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Professor Richard Lathe. Brain, Autism and Environment Part II: Strong Convictions

26 Aug

In my previous post on this subject I tackled the shortcomings in the Porph study and Professor Lathe’s reliance on extremely haphazard science. I also touched on his strange reluctance to publish _all_ associated data relating to that study and his peculiar relationship with co-author and DAN! doctor Lorene Amet. I also reported on how Lathe conceded that several key aspects of his theory relied on unverified science – notably the Holmes et al paper.

In this post I’ll be discussing key aspects of Lathe’s book ‘Autism, Brain and Environment’ and how they do not hold up to scrutiny.

The central theory of the book is that we are experiencing something Lathe calls ‘New Phase Autism’ which is a new type of genetically based, environmentally triggered autism – notably via metals such as tin, lead and mercury. His hypothesis states that some people have a genetic predisposition which, when exposed to environmental insults, reveals occult phenotypes.

There are two main supporting arguments that Lathe attempts to marshal to support this hypothesis.

1) Prevalence.

2) Limbic system ‘damage’. Lathe makes strong use of the Limbic system because a) it governs socialisation and b) its (to some degree)
repairable.

Lets be clear, without these arguments, Lathe’s entire hypothesis falls. Without an ‘epidemic’ there is no reason to suspect a new type of metal influenced autism and without strong science to support the autism/limbic system hypothesis there is no reason to _assume_ a connection here either.

We know from Mike’s sterling work that the prevalence issue was very selectively presented and only utilised data that supported Lathe’s hypothesis. The much more valid and pertinent data that did _not_ support Lathe’s hypothesis was ignored.

What I intend to do in this post is address the issue of limbic system involvement. Why Lathe argues for it and why his hypothesis rests on very shaky foundations.

On page 64, Lathe states:

….it is the limbic system which is believed to be centrally involved in the problems associated with ASD.

No paper is cited to support this opinion. No evidence is offered to show support for this belief.

Lathe discusses a number of papers that clearly establish a connection of some kind between the limbic regions of the brain and autism but none of these studies refer to the limbic _system_ being _central_ to ASD. Lathe himself points out the many issues with the techniques used to gain data in this area, noting that histological study of the post-mortem brain is restricted to those very few samples available. Imaging studies are also skewed towards the older and Asperger end of the spectrum and thus cannot be representative of the whole spectrum.

Nevertheless this does not stop Lathe from pronouncing that limbic damage is central to ASD. He attempts to prove this by seeing if:

ASD features are consistent with limbic dysfunction.

Lathe states that anxiety is closely associated with limbic dysfunction (p76) and then goes on to say that anxiety is often an accompaniment to ASD. But lets not forget that Lathe is centring the role of limbic damage around his hypothesis of ‘new phase autism’ – a new type of chemically and metal caused autism that results in ‘severe/kanners/classic’ autism. It’s interesting to note that as far as anxiety is concerned that:

ASD children are significantly more anxious than controls, but the severity of anxiety varied according to ASD subtype with *Asperger disorder exceeding PDD-NOS, and both exceeding autism proper* […] on the anxiety rating scale.

This does not shed any light on Lathe’s ‘new phase’ autism. Rather it shows that if we look at anxiety as a correlator of limbic damage and ASD, then AS and PDD-NOS are more closely related than ‘autism proper’.

Lathe next examines ‘desire for sameness’ (p76) saying that it is:

[characteristic of autism]…as noted in the clinical behavioral rating _”obsessive desire for sameness”_ employed by several researchers.

And yet once again, Lathe fails to cite these researchers or the work that showed them employing this rating, or in what context it was used. It should be noted that ‘desire for sameness’ forms no part of the DSM(IV) and there are no cites showing how common a desire for sameness actually is amongst autistic children, particularly children Lathe might judge to be part of his ‘new phase’ subgroup.

In fact the only clinical studies Lathe cites in this section are two studies on rats from 1964 and 1965 respectively. And yet when discussing a later study Lathe states (p100):

…it is perhaps unsafe to extrapolate too freely from rodents to humans.

Quite.

In an odd contradiction, Lathe later goes on to describe sameness as the inverse of novelty which Lathe claims can be attributed to the hippocampus and amygdala – both components of the limbic system – and that lack of appreciation of novelty can be attributed to amygdala damage. He then cites an example he knows of where an autistic child (p77):

…seemingly failed to react to the presence of a film crew in the bath.

This seems a rather bizarre contradiction. On one hand Lathe claims that ASD can be characterised by an ‘obsessive desire for sameness’ and on the other hand that ASD kids are unfazed by large scale changes in routine. Both, surely, cannot be true.

Lathe next states that ‘deficit in recognition of facial emotions’ (p77) is a key component of ASD and limbic system damage. The evidence he cites is:

This is shared by *some* patients with frontotemporal dementia, *associated* with limbic atrophy and by *some* patients with schizophrenia where involvement of the…[components of the limbic system]…has long been *suspected*

In other words, its an educated guess. Might be right but might equally be wrong.

Social interaction is next on Lathe’s list which is one of the very few items on Lathe’s list which genuinely _is_ a defining feature of ASD. Lathe makes his case valiantly but freely admits that (p77):

Few satisfactory studies have been performed on humans

and once more falls back on rodent studies which (as we know) Lathe has strong reservations about. He also makes of use a study using monkeys and yet, as with rodents, Lathe later states (p82):

….it may not be easy to extrapolate from monkey to man.

Which begs the question of why this chapter relies so heavily on rodent and monkey studies?

Lathe next makes a central and common error regarding autism, stating that (p78):

Language delay is a central diagnostic feature of ASD.

This is not correct. Language delay is merely one of four possibilities encompassed under a criteria heading of ‘Impaired *communication*’. This is _not_ a trivial distinction. Especially when we recall that this must all fit within the umbrella on Lathe’s ‘new phase autism’.

Lathe next tackles seizures, stating that seizures are recorded in up to 30% of autistic people (p79). However, we must again remember that Lathe is attempting to tie this in to his ‘new phase autism’ and his subsequent discussion of how autistic adults have a continued level of seizure (around 25%) this would indicate that seizures are not new to autism and hence cannot be part of Lathe’s ‘new phase autism’.

Sensory deficits is next on Lathe’s list. He starts off by stating what may well be uncontested fact – that hearing deficits (using Lathe’s words) are present in less than 9% of the autistic population, visual impairments in less than 24% and a lack of response to painful stimuli ‘has been noted’ in a 1999 study and given at rates of 7 in 18 in a study from the 1970’s.

However, Lathe freely admits that there is little to no research to tie in sensory processing and the limbic system, limply noting one study on monkeys. A subject group we will remember Lathe has reservations about.

Lathe next looks at stereotypy and repetitive/compulsive behaviours, correctly noting that this is a diagnostic feature of ASD. However, Lathe then goes on to state:

To this one must add alteration between a restricted range of activities…..This behavior is consistent with limbic damage.

As before when Lathe makes this bold assertion he does so without any evidence. No cites are made in support of this apparently imperative addition and it does not appear anywhere in the DSM(IV). It seems that this imperative addition is only imperative to establishing a link between a hypothetical ‘new phase’ type of ASD and limbic damage.

Lathe devotes a whole chapter to GI disturbances which is outside the scope of this particular post suffice it to say that that chapter contains frankly embarrassing references to unpublished work from Krigsman and cites altcorp.com as a valid reference of science.

In this chapters concluding pages, Lathe cites a study that he says (p83):

Causally link limbic damage to autistic behaviour.

In fact, he says there are seven but he only references one so its hard to place much faith in the others. The one referenced paper is over thirty years old.

Lathe then attempts to wrap up his case (p85 – 86):

behaviors associated with limbic damage resemble autism in a long list of different categories.

Thats a possibility but as we’ve seen, Lathe’s supporting evidence is flawed on numerous levels.

1) Over reliance on animal studies. A flaw Lathe makes note of himself.
2) Reliance on very old science.
3) Misrepresentation of the ASD diagnostic criteria. Theories should fit the known facts. The known facts should not need to be twisted to make a theory work.
4) Lathe is attempting to make a case for a new metal/chemically caused type of autism. A lot of his cited science relies on adult subjects born well before the time period Lathe needs to concentrate on.

Second, the limbic brain is consistently abnormal (in ASD).

Definitely interesting but yet again argues _against_ new phase autism, not in support of it. If limbic damage is _consistently_ abnormal in ASD then why the insistence on limbic damage being supportive of ‘new phase autism’? Remember that a lot of Lathe’s cites references adult autistic people born and diagnosed long before the time frame Lathe targets as the birth epoch of his ‘new phase autism’.

Professor Richard Lathe. Brain, Autism and Environment Part I: Strange Bedfellows

22 Aug

Richard Lathe, ex Edinburgh University and currently of Pieta Research has recently published a new book on Autism Brain and Environment.

The book build on his recent study – discussed here – that attempted to show a link between Porphyrin excretion in urine and ASD.

It transpired that there were notable question marks over the means of expression and design of that study and Professor Lathe was generous enough with his time to participate in a respectful exchange of views via email to discuss these question marks and also to widen the discussion out to his new book.

As regards the paper, I had two main issues with it. Firstly, I was curious as to the role of established DAN! zealot Ms. Lorene Amet. Secondly – and this is peripheral to Ms Amet’s participation – how did the study account for the question mark over low creatinine being noted by several people, including DAN! doctors such as Ms Amet.

