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Reconsidering the Nature of Autism

8 Apr

Todd Drezner has a new piece up on the Huffington Post: Reconsidering the Nature of Autism. He starts out by quoting the forward to one of Jenny McCarthy’s books. The forward is by alternative medical practitioner Jerry Kartzinel.

Here is what Mr. Drezner wrote in his introduction:

“Autism … steals the soul from a child; then, if allowed, relentlessly sucks life’s marrow out of the family members, one by one.” So wrote Dr. Jerry Kartzinel in the introduction to Jenny McCarthy’s bestselling “Louder Than Words.” No wonder, then, that the concept of neurodiversity– the idea that we should understand and accept autistic people as a group that thinks differently from the majority — has proven to be so controversial.

The quote takes me back. Back to when I was starting to look online for information about autism. I remember when Jenny McCarthy hit the scene. Kev responded here with his blogging. The blog might have been kevleitch.co.uk then, not LeftBrainRightBrain. I remember that Kev’s blog went down: the traffic was so high that he hit his bandwidth quota. I remember that he responded to the forward from Jerry Kartzinel. He responded with words and, a little later, with video:

I don’t bring this up just for some sort of nostalgia. But this reminds me of two major themes. First: words hurt. What Dr. Kartzinel wrote, and Jenny McCarthy published, hurt. It hurt a lot of people. It added to the stigma of autism and disability. Second: words can be powerful. Kev fought back, as did many others. How or if this was an influence on Todd Drezner, I can’t say. It influenced me as I still remember it.

We can’t sit back and let people stigmatize others, for whatever reason they may have. Kim Wombles shows that almost every day with her blog Countering. Bev did it with a humor and keen perspective on Asperger Square 8. Corina Becker is taking up the task with No Stereotypes Here. And this is just a few of the many voices, autistic and non, out there.

Having said this, I will bring up one message that I’ve felt needed to be countered for some time. Here is a screenshot of a page from the book “the Age of Autism” by Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill. Both write for the Age of Autism Blog (Dan Olmsted appears to be the proprietor). Mark Blaxill is a member of the organization SafeMinds. Both promote the idea of autism as vaccine injury and, more specifically, the failed mercury hypothesis. (click to enlarge)

To pull but one disturbing quote: “As one of the first parents to observe an autistic child, Muncie learned how well autism targets ‘those functions distinctly human’ “. Yes, I have spent quite a lot of time fighting bad science like the first part in that sentence: the idea that autism is new/the kids in Kanner’s study were the first autistics ever. But what about the second part: that autistics are missing or have impaired “distinctly human” functions? Yes, I’ve also responded to that sentiment in the past and I plan to continue to do so. And that is much more important than the fight against bad science.

Words hurt. Jerry Kartzinel’s words hurt. Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill’s words hurt. They hurt and they are wrong. Plain and simple.

Another phrase from the above paragraph: “autism brutally restricts the interests of the affected”. So say the team that has one interest: pushing mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism. A little ironic?

Reading their writing, I am reminded of one of Bev’s amazing videos:

Back to the paragraph from “The Age of Autism”. Dan, Mark: You don’t think autistics made tools, explored the globe, invented new technologies? The sad thing is, it seems like you don’t.

Yeah, a lot of kids, kids like mine, aren’t in the world explorer/inventor categories. And even kids like mine are still as human as you or I. They are not missing anything “distinctly human”.

Brian Deer: Stomping at the Savoy

5 Apr

The Press Awards ceremony is ongoing at the Savoy. Brian Deer was nominated for and won the Specialist Journalist of the Year award for his work on MMR. He was cited for perseverance and for righting a wrong.

