Archive | Vaccines RSS feed for this section

David Kirby/Arthur Allen Debate Part I

15 Jan

ACIP Meeting Minutes, Feb 2002

It’ll be Part I because after the debate video is released I’m sure there will be more to come. This post will concentrate on the pre-debate interview involving both people on Fox and the words of several audience members.

OK, so, first lets look at the joint interview on Fox.

When asked what the issue was with vaccines Kirby replied that it was because up until _”very recently”_ , _”most”_ vaccines contained thimerosal. This is incorrect. Unless your definition of ‘very recently’ is five years ago and your definition of ‘most’ is between 2 and 5 % then its incorrect. Note that I am choosing to believe Kirby is simply incorrect and a sloppy researcher rather than a good researcher who knew about a document we’ll discuss shortly and elected to suppress his knowledge of it.

Kirby’s next error is when he makes reference to the ‘epidemic’ – he says in the the 90’s we start to see the number of autism cases really start to climb and that it ‘almost tracks exactly’ with the addition of thiomersal containing vaccines. This isn’t an error. Kirby knows this isn’t the case. He knows the ‘science’ that argues this hypothesis is poor, published in non peer reviewed, bad quality journals by people who utilised poor data sources.

However, this sentence also damns Kirby to sticking with those sources. If he wants to quote them to back up his points then he needs to realise you can’t simply abandon them when they don’t – and one of those sources is CDDS, and CDDS has very recently contradicted Kirby.

Kirby then proceeds from one error to another. He states that the symptoms of mercury poisoning are very similar to the symptoms of autism. They aren’t.

At what point do these errors that are stacking up become outright lies and dishonesty? I’m not sure but its a pretty fine line.

About a minute and 40 seconds into the interview, Kirby debuts his new adjusted hypothesis. He mentions all the ‘environmental mercury’ and makes special mention of California in order to challenge the CDDS stats I would assume.

Now excuse me if I’m wrong but isn’t the strapline to Kirby’s book _”MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY”_?

It is. So what’s with the sudden interest in ‘environmental mercury’. This interview was booked regarding the upcoming debate with Arthur Allen about the _vaccine_ hypothesis – the hypothesis Kirby made the central subject and content of the book. In this context I’m utterly uninterested in this new, competing theory. Stick to the subject would be my message and stop building convenient strawmen. More about this later too.

About three and a half minutes into the interview Arthur Allen gives Kirby a bit of a shock. He mentions the 2% figure I mentioned at the top of this post.

Let’s make sure we know what we’re talking about here. To do that we’ll skip forward to some remarks made by an EoH Yahoo Group member who attended the debate. These are her words about what Kirby had said.

We do not know when 25 mcg infant vaccines really made it off the shelves. When the CDC says the supply was down to 2% in 2003 (I think that was the stat) it was not official. They called vaccine providers and asked what was in the fridge — not a definitive answer.

First off I urge caution – the video’s not been made available yet so this person could be in error but lets assume for now its not.

This proclamation by Kirby is wrong on many levels.

We _do_ know when the vaccines made it off the shelves, the supply was down to 1.9% in 2002, they did _not_ ‘call vaccine providers and ask them what was in the fridge’. Here’s what actually happened (you can download the document at the top of this post to see for yourself if you want to).

In Feb 2002, a meeting was held by the CDC to discuss many aspects of vaccine policy and supply, one of which was the thiomersal issue. Here are the main points (see page 51 of the document):

1) The thiomersal update was made regarding paediatric vaccines. Babies and kids.
2) There was a _survey_ conducted from Sept 2001 to Feb 2002
3) The survey was performed using site visits from public health officials
4) In September 2001, 225 sites were canvassed, and 447 by February 2002.
5) The decline in thimerosal-containing vaccine went from 5.6 percent to 1.9%, from 33,500 doses out of 63,600; to 2,796 doses out of 149,147
6) Of the 447 interviews, 83.5 percent reported no thimerosal-containing vaccines in stock at any time since October 2001.

Make no mistake, this is a bombshell to the thimerosal hypothesis. When examined in context with the CDDS data which shows _no decline in autism_ this is the smoking gun that kills the thiomersal hypothesis stone dead.

