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Why Aren’t You “Scared To Death”?

13 Sep

Do you miss Dan Olmsted’s writing? He now apparently showcases his version of scientific brilliance over at Rescue Host.

Recently, he tried to pass off the Flu shots and Chinese mercury hypothesis (which I thought was David Kirby’s, but I guess I was wrong) without much more than unfounded speculation and belief.

California, of course, is ground zero as we watch autism rates keep rising — even after mercury was “removed” from childhood vaccines starting in 1999 (the situation is much more complicated than that, since more and more pregnant women and younger and younger kids are getting mercury-preserved flu shots). So if you believe as I do that autism is fundamentally an environmental illness that whacks a subgroup of susceptible kids, mercury from China — or anyplace else — is every bit as important as mercury from vaccines.

I asked him the following in the comments:

If you wouldn’t mind Mr. Olmsted, take a look at a graph of the 3-5 year-old autism caseload cohort for the past 5 years.

Such a graph would include children born at the starting point of the “removal” in 1999 you mentioned. What do you see? Does the trend look linear to you?

Do you really believe there is combined flu shot uptake and airborne mercury data that would exactly and inversely match (in dose and effect, if any) the reduction the use of thimerosal in childhood vaccines in order to produce a trendline with an R-squared value of .9954 for this time period?

You can view such a graph here.

To which he replied:

An “R-squared value of .9954” is way beyond my non-scientific expertise. All I can say is that thimerosal use has actually been increasing in by far the most vulnerable group — pregnant women — and that at least some studies suggest that greater pollution directly correlates with a greater risk of autism. If the CDC had recalled all thimerosal-containing vaccines in 1999, we’d have a genuine “natural experiment.” But we don’t. Nor will the government study autism rates in never-vaccinated kids; the survey by Generation Rescue found ominous correlations between vaccines and NDs including autism, but it’s been widely ignored.

The survey by Generation Rescue? Right. Did he just make up that part about thimerosal use increasing in pregnant women? It kind of looked like it to me, so I asked and commented as follows:

What evidence do you have that thimerosal use actually increased in pregnant women for the period immediately following the “removal” of thimerosal from childhood vaccinations? (required to make your hypothesis work)

The majority of childhood vaccines were thimerosal-free or contain only trace amounts by 2002 (more on that below). Here’s flu shot uptake estimates for pregnant women for the three years that follow:

2002 – 12.4±3.9 %
2003 – 12.8±4.4 %
2004 – 12.9±5.0 %

Source

Note: there is an increase in the estimate for 2005, but children born in 2005 and later are not old enough to be reflected in the 3-5 year-old California autism caseload cohort yet. Additionally, estimates for 2006 were back down to 12.9 percent.

Source

Mark Blaxill and JB Handley showed up in the comments following that, and Olmsted apparently did not reply further. So the question of where Dan Olmsted might have found any data to make his Flu shots and Chinese mercury hypothesis plausible, will have to remain unanswered for now. But, while we’re on the subject of data-free gibberish, have a look at a piece of something posted by Dan Olmsted at Rescue Host on September 11th.

At some point, common sense has to prevail. For instance, let’s stipulate that better diagnosis accounts for a gargantuan 36 times more cases of bipolar disorder among kids over the past 10 years. That still would mean that the condition quadrupled in a decade — suspiciously, the same decade that autism, asthma, ADD, ADHD etc. soared out of sight. The deniers have to explain away every digit of that 40-fold number, because even a “mere” fourfold increase in the real incidence would be deeply disturbing. How can anyone be certain that one-tenth of that 40-fold increase isn’t actually real? And if they can’t be certain, why aren’t they scared to death?

Emphasis mine.

An appeal to “common sense” is a sure sign that what follows is probably not data that supports his hypothesis. Is common sense really the best way to arrive at correct answers about any subject for anyone, regardless of their background? What do statements like, “An ‘R-squared value of .9954’ is way beyond my non-scientific expertise”, tell us about the context to which Mr. Olmsted’s “common sense” might be reliably applied? Is autism epidemiology likely to be anywhere near Olmsted’s knowledge and expertise?

Sometimes common sense seems like a good way to operate, but the reality is that many things in science have quite complex answers. It’s also the case that science does not have all the answers (nor does it claim to). None of this will apparently stop Mr. Olmsted from forging ahead with assertion and anecdote in the rest of his post of course.

Did you catch this part of that paragraph above?

“…suspiciously, the same decade that autism, asthma, ADD, ADHD etc. soared out of sight.”

Did you see any real data or science whatsoever that actual autism prevalence “soared out of sight” in the past ten years? Me neither. So here you go any “Flu shot and Chinese mercury” proponents, now is your chance to post that real data or science in the comments – really, Mr. Olmsted needs your help if he’s to avoid the inevitable “You’ve got nothing!”. Either that, or get him a new hypothesis to work with (something with corroborative data preferred).

As for Mr. Olmsted’s final question in that paragraph, I’d like to answer it from one perspective.

We can’t be absolutely sure that there hasn’t been some real increase in autism prevalence, there might have been. To conclude that there has been a real increase in autism prevalence wouldn’t require much more than good data that shows it’s actually true. However, to conclude that there has been a real increase without supporting scientific evidence, but based on “stories”, is unscientific, if not a bit silly.