I’ll quote now from our email correspondance. I asked Lathe how Amet had come to be involved in the study and why she had not mentioned the DAN! accepted potential of low creatinine given that the study would be utilising it as a constant to express ratios against.

Ms Amet was not a primary contributor to the paper and none of us, as far as I am aware, discussed creatinine with her. I personally have no connection with DAN et al. Her independent association with biomedical remediation was after the porphyrin results were out (first draft of the Nataf paper in the last quarter of 2004). To my mind, it is unreasonable and distracting to critique the data on what authors do after the analysis. Perhaps you should leave this aside.

Which is fair enough. However, to suggest she didn’t know is not likely and to suggest that the study was unalterable is interesting. At the very least this should have been mentioned and addressed – if only to discount it. It is a very large question mark over the results.

When I pressed Lathe further on Amet’s involvement, he had this to say:

Re Dr. Amet, her participation was difficult and her role in the study marginal. I have no further comment to make.

It seemed a nerve had been touched. Earlier in our conversation I had alluded to Ms Amet’s role as Editor along with Boyd Haley and Andrew Wakefield of the non peer reviewed journal Medical Veritas to which Lathe had opined:

May I add my informal view that Medical Veritas is a load of quasi-scientific mumbo jumbo, and detracts from attempts to address the real issues.

An opinion I’m in complete agreement with. I had also referred to Amet as Lathe’s partner, by which I meant writing partner. However, I got the following reply:

Sorry, the lady is not my partner, my wife has that chore.

To which I apologised, clarified I had meant writing partner and moved on.

Now I’m as curious as the next person and something here wasn’t ringing true at all. A poke around revealed that they had (at least at one time) been an item:

Lloyd Allanson was diagnosed with autism last year His drawings have been selected for exhibition by his mother Lorene Amet and her partner Richard Lathe.

Source.

So what? I hear you ask. All this is evidence of is a bad break up that Lathe doesn’t want to talk about. Not my business or yours, right? True enough but at the same time its more than a little misleading to describe her slide into biomed as ‘independant’ when it clearly was not. It made me question everything that Lathe told me from that point on.

Back to the creatinine. In reference to the lowered creatinine potential of autistic kids, Lathe said:

1.There was no significant decline in urinary CRT levels in any of the autism groups, though there was a non-significant trend to a reduced level.
2. Reduced CRT, and increased porphyrin, both appear to be markers of environmental toxicity.

Neither of which is discussed in the paper at all and which Lathe went on to say was ‘pointless’ to publish. I disagreed. I think it was a) dishonest to distance the paper from Amet when its clear there was both a professional and personal connection. Lorene Amet discusses the paper at length in the minutes of the May 2005 Action Against Autism (now Autism Treatment Trust) and knew quite a lot about it. I would not describe her knowledge as ‘marginal’. Hence I have strong reservations about what Professor Lathe judges to be significant and what is not. It seems to me that this matter could easily be settled by publication of *all* data. However, to his credit, Lathe admitted that:

The long and short of it is that the response of CRT to different levels of heavy metal toxicity has not been studied adequately.

Also not studied adequately is a key concept the paper (and subsequently the book – to be addressed in a later post) rely heavily on. Lathe made a point regarding excretion of metals:

We have not looked at the metals themselves because (a) the body burden of heavy metals does not parallel excretion (b) there is a possible deficit in heavy metal mobilization.

(a) is interesting but (b) is fascinating. This ‘possible deficit’ becomes a key concept of the book and the seasoned warriors amongst us (of both sides) will recognise that Lathe is talking about the Holmes et al paper. Lathe started off by lauding it greatly. However, when I pointed out the shortcomings of the paper:

This study has been criticized, among other reasons, because its findings have not been duplicated and are not consistent with two other studies that used better methods. (See Def. Reply Brief, Document #102, Expert Report of Susan E. Folstein, Ex. 2 at 4 (“Thus, the study by Holmes is highly suspect – it used a peculiar sample, a suspect laboratory (IOM 2004) and uncertain methods of statistical analysis, and it offered a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of data.”).)

Justice Beaty

In a case-control study, the mean hair-mercury level was significantly lower in a group of 94 children with autism (0.47 ppm) than in a group of 45 matched controls (3.6 ppm), leading the authors to speculate that enhanced mercury retention plays a role in the etiology of autism (Holmes, Blaxill, & Haley, 2003). The mean hair-mercury level in the control children was much higher than would be expected, however, as the geometric mean in 1- to 5-year-old U.S. children is 0.12 ppm (McDowell et al., 2004). This suggests that the control samples in this study might have been contaminated.

Psychological Science in the Public Interest, Vol. 6 No.3 p. 83

…which confirm the blog posts of Prometheus and DoC

and to which Lathe responded:

The same hair samples analysed by Holmes were reanalysed by a different technique and the result confirmed (Hu et al.)

which was a paper I hadn’t read so I went ahead and did read it and was surprised that Lathe was relying on this paper. The study listed three participants and the way the hair samples were collected were in contradiction with a statement from Mark Blaxill (which i cannot find) that specified baby’s _first_ haircuts _must_ be used. I summed it up thusly:

a) it is important that they are first baby haircuts – in which case Hu is irrelevant, or b) it isn’t important – in which case the bulk of the evidence shows that there is something wrong with the Holmes data.

Lathe’s answer was:

I agree with your caveats. One must hope that someone will independently confirm or refute the Holmes study.

This is not a minor point. A large part of both the paper and (even more so) the book need the Holmes papers findings to be right. It was at this point that I started to suspect that the book might contain equally glaring reliances and errors. This suspicion was confirmed when I read Mike’s thorough examination of chapter four of Lathe’s book. Chapter Four is the base from which the book expounds its theory. Mike kicked that base away comprehensively.

But there are other areas of Lathe’s theory that need addressing. In Part II, I’ll be doing that.

David Ayoub, Black Helicopters and Social Movement.

18 Aug

Someone posted a link to the Google Video of David Ayoub talking about his Illuminati beliefs on the other Ayoub thread I posted.

It’s truly fascinating. And let me be clear here. Not fascinating in a ‘hey this is plausible’ kind of way. Fascinating in a ‘back away carefully from the strange man’ kind of way.

Its an hour and thirty minutes long so you’ll need a good chunk of time if you want to watch the whole thing (recommended) but I thought I’d go through a few quotes first just to get a flavour of his beliefs out in public.

Of course he starts off with his usual insistence that thiomersal causes autism but where it gets interesting is when he starts to attempt to try and tie vaccines into a planned program of vaccination control. Towards the mid point of his talk, Ayoub introduces his audience to two ‘policy’ documents from Rockerfeller and Kissinger discussed in the mid 1970’s. They both express concern about rising international population. the second one Ayoub says:

…may be the most notorious document in the history of the United States…

It’s called the National Security Study memorandum 200 (Kissinger, 1974) and concluded that population growth could become an area of concern. To that end the report suggests a series of ways to try and encourage responsibility and yet the methods must also: _”not be coercive”_ – Ayoub says that they must not _appear_ to be coercive. And that individual rights must be emphasized – Ayoub sneers _”so they don’t know what they’re getting”_ at this point in his talk. He seems to think that a suggested policy that isn’t coercive and that emphasises rights is a good indicator of a conspiracy. Not sure how.

So what methods did Kissinger’s report suggest? According to Ayoub:

reproductive health was ‘piggybacked’ to other general health issues so they can take that pill of poison and it looked from some angles not like poison

What other general health issues specifically? Well, sex education (abortion, condoms), improved health, women’s rights, day care and improved social security. Damn these people are evil!!!!

Yes that’s right, David Ayoub believes that the women’s rights movement is a governmental policy tool designed to reduce the population. He further believes that educating youngesters about unprotected sex is a bad thing and another policy tool. There’s definitely a tool around here. Not sure its this policy though.

Ayoub says that social security needed to be improved so that:

…you don’t need as many kids to help you when you retire…

He then says that _”these are the social issues we’ve faced for the last fifty years. They’ve come out of this document.”_ which is nothing short of miraculous given that fifty years ago (1955 when Ayoub gave this talk) the Kissinger report (1974) hadn’t even been written. There’s some more of that ‘science prodigy’ genius leaking through again.

He concludes that:

These were government issues under the guise of social movements…

So….what’s next? Apparently, Ayoub spoke with Lisa Reagen author of a piece on the vaccine/thiomersal hypothesis which mentioned that an IOM committee member was a member of GAVI (Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunisation):

…she told me she had black helicopters flying over her house for three weeks after that…

Yeah. Right.

The ‘Black Helicopter’ conspiracy theory is a sub-plot of the New World Order conspiracy which is turn is:

In new world order conspiracy theories, everything significant is caused by a powerful secret group. Historical and current events are seen as steps in an on-going plot to rule the world.

And the Black Helicopters?

Black helicopters are part of a conspiracy theory, especially prevalent among the US militia movement, that claims that special unmarked “black” helicopters are used by secret agents of the New World Order and/or the Men in Black (men dressed in black suits claiming to be government agents who attempt to harass or threaten UFO witnesses into silence) preparing to take control of the United States, or for other nefarious purposes.

Seriously dear reader, I shit you not, this is what Ayoub thinks.