To make it crystal clear – by 2002 thiomersal containing vaccines made up 1.9% of supply. Autism numbers are still rising. Reconcile if you can.

Anyway, back to David Kirby. Not a stupid man, he can see the writing on the wall. So what does he do? He makes up something else to ‘plug the gap’. Now its not ‘mercury in vaccines – a medical controversy’ now the writing is on the wall something else is needed. back to our EoH attendee:

Calif has had horrendous forest fires over the last 5 years (much more so than the previous 20), and pregnant women are breathing the fumes. Forrest fires release a lot more mercury than even coal fired power plants.

The horrific coal generated mercury pollution from China (as we have been reading) is getting worse and the mercury by-product is brought into CA (particularly So Cal) from the jet stream. These coal fired power plants have expontially increased since 2000.

Aha – here we have it. The prelude to Kirby’s second book methinks – he’s going to go all Al Gore on us and expound on the evils of environmental pollution.

Let’s be clear here: this is a de facto admission that the vaccine hypothesis is dead in a ditch. the minute that he reneged on his ‘severe blow’ of 2007 and the minute he went against the strapline of his own book he became openly hypocritical and wrong.

_You cannot have a thiomersal supported ‘epidemic’ when there is no thiomersal and increasing autism_.

I’m not suggesting that mercury has not increased with forest fires and (maybe) from China but to attribute these things as autism causation? Please. First off, the CDDS numbers are collected from regional centres. The data from each varies wildly – if Chinese mercury is an issue why are these numbers so disparate?

Are we also expected to believe that as thiomersal tailed off, the mercury from forest fires and China neatly and exactly dovetailed on in ever increasing amounts year on year until it carried on producing such a flat line increase? Were there no forest fires during the 90’s? Did China not spew mercury in the 90’s?

But all this is way besides the point of the debate – did the debate moderators call Kirby on this? None of this has anything at all to do with vaccines or thimerosal.

I’ll say it again: _You cannot have a thiomersal supported ‘epidemic’ when there is no thiomersal and increasing autism_.

I look forward to the release of the undoctered video.

Guest blogger on VAERS, gastric issues and autism

13 Jan

Manipulating VAERS - guest blogger Dr Nick Riviera

Hi Everybody!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pie chart of previously discussed numbers

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

Pie chart of previously discussed numbers

How cools is _that_?

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

Dr Nick Riviera

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

Bye Everybody!

Stat-tastic!

12 Jan

if the total number of 3-5 year olds in the California DDS system has not declined by 2007, that would deal a severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis…..total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.

David Kirby, Nov 2005.

Time’s up Mr Kirby. The last quarter numbers for 2006 are now in.

Jonathon even took the trouble to highlight on his graph where the Geier’s made asses of themselves declaring an early decrease in their 2006 paper. As can be seen from Jon’s graph (and even more clearly on Dad of Cameron’s) – _the numbers are still going up_.

A severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis has been dealt.

Jospeph tells us what to expect in the coming months in the way of excuses from Kirby. Something I also discussed in April 2006. In short, the militia will argue that there’s still TCV’s sitting around waiting to be used up (rubbish, but even if true, would be a very, very minimal amount, click the link to my previous post to see Sallie Bernard of SafeMinds struggling to locate TCV’s in June 2001), they will also argue that the flu shot supports the ‘epidemic’ (again, rubbish. Are we really comparing mandatory TCV administration culminating in 187 ug Hg with optional flu vaccines, administered in one season of the year, culminating in 25 ug Hg?). They will also argue that RhoGAM was a contributing factor (but as we all kow, that one’s got no legs.). They may also try and argue that some other vaccine/environmental ‘thing’ comes into play. This takes us right back to square one and is a virtual admission that thiomersal doesn’t do a goddamn thing except act as a preservative.

In fact, that process is already under way from the Big Cheese himself. In a post on Jan 9th 2007 to his munchkins on the EoH yahoo group, Kirby said:

I believe this puzzle will be solved by looking at TOTAL “environmental” toxic burden from ALL sources, including other chemicals, and, of course, thimerosal in vaccines,

Oh, of _course_ ;o)

This prompted a bit of controversy: H Coleman replied:

Please stop it- you’re all giving me a headache.

