Archive | Mercury RSS feed for this section

I’m an autism parent. No way I will vote for Robert Kennedy Jr.. He’s gutless.

26 Feb

As an example, I will discuss one particularly egregious “therapy” that was used on autistic children, the so-called “Lupron protocol”. Mr. Kennedy was in a perfect spot to stop or limit this therapy, but he never did. It would have taken courage, and, in my opinion, Mr. Kennedy is gutless.

Robert Kennedy (RFK Jr.) is running for president. He failed to gain the Democratic Party nomination and is now running as a third-party candidate. Since the beginning of his campaign, he’s faced criticism for being anti vaccine and anti-science. As someone who has watched Mr. Kennedy for nearly two decades I will agree: he is, indeed, anti-vaccine and anti-science. But that’s not why I am strongly against the idea of him being president. I oppose his bid for one reason:

He’s gutless.

Let me explain.

Long before Mr. Kennedy reached national prominence with his myriad of bad ideas during the COVID-19 pandemic, he was well known in the anti-vaccine autism-parent community. He was probably most famous for pushing the failed idea that mercury in vaccines caused an autism epidemic (an idea he still won’t abandon). And this is where many discussions focus on how his actions are anti-science and anti-vaccine. But to me, I hurt for the harms Mr. Kennedy’s advocacy has caused autistic people and the autism communities. One can say, “his anti-vaccine views have caused harm to public health”. One would be right. But, the anti-vaccine movement has long used autism and autistic people as the hammer with which they attack vaccines. And, to quote Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha, “Whether the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it’s generally bad for the pitcher”. Being the weapon of choice for attacking vaccines has caused increased stigma and allowed charlatans to sell fake “cures” for autism which range from useless to abusive.

As an example, I will discuss one particularly egregious “therapy” that was used on autistic children, the so-called “Lupron protocol”. Mr. Kennedy was in a perfect spot to stop or limit this therapy, but he never did. It would have taken courage, and, in my opinion, Mr. Kennedy is gutless.

For decades there have been regular autism-parent conventions focused primarily on two things: promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism and promoting fake “cures” for autism as a vaccine injury. And Mr. Kennedy has been prominent at these conventions, serving as a keynote speaker.

Mr. Kennedy speaks primarily on the idea that vaccines cause autism (they don’t). He’s well respected as someone who has been involved for decades in this arena. His name gives some credence to the others at these conventions, including those who push abusive therapies.

I have never heard of Mr. Kennedy speaking out against the fake, even abusive, “therapies” pushed at these parent conventions. Why? In my opinion:

He’s gutless.

Allow me to focus on one of the most egregious fake therapies pushed as part of the vaccines-cause-autism movement. There are more. Many more. But let’s just discuss chemical castration.

If you are thinking, no way that happened, Matt. You must be exaggerating. I’m not.

Doctors were prescribing Lupron in order to reduce the testosterone in autistic children. That’s chemical castration in my lay opinion. Dr. David Gorski, an oncologist, wrote a series of articles about this “treatment” as “why not just castrate them“.

Surely they had a good reasoning for taking such drastic measures, you must be thinking. No, they didn’t. In fact, the “science” behind the therapy is horrifically bad. It would be funny if it wasn’t actually used on children.

How was the “Lupron protocol” justified? First, let’s start with the idea that autism is caused by mercury. It isn’t, but this is the idea that Mr. Kennedy pushed so hard 20 years ago. Mercury intoxication is commonly treated by chelation, which is a way to remove mercury from the body. For years medical practitioners pushed chelation on autism parents (again, often at these autism parent conventions that Mr. Kennedy is known to speak at). Only chelation didn’t work. It didn’t work because autism isn’t mercury intoxication. But to people like the Geiers, the problem was that chelation wasn’t working, the problem was they needed a better way to chelate. They came up with the idea that testosterone was binding to mercury and keeping chelators from working. So, they postulated, remove the testosterone and one can remove the mercury and the kid will stop being autistic. Which brings us to chemical castration: remove or reduce testosterone in the body. Which brings us back to Lupron.

Seriously, it happened. And a father-son team named Geier led the charge.

In order to prescribe the Lupron, the Geier’s needed a diagnosis. Insurance companies aren’t going to allow people to prescribe Lupron for mercury intoxication (even ignoring the fact that the Geiers didn’t have evidence for mercury intoxication). So the Geier chose precocious puberty as the diagnosis. Diagnose a kid with precocious puberty and you can prescribe Lupron.

The Geiers got into trouble for this. In 2013 they were facing disciplinary action as noted by blogger Todd W. at Harpocrates Speaks (among many others). They were facingmedical license suspension. In multiple states. So, you’d think people might be questioning the Geiers’ “protocol”. Perhaps checking the “science” that supported it? Well, not in Mr. Kennedy’s circles, apparently.

A few days after Todd W. wrote his article, two things happened. The Geier’s spoke at a parent convention called AutismOne. And Robert Kennedy was the keynote speaker for that convention.

Think about it. Mr. Kennedy could have told the parents at that convention that he stands apart from the Geiers. He could have just said perhaps people should be cautious, a relatively weak stance. Mr. Kennedy could have taken a stronger stance said that what the Geiers were doing was chemical castration and it was wrong, a much stronger stance.

To my knowledge Mr. Kennedy did not speak out then against the Geiers or any other practitioner of fake autism cures. I have no knowledge of him ever speaking out against charlatans.

It would have taken courage to speak out. It would have taken courage to admit to himself that he’d missed the obviously bogus science before, and that he, a self-professed science expert, was wrong. And it would have made a difference. I don’t consider it hyperbolic to say that I consider chemical castration of disabled (or any) children to be abusive. And Mr. Kennedy could have slowed or even stopped this practice long before Dr. Geier lost his license. He was respected and a frequent speaker at these conventions.

It takes courage to face allies (the Geiers were long known for pushing the mercury-autism link. Mr. Kennedy cites them multiple times in his books) and say they are doing wrong. Mr. Kennedy didn’t even have to admit that the mercury-causes-autism idea was false (which would have taken another step of courage and would have been the right thing to do). Just that chemically castrating disabled children is wrong.

Seriously, how hard is it to say, “Chemically castrating disabled children is wrong”, Mr. Kennedy?

Mr. Kennedy has spoken regularly at the “vaccines-cause-autism” parent conventions. And the Geiers were not the only ones pushing abusive therapies. It would have taken courage to say, “I will not speak and lend my name to a meeting where fake therapies are promoted.” But Mr. Kennedy lacks that courage.

This is largely due, I believe, to the fact that Mr. Kennedy lacks to courage to analyze his own lack of scientific expertise. My belief is that Mr. Kennedy, to this day, doesn’t understand just how bogus the “Lupron protocol” was. But it would take a courage for someone who has branded himself as a person who understands science (even though he lacks any credentials) to say, “You know what, I didn’t catch on to the idea that the science the Geiers were claiming was unsound.”

