in children with regressive autism after MMR vaccination, much like the Krigsman story. It used tools so powerful they could detect measles RNA down to single figure copy numbers. But they found no evidence of the magic vaccine-strain measles RNA to implicate MMR, and perhaps because of that unfrightening result, the study was loudly ignored by the press.

Readers may recall that as recently as last month, the usual tabloid suspects were screaming about MMR again, this time due to another unpublished poster presentation from Krigsman. Strangely, they failed to mention another IMFAR presentation which failed to replicate Wakefield’s work. No scope for shrieking headlines I guess and no scope for propaganda from Olmsted.

Olmsted also refers to Dr Peter Fletcher:

The official, Dr. Peter Fletcher, became an expert witness for parents’ lawyers, which of course creates a competing interest that needs to be factored in. But Fletcher said his new role gave him access to documents that deeply concerned him.

However, as readers may recall in an earlier piece I wrote at the time, Fletcher brings _nothing_ to the table except vague insinuation and conspiracy mongering. No new science is mentioned or discussed whatsoever.

Lets go through it once again: *Does MMR cause autism?* – this is a question of science. It can only be answered using the scientific method. So far, this science question has been answered in the negative. At some point Olmsted, if he wishes to continue thinking of himself as a journalist, will need to start looking a little more deeply at the issues he writes about. At the moment, he’s not a journalist. He’s a propagandist.

Creatinine, Chelation and Lupron…Oh my!

6 Jun

A recent news segment on NBC in America covered Chelation therapy as a treatment for autism. The response was as predicted. The pro-cure/biomed side went into raptures. Everyone else winced. As a UK resident I have to say that (sorry America) this seems to be a furtherance of the dumbing down of science in the US that has led to both this sort of report appearing on a serious news show and the joke of creationism being taught in science classes.

Anyway, thankfully, these types of things are still viewed by most people (over there and over here) as marginal and not representative of the truth. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that there is a lot of experimentation going on by so called ‘scientists’ and by some parents. My favourite quote so far from some retorting to the Dateline segment is:

A treatment used prior to proof is called an experiment.

ACSH.

So what can be said to be poorly understood and yet still be used?

Lupron for Autism

I recently had an interaction with a number of people on an Autism Biomed board after they stated that Lupron was ‘working miracles in recovering my child’. At least one of these people was someone who had assured me about a year ago that chelation was ‘working miracles in recovering my child’. A part of me fully expects to hear that car battery acid is ‘working miracles in recovering my child’ from the same person a year from now. After that? Tongue of Toad? Eye of Newt?

It was clear that the ‘scientists’ advising these people had not informed them of basic facts about the condition that was allegedly affecting their kids autism. Neither of them had had their childrens hand and wrist radiographed which is the standard way of determining if a child is undergoing Precocious Puberty or not. Basically, If bone age is within 1 year of chronological age, puberty has not started. If bone age is advanced by 2 or more years, puberty likely has been present for a year or more or is progressing more rapidly.

The single most basic fact about Precocious Puberty is that it is immediately subdivided into Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) or Pseudo Precocious Puberty (PPP). It is vital to make this difference as the treatment is different in each division. The division can only be made by testing for premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. When I asked one of these people if the Geiers (yes, it was they) had subcategorised into CPP or PPP they did not know what I was talking about. They were entirely ignorant of these terms. It was clear neither of the two people I had spoken to had undergone this sub-categorisation.

They claimed it was ‘enough’ to ‘know’ that their children had excess testosterone. One of these children is female. This child’s parent was utterly ignorant of the fact that excess testosterone in females was not called ‘precocious puberty’ but indicative of ‘Androgen excess’. Lupron is not mentioned as a treatment for Androgen Excess.

One other interesting fact about increased testosterone is that in patients diagnosed with PPP, this can result from an excess of vitamins and other dietary supplements. Its common knowledge that this is a common part of DAN! and DAN! style treatment regimes. Yet again, the Geier’s patients parents were entirely unaware of this fact.