I can’t be absolutely 100% certain that an alien abduction has never occurred, but this lack of certainty does not translate to “therefore alien abductions are real”. I can’t be absolutely 100% certain that bigfoot doesn’t exist either, but again, that lack of certainty does not translate to “bigfoot is real”. I don’t live in fear of being abducted by aliens or encountering a hairy giant biped while on a hike with the kids, despite an abundance of “stories” about these things. I’m also not “scared to death” that there could indeed be an increase in the actual prevalence of autism. It is a possibility, but I have seen no evidence of it’s truth. I do see an increase in storytelling though.

JB Handley’s Emerging Hypothesis

9 Sep

The Handley’s are now proud parents to a third child. Many congratulations to them. I hope their daughter gives them as much pride and happiness as my two have given me over the years.

Of course, for JB, its all about the autism. And so, he details the steps the family took to ‘ensure’ this third child wasn’t autistic. Its, um, interesting reading.

First Brad reminisces about whats on the GR site:

It’s probably worth taking a quick step back. The Generation Rescue website spells out pretty accurately how we feel about the cause of
autism:

We believe these neurological disorders (“NDs”) are environmental illnesses caused by an overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and
bacteria. Proper treatment of our children, known as “biomedical intervention”, is leading to recovery for thousands.

Yeah, you do _now_ – it used to be:

It’s nothing more than mercury poisoning

And whilst Brad was happy to carry this simple message to the TV masses, he’s seemingly less happy to go back on and say, well no, I was wrong actually. Its in fact ‘overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and bacteria’. And as for ‘leading to recovery for thousands’…heh yeah, whatever.

But anyway, back to the Emerging Hypothesis of preventing autism. What has JB Handley come up with?

we began to develop a plan to prepare for life before and after birth that we believed would reduce the chances for another autistic child.

And what does this plan entail?

Early Preparation for Mom (prior to conception):

– Switching to a gluten/casein free diet
– Eating organic foods and avoiding all artificial colors, flavors, and preservatives
– Limiting sugar
– Focusing on gut health through a combination of anti-fungal treatment, beneficial bacteria re-population, and digestive enzymes
– Detoxifying the body through a combination of chelation and natural detoxification techniques like FIR sauna, NDF Plus, Zeolites, etc.
– Adding a pre-natal vitamin and B-12

During pregnancy:

– Maintaining all dietary approaches listed above
– Avoiding all vaccines
– Avoiding any environmental risks like lead paint, home construction, cleaners and solvents, chemicals, etc.
– Avoiding antibiotics except in life-or-death situations
– Avoiding x-rays and sonograms, unless high-risk birth issues exist
– Continuing supplementation of pre-natal vitamins, probiotics, digestive enzymes, and B-12
– Proper supplementation of mom’s methylation cycle based on genetics

After birth:

– Maintaining all dietary approaches and supplements listed above while breastfeeding
– Holding off on introducing solid-foods until at least 6 months
– Avoiding antibiotics for breastfeeding mom and baby except in life-or-death situations
– Avoiding any environmental risks like lead paint, home construction, cleaners and solvents, chemicals, etc.
– Supplementing baby with infant-safe probiotics
– Avoiding all vaccines for at least the first 2 years of life, and then taking extraordinary caution
– At the right time (typically 6 months or older), adding proper methylation cycle support
– At the right time, proper supplementation of Omega3-6-9
– Providing natural detoxification through things like Epsom salt baths

So mum has to go through an extremely rigorous program. What does dad have to do?

Nothing. Nada. Zip. Fuck all.

Children are, it seems, conceived solely by the female and thus the male’s biology plays no part. Or maybe JB just couldn’t stomach the thought that men’s sperm might play a role.

OK now, back on real street, lets look at a few things.

Firstly, this child is a third born female. Sibling risk of recurrence for autism with the previous birth of any child with autism is thought to be about 4.5% (the numbers are higher for families with a firstborn female with autism or more than one child with autism). That’s right, about 4.5%. That means that there is an approximately 95.5% chance, based on the available science, that a third child born into a family with one autistic child who is not a firstborn male, will not be autistic. Let’s say that again – a 95.5 % chance for non-autistic (maybe even higher if the child is female). From a purely statistical perspective, that’s a very high probability for a non-autistic child. (Source).

If this daughter _doesn’t_ end up being autistic, what do you think is more likely to be the reason? The +95% chance it wouldn’t have happened anyway? Or JB’s course of mummy purification?

Leave a message for Andrew Wakefield

9 Sep

DAN/ARI are asking people to leave messages for Andrew Wakefield. Below is mine:

Now that the scientific evidence as presented by Stephen Bustin at the OAP has finally displayed to the world how utterly wrong you are about measles in the guts of autistic kids, when do you plan to issue an apology to all the children you and your colleagues needlessly scoped?

When do you plan to issue an apology to all the parents who believed you and who subject their children to outlandish autism ‘treatments’ that have resulted in both death and hospitalisation?

When do you plan to offer an apology to all the people who are now living in a UK where herd immunity teeters on a knife edge and the numbers of people hospitalised by measles grows every year?

You have been proven scientifically wrong ‘Dr’ Wakefield. Are you also without morals too?

I urge you to go an leave yours too and pass on the link to people you know:

Go here and click the link at the top of the page.

The Myth of Recovery

1 Sep

Back in August of last year I wrote a blog entry about the Generation Rescue ‘recovery’ stories and how true recovery actually accounted for 5% of the stories on their website which I upgraded in May of this year when they redesigned their website. Their true recovery figure now stands at 7%. I even recounted how I sent my own daughters details to them under an assumed name using the exact truth about her state and condition which they duly published.

I was interested to come across some more fascinating dialogue between members of the Yahoo ABMD group – a group which believe mercury caused their kids autism and Biomed can help them. This is one of the oldest and most well regarded (amongst the mercury militia anyway) Yahoo groups.