One might ask, was the Geier science obviously bogus? I would say yes and I would say that someone with the expertise Mr. Kennedy claims to have should have easily seen there was a problem very early on. Let me explain. The Geiers claimed that mercury and testosterone form “sheets”, large complexes, in the brains of autistic children. Sounds very scientific and all, until we found that the study the Geier’s were basing this idea upon involved boiling mercury and testoterone in benzine.

In my opinion, Mr. Kennedy should have known that a child’s brain is not similar to boiling benzine. Yes, this sounds snarky, but it really is that simple. The science behind the Geier’s “Lupron protocol” was really that bad.

But this discussion risks getting back into the realm of “He’s anti-science”. I bring this up not to point out Mr. Kennedy’s lack of science chops, but to point out that the science was so bad that it didn’t really take much analysis to see it.

That is if one has the courage to question. To question one’s allies. To question one’s own expertise. To question whether one’s own inaction led to the abuse of disabled children. And, again, in my opinion this was abuse. And Mr. Kennedy could have helped stop it sooner.

Again, I only picked one example. And this discussion has gone long, so you can understand why I chose only one example. But there are many examples of fake cures promoted at autism-parent conventions that Mr. Kennedy could have stopped. There’s also a lengthy discussion we could have about the stigma the anti-vaccine movement has brought to autistic people (one of Mr. Kennedy’s allies tried to label autism as “mad child disease“, to give you one example.) Mr. Kennedy could have spoken out agains the stigmatizing language. But the fear of autism and autistic people has long been a mainstay of the anti-vaccine movement.

We need a president with courage. While others discuss his anti-vaccine views, his near self-delusional belief in his scientific acument, let me just say this again: Mr. Kennedy lacks courage.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is gutless.

_____

By Matt Carey

More discussions
This blog on Mr. Kennedy.
Articles on this blog about the Geiers.
Articles on this blog about Lupron.
Mark Geier’s Wikipedia Page.


Tags:

An autism parent’s gratitude to the Kennedys for speaking out

9 May

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Joseph P. Kennedy II, Meave Kennedy McKean: thank you. We in the disability community owe much to the Kennedy family. We don’t forget the gains in special education and other areas that the Kennedy family championed for us.

With that in mind, it’s been especially hard to watch Robert Kennedy Jr. spread vaccine misinformation. More, it’s been painful to see him use my community, the autism community, as his base and his weapon in his campaign.

I know it took courage to step forward and speak out against the misinformation your family member, Robert Kennedy Jr, has been spreading. Thank you.

For readers who are unaware, members of the Kennedy family wrote a piece published on Politico:

RFK Jr. Is Our Brother and Uncle. He’s Tragically Wrong About Vaccines.

Here’s a paragraph:

These tragic numbers are caused by the growing fear and mistrust of vaccines—amplified by internet doomsayers. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—Joe and Kathleen’s brother and Maeve’s uncle—is part of this campaign to attack the institutions committed to reducing the tragedy of preventable infectious diseases. He has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.

To the Kennedys: I am a father. I have an autistic child. Robert Kennedy positions himself as an ally, a champion of parents like myself. Let me make this clear: Robert Kennedy does not speak for me. He does not speak for more than a few autism parents. He certainly doesn’t speak my son or other autistics. He has been part of the effort to weaponize fear of disability to frighten people about vaccines. As such, he has added to the stigma my son faces.

There is another aspect to this you may not be aware of: the anti-vaccine community is closely tied to the worst in the alternative medicine movement. Robert Kennedy regularly speaks at autism parent conventions where therapies that can only be called abusive are promoted as “cures for vaccine injury”. Mr. Kennedy could speak out against these therapies. He could stand up and make himself heard and stop this abuse. Instead, he has remained silent.

In a few weeks, Mr. Kennedy will once again be speaking at the Autism One convention in Chicago. Here are some of the therapies that have been promoted at Autism One:

Chemical Castration. Mr. Kennedy’s allies in promoting the failed idea that mercury in vaccines cause autism promoted an idea that Lupron could help remove mercury from the brain, somehow treating autism. Lupron shuts down the body’s production of sex hormones. It’s basically chemical castration. (See Disability Scoop: Chemical Castration Drug Peddled As Autism Treatment). Chemical castration of disabled youth, how can anyone not see this as abuse?

Bleach Enemas. Sounds so ridiculous that it couldn’t be true, right? But there are people, presenting at the same place as Robert Kennedy Jr, claiming that a bleach solution, either as a drink or an enema, can cure autism. Somehow this treats vaccine injury, in their logic. Disabled children are exposed to enough of this bleach (Chlorine Dioxide) that they pass the lining of their intestines. These are called “worms”. It’s abuse.

Unregulated stem cell transplants. Parents have been flying their children to foreign countries to have “stem cell” infusions. This is nothing short of medical experimentation.

Chelation. Mr. Kennedy’s main theme for years involved mercury from vaccines. When my son was first diagnosed, one couldn’t get into an online autism discussion without chelation coming up. Autistic children were misdiagnosed with “mercury poisoning” by various, frankly fraudulent, tests. These tests were used to justify chelation, without the supervision of actual toxicologists. These children were never mercury intoxicated. Animal studies have shown that chelation, applied when there is no intoxication, causes cognitive decline. Think of that, disabled children may have lost cognitive gains because people believed Robert Kennedy’s message.

The list goes on and on. “Autism as Vaccine Injury” is used to sell all sorts of fake and, sometimes, abusive therapies. And no one in the anti-vaccine community, and that includes Robert Kennedy Jr., stand up to counter this movement. Instead they accept these charlatans and frauds as allies. As long as vaccines are blamed, charlatans know they can stand up in places like Autism One and not hear criticism.

Robert Kennedy could have slowed or stopped these abuses. He could have shown courage. Instead he’s been using my community as a weapon in his attack on vaccines.

To the Kennedy family: I know this is tough to read. Believe me, if anything, I’ve downplayed the harm the “vaccines cause autism” message has caused to my community. You are the people who might be able to get Robert Kennedy Jr. to stand up and start correcting the damage he’s help inflict.

—
By Matt Carey

Here’s one part of Brian Hooker’s “reanalysis” that shows just how cynical the anti vaccine movement is

18 Dec

When my kid was diagnosed autistic I started reading research papers (I am a Ph.D. researcher by profession) and the raw data. One thing that struck me immediately was the fact that minority children are much less likely to get a diagnosis than white kids. And minority kids are diagnosed later.

This inequity really bothers me. Accurately identifying the needs of a disabled child can focus the appropriate therapies and supports on that child. The need to rectify this inequity is 100% accepted within the autism advocacy and research communities.