Sources

http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic1882.htm
http://www.emedicine.com/PED/topic1881.htm
http://www.androgenexcesssociety.org/signs.html
http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/sex_hormones_tests.jsp

The Role of Creatinine in Relation to Porphyrins and Chelation to Creatinine

I’m not going to go over this subject as well as Not Mercury recently did but I want to highlight a few key concepts from that paper that it seems the authors either missed or didn’t account for.

The paper’s essence is that it is significant the their are elevated levels of Porphyrins in autistic kids. However, they fail to account for the likelihood that this is a false elevation. The study attempts to measure the amount of porphyrins in the urine of their subjects. However, because collecting urine of a standard volume, content and dilution is next to impossible, its necessary to use a stable compound to express the porphyrins as a ratio of – which is where creatinine comes in. So, the paper claims that, relative to creatinine, porphyrins are high in autistic kids.

However, as Not Mercury also highlights, its fairly accepted amongst DAN! practitioners:

Creatinine is often found to be marginal in the urine of autistics, and low creatinine can skew urine analyte results to high levels. So, also take note of creatinine levels if the laboratory results include ratioing to creatinine.

PDF translated to HTML from ARI

And Andrew Wakefield’s colleague, Paul Shattock, also reports low creatinine in autistic kids (see source on Not Mercury blog entry). So why does that matter? Now, I’m no scientist so I was struggling to find a way to visualise this in my head and I came up with the bar chart below. The thin black line is an arbitrary ‘baseline’ (where the creatinine stops and the Porphs start) below which in purple is creatinine levels and above which is Porph levels. Now, in the autistic representation note how the decrease in creatinine has led the baseline measurement for Porph to falsely raise the amount of Porphs. In other words, relative to the baseline, there are not more Porphs as such, but less creatinine. I’m open to interpretation on this by the way – I don’t want it to be misleading.

There are also anecdotal reports of various chelators reducing creatinine further:

my son’s creatinine has come down to 11 by round 3. why is it going down?how can i bring it back to normal? i have been giving glycine to him also during rounds – every 3hrs dmsa+ala

Onibasu.

And:

Importantly, recent data suggest that oral NAC administration > transiently lowers creatinine levels.

PubMed

So here we seem to have a situation wherein autistic children are already noted to have low creatinine levels and that these levels could be even further reduced by the chelators used either in the study itself or by parents externally to the study and still the study authors claim it is significant to epxress Porphs _as a ratio_ of creatinine.

Autism One

Meanwhile, over in Chicago, Autism One has been in full force (or should that be farce?). I’m reliably informed that one of the big draws was David ‘crowd pleaser’ Kirby so I downloaded his slides to have a looksee.

Incredibly, it seems that David Kirby has magically ‘forgotten’ everything he conceded to blogger Citizen cain regarding the use of CDDS data. Lets remind ourselves of what Kirby told Citizen Cain:

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

And yet, here we have slides showing Kirby demonstrating the change in the rate of increase, something he has conceded is inaccurate as a measure. He also refers to the increase in cases as ‘new’ cases when its been demonstrated time and time again that these are _not new cases_ . All in all, this is simply more dishonesty from David Kirby.

Autism and autistic people deserve better than this hodge-podge of sloppiness and dishonesty.

The Shape Of An Elephant

17 May

Remember this old Bhuddist parable?

Five blind men of Savatthi are all describing an elephant. The problem is that one grabs the tail, the other a leg, the other the side, the other an ear and the fifth, the tusk. Each, remaining blindfolded, seeks to articulate the attributes of an elephant. The one who grabbed the tail insisted that the elephant was like a rope. The one who grabbed the leg was as certain that an elephant was not like a rope, but a tree. The one who was feeling the side of the elephant was convinced that an elephant was like a mud baked wall. The fourth blind man, feeling the ear, was shocked that the others could not understand that the elephant was like a banana leaf. The fifth denounced them all as he held to the tusk, insisting that an elephant was most like a brandished sword.

Every time I hear talk about the ‘autism epidemic’ I remember this parable.

The only way we can _definitively_ establish if thiomersal (or any other vaccine ingredient) causes autism is to take a hundred kids and do a double blind study involving injecting them with either an applicable amount of thiomersal containing vaccines or a control over an established time period.

