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Ayoub/Yazbak/Fombonne

8 Mar

_Jonathon has posted an excellent summation which I entirely agree with on the Ayoub/Yazbak/Fombonne ‘affair’. I’ll include it here and shut off comments, including a link to Jonathon’s post for you to see references and leave comments._

_My one comment is to say that I think that Fombonne has a case to answer. I also hope that he will. I further think that the critical errors Jonathon highlights show clearly that the more outlandish claims that Ayoub and Yazbak have demonstrated correlation between MMR and autism are unfounded. They should’ve just stuck to the genuine and good quality criticism of Fombonne._

_The floor is now Jonathon’s: _

A Review of the Critiques of Fombonne et al. (2006)
Abstract

The critiques of Fombonne et al. (2006) do point some relevant problems with that study. However, they also use some considerably problematic arguments themselves.

Introduction

Fombonne et al (2006) attempts to correlate data between an increase in the number of cases of the Pervasive Developmental Disorders and vaccine use in school children residing in Montreal, Canada. That research failed to reveal any such correlation. In addition the researchers found a prevalence rate of the PDD’s which match what is seen in the US (Bertrand et al., 2001), the UK (Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2001; and Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2005), the Faroe Islands in Northern Europe (Ellefsen et al., 2006), and matches data on Autistic Disorder in Japan (Honda et al., 2005)

Recently, two web based articles have been released and promoted based out of the National Autistic Association website. These articles were written by Dr. David Ayoub & Monica Ruscitti for one letter and Dr. Edward Yazbak for the other. These authors raise important and damaging points which call into question the validity of Fombonne et al. (2006). I note however, that not all the points raised in these critiques have equal merit; in fact some of the points raised are most notable for their lack of merit. The points raised in the critiques are discussed below.

Review of Ayoub & Ruscitti

The authors point out that Fombonne et al. (2006) only uses data from only one of Montreal’s five school districts. This district is specifically an English speaking section. The authors accurately point out that a selection bias may have occurred here. In addition the authors note that Fombonne et al. (2006) claimed they could not gain access to the other school districts’ data. The authors then claimed they gained access to this data and make specific claims about a notably higher rate of autism in the school district Fombonne et al. used. I note that these data and analysis methods are absent.

The authors note that English is only the third most common language in Quebec, the largest group being French and the second largest being assorted foreign languages. The authors note that access is restricted to the English speaking school district by a law designed to help protect the French language. However, the authors simultaneously make the claim that this English speaking school is more inclusive than the others. This claim seems contradictory. It is possible that while the English speaking district is more exclusive in general it is in fact more inclusive towards students with disabilities. However this point is not explained.

The authors correctly criticize Fombone et al. (2006) for describing thimerosal laden shots as “nil”. The authors go on to describe vaccines in Canada that continue to use thimerosal. However, the authors fail to note that none of these vaccines are actually required any longer and for that reason exposure should not be comparable.

The authors mention that fourth graders largely participated in a voluntary vaccination program for Hepatitis B, which contains thimerosal. However, the DSM-IV mandates that Autistic Disorder first appear in a child by age 3, even if it is diagnosed later. Fourth graders do not develop autism. Also, and rather remarkably the authors cite Roy et al. (1999) which is concerned with the health and safety including vaccination based on high risk behaviors of street youth in Montreal. The median age of that study was 19.5.

The authors criticize Fombonne in the following terms:

“he ignored the fact that autism rates increased following a doubling of the MMR exposure after 1996 when a second MMR shot was added to the immunization schedule and chose to emphasize that a rise in PDD rates coincided with a decline in MMR coverage rates. Obviously the increased amount of administered viral load to the population was far greater influenced by a doubling of shots administered than by a marginal drop in immunization coverage rates. He likewise ignored the potential impact of mass measles immunization campaigns in Quebec that delivered a second dose of measles to a large number of infants and children throughout 1996. (11) The subsequent rise in PDD shortly after that campaign is clearly depicted in their figures and would lead us to believe this observation supports an association between PDD and MMR exposure.”

The above assumes that the drop in thimerosal was not only made up, but actually exceeded by the increase in MMR dosage. For this explanation to work, one must simultaneously assume that both thimerosal and the MMR can cause autism. A more parsimonious explanation would be that the rate of autism would have risen regardless, which is certainly what we see in other locations including the no longer mandatory thimerosal exposure in California.

The authors also state:

“Numerous reports of higher PDD rates among immigrants have been reported in Canada and other industrialized countries.”

This claim is demonstrated no where in any research. It even seems to contradict some actual research (Kamer et al., 2004).

The authors go on to assert:

“Finally the paper’s observation about rising PDD rates seems to contradict Dr. Fombonne’s well-known contention of the lack of evidence of an autism epidemic. In an Inserm interview, Dr. Fombonne said, “to declare an epidemic, or sensible increase of the prevalence, it would take incidence studies, always the same, year after year, but this data is not available in any country.” (12) The database we obtained from the MEQ represents the type of dataset Fombonne stated was required to detect true increases in PDD. According to one Montreal-based autism organization, data from the MEQ revealed an increase in annual PDD cases in Quebec from 410 (1990-1991) to 4,483 (2005-2006), a nearly 1,000% increase over 15 years. (13) This is staggering and is strong evidence of a real rise in neurodevelopmental illnesses that cannot possibly be solely genetic in nature but supports an environmental etiology.”