This inequity poses a problem to people who claim that autism is an “epidemic”. If we are not identifying all the autistics in any given group (we aren’t), autism prevalence numbers are inaccurate. Being inaccurate, how does one compare, say, one CDC prevalence number with one 2 years later and claim a “real” increase?

One can’t. Plain and simple.

So, for years, groups like those promoting the idea that autism is caused by vaccines have not only ignored this inequity, they have actively denied it. They are stuck between accepting that the data can’t show an epidemic, or accepting that minorities have some sort of protection from this supposed “autism as vaccine injury”.

When was the last time you read something from, say, the Age of Autism blog or Andrew Wakefield calling for efforts to end this inequity? You haven’t. They don’t do it. When have you heard from someone like Brian Hooker that we should study minority populations to see what “protects” them from “vaccine injury”? You haven’t.

Who is Brian Hooker? Brian Hooker is a parent of an autistic child. Brian Hooker strongly believes that vaccines cause autism. He can back this up with his observations of his child’s development. Observations which are contradicted by his child’s medical records. I discussed this before as Double checking Brian Hooker’s story in VAXXED. A Special Master (a judge in the vaccine court) put it very strongly:

After studying the extensive evidence in this case, I am convinced that the opinions provided by Petitioners’ experts in this case, advising the Hooker family that there is a causal connection between SRH’s vaccinations and either the initial causation or aggravation of SRH’s ASD, were quite wrong.

In the original, the Special Master emphasized “quite wrong“.

So, we have someone who believes vaccines cause autism to the point of ignoring the facts in front of him.

A few years ago Mr. Hooker “reanalyzed” some data from an old CDC study, suggesting that evidence showed that the MMR vaccine might increase risk in African American boys. That was discussed in great detail here and elsewhere. (for example: Brian Hooker proves Andrew Wakefield wrong about vaccines and autism and MMR, the CDC and Brian Hooker: A Guide for Parents and the Media).

Mr. Hooker’s study was retracted. In the research world thats a big deal. As in, embarrassingly bad.

Recently, as in 4 years after his original study, Mr. Hooker republished his “reanalysis”. In the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. I’d be completely embarrassed to have a paper in that journal, to be blunt. A lengthy discussion of this reappearance of the study can be found at Respectful Insolence as Brian Hooker’s antivaccine pseudoscience has risen from the dead to threaten children again.

Let me just focus on how Mr. Hooker, in my view cynically, abuses the African American community in order to attack vaccines. From the website of an organization Mr. Hooker belongs to (the ironically–to be polite–named “Children’s Health Defense”), we read this:

Main Points from Reanalysis:

The rate of autism diagnoses has increased alarmingly in the U.S., and is about 25 percent higher in black children. Boys are far more likely than girls to receive this diagnosis.

…

This is not only wrong, it’s wrong in a way that points to incredible dishonesty.

This first point is that autism is about 25% higher in black children. A “main point from the reanalysis”.

Tell me, when you read that did you think, “this study found that autism is more prevalent in African American children”? If so, you were misled. The 25% higher prevalence is from a different study than Hookers. And that other study says something completely different.

From the Hooker study:

However, one study showed that prevalence of autism in African-Americans was approximately 25% higher than that of whites when the data were adjusted for socioeconomic factors[7].

Reference [7] is Socioeconomic inequality in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder: evidence from a U.S. cross-sectional study.

The Socioeconomic Equality study states:

Also notable is that, although the overall ASD prevalence was higher among non-Hispanic White and Asian children than among non-Hispanic Black or African-America and Hispanic children, when the results were stratified by SES, we saw that the racial/ethnic differences in prevalence varied by SES (Table 3). The lower prevalence among non-Hispanic Black or African-American and Hispanic children was seen only in the low SES category, and the fact that more non-Hispanic Black or African-American and Hispanic children live in poverty contributed to the lower overall prevalence among these groups.

Emphasis mine. Overall ASD prevalence was lower for African American children. Not 25% higher. This lower prevalence was due to lower socioeconomic status. I.e. poverty.

Want to see this a different way? Here’s a figure from the paper (click to enlarge):

The overall prevalence in White non-Hispanic kids was 6.9/1000. For black non-Hispanic kids it was 5.7/1000. About 20% lower. Not 25% higher as Mr. Hooker claims.

Fewer African American kids are getting autism services. Not because they aren’t autistic, but because their poverty keeps them from getting a diagnosis.

This is something we should be working towards fixing. No question. But don’t look to the anti-vaccine community to care or act. It’s an inconvenient fact for their epidemic story.

I guess he has such a low level of respect for the people in his own community (those who believe vaccines cause autism), that he thought no one would check this.

By the way, this paper isn’t the only one that shows a lower autism prevalence among African Americans. You know those CDC autism prevalence reports that come out every two years? Every single one has reported a lower prevalence among African Americans. Every one.

Here’s a line from the latest report:

Previous reports from the ADDM Network estimated ASD prevalence among white children to exceed that among black children by approximately 30% in 2002, 2006, and 2010, and by approximately 20% in 2008 and 2012.

When I saw the claim on Hooker’s organization’s website I figured he must have cherry picked a study that shows what he needed to make his story work. It’s just such common knowledge in the autism community that African Americans get diagnosed less frequently. It’s in every CDC report. I didn’t know he wasn’t cherry picking, he was just misrepresenting the study entirely.

I discuss this as a scientist. He “misrepresented the study”. My father had a word for that sort of behavior: lying.

OK, Brian. You’ve read the studies and decided to do nothing about the fact that many autistic African American kids aren’t getting identified and getting appropriate services. I get that, you have your own cause. But, really, is that community so much of a nothing to you that you can just use them like this? I ask rhetorically. You and your community have always acted with callous disregard.

I once had hope that as it because completely obvious that you and your community were wrong (and that was many years ago), you’d join the actual autism community and put your advocacy to use. I now know that will never happen. And, frankly, we don’t need dishonest people.

—
By Matt Carey

Study claims gluten free diet leads to higher levels of heavy metals like mercury

6 Mar

One of the purported treatments for autism is the Gluten-Free/Casein-Free (GFCF) diet. Studies have failed to find a benefit, but the idea persists. Especially among those who believe that autism is a vaccine injury (it isn’t) and that mercury in vaccines contributed to the rise in autism rates (it didn’t).

So there is a huge irony in the possibility, as a recent study suggests, that people on a gluten-free diet have higher levels of mercury and other heavy metals

The study is The Unintended Consequences of a Gluten-Free Diet.

The full study doesn’t appear to be available. This looks like a conference abstract.

That said, check out this table:

table

Total mercury in the blood is 1.7 times higher in people in the gluten-free diet group than in the overall population.

