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MMR and Autism – 2007 is the year

1 Apr

This year, the Autism Omnibus hearing in the USA will examine the idea that MMR causes autism. They will do this by taking one of the plus 4,500 cases and looking at it as a ‘test case’. The case in question is the Cedillo family, mother Theresa (just a coincidence), father Michael and daughter Michelle.

The document above by the way establishes that they want the evidence they accumulate to be open to the other families but that they do not want the identities or the evidence of their expert witnesses to be made available online. I wonder why. If I may be so egotistical, it could have something to do with the fact that several bloggers have trounced both the data and the experts and they don’t want this happening any more.

Anyway. What do we know about the Cedillo’s?

We know that Michelle’s bioposies were examined by Professor O’Leary, one time colleague of Andrew Wakefield who went on to have his own results seriously questioned and who went to say:

Professor John O’Leary, who did the tests for solicitors representing the families of autistic children, said his scientific findings “did not support the MMR/autism hypothesis”.

We also know that Michelle was seen by Arthur Krigsman, who, despite claiming to replicate Wakefield’s discredited Lancet paper has had no papers on autism, or vaccines published at all. What he has had however, are numerous close calls with licensing bodies – in one instance he had to resign in order to escape official investigations into his conduct.

And what do the Cedillo’s believe has happened to Michelle?

We just found out the left hind foot bones in Michelle’s foot are deformed. Instead of being one on top of the other, they are growing side by side. Michelle is on pain meds nearly around the clock. She limps and walks with a side to side gait instead of forward like normal. This was caused by the Crohn’s associated arthritis (confirmed independely by 2 orthopedic spec and a ped rheumatologist AND Dr. Krigsman and Dr. Wakefield), which was caused by the Crohn’s disease caused by the vaccine strain measles RNA found in her bowel tissue from the MMR. Michelle gets periodic ocular inflammation – also from the Crohn’s disease. This gives her headaches.

Its terrible that such a young girl is in so much discomfort. But looking past that and concentrating solely on the science, we see that the Cedillo’s believe that Michelle contracted Crohn’s disease brought on by the measles element of the MMR.

So – Crohn’s _and_ autism? Searching VAERS, I find only seven cases that refer to ‘crohn’ and had the MMR vaccine. That’s pretty rare.

Even those who might be expected to support the MMR/autism hypothesis don’t. In an email to the Autism Biomedical Group on March 08, 2004, Vice President of SafeMinds Mark Blaxill stated:

epidemiological evidence (albeit from studies that have not carefully considered interaction issues), have not supported the broader proposition that “MMR causes autism.”

I will be very curious to see exactly who their experts are and what their evidence will be. If it really is, as I suspect, Andrew Wakefield, then they won’t be able to choose a worse time to invoke his ‘expertise’. Wakefield’s hearing at the GMC starts at about the same time.

Here’s a beginners guide to the MMR/autism hypothesis and what Wakefield claims to have found. The hypothesis states that the MMR vaccine, being a live vaccine, leaves bits of live Measles virus in the gut. Wakefield claimed to have found it there. This goes on to trigger autism.

No part of this hypothesis has ever been replicated and published in a decent journal. Wakefields closest colleague – Krigsman – has been unable to find a publisher for his ‘replication’ which indicates the quality of _his_ science. As reported above John O’Leary claimed to have replicated Wakefield’s work but it turned out there was a good chance his data was contaminated and he later stated none of his work showed a connection. Various epidemiological studies have also failed to find any link (as Mark Blaxill admits).

We also have two clinical science papers that demonstrate convincingly that Wakefield did indeed make a substantial error. One Paediatricsin Pediatrics was very damning:

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.

Translation: We replicated Krigsman/Wakefield etc to their end point and there were lots of measles virus just like they said.

Almost all of the positive reactions in these assays were eliminated by evaluation of melting curves and amplicon band size.

Translation: We did the science properly just like they didn’t. When we did most, but not all of the positive reactions disappeared.

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.

Translation: When we looked at the rest of the very small number of positives we had left we found no measles virus in any of them.

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

Translation: We double checked our methods and tools and there were now _no_ positive reactions at all. Further more, just for clarity – there were none in our non autistic people _or our autistic people_.

It’s going to be very, very difficult for the Cedillo’s to overcome this.

Now, closer to home (for me anyway), there are a couple of new papers that discuss what impact the MMR really _did_ have on people. Here’s some real evidence of harm.

In “Tracking mothers’ attitudes to MMR immunisation 1996–2006“, we hear the alarming statistic of how much damage Wakefield et al did to the UK MMR program:

The proportion of parents believing MMRto be a greater risk than the diseases it protects against has fallen from 24% in 2002 to 14% in 2006. The proportion of ‘hard-core rejectors’ of MMR vaccine remains stable at 6%. There has been a gradual and sustained increase in the proportion of parents across all social groups saying MMR was completely safe/slight risk rising from 60% in 2002 to a current level of 74%. There now appears to be a sustained move away from fears over MMR safety and belief in the unfounded link to autism towards a more positive perception of the vaccine.