The above statement is presents a false problem. An increase in this data set may not be attributable to real change in the actual number of cases. The system could be open to a lack of control for the six threats to statistical validity. This is a well known problem in other administrative data sets in the world of autism.

Review of Yazbak

The author submitted an letter to the editor detailing concerns about uptake of the MMR rate in Montreal and the increase in the PDDs. The editor forwarded this comment from Dr. Fombonne:

“This person is known to pursue the MMR-autism agenda at all
costs in order to ‘demonstrate’ a link he strongly believes in. The only way ahead is to encourage him to do independent research. All controlled epidemiological research thus far has concluded to the absence of such a link.”

the editor of the journal had this to say:

“As a note, I believe the evidence of no link between MMR and Autism is sufficient. It’s not worth publishing more on this subject. We will not be publishing this exchange of correspondence.”

I disagree with Dr. Fombonne’s approach to this situation. It is not relevant that Dr. Yazbak believes in a vaccine etiology of autism. I also disagree with his failing to address Dr. Yazabak’s criticisms which are specific and serious.

I also heartily disagree with the editor’s refusal to publish Dr. Yazbak’ criticism. While it is certainly his job to ensure that all matters within the journal merit inclusion under a serious scientific aegis, Dr. Yazbak’s criticisms are specific and fall into known categories of scientific criticism. Whether or not he believes it has no beating on his responsibility to publish scientific criticism.

However, given the title Dr. Yazbak selected “Far-Fetched”, perhaps the editor had ground to refuse this letter or at least demand that it be re-titled. Pediatrics is a serious academic journal of high standard. In most such journals while a given level of sarcasm and dismissiveness is permitted, this seems to have crossed the line of acceptability.

Dr. Yazbak goes on to assert:

“When he was in France, Dr. Fombonne was a well known psychiatrist who published articles on psychiatric topics. He was still a psychiatrist when he moved to England …until Andrew Wakefield suggested that the link between MMR vaccination and autism should be further investigated and suddenly …Dr. Fombonne became a “psychiatrist / epidemiologist” and a consultant to the UK medical authorities on MMR vaccination and autism”

The Wakefield controversy began in 1998. So:

Fombonne, E. (1996). Is the prevalence of autism increasing? Journal
of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 6, 673–676.

Fombonne, E. (1997). The prevalence of autism and other pervasive
developmental disorders in the UK. Autism, 1, 227–229.

QED.

The author further asserts that:

“It is obviously customary to disclose sources of funding, Disclosing sources of “Non-Funding” on the other hand is unusual. In any case, it is nice to know that Dr. Fombonne’s research was never funded by the “Industry”.”

This is easily explainable in that Dr. Fombonne’s work has been informally criticized as being supported by the pharmaceutical industry, possibly with the intent that he would manipulate the data in favor of finding no association. This statement may have been given to help put such non-sense to rest.

Conclusion

It is important to remember that the weak criticisms in the critiques above do not remove the genuine and quality criticisms. The authors do point some genuine problems. The failure of both editor and Dr. Fombonne to make adequate response is also disagreeable.

By the same token some of the criticisms are remarkable for their lack of relevancy or factual basis. There are problems with these critiques that have a real potential to mislead others. It is to be hoped that the NAA and the authors will take steps to amend this, leaving their better criticisms intact.

See references and leave comments on Jonathon’s site.

Airbrushing science from causation

4 Mar

Another update from the Autism Omnibus proceedings. This one I find worrying. It essentially presents two things for the courts consideration from petitioners (those who think vaccines cause autism):

1) That the scope of the hearings does _”not”_ :

…limit the scope of these proceedings to only those cases with a formal diagnosis of autism

2) That ‘Daubert’ is not utilised as the evidentiary standard.

The first one I find very worrying indeed. This essentially opens up a never ending series of possible cases surely? It also raises the ugly question of the honesty of the people raising this legal case. These are parents who hitherto have described their children as those who have been made autistic by vaccines (either just thiomersal or just MMR or a combo of both). Now, apparently, it is enough that:

…the injuries at issue here include neurodevelopmental disorders _similar_ to autism…

I have to wonder: just how many of these 4,700+ children have actually been diagnosed as being autistic? And how many are children being made to act as Trojan horses for a possible cash windfall for their parents? A disturbing, uncharitable thought to be sure but I don’t know what else to make of this.

Even more worrying is the petitioners attempts to make sure Daubert is not used as the means of determining evidentiary standard.

Lets remind ourselves of what Daubert is. Daubert is a legal precedent which:

[is] raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. This is a special case of motion in limine, usually used to exclude the testimony of an expert witness who has no such expertise or used questionable methods to obtain the information.

In plan terms it means that crap evidence cannot be presented to a court. I’m going to quote from Wikipedia directly:

In Daubert, the Supreme Court ordered federal trial judges to become the “gatekeepers” of scientific evidence. Trial judges now must evaluate proffered expert witnesses to determine whether their testimony is both “relevant” and “reliable”; a two-pronged test of admissibility.

a) The relevancy prong: The relevancy of a testimony refers to whether or not the expert’s evidence “fit” the facts of the case. For example, you may invite an astronomer to tell the jury if it was a full moon on the night of a crime. However, the astronomer would not be allowed to testify if the fact that the moon was full was not relevant to the issue at hand in the trial.

b) The reliability prong: The Supreme Court explained that in order for expert testimony to be considered reliable, the expert must have derived his or her conclusions from the scientific method. The Court offered “general observations” of whether proffered evidence was based on the scientific method, although the list was not intended to be used as an exacting checklist:
– Empirical testing: the theory or technique must be falsifiable, refutable, and testable.
– Subjected to peer review and publication.
– Known or potential error rate.
– Whether there are standards controlling the technique’s operations.
– Whether the theory and technique is generally accepted by a relevant scientific community.