Brian Deer, of course, is the journalist who broke the stories surrounding Andrew Wakefield’s MMR research.

and video:

No association between early gastrointestinal problems and autistic-like traits in the general population

28 Mar

Gastrointesintal problems are a common topic of discussion and debate in the online autism communities. Much of the discussion involves causation: do GI problems cause autism? A recent study looks at a tangent of this argument. Considering the general population, do GI problems early in life predict autistic traits later in life? The methodology isn’t the strongest: they use parent reports of GI complaints and the self-report questionaire Autism Quotient. They also asked about whether the individuals were immunized with the MMR vaccine.

The results:

There was no statistically significant difference in AQ scores between those who had (n=133) and those who had not (n=671) experienced early gastrointestinal symptoms. (2) analyses revealed that the children with early gastrointestinal problems were no more likely to be represented in the upper quintile of scores on any of the AQ scales. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination was unrelated to gastrointestinal symptoms or AQ scores.

The abstract is quoted below:

No association between early gastrointestinal problems and autistic-like traits in the general population

Aim
The aim of this study was to determine whether gastrointestinal problems in early childhood relate to autistic-like traits in a general population sample.

Method
The parents of 804 children (442 females; 362 males) reported at 1-, 2-, 3-, and 5-year follow-ups whether their child had been taken to a hospital, general practitioner, or health clinic for any of five gastrointestinal symptoms: (1) constipation; (2) diarrhoea; (3) abdominal bloating, discomfort, or irritability; (4) gastro-oesophageal reflux or vomiting; and (5) feeding issues or food selectivity. Parents also reported whether their child had received the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination. Autistic-like traits were measured when the children had reached early adulthood (mean age 19y 7mo; SD 0.63y) using a self-report questionnaire, the Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ).

Results

There was no statistically significant difference in AQ scores between those who had (n=133) and those who had not (n=671) experienced early gastrointestinal symptoms. (2) analyses revealed that the children with early gastrointestinal problems were no more likely to be represented in the upper quintile of scores on any of the AQ scales. The measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination was unrelated to gastrointestinal symptoms or AQ scores.

Interpretation

Parent-reported gastrointestinal problems in early childhood are unrelated to self-reported autistic-like traits in the general population.

Somali community start to fight back against Andrew Wakefield and Generation Rescue

26 Mar

Taken from http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/118686794.html

Hodan Hassan of Minneapolis understands why some parents are afraid to have their children vaccinated. Until recently, she was one of them.

But today, Hassan will be one of the featured speakers at a Somali community forum designed to allay fears about vaccines in the midst of a measles outbreak.

“[I] read about how the world used to be without the immunization program,” said Hassan, who has four children, including a daughter with autism. “This generation doesn’t understand the benefit, and the importance, and how lucky they are having an immunization program in place.”

So far, 11 cases of measles have been confirmed in Hennepin County since February, five in Somali children who had not been vaccinated. Experts say that vaccine rates have dropped in the Somali community, along with other groups, because of unfounded fears of a possible link to autism.

Now, Somali physicians and state health officials have joined forces to counter what they say are widespread misconceptions about vaccine safety, which has left many children vulnerable to preventable diseases. The concern has grown in the last two years, since a Health Department study confirmed that there were an unusually high number of Somali children in the Minneapolis schools’ autism program.

In Hassan’s case, she stopped vaccinating her children after she learned that her daughter, Geni, now 6, had autism. At the time, she said, she was desperate for answers. Medical experts could not explain what caused her daughter’s condition, a severe communication and behavior disorder. But she quickly learned about the autism activists who blame the vaccines, in spite of medical assurances to the contrary. She began reading their books and attending their conferences, she said, and the fear took hold.

In December, she said, she turned out to hear Andrew Wakefield, the hero of the anti-vaccine movement, at a Somali community meeting in Minneapolis. Wakefield conducted a now-discredited 1998 study suggesting a link between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

‘I was shocked’

Later, Hassan said, a local doctor challenged her to do her own research on Wakefield, who was accused of scientific misconduct in connection with the study, and ultimately stripped of his medical license in England.