It a relief that the authors believe there is a sustained move back towards a more rational state of mind regarding MMR but its incredible that 24% of people ever believed that MMR was more risky than the diseases it protected against.

Its no surprise then, that in the years 1997/98 – 2004/05, MMR uptake dropped by a massive 10%. Of interest, when comparing that _fall_ in MMR uptake is the epidemic rhetoric that claims autism is sweeping the UK too. Both things can’t be true. If MMR causes autism then however one paints the stats, there should’ve been a 10% fall in autism.

One group of people truly have suffered through this period. They have been the front line recipients of the bad science of Wakefield et al: parents of autistic kids.

In the new paper, “MMR: marginalised, misrepresented and rejected? Autism: a focus group study“, investigators interviewed parents of autistic kids:

Of the parents whose children received the MMR vaccine, many felt guilty that they may have caused or contributed to their child’s autism. Some parents felt frustrated by health professionals’ lack of understanding of the negative impact the MMR controversy has had on them. Some parents were anxious about subsequent MMR decision-making for their children.

This is the legacy of Andrew Wakefield. Parents who are guilt ridden and unsure who to turn to. The study conclusions state:

The controversy has had a negative impact on some parents of children with autism. This has implications for health professionals, who need to be particularly aware of the issues these parents face in future MMR decision-making for their affected child and younger siblings.

These focus group discussions produced moving and often emotional accounts of parents trying to come to terms with their child’s diagnosis of autism against a backdrop of widespread public speculation about the role of the MMR vaccine in the aetiology of autism.

As Jim Sinclair states in his essay ‘Don’t Mourn For Us’:

Some amount of grief is natural as parents adjust to the fact that an event and a relationship they’ve been looking forward to isn’t going to materialize. But this grief over a fantasized normal child needs to be separated from the parents’ perceptions of the child they do have: the autistic child who needs the support of adult caretakers and who can form very meaningful relationships with those caretakers if given the opportunity.

The parents in these focus groups (and remember these people were interviewed when the MMR conspiracy theory was still well underway) never had a chance to move past the natural adjustment period and on to acceptance. When the media and ‘scientists’ continue to express certainty despite having absolutely no evidence that MMR causes autism its hard to get past the guilt. I know. That’s how I felt as well.

Parents often spoke angrily about how the MMR controversy had impacted on their lives. Even parents who stated that their
child’s autism was entirely genetic in origin felt affected by the uncertainty about the causes of autism which were heightened
by the controversy. For example, one mother who thought her son had been born with autism nonetheless found the speculation surrounding MMR upsetting, and stated that: … it makes you feel pretty damn rotten. I feel as if at the time I did the best for my boy… I wouldn’t have put my child through anything that I think would harm him. (G1: P3)

Thanks again Andy.

Katie Wright and Autism Speaks – woo confirmed

29 Mar

For the last few weeks the subject of ire on the EoH maillist has been Autism Speaks, they’ve been the subject of some very nasty descriptions indeed. The reason is that the EoHers knew that Katie Wright, daughter of the owners of Autism Speaks, was taking her son Christian to a DAN! doctor and yet Autism Speaks were keeping this quiet.

Well, as blogged by David Kirby, Katie Wright has now confirmed that Christian is seeing a DAN! doctor (lets hope its not one of the paedophiles or Scientologists) and has gone ‘on the record’ as stating she believes vaccines caused Christians autism.

The mercury militia and David Kirby report this:

Many in the upper echelons of Autism Speaks have rejected any environmental hypothesis and insisted that autism is purely a genetic disorder — though Bob and Suzanne Wright (and the organization itself) remain officially neutral on this crucial question.

But now, Christian is getting better, and that wonderful news could change everything.

Well, firstly, I can’t recall anyone from Autism Speaks insisting that autism is purely a genetic disorder. If they did I think they’d be just about alone. Secondly, ‘Chrisitan is getting better’. Really? How is that described exactly?

“He’s definitely getting better,” Katie told me by phone. “He was a very sick kid, with an extended gut and inflamed intestines. We couldn’t do anything until we got that under control.” But once Christian started to improve physically, she said, he also began to get better emotionally, mentally and cognitively.

When Christian’s gut improved, his parents began trying other, still-unproven treatments like dietary changes (no wheat or dairy) chelation therapy (removal of heavy metals from the body) and methyl B-12, which could help restore a critical process called methylation – a needed tool for detoxification and proper nerve function that is apparently deficient in some autistic children.

“Christian is speaking now, though only when prompted,” Katie told me. “His eye contact is returning, and his crying and tantrums have subsided.” And she said, “His ability to attend has returned. Now he can sit and do his lessons and learn, whereas before he would just lie down and scream in pain, because his abdomen hurt so much. But he still has a long way to go.”

Perhaps most heartening to Katie is that Christian can now tolerate being in close contact with his brother, something that used to send the boy into screaming fits of anxiety.