Now, it looks like the units in the table are ng/l, so a total mercury level of 1.3ng/l (that in the gluten-free group) is still well within the normal range (<10ng/l).

Of course it is also worth mentioning that those who promote the gluten-free diet for autistics often have the attitude that no mercury level is safe (which is tough, since there is mercury at some level in just about everything).

So, yeah, ironic but not dangerous. By pushing the gluten-free diet, people may have pushed autistic kids into higher levels of mercury in their blood.

Do we expect Robert Kennedy, SafeMinds, Mark Blaxill, JB Handley, Generation Rescue or any of the others in what was once called the “mercury militia” to inform their groups about this? Sure, if they are really about autism and not about attacking vaccines.

Which is to say, I doubt it.
—
By Matt Carey

Court Clarifies: Hannah Poling case “does not afford any support to the notion that vaccinations can contribute to the causation of autism”

8 Jul

One of the most common arguments in the “vaccines-cause-autism” discussion involves the case of Hannah Poling. Miss Poling is autistic and was compensated by the government through the vaccine-court system. Online discussions usually end up going around in circles with people explaining why the concession doesn’t mean the government has stated that vaccines cause autism, and the other side saying “but it does”.

Well, the Court has clarified the situation. Here is a footnote from the decision in Brian Hooker’s case.

I am well aware, of course, that during the years since the “test cases” were decided, in two cases involving vaccinees suffering from ASDs, Vaccine Act compensation was granted.
But in neither of those cases did the Respondent concede, nor did a special master find, that there was any “causation-in-fact” connection between a vaccination and the vaccinee’s ASD. Instead, in both cases it was conceded or found that the vaccinee displayed the symptoms of a Table Injury within the Table time frame after vaccination. (See Section I above).

In Poling v. HHS, the presiding special master clarified that the family was compensated because the Respondent conceded that the Poling child had suffered a Table Injury–not because the Respondent or the special master had concluded that any vaccination had contributed to causing or aggravating the child’s ASD. See Poling v. HHS, No. 02-1466V, 2011 WL 678559, at *1 (Fed. Cir Spec. Mstr. Jan. 28, 2011) (a fees decision, but noting specifically that the case was compensated as a Table Injury).

Second, in Wright v. HHS, No. 12-423, 2015 WL 6665600 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Sept. 21, 2015), Special Master Vowell concluded that a child, later diagnosed with ASD, suffered a
“Table Injury” after a vaccination. However, she stressed that she was not finding that the vaccinee’s ASD in that case was “caused-in-fact” by the vaccination–to the contrary, she
specifically found that the evidence in that case did not support a “causation-in-fact” claim, going so far as to remark that the petitioners’ “causation-in-fact” theory in that case was “absurd.” Wright v. HHS, No. 12-423, 2015 WL 6665600, at *2 (Fed. Cl. Spec. Mstr. Sept. 21, 2015).

The compensation of these two cases, thus does not afford any support to the notion that vaccinations can contribute to the causation of autism. In setting up the Vaccine Act
compensation system, Congress forthrightly acknowledged that the Table Injury presumptions would result in compensation for some injuries that were not, in fact, truly vaccine-caused. H.R. Rept. No. 99-908, 18, 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6344, 6359. (“The Committee recognizes that there is public debate over the incidence of illnesses that coincidentally occur within a short time of
vaccination. The Committee further recognizes that the deeming of a vaccine-relatedness adopted here may provide compensation to some children whose illness is not, in fact, vaccine related.”

While the arguments may still not convince those who wish to believe, the conclusion is clear: The compensation of these two cases, thus does not afford any support to the notion that vaccinations can contribute to the causation of autism.

The Special Masters (basically the judges in this special court) are not only the experts in the decisions (they work every day in the court and write the decisions), they are legally bound by the decisions. If a case sets a precedent, they must follow it. Or they will be overturned by higher courts.

I agree that following the logic takes time and effort, but, again, if you don’t have the time to go through that, the conclusion is very clear. And repeated again for emphasis

The compensation of these two cases, thus does not afford any support to the notion that vaccinations can contribute to the causation of autism.

—
By Matt Carey

Double checking Brian Hooker’s story in VAXXED

7 Jul

One of the arguments so often given for “vaccines cause autism” is that of “then why do so many parents tell exactly the same story?”

Well, they don’t. As we saw with JB Handley (Which is it, Mr. Handley?) even a single parent can shift and change stories over time. And he’s just one example. But we have also seen many times that once the stories we are told are compared to the facts, like say the medical records or videos in vaccine court, parent recollection is shown to be wrong.

Well, now we have Brian Hooker’s two stories. We have what he says in Vaxxed, and we have his recent vaccine court case. An in-depth legal analysis is provided by Prof. Dorit Reiss as BRIAN HOOKER’S VACCINE INJURY CLAIM DENIED BY NVICP.

From the video from Vaxxed, we hear Brian Hooker describe his son’s story starting at 3:26.

My son [SRH] was born in [month] of [year].

(home video with Brian Hooker saying: “[SRH] what does the cow say?”).

(second home video: Brian Hooker: “tweet tweet”, SRH vocalizes which parents interpret as “doggie”).

“Two weeks after his 15 month vaccines, then he lost all language. He lost all eye contact. You would pick him up and he would just hang limp.”

That’s pretty dramatic. And the sort of story that convinces many that, yes, indeed, vaccines might cause autism.

But ask this question, if this happened, why doesn’t Brian Hooker’s son’s medical record say anything like that?

From the Court’s decision, we see that the medical records show that Brian Hooker’s son was already delayed at 15 months. In fact, he was already showing signs of delays at 4 months. First, to be clear: Brian Hooker’s argument before the Court changed with time, and this can lead to some confusion. He first argued that one set of vaccines caused his child’s autism. When the Court informed Mr. Hooker that his cases was filed after the statute of limitations (filed more than 3 years from when the alleged vaccine injury occurred), Mr Hooker amended his complaint to add the claim that the 15 month vaccines (the ones he appears to be referring to in Vaxxed) “aggravated” the ASD as well. Since this event was later, it was not “untimely filed”.

In the end the court found that Mr. Hooker’s claims failed on their merits, so timely or untimely filed didn’t matter.

That all said, here’s an excerpt from the Court’s decision that discusses the 15 month vaccinations:

SRH received his 15-month well child examination on [DATE], and was found to be “healthy.” (Ex. 35, p. 13.) However, at this visit his developmental progress chart indicates that SRH had not achieved most of the expected milestones. (Id., p. 24.) His Denver II developmental progress chart indicates that he could not speak six words, could not run or climb stairs, could not remove garments or use a spoon, and could not stack two cubes, — indeed, he failed all but one of the developmental milestones for 15 months. (Id.) Following a physical examination of SRH, Dr. Heller-Bair administered the usually recommended vaccinations — i.e., DTaP #4, Hib #4, and OPV. (Id., pp. 13, 26.) (These vaccinations of [DATE], were the vaccinations that Petitioners now allege to have “significantly aggravated” SRH’s autism.)