The conversation began thusly:

From: Eva family
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:29 AM

the other thing that troubles me about all the “autism doctors” is that
no one seems to do any studies based on their patients. Some doctors
must have dozens of patients but there seems to be no published work
correlating their levels of minerals, reactions to diets, success of
treatments

…………

But in general J McC, Yasko etc, Buttar, the zeolite-people earn lots of
money and publish nothing except opinions………..followed by
anecdotal acclaim from those for whom they work and silent despair from
those for whom they don’t.

Being an experienced reader of the material on these groups, I silently commiserated with this poster as I waited for the inevitable flame fest. But it never happened. Here are some of th responses this post received from other ABMD members:

From: Laura K. Fischer
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 4:34 PM

Sally, this has always been a concern of mine also, I honestly don’t know whether some of these alternative doctors have any better of a percentage record in improvements then say some of the better mainstream neurologists prescribing meds or even in comparison to kids who only do therapy and educational intervention. Although I recognize that part of my skepticism probably stems from the fact that most of the kids I personally know who have done a lot of biomedical treatment (those in my local community) don’t seem to have improved any more rapidly than those who did not, there are a couple who are even worse off. There is no clear advantage that I have witnessed with my own eyes and it may be that it is because there is a tendency for many of these families to have used a couple of the same DAN doctors in this region, I recognize that this could be a contributor. But I do share your concern with this….Laura

From: Lawrence G. Leichtman, MD
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 6:40 PM

I have followed about 100 children with autism doing biomed. I have never seen a single “recovered” child if by recovered you mean normal though 8 of
the children were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors. I have wseen about 10-15% improved kids, some slightly and 10% of kids who were
actually worse from biomed. Of my patients using Yasko prescribed treatment alone I have seen 0 improvment out of 12 patients. I still don’t know what
works or why and this is after 10 years of doing this.

The response from Leichtman is a bombshell. If you do not recall the name, he is the doctor who was quoted in Dan Olmsted’s Age of Autism pieces as treating Amish kids (who never have autism – heh). According to his (anecdotal) opinion he has never seen a recovered child out of the 100 he has seen who have been doing biomed, even amongst those whose DAN! claimed they were recovered. Fascinating.

From: Gina Mouser
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Mon, Aug 27, 2007 at 7:45 PM

We were seeing a very famous DAN dr. who told us that of all the 5000 plus
patients that the DAN doctor was treating, my son was the ONLY one that is
not improving.

Go figure..

Gina

This shed’s some light on the way DAN! quacks falsely inflate their patients parents with hope or a ‘convincing’ explanation. Except, judging by the tone of this email, this mum isn’t convinced.

One of the responders went on to question why Dr Leichtman was a member of the ABMD board if he didn’t believe in biomed. He reiterated his position and confirmed his belief that DAN! docs either lie or are mistaken:

I have seen positive results 10 to 15 percent is still better than 0. I just don’t believe in the total recovery claims as several of my patients were claimed to be recovered by their DAN doctors but they weren’t.

The original poster chimed back in later….

In the UK in education we have something called “value added” — this is the amount that a school has done for a child over and above what might have been expected by simple development. I would like to autistic children measured and placed at a point on a graph as they come into a
doctor (this is already done as I understand it) and then measured again after set periods. Over time that would set baselines and it would be
possible to see which doctors/treatments were giving “value added”.

I don’t understand why no one is doing this. Surely anyone genuinely “recovering” children would be all over us with data, analysis etc — so
that their achievements could be recognised, replicated and they (the doctor) could receive universal praise.

Quite. A point some of us have been making for quite some time.

Then of course, someone finally did play the PharmaShill card at Dr leichtman:

From: Marisha Taylor
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:12 PM

I think the “confusion” is coming from you trying to turn the outcome of the study to what “you” want it to be. You & the pharmaceutical
guys would get along great -how much are they paying you on the side? Thank God you are having problems getting it published – there is no
more space for flawed studies.

The most fascinating thing about this post was the speed and weight of the responses telling her to shut up. Not what I would be expecting at all.

As part of the responses Dr Leichtman dropped his second bombshell:

I don’t even understand what you are asking. Neurotypical is average for a child their age not with sensory issues, not with hyperactivity, not with behavioral disorders. I do not include those that I really don’t believe nor does my neurodevelopmentalist believe has autism despite coming in with that diagnosis. *I see plenty of children who come in with the diagnosis who don’t have it in the first place* so improvement or not may not be valid for their issues.

This was unbelievable stuff. Straight ‘from the horses mouth’ was the seconding of the opinions that a lot of us had held for years. That some ‘recovered’ kids were never really truly autistic to begin with. I would love to know if Leichtman ever saw the Berle’s.

Anyway, as I mentioned, when Leichtman was accused of being a Big Pharma shill, the entire group sprang to his defense, including Holly Bortfield, a well known mercury mom.

From: Holly Bortfeld
Reply-To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
To: abmd@yahoogroups.com
Cc: *******@aol.com
Date: Tue, Aug 28, 2007 at 3:24 PM

Wow, time to back off Marisha. Dr. L is a valued member of this list and you are out of line.

Bortfeld is a fascinating case. Later on in this discussion she says:

I know people who did only a few things and their kid is recovered and I know people who did EVERYTHING and their kid is still severe. While I do know some, they are very few in comparison, kids that are recovered. That sucks.

…………

I am thrilled for them, but my kid isn’t one of them (recovered) despite having the best of the DAN docs, virtually unlimited therapies and the “best” of everything, regardless of money, he’s still screwed up at 12 years old.