And Robert Krakow replied:

I disagree somewhat with the emphasis of your message. I don’t know anyone who focuses on the vaccine issue who believes that other environmental exposure is unimportant. To suggest so underestimates the intelligence of most of the members of this list.

‘Most’ obviously not including John Best, Rescue Angel, who said on that same group:

I view any talk of mercury in the air as a problem as utter nonsense. It’s just propaganda to deflect blame from pharma and I don’t buy one word of it.

See Robert? There’s more than a few idiots who need things spelled out to them on EoH.

Anyway, the impact of Kirby’s statement has not been lost amongst the rank and file militia members. They know he’s trying to move on. Memo to Mr Kirby: it would be quicker and more painless to just fess up: _A severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis has been dealt._

Two items of interest for US folks

8 Jan

There will be a debate titled “Vaccines and Autism: Is There a Connection?” between David Kirby and Arthur Allen. The debate will take place in San Diego, California (UC San Diego Price Center, 9500 Gilman Dr. La Jolla CA 92093) on Saturday, January 13, at 10am:

Admission is free, provided you register with TACA before January 10. (Be prepared to give out a mailing address). Or you can pay $10 on-site.

Sponsors include Generation Rescue, SafeMinds, TACA and the Autism Research Institute so as you can imagine, the quackery quotient will be high – anyone who favours a bit of reality and is in San Diego should go and give Mr Allen some support as I think he’s going to need it – the audience sounds like it will be partisan to say the least. Apparently some mercury mum or other has suggested wearing t-shirts with pictures of their autistic kids on them. Sounds like it’ll be conducted on a sound scientific footing.

The other thing regards the NIH which, not being ‘merican I’m not up to speed with so I’ll quote Diva:

Would you like to have a voice in how the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) spends it’s autism research dollars? The NIMH may be getting a windfall of cash for autism research by way of the “Combatting Autism Act.” Whether or not they get that windfall, money will continue to be spent on autism research. Whether that research will benefit humanity to a greater or lesser degree depends on how the money is spent.

Many people shudder at the thought of science driving a big eugenics campaign where every last unfavored gene is scrubbed from the gene pool by culling or sterilizing the genetically defective, though it should be noted that not all studies of genetics are aimed at eugenics. If prenatal testing for autism sounds bad to you, for instance, or if another kind of research bothers you, what kinds of sensible research can be done with all that money? And how can you have a say in how the money is spent?

Go read this petition that will be sent to the NIH/NIMH, and if you agree with it, sign it. Signatures are needed before January 16th, it would probably be better to sign it by the Friday the 12th as that would give someone a chance to send the petition to the NIMH properly by the Tuesday the 16th. A few hundred or a thousand signatures would be really great.

Spread the word as quickly as possible :o)

Andrew Wakefield backs down

4 Jan

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

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

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

Please visit his site for all the truly shocking shenanigans.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justice Eady declined Wakefields request to stay further proceedings:

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

Quite.

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

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

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

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

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

David kirby plays the segregation game

3 Jan

A truly fascinating start to 2007. David Kirby writes a blog entry entitled ‘There is no autism epidemic’. Why is it fascinating? Two reasons. Firstly, it reveals the lengths David Kirby is willing to go to shift goalposts even further. The entire entry is replete with strawmen arguments. An example – in his opening paragraph, Kirby talks about being vilified by people who who believe that autism is a stable genetic condition and then names the neurodiversity community as amongst his most spirited detractors.

Nobody I know who shares the opinion of neurodiversity believes autism is *only* a stable genetic condition. However, unless we want to throw out what we know about Rett Syndrome then we do have to accept that some of the spectrum of autism is indeed a genetically based condition.

He further describes neurodiversity as a ‘group of adults with autism’. Again, nowhere near accurate. As I wrote about only yesterday, neurodiversity is not specifically associated with autism, neither is it anything other than a fairly nebulous opinion shared by people who think respect and equality matters. Neither is it an opinion not shared by people who are parents of autistic children.