OK, that’s the 15 month vaccination visit. But as to “two weeks after his 15 month vaccines” that Mr. Hooker describes in Vaxxed? What does the record show happened? The Court transcript reads:

Nineteen days later, on [DATE], both parents accompanied SRH to the pediatrician’s office, where she recorded that his temperature was 101.8°, and that both tympanic membranes appeared normal. (Ex. 35, p. 14.) She included the following description.

One-year-old with 1-day history of low-grade fever, irritability, decreased appetite, nasal congestion. Child has a history of recurrent ear infections. Is scheduled for typanostomy tube placement by Dr. Fong in about 4 days’ time. Mom is concerned that he may have an ongoing ear infection prior to surgery.

(Id.) No other recent symptoms were noted. Dr. Heller-Bair determined that SRH had a viral upper respiratory infection — in other words, “a cold” — and reassured the parents that he did not have an ear infection. (Id.)

Emphasis added. And now repeated: no other recent symptoms were noted. Not “he lost all language”. Not “he lost eye contact”. Not “he was hanging limp”.

As to signs of autism before the vaccines in question, we read this (Dr. Leventhal was an expert witness for the government):

Also included in Dr. Leventhal’s list of early symptoms of developmental disorders was another symptom particularly indicative of ASD — “evidence of language delay and reports of social interaction problems” at age 12 months. (Ex. C, p. 30, para. g.) Language delay and social interaction problems, are classic symptoms of autism.

Of course, many will discount this as coming from the government’s expert (even though he’s reporting the medical record).

So, what did the parents have to say?

Third, several representations by the Petitioners themselves indicate that SRH was suffering from developmental problems, likely early symptoms of his ASD, well prior to [DATE–about 15 months]. For example, SRH’s parents reported that at one year of age (about [DATE]), he seemed “delayed in interactive skills.” (Ex. 2, p. 46.) On [DATE], SRH’s parents reported that they had been worried about developmental delays “for about 6 months,” which would put the onset around [DATE–about 13 months]. (Ex. 6, p. 19.) And on occasions, SRH’s parents identified the onset of SRH’s developmental problems as occurring about the time of his MMR vaccination, which took place on [DATE–about 12 months]. (See Ex. 5, p. 30 (SRH lost eye contact “after his MMR shot”); Ex. 14, p. 38 (“delays, deterioration of verbal skills coincidental [with] MMR”)).

Emphasis in the original.

Parents reported loss of eye contact at about 12 months. But in Vaxxed Brian Hooker says his child lost eye contact two weeks after the 15 month vaccinations. So again we see that the stories don’t match up. And recall that Brian Hooker apparently didn’t mention this loss of eye contact to the doctor nor did the doctor notice 19 days after those 15 month vaccines.

Finally, it’s worth noting that pretty much the time that Vaxxed has been touring, Brian Hooker and the rest of those doing personal appearances have known that the Hooker case failed. And let’s not downplay this, the case was not even close. The Court decision includes in the conclusion:

After studying the extensive evidence in this case, I am convinced that the opinions provided by Petitioners’ experts in this case, advising the Hooker family that there is a causal connection between SRH’s vaccinations and either the initial causation or aggravation of SRH’s ASD, were quite wrong.

emphasis in the original.

The experts were quite wrong. The science was the same as was extensively argued in the Omnibus Autism Proceeding, and which failed to come close to being convincing then. The case history showed no sign of vaccine injury or developmental regression. On every count, Brian Hooker’s case failed. But we don’t hear that in the public talks. Why would Brian Hooker, Andrew Wakefield and the rest want to tell the public that not only are the “facts” in Vaxxed wrong, but the science had also been tested yet again and failed yet again? I mean, it’s not like they are calling this a “documentary” or anything. Except that’s precisely what they claim.

—
By Matt Carey

Andrew Wakefield releases the trailer for his William Thompson video. Slick production and dishonesty

22 Mar

Remember the disasterous “Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis” movie? That’s the one where Andrew Wakefield was trying to create an autism reality TV show where he would swoop in with his “A”utism TEAM and solve problems for families and show that he was right all along. Except that after the “A”utism team filled a family with false hope, Alex’s mother and godmother brutally murdered Alex. Wakefield took on no blame. Instead he shifted blame from those who committed the act to mainstream medicine. Basically whitewashing a gruesome murder of a disabled young man.

I will note that in the trailer for “Who Killed Alex Spourdalakis”, Wakefield spliced video from a completely different story.

Or, remember when Brian Hooker published a paper claiming that CDC data shows that vaccines cause autism and Wakefield followed up with a YouTube video that was so over the top bad that he claimed that non only were the CDC (including a civil rights pioneer) were engaging in a new Tuskegee Experiment, but that they were worse than Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot? Because, you see, those brutal dictators were at least sincere. No, I’m not making that up.

Wakefield has been working for some time to make a feature length film out of the Brian Hooker/CDC story. He has an early trailer for “Feast of Consequences” (as it was called then). Just as with the Alex Spourdalakis story, this trailer includes video unrelated to his actual story (the video of a police standoff and the pictures of the girl in the wheelchair appear to be from the Maryanne Godboldo story).

Well, not to be deterred from the film making business, Mr. Wakefield is at it again. This time with the full length movie, now called “Vaxxed”. Here’s the trailer:

The trailer starts with what appears to be a reenactment of a conversation between Brian Hooker (vocal advocate for the failed idea that vaccines cause autism) and William Thompson (CDC researcher):

Brian Hooker:

My phone rings and it’s Dr William Thompson

This is followed by recordings of a phone call with William Thompson:

“you and I don’t know each other very well. You have a son with autism, and I have great shame now.”

Then a narrator.

“There’s a whistleblower from the CDC who is going to come out and say that the CDC had committed fraud on the MMR study and that they knew that vaccines were actually causing autism”

Sit back for a moment and consider what your first impressions of this intro are. I know mine–they seem to be setting this up as the first or perhaps one of the early phone calls between Thompson and Hooker. Since the actual audio clips from Thompson weren’t that sensational, the narrator is quickly pulled in to tell us what really happened.

But this is Andrew Wakefield. And if we’ve learned anything about Andrew Wakefield over the years it’s that you have to check every single detail of what he’s saying. He does a lot of leading you to the conclusion he wants you to believe, whether the facts say something entirely different or not.

Let’s start with a small detail. I suspect many have already wondered why I referred to the clips from Thompson in the plural. It’s because that 10 seconds or so of audio is actually two different comments from Thompson spliced together. And taken out of context. We know this because a book was released with the transcripts of the calls that Brian Hooker secretly recorded.