What this boils down to is this – Daubert ensures that science presented as evidence is _good science_ . The petitioners are fighting hard to try and make sure Daubert does not become the way the omnibus case is judged:

…the notion that Daubert should provide the substantive criteria for resolving general causation issues in the omnibus proceeding ought to be explicitly dismissed.

Why? Well they _say_ its because Daubert is procedural, not practical, that Daubert interprets _Federal_ rules of evidence that do not apply in the Omnibus and that it is based on development of expert evidence through revealing documents which is not available in these proceedings.

Uh-huh, and of course the fact that Daubert demands a _scientific_ level of proof has nothing to do with things. Right.

Hilariously, what the petitioners want is to establish general causation in a Daubert-less series of hearings using a few ‘case studies’ hand picked from the 4,700 and then use _these_ as the body of general causation evidence to go on and establish specific causation in each single member of the 4,700. Stop and think about how poor the state of their science must be if they are arguing tooth and nail to do this.

Let’s not forget that three high echelon members of the mercury militia have all fallen foul of Daubert within the last year when trying to establish quack causes for autism: Martha Herbert, Boyd Haley and Mark Geier all came to realise that quackery and bad science is quickly exposed by such a hearing. And now – all of a sudden – the petitioners don’t want any truck with Daubert. Shocking.

Make no mistake – if they get their way, _which they may very well do_ – then a) these kids don’t have to be autistic and b) no science needs to be presented to establish general causation.

The closest recent bout of idiocy I can think to compare to this was when certain Southern US states stated that creationism was a viable science to be taught in a science class alongside actual science. They went on to win a a legal case as well if I recall. Don’t think that this one can’t be won by bad science too.

Guest blogger on VAERS, gastric issues and autism

13 Jan

Manipulating VAERS - guest blogger Dr Nick Riviera

Hi Everybody!

OK, now I wanna talk to you about how good VAERS is for showing stuff. Now I know there are some so called ‘Doctors’ who _didn’t_ get their qualifications via mailorder (yeah, right! As if that were even possible) who think VAERS ain’t so good:

…the VAERS database is designed only as an early warning system for reporting adverse events thought to be due to vaccines. It is not designed to track the incidence or prevalence of vaccine complications.

…the database has been corrupted by litigation, with a dramatic increase of entries linked to litigation claiming that thimerosal caused the plaintiff’s child’s autism.

Hey! So what right? As I once said to a patient of mine: _”Now by the morning you’ll be good as new. Or dead. The important thing is, we’ll know.”_

So, these two guys once showed how VAERS can be made to say whatever you want and as part of my duty as a doctor I want you to know how you can do it too! Hey, maybe I should charge for this – I once gave a guy a triple bypass and let me tell you, the most rewarding part was when he gave me my money.

So, some people say that the MMR vaccine gave their kids measles in their tummies (sorry for the medical jargon friends!) and that it makes them poop or get bunged up (more medical jargon friends – sorry! I have to use it though. Medicine is nasty. A friend gave me a copy of Gray’s Anatomy…that’s how we look like inside? It’s disgusting! Whoa! It had a picture of a lady who’d swallowed a baby!).

Now these same people gave some Doctors lots of money to try and prove a link between vaccines and autism and they used VAERS like a couple of diva’s!

So here’s my take on using VAERS and how you can use it yourself to prove anything you want! Really! But remember, if something should go wrong, let’s not get the law involved.

If you go to this page on the intrawebnet you can get all the numbers you need to get what we doctors like to call ‘numbers’. These ‘numbers’ are like who did what and told VAERS about it.

Anyway, I got this guy to download them for me and I asked him to import them into MS Access so I could analyse the numbers – just like this dad and his little boy did – anyway, after he finished laughing, he explained to me that using MS Access to analyse data is like trying to paint the Forth Road Bridge with a toothbrush so he did this computery thing he called ‘merging the tables’ and then imported them into what he called ‘an _actual_ relational database – MySQL.

I gotta be honest friends, I don’t know what the hell he was talking about but he told me he’d handwritten _’all the Queries in the command line interface’_ so – cool. I guess. Whatever.

Anyway – here’s my first graph for you. Using VAERS data we can show that out of a total (up to Nov 2006) of 202,011 submissions to VAERS, 1003 mentioned the word ‘autism’ as a symptom.

Out of our sub-group (I’ll go easy on the medical terminology friends, Dr Nick promises!) of 1003 identified as reporting autism as a symptom, a total of 84 used the word ‘Diarrhea’ as a symptom and a total of 5 used the word ‘constipation’. Have a look at the graph I drew (OK, OK, did in Excel):

Pie chart of previously discussed numbers Now that means that, just like my good friends the Geier’s, I have _used VAERS to prove something _ – that 92% of people who have autism have no gastric issues at all! Now, where’s my money?