Here’s how Kirby sums up ‘the neurodiverse’:

Most of them, I believe, have what science calls “Asperger’s Syndrome,” or very high functioning autism. From their eloquent and well reasoned point of view, autism has no “cause,” and it certainly requires no “cure.” To suggest otherwise is to brand these adults with the stigma of disease and disability, which is patently absurd given their educational and intellectual achievements.

No.

Time and time again, the people I speak to who are autistic and who are sharers of the opinion neurodiversity expounds tell me that as children they either were not diagnosed at all and left to rot or diagnosed with low functioning autism. How do I know this? I asked, Mr Kirby, and then I listened to the answer. I didn’t make up any old opinion that suits my argument better. Some, like Amanda Baggs, still _are_ considered low functioning. My Great Uncle was ‘low functioning’ and my Great Aunt was ‘high functioning’ – both were born way before thiomersal was ever around by the way. My Grandma said that her brother-in-law was ‘much worse’ as a child than as an adult. As adults they were able to converse.

The first part of Kirby’s post sets up the second. He is attempting to dismantle the idea of the autistic spectrum and at the same time, corral all ‘the neurodiverse’ into a place where they cannot speak about autism. Here’s the filibuster part of his post in full:

But if that’s autism, then the kids that I have met suffer from some other condition entirely. When I talk about “curing” autism, I am not talking about curing the “neurodiverse.”

I am talking about kids who begin talking and then, suddenly, never say another word.

I’m talking about kids who may never learn to read, write, tie their shoes or fall in love.

I’m talking about kids who sometimes wail in torture at three in the morning because something inside them hurts like a burning coal, but they can’t say what or where it is.

I’m talking about kids who can barely keep food in their inflamed, distressed guts, and when they do, it winds up in rivers of diarrhea or swirls of feces spread on a favorite carpet or pet (no one said this kind of “autism” was pretty).

I’m talking about kids who escape from their home in a blaze of alarms, only to be found hours later, freezing, alone and wandering the Interstate.

I’m talking about kids who have bitten their mother so hard and so often, they are on a first name basis at the emergency room.

I’m talking about kids who spin like fireworks until they fall and crack their heads, kids who will play with a pencil but not with their sister, kids who stare at nothing and scream at everything and don’t even realize it when their dad comes home from work.

These are the kids I want to see cured. And I don’t believe they have “autism.”

Woah! My daughter very rarely speaks, she’s just on the cusp of learning to write, she can’t tie her shoes, she wakes up regularly in the night (on New Years Eve she got up at half past midnight – not 3am) but she is distinctly burning coal free, she tolerates certain foods very well and refuses to touch other foods, she used to smear faeces regularly on both the carpet, the walls, her bed, us, the cat and she’s had the odd bout of diarrhoea (no one said autism was pretty, right?) – she’s pulled out of my hand on occasion and ran and I’ve followed, heart in mouth, she sometimes has the odd pinch or smack at me if I’ve told her she can’t have something, or I’m not getting what it is she wants, she loves to spin – and bounce (have you see my video Mr Kirby?) and she used to be non-social completely.

So yeah, I know what you’re talking about. Guess what? Its still autism. I still love her just the way she is. I still don’t want to change anything about who she is. I’m happy for her to be autistic.

Here’s what *I* think.

I think you’re goalpost shifting again Mr Kirby. You don’t believe they have autism? So what was the last two years about? Why the constant harping on about the CDDS until it stopped showing you what you wanted it to? Why the sudden panicky need to dismantle the idea of a spectrum of autism? Why redefine? Is redefining easier than explaining why your hypothesis isn’t panning out?

And what’s this about?

Asthma, diabetes, allergies and arthritis are ravaging their bodies in growing numbers

Sounds suitably scary but a) has nothing to do with autism and b) would appear to be partly wrong. And what about this:

There is something, or more likely some things in our modern air, water, food and drugs that are making genetically susceptible children sick, and we need to find out what they are.

Wow, is this an admission of error? From stating a belief that thiomersal caused autism you are now suggesting that ‘some things’ are making ‘children sick’ – that’s quite a change of heart. Why? Is it so hard for you to say – ‘guys, I was wrong. Back to the drawing board and I’m sorry you wasted your hard earned dosh on my book’.

Here’s something for you to read on the subject of neurodiversity Mr Kirby, I hope the point doesn’t escape you.