GAVI is an organisation founded by Bill Gates of Microsoft (Ayoub has a site on mac.com – I merely mention it as an amusing aside) to provide vaccines to developing nations. Obviously they are satanic for wanting kids to be prevented from getting communicable diseases.

Other evil-doers include UNICEF:

in *a* word….coercive population control, coercive reproductive, coercive abortion, coercive sterilsation….

*a* word David? That’s some word.

There’s lots more but frankly, I got bored of snorting tea out of my nose. This guy is not someone who should be associated with efforts to ‘educate’ people or children’s health. Now, where’s my black helicopter…?

Just Sayin’

16 Aug

Recovery Stories And A Dash Of Reality

13 Aug

Every now and again someone (usually Brad Handley) says that I’m wrong because they have recovery stories to prove they’re right. That the mercury poisoning that caused their child’s autism has been reversed.

My constant response has been ‘Really? Where are they? If any child recovered from autism it would be international front page news’. Nobody has ever replied to that question.

Generation Rescue

So I decided to go looking. As it’s Brad who usually bandies this assertion about I thought I’d start with the Generation Rescue site under the heading ‘success stories’. There are fifty-nine (59) ‘success stories’ on there in total which sounds pretty impressive until you actually read them.

Out of these 59 success stories, just 3 describe their child as having been reclassified as no longer meeting a diagnosis of ASD. That’s a ‘recovery’ rate of 5%. Interestingly, one of these cases states they did not use chelation at all. That puts the Generation Rescue chelation success rate at a little over 3%.

General Stories

NB: It should be noted I may be duplicating stories here. The GR site says it has gathered stories from around the web which _may_ include these other stories.

But maybe we need a bigger group of stories – not from Generation Rescue in other words – to try and get a bit of accuracy.

Let’s look at the ‘roll call of recovered kids on Autismnet and see what we can glean from it.

There are twenty three (23) kids listed in the table. There are four children who’s parents say they have lost their diagnosis. This is a 17% recovery percentage. Fascinatingly, only one of those kids (4%) used anything other than ABA. As far as _biomedical_ interventions go, that’s worse than the GR site.

Lastly, we’ll look at Dana’s view which also lists recovery stories. There are a lot of stories on this site but a careful look only reveals sixteen (16) that discuss kids on the spectrum – some discuss non-autism stories so were discounted. Towards the bottom of the page there are a number of duplicates (especially the videos and Scott Shoemakers son’s story is told twice) or kids I recognised from other pages. In the videos I watched, nobody really discussed diagnosis at all so I discounted those.

Of the 16 stories, one (1) says their child has lost their diagnosis to biomedical/non-ABA therapies. That’s a ‘success’ rate of 6%.

If we total all these stories up we get a total of ninety-eight (98) ‘success stories’ wherein a total of five (5) claim total recovery and their kids lose their diagnosis. That’s a recovery rate of 5.1%.

Other Methods?

By contrast, one ABA clinic reports a ‘success’ rate of over 50% whilst the original Lovass (1987) paper claimed a success rate of 47%. Even a more realistic and stringent look at Lovass’ (Smith et al 2000) revealed a success rate of over 13%.

The ‘recovery from mercury poisoning’ hypothesis ain’t doing so well in comparison.

Other methods that claim a good ‘recovery rate’ are AIT (from Bernard Rimland no less) and Son-Rise.

Then of course there are the uncounted kids who simply ‘recover’. In the introduction to his book Autism, Brain and Environment, Richard Lathe mentions three case studies of marked progression in kids. What’s notable about them is that their progress can be attributed simply time and the maturation process.

I further have no doubt that if I described my daughters typical day she would easily fit onto all of the ‘recovery/success’ stories’ web pages discussed. She wouldn’t be described as losing her diagnosis by any means but she easily meets or exceeds the progress made and attributed to chelation etc. Again, she’s simply growing and maturing.

Bottom line: a ‘recovery’ stat of 5% is meaningless in terms of indicating the ‘success’ of a theory. Turn it on its head and this means that its 95% unsuccessful.

There are no figures (or at least none I could unearth) that relate what percentage of autistic kids simply move off the spectrum without any fanfare – who just happen to be not autistic anymore – if anybody _does_ have some, I’d like to hear them. But here are a few interesting quotes from a variety of sources:

Mysterious spontaneous recovery. It hasn’t happened often, but *it has happened often enough for the phenomenon to be worth noting*: over the past 25 years I have received a handful of letters from parents which read something like this: “Please remove our address from your files. Our child has continued to improve so greatly—we don’t know why—that now he is no longer considered autistic.

Rimland.

It may be because of spontaneous recovery from whatever constituted their autism. I do remember meeting some older children and teenagers over the years who “used to be autistic”.

Donna Williams

This page states that:

Studies have shown that about 2% of the children will recover anyway, “spontaneous recovery” is the term used in these cases

But it fails to cite which studies claim this figure. However, its clear that:

a) Spontaneous recovery does happen
b) This possibility is not ruled out of the various ‘recovery/success’ stories.

A Blogging Catch Up

11 Aug

Over the last few months a number of bloggers have discussed some important and disturbing things happening in the realm of autism science. I want to provide a round up of the main features of these posts and discuss the implications for the thiomersal hypothesis.

Mady Hornig’s Rain Mouse

Briefly, Mady Horning conducted a study wherein she claimed to have developed a mouse model for autism which she then used to test how the model responded to the introduction of thiomersal. According to Hornig, the study showed that:

1. The mice they used are a good model for autistic people
2. The ‘vaccine’ schedule they used successfully mimicks childhood immunization programs
3. That the outcomes from Auto-immune disease sensitive mice were consistent with autism
4. That this indicates a genetically influenced sensitivity to thimerosal in autistic people

Autism Diva took this study apart when she pointed out that:

Did Dr. Hornig and colleagues find these features [diagnostic criteria for autism] in the ‘SJL Thim” mice?’ No.

Prometheus also had reservations about the design of the study:

So, the human experiences a maximum blood level of 1.63 (arbitrary units) and the mouse – since it is being dosed at a smaller fraction of its half-life – sees a maximum blood level of 2.61. In short, the mouse gets to a blood level 60% higher than the human……I found myself wondering, “Why didn’t they use the 50th percentile (50% weigh more than this weight, 50% weigh less – sort of an ‘average weight’)?” I have no answer – but I have an idea. By using the 10th percentile, they were able to give the baby mice an even bigger dose of mercury……So, by using the 10th percentile weights, the authors were able to give the mice about 15% more thimerosal. This goes nicely with the dosing schedule to significantly raise the dose the mice receive.

One of the big talking points from this study was reported by David Kirby in Evidence of Harm:

… putting up a photo of two mice. “He has groomed through the skull, and eventually destroys his partner,” Hornig said. Every parent of an autistic kid in the room could be seen grimacing in dark recognition of such destructive behavior.”(page 312)

Uh-huh, or maybe they were just grimacing as its not nice looking at mice chewing through the skulls of other mice?

Anyway, hyperbole aside, why did Hornig choose those particular mice? Here’s what else Autism Diva found out.

Why did Hornig pick the SJL/J mice in particular?….Besides being an “autoimmune disease-sensitive” breed what else is known about the SJL/J mice?

Good question. Diva found the answer highly revealing:

Behavior
1. High spontaneous fighting….
2. Severe fighting among males housed together, beginning at about 8 weeks.
3. Most males will be killed by 4-5 months unless caged separately….

Diva also found a separate source that showed that:

…some breeds do a kind of agressive grooming of other mice called, “barbering”

So, it seems that Hornig sourced a set of mice known to be aggressive, she then systematically overdosed them and then reported the fact that this aggression was indicative of autism. Right.

Holmes, Blaxill and Haley First Baby Haircuts

This study claimed that there were reduced levels of mercury in autistic children’s first baby haircuts. The authors claimed this was due to an inability to excrete mercury.

Prometheus took an initial look at this study and found numerous methodological errors that would question both conclusions. These problems included:

1. Storage of the hair in unknown conditions for a median of 5 and a half years.
2. The calculation of the mothers mercury exposure was made on the basis of recollection of events between 5 and 16 years in the past.
3. A formula derived from the data to calculate the amount of mercury the kids were exposed to in the womb.
4. The data they collected was used to come up with the formula they used to calculate the mercury exposure – which they then used to explain the data they came up with. Prometheus compared this to ‘a puppy chasing its own tail’.

Prometheus also noted that the conclusions in the paper referred to _measured_ exposures, which he noted never occurred – they _calculated_ remember? Prometheus went on to note:

[1] There are no data or citations provided to support the implied assertion that mercury is actively excreted in the hair. – The reason for [1] is that there are abundant data and studies showing that mercury enters the hair – in all studied species – passively from the blood, attracted by the sulfur-containing amino acids in hair. The only way to “impair excretion” is to cut off the blood supply to the hair – which causes it to fall out.

[2]There are no data citations provided to supports the assertion that mercury elimination in the hair is a significant means of clearing mercury in humans – especially infant humans, who have little hair relative to their body weight. – The reason for [2] is that humans, and especially human infants, have a very small mass of hair relative to their body weight – a much lower relative amount than many of the other species studied (e.g. rodents and primates). For this reason alone, excretion in the hair cannot be a major route of mercury excretion in humans.

Prometheus later went on to discuss more about this studies shortcomings.