Well I too am glad that Christian doesn’t have these gut problems anymore. But these aren’t autism and have nothing to do with autism. My daughter, who is also autistic, has never had an ‘extended gut and inflamed inststines’. Thats not to downplay Christian’s problems but its simply not realistic to equate these things with autism.

Christian (who is 5 and yet described by Kirby as a ‘toddler’) displays very similar behaviours to Meg at five (and at three) – she didn’t speak at all, she struggled with eye contact and she had big meltdowns. The thing she has in common with Christian is that their changes have occurred as they have grown older.

Kirby goes on to say:

So how will some Autism Speaks officials react to Katie’s statements? They could fall back on two recent, but highly inconclusive studies that support the autism-is-genetic paradigm, and continue to reject the environmental hypothesis. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

I’m unsure exactly what two recent genetic studies Kirby is talking about as he doesn’t name them but if they are written by decent scientists then I highly doubt they have written an off-the-cuff rejection of an environmental aspect to autism. If anyone does know what studies Kirby is referring to please say so I can check for myself. I find double checking Kirby’s words often reveals interesting things!

But hsi question is a good one. How _will_ Autism Speaks react? They are a ‘house divided’. They have the scientific teams that they inherited from NAAR and they have their ‘in house’ members that are media people. Will they go for the media or for the science? It seems that Kirby and the mercury militia are in no doubt about which way they _should_ go – they want a media driven Autism Speaks. An organisation that abandons science for woo.

It should be noted that the mercury militia are very, very good at media manipulation. From Brad Handley’s full page ads to Katie Wrights levering of Kevin Barry to get onboard Autism Speaks and of course, David Kirby’s fact free and often hilarious debating points. These are not people who let a media chance go unexplored. However, they cannot force science to show something that it does not.

Education data is the new black

26 Mar

Or, more accurately, Education data is the new CDDS.

Up until this year, David Kirby, Lenny Schafer, Rick Rollens et al said that CDDS data was the gold standard of autism data and because rates were rising during the 90’s according to CDDS data this proved that vaccines caused autism. Then they said this would be proved in 2005 – sorry, 2007 – when it was firmly established thiomersal was pretty much out of all vaccines in the US schedule excepting the voluntary flu jab. Kirby went so far as to say that if the CDDS rates didn’t fall by 2007 then this would be a significant blow to the thiomersal theory.

Guess what? No fall. In fact, there was a continued climb.

Next they all said – CDDS? That stuff is rubbish – California is ‘special’. No, no, no, what _really_ counts is educational data. In fact, just this morning, the latest Schafer Autism Report carried new data that showed how autism rates were still climbing.

But hang on….seeing as we _know_ that the amount of thiomersal in vaccines is essentially nil, and tests show that as early as 2002, over 80% of doctors surgeries reported they carried no thiomersal containing vaccines, how can we possibly carry on with the stupendously idiotic hypothesis that thiomersal in vaccines causes autism?

Feh. Never mind. Thiomersal is out of favour these days. These days its all about Aluminium or whatever other vaccine ingredient people want to wring their hands about.

Anyway, here’s a post I came across on EoH today:

I just found this newsletter from last fall- vaccine rates dropping funding short- sounds good to me. Too bad we are not counting AUtism rates like CA.

and it linked to this PDF which says:.

Alarmingly, our childhood vaccine rates have dropped from the highest in the nation to just below the national average. From 90% of two year olds fully immunized to less than 80%.

The inference is clear, right? If only we could count the number of autistic people in Maine up to and including 2006 I bet we’d see them dropping as the vaccine uptake in Maine dwindled. And hey – this should be an easy drop to find in the state that had the highest vaccine uptake in the nation, right? Oh, if _only_ someone had tracked the autism numbers in Maine!!!

Well, worry no more – the great guys at the Vaccine Autoimmune project have. (IE link only, poor web development ahoy!). Lets take a look shall we?

State 2000-2001 2005-2006 Percentage Increase
Maine 150 311 107

Huh??

Wait now…you mean to tell me that vaccine uptake _fell_ over 10% and yet autism _increased_????

Miraculous – whatever can it mean???

Daubert and the Autism Omnibus

17 Mar

I recently wrote about how the petitioners in the Autism Omnibus were trying to remove the need for their evidence to be scientific by fighting against the ‘daubert’ principle. I concluded that piece with a downbeat message that it was all too possible for petitioners to remove the need for their ‘science’ to actually _be_ science.

A regular reader (who happens to be a lawyer – no, not Wade) passed on a fascinating document (its 120 (searchable) pages – be prepared) to me which discussed the role of Daubert. My reader passed the link on to me with the explanation:

You will see a Court of Federal Claims Special Master, a couple of law professors, and some federal appeals court judges discussing causation and Daubert in vaccine cases.

Its a big (120 page) document so I’m going to concentrate on what these esteemed bodies thought of the role of Daubert in terms of applying it to the Vaccine Act. First a quick recap.