Obviously, thats never going to happen. Firstly there are the obvious ethics of such a thing – with the prevailing beliefs about what autism is, no parent is going to risk ‘causing’ autism. Secondly there is the more practical reason that there aren’t really any thiomersal containing vaccines left in the West anymore – hence Burbacher’s need to get vaccines and then _add_ thiomersal to them. I suppose our ficticious study could do that but nobody really knows what confounders there may be in such an action. Burbacher certainly didn’t control for them.

So, what else can we do to try and establish if thiomersal (or whatever) can cause autism?

We can examine the symptoms of mercury poisoning (in the case of thiomersal) and see if there seems to be a relationship with autism. This is in essence what the Bernard et al paper tried to do. They concluded there _was_ a link but a closer examination of the paper shows that there is _not one_ common symptom between the diagnstic symptoms of mercury poisoning and the DSM(IV) diagnostic criteria for autism. This fact usually results in two counter-claims. Firstly that the DSM(IV) is not ‘up to the job’ of reflecting the current state of knowledge about autism. Secondly, that autism is such a novel form of mercury poisoning that autism is totally different from all other forms of mercury poisoning.

The first objection is essentially a call to retro-fit the DSM(IV) to fit one persons own beliefs about autism and thiomersal. This is pointless. The DSM criteria (which _are_ periodically adjusted) reflect the symptoms it requires to fulfil a diagnosis of ASD. This means the symptoms are common to _all_ autistic people. People have quoted gut issues, constipation and various other issues to me as ‘evidence’ of the damage resulting in autism, that thiomersal can do. Trouble is, none of the things that get quoted at me are common to all autistic people. These things may be comorbidities. If people have found ways to treat debilitating comorbidities then more power to them I say. I do exactly the same every time I administer a puff of a ventolin inhaler to my daughter. People then go on to say, well, maybe we should start sub-dividing autism into different ‘types’. However, we have no idea what prevalence these ‘sub-types’ might have. As far as we know they might only exist in statistically insignificant numbers that wouldn’t justify a sub-type categorisation. One of the biggest comorbidities is epilepsy. Should we create a sub-category of ‘epileptic autism’. Why? The underlying autism would be just the same. No – this is the very reason why secondary conditions are called comorbidities and not subtypes.

The second theory – that autism is so unique it doesn’t resemble any other form of mercury poisoning – is very hard to take seriously. Anorexia appears to be common across all types of mercury poisoning (its mentioned in Mad Hatters Disease, Pinks Disease and typical mercury poisoning) – why would it skip autism? Occams Razor applies here. The simplest explanation is one which requires no mangling/disappearing/ignoring of known facts – autism doesn’t really resemble mercury poisoning.

So whats next? Epidemiology. We’re left with looking at the numbers.

The ‘autism epidemic’ is central to the thiomersal hypothesis. The argument goes that as thiomersal useage increased both temporaly (vaccines were administered in shorter time frames) and in amount (maximum body burden in the US was 187.5 ug of Hg) that the number of autism diagnosis increased.

The main problem with the epidemic idea is that this chain of events is _far_ from established. The reason is mainly the quality of the underlying data.

There are three main US sources for prevalence data – the Dept of Education, VAERS and CDDS.

Many autism advocacy groups use the data collected by the US Department of Education (USDE) to show a rapidly increasing prevalence of autism. Closer examination of these data to follow each birth-year cohort reveals anomalies within the USDE data on autism. The USDE data show not only a rise in overall autism prevalence with time but also a significant and nearly linear rise in autism prevalence within a birth-year cohort as it ages, with significant numbers of new cases as late as 17 years of age. In addition, an unexpected reduction in the rise of autism prevalence occurs in most cohorts at 12 years of age, the age when most children would be entering middle school. These anomalies point to internal problems in the USDE data that make them *unsuitable for tracking autism prevalence*.

Source.

This is a shame but Jim Laidler is absolutely correct that we must use good, accurate data – USDE data clearly isn’t.