[Holmes et al]….concluded that, since the autistic children had lower hair mercury than the controls, that autistic children were unable to excrete mercury….Mind you, they offered no data to support that startling (if not ridiculous) conclusion, nor does anything known about mercury “excretion” in hair support that line of “reasoning”. As far as I can tell, they just made it up rather than face what the data (such as it was) told them – that mercury had nothing to do with autism

Prometheus compared their hair/mercury findings with another hair study into autistic kids:

The autistic children in the Holmes et al study had over twice the mean hair mercury level of the NHANES group (of 838 children) and the Holmes et al controls had hair mercury levels of over sixteen times the NHANES level….the only conclusion that you can draw from that data is that the Holmes et al study is garbage. My suspicion is that their laboratory – Doctor’s Data – is the cause of the outrageously high levels of mercury found in the children – especially the control children.

Recently, Dad of Cameron has been looking long and hard at James Adam’s and discovered an intriuging paper written by him also about hair/mercury and autism.

In the discussion section of the Adam’s paper DoC found the following:

Overall, it appears that the children with autism do not have major differences in their levels of toxic metals compared to controls….Thus, our results are not necessarily inconsistent with the results of Holmes et al.

Hmm. Interesting. It seems to me to be the polar _opposite_ of the Holmes et al paper.

The crux of the issue is what is defined as ‘normal’ levels e.g. the control groups. The Holmes paper found that the autistic kids had a mercury level one eighth of the control group. However, when one compared the average to the control group of the much larger NHANES study then the Holmes results were very close to the NHANES normal level. DoC also found that the Holmes control group had a mercury level of over 15 times the NHANES control group.

When one also looks the Adams study then, as DoC says:

they had a level quite similar to, or higher than the NHANES average, and higher than the average of both typical and children with autism published in Adams et al. This probably suggests that the “inability to excrete mercury” hypothesis could possibly, if not more likely, be post hoc correction

Post hoc correction roughly means a desire to keep the hypothesis alive at all costs……or deriving the formula from the data. DoC concludes with:

It should be pointed out that mean values found by Adams et al. for typical children are nearly identical to the findings of the 1999–2000 NHANES study of 838 children – Adams et al. This does in fact suggest that the Adams et al. data is valid. It should also be pointed out that both Holmes et al. and Adams et al. apparently had hair samples analyzed at Doctor’s Data. It’s possible that both studies were even conducted around the same time (somewhere near 2002) presumably, or at least possibly with the same epuipment and methods too, yet they both got vastly different control group results…..it’s pretty clear that Holmes et al. probably didn’t find unusually “low levels” in baby hair. It would seem that what they found was an unusual control group.

In other words, there’s no ‘inability to excrete mercury’ on behalf of the kids in the Homes et al paper. There’s certainly nothing put forward to justify that hypothesis and there’s lots of good reasons to suspect the methodology Holmes et al employed and the near as dammit certainty that the Holmes autistic group ‘suffered by comparison’ to an abnormal control group.

The Geier’s Misrepresentations

If there’s one blogger who has approached blogging pulitzer prize status its Kathleen. Her in depth (and continuing) placing of the Geier’s under the microscope of basic honesty is simply stunning not just in its style but in the meticulous attention to detail and most of all the genuinely worrying implications for how the Geier’s have behaved.

Kathleen’s first post on the subject concerned the way that the Geier’s claimed an affiliation with George Washington University in at least one of their published works:

A Clinical and Laboratory Evaluation of Methionine Cycle-Transsulfuration and Androgen Pathway Markers in Children with Autistic Disorders. Geier DA, Geier MR. Department of Biochemistry, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.

According to the conventions of academic publishing, this would generally imply that Mr. Geier is a member of the faculty at GWU, or a graduate student publishing with a thesis advisor or other faculty member in the same department; and that GWU is the venue at which Mr. Geier’s share of the research took place.

Puzzled and confused by this claim, Kathleen contacted Dr. Allen Goldstein, Chairman of the GWU Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology who …

…stated unequivocally that David Geier has never served on the faculty of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at GWU; that neither the “Institute for Chronic Illnesses” or its Institutional Review Board….are in any way associated with GWU; and that none of the research described in the article was sponsored by GWU or conducted in the GWU laboratories. He described the affiliation with the Department of Biochemistry in the Hormone Research article as “fallacious,” and stated that it conveyed a “significant misrepresentation” of Mr. Geier’s position in the field of biochemistry.

The Geier’s later claimed that this was a publishing error on the part of Hormone Research. However, when I emailed the Editor of Hormone Research, he refused to confirm this and stated that the Geier’s paper would be subject to an investigation.

Kathleen’s second post in the series showed how the Geier’s apparently gain ethical approval for their studies. A paper of their Kathleen was reading said:

The Institutional Review Board of the Institute for Chronic Illnesses approved the present study.

Kathleen had never heard of this IRB so she set out to investigate it.

Before I related what she found, its important that people understand just what an IRB is. For this I turn to surgeon blogger Orac who informs us that:

After the horrors of Nazi medical experimentation…it was clear that rules were needed to protect human research subjects from such abuses. A historic document in the development of such rules in the U.S. was the Belmont Report on Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research….This report identifies three essential and fundamental ethical principles for human subject research. It is essential reading for anyone doing human subject research in this country. In 1991, these regulations were codified into what is now known as The Common Rule. All institutions doing federally funded research are required to adhere to The Common Rule. Moreover, some states, such as Maryland (where the Geiers have their businesses) require that all human research, regardless of funding source, must conform to the Common Rule.

A key aspect of The Common Rule is the IRB. The IRB is in essence a committee that oversees all human subject research for an institution and makes sure that the studies are ethical in design and that they conform to all federal regulations. Basically, IRBs are charged with weighing the risks and benefits of proposed human subject research and making sure that (1) the risks are minimized and that the risk:benefit ratio is very favorable; (2) to minimize any pain or suffering that might come about because of the experimental therapy; and (3) to make sure that researchers obtain truly informed consent. Once a study is in progress, regular reports must be made to the IRB, which can shut down any study in its institution if it has concerns about patient welfare. Indeed, the IRB at my particular institution is like a bulldog; it’s utterly ruthless in how it deals with researchers.

So this is not just a piece of red tape to circumnavigate – it fulfils a vital ethical (and legally obliging) role. Here’s what Kathleen found out about the Geier’s IRB for the study in question. The IRB overseeing the Geier’s research is comprised of:

Mark Geier, Chair, David Geier, Lisa Sykes (Rev. Sykes is a mother of a participant in Dr. Geier’s study). Kelly Kerns (an anti-thimerosal activist and petitioner in vaccine injury complaints for each of her three autistic children). John Young (a newly-minted DAN! practitioner. Anne Geier (wife of Dr. Mark Geier and mother of David Geier. Clifford Shoemaker (A vaccine injury lawyer, a member of the Vaccine Injury Alliance, and a member of the Omnibus Autism Proceeding Petitioners’ Steering Committee. Dr. Geier has testified on behalf of his clients in Price v. Wyeth et al, Platt v. HHS, Jenkins v. HHS, Lewis v. HHS, Raj vs. HHS, Jefferies v. HHS, and other cases.). The address for the IRB is the Geier’s family home.

Kathleen concludes:

according to The Common Rule, Mark Geier and David Geier would be ineligible to vote on any of their own research proposals. Anne Geier would be ineligible to vote on any research proposed or conducted by her husband or son. Rev. Lisa Sykes would be ineligible to vote on any study in which her son is a participant. As a co-investigator with Mark and David Geier in their Lupron research, John Young, too, would be ineligible to vote on any IRB supervising that research. Of the seven members of the IRB, only a minority of two — Kelly Kerns and Clifford Shoemaker — would be eligible to vote on the research described in the article — and only if they are free of any personal or financial interest in its outcome.

But why would the Geier’s need to invent their own IRB? Kathleen tackles this in part three of her investigation.

By definition an IRB should have:

“the professional competence necessary to review specific research activities, […] to ascertain the acceptability of proposed research in terms of institutional commitments and regulations, applicable law, and standards of professional conduct and practice”

Now, its worth remembering this all this is taking place against the background of a Lupron study. Lupron was being used by the Geier’s to treat (according to them) Precocious Puberty (CPP). Neither of the study authors Geier Snr and Jnr have any experience whatsoever with this condition and hence an objective IRB would not allow them to proceed. Possibly this is why they needed their own personal IRB.

Why Precocious Puberty? Well, its not because these kids actually have it. The Geier’s claim to be treating 50 kids for this condition. However in a strange anomaly, Kathleen found that its a rare enough condition that:

European endocrinological research consortium found it necessary to pool data from The Netherlands, Italy and France in order to accumulate 26 male subjects for a study

Yet the Geier’s found 50 in little under 1 year. Amazing.

The rest of Kathleen’s entry deals with the way in which the Geier’s mangled the diagnostic criteria for CPP in order to justify diagnosing kids with it and hence justify prescribing them with Lupron.

As one participants parent put it:

[T]he labs, according to the Geiers are ONLY an attempt to determine CPP and get insurance coverage for Lupron Depot.

…which sounds very much like orchestrated insurance fraud to me.