“You and I don’t know each other very well” is from this part of a conversation. Well into the second call that Hooker secretly recorded. And Hooker didn’t start recording calls until later in their relationship, so this isn’t an introduction at all. We will get into the discussion of what Thompson meant later:

You and I don't know each other very well

“You have a son with autism, and I have great shame now.”

I have great shame

OK, the two clips are from completely different parts of a phone call that happened well into the Hooker/Thompson relationship. Wakefield spliced them together to create a story and, just in case we missed his point, brought in a narrator to tell us what the story “really” is.

So, documentary producer/director he is not. But we didn’t really expect that, did we?

Let’s take a look at those two exchanges in a bit more detail, shall we?

First, “we don’t know each other very well”, was Thompson saying that even after multiple previous exchanges, Hooker doesn’t understand Thompson’s motivations and fears. Hooker appears to be digging for dirt. Something about the behaviors of people at CDC. Likely to smear them later. This seems to be a bit of a trigger for Thompson as he has battled mental illness. He’s not comfortable because he can already see the day when people will say, “Well, he’s [Thompson] mentally ill and why would you believe anything he says, it’s just hearsay”. Hooker assures him that it’s none of their business, and that “I [Hooker] don’t want that to happen, period.”

That’s a heavily ironic thing to read now. Why? The only reason people know about Thompson’s personal medical history is that Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield made it public. Hooker and Wakefield filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services and included this statement from William Thompson:

Ya know, I’m not proud of that and uh, it’s probably the lowest point in my career that I went along with that paper and I also paid a huge price for it because I became delusional.

And this exchange between Hooker and Thompson

Dr. Hooker: Did you raise that…did you raise that issue at the time?
Dr. Thompson: I will say I raised this issue…I will say I raised this issue, the uh…two days before I became delusional.

and

Dr. Thompson: It is one of the reasons I became delusional because I was so paranoid about this being published.

So, not only is “you and I don’t know each other very well” not a “Hi, you don’t know be very well, but I’m about to spill the beans” sort of statement, it’s basically Thompson saying that one of his big fears is, well, exactly what Hooker did to him: out his struggles with mental illness.

With friends like Brian Hooker…

So, the second part of the spliced statement that Wakefield included in his trailer, what is that in context? “You have a son with autism, and I have great shame now.” Is it, as the narrator leads us to think, a statement about fraud and that vaccines are proved to cause autism?

No. Or, in Thompson’s own words:

“No, no, no, no. Here’s what I shoulder. I shoulder that the CDC has put the research 10 years behind. Because the CDC has not been transparent, we’ve missed 10 years of research because the CDC is so paralyzed right now by anything related to autism.”

It’s a statement that in William Thompson’s view, the CDC hasn’t done enough vaccine/autism research. It’s a sentiment that I disagree with, given how much effort has been spent on researching the failed idea that vaccines are a primary cause of autism. But let’s move on.

Let’s instead move to the narrator. Recall his statement

“There’s a whistleblower from the CDC who is going to come who is going to come out and say that the CDC had committed fraud on the MMR study and that they knew that vaccines were actually causing autism”

So, what about Thompson saying the CDC committed fraud on the MMR study? Didn’t happen, that’s what. Yes, he had criticisms. He starts his one voluntary public statement with, “I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. ” But let’s stick to what we know Thompson said, rather than what Wakefield and Hooker claim he said in regards to fraud, shall we? What makes the decision to not report a finding “fraud” over a scientific decision? Well, Thompson never says in his statement that there was fraud or misconduct by the CDC team. He does say “Reasonable scientists can and do differ in their interpretation of information.”

Let’s back up a bit, what is the Hooker/Wakefield claim of fraud? In a nutshell, they claim that the CDC team found a result they didn’t want to make public and then changed the research plan/protocol so they wouldn’t have to report that. In this exchange from a phone call we can see Hooker apparently trying to get Thompson on tape saying this. Trying because Thompson refuses to say it:

Dr. Hooker: And then you basically deviated from that particular plan in order to reduce the statistical significance that you saw in the African American Cohort.

Dr. Thompson: Well, we, um, we didn’t report findings that, um…All I will say is we didn’t report those findings. I can tell you what the other coauthors will say.

As to the claim by the narrator that Thompson stepped forward and stated that …”that [The CDC] knew that vaccines were actually causing autism”. Nope.

Consider this part of the public statement by Thompson, a statement I doubt will be prominent in Wakefield’s movie

I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.

That is not the statement of a person who believes that vaccines have been shown to cause autism and that the studies to the contrary are “fraud”.

Also, Thompson provided a summary statement to Member of Congress Bill Posey. That was made public along with a great deal more documents when I released them here. What does Mr. Thompson have to say about the study in question showing that vaccines “actually cause autism”?

The fact that we found a strong statistically significant finding among black males does not mean that there was a true association between the MMR vaccine and autism-like features in this subpopulation.

Let’s give this finding the greatest benefit of the doubt. Let’s ignore that it is an incredibly weak and almost certainly spurious result. Even then, it doesn’t show causation. A study like this can’t. And anyone who has done scientific research (such as Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield) should know that.

But, hey, let’s just make this simple–if Thompson had said something clearly claiming fraud, clearly claiming that the CDC knew vaccines cause autism, Wakefield would have included that in his video. Instead he splices disparate conversations together and has his narrator tell us what we should think.

In other words, if Wakefield had the facts, he’d use them. Instead all I see is more smoke and mirrors.

And that’s just the beginning. The first 30 seconds. We could go on and on, dissecting the trailer frame by frame. It’s that bad. And this is just the trailer. He has a full film out now.

—
By Matt Carey

A look at the “Garbage Can Quote” in full context

6 Jan

Last summer Representative Bill Posey read a statement in the House regarding William Thompson of the CDC. In it was a quote from a statement that quickly became known as the “garbage can quote”. The statement basically said that the CDC got rid of a number of documents related to one of their MMR studies, that William Thompson thought this was inappropriate, and that he had retained copies of the documents.

I obtained copies of the documents provided to Representative Posey’s office, posted them online and discussed them here at Left Brain/Right Brain.

Here is the “garbage can quote” as discussed at Emily Willingham’s column at Forbes.com last summer.

At the bottom of Table 7 it also shows that for the non-birth certificate sample, the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge. All the authors and I met and decided sometime between August and September ’02 not to report any race effects for the paper. Sometime soon after the meeting, we decided to exclude reporting any race effects, the co-authors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. The remaining four co-authors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all the hard copy documents that we had thought we should discard and put them in a huge garbage can. However, because I assumed it was illegal and would violate both FOIA and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all documents in my office and I retained all associated computer files. I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper

The statement in its entirety is in the package provided by Representative Posey’s office, so I was able to read it in context. Let’s take a quick look, shall we?