VAERS has massive problems. It allows anyone to enter any data at any time. I recently demonstrated this when I, a UK citizen, managed to submit a VAERS entry stating that a vaccine had turned my daughter into Wonder Woman. Clearly, this is not an acceptable source.

CDDS is the most contraversial. Rick Rollens has toally misintrpretted the data time after time. CDDS themselves state that their data should not be used for tracking autism prevalence. However, if it is insisted that we _do_ use CDDS data then we need to be clear about its use. Rick Rollens lumped all stats from all age groups together – quite obviously this results in meaningless data. As David Kirby conceeded:

…total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.

When one does isolate this cohort things are very different. In this cohort, nnot only are autism cases still rising, in the last quarter, the increase in the rate of increase is climbing.In other words, when one uses the correct group of cases to examine, data that David Kirby has referred to as ‘the Gold Standard’ for testing prevalence, shows that autism cases are still rising despite his statement in the New York Times in *2005* that:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child’s third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year.

However, despite all this, we need to rememember that CDDS disclaimers appply to our interpretation of the data as well as Rollen’s or Kirby’s. However, ours are more accurate and at least are preformed on the right section of the data.

Make sure to read Joseph’s first comment in this thread which addresses another failing of this data I forgot to address.

So there are very large problems with the epidemiology as well. This is vexing and means, as Paul Shattuck recently concluded, that the true growth of autism cannot be realistically determined. So we’re left with the opinions and research of experts – people who study autism. What do they say?

Almost to a man they say that the idea of an epidemic is questionable. They state there may well have been a rise in _numbers_ but not necessarily a rise in _prevalence_. The distinction is important.

What they say is that improved tests and more recognition adds up to more diagnosis. This is simple common sense. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find more of it than you would if you _didn’t_ know what you were looking for.

What do we know that might support this opinion? Here are a few ideas from my neck of the woods.

In 2004, an ‘autism audit‘ was performed in Scotland. One of the questions the audit asked was how accurate they thought the prevalence rate estimates were for their area. 45% of authorities who responded made a point of noting that they felt diagnosis for adults was very underrepresented. For example, Perth and Kinross council stated

Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.

Also, in a New Scientist piece last year, the findings of the University of Nottingham were reported. The team reexamined data from the 1970’s which resulted in five diagnosis. Using modern diagnostic criteria, the team found 56 cases, a ten-fold increase.

Lastly, earlier this year, Health Minister Liam Byrne reported figures that demonstrated autism diagnoses for children have nearly doubled in 8 years from 3100 to 6170. Meanwhile adult diagnoses have nearly tripled in the same period from 1120 to 3000.

That seems to pretty firmly establish the idea of widescale underdiagnosis. What about misdiagnosis? From its very start as a categorised diagnosis, autism has been misdiagnosed. Kanner mentioned several of his patients were diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, as Shattuck _also_ concluded, its not possible to ascertain to what degree diagnostic substitution in the past has resulted in more cases now we know better.

A fascinating news article caught my eye this morning and led to this post. It seems that even _after_ we factor in more availability of diagnosis and better tests for it, most doctors still don’t screen for autism because a lot don’t know how.

The study of 255 Maryland and Delaware pediatricians found that 209 (82 percent) said they regularly screen their patients for general developmental delays, but only 20 (8 percent) of them said they regularly screen for ASD. Of the pediatricians who said they do not routinely screen for ASD, 62 percent said they didn’t do it because they weren’t familiar with the screening tools.

Source.

Remember that this is in a time when awareness and screening tools are better than they’ve ever been – if they’re like this now, just imagine how bad they must’ve been 10, 15 or 20 years ago.

Do you see a rope? A tree? A wall? A leaf? Maybe a sword? Or do you put these things together and percieve an elephant?

Pediatrics Letter – More Misrepresentation

10 May

On the 5th May a Letter from Kenneth P Stoller appeared in Pediatrics.

UW-Madison researcher Paul Shattuck concludes that special education figures being used are “faulty and do not substantiate such a claim” (that there is an autism epidemic). Paul Shattuck seems to be saying that all the reported autistic children have always been here, they were just called something else.