Oversimplifying things, cases tried under the Vaccine Act have almost no standard of evidentiary proof. That suits that Autism Omnibus petitioners as they _have_ no evidence or proof.

Daubert is usually applied in a _Federal_ court and demands that scientific evidence presented to that court is of a good standard of science.

That’s the basic position. If you want to read more about why these two positions are adopted for the differing courts then read the document I’ve linked to. Its just too big to go into all these things in a single blog entry.

So, ordinarily, Daubert would not apply to cases tried under the Vaccine Act. However, this omnibus proceeding is far from an ordinary situation.

JUDGE VOWELL: Well, let’s pick up on the issue of Daubert and Kumho Tire. Those decisions are mentioned nowhere in our trilogy of cases. In a program such as the vaccine program where there are no juries to be unfairly influenced, what role does Daubert play, or what role should a Daubert analysis play?

MS. GREY: I think that, like you said, in many ways they wouldn’t be applicable. We don’t have juries. We have a very sophisticated fact finder. Federal Rules of Evidence, Federal Rules of Procedure don’t apply here.

So that’s the basic positions. However:

MS. GREY: there is a reason why Daubert developed that is still applicable here, and that is to test the basis for an expert’s opinion. Why do we need that? Because when you have an area that is bereft of evidence like this, you don’t have the normal processes of a trial to test the assumption.

So you don’t have cross-examination that’s going to work as well. You don’t have the opposing evidence that will work as well. And that’s why you probably would be well-suited to take Daubert and apply it in this setting, even though you’re not protecting the jury from junk science. There are other reasons that underlie Daubert that would be applicable here.

And what are those other reasons?

MS GREY: You always, I think, want to probe the underlying basis for whatever opinion is being proffered in the Special Master’s Court. We don’t want to just rely on expert credentials alone. You want to see, was there any adherence to professional or technical standards? What is the basis for the opinion?

An excellent point. Only Daubert can give you this. And surely it would be utter madness to make such a judgement without taking a very careful look at _how_ results were obtained when looking at the results themselves. We know that the ‘science’ presented by the mercury militia is on the surface good but when looked at closely starts to unravel like a badly made sweater.

And here’s a paragraph assured to make the Bradstreets and Geiers of this world blood run cold:

Just like any other witness, a scientist, a doctor is going to be subject to biases, to value judgments that are coming from his own setting that could affect his view on the question of causation, which is why you want the Special Master or the trial Court to still probe the basis for the decision rather than just relying solely on the fact that the expert is making that assertion and is well-credentialed in that area.

Yikes. Will Jeff Bradstreet discover a renewed interest in his family again before this all kicks off?

What else?

Mr GREEN: at some point the idea of, okay, put up, expert, what have you got, is something that needs to be done, and Daubert is doing that under the aegis of Rule 702 and the admissibility of an expert testimony. It could be done at the hearing when an expert testifies, but it needs to be done.

It needs to be done. That’s the bottom line. There needs to be a test of expert testimony and Daubert is the way to do it.

But why? I said I didn’t want to go into the nuts and bolts of the legalities but we should maybe talk about why Daubert, which usually only applies in a Federal court setting, should also apply in a Vaccine Act court according to these people.

MS. GREY:…For 100 years, courts would allow treating physicians to testify about causation or about any subject as long as it was an inference that was the type that physicians normally make in the course of their practice. That would be the test; that we wouldn’t look beyond that. But that, as we keep describing, has changed gradually, especially in the last 10, 15 years. Why? What happened, we had an explosion of toxic tort cases, and there were a lot of experts that were willing to testify about causation without real strong scientific studies…… That brought us Daubert [.]

In other words, the sheer amount of new cases revolving around the issue of toxicity and vaccines led to a situation where it was no longer good enough to waive the standard (or lack thereof) of evidence. To prove toxicity, science had to be science. Hence Daubert. Ms Grey goes on to give a good example:

Let me just give you an example that will seem very exaggerated, but it’ll just show my point. If an infant develops a brain tumor after he gets a measles vaccine, this kind of post hoc reasoning would say, the vaccine caused the tumor. This kind of reasoning is going to be rejected by scientists. Why is that? Hundreds of thousands of infants receive a measles vaccine every year. A few of them will develop brain tumors. That’s the coincidence factor.

One of the fascinating aspects of this document is that the Special Master present – Judge Vowell – is also on the Autism Omnibus case as a Special Master (there are three in total). In reference to a non-expert physician opining that a vaccine _caused_ the problem, she asked:

Is it not, though, circumstantial evidence from which other circumstantial evidence I might reasonably infer causation?

The answer given by both Law Professors was essentially ‘no’:

You could take it into account, but it doesn’t qualify it. In other words, Capizzano (another precedent like daubert) probably in my mind went a little bit too far because it’s relying on the treating physician’s testimony to basically make out the whole case, and I think that that’s not strong enough.

There’s no resolution in this document but it seems clear to me – where an increasing amount of cases revolve around a scientific need for scientific evidence – Daubert will increasingly apply.