‘Screwed up’? Nice. This post was in response to the owner of the ABMD group’s post when she said:

I believe (and I’ am very cynical at this point) that most stories of “recovery” are the result of a misdiagnosis, or a mispresentation of
the facts for some financial gain.

Wow. Just….wow. These are incredible things for a ‘mercury militia’ group to be saying. If you only heard Gen Rescue etc you’d believe Brad’s oft-repeated claim of thousands of recovered kids. Its amazing to know that people of the same essential belief differ so wildly.

But back to Bortfeld’s screwed up non-recovered son. Her stance is peculiar given that, back in 2001, she was part of a discussion on the ABMD list during which she said:

Each time we deal with one of his medical problems, the features that gave him the autism label reduce. So in my mind, if we heal enough of his body, the autism dx won’t apply anymore. He went from severe (62 on the CARS) to mild (29 on the CARS) with diet and secretin. The last CARS they ran on him was a 22 so that technically doesn’t even qualify him for the autism label anymore (CARS is from 30-60) but I keep the label for services.

So which is true? That her son is ‘still screwed up’ and isn’t recovered? Or, back in 2001, that he doesn’t qualify for the autism label anymore? Interesting confirmation that Rescue Angels falsely hang on to diagnosis just to receive services as well.

I talked recently about denial. Is this discussion evidence of the rift in the mercury militia between those who have moved past most of their denial and those who can’t? Is it evidence that DAN! doctors know exactly how to play on the hopes and fears of these parents? I think so.

Acceptance not denial

22 Aug

Acceptance. It is a word that some use to describe their relationship with the reality of their children, or their own, autism. We accept the fact our daughter is autistic.

For people who claim to ‘fight autism’ this acceptance is a weak passivity. An act of giving in.

This, of course, is rubbish. Those who have accepted the reality of their own or their children’s autism know that the work starts right there. We do not attempt to carry on deluding ourselves and using quack treatments such as chelation etc as shields against the reality of who our kids really are.

Parents like Brad Handley of Generation Rescue claim at one point in time that:

“autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning…..The whole notion of autism is mythical. It didn’t exist before thimerosal in vaccines”

Source

and then later say:

The argument is being spun by focusing exclusively on a single ingredient used in vaccines, Thimerosal (which is made from mercury), while forgetting to mention a number of key points about the differences between the vaccine schedule of 20 years ago and today….Thimerosal is only one of the possible ways that the vaccine schedule could be the primary trigger behind the autism epidemic…

Source

are simply in denial. When their first belief is established to be untrue, they simply move on to another belief.

From the videos I posted a link to above, Brad is asked:

Q: This therapy (chelation) is it something he (Jamie) will be on the rest of his life?

Brad’s answer is:

A: Absolutely not. Its at maximum a two year process. Probably less.

As of next month, Jamie Handley will have been undergoing various treatments for three years. His story is not, as far as I can tell, listed anywhere as a ‘recovery’ story. He is still autistic.

Brad has made no effort to go back onto TV and explain this inconsistency. This is because he cannot. It is not explainable. I will be honest. Brad and I regularly exchange verbal barbs but I often feel sorry for the Handley’s. Because of their inability to accept the reality of their sons autism they have been unable to move on. They have instead – as I think is the case with a lot of the autism/vaccine parents – sublimated their failure to ‘cure/recover’ their kids in a proxy-fight with the ND’s, the CDC, the FDA – whatever.

I read a lot of blogs from the likes of Wade, Ginger, Kim Stagliano etc and whilst I often read about their anger and I often read about their love for their kids, I never ever read about them being happy. Do they love their kids? Of course they do. Do they enjoy their time with their autistic kids? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

There is a curious emphasis in a lot of these blog posts. Take Kim Stagliano’s most infamous blog entry – The Crappy Life of the Autism Mom – in which she says:

Recovering your kids doesn’t mean denying their value as people. To the contrary, it means we are willing to devote our lives, our savings, our sanity to their improved health, development and well being.

The jarring difference between stating that she is not denying their value and describing her life as their mum as crappy never occurs to her. It is also sad beyond belief that Stagliano feels that the measure of a persons value is the suffering of their parents.

Of course, the truth is that any decent parent will devote their lives, savings and sanity to their kids well being. That is not a situation that is the sole province of autism or even disability. Just parenting. However, I think that as well as lives, money and sanity, a parent should also invest respect and reality. Sublimating a continued tilting at the windmill of your child’s condition into an increasingly dirty and violent fight against a giant conspiracy is sad. Not sad in a sneering way but genuinely sad. It must be so miserable to be simply unable to accept the reality of the nature of your child.

This inability manifests itself in some strange ways. There have been a spate of articles fairly recently which examine the possibility that older parents are more likely to have autistic kids, or that autism might be due to a ‘corrupted’ (in the medical sense) gene. The outbursts these research papers have generated on EoH are amazing:

You forgot to mention that we’re damn old TESTOSTERONE-laden refrigerator mutant moms……………Here’s more from Autism Speaks funded research. So now the theory is it’s you damn old moms with your refrigerator mutant genes that causes autism. You are such horrible people. Tsk-tsk. Clearly, you aren’t feeling guilty enough, no matter how misplaced.

Any hypothesis which mentions or refers to parents is given equally short shrift. It doesn’t take much to work out why. Even when there is no hint of ‘blame’ (as in dear old Bettlehiem) to parents, any intimation that the genetic/physical make up of parents might have something to do with causes is pounced on and denounced in increasingly hysterical overtones.