Now she is one of his biggest critics. “I was shocked when I found out people used to die [of measles],” she said. Many still do in her native Somalia, she noted, and in other in parts of the world where vaccines are not available.

“If we could all go back in time, we would have appreciated it,” she said.

Just this week, Wakefield returned to Minneapolis for a private meeting with Somali families. Members of the news media were barred from Wednesday’s gathering, which reportedly drew only about a half-dozen Somali parents.

But one of the organizers, Patti Carroll of Shoreview, said she doesn’t believe parents are worried about the measles outbreak.

“They’d rather have them get the measles than deal with the effects of unsafe vaccines,” said Carroll, a volunteer with Generation Rescue, an autism advocacy group.

Health officials warn that measles is highly contagious and extremely dangerous. So far, six people have been hospitalized in the current outbreak, most of them young children. All are said to be recovering.

This week, Hassan circulated an e-mail inviting members of the Somali community to tonight’s forum at the Brian Coyle Center in Minneapolis.

“Our community has been misled about MMR causing autism,” she wrote. “Vaccines don’t cause autism and the benefit [outweighs] the risk.” She added: “We are very much against an unlicensed doctor to make our community his scapegoat.”

Measles in Minnesota: more cases and a visitor

26 Mar

We recently discussed here on LeftBRainRightBrain the measles outbreak in Minneapolis. Since then the number hospitalized has continued to rise. There are now six kids who have been hospitalized. As of March 23rd (two days ago) there were 11 cases of measles total. Why bring this up on an autism-focus blog? Because the outbreak has ties to the autism communities. One of the questions that has arisen in recent years is whether there are more autistic children amongst the Somalis in Minneapolis than amongst other groups. In response to the news that a larger fraction of young Somaili children were in the autism classes, Generation Rescue reached out to the Somali community. Andrew Wakefield reached out to the Somali community. Fear of autism appears to be behind a possible low vaccination rate amongst Somali children. And, now, Somali children have higher incidence of measles in this outbreak.

According to the MDH: “Four of the cases were too young to receive vaccine, five were of age but were not vaccinated, and two have unknown vaccine status”. Of those unvaccinated, I believe at least three were from the Somali community.

In response to the measles outbreak, Andrew Wakefield is once again speaking with the Somali community there. In Anti-vaccine doctor meets with Somalis, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports:

Dr. Andrew Wakefield, a controversial British doctor whose research purported to link vaccines to autism, met privately with a gathering of Somali parents in Minneapolis on Wednesday night.

and,

Wakefield, who arrived amid the city’s first measles outbreak in years, declined to answer questions about the purpose of his visit. Reporters were barred from the meeting, which was described as a “support group” for parents of autistic children.

I find this closed door discussion more than a bit ironic. Calls for transparency abound when people are inquiring about the government’s actions. But Mr. Wakefield declined to even comment for the press, much less allow access to his meeting.

The Minnesota department of Public Health has translated their measles fact sheet into Somali.

It was noted that Mr. Wakefield has discussed a study on the Somali autism prevalence question:

Patti Carroll, an organizer of Wednesday’s meeting at the Safari restaurant, said that Wakefield is helping to build support for a study about rising autism rates in the Somali community.

What wasn’t mentioned is that the National Institute of Mental Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Autism Speaks are already starting a project to study the question.

I can’t help but think back to one of the Jenny McCarthy interviews a few years back. She made a comment that maybe people will have to start dying of vaccine preventable diseases before people take her seriously. My guess is that she wasn’t expecting outbreaks that could be so directly tied to her, her organization (Generation Rescue) and one of her mentors (Andrew Wakefield).

David Kirby shows he’s been out of the loop

19 Mar

David Kirby is back on the Huffington Post blogging about vaccines and autism in a piece titled CDC to Study Vaccines and Autism.

The CDC move comes one month after the federal government’s leading autism body, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) announced a shift in research priorities toward environmental triggers for autism, which the IACC said could include toxins, biological agents and “adverse events following immunization.”