What? More? Oh OK – Dr. Nick loves you all!

We could also _prove_ that 53% (486 vs 428) of people reporting autism didn’t have the MMR jab. I guess that means nearly half of people who think MMR caused their kids autism are full of pooh-pooh (its a family show kids).

Pie chart of previously discussed numbers

And if we delve even deeper we could _prove_ that 89% of people who are autistic and who have had an MMR jab have no gastric issues at all – look at this doozy of a graph!

Pie chart of previously discussed numbers

How cools is _that_?

The computery guy wanted me to tell you that ‘%gastro%’ is like a wildcard search where the percent signs could be anything before or after the phrase ‘gastro’. Whatever, right?

Dr Nick Riviera

Just remember these things next time someone tells you VAERS is a good source of data. Its _so_ not, but in the right hands, it can make you a pot of money friends! And remember….you need help? Call 1-600-DOCTORB! The “B” is for BARGAIN!”

Bye Everybody!

Andrew Wakefield backs down

4 Jan

A quick catch-up: After Andrew Wakefield did his MMR thing, journalist Brian Deer published a report in the Times that highlighted Wakefield’s dodgy involvement in the whole scandal.

When 13 doctors from London’s Royal Free hospital, including Andrew Wakefield, announced the research in the Lancet at a heavily-promoted press conference in February 1998, it triggered a slump in immunizations and a rise in outbreaks of infectious diseases. But the key finding was a sham: laundering anonymized allegations against MMR by claimants in a multibillion lawsuit against the vaccine’s makers – which Wakefield, behind the scenes, was backing

Brian uncovered a shocking amount of misconduct from Wakefield, so much so that Channel 4 television’s ‘Dispatches’ investigative program launched a special that showed that amongst other things, Wakefield had applied for a rival patent to MMR.

Please visit his site for all the truly shocking shenanigans.

Wakefield’s response was to launch libel suits against Brian Deer, Channel 4 and The Times during which time he was steadfast, as his wife describes:

‘Whatever his enemies may hope, he’s not going away,’ she vows.

In November 2005, it became apparent that Wakefield was beginning to ‘go away’. He had applied for a stay of one action (a pause in proceedings) and, as I blogged at the time, was trying to use this stay as a cudgel to beat down people reporting on the Times/Channel4/Deer investigation – this was sent to the Cambridge Evening News by Wakefield’s legal team:

You should be aware that proceedings in defamation have already been commenced against The Sunday Times in respect of the article published by Mr Brian Deer on 22nd February 2004. Your article has gone even further than the allegation in The Sunday Times which are currently being litigated and allege impropriety on the part of Mr Wakefield to receive money from lawyers to achieve a predetermined outcome…

However, the actual story was that Wakefield had also applied for a stay in these proceedings too. Justice Eady who was presiding over the decision to stay proceeding said this of the attempt to browbeat the Cambridge Evening News:

In my view that paragraph was misleading. Mr Browne (Wakefield’s QC) argues that, even if the circumstances had been set out more fully and accurately, it would have made no difference to the outcome. The editor would still have acknowledged that he had got his facts wrong. That may be, but the important point at the moment is that the editor was given a misleading impression. Because of the stay, to which I have referred, the allegations in The Sunday Times were certainly not “currently being litigated”. They were stayed pending the outcome of serious allegations of professional misconduct against the Claimant, to which no reference was made. It thus appears that the Claimant wishes to use the existence of the libel proceedings for public relations purposes, and to deter other critics, while at the same time isolating himself from the “downside” of such litigation, in having to answer a substantial defence of justification.

Justice Eady declined Wakefields request to stay further proceedings:

I have come to the conclusion, bearing all these considerations in mind, that the interests of the administration of justice require that the Channel 4 proceedings should not be stayed pending the outcome of the GMC proceedings. I appreciate that there will be an increased workload for the Claimant’s advisers, but I do not have any reason to suppose that the firm is incapable of absorbing that extra burden. It is, after all, their client who chose to issue these proceedings and to use them, as I have described above, as a weapon in his attempts to close down discussion and debate over an important public issue

Quite.

Of course, the poor old Cambridge Evening News, being a small local newspaper had already issued a retraction. Brave Mr Wakefield read the retraction out to wild applause at the 2005 Power of Truth rally.

However, its not been the best start to 2007 for Andrew Wakefield. On 31st December 2006, Brian published an article in the Times that demonstrated that Andrew Wakefield had been paid approaching half a million pounds to conduct his MMR investigation for lawyers. This runs contrary to the bottomless claim by Wakefield’s apologists who told the BBC he hadn’t.

And now it seems like its going to be an ‘annus horribilis‘ for Wakefield – the man who once claimed that there would be an established proven link between MMR and autism in 2002 – as Brian has now received news that, contrary to the claims of his wife, Wakefield has indeed, ‘run away’.

Following Brian Deer’s Dispatches investigation of November 2004, reporting facts about Andrew Wakefield and his campaign against the MMR vaccine, which a judge described as “of considerable public interest and concern” that “went to the heart” of the British former surgeon’s “honesty and professional integrity”, Wakefield initiated libel proceedings. Two years later, after the disclosure of a mass of documents, including medical records, he dropped his claim, and agreed to pay the defendants’ costs

Amazing how a sudden disclosure of documents can prompt such a turn around isn’t it? I wonder what his supporters will find as an excuse for this hasty change of mind?