Shattuck makes no such conclusion. In a clarifying comment on Scienceblogs, Paul Shattuck stated:

Unfortunately, the media and some advocacy groups have distorted what my article was all about. I was quite explicit in the article that A) my work does not prove or disprove the existence of an epidemic and I think that is still an open issue….My number one goal was to raise awareness about the limitations of the special ed. data.

As a pediatrician, who has been in practice for over two decades, I find it more than a little insulting as well as disturbing to have someone say that these children were always there.

Several pediatricians do not find it insulting. Suniti Chakrabarti for example – who diagnosed my own daughter – co-authored a paper with Eric Fombonne which confirned a high but stable prevalence for autism. There are also several interesting studies that indicate that ASD has historically been very underdiagnosed.

In 2004, an ‘autism audit‘ was performed in Scotland. One of the questions the audit asked was how accurate they thought the prevalence rate estimates were for their area. 45% of authorities who responded made a point of noting that they felt diagnosis for adults was very underrepresented. For example, Perth and Kinross council stated

Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.

Also, in a New Scientist piece last year, the findings of the University of Nottingham were reported. The team reexamined data from the 1970’s which resulted in five diagnosis. Using modern diagnostic criteria, the team found 56 cases, a ten-fold increase.

Lastly, earlier this year, Health Minister Liam Byrne reported figures that demonstrated autism diagnoses for children have nearly doubled in 8 years from 3100 to 6170. Meanwhile adult diagnoses have nearly tripled in the same period from 1120 to 3000.

The idea of ‘insult’ is irrelevant to the substantiation of a case. And yet again, Shattuck made no claim that ‘these children were always there’. Such purposefully misleading statements entirely invalidate Stoller’s case.

As a scientist, I find the current approach to the autism epidemic – “The Emperor’s New Clothes” approach – to be deeply disturbing.

Appeals to authority do not make one automatically correct. I’m sure there are several people who could say that ‘as scientists’ they question the idea of there being an epidemic of autism at all. That wouldn’t automatically make them right either. What does lend their viewpoint some weight as the fact that the science supports their opinions.

For years the vaccine division at the CDC and others have said the reason for the dramatic increase in autism is due to “better diagnosing” and “greater awareness.””They have encouraged those like Paul Shattuck to manufacture uncertainty.

This is quite simply yet more purposefully misleading rubbish. This study was funded largely by the Autistic Society of America. Paul Shattuck has also stated his affiliations with the CDC quite clearly:

As for the $540,000 from the CDC…it’s not entirely clear what they are talking about. I certainly don’t have a grant that big from anyone. They are probably talking about the autism surveillance grant that our center received from the CDC…a proposal which I helped prepare but am not listed as a co-investigator and am not funded from….I do have a small grant for about $12,000 from the CDC to investigate racial and socioeconomic disparities in the timing of autism diagnosis and service utilization.

Why Stoller indulges in such flagrant misrepresentation is not apparent. I am forced to conclude in the absence of a good reason, that Stoller has nothing to fall back on other than annoyance that Shattuck’s conclusions did not meet his beliefs and thus he felt it necessary to resort to distortion and spin.

There are no studies that have found the previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed autistic individuals among older Americans. They simply aren’t there.

Mr Stoller is once again making assumptions. I have found no studies in PubMed that even attempt to pose this question, let alone answer it. How Stoller concludes there are none when no studies have sought an answer to this question is bewildering. I would like to suggest Mr Stoller examines the evidence from the three UK sources I quote from above. The US and the UK have a near identical autism prevalence. It seems reasonable that older patterns of prevalence might follow suit.

Now, the increase of autism has been linked to the increase in mercury exposure through fish and industrial sources, amalgam and additionally, through increased parenteral exposure to ethylmercurithiosalicate.

Its also been linked to alien invasion and plastic cups. Surely a scientist understand the concept of correlation not equaling causation?