Personally I don’t see the issue. Does it matter? No, not to me. But it seems to these parents that the idea that they might carry some responsibility for the fact their kids are autistic fills them with an utter horror. Even to the point that they have to delude themselves.

Take the cases of Erik Nanstiel’s daughter and John Best’s son. Here are two fathers who regularly sing the praises of their children’s doctors (the Geier’s and Andy Cutler respectively) and yet…

When we look back at everything we pay out of pocket… and for everything we pay as a co-pay… it’s several THOUSAND a year.

Why are we still doing biomed after six long years? Because we’ve seen our daughter go from failing-to-thrive to a pretty healthy kid. From a kid who couldn’t balance her copper and zinc… who had lead and mercury through the roof, with very little glutathione… who had constant diarrhea and wouldn’t sleep at night… and terrible eyesight…

to a kid with darn-near normal mineral levels, whose heavy metals have been more than half depleted, is thriving on a good nutritional program… and whose glutathione levels are now higher than daddy’s… is sleeping wonderfully through the night and has seen a 60% improvement in her eyeglass prescription.

She’s also nearly lost her tactile-defensiveness, loves attention (much more than before), stims a LOT less… is beginning to potty train and needs less “prompting” from us for life skills that she’s learning (like using silverware at meal time and dressing/undressing, etc.)

She is still considered low-functioning…

Like Brad and I, Erik and I have also had our fair share of verbal jousts but when I read this I want to weep. How can a man who so obviously adores his daughter fail to see that which is right in front of his face? They’ve been doing biomed for six years and his daughter is still low functioning (Erik’s words). The improvements he describes have little to no bearing on autism.

I waste no pity on John Best but once again, his denial is as plain as the autistic son in front of him:

I’ve done 55 rounds of chelation safely following the advice of Andy Cutler. My son keeps improving. I advise everyone that contacts me through GR to read what Cutler has to say and consider his protocol over what some DAN doc’s say. He has answered all of my questions at no cost and this chelation for a severely autistic child is working.

Whereas today, John made a post on EoH that stated:

In the time it took me to type my last reply, my son smeared feces all over himself and his room again. I’ve long since lost track of how many hundreds of times this has happened.

By the standards of Kim Stagliano – smearing (A Crappy Life remember) equals not cured. How exactly is the chelation working for John’s son? Or is it merely a panacea for the denial that ails his dad?

Porphyrins and autism again

16 Aug

You may recall an fairly recent exchange I had with Dr Paul King (pictured below with the invention he utilises to type his many-fonted PDF’s – The Fabulous Fontographer 2000) wherein he wrote to various media people exhorting them to examine the final proof that mercury causes autism – the existence of certain Porphyrin’s in autistic kids – following on from the science (don’t laugh) of the Geier’s and Richard Lathe et al and my responses to clarify that there had been no such proof and that the authors of one of the two papers his proof rested on were the first to admit that.fontographer2000.gif

The autism and scientific world failed to fall adoringly at Dr King’s feet, possibly because either:

a) There is a vast conspiracy from the Illuminati lizard-people hiding ‘the truth’ or;
b) He’s wrong. Again.

The media world failed to fall breathlessly on Dr King’s ‘scoop’, possibly because either:

a) There is a second vast conspiracy from the press wing of the Illuminati lizard-people hiding ‘the truth’ or;
b) He’s wrong. Again.

In the meantime, parents carry on getting scammed by this latest ‘test’ for autism related mercury poisoning. If we want evidence of the sheer silliness of the whole damn thing we need only turn to the words of those that use it. The following post was forwarded to me from a member of the Autism Biomedical Europe Yahoo Group:

I’m confused by my son’s porphyrin levels and could do with help. Ran the French porphyrin tests in July 06, Feb 07 and July 07. Precoporphyrin was 30 a year ago = mecury toxic. This dropped to 18 in Feb as we chelated. We’re still chleating, but his last test showed the level was back up to 29.

His Copro levels (mercury and lead) have also gone nuts.
290 in July 06
330 in Feb 07
440 in July 07

We know that the chelators are working (urinary toxic metals show good pulls), so why are the porphyrin levels not dropping?

We live in a nice rural area with no major industry and no major source of toxic metals, so I doubt he’s picking up metals from the environment.

Weird huh? What possible explanation could there be for mercury and lead levels to not go down??? As far as I can tell, there are four:

a) Chelation doesn’t work
b) This child was never mercury poisoned
c) The Porphyrin test doesn’t work
d) Something else?

What do you think? What other explanations could there be?

Attempts at intimidation

3 Aug

I was interviewed for and quoted in the latest edition of Nature Medicine (oops caught by Ms Clark). The piece in question was an uneasy look at the continuing and escalating violent overtones emanating from the mercury militia – parents who believe against all evidence that their kids autism was caused by vaccines.

The piece started with a look at the experiences Paul Offit faces now and then:

….as Paul Offit, a vaccine expert who served on the committee, tried to make his way through the crowd, one of the protestors screamed at him through a megaphone: “The devil–it’s the devil!” One protester held a sign that read “TERRORIST” with a photo of Offit’s face. Just before Offit reached the door, a man dressed in a prison uniform grabbed Offit’s jacket. “It was harrowing,” Offit recalls.

and….

He has since received hundreds of malicious and threatening emails, letters and phone calls accusing him of poisoning children and “selling out” to pharmaceutical companies. One phone caller listed the names of Offit’s two young children and the name of their school. One email contained a death threat–“I will hang you by your neck until you’re dead”–that Offit reported to federal investigators.