Follow the money

31 Dec

Regularly whenever I read about some nefarious plot by Big Pharma to use vaccines to take over the world/cause autism/incite riots/insert crap of your choice here, the writer exhorts the reader to ‘follow the money’ as a phrase to indicate that the evil, money grubbers at Big Pharma can have their actions rationalised by seeing how much they might gain from the particular conspiracy theory under discussion. Of course, very rarely can these writers actually name an individual at Big Pharma or an alleged ‘payout’ they are getting.

Luckily, Times reporter Brian Deer is an _actual_ reporter – i.e. one who investigates his findings and sources his facts. Today he published the findings of his latest investigation into Andrew Wakefield and the associated people that support his vaccine/autism/legal financial business.

Brian has basically found that UK tax payer funded legal aid to the sum of _£3.4m_ was spent (wasted might be a better word) on payments to doctors and scientists who had been recruited to support a now failed lawsuit against vaccine manufacturers. This information wasn’t submitted voluntarily, Brian had to submit a Freedom of Information request in order to unearth the figures. There are some notable names on the list:

Andrew Wakefield: £439,553. Quite profitable to start vaccine litigation isn’t it? Seems that you can fleece the British tax payer to the tune of nearly half a million quid. Follow the money indeed.

But is good old Wakers alone? Oh no, this money making machine had a few members, some familiar names to this blog:

Dr Ken Aitken, Scottish DAN! Doctor: £232,022. After resigning under a cloud from his role at Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, Aitken gladly signed up for this gravy train which seems to have netted him nearly a quarter of a million quid of tax payers money. In 2004, Aitken was severely reprimanded by the British Psychological Society concerning his handling of an autistic child’s case. The society’s conduct committee said that he “allowed his professional responsibilities or standards of practice to be diminished by considerations of extraneous factors”.

Peter Fletcher: £39,960. I wrote a blog entry about Peter Fletcher’s anti-MMR strawmen awhile ago. Here’s a quote from him:

There are very powerful people in positions of great authority in Britain and elsewhere who have staked their reputations and careers on the safety of MMR and they are willing to do almost anything to protect themselves.

You can say that again.

And on it goes:

Arthur Krigsman, Business partner of Andrew Wakefield: £16,986. His unpublished ‘papers’ have been cited numerous times by Wakefield and supporters as evidence Wakefield was right, conveniently forgetting they were a) unpublished and b) written for his boss. According to Brian (see link in Aitken paragraph), in December 2004, he left Lennox Hill hospital, New York,after a lawsuit, which was followed by an ethics inquiry. In August 2005, he was fined $5,000 by the Texas Medical Board for misconduct. Gotta try and recoup some of that money somewhere eh?

Jeff Bradstreet: £21,600. Bradstreet – who recommends exorcism for autism – snapped up Wakefield as Director of his business after Wakefield was booted out of the Royal Free.

Mark Geier: £7,052. We could write a whole book on the Geier’s and their dubious practices. Luckily, Kathleen has documented most of them already. Suffice it to say, Geier shouldn’t be offering legal expert advice to anyone.

See some more notables on Brian’s personal site.

Brian’s report in the Times also states:

…among those named as being paid from the legal aid fund was a referee for one of Wakefield’s papers, who was allowed £40,000…

Which is an interesting position as Wakefield is on record as stating:

You cannot referee your own soccer matches. It’s like asking the Italians to — an Italian referee to take over the game of Italy between South Korea. It doesn’t work. Can’t do it. You have to separate those agencies that endorse and mandate vaccines and those who monitor safety. One needs to be on the back of the other all the time in order to check on safety.

Quite. That same principle also works against you Mr Wakefield. Back-handers to referee’s of your papers makes you an Italian throwing a bung to an Italian referee. Follow the money.

Also according to the LSC (who oversee administration of Legal Aid) A private GP who runs a single vaccines clinic received £6,000. Follow the money.

What the hell are the LSC playing at? They have a £2billion per year budget in order to provide legal services to people who can’t afford to retain a lawyer. Once that money is spent, its spent. Apparently, they’ve already:

acknowledged that the attempt to make a case against MMR with taxpayers’ money was “not effective or appropriate”.

Understatement of they year!

One of the legal aid recipients, John March has broken ranks to speak out against what has happened:

“There was a huge conflict of interest,” said Dr John March, an animal vaccine specialist who was among those recruited. “It bothered me quite a lot because I thought, well, if I’m getting paid for doing this, then surely it’s in my interest to keep it going as long as possible.”

I doubt March was alone in his thinking.

Wakefield has circulated a pitiful defence of his antics stating that these monies were received over a period of nine years and that after tax and ‘out of pocket expenses’ which he failed to detail or summarise he donated the money to charity. What a saint. The point, of course, is entirely missed. It doesn’t matter what you did with it Mr Wakefield, the point is that you got it. I hear tell some religious heroin dealers in Columbia donate some of their profit to churches. Big deal – they’re still crooks.

According to Brian’s report, at least one MP is calling for a an inquiry into how exactly this could’ve come about and a Lib Dem MP is quoted as saying:

“These figures are astonishing,” said Dr Evan Harris, Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon. “This lawsuit was an industry, and an industry peddling what turned out to be a myth.”