And, surprise surprise, it must’ve seemed that way to a couple of other people to because Kathleen’s next instalment revealed some curious terminology alterations. Suddenly, the Geier’s scrubbed all mention of CPP and instead were referring to hyperandrogenicity. However, old habits die hard:

In spite of the new prominence of “hyperandrogenicity” in the Powerpoint presentation, a verbal slip during the lecture revealed Mr. Geier’s lack of familiarity with the term, and suggested that he regarded “hyperandrogenicity” and “precocious puberty” as interchangeable.“…and then we talk about clinical symptoms of premature or hyperandrogenicity in these children — premature puberty or hyperandrogenicity…”

and in a lovely catch, Kathleen noted that:

The header to Table 1 (of a supporting data table to a presentation) had been altered after it was originally prepared. “Hyperandrogenicity” had been inserted into a white space exactly large enough to accommodate the phrase “precocious puberty.”

All of these changes and inconsistencies raise the question — have Dr. Geier and Mr. Geier begun to use terms such as “hyperandrogenicity” and “testicular hyperfunction” in journal articles and public presentations about their testosterone hypothesis and the “Lupron protocol,” while they and cooperating doctors continue to enter the more reimbursement-friendly diagnosis of “precocious puberty” on their patients’ insurance claims?

Good question. In Kathleen’s next instalment she discusses how the Geier’s use a method of recruiting parents who are already allies of their’s and who are active on internet forums to their initial groups. they then let those parents spread their message to all and sundry, despite having no medical knowledge whatsoever.

Prominent amongst those people is Erik Nanstiel who once told me that chelation would cure his daughter in 18 months. he had no doubt about it whatsoever. He ‘knew’ this because the Geier’s told him.

Erik now sings a different tune.

The Geiers have recommended we take M[…] off chelation…for now. When we reported that the chelator caused regression away from the gains we got with Lupron alone… they looked at her chart and said that, consistently, her urinary porphyrins have been lower than most kids they treat. They think that it’s possible (POSSIBLE) that M[…]’s two years of DMPS chelation has depleted most of her toxic metals. We think Her regression could have been a result of the chelator feeding yeast in her gut and affecting nutrient absorption … and possibly not so much because it was stirring up a lot of heavy metals. They also mentioned to me that a LOT of the kids they treat are doing wonderfully on Lupron alone… without the chelator. So we’re going to try it.

So now the Geier’s say that chelation _won’t_ cure Erik’s daughter in 18 months (gasp!). No, now they say Lupron will.

Erik has also repeated the Geier’s verbiage that:

Testosterone and Mercury bind weakly end to end…and then go on to form sheets. The mercury is trapped in these lattices which hamper chelation. They claim to have verified that with x-ray crystallography imaging

Thats from March this year. In June this year he said:

The mercury/testosterone sheets was just a theory that isn’t panning out.

So in March its verified. In June its just a theory that isn’t panning out. Despite this tendency to fail to engage his brain before opening his mouth Erik feels fine about dispensing medical advice:

I can say with a great degree of confidence that your child has Precocious Puberty caused by autism

Same confidence that led him to state that chelation would cure his daughter in 18 months or that testosterone bound up mercury in sheets no doubt.

In part six of the series Kathleen uncovered some fairly obscure and disturbing relationships and possible beliefs of the Geier’s.

On June 23, 2006, Dr. Geier returned to Radio Liberty to discuss vaccines and autism, and to give an update on the progress of his research into the “Lupron protocol.”

As readers of my blog will know I’ve talked about Radio Liberty before. Dr Geier was interviewed by Dr. Monteith who also interviewed Dr David Ayoub in a segment entitled _’Linking mercury in vaccines to global population control.’_

Monteith, like Ayoub, believes that the global population is being controlled by the Illuminati partly by vaccines. It seems that Geier has similar beliefs:

And as you said, it [autism] not only destroys the kids’ lives, it destroys the family, it destroys the siblings, it destroys the neighborhoods, it destroys the educational system. And if we are not careful it’s going to destroy the United States, because it’s going to hard for us to be the number one nation in the world. What do we produce? What makes us number one? Is it our oil? Is it our nuclear energy? Is it our science? You know what it is? It’s our brains. And if we have one in six children, even using their figure, that have brain damage, and we end up, there’s three hundred million Americans, and we end up with one in six of them having brain damage, that’s fifty million Americans, we’re not going to be the number one country in the world anymore. And I have great fear for that. I love this country, and we’ve got to not let that happen.

Whereupon Dr Monteith replied:

Why are these things going on? Well, if you’d like to know why they’re going on, you need to get my talk on planned population reduction… And ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say this, but there really are people who want to hurt children… And if you doubt that, you need to get my book, Brotherhood of Darkness… Our government is poisoning us.

Right.

Moving swiftly on, Kathleen’s next part of the series discussed how the Geier’s were taking mainstream science and misappropriating it for their own ends.

Each of Dr. and Mr. Geier’s articles and presentations on the “Lupron protocol” have included references to the work of British researchers Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen, John Manning and their colleagues on the possible relationship between fetal testosterone levels and the development of autism. From The potential importance of steroids in the treatment of autistic spectrum disorders and other disorders involving mercury toxicity:

The Geier’s said of this study that:

The authors demonstrated that the more severely affected the children were the higher the levels of prenatal testosterone.

In fact, what the Geier’s had actually done was take a graph that Baron-Cohen et al had used to demonstrate that it was impossible to directly detect pre-natal testosterone and _re-label the axis_ so that it ‘demonstrated’ their own pet theory.

Whereas the left axis of the chart had originally been labeled, “Mean 2D:4D,” Dr. and Mr. Geier had deleted that label and replaced it with “Lower testosterone/higher estrogen” and “Higher testosterone/lower estrogen.” The summary above the chart on Dr. and Mr. Geier’s Powerpoint slide stated unequivocally that the study reported in The 2nd to 4th digit ratio and autism had found a direct relationship between levels of fetal testosterone and the severity of autistic symptoms, when this was not the case; as noted above, the investigators in that study had clearly stated that it was impossible to directly test the prenatal testosterone levels of their subjects.

Kathleen contacted Professor Baron-Cohen about this misrepresentation. He replied thusly:

I am aware that the Geiers are citing our work to justify their treatments involving lowering testosterone levels in autism. I have never advocated for this treatment, and indeed am opposed to such treatments on two grounds: ethical (manipulating hormones affects many systems in the body and mind, many of which do not stand in need of ‘treatment’) and safety (such treatments may carry risks, many of which are unquantified).

Yesterday, Kathleen posted the latest in her series on the Geier’s. In this post she notes the curious similarities between whole swathes of studies of the Geier’s and other researchers.

Thomas Verstraeten, Robert Davis, Frank DeStefano and their colleagues, published _’Safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines: a two-phased study of computerized health maintenance organization databases’_in November 2003. Advocacy group SafeMinds got hold of a 2000 draft of this study to show that the study had been ‘doctored’ to clear the reputation of thiomersal (of course it hadn’t). However, Kathleen noted something odd about this draft and a subsequent Geier paper.

From Verstraeten 2000 (p. 2-3)

We selected a cohort of infants from the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) database. VSD was created in 1991 by the National Immunization Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The project links medical event information, vaccine history, and selected demographic information from the computerized clinical databases of four staff model health maintenance organizations (HMO)s: Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound (GHC) in Seattle, Washington; Kaiser Permanente Northwest (NWK) in Portland, Oregon; Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California (NCK) in Oakland, California; and Southern California Kaiser Permanent (SCK) in Los Angeles, California. HMO members have unique HMO identification numbers that can be used to link data on their medical services within the HMO. Vaccination data are derived from computerized immunization tracking systems that are maintained by each of the HMOs. Quality control comparisons of the computerized immunization data with information recorded in paper medical records have shown high levels of agreement. For medical encounters, each of the HMOs maintains computerized databases on all hospital discharges and emergency room visits; diagnoses from outpatient clinic encounters ard available from some of the HMOs for certain years.

From Geier 2005 (p. CR163)

In this study, the VSD database and CDC-VSD database research materials were analyzed. VSD was created in 1991 by the NIP of the CDC. The project links medical event information, vaccine history, and selected demographic information from the computerized clinical databases of four health maintenance organizations (HMO)s: Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound (GHC) in Seattle, Washington; Kaiser Permanente Northwest (NWK) in Portland Oregon; Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program of Northern California (NCK) in Oakland, California; and Southern California Kaiser Permanente (SCK) in Los Angeles, California. HMO members have unique HMO identification numbers that can be used to link data on their medical services within the HMO. Vaccination data are derived from computerized immunization tracking systems, maintained by each of the HMOs. Quality control comparisons of the computerized immunization data with information recorded in paper medical records have shown high levels of agreement. For medical encounters, each of the HMOs maintains computerized databases on all hospital discharges and emergency room visits; diagnoses from outpatient clinic encounters are available from some of the HMOs for certain years [17-19].

As Kathleen notes, aside from the first sentence and the manner in which the National Immunization Program and the Centers for Disease Control were identified, these two passages are identical.

Kathleen goes on to find _over ten more instances_ of near identical passages of text. She then goes on to note that the Rev. Lisa Sykes (IRB member and Mum to a child undergoing the Geier’s Lupron protocol) was very familiar with the 2000 draft of the Verstraeten paper having cited it numerous times in submissions of her own. She is also thanked by the Geier’s in the notes of the paper that bears such an uncanny likeness to the Verstreten paper:

Acknowledgement: We wish to thank Lisa Sykes for her kind efforts in helping us to review and edit our manuscript.

Incredibly, Kathleen has indicated that there is more to come.

Its The Mercury, Stupid! No Wait!