Offit’s crime? He’s performed science that doesn’t support the vaccine/autism hypothesis and spoke out about it.

His experiences mirror those of scientist Paul Shattuck who also published science that didn’t support the vaccine hypothesis. After a highly inaccurate smear campaign from the National Autism Association, Shattuck also received threats:

One person said, “Don’t be surprised if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night and I’ll be there.” Another message said it was easy in the age of the Internet to find out where people live.

Arthur Allen and Professor Roy Grinker have also been on the receiving end of threats of violence:

these people need to be horse whipped…

I’ve also been on the receiving end of various nastiness. From the cowardly actions of John Best who once compared my autistic daughter to a monkey after I related how well she was doing and his follow ups:

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

…Perhaps you can teach your daughter to swing from tree to tree…

we can see how little the mercury militia actually value children. John followed this up by joining the AWARES conference under the username ‘megan leitch’ and posting more cowardly material. John’s regulars at his blog thought this hilarious. John’s blog regulars are anonymous members of the Evidence of Harm Yahoo Group. People who say they care about autistic kids and the discrimination they face.

Recently, this blog was blessed with a series of short lived visits from Ray Gallup, the co-founder of the Vaccine Autoimmune Project. He started off with a series of sneery comments – par for the course and easily deflected. However, he then decided to start posting under the names of others, including fellow antivaxxer Alan Rees and the afore mentioned Dr Paul Offit. It was easy to spot it was him because the IP address was exactly the same.

Shortly after this I was forwarded an email from someone who had followed the Gallup idiocy (he’s banned now by the way) and had mailed him to ask what he was up to – here is the first reply:

Dear ****:

I heard through the grapevine that the Kevin Leitch crowd and his fellow swine assholes where accusing me and Alan Rees of putting things on their website/blog. These people are a bunch of scumbags and I wouldn’t waste my time with dumb fucken people.

Thanks.

Ray Gallup

Except you _did_ Ray. So why lie about it?

Anyway, that was just the starter. The main course that followed showed yet again, the full extent of the bitter hate and violent tendencies of the mercury militia:

Dear ****:

Since you seem to follow what is going on with the Leitch list let me know if Leitch, Deer and the others get hit with a fast moving truck or bus that leaves their carcasses mangled and bloodly on the street.

I will be devotely praying night and day that something like this happens to them and their followers. Especially since these creeps say such hurtful things to parents. They deserve all the best in something terrible happening to every last one of them and I will pray daily.

I usually pray for good things for families that suffer but in their case I will make a big exception.

Ray Gallup

Jim Laidler was also interviewed for the Nature piece. His words are worrying but I cannot deny their veracity:

This stuff is frighteningly violent,” Laidler says. “With the Omnibus trial looking like [the Cedillos] are going to go down in flames, I would be appalled, but not surprised, to hear that some act of violence was carried out.

Its certainly gearing up for that. It was only recently that Brad Handley of Generation Rescue said to me:

If we were on a rugby pitch, Kev, I’d put my boot in your eye and twist…

These are a set of people winding themselves up like a bunch of toddlers ready to have a major tantrum. But they aren’t toddlers. These are, amazingly, adults. I challenge them to find a single incidence of any Autism Hub blogger threatening violence towards antivaccers/autism believers.

Elsewhere
Orac.
Kristina.

Why investigating Wakefield matters

1 Aug

I occasionally get emails or blog comments along the general lines of:

Why do you do this? These people [Wakefield, DAN, whomever] are trying to help autistic kids!

The (il)logic train is very simple to these people: X listened to their ideas about vaccines and autism, X tries out never-seen-before-treatments on autistic patients therefore X is a hero. When X gets examined with disdain from mainstream medicine X becomes a martyr.

There is a bizarre disconnect at work here. Somehow we have progressed from an idea that scientific enquiry adds to the general body of scientific knowledge to the idea that its just about OK to do anything to patients irrespective of what’s actually ‘wrong’ with them in order to advance a poorly supported hypothesis.

Here’s why this matters to me and why Andrew Wakefield is a prime example of all that has gone bad in the small but very vocal subset of autism parents who believe MMR/thiomersal/vaccines in general causes/triggers autism.

First and foremost is the basic injury done to the scientific objective truth. This is, I agree, an entirely abstract concept but it has implications in our every day real-world lives. Science is what brought us the nice cubes of ice in our whisky and also brought us the Nuclear bomb. Whatever we personally think of these results, science has prevailed in both cases. The _truth_ has prevailed.

The people I and others refer to as the Mercury Militia (referring to the anti-vaccine/autism/parent activists) are not interested in the truth. This is not an opinion, it simply is. From the National Autism Associations deliberate and outright lies about what science has revealed about autism, to their supporters attempts to silence the debate via threats of violence and encompassing Lenny Schafer’s admission that there is not enough science to support the idea of a vaccine hypthesis and their only chance of ‘winning’ is via a legal route with vastly lower standards of evidentiray proof as well as David Kirby’s refusal to fess up to the terms of the hypothesis he himself set.

What people need to grasp is that this basic dishonesty permeates the entire autism/vaccine hypothesis. Time after time, when presented with more attempts to establish the truth, they never fail to act dishonestly and lie to support their beliefs.

As far as scientific objectivity and a search for the _actual_ truth is concerned – forget it. This is a set of people who are simply uninterested. If a story/hypothesis emerges that doesn’t embrace vaccines as causative agents then they will attack it. And what they will attack it with is mostly lies.