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

More reading

Diva, Mike, Orac and Anthony.

Just Sayin’ Part IV

18 Nov

Too far – attacks on autistic people

30 Oct

The level of debate continues to sink from the mercury militia. In various places over the web this past week or so, parents who believe vaccines caused their kids autism sunk about as low as you can get. They attacked autistic people – the same ‘sort’ of person their child is. And why? Because they don’t agree with what either they are saying or their parents or saying.

AutismWeb Forums

Over on Autism Web forums, Amanda was vitriolically attacked by two of the less stable members – sashasmom and respect (hilariously ironic username). She was attacked because she essentially suggested that death-threatening angry responses utilised by parents are not a good way to progress. This prompted sashasmom to question her autism and deride her sexuality to the point where the moderator edited part of sashasmom’s post.

It led ‘respect’ to label her input as ‘drivel’.

The hysteria on display here is incredible. If someone says something you disagree with its entirely possible to disagree with the idea and remain respectful. The notion that these two posters (both not autistic) know more about the experience of autism than Amanda as they have implied throughout her tenure on AutismWeb forums is both pathetic and laughable. Their voices are simply echo’s of ex-AutismWeb member Srinath, who called another autistic member a retard.

I personally find it deeply worrying that these people consider themselves part of any autism community.

But of course, however low one person can stoop, we all know another man from New Hampshire who can stoop lower.

John Best at AWARES

John has developed what seems to be an unhealthy interest in my daughter. I find it incredibly disturbing. More so than I can possibly convey in writing. I don’t give a stuff if he or his crowd insult me personally, I’m a big boy – but time after time he has seen fit to abuse my daughter. Who can forget his charming comparison of my daughter to a trained monkey:

My wife bought too many bananas so I’ll send some for your daughter

which came about as a result of me detailing her progress (the crime being of course that she’s progressing without chelation/ALA/megadose vitamins or HBOT).

Well now he’s stooped even lower. This years AWARES conference is well under way. John has apparently changed his stance from last year where he stated that AWARES was a made up conference solely to trap him (John has a little problem with ego and reality) and decided to attend again this year.

This time though he joined up with the username ‘Megan Leitch’ and made numerous posts abusing autistic members of the conference and pushing chelation as the only cure. When I was made aware of this, I contacted the conference administrator and after satisfying himself that what I was saying was true, he deleted all posts from that user and deleted the account.

What sort of utter coward _assumes the identity_ of a six year old autistic girl? I am in two minds at whether to follow up on this legally. I’m not sure what constitutes identity theft in a legal sense but I intend to find out. But of course this goes far beyond identify theft. To anyone with an ounce of morality, posting in the name of a child to further your own agenda is so tasteless that I don’t think there are adjectives to describe this particular act. Assuming the identity of an autistic child because you don’t like the child’s father or what he has to say is…..disturbing….

John has demonstrated moral ambivalence of many occasions, including telephone threats to women:

Lisa; Should I have Tim call you again to teach you some basics about autism that you’re incapable of understanding?

And a general dislike of women, whom he considers less intelligent than men:

Women will never be more intelligent than men although they may be smarter than men who won’t stand up for themselves.

Although it seems his wife came close to acting intelligently until John brow-beat her into submission:

I also have a wife who took two years of prodding before I could begin chelation. I finally started in May. We were also close to divorce…

And John’s approach to parenting his kids, seems to reflect his moral ambivalence to other children:

50mg 0f seroquel has worked for my son since age 5. It takes a while to knock him out but he is always tough to wake up after 8 or 9 hours of sleep. We use benadryl or waldryl(half the cost) once in a while to help knock him out sooner. We have now had two years of sleeping every night after three years of virtually no sleep. Good Luck

Seroquel is an antipsychotic neurole[ptic similar to Risperdal that:

..is indicated for the treatment of acute manic episodes associated with bipolar I disorder and the treatment of schizophrenia.

On Josephs blog post I linked to above, John got into a protracted debate with Jannalou who takes medication for ADD and told her that the medication was causing suicidal thoughts and constipation. Apparently, John has never read the fact sheet on Seroquel which states that it can cause suicidal feelings and constipation. It further states:

The safety and effectiveness of SEROQUEL in pediatric patients have not been established.

No matter how I feel about John, I would _never, ever_ stoop to assuming the identity of his son or making comparisons between his children and animals.

I see John is trying to ‘recruit’ Maria Lujan on her new blog – this is the same person of whom he once said:

I don’t believe Maria Lujan is real, nor do I beleive Not Mercury is real. I think they are just identities that your side conjured up

(Source above).

Thankfully, Maria is far too intelligent to be taken in by a low brow thug like John Best. John however, is not intelligent enough to remember the fact that he abused someone before trying to wheedle his way into their life.

There is something very, very wrong with a person who would assume the identity of a six year old girl. I can’t imagine anyone other than John’s most recent crop of neophytes thinking otherwise. In fact, I don’t event think all of them would like it.

John likes to call people who don’t chelate child abusers. I wouldn’t call John a child abuser but I’ll leave you to formulate your own descriptions of a man who feels no qualms at abusing the identities of children.

TV might cause autism?

24 Oct

The blogosphere and certain Yahoo groups are _outraged_ by the idea that a study from Cornell University alleges that TV might have a role to play in autism.