A recent study, using infant Macaca fascicularis primates exposed to injected ethylmercury or those exposed to equal amounts of ingested methylmercury, showed that ethylmercuy was retained twice as much inorganic mercury in their brains in comparison to the methylmercury exposed primates.(Burbacher T, et al. Comparison of blood and brain mercury levels in infant monkeys exposed to methylmercury or vaccines containing thimerosal. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2005 Aug:113(8):1015-21.)These primates were exposed to mercury levels at a rate equal to what children in the United States received via standard childhood vaccines from 1991- 2003.

What’s not often discussed about the Burbacher study is the interesting point that the group did not use thiomersal containing vaccines. They used non-thiomersal containing vaccines and then added thiomersal to them. It is difficult to know how this fresh preparation compares with vaccine formulas when thimerosal is part of the manufacturing process and may have suffered some degradation to inorganic Hg in the vials before administration.

Cysteine and glutathione synthesis are crucial for mercury detoxification, and are reduced in autistic children, possibly due to epigenetic polymorphisms.

The Deth paper made no such claim. The basic gist of the Deth paper is that various toxins, including thimerosal, affect methionine synthase activity (a process that helps in building proteins) and that this can adversely affect children. In short, the Deth paper alleges that thimerosal causes methionine synthase dysfunction (MSD). However, autism and MSD are entirely dissimilar.

Therefore, autistic children have 20% lower levels of cysteine and 54% lower levels of glutathione, which adversely affect their ability to detoxify and excrete metals like mercury. (James, S.J. et al.: Metabolic biomarkers of increased oxidative stress and impaired methylation capacity in children with autism. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 80, 1611-1617 2004).This leads to a higher concentration of free mercury in blood, which then transfers into tissues and increases the half-life of mercury in the body, as compared to children with normal levels of cysteine and glutathione. As was shown by Bradstreet et al (Bradstreet, J et al.: A case control study of mercury burden in children with autistic spectrum disorders. J. Am. Phys. Surg. 8, 76-79 2003) in a study involving 221 autistic children, vaccinated autistic children showed about 6 fold elevation of urinary mercury than normal controls after appropriate mobilization with the chelating agent DMSA.

And so we get down to it – Bradstreet and JAPANDS. A man who recommends exorcism and a journal who don’t publish errata or retractions. Great. Next!

Stoller then goes on to describe a whole host of things thiomersal apparently does without ever stating the fact that none of these things appear in the diagnostic criteria for autism.

This is an unconscionable oversight failure at best, at worse it is an example that we have left consensus reality to be created by the liars, thieves, cheats, killers, and the PR junk scientists they employ.

Quite a statement from someone who has actively misled people regarding Paul Shattucks connections with the CDC. I would put forward the idea that a PR junk scientist is one who isn’t even able to research the simplest of facts and instead concentrates solely on misrepresentation and spin. As for killers, its my opinion that Dr Roy Kerry is a great example of a DAN! protocol follower.

We are living in a time where an incredible overplay and lies and self-aggrandizing behavior and non-science is the norm.

Stoller has no argument from me there. He would seem to me to be living embodiment of that statement. He cites studies from people like Burbacher who’s ‘science’is funded by SafeMinds – a group whos mission statement is to establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. He cites people like Deth who are listed as expert witnesses for the prosecution in the omnibus proceedings against vaccine manufacturers.

Is it stretch to realize that by putting our heads in the sand about the autism epidemic we have made it possible for the groundwork to be put in place for Marshal Law?

Er, yes. Yes it is.

No something easy to contemplate? Then ask why haven’t pediatricians come forward to demand the end of the use of ethylmercurithiosalicate once and for all, and to advocate for the treatment of these children before it is too late?

Simple: they realise that the science doesn’t support your beliefs Mr Stoller. They understand the massive societal benefits of vaccination – a benefit being well demonstrated now that vaccine uptake is falling thanks to your scare mongering as Mumps epidemics sweep your country and measles epidemics resulting in 12% hospitalisation and at least one death so far sweep mine.

Stoller declares no conflicts of interest and yet in his signature he describes himself as a member of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association. This treament is a favourite of DAN! practitioners – people who profit by ‘treating’ autism – and yet there have been no published randomized controlled trials for low-pressure hyperbaric oxygen therapy as an autism treatment yet. Only one paper exists in Pub Med relating to HBOT and autism which blogger Dad of Cameron found at least one significant error in.