12. On June 28, 2002, all coauthors met and examined subgroup analyses by RACE for Whites and Blacks. (See page 17 in the Agendas Attachment and handout that includes Table 5).

13. In the Excel File named “describe_results_2002_0702.xls”, Table 7 shows the RACE analyses that I had run using ONLY the BIRTH CERTIFICATE Sample — the unadjusted RACE effect was statistically significant. (OR=1.51, [95%CI 1.02 – 2.24]). At the bottom of Table 7, it also shows that for the NON-BIRTH Certificate Sample, the adjusted RACE effect statistically significance was HUGE. (OR=2.94 [95%CI 1.48 – 5.81). That is the main reason why we decided to report the RACE effects for ONLY the BIRTH Certificate Sample.

14. In the Excel File named “describe_results_2002_0801.xls”, I split Table 7 into three different Tables (Table 7a, Table 7b, and Table 7c) to further investigate the RACE subgroup analyses.

15. All the coauthors met and decided sometime between August 2002 and September 2002 not to report any RACE effects for the paper.

16. Sometime soon after the meeting where we decided to exclude reporting any RACE effects, also between August 2002 and September 2002, the coauthors scheduled a meeting to destroy documents related to the study. Dr. Coleen Boyle was not present at the meeting even though she was involved in scheduling that meeting. The remaining 4 coauthors all met and brought a big garbage can into the meeting room and reviewed and went through all our hard copy documents that we thought we should discard and put them in the large garbage can. However, because I assumed this was illegal and would violate both FOIA laws and DOJ requests, I kept hard copies of all my documents in my office and I retained all the associated computer files. This included all the Word files (agendas and manuscript drafts), Excel files with analysis and results, and SAS files that I used to generate the statistical findings. I also kept all my written notes from meetings. All the associated MMR-Autism Study computer files have been retained on the Immunization Safety Office computer servers since the inception of the
study and they continue to reside there today.

Emphasis added to highlight text that appears to have been left out in the speech by Representative Posey.

Note that the last line in what was quoted by Representative Posey, “I believe we intentionally withheld controversial findings from the final draft of the Pediatrics paper”, was in the conclusion. Which was about 14 paragraphs after the rest of the text he quoted. I don’t think that is significant, but it’s worth noting.

I find a few things interesting in this. First, the omission of the sentence about Coleen Boyle (Dr. Coleen Boyle was not present at the meeting even though she was involved in scheduling that meeting.) Without that the paragraph reads as though Thompson was not present for the meeting. Instead, we now see that he was one of the “four remaining authors”. As such, why doesn’t he comment on the criteria for shredding documents? Second, it is very interesting that Coleen Boyle wasn’t there. Wakefield and Hooker have specifically targeted her in their attacks, and the fact that she wasn’t participating in this meeting goes against their narrative. If for no other reason that we don’t have any idea now what Ms. Boyle kept or didn’t keep.

A more important ommission, dare I say a significant omission: “All the associated MMR-Autism Study computer files have been retained on the Immunization Safety Office computer servers since the inception of the study and they continue to reside there today.”

Many people have claimed that the “garbage can” quote means that the data were deleted. Well, that’s not what Thompson said. It’s also a clearly false claim as Brian Hooker was able to obtain the data for his own version of the analysis. Here’s what Dan Olmsted of the Age of Autism blog had to say just a few days ago (he’s listing his “true” conspiracies) “The conspiracy by William Thompson and his colleagues dumping raw data into a wastebasket after they had twisted it into obscuring a link between the MMR and autism.”

It’s hard to dump raw computer data into a wastebasket, Dan. Delete, sure. Well, unless you are at a government lab that mandates backups of important raw data. Leaving that aside, data weren’t dumped. It appears that they discarded a huge amount of redundant paper based on what Thompson held on to. Most if not all of which could clearly be sent to a confidential shredder without any question of ethical lapse.

Another line of that statement also is of importance to note. Specifically because a lot of people are claiming that Thompson has said that the CDC team found that the MMR vaccine causes autism. He doesn’t:

The fact that we found a strong statistically significant finding among black males does not mean that there was a true association between the MMR vaccine and autism-like features in this subpopulation.

Emphasis added.

As to those who think I am skipping over the really important statements like “the adjusted race effect statistical significance was huge”. Let’s consider that a moment. One does adjustments, say with data from birth certificates, specifically in order to make sure that one doesn’t announce a possible association that is spurious. Beyond that, what Thompson doesn’t do is say, “here’s the scientific arguments that were given to not report this result and here is why I disagree.” Instead we are left to assume that the reason was to hide the result. If so, back it up. Where in his contemporary notes does he say, “they are doing this and it is wrong”. He says he’s not comfortable not presenting it, but he also says they all have “good intentions”.

But let’s get back to what the statement does say, rather than what it doesn’t.

Data were not deleted.

Even if the race effect isn’t considered spurious, it does not mean that there is a true association between the MMR and autism.

And some people are telling you that Thompson said the opposite.

Edit to add:

I am in no way suggesting that Representative Posey edited this statement to be manipulative. He may not have even been the one who wrote his statement in the House. But I do think that there is something to learn from the ommitted parts.

—
By Matt Carey

Comment on study: Early exposure to the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder

23 Nov

Missed this one from earlier this year. A study that looked at both MMR uptake and thimerosal exposure from infant vaccines. Guess what? “No convincing evidence was found in this study that MMR vaccination and increasing thimerosal dose were associated with an increased risk of ASD onset”

Again.

The abstract is below.

Why do I suspect that this is not included on “vaccine information” websites like the so-called “National Vaccine Information Center”, or “Dr. Bob’s” new site? Oh, because it doesn’t scare parents about vaccines, that’s why. And they can’t even blame the CDC or drug manufacturers for putting out a biased study (well, they can, they will, because they always do).

This study was done by Japanese academics. I’m sure some connection to Big Pharma will be produced to discount the fact that this study tells us what every other actual study on MMR and thimerosal and autism has said.

Early exposure to the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and thimerosal-containing vaccines and risk of autism spectrum disorder.
Uno Y1, Uchiyama T2, Kurosawa M3, Aleksic B4, Ozaki N5.
Author information
Abstract
OBJECTIVE:
This case-control study investigated the relationship between the risk of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) onset, and early exposure to the combined Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccine and thimerosal consumption measured from vaccinations in the highly genetically homogenous Japanese population.

METHODS:
Vaccination histories at 1, 3, 6, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months from birth were investigated in ASD cases (189 samples), and controls (224 samples) matching age and sex in each case. Crude odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated to determine relationship between MMR vaccination and ASD. The differences in mean values of the thimerosal dosage between cases and controls were analyzed using an unpaired t-test. MMR vaccination and thimerosal dosage were also investigated using a conditional multiple-regression model.