In case we didn’t read that paragraph, he repeats himself later:

Meanwhile, the IACC has signaled a major shift in research priorities into the causes of autism, moving away from purely genetic studies in favor of investigating the interaction between genes and environmental factors, which it said could include toxins, biological agents and vaccines.

What shift? Funding levels for environmental causation and gene-environment interactions have outpaced funding for purely genetic research for the past few years.

Mr. Kirby, I’d like to say you’d know that if you read LeftBrainRightBrain instead of the blogs and websites which claim to be asking for more research into environmental research. But I have to ask, are you really out of the loop, or does it just make a better story to claim these fake “shifts”?

Here are a few posts you might want to read, Mr. Kirby:

US proposes $154M in new autism research projects

US plan for autism research: focus on environmental causation re-emphasized

Here’s one from over a year ago:

IACC calls for $175 million in autism and the environment research

Is his post a misconception because he’s been out of the loop on another book project? No. Here’s Mr. Kirby’s introductory paragraph:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to study autism as a possible clinical outcome of immunization, as part of its newly adopted 5-year research agenda for vaccine safety, the agency said on its website.

Take a look at the CDC research agenda that Mr. Kirby links to. It includes:

In 2004, the IOM concluded that the evidence “favors rejection of a causal relationship” between MMR vaccine and autism and thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism (IOM, 2004).
• VSD has completed a thimerosal and autism case-control study. The chief goal was to determine if exposure to thimerosal in infancy (through 7 months of age) or in-utero is related to development of autism. A secondary objective was to evaluate whether exposure to thimerosal in infancy is related to a subclass of autism predominately associated with regression. The manuscript Prenatal and Infant Exposure to Thimerosal From Vaccines and Immunoglobulins and Risk of Autism (Pediatrics) by Price CS et al. showed that prenatal and early-life exposure to ethylmercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines and immunoglobulin preparations was not related to increased risk for Autistic Spectrum Disorders (Price CS et al, Pediatrics 2010).
• CDC funded a study in Italy comparing children who previously received thimerosal-containing or non-thimerosal-containing DTaP vaccines (Tozzi AE, 2009).
• A VSD study was completed on early thimerosal exposure and neuropsychological outcomes at 7 to 10 years (Thompson WW et al, 2007). Another study using the public dataset was published (Smith MJ, WoodsCR. Pediatrics 2010).

So, the CDC has already been studying autism as a possible outcome of vaccines. In fact, they’ve already completed it and published it: “VSD has completed a thimerosal and autism case-control study.”

And let’s not forget all the other studies of the past 10 years on MMR, and those on thimerosal. We won’t. Apparently David Kirby has. It’s “new” that the CDC would consider vaccines and autism.

And, noting that the IACC federal autism panel “suggested several studies including vaccinated versus unvaccinated children to determine if there are differences in health outcomes,” the CDC said it will convene an “external expert committee to offer guidance on the feasibility of conducting such studies and additional studies related to the immunization schedule, including studies that may indicate if multiple vaccinations increase risk for immune system disorders.”

Germany has already done one of those studies. Kev discussed it here on LeftBrainRightBrain just recently as Vaccinated Children Not at Higher Risk of Infections or Allergic Diseases, Study Suggests. The results were that people are better off vaccinated. Fewer infectious disease. No increased risk of asthma or other problems (the study size, with about 18,000 people, was too small to study autism).

Sorry if I appear to have little patience for David Kirby. It’s true. I don’t have much patience for him. He’s framed his piece in a manner which misleads. And he has no excuse.

Minneapolis reports three more measles cases

18 Mar

In Minneapolis reports three more measles cases, the Minneapolis Star Tribune discusses, well, three more measles cases in the city. Why bring this up here?

Three more children under the age of five have developed cases of measles in Minneapolis, state health officials reported Thursday, including two Somali children who were not vaccinated because of fears about the vaccine safety.