The idea is pretty stupid. Basically, the Cornell guys are saying that because there’s autism in places where there’s lots of rainfall and because when its raining kids watch TV that autism has a link to TV. In fact, that piece of thinking goes beyond ‘pretty stupid’ and inhabits the landscape of ‘hilariously inept’. To give them their due they stop short of claiming a causative connection but they claim its a major piece of the puzzle.

We are not saying we have found the cause of autism, we’re saying we have found a critical piece of evidence

Guys – you _so_ haven’t.

Anyway, the merits of this study aren’t the focus of this post (hilarious as the study is, I couldn’t do better than Joseph’s takedown ). What’s interested me over the last few days are the outraged splutterings coming from a certain section of the autism community.

As they have dumbed down this society over the past generation and people took the history of science courses as opposed to pharmacology/pharmacology, all sorts of insane theories and mischief can emanate from a population of social/mental dingbats whose primary source of production is television shows as opposed to hard goods.

H Coleman, Evidence of Harm Yahoo Group.

First and foremost this is a perfect example of what happens when economists that know nothing of a medical condition try to find some statistical relationship between their beloved data and a condition.

The authors of this study made no effort to explain how TV watching could trigger chronic intestinal inflammation, toxic levels of heavy metals, inability to sleep, hard and bloated abdomens, food allergies or intolerances, and much more.

Kendra Pettengill, EoH Yahoo regular

I could go on but I think you get the idea. In a nutshell, the mercury militia are _not happy_ that TV has been linked to autism. Most of them are not happy because the study is totally ridiculous. On that I agree with them. Some of them are unhappy because they think its a study trying to put the blame back on parents in a bettlehiem-esqe manner. I think thats an overreaction but I can see what they’re saying.

However, a lot are unhappy because it refuses to recognise mercury as being ‘in the mix’. Thats as hilarious, predictable and sad as the study in question.

But I’m _still_ not making my point. My point is this. OK, this TV study is junk but here’s a question for you my mercury obsessed cherubs – what scientific merit does your vaccine/thiomersal/MMR theory have that elevates it above this TV study? I’m going to go right ahead and assert that the vaccine theory has no more causative evidence behind it than this joke of a study.

Both hypothesis have, at their core, an implausible correlation with a couple of self-congratulatory scientists dabbling with numbers that they want to twist to fit their theories. And that’s it. _No_ clinical evidence, no decent epidemiological evidence and a mainstream science community sniggering openly. What this TV theory needs is a bunch of credulous people to form pretentious sounding groups – SAFE TVINDS maybe or Notelly.org, then they can part-fund some crappy science to support the original crappy science, write books, organise marches on Hollywood instead of the CDC, get harvested by a whole new crop of quacks etc etc.

In all seriousness: mercury boys and girls – how you see the TV theory (a mixture of borderline tolerable amusement and offence to science) is exactly how the rest of the world see’s you.

MMR and statistics and science

16 Oct

Measles Mumps Rubella Timeline

Now that we have a couple of clinical papers refuting the findings of Wakefield, Krigsman, O’Leary et al – and not only refuting them but even showing exactly how they screwed up – I thought a retrospective look at the data concerning the fall in uptake of the MMR vaccine corresponds to the latest data on prevalence for autism in the UK and what it might mean for the MMR theory.

This table shows vaccination uptake rates across England. I’m going to highlight the years 97/98 – 04/05. An eight year period that starts when the original Wakefield paper was released and ends with the latest set of known data from last year. I’ll also be ignoring everything except MMR data.

Year Uptake percentage
2nd birthday in 1997/98 91%
2nd birthday in 1998/99 88%
2nd birthday in 1999/00 88%
2nd birthday in 2000/01 87%
2nd birthday in 2001/02 84%
2nd birthday in 2002/03 82%
2nd birthday in 2003/04 80%
2nd birthday in 2004/05 81%

So we can see that MMR uptake _dropped by a factor of 10%_ in eight years. Thats a pretty sobering stat.

When we look at how many live births there have been between 1998 – 2005 (inc) we see that there have been a total of 4,959,995. Ten percent of _that_ figure means that 496,000 have not (for whatever reason) received the MMR. And if prevalence (as established by Baird et al) really is 1 in 100 then we should expect to get 49,599 diagnosis of autism since 1998 (1% of live birth rate).

But, if MMR proponents are right, then we _should not_ have 49,599.autism diagnosis. We should have 45,036 (49,995 (dx) – 4,959 (10% of dx)).

To put it another way – if MMR uptake has fallen by 10% over the last 8 years, then there should’ve been a corresponding 10% fall in autism diagnosis. Has there been?

Obviously not. Bill Welsh of the Autism Treatment Trust certainly doesn’t think so:

It will come as no surprise to parents throughout Scotland that there has been a “sharp increase in autism” (July 14). The diagnosis of this devastating childhood developmental condition has increased to such an extent since 1990 that many, many families are now affected. It is very worrying that it has taken well over 10 years for the authorities at last to recognise that an autism epidemic has been sweeping the UK.

And lets not forget Chakrabarti and Fombonne who also found a high but stable prevalence of autism in the UK. Both things cannot be true. If MMR causes autism then as MMR uptake has dropped off the rate of autism cannot possibly have remained the same, unless we want to try and find a substitute that not only acts in the exact same way as MMR but also slots exactly into the numerical data, rising as MMR falls. Possible but pretty unlikely.