Yet more Scientology and Autism

11 Mar

After my post on Friday detailing how one of the ‘recovered’ poster children of Generation Rescue was in fact diagnosed, treated and recovered by Scientologists (people who do not, by definition, believe in psychiatric conditions), I was forwarded another piece of information that really did make me sit back in my chair and wonder where this was all leading.

Dan Burton is a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from Indiana. He is a firm believer in the autism/vaccine connection, being on record as stating:

“My only grandson became autistic right before my eyes – shortly after receiving his federally recommended and state-mandated vaccines”

He has acted in the interests of various parent led organisations who claim to be autism advocates and has become a powerful voice.

However, as the saying goes: behind every great man…

The people behind Dan Burton include (or used to) one Sarah Elizabeth (Beth) Clay who:

Beth Clay is Congressman Burton’s assistant, and Burton is the Chair of the House Oversight Committee.

This puts Ms Clay in a position of some strength with a man who is in a powerful position. In fact, as we can see Ms Clay has lobbied for SafeMinds, one of the largest antivax/autism movements, on numerous occasions.

Ms Clay also runs her own lobbying organisation BC and A International:

During her Capitol Hill tenure, Ms. Clay’s work focused on several breakthrough issues, including: complementary and alternative medicine, dietary supplement regulation, the epidemic rise in rates of autism spectrum disorders…..issues…..mercury and heavy metal toxicity

However, Ms Clay’s CV also includes other activities that are oddly not mentioned on BC and A’s website. She is a Board Member of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an organisation that:

CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the internationally acclaimed author, Dr. Thomas Szasz.

Yup, Beth Clay, Assistant to Congressman Dan Burton and hired gun of SafeMinds is a Scientologist, or works with them.

We now have several DAN! doctors who are scientologists, several thiomersal/autism lawyers who are scientologists, a ‘cured’ child who was diagnosed (partly), treated and ‘cured’ by scientologists and now one Congressman who’s advisor is a scientologist. We also have one indirect link from scientology to Generation Rescue (in the shape of Julia Berle, founding parent of that organisation and mother to the ‘cured’ child described above) and one direct link from scientology to SafeMinds in the shape of Beth Clay.

Maybe its worth reminding ourselves what Scientology is. According to ex-scientologist, Roland Rashleigh-Berry, Scientology is:

….a vicious and dangerous cult that masquerades as a religion. Its purpose is to make money. It practices a variety of mind-control techniques on people lured into its midst to gain control over their money and their lives

The founder of this cult, L Ron Hubbard, once said:

Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion

Or maybe sell snake oil.

Autism and Scientology again

9 Mar

Awhile ago, I wrote a post the detailed the disturbing links between the DAN! movement and scientology. It transpired that scientology – being a movement that is big on non psychiatric modes of treatments is a good fit for DAN! adherents. Both value detoxification for a range of things and it seems Scientologists have not been slow to ingratiate themselves into the DAN! movement. So far, I’ve identified three Scientologists who are also DAN! Doctors. One of them was involved in the death of a parent of a schizophrenic man in 2002.

One of the darlings of the autism/vaccine movement is Julia Berle who’s son, Baxter, was used in a Generation Rescue advert. Ms Berle is a frequent poster to various autism/vaccine groups. Her signature reads;

Julia, mom to Baxter, recovered in 2005, Founding Parent of Generation Rescue

As mum to a recovered child, Ms Berle’s opinion is sought in many places and she never stints from dispensing the advice she got far and wide.

Baxter Berle was diagnosed (at least partly it seems) by Scientologists. If I may quote myself:

Baxter Berle attended a school called ‘The Learning Castle’ which is an alleged elementary ‘feeder’ school for the Renaissance Academy with which it shares a campus (there seem to be about seven separate units on campus all feeding the Renaissance Academy). Here’s a little bit of information about the Director of the Renaissance Academy, Ann Hazen;

Renaissance Academy is truly bringing education back to life through the use of a full academic program, athletics, the Arts, a warm and caring staff coupled with the brilliant study and educational philosophies of humanitarian L. Ron Hubbard.

Yup, they’re Scientologists too.

So Scientologists had a big say in the diagnosis of Baxter Berle. What about his recovery? I was recently forwarded this email by a member of a autism/vaccine group Ms Berle is also a member of:

— begins —

Re: Opinion of Dr. Nancy Mullan ?
Sun Jan 28, 2007 6:25 pm
— In autisminterventionsocal@yahoogroups.com,
“djberle” wrote:

Hey there,

We used Dr. Mullan to recover Baxter. I like that she stays cutting edge on top of all new topics as it relates to autism. She attends numerous conferences to stay current. I also highly respect her availability to parents and compassion to “work with you” on
all aspects (to include financial to some degree). She cares deeply for our children and wants to help them….Our experience with her was very positive. I refer her often to other local. parents. I also refer Dr. Hirani as she helped us as well.