9 Aug

I predicted not long ago that we’d shortly begin to witness a move away from thiomersal/mercury language from the geniuses in the mercury militia due the ongoing science refuting the hypothesis and the total rejection of the accumulated body of science so far built to support the hypothesis.

Every quarter, as long term members of this debacle will know, California DDS release a set of figures that are used to indicate how many autistic people are receiving services in that State. These numbers have been hailed at various times and by various people from the mercury militia as ‘the gold standard’ or ‘incontravertible proof’ that thiomersal causes autism as the numbers seemed to rise in the latter part of the nineties when thiomersal was around and then drop when it was removed. In actual fact, this belief came about due to a total misunderstanding of the numbers. The numbers have never dropped. All that happened at some points was that the _rate of increase_ either dipped or rose. Especially in the core cohort of 3 – 5 year olds.

For more on this see Joseph’s excellent summation.

In short, CDDS numbers continue to rise in the age group that would show a dramatic drop if thiomersal was the culprit.

The last two quarters have seen ‘rises’ in the rate of increase and where once there was excited bandying about of this ‘proof’ we now have the embarrased silence of no dogs barking.

And yet….deep in the recesses of Anti-Vaccine Central aka The Evidence of Harm Yahoo Group….someone had the bad taste to mention this recently. The response was swift, predictable and as stupid as a celebrity reality TV contestant.

Yes, and I do believe that we need to look at ALL environmental factors, and not just mercury, including other vaccine components, the antigens themselves, the cross-reactivity of various vaccines, the timing of vaccine administration, environmental sources of mercury, the overuse of antibiotics, pesticides, pitocin, ultrasound (I have noticed some listmates stating that their NT kids had just as much ultrasound exposure as their ASD child and they’re fine — careful, that’s what the parents of NT kids say about vaccines!) and electromagnetic radiation.

You factor in all of the new vaccine recommendations over the last four years and there are plenty of things that could muddy the waters here. Not to mention live attenuated virus vaccines,

But…but…didn’t these people get the message from Rick Rollens that:

Decline [in CDDS data] coincides with the phasing out of mercury from childhood vaccines.

Yes I know there wasn’t really a decline but they believed it. They touted it as fact.

How about David Kirby’s ‘Gold Standard‘>

Stay tuned. If the numbers in California and elsewhere continue to drop – and that still is a big if — the implication of thimerosal in the autism epidemic will be practically undeniable.

So, now that we know that _they never dropped_ is the opposite ‘practically undeniable’?

Let’s not forget what David 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

What shape will that ‘severe blow’ take do you think? Will it be a full and frank admission from Mr Kirby that he maybe should’ve asked around outside of the circle of geniuses headed by Rollens regarding prevalence in CDDS data? That maybe he’s jumped the gun quite substantially? Will we see retractions from Brad Handley and Generation Rescue who might have to redefine their incredibly simplistic, premature and wilfully misleading categorisation of autism? Will we get some injection related sense out of more than a few people? Will Moms Against Mercury rename themselves? How about SafeMinds?

What does Lenny Schafer think? In recent years, the SAR has become little more than an anti-thiomersal polemic. What does he say about all this as the Moderator of the EoH group?

The fact is that if the problem is mercury and mercury has been greatly reduced in vaccines, we should see numbers either dropping, or the rate of increase dropping. Maybe the later is true, I can’t tell from this one chart alone. These reports have always come with caveats about how they are not properly controlled for a variety of factors that could affect the actuals, like the CDC recommendations for mercury flu shots or their aggressive push for early (and more) diagnosis. We (not just Christine) can’t one day point to these numbers and say: “see, they support the mercury hypothesis” when it suit us, and then later say “you really can’t trust these numbers” when they don’t.

At least a nod towards honesty. But he needs to understand why Kirby is correct to say that it is numbers dropping that’s important not changes in the rate of increase.

Slowly but surely these people are moving towards a position of wholesale anti-vaccination. Of course, its been there all along, but as the veneer of credibility the thiomersal hypothesis had when we lacked data is stripped away so is the thin veneer that reveals the depths of their ignorance.

When they finally abandon thiomersal, never forget their adamancy that it was thiomersal. Never forget that their ‘common sense’ trumped their ability to see what was under their noses. Thiomersal is a neuropoison QED, thiomersal causes autism. That’s the sort of logic that resulted in their recent spectacular own goal of the US Senate refusing point blank to put vaccine specific language in the recent Combating Autism Act. Wake up geniuses: They don’t trust you because you’re zealots. Your future is plain to see for them and me. Thiomersal to aluminium, aluminium to live virus, live virus to some other vaccine related ingredient. That’s why the ASA, CAN, Autism Speaks etc were happy to ditch the vaccine language. They want to distance themselves from you. Is it any wonder?

Welcome to EoH visitors! I see you have an amusing long thread where you all talk about how unbothered you are about me – with *lots* of contributions from various familiar faces. I would like to correct one small point you seem to have picked up: There is only one side of this that believe that the Illuminati is involved or even actually exist: That is your side. As represented by John Scudamore (owner of whale.to) and Dr David Ayoub of FAIR Autism Media. Hope thats clear enough for you to grasp :o)

Dr David Ayoub – Hidden Agenda and Stone Cold Certainty

1 Aug

In a world seemingly obsessed with celebrities and the status of famous people, each cadre of existence have their own celebs – even autism research has its own budding superstar league. The top ten elites probably command good money from conference fee’s and parental recommendations from the big forums on the Yahoo Group lists so it can pay to get to be an Autism Superstar.

Just outside the elites are the triers – the ones who never seem to reach the giddy heights of a Wakefield or a Rimland. For these guys, cracking the top ten can mean an endless round of strident press releases, foaming at the mouth invective and slightly less fashionable talking shops.

One of the newer ‘triers’ is Dr David Ayoub. He’s (fairly) new to the scene but already he’s caused a stir with a typically brash ‘triers’ entrance to the market.

David Ayoub – Autism Specialist

I first remember hearing the name David Ayoub on the website of Erik’s FAIR Autism Media where Ayoub is listed as the Medical Director. One would suppose that the Medical Director of an autism organisation that believes thiomersal causes autism would be an expert in either autism or maybe toxicology. In actual fact, Ayoub is neither. He’s a Radiologist.

David Ayoub, MD, is a radiologist at the Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois

Source

So what does Radiology have to do with autism? Well, nothing.

What medical skills could Ayoub, as a trained Radiologist, bring to the field of autism? None.

No matter, maybe Ayoub has published some good science about autism or mercury?

Well, no – Ayoub MD, has (count ’em) five entries on PubMed, none of which touch on either autism or mercury. His last paper (on digital imaging) was published in 1997.

Whilst the irony of having a trained radiologist on the board of directors of an organisation that seems to think radiology is not necessary to diagnose Precocious Puberty is at least marginally amusing, what’s more amusing is the Ayoub Wikipedia entry. It’s written in breathlessly idolising fashion – headings are entitled ‘Track and field phenom’, ‘Science Prodigy’ and ‘Vaccine education crusader’. This is the online CV of a real ‘trier’, I think you’ll agree. Only a ‘Science Prodigy’ like Dr Ayoub could become Medical Director and ‘Vaccine education crusader’ at an organisation that specialises in subjects he knows nothing, medically speaking, about.

David Ayoub – Definitely Maybe

Perhaps Ayoub’s most famous contribution to the autism = thiomersal debate is his vanity piece written by Evelyn Pringle. Entitled David Ayoub – Thimerosal Definite Cause Of Autism, this article seemed to say a lot but actually said nothing at all beyond the title. Let’s not beat around the bush here. Just like Brad Handley, David Ayoub is stating that thiomersal _definitely_ causes autism. Pretty strong words. Let’s take a look beyond the title of the article though and see what the man himself says to back that up.

Well, the short answer is (of course) nothing. The longer answer starts off with:

I can state that the certainty of the science supporting mercury as a major cause of autism is probably more overpowering than the science behind any other disease process that I studied dating back to medical school.

This is the same science, formulated by the same scientists, that was recently rejected by a court Daubert hearing don’t forget. And not rejected by some legal trickery, but rejected as it was crap.

But David Ayoub, the ‘Science Prodigy’ can state that the same science is ‘certain’ and is ‘more overpowering than the science behind any other disease process’ that Ayoub has studied since medical school.

Possibly a good time to remind ourselves that David Ayoub is a radiologist with five papers to his name, none of which concern disease process, let alone autism or toxicology. I think its safe to assume that the last time Ayoub studied disease process was actually in medical school. I also think it’s safe to assume that Ayoub’s ‘certainty’ might very well be all the evidence the more credulous amongst us might need but I’m far from impressed at Ayoub’s experience, qualifications and bombastic pomposity.

But Ayoub isn’t done yet. The ‘Science Prodigy’ has more stone cold certainties to lay on us:

A growing number of experimental, epidemiological and biochemical research, has unequivocally shown that mercury is directly linked to the development of autism spectrum disorders

They have? Maybe someone could point these out to me? I seem to have missed them. Somewhere along the line I think our ‘Vaccine education crusader’ has concentrated more on the crusading than the research.

I really don’t see the need for more research to prove causality.

Well, of course he doesn’t – did he ever? The whole of the mercury militia have never been overly concerned with trifling matters like research to back up their beliefs. That’s why all the accumulated science to date was thrown out of court and will, barring fresh evidence, continue to be thrown out of court.