I have a question for them and people who believe and trust them – and I know they read this blog. The question is this: how good do you think the quality of any information/data is that emerges from the mouths of people who lie, evade and threaten? How good do you think the science is that originates from people who plagiarise other peoples work? How accurate do you think advocacy groups that lie to the media about what they believe are?

At some point there has to be a time when even self-denial cannot support these people. As we have seen, recent attempts to coerce the media have resulted in humiliating climbdown after climbdown. How far can denial continue to power the majority of the new soccer-mom, middle-class powered anti-vaccine movement of the naughty noughties?

Let’s take an example that touches on the title of this blog – Andrew Wakefield. His hypothesis regarding MMR and autism was discussed at length during the recent Autism Omnibus hearings (Cedillo, June 2007).

Andrew Wakefield is seen as a pretty much a demigod amongst the Mercury Militia. His word is taken on pure faith. Why? Because he agrees with certain parents that the MMR jab caused/triggered their child’s autism. The basic hypothesis is as follows:

1) Child is injected with MMR
2) Measles virus (MV) travels to gut causing various gastro issues
3) MV carries on travelling to the brain causing autism symptoms

ergo – MMR causes autism with associated gastro issues.

The whole hypothesis stands or falls on finding vaccine strain MV in the guts of autistic children. Wakefield (and others) claim they have. However, the facts tell a different story.

Wakefield (and all others) used a technique called PCR to ‘find’ MV in their subjects. During the afore-referenced Cedillo hearing, Dr Stephen Bustin gave testimony. Bustin is possibly _the_ world expert on PCR. Not only does Bustin use PCR every day, he has 14 papers in the peer reviewed literature on PCR, over 8 book chapters and is personally the author of the A to Z of Quantitative PCR. which is considered ‘the bible’ of PCR. One of his papers has been cited over 1,000 times. Another has been cited over 500 times. He both organises and speaks at international PCR conferences.

Basically, when it comes to PCR, the technique Wakefield (and others) used to ‘find’ MV – this is the guy.

NB – this whole section of evidence I blogged extensively, including quotes. Please read for more detail.

Bustin was first and foremost concerned that:

1) The technique that utilised PCR and employed by Wakefield (and others) was essentially useless. No controls were used. This is a serious scientific omission and makes comparing the data accurately impossible.
2) The technique failed to outline procedures for dealing with contamination of data
3) There were mismatched and misrepresented data designs

These items raise very grave questions over the _methodology_ used. The next set of concerns reveal the full extent of the scientific shambles of the entire MMR/autism industry.

This is a vital point to understand before we discuss these things. It is vital that we remember that, aside from one unpublished poster presentation (Walker 2006), _all_ , I repeat _all_ science that has claimed to find vaccine strain MV in the guts of autistic patients used the same lab to get its results – Unigentics, the lab of Professor John O’Leary. It is also vital to remember that Stephen Bustin did not just examine for afar. He spent over 1,5000 hours in the O’Leary lab before coming to his conclusions.

His conclusions were devastating.

1) The O’Leary lab had failed to take necessary steps. This omission made it impossible they were detecting MV.
2) The O’Leary lab was contaminated.
3) It was the contamination that O’Leary’s lab was detecting, not MV. Its worth quoting Bustin at this point:

So all of this evidence suggests very, very strongly that what they are detecting is DNA and not RNA. Because measles virus doesn’t exist as a DNA molecule in nature, they cannot be detecting measles virus RNA. They are detecting a contaminant.

It cannot be any clearer. According to the the man who is the recognised world expert on the technique that *all published science claiming to find MV in the guts of autistic kids* lab utilised, it is simply not possible that this lab could’ve detected MV. Without MV, there is no MMR/autism hypothesis.

And what is the response of Wakefield’s supporters to all this? I will quote John Stone, who fancies himself the cool calm voice of the MMR branch of the autism/antivax movement. When presented with Bustin’s testimony, he said:

I do not think there is much to be gained by arguing about the contents of a test tube….

This tells us all we need to know about the levels of denial that operate in this arena. Stone resorts to saying that the Cedillo case was not settled yet, which is true. However he evades the point that Bustin’s testimony is not dependant on legal justification. It is dependant on scientific accuracy. Given that it is *documented by O’Leary’s own lab procedure* that they omitted key parts of the process necessary to establish the presence of MV, I really don’t know what else there is to say on the matter.

Secondly is the effect all this anti-vaccination rhetoric has on the health and safety of public citizens. News stories that are accumulating started circulating a year or so ago on dropping immunisation rates and rising deaths and injury from vaccine-preventable illness:

In the course of 10 days, officials confirmed four pertussis cases, including the hospitalization of one child to treat respiratory symptoms. All of the cases afflicted children under 5 years old, and one in an infant just a couple of days old, according to Ravalli County Public Health Nurse Judy Griffin…..There have been more than 450 cases of pertussis in Montana so far this year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The infection rate is much higher than average years, when about 30 cases are reported….”Parents should check immunization records and make sure they’re up to date,” Nurse Judy Griffin said.

Ravalli Republic.

(Columbia) The state health department said yesterday that an infant has died from whooping cough. It is the first death reported in South Carolina from the disease in nearly three years….The health agency said it’s important children receive pertussis vaccinations on schedule.

WLTX News.

A whooping cough epidemic has hit Deschutes County. Health officials say that in the past six weeks, 18 cases of pertussis have been identified in the county. In all of 2004, there were only two cases of pertussis in Deschutes County.

KATU 2.