— ends —

So Dr Mullan recovered Baxter. Dr Mullan is also a Scientologist. She is the Medical Director of the Scientology owned Safe Harbor organisation. She also used Dr Hinari who studied under Julian Whittaker – another doctor with Scientology connections.

Here we have a situation where Scientologists have (maybe) diagnosed, treated and recovered a boy. This boy was subsequently turned into one of the poster children for successful recovery by Generation Rescue (of whom Ms Berle describes herself as a founding member).

Maybe I’m just a cynic but this reeks of ‘set up’ to me.

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.

Dan Olmsted – Autism’s Dick Tracy

2 Mar

Apparently.

Dan Olmsted, who writes for the Moonie owned UPI recently published another interminable piece in his ongoing series on autism (it isn’t really about autism, its about thiomersal causing autism but what the hell…)

In this one, he reveals the shocking results of his ongoing investigation into the private lives of the first set of Kanner’s patients and tries as hard as he can to draw a parallel between them and mercury. This time he’s struck the mother lode.

Patient Frederick W’s father is now identified as Frederick L. Wellman, a scientist who’s collection of papers ‘fill 18 boxes in the Special Collections Research Center at the North Carolina State University Libraries in Raleigh’.

The first item in the first folder in the first box is dated Spring 1922, when the senior Wellman was working toward his doctorate in plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin…..Wellman collected cabbage seeds infected with a common fungus and dunked some of them in a solution of mercury salts and hot water. “The lots treated with mercuric [chloride] were shaken vigorously at first to get thorough contact with the solution,” he wrote.

And that’s not all.

Case 1 grew up in a town called Forest, Miss., surrounded by logging camps, lumber mills, and a national forest being planted by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Forest is 50 miles from the Mississippi sawmills where ethyl mercury fungicides were first tested in the United States in 1929 to preserve lumber, a practice that quickly became widespread;

Case 3 was the son of “a professor of forestry in a southern university,” Kanner wrote….In 1936, he assisted in the planting of pine seedlings in the university’s newly acquired Hofmann Forest. His son was born in 1937. Organic mercury fungicides, including an ethyl mercury brand, were often used to prevent “damping off” or fungal contamination of pine seedlings during that era.

All this led Mark Blaxill of Antivax group SafeMinds to comment:

So now we have learned that Frederick Wellman handled ethyl mercury fungicides that were first introduced to the market in 1929 and that his child was Kanner’s patient No. 2….And we know that cases 1 and 3 grew up around the first application of ethyl mercury products. If that’s not a smoking gun, I don’t know what is…

A smoking gun. Impressive.

Except, lets apply a little less gasping credulity and a little more logic.

Fredrick Wellman’s documented use of ethyl mercury was 14 long years before his son was born. Does ethyl mercury have special time travelling properties no one told me about? And how exactly does Wellman Snr being associated with ethyl mercury lead to his son becoming autistic? By that logic every person who ever worked with ethyl mercury should both be autistic themselves and have autistic kids. Did Wellman inject the ethyl mercury into his scrotum?

And what was he doing during the year of his son’s birth? He wasn’t even in the country:

During most of 1936, Wellman was hunting exotic plant diseases in Turkey, Egypt, and Iran.

Case 1 ‘grew up’ (but where was he born?) 50 miles away from ethyl mercury. Everything else in that particular quote is supposition. Case 3’s Dad once planted seedlings that were planted about the same time that some fungicides that might’ve contained ethyl mercury might’ve been used. Thats a sight to may ‘might’ve’s for me.

Sorry, but this to me is not a smoking gun. Its not even a lukewarm barrell.

Another intriguing thing to note was that, in a follow up paper in 1971 Kanner found only two of his original eleven had had what he termed a favourable outcome. Those two were Wellman’s son and ‘case 1’. I’ll apply some Olmsted logic and conclude that the ethyl mercury obviously mitigated the worst of the ravaging effects of the hellish autism.

David Kirby’s Causation Trail

22 Feb

In a truly fascinating exchange on the Evidence of Harm Yahoo Group, David Kirby has revealed:

…the studies which, when taken together, suggest a plausible biological mechanism for mercury exposure as a contributing factor to regressive autism

The exchange came about as a ‘renegade’ poster to that group started laying down a smidgen of fact regarding the state of the science that props up the thiomersal hypothesis. S/he is not a popular bunny on that group.

The exchange led group big cheese Lenny Schafer to state:

It seems that junk science is in the eye of the beholder. It will probably take an impartial jury in a court of law to substantially settle if there is enough evidence of harm to implicate thimerosal and or vaccines in autism.

Seems like Lenny hasn’t been keeping up with the news in that regard.

Anyway, back to David Kirby. Hot on the heels of his amusing further goalpost shifting (somehow the non-decrease in autism numbers which, in 2005 and 2006 would be a grave blow to the thiomersal hypothesis are now suddenly nothing to trouble this teflon coated hypothesis) comes this – David Kirby’s statement on the existing studies which support mercury exposure (what? Not ‘MERCURY _IN VACCINES_ AND THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY’ David? Just any old mercury now is it? Bless you for exposing the courage of your convictions.)