Next up in Evelyn’s little thumb nail sketch:

Ayoub is the Director of the Prairie Collaborative for Immunization, an organization that is self-funded, which aids organizations, journalists, and legislators obtain accurate information to assist their work.

Obtain accurate information eh? I really, really doubt that.

So, let’s go see what the Prairie Collaborative thinks is accurate information. Well, under the heading ‘Science’ we have ‘papers’ from Bradstreet, Bernard, Holmes and LOTS from (you guessed it) Geiers. Even Ken Stoller pops up, bless his HBOT heart. So this dross is the ‘accurate information’ that ‘unequivocally’ shows that ‘mercury is directly linked to the development of autism spectrum disorders’. It’s a roll call of the scientists and science that the recent RhoGAM hearings threw out as being rubbish.

He also links to the 2005 DAN Consensus paper – you know the one – it begins with:

This monograph is not intended as medical advice. Its intention is solely informational and educational. Please consult a qualified medical or health professional if you wish to pursue the ideas presented.

Nothing fills you with confidence as much as a strongly worded, legally enforceable medical disclaimer eh?

Recently, David Ayoub has been on a media frenzy. Flushed with the promise of cracking the elite top ten, he’s been commenting on news sites and to reporters left right and centre.

David Ayoub – Darling of the Press

After the killing of Katie McCarron, David Ayoub was revealed as a confidant of Karen McCarron, Katie’s killer.

Dr David Ayoub said he met with Karen McCarron shortly after her daughter was diagnosed with autism.

“She was very dedicated to trying to get treatment for her daughter,” Ayoub said. “I’ve met with a lot of parents who are dealing with autistic children, and she was one of the most loving mothers. This is a story that’s been played over and over again. Homicide, suicide. The families just don’t have the support”

David Ayoub was very vocal on how much of a tragedy this was for poor ‘loving mothers’ like Karen McCarron. Oddly, he had no words of compassion for Katie herself, Katie’s sister, Katie’s Dad, Katie’s Grandparents, Katie’s Uncle and Aunts, her friends or her teachers all of whom had to live with David Ayoub’s barely concealed plea for services.

As a side note, I see today that Karen McCarron’s lawyers are considering an insanity plea. I strongly urge those representing Katie to contact David Ayoub as, based on the above quote, he can easily testify to Karen McCarron’s loving and dedicated nature. That should be enough to establish she was far from insane. I’m sure as a ‘Science Prodigy’ his opinion will carry much weight.

As recently as last month, David Ayoub was again demonstrating his ‘Science Prodigy’ status in a news blog in answer to a Doctor who doesn’t believe the MMR/thiomersal hypothesis. Displaying his keen sense of ethics and science, Ayoub began with:

Dr Ehmke’s comments about parents concerned with vaccine safety is an insult to anyone with any knowledge of the science surrounding this debate. His letter was filled with misinformation, errors and just plain foolish dribble.

Well, no actually Dr Ayoub. What’s actually insulting is your own rabid insistence in the face of no actual _evidence_ , let alone proof, that thiomersal or MMR cause autism.

Ayoub then pointed out Ehmke’s sole error:

MMR vaccine never contained thimerosal. This blunder set the tone for the rest of his letter.

Interesting. Possibly no one told Boyd Haley or Liz Birt this little fact.

I have been working with Boyd Haley since September 2000 who testified at the recent Congressional hearing. Your source is incorrect. I have Boyd’s testing results and there is mercury in MMR. He did not find as much as what was in Hib, Hep B and DTaP. However, IT IS THERE.

I guess we can await Dr Ayoub’s denouncement of Boyd Haley as a foolish dribbler with interest. Other gems from that piece include:

The epidemiological studies refuting the claim of a link to vaccine mercury have all been refuted as flawed studies.

There are at least 4 published papers that demonstrated autistic children have a lower, genetically determined ability to eliminate mercury due to lower levels of glutathione

There are hundreds of physicians breaking rank with their own organizations such as the AMA and AAP and admitting that mercury in vaccines was indeed a major cause of a variety of developmental disorders

I would discourage parents from having too much trust in what their pediatrician will tell them

Basically, its a (poorly formatted) rant based on nothing more that our resident ‘Science Prodigy’s’ belief in his pet hypothesis. There’s no actual science in there at all.But what turns a respectable radiologist, just beginning a career in his field and a career as a published scientist in his field into a what we see – an absolutist who’s stone cold certainty based on no decent science has led him to his current position as Medical Director of two organisations widely regarded as anti-vaccine in agenda?

David Ayoub – A Hidden Agenda?

On the 3rd of January of this year David Ayoub was a guest on Radio Liberty. Radio Liberty is an online radio station that specialises in talkshows about fringe conspiracy theories. Other interview subjects that month included John De Jacomo who gave a talk on:

The prophetic significance of world events today. People are looking for peace; will this usher in globalism – or pave the way for the reign of the anti-Christ?

And Caryl Matrisciana who addressed the burning issue:

The Chronicles of Narnia movie is being touted as a great Christian movie. Is there a possibility that the New Age is being dressed in Christian clothing?

Fascinating, relevant and deeply scientific questions, I think you’ll agree.

So what was our ‘Science Prodigy’, Dr David Ayoub there to discuss?

Linking mercury in vaccines to global population control.

Unfortunately, I can’t find an mp3 of this interview anywhere but believe me, I would _love_ to hear David Ayoub’s thoughts as a ”Vaccine education crusader’ on how vaccines are used to control the global population. Maybe he could upload this interview to the Prairie Collaborative site in order to aid ‘organizations, journalists, and legislators obtain accurate information’ about how vaccines are used to control the global population.

Now, being an avid fan of nutty conspiracy theories I thought I’d check out Erik’s others friend’s (John Scudamore) website (whale.to) to see what I could find about the global population control theory.

Well, its not good news I’m afraid. Apparently, the global population are Targets of the Illuminati and the Committee of 300. They’ll get us like so:

Unemployables in the US, in the wake of industrial destruction, will either become opium-heroin and/or cocaine addicts, or become statistics in the elimination of the “excess population” process we know of today as Global 2000.

To cause, by means of limited wars in the advanced countries, by means of starvation and diseases in the Third World countries, the death of three billion people by the year 2050, people they call “useless eaters”. The Committee of 300 (Illuminati) commissioned Cyrus Vance to write a paper on this subject of how to bring about such genocide. The paper was produced under the title “Global 2000 Report” and was accepted and approved for action by former President James Earl Carter, and Edwin Muskie, then Secretary of States, for and on behalf of the US Government. Under the terms of the Global 2000 Report, the population of the US is to be reduced by 100 million by the year of 2050

Not good. But it seems that as long as I _don’t_ go to America and I _do_ have a job, I’ll be safe from the Illuminati! Hurrah!!

Evidently, Dr David ‘Science Prodigy’ Ayoub believes that vaccines are yet another weapon in the vast, nefarious arsenal that the Illuminati can bring to bear on us. Eeeek!

What Happened to Dr David Ayoub?

At some point, David Ayoub clearly stepped off the mainstream science path and started his journey into conspiracy theory driven belief. That’s fine as far as it goes. He can believe whatever the hell he likes.

What’s not fine though is how his attempts to see through his global population control anti-vaccine agenda have latched onto autism. He deals in unverified absolutes and needs to be thought of in the context of what he really is – an antivaccinationist with a disturbing set of political beliefs.

Jennifer unearthed a truly disturbing presentation from David Ayoub regarding his population control conspiracy theory. It’s an ‘interesting’ read!

Stalling For Time, Mainstream Death, Underground Immortality

21 Jul

A few days ago I posted about how bad a time the autism = mercury poisoning via thiomersal/vaccines believers were having of late. There was the Fombonne study which revealed yet more lack of correlation between vaccines and autism, then there was the first legal try-out of the quality of the science and the scientific experts accumulated to demonstrate the relationship between thiomersal and autism which was dismissed due to the terrible quality of both. This was followed by the state of Hawaii refusing to ban thiomersal as there was no scientifically sound reason to do it and just as a nasty kick in the teeth, the latest quarterly reports of autism cases in California reported that there was still no drop in the figures despite the long term removal of thiomersal from mainstream vaccines.

Possibly then its no coincidence that on the 18th July, the Petitioners in the Autism/Vaccine Omnibus court cases filed a request to delay the deadline for submitting their case for general causation. The deadline (which has already been adjusted for petitioners several times before) was the end of 2006. Petitioners now want it extended to June 2007. They say this is to ensure the expert academics don’t have to curtail their teaching duties and also (because its in the summer holidays) allow families to attend.

Well, that’s one opinion. My personal opinion is that the RhoGAM case was a pretty large wake-up call and people suddenly realised that the ‘expert’ witnesses were _far_ from expert and that the body of science was shoddy in the extreme.

The petitioners also make some amusing requests regarding how this case is followed. Firstly, they want the court to allow for all 5000 families to attend in a central location such as Houston or Chicago. Maybe a resident of one of these cities can suggest a legal arena with a 5000 seat capacity?

They also suggest that the whole thing is played out via live web casts for those unable to attend in person. Strikes me that these requests are simply there to provide argument and thus stall for more time. In short, petitioners legal team are actively trying to turn this into a media circus, not a trial.