An increase in cases of the highly contagious whooping cough is prompting state health officials to urge stricter compliance with childhood immunization schedules….Cases have increased annually from 22 statewide in 1996 to 120 last year…Oklahoma’s childhood immunization levels continue to lag behind those nationally, officials said.

RedNova News

Kids are dying again. And in some areas of the US the disease causing those deaths is at epidemic (real epidemic as oppose to autism epidemic) proportions. And thats just one disease that vaccination removed the sting from for many years. In my country (UK) we’ve recently had a Mumps epidemic.

Vaccine uptake rates of this vaccine in the UK have fallen to amongst the lowest in Europe:

Take-up rates of the jab dropped throughout the UK, down to less than 70% in some areas, after a small-scale study published in The Lancet in 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield suggested a link to autism.

Source.

In 2004, mumps cases in the England and Wales rose from 4,204 in 2003 to 16,436 in 2004, nearly a four-fold increase.

And in the first month of 2005, there were nearly 5,000 cases. Most were among young adults born before 1988 and who would, therefore, not have been offered MMR as a child. In the second paper, Dr Ravindra Gupta, from London’s Guy’s and St Thomas’, working with colleagues from King’s College London, found cases have also occurring in very young children who would have been eligible for the MMR – measles, mumps and rubella – vaccine…..Dr Gupta (…) said uptake of MMR among two-year-olds in the UK fell from around 92% in early 1995 to around 80% in 2003/4.

Source.

In October 2004, experts predicted that due to falling vaccination uptake, the UK would start to suffer from ‘small outbreaks’:

The medical newspaper Pulse has warned that there could be a measles epidemic this winter on a scale last seen in the 1960s. It said that lowering levels of immunity meant as many as 12% of children and 20% of adults could be hospitalised if infected by measles.

Source.

And now, last year, 18 months after these warnings, we have the UK’s first measles induced fatality in 14 years.

The 13-year-old who died last month lived in a travellers’ community. It is thought that he had a weakened immune system; he was being treated for a lung condition. The boy died of an infection of the central nervous system caused by a reaction to the measles virus. The Health Protection Agency described his death as shocking.

Source

The Times also says that of the 72 reported measles cases in that last month, 9 required hospitalisation – this tallies almost exactly with the 2004 prediction of a hospitalisation rate of 12%.

This is real evidence of harm. Never forget it can be traced back to a man with absolutely no evidence at all to support the science of his claims.

Thirdly is the effect all of this has on autism and autistic people like my daughter. The vaccine induced blind panic that the people behind these hypotheses and their media agents at the NAA, SafeMinds, Treating Autism and Generation Rescue have done their best to inculcate is having a toll on autistic people. Here’s a passage from an email I received a few months ago:

…when I said he was autistic, they told me I shouldn’t bring him to a school, that vaccines had made him ill and that their kids could catch that illness….after all, these women reasoned that if it [autism] could be caused by vaccines, it could be caught and passed on to other kids….

This is frightening. Autism as a condition has a lot of stigma to deal with already. The fact is that any hypothesis that has gone on now for over 10 years without any scientific support, as the vaccine/autism one has, needs to shut up and move on. No good can come of creating more stigma for no benefit.

In 2004, the BBC discussed a report from the Institute of Child Health, the National Autistic Society and the Parents’ Autism Campaign for Education that looked at the state of autism research. One of its conclusions was that:

….the row over a possible link with the MMR jab has over-shadowed the fact that little is known about the behavioural disorder….

This has led to a situation wherein:

…It showed almost 60% of UK autism research only looks into the symptoms, while just 22% is dedicated to the causes, 8% to possible interventions and only 5% to the effect of family history.

So, a dwindling 8% of all autism research fundings looks into interventions. The marketing of the MMR hypothesis has meant that this pathetic 8% is all that autistic people can expect in terms of educational research, programs for adults – basically if it will have some tangible impact on the lives of autistic people then it comes out of this 8%.

This then, is the legacy of the autism/vaccine hypothesis and its supporters. Bad for the truth, bad for science, bad for public health and bad for autistic people.

Just Sayin Part VIII

22 Jul

The Wakefield Legacy

18 Jul

A report in the online Times about the appalling practices of Andrew Wakefield, revealed what will be his true legacy. Sickness, hospitalisation and (God forbid) death.

We know now after the Cedillo hearings that not only was Andrew Wakefield using a contaminated lab that couldn’t possibly have located measles virus but that at the time he was writing his Lancet paper he knew that what he was saying was false. He knew his positive results were actually not positive at all. And still he went ahead.

There is yet another measles outbreak in London at the moment:

City and Hackney Teaching Primary Care Trust says that there have been 32 cases in Hackney since May and 13 in the past week. Most of the cases were among the Orthodox Jewish community.

Let us all hope that none of these people come to any serious harm. And whilst we hope we should be horrified by the unmissable implications of measles data from England and Wales:

Of 133 cases in England and Wales last month, only six were in people who had been vaccinated.

That is about the clearest signal I can imagine that what not vaccinating leads to is illness. Over 95% of the measles cases in England and Wales last month are happening to non-vaccinated people. This is very, very worrying.

This is the real legacy of Andrew Wakefield’s antivax stance. Looking at a possibility never hurt anyone. Researching a hypothesis never hurt anyone. Refusing to see the inevitable when study after study fails to establish a link is hurting people.

The bottom line is this – MMR doesn’t cause autism. There is no evidence to suggest it does. Those who perpetuate the belief that there is or who continue to cry shamefully for ‘just one more study’ share responsibility for these outbreaks and the people who get hurt in them. For the sake of your conscience’s alone, I hope no real harm comes to any of these people.

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