So which studies float David’s boat? This is his list:

Richard Deth, Northeastern U;
Martha Herbert, Harvard U;
Jill James, Univ of Arkansas;
Thomas Burbacher, Univ of Washington;
Diana Vargas, Johns Hopkins;
Isaac Pessah, UC Davis;
Mady Hornig, Columbia U;
Mark Noble, Univ of Rochester.

Eight people, eight studies. Thise is the ‘science’ that David thinks suggest a plausible mechanism for mercury being a contributing factor for regressive autism.

As an amusing aside, don’t you love (and appreciate!) how careful David is becoming with his choice of words these days? No more of this ‘thiomersal causes autism’ stuff for him! Now its’mercury’ (not ‘MERCURY _IN VACCINES_ AND THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY’) and instead of ‘causing’ we have ‘contributing factor’ and instead of autism we now have ‘regressive autism’. best of all we have ‘suggest’ instead of MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC. Bless him, all the blog reading he’s been doing from the skeptical folks is finally paying off.

So, lets turn our attention to these studies of David’s. First of all we should note that the Mark Noble cite is a red herring (you lose skeptic points for that David) as, if I’m not mistaken, this study is a) a pilot study and b) not as yet underway. Certainly none of the other ten studies PubMed attributes to Noble, M. appear to discuss autism. Naughty naughty.

Richard Deth

Deth’s paper, if I may quote myself, can be summed up thusly:The basic gist of the Deth paper is that various toxins, including thimerosal, affect methionine synthase activity (a process that helps in building proteins) and that this can adversely affect children. In short, the Deth paper alleges that thimerosal causes methionine synthase dysfunction (MSD).

There are several issues with this as they relate to autism. Firstly, MSD and autism do not resemble each other. Symptoms of MSD are: Anemia, moderate to severe developmental delay, lethargy, anorexia, and homocystinuria (mental retardation, dislocation of the crystalline lens of the eye, sparse blond hair, and cardiovascular and skeletal deformities). Further issues:

1) There is no active transport mechanism into the central nervous system currently known for ethylmercury (thimerosal) whereas there is an known and active transport mechanism for methylmercury.
2) Because its half-life is much longer, methylmercury is more likely to accumulate than ethylmercury, causing higher levels of mercury in the blood.
3) Exposing cells in vitro to ethylmercury eliminates the most important difference between those two forms of mercury, and ignores the fact that ethylmercury is unlikely to enter the central nervous system at concentrations likely to be harmful.
4) The authors chose to use a cell line derived from a metastatic peripheral nervous system tumor to make predictions about developing healthy cells of the central nervous system. If the authors were interested in making claims about the developing central nervous system they should use cells derived from there.
5) The authors make statements in their introduction about developmental disorders such as fetal alcohol syndrome, Rhett’s syndrome, or Fragile-X syndrome, they fail to consider the fact that all of these diseases have their origins in the developing embryo and fetus, not postnatally.
6) The authors’ reference a study that evaluated the causal association between thimerosal and vaccines using the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS). Remember how good VAERS is?

Bart Cubbins produced a video detailing similar points.

Martha Herbert and Dianne Vargas

These two papers independeintly of each other indicated a role for neuroinflammation in autism (<a href="http://www.generationrescue.org/pdf/herbert.pdf&quot; rel="nofollow"Herbert here and Vargas here but they differ slightly. The Vargas paper states:

neuroinflammatory process appears to be associated with an ongoing and chronic mechanism of CNS dysfunction

and leaves it at that. Herbert specualtes with no basis regarding the fact that metals might play a part in the neuroinflammation. She has no basis for these speculations and it surprises me that they’re in a paper published in such a good journal.

Jill James

Jill James’s studies revolve around glutathione. Glutathione, amongst other things, removes merucry from the human body. James’ studies purport to show that autistic people are deficient in Glutathione and thus when they get mercury they can’t excrete it in the same way non-autistic people do.

However, they don’t. James tried to show that the two types of Glutathione in the body (what she called Active and Inactive) were about 31% (Active) and 33% (Inactive) less in autistic kids than non-autistic kids. However, it should be noted that these are not two differing forms of Glutathione but instead two states of one thing which have a relationship to each other – when one goes up, the other goes down. As Not Mercury states:

Decreased synthetic capability is one possible explanation but this would probably result in a significant deficit of total glutathione not an imbalance between the two oxidation states. _If James found any evidence of impaired glutathione synthesis in this small group of children it wasn’t included in any of her published work_. It doesn’t sound like the children were suffering from a glutathione deficiency as much as an increased oxidative burden greater than the capacity to recycle and glutathione and maintain full oxidative defense capacity.

No deficiency in Glutathione. But Not Mercury takes it a step further:

let’s suppose children with autism had significantly lower levels of glutathione. Would it render them unable to detoxify thimerosal from vaccines? Probably not.