Mr Stoller establishes once more his propensity to bend or totally shatter facts by claiming no conflict of interest when it is clear he supports a therapy being widely utilised for profit on autistic children. Throughout this whole letter he willfully and (one must assume) knowingly misrepresents people like Paul Shattuck, relationships between people and institutions. He quite clearly has little knowledge of the limitations of the science he quotes as backing up his beliefs and then goes on to rage about ‘PR junk scientists’ whilst he promotes the use of a very expensive treatment with no established – or even reliably investigated- appreciable effect on autistic children.

DAN! Protocol For Dummies

20 Mar

Whenever anyone else hears the word ‘DAN!’ with that little exclamation mark do they go ‘DAN! – DAN! – DAN – DAN!’ to the opening four bars of the theme to ‘Dragnet’? No? Ah well, just me then.

Ken Aitken is a psychologist. He’s also a DAN! Doctor. One doesn’t need to be an actual Doctor to be a DAN! Doctor apparently:

As for choosing a DAN!, it just depends on what type of treatment you are looking for. DAN!’s that are MDs or DOs are typically going to be much more into testing and genetics and lots of expensive and invasive stuff. This, of course, is a gross generalization and isn’t necessarily true of all DAN! MDs, but rather something to be cautious of. A DAN! who is a homeopath or naturopath is typically going to do things more naturally and less invasive. Again, it’s a generalization. There are chiropractors, allergists and other types of doctors that are DAN!s as well, so it is really the type of doctor and treatment that best suits your needs. Many people go with a MD or DO because they can get insurance coverage for some of the services.

Homeopaths and Naturopaths doing things ‘naturally’. Heh. Does this lack of training in medical matters prevent them from performing things like chelation (source as above)?

…which is why we went with a homeopath/naturopath…….We decided to get the mercury out because I knew that Seth had had way too much put into him and it wasn’t coming out at all (he’s a non-excretor).

Homeopaths and Naturopaths doing chelation. Cool.

I talked to one yesterday (a DAN doctor mind you) and how he got qualifications to be one is beyond me. He told me has a couple of autistic patients and knows of the chelation process. If this is all that is required to be a DAN doctor then I don’t see a distinct advantage to them either.

Source.

Is your mind boggling yet? Here’s the reply to this commenter (source as above):

I think that being on the DAN list (in the past) meant something like that the person had attended some DAN training– or something rather general like this. Someone (in some post, somewhere) who went to the recent DAN conference wrote about that there is/was some discussion afoot to try to improve on this and make the
info on doctors more useful (or more detailed….or something??)

This doesn’t sound like a recipie for disaster at all. Was Roy Kerry a DAN! Doctor? I don’t know.

I came across some priceless websites pushing the DAN! protocol. They had numerous things in common, chiefly the disclaimer – all variations on the theme of:

this is not medical advice

Which is odd because from that point on, they mostly plough into what can only be thought of as _advice_ about what _medication_ an autistic child should take. There’s a fairly representative sample of what a dutiful DAN! Doc should do on the website of Miriam Jang MD. First, the usual copout from responsibility:

At this point, I would like to point out that this is not medical advice, even though I am a Medical Doctor. Rather, this is a wish for your child or your loved one(s) to have the advantage of what took us eight years to discover. Please take this as a medical disclaimer. All suggestions here should be done at your own risk.

‘Own risk’. Right. Or actually – wrong. She means the risk of the child receiving the treatment. Thats whos health will suffer when if it all goes wrong.

Dr Jang decides to lead off with some impressive science:

In both Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, the sages believed that there were only two ways to health: one was to correct deficiencies; the other was to get rid of toxicities.

Ayurvedic? What the hell?

This ancient art of healing has been practiced continuously for over 5,000 years. The principles of many natural healing systems now familiar in the West, such as Homeopathy and Polarity Therapy, have their roots in Ayurveda. Ayurvedic practices restore the balance and harmony of the individual, resulting in self-healing, good health and longevity.