RESULTS:
There were no significant differences in MMR vaccination and thimerosal dosage between cases and controls at any age. Furthermore, the ORs (95% CIs) of MMR vaccination and thimerosal dosage associated with ASD in the conditional multiple regression model were, respectively, 0.875 (0.345-2.222) and 1.205 (0.862-1.683) at age 18 months, 0.724 (0.421-1.243) and 1.343 (0.997-1.808) at 24 months, and 1.040 (0.648-1.668) and 0.844 (0.632-1.128) at 36 months. Thus, there were no significant differences.

CONCLUSIONS:
No convincing evidence was found in this study that MMR vaccination and increasing thimerosal dose were associated with an increased risk of ASD onset.

Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

KEYWORDS:
Autism Spectrum Disorder; Case–control study; Environmental factors; Measles–Mumps–Rubella vaccine; Risk factor; Thimerosal

—
By Matt Carey

Mr. Kennedy, if you know the science, why did you claim that the MMR vaccine contains mercury?

16 Nov

Robert Kennedy (son of Robert F. Kennedy) has been focused on reducing mercury exposure for some time. His advocacy against mercury led him to focus on vaccines (infant vaccines used to contain a mercury compound as a preservative). And, the main argument against mercury in vaccines is the (now totally failed) idea that mercury in vaccines causes autism.

It’s important to keep that autism is not his priority. It’s his tool to allege dangers of vaccines. He’s not out to help us out, but instead to use us to help him.

Add to this that he’s a lawyer, not a scientist and he’s from a very political family. Three are lawyers and politicians actually understand science. Mr Kennedy claims he is in that number (he’s “rabidly pro-science”), but in reality he either doesn’t understand the science or the facts are just be a political tool for him.

That Mr. Kennedy feels the need to instill in us the message that he understands science may stem from the fact that his first attempt at discussing autism and vaccines met with disaster. He published an article “deadly immunity” (because, you know, very pro-vaccine people use terms like “deadly immunity” to discuss vaccines, right?). This article was published both in Rolling Stone and Salon.com. In Salon’s Correcting our record, We’ve removed an explosive 2005 report by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about autism and vaccines. Here’s why we read:

In 2005, Salon published online an exclusive story by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that offered an explosive premise: that the mercury-based thimerosal compound present in vaccines until 2001 was dangerous, and that he was “convinced that the link between thimerosal and the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders is real.”

The piece was co-published with Rolling Stone magazine — they fact-checked it and published it in print; we posted it online. In the days after running “Deadly Immunity,” we amended the story with five corrections (which can still be found logged here) that went far in undermining Kennedy’s exposé. At the time, we felt that correcting the piece — and keeping it on the site, in the spirit of transparency — was the best way to operate. But subsequent critics, including most recently, Seth Mnookin in his book “The Panic Virus,” further eroded any faith we had in the story’s value. We’ve grown to believe the best reader service is to delete the piece entirely.

“I regret we didn’t move on this more quickly, as evidence continued to emerge debunking the vaccines and autism link,” says former Salon editor in chief Joan Walsh, now editor at large. “But continued revelations of the flaws and even fraud tainting the science behind the connection make taking down the story the right thing to do.” The story’s original URL now links to our autism topics page, which we believe now offers a strong record of clear thinking and skeptical coverage we’re proud of — including the critical pursuit of others who continue to propagate the debunked, and dangerous, autism-vaccine link.

“…critical pursuit of others who continue to propagate the debunked, and dangerous, autism-vaccine link”. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Mr. Kennedy’s approach nor the “science” he still promotes.

One take a moment here to discuss Mr. Kennedy’s strong record of advocating for real changes that would benefit autistics. Or we could if there were such a record. Again, we aren’t his focus. We are his tool.

So, given this long introduction, what about the claim that that the MMR vaccine contains mercury? It is in this video Mr. Kennedy produced recently. And while it may seem like a small thing, it is a clear example of misunderstanding or ignoring simple facts in order to support his argument that mercury in vaccines cause autism. Mr. Kennedy is jumping on the controversy that Brian Hooker and Andrew Wakefield tried to make last year about the MMR vaccine.

Now for those who have a basic understanding of the science, one will immediately wonder, “why is Kennedy latching on to this MMR story when there is no mercury in the MMR vaccine?” Not only does the MMR vaccine not contain mercury, it can’t contain mercury. The MMR vaccine is a live virus vaccine. Mercury is a preservative; it’s specific purpose is to kill bacteria (mostly) and viruses.

Let’s leave out the other huge warning flags here–such as the current MMR controversy Wakefield and Hooker tried to create is based on a huge amount of misrepresentations. Let’s ignore that and ask, surely Mr. Kennedy wouldn’t claim that the MMR vaccine contains mercury, right? Because that would mean either he doesn’t care about the facts or doesn’t understand the facts. It would suggest that sticking to very simple facts is taking back seat to political advocacy.

Why care, one might ask? Politicians have been ignoring facts for millennia. I care beause of the harm Mr. Kennedy brings to my community. I care because he is be scaring parents, especially African American parents, needlessly and convincing them to avoid a vaccine which prevents three very serious diseases. But more, he’s instilling in a new community the guilt and shame that comes with belief in the vaccines-cause-autism idea.

Given that long intro, here’s the video where Mr. Kennedy sends out his message to the African American community:

You can jump right to the point I’m discussing (6:45 into the video).

“…it proved that these vaccines, these mercury containing vaccines particularly, were causing autism”

When he’s talking about the William Thompson story, he’s talking about this study, Age at first measles-mumps-rubella vaccination in children with autism and school-matched control subjects: a population-based study in metropolitan atlanta. He’s talking about the MMR vaccine.

Again, the MMR doesn’t contain mercury. Never has. In fact, it can’t. And there’s no good reason why after all these years why Mr. Kennedy would not know this. In his book “Thimerosal, let the science speak”, Mr. Kennedy on two occasions (Kennedy MMR-not thimerosal 1 and Kennedy MMR-not thimerosal 1) notes that the MMR vaccine does not contain mercury.

Again, this may seem like a small thing–he got this fact wrong. So what?

There was a time when I thought that the leaders of the movements that promote the idea that vaccines cause autism were just misguided. Probably good, decent people who somehow got themselves to believe wrong ideas. It’s not that hard to believe in something false, and just because you are wrong doesn’t mean you are lying.

Well, in my opinion, that doesn’t describe Mr. Kennedy. And as I’ve noted, the consequences for my community are huge. And I don’t appreciate Mr. Kennedy what appears to be Mr. Kennedy using us as his tool.

—
By Matt Carey

← Older Entries