The average human carries about 6milligrams mercury, even if James’ figures were accurate (which they are clearly not) or represent what she claims they do (which they clearly don’t) then the human body would still have several million times more glutathione than needed to excrete the suspect mercury. As Not Mercury says:

A person so severely deficient in glutathione they would be unable to detoxify 250 micrograms of mercury (upper limit of thiomersal in vaccines 5 years ago) probably wouldn’t survive long enough to be vaccinated in the first place. Every breath of air would expose them to lethal levels of ozone, pollutants and other oxidants.

Please read all of Not Mercury’s piece. It’s an eye opener.

Thomas Burbacher

This paper reached one conclusion.

The key findings of the current study are the differences in the disposition kinetics and demethylation rates of thimerosal and MeHg. Consequently, MeHg is not a suitable reference for risk assessment from exposure to thimerosal derived Hg. Knowledge of the biotransformation of thimerosal, the chemical identity of the Hg-containing species in the blood and brain, and the neurotoxic potential of intact thimerosal and its various biotransformation products, including ethylmercury are urgently needed to afford a meaningful interpretation of the potential developmental effects of immunization with thimerosal-containing vaccines in newborns and infants. This information is critical if we are to respond to public concerns regarding the safety of childhood immunizations

In other words, Burbacher blood vs brain is not a valid comparison and that methHG vs ethHG is not valid either. He then goes on to state that more research is needed into what the toxic effects of thimerosal might be. He states that mercury from vaccines doesn’t accumulate as much in blood as it does in the brain and thusly, using blood levels of mercury to represent brain levels of mercury is innacurate.

It was also presented that this paper connected the dots between thiomersal and neuroinflammation (see Herbert and Vargas) but this is a false representation and not claimed or even insinuated by Burbacher.

Two more issues arose from this paper. Firstly, when the Burbacher team performed the extraction of mercury from the blood or brain matter, they failed to introduce controls to ensure that the thimerosal was not degraded in any way as a result of the extraction process. This means they had to basically assume from the resultant possibly contaminated material how much was attributable to methylmercury and how much to thimerosal (ethylmercury). Secondly, Burbacher used thimerosal free vaccines and added pure thimerosal. It is difficult to know how this fresh preparation compares with vaccine formulas when thimerosal is part of the manufacturing process and may have suffered some degradation to inorganic Hg in the vials before administration.

Issac Pessah

The Pessah paper related how the study team found that thiomersal administered to mice caused “dendritic cells” damage. Specifically:

the thimerosal disrupted the normal biological signals that take place in cells, Pessah said. At lower concentrations, the signal disruption caused an inflammatory response; at higher concentrations it caused cell death.

So the position here is that thimerosal has a negative effect on the immune system. Lots of parents think autism is immune-system related. However, this study is a) unreplicated (as far as I know) and b) we may be overestmating the real world effect. Here’s Autism Diva talking about hearing Pessah on Autism One radio.

But the really weird thing is how he described how long the effect would last when the dendritic cells came into contact with mercury. If Autism Diva understood him correctly, lets say a kid gets injected with a vaccine containing thimerosal and the dendritic cells that come into contact with the thimerosal. This is not necessarily all the dendritic cells–some of them, and the DCs are affected by the thimerosal, depending on how much thimerosal they come into contact with. And this effect lasts…. years and years? Is that what he said? No.

Was it months and months? Is that what he said? Maybe it was days and days? Hours and hours? No, actually, what he said, if Autism Diva heard him correctly, was “minutes and minutes.”

So, we know that if you take dendritic cells of a particular kind out of a mouse, and grow them in a glass dish and dump a weak solution of thimerosal on them, they freak out or get a little weird and either way can’t do their job normally, and this effect lasts for,

(gasp)

minutes and minutes.

And speaking of Autism Diva we come around to:

Mady Hornig

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

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

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

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

Prometheus also had reservations about the design of the study:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good question. Diva found the answer highly revealing:

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

Diva also found a separate source that showed that:

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

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

Wrapping It Up

A study that hasn’t yet been done. A study that alleges something it can’t back up. A study with no data and empty conclusions. Two studies that have nothing discernable to do with heavy metals. A study that shows ethylmercury and methylmercury are not comparable. A study that damages cells taken from a mouse for the span of minutes and a study that purposefully overdosed mice known to be aggressive.

Lets remind ourselves of the Judge;s opinion of this same body of science when it was presented by Dr Geier in the RhoGAM hearings as support for the view that thiomersal causes autism:

…the Court notes that, in fact, a literature review can be an appropriate part of a method of determining general causation. However, a literature review must still be performed appropriately. As revealed by his testimony at the Daubert hearing, Dr. Geier, however, relied upon a number of disparate and unconnected studies, including the findings of Dr. Haley and Dr. Lucier, to reach a piecemeal conclusion with respect to general causation…..However, upon being subjected to extensive cross examination, much of Dr. Geier’s analysis, based upon his collective review of a motley assortment of diverse literature, proved, in the Court’s view, to be overstated.

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