So, DAN! Doctors are homeopaths and naturopaths who practice er, Polarity Therapy. Polarity Therapy? What the hell?

Polarity Therapy is a comprehensive health system involving energy-based bodywork, diet, exercise and self-awareness. It works with the Human Energy Field, electromagnetic patterns expressed in mental, emotional and physical experience.

Riiiight. OK. Back to er, Doctor (?) Jang. Basically, there’s a load of stuff with no cites – such as:

An important finding is that about 85 percent of Autistic kids are high in Copper and low in Zinc. Furthermore, these kids are very low in an important protein call Metallothionein, or MT Protein.

Hmm. Searching PubMed for ‘Metallothionein autism’ reveals two results. One is an inaccessible review and one is a free PDF published in the confidence inspiringly named ‘Alternative Medecine Review’. A Google search for the same reveals the predicted circus of quackery.

Except….another one of the mercury/autism darlings, Vijendra K. Singh has a paper that states:

serum level of MT did not significantly differ between normal and autistic children. Furthermore, autistic children harboured normal levels of anti-MT, including antibodies to isoform MT-I (anti-MT-I) and MT-II (anti-MT-II), without any significant difference between normal and autistic children.

A dilema, no? (You can read more on this paper here.)

Dr Jang continues with:

I will include a list of supplements that Marky is taking. There are many protocols, with many rationales. When we write down the dosages, please take into consideration that Marky is 11 years old and weighs 75 pounds. Please adjust your dosages according to your child’s weight.

Marky is her son. But isn’t it amazing how a DAN! Doctor is assuming parents know *how* to adjust medications for weight – and is happy to trust them to do so without medical supervision or even consultation!

Towards the end of her piece she says:

Please remember that, if you introduce your child to a new supplement, it is not unusual for the child to experience some adverse effects for a short while…When this happens, it does not necessarily mean that you should discontinue the supplement, unless the adverse effects are dangerous, or persistent….If there are adverse effects, stay at this dose until the adverse effects are gone, then proceed to a slightly higher dose, etc.

So there may be adverse effects but don’t stop unless the adverse effects are dangerous, instead stay on the same dose until the adverse effects are gone. I can’t imagine any Doctor thinking this is good advice. Interestingly, the following appeared from Dr Jang as part of an email newsletter:

I would like to start with some very serious news: we do have to be careful of Vitamin A toxicity with our sweet kids. There is a child with reported Vitamin A toxicity that was so severe that the child had to be hospitalized for 12 days.

Her patient? I wonder. Maybe the practitioner (whomever s/he was) read her advice to ‘stay on the same dose until the adverse effects are gone’.

Dr Jang tells us in relation to supplements that:

We noticed a difference in Marky in less than a week.

And yet later on she says:

In addition, you may not see the beneficial effects of these supplements for a period of time.

Something of a glaring contradiction. Which is true?

Anyway, having expounded all this good advice, Dr Jang closes with:

So, be curious and be persistent. Take good care of yourselves so that you can endure this arduous journey called “Autism”!

Yes, be curious – try everything that takes your fancy. Be persistent – whats a little Vitamin A poisoning between friends? And above all take good care of _yourselves_ so that _you_ can endure this journey…..except, its not _you_ who’s undergoing all these treatments is it? Its your child.

Dr Jang is also a big clay bath fancier (clay baths cure autism? Who knew?)

“…I have put a huge number of patients on these clay baths and the levels of heavy metals – mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium have come down dramatically…I have been monitoring the levels of metals using all three methods (TD DMPS, oral DMSA and clay baths)and the clay baths are way faster in the removal of metals”.

Hoooo boy! Rashid’s going to be plenty pissed with her. Better than TD DMPS? Surely not! Why not use both? Smother your child with TD DMPS and then wash that stuff off in a nice clay bath? At least your child will have a nice happy splash in a bath.

So, Ken Aitken – welcome to your new role as a Dan! Doctor. I feel sure you can uphold the strong scientific standards your colleagues demonstrate.

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