Most tellingly of all, petitioners want to _limit_ the amount of time each expert can be cross examined for. I wonder why. Well, no, I don’t. If I had Haley or the Geier’s in my corner I’d want to limit the amount of time they can speak too.

I feel sorry for the Special Master here. If he lets them have the extra time then he knows he’s setting a precedent. These petitioners have had ample time to prepare their case. If he refuses the request then he’ll be savaged and no doubt be painted as a Big Pharma Shill.

So is this the rag tag end of the thiomersal hypothesis? Yes and no. In scientific terms there’s still no evidence whatsoever to indicate a causative link between thiomersal/MMR/vaccines and autism. This aspect never really got off the ground at all. When we turn to epidemiology (is there a positive numerical correlation between thiomersal and autism?) then what we hear, as Holmes once famously explained to Watson, is the sound of no dogs barking.

Every quarter for the past two or three years, Rick Rollens has compiled the quarterly data from the CDDS without fail. David Kirby describes it as ‘the gold standard’ of numbers relating to autism. Every quarter, as caseload (as defiend by Rollens) grew it was trumpeted as proof that the thiomersal in vaccines caused an increase in autism…..except for the first time I can remember, Rollens has not compiled these stats this quarter. Kirby has not announced them on the Huffington Post blog. Schafer has not mentioned them in the SAR. No dogs bark this quarter. Why? Because thiomersal use is almost gone in vaccines and yet still the autism numbers rise.

Lenny Schafer recently said:

Myself and other autism activists believe there is enough evidence to support a causative relationship between mercury and autism in a court of law, in front of a jury, where standards of evidence are different than that of the narrow focus of scientific findings. And if you can convince a jury, you can convince the public.

He’s, of course, wrong as the recent RhoGAM hearing indicates. The standard of determination for scientific hypothesis’ is still, and always will be, science. I’ll close this first part of this post with a quote from one of my favourite poets – Yeats.

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre_
_The falcon cannot hear the falconer;_
_Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;_
_Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,_
_The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere_
_The ceremony of innocence is drowned;_
_The best lack all conviction, while the worst_
_Are full of passionate intensity._

*~Second Coming.*

I’ve long been fascinated by conspiracy theories. How they grow, how they operate etc. The autism/vaccine hypothesis has mutated into a conspiracy theory now as it fulfils many – if not all – of the sociological and psychological requirements to be deemed as such.

When conspiracy theories combine logical fallacies with lack of evidence, the result is a world view known as conspiracism. Conspiracism is a world view that sees major historic events and trends as the result of secret conspiracies. Academic interest in conspiracy theories and conspiracism has identified a set of familiar structural features by which membership of the genre may be established, and has presented a range of hypotheses on the basis of studying the genre. Among the leading scholars of conspiracism are: Hofstadter, Popper, Barkun, Goldberg, Pipes, Fenster, Mintz, Sagan, Johnson, and Posner, from whom the following list is synthesized.

Wikipedia.

Let’s work through some of ‘diagnostic criteria’ for conspiracies:

  1. Initiated on the basis of limited, partial or circumstantial evidence; – TRUE Began after FDA asked for review of mercury in ’97..
  2. Addresses an event or process that has broad historical or emotional impact. – TRUE ‘Poisoning’ children is a highly emotive subject. Appeals to emotion are constantly made.
  3. Reduces morally complex social phenomena to simple, immoral actions – TRUE Instead of seeing institutions as error-capable they are painted as evil
  4. Personifies complex social phenomena as powerful individual conspirators; – TRUE Continued belief that those ‘in power’ at the CDC/FDA/AAP ‘know’ whats going on
  5. Allots superhuman talents or resources to conspirators;
  6. Key steps in argument rely on inductive, not deductive reasoning;
  7. Appeals to ‘common sense’ – TRUE Lacking science, the fallback position is common sense.
  8. Exhibits well-established logical and methodological fallacies; – TRUE One word – Geier.
  9. Is produced and circulated by ‘outsiders’, often anonymous, and generally lacking peer review – TRUE Not sure about anonymous outsiders but definitely lacks peer review
  10. Is upheld by persons with demonstrably false conceptions of relevant science; – TRUE Geier, Kirbys, Olmsted, Handley, Bernard, Schafer….etc etc etc
  11. Enjoys zero credibility in expert communities; – TRUE
  12. Rebuttals provided by experts are ignored or accommodated through elaborate new twists in the narrative;
  13. The conspiracy is claimed to involve just about anybody; – TRUE FDA/CDC/me/George Bush/Every doctor on the planet
  14. The conspiracy centers on the “usual suspects”; – TRUE Big organisations. CDC etc.

So we can see that the autism/thiomersal/vaccine hypothesis more than qualifies as a conspiracy theory. The believers also fit the descriptions perfectly. Many autism/vaccines believers also believe in other related conspiracy theories. As an example, Kathleen recently posted another in her ongoing fascinating series of posts on the Geier’s where they were interviewed on radio. The host said:

Why are these things going on? Well, if you’d like to know why they’re going on, you need to get my talk on planned population reduction… And ladies and gentlemen, I hate to say this, but there really are people who want to hurt children… And if you doubt that, you need to get my book, Brotherhood of Darkness… Our government is poisoning us.

There really are people like Judy (sic) Gerberding and others at the CDC, who know exactly what they are doing, and they are evil. I’ve been to the CDC, I’ve met many of these people when I was back there, and of course, not the same people, I’m sure those people have gone on and probably been richly rewarded working for the drug companies or working elsewhere now, very prosperous after doing all the harm… We’re up against organized evil. We’re in a battle for the souls of men, and the survival of Christian civilization.

This is a vocalisation of the ‘human farming’ conspiracy theory. The host believes that:

some of our leaders have dedicated their lives to destroying our nation (US)

<source .

I have also heard conspiracy theories that state that (somehow) the 11/9 WTC attacks are (somehow) part of the autism/vaccine theory and that autism is a ‘disease’ constructed with the sole purpose of selling more pills.

Evidence of Harm also has a new member – John Scudamore of whale.to who’s site is a haven for conspiracy theories such as The Illuminati, Depopulation control, Big Brother, Black Ops. Charmingly, John has an entire section devoted to rubbishing medical charities:

the purpose of cancer research is not to find a cure for cancer but to perpetuate the cancer industry consisting mostly of research and chemotherapy

Another supporter of the theory (and in particular Generation Rescue) is David Icke who once declared himself as the Son of God and who believes that we are controlled by all powerful lizards.

It’s almost a necessity that the thiomersal/autism hypothesis becomes a conspiracy theory – it ensures its life beyond the point when the rest of the world has moved on (and we are very close to that point now) and gives people a reason to explain what they perceive as the bad in their life. Maybe these people are more to be pitied than argued with but their conspiracy theories affect my kids life directly. They still need challenging lest they sink into the same murky excuses for genocide that the recent re-painting of the holocaust as an event that never occurred occurs here too.

Bad Week For Thiomersal/Autism Hypothesis

15 Jul

It’s really not been such a good week or so to believe the thiomersal/autism hypothesis.

Firstly, there was the latest Canadian study that concluded:

The prevalence of pervasive developmental disorder in Montreal was high, increasing in recent birth cohorts as found in most countries. Factors accounting for the increase include a broadening of diagnostic concepts and criteria, increased awareness and, therefore, better identification of children with pervasive developmental disorders in communities and epidemiologic surveys, and improved access to services. The findings ruled out an association between pervasive developmental disorder
and either high levels of ethylmercury exposure comparable with those experienced in the United States in the 1990s or 1- or 2-dose measles-mumps-rubella vaccinations.

Next up was the legal and scientific smackdown which examined the scientific credentials of both the body of evidence amassed thus far in support of the thiomersal/autism connection _and_ two of its leading expert – Boyd Haley and Mark Geier:

The court…finds that Dr. Haley’s report does not state an expert opinion that thimerosal causes autism, rather just that he has a theory about how such a thing could happen. At best, he expressed “strong belief” that the cause of “neurodevelopmental disorders in infants” is exposure to an organic-mercury compound such as thimerosal……the disconnected literature he presents does not add up to the opinion and conclusion that Dr. Geier is offering. Accordingly, the Court finds that Dr. Geier’s literature review, in this instance, does not meet the Daubert standard of being both derived by the scientific method and relevant to the “task at hand…..the Court notes that Dr. Geier is not a pediatrician or a pediatric neurologist. In fact, testimony was presented to the Court that Dr. Geier was not even successful in sitting for his Medical Board examination in the specific field of pediatric genetics….the Court finds that Dr. Geier was not specifically qualified to perform a differential diagnosis of a pediatric neurological disorder, and, that he did not properly perform the differential diagnosis

Thirdly, despite a long drawn out letter writing campaign featuring other named expert witness Richard Deth, Hawaii decided to veto a bill banning thimerosal containing vaccines because:

This bill is objectionable because it restricts the use of FDA-approved vaccines for no scientifically sound reason…….This bill ignores the body of current scientific evidence on thimerosal-containing vaccines.

Bad enough, but just to really kick the thiomersal/autism hypothesis in the teeth, CDDS released their quarterly autism figures. Joseph looked at the figures and sure enough – they’re still rising. Let’s recall that David Kirby has said that:

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

Guess what? We’re two quarters away from 2007. The total number of 3 – 5 year olds in the CDDS has _not_ declined.

3 – 5 cohort caseload over the last 16 quarters as compiled by Dad of Cameron.

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