Crumbling science

3 Oct

Krigsman, Wakefield Error Highlighted

A study this month in Paediatrics tackles head-on the ‘science’ that is still yet to be published (a number of years later) by Arthur Krigsman in which he claims that he has found evidence of persistent measles virus in autistic kids and thus backing up the work of his business partner Andrew Wakefield.

In layman’s terms what this study did was replicate the result of Krigsman et al and then eliminate the poor science that led Krigsman to his erroneous conclusions. Of the samples that still showed as positive, no trace of MV was found.

The real-time assays based on previously published primers gave rise to a large number of positive reactions in both autism spectrum disorder and control samples. Almost all of the positive reactions in these assays were eliminated by evaluation of melting curves and amplicon band size. The amplicons for the remaining positive reactions were cloned and sequenced. No sample from either autism spectrum disorder or control groups was found to contain nucleic acids from any measles virus gene. In the nested polymerase chain reaction and inhouse assays, none of the samples yielded positive results. Furthermore, there was no difference in anti-measles antibody titers between the autism and control groups

Now thats pretty hardcore science language. I’ve emailed the authors to see if they are willing to explain (and be quoted) on an English translation of the above but in essence, the facts are as I state them above. Krigsman et al (and Wakefield before him?) failed to eliminate false positives and counted them as part of his result set. When these false positives are eliminated then the samples left contain no MV.

I’m hoping that Bart Cubbins, No Mercury, Maria, Ms Clarke et al (who are wise in the ways of this terminology) might offer more input into the meaning of the exact phraseology used and as I say, I’ve mailed the authors for clarification too. In the meantime – Krigsman’s (unpublished) work is now pretty much refuted (by published work).

Daubert’s Revenge – Martha Herbert

As reported by Autism Diva, Dr Martha Herbert has now reached the dizzy heights Boyd Haley and Mark Geier have scaled in having her ‘expert testimony’ found severely wanting following a Daubert hearing.

Herbert basically claimed that a childs autism (diagnosed by her following a differential diagnosis) was caused by mold. Yes, mold. However, upon being cross-examined:

When asked whether there is ‘any evidence that mold is a trigger [for autism],’ Dr. Herbert responded by referring to research regarding brain inflammation and immunological abnormalities in autism. Asked about research showing that ‘any of the mold or any of the mildew or any of those other things also cause brain inflammation,’ she responded ‘that’s a hole in my knowledge. In terms of autism, I don’t believe that’s been done.’

Right. Well, thank goodness she’s so rigorous. Wouldn’t want to just make assumptions right? That would just be a waste of everyone’s time right?

In another classic piece of thinking Herbert goes on to say:

Dr. Herbert commented, ‘she doesn’t have any of the known genetic syndromes, or known in-utero infections. I personally consider it symptomatic, but not in the established set of categories, in that I hope that when more research is done she’ll move in the symptomatic category.’

In other words she doesn’t know what caused the childs autism (gasp!) but that it doesn’t fit any known profile but that maybe some research at some unspecified point in the future might help categorise it (whatever ‘it’ is).

Oh, it gets better.

Dr. Herbert was asked, ‘[c]an you say to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that if Emilia Ward had been in a sterile environment, she would not suffer from autism” She responded, ‘My guess would be, yes, that she probably would not.’ The basis for that ‘guess,’ she testified, was ‘her having regressed after the mold exposure and that she gets worse with exposures.’

Wait… _guess_ – her _guess_ ? Well surely she meant ‘informed opinion’, or ‘scientific judgement based on the evidence to hand’…..except there _is_no evidence to hand:

In response to questions she acknowledged that she has never done any research on mold or mildew as an environmental toxin, and is not aware of any published peer review articles that link mold and mildew exposure to autism.

And so it is no great shock to find the court saying:

Dr. Herbert’s publications indicate that she is an outspoken advocate of increased attention to the possibility of environmental influences. Even she, however, despite that acknowledged perspective, speaks in her published work of possibilities and potentialities, rather than of the ‘reasonable degree of medical certainty’ to which she offers to testify under oath in this case.10 Neither Dr. Herbert’s publications, nor any others cited, identify mold exposure as even a suspected, still less a known or proven, trigger of autism……Dr. Herbert’s method, to the extent the Court can discern it from the materials offered, is a series of deductions based on possibilities…..*Clearly, Dr. Herbert’s method is not generally accepted in the scientific community*. Dr. Herbert’s theory of environmental triggers of autism may some day prove true. It has not yet. *Her proffered testimony does not meet the standard of reliability required by the case law*, and cannot be admitted in evidence at trial.

FDA Spanks Mercury Milita

Back in 2004, Dr Paul King of dr-king.com, uh, fame, submitted a ‘citizen petition’ to the FDA requesting:

[The FDA]…take numerous actions pertaining to vaccines and other FDA-regulated products containing thimerosal or other mercury-based preservatives….After review and consideration, we deny the petition for the reasons stated below in this response.

The response is very detailed (the whole thing is available at Kathleen’s site) but can be summed up in one quote:

The evidence on which your petition relies either does not support your requests, or is too flawed to be considered valid scientific evidence.

Which seems to be something of a growing refrain for the mercury (and apparently mold!) militia.

Damn science with its rigorous pursuit of accuracy eh? If only we could rely on opinions and guesses.

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