Four children have been infected. Three were hospitalized. At least two unvaccinated out of fear.

Three more children under the age of five have developed cases of measles in Minneapolis, state health officials reported Thursday, including two Somali children who were not vaccinated because of fears about the vaccine safety.

Officials said that the vaccination rate has dropped in Minnesota’s Somali community, largely because of misconceptions about the vaccine safety. Concerns about a possible link between the vaccine and autism have spread in the Somali community, as well as other communities, in spite of medical reports debunking the connection.

“Contrary to misinformation that may still be circulating, the measles vaccine is safe and effective,” said Dr. Edward Ehlinger, Minnesota Commissioner of Health. “Without it, the risk of disease is real. Children can die from measles.”

The previous case, reported March 5, involved a child under a year old who was too young to be vaccinated. Officials said they did not know whether the fourth child had been vaccinated.

I can already write the responses:
“Better measles than autism” (as though this were a real choice. MMR doesn’t increase the risk of autism)
“If they offered a safe measles vaccine, this wouldn’t have happened” (as though the MMR causes autism, making it “unsafe”)
“look at all the reports in VAERS of death/injury/etc” (as though every report in VAERS is an event caused by vaccines)
“but vaccines don’t work anyway”

I could go on with the responses, but why? They are as obvious as they are lame.

(edit to add–I missed on obvious one that has already been made: “4 cases=outbreak?”. That one just boggles the mind. How many should there be before we take action? If these were demonstrated cases of vaccines causing autism, the answer would be no more. But, hey, it’s just a life-threatening disease in children, one under a year old. I guess that “immature immune system” we hear vaccine skeptics claim is just fine at fighting a full on infection. Just not a vaccine.)

LeftBrain/RightBrain shame Age of Autism into half-hearted apology for gun violence

14 Mar

Via Facebook of course, not on their actual site:

Funny thing though, I would’ve thought that to be included in an image archive entitled ‘Fan pics _from_ Age of Autism’ it would’ve had to have been approved _by_ Age of Autism..?

Also note the lack of apology for the rampant anti-vaccine part of the image – just the gun violence. Age of Autism fail to see that by promoting an anti-vaccine message they are still condoning violence – just a different kind of violence.

Age of Autism threaten doctors and also make clear how anti-vaccine they are

12 Mar

On a Facebook page entitled ‘Fan photos from Age of Autism‘ you will find this (click for bigger):

Lets not kid around here, this is a direct threat of violence towards people carrying ‘syringes’ i.e. people who might want to vaccinate children. I have no idea if Jenny McCarthy has any knowledge of this photo but its clear from the title ‘fan photos _from_ the Age of Autism, that Age of Autism clearly do.

Lets also be clear about the utterly anti-vaccine message of this image. The editors continually describe themselves as ‘pro-vaccine safety’. Let me suggest to them that creating a picture of Jenny McCarthy threatening people carrying syringes in a medical setting isn’t pro-vaccine safety. Its anti-vaccine pure and simple.

Vaccinated Children Not at Higher Risk of Infections or Allergic Diseases, Study Suggests

10 Mar

Seems German science has asked and answered the question everyone who believes vaccines damage the immune system wanted answering:

Do vaccinations put too much strain on or weaken children’s immune systems? Roma Schmitz and her colleagues from the Robert Koch Institute investigate exactly this research question in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International.

Their data are based on the results of the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KiGGS).

In their study, the authors compare the occurrence of infections and allergies in vaccinated and unvaccinated children and adolescents. These include bronchitis, eczema, colds, and gastrointestinal infections.

The evaluation showed that unvaccinated children and adolescents differ from their vaccinated peers merely in terms of the frequency of vaccine preventable diseases. These include pertussis, mumps, or measles. As expected, the risk of contracting these diseases is substantially lower in vaccinated children and adolescents.

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