On May 19, a small group of people with Down Syndrome and their supporters disrupted the International Down Syndrome Screening Conference at Regents College in London. This is the first time that people with disabilities have spoken out publicly about prenatal screening. Their protest opens up the debate about genetics, eugenics, and the rights of disabled people.

As a result of the protest, the conference organizers allowed Anya Souza to speak from the podium, a platform her group had previously been denied. Ms. Souza, a trustee of the Down Syndrome Association who is labeled as “suffering” from the condition herself, told the doctors why she opposes the screenings.

The protesters found it unacceptable that doctors would discuss better ways of preventing the birth of people with Down Syndrome while excluding the voices of people with that label from the debate. That runs, they said, directly counter to one of the main demands of the disability rights movement: Nothing about us without us.

“We are what we are,” Gilbert [another protester] concluded. “Ask our opinion.”

Do you get the point(s) Mr Kirby? What you are doing by pretending that AS and autism are two different things is taking away the opinion of autistic people. You are doing it without evidence that you are right, without anything other than a ‘hunch’. An MO that is becoming more than a little familiar. You are following the proud tradition of Lenny Schafer and Rick Rollens, who also want to stop autistic adults talking about autistic children being OK just as they are.

Be brighter than them Mr Kirby. Try and understand that no one advocates letting kids suffer painful medical issues but that these things do not, and never did, equate to autism. What you’ve taken away over the last two years from both these adults and the kids of those you call friends and those you don’t is dignity. Nothing about us without us.

Update: Kristina weighs in too and Joel writes a first class piece on proving one is broken. Diva gives us good instructions and spotting autistic people and Do’C and Jospeh ferries across a river of shit.

Follow the money

31 Dec

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can say that again.

And on it goes:

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

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

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

See some more notables on Brian’s personal site.

Brian’s report in the Times also states:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Understatement of they year!

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

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

I doubt March was alone in his thinking.

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

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

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

Couldn’t have put it better myself.

More reading

Diva, Mike, Orac and Anthony.

Autism extremists

28 Dec

There is a lot wrong with the UK in terms of provision for autistic people and education about what autism is to the mainstream. One of the things that isn’t quite right is the National Autistic Society. It’s numerous flaws include a lack of autistic people at policy making level.

But you know what? It knows this about itself and is trying to change. It is also a deeply responsible society. It carries a link to this PDF on its data pages. This article is a short ‘what is…’ guide that explains clearly what people should look for in a decent science paper and why these things are important. Peer review is discussed, as is the importance of publication in a respected journal. I strongly urge people to download this and pass it on to any parent or interested researcher. Its a great, non-technical, helpful and clear article.

By contrast, the US Autism Society of America (which is obviously in a battle with Autism Speaks as its strapline is ‘the voice of autism’) seems to have taken a step further down the road to quackery. In the latest issue of its ‘Advocate’ magazine, it included a number of interviews with such mercury militia stalwarts as Mady Hornig, JB Handley, Dan Olmsted and Martha Herbert. It also included a ‘how-to recover autistic children’ guide from ARI (home of the DAN! docs). Of note was the trumpeting of a new treatment option I hadn’t seen before:

Medical Marijuana to control aggression…

So if your autistic child is acting up, give ’em an illegal Class C narcotic….is this really the periodical of the most mainstream autism organisation in the USA? Giving space to people who want to push illegal drugs to kids?

I’m not going to pretend I’ve made it through 37 years of life without imbibing the odd narcotic but I was an adult, making my own informed choices. These people are trying to suggest that its OK to give these things to kids. Incredible.

I’ve discovered some of the most informed, considerate and knowledgeable people in the US. I’ve also discovered some of the most frightening, genuinely ignorant (and desirous of that state) people in the US.

Every now and then I can’t hold back from posting to web forums that discuss autism. I did that just before Christmas at a web forum that I’ve now stopped posting at again – it reaches such a fever pitch of idiocy that you think ‘what’s the point?’ And of course, people mail me every so often to point out something dumber than usual that that poster boy for assholery John Best has posted. I stopped reading John’s blog awhile ago for the same reason – the people who post there aren’t interested in debate or enlightenment. They desire their state of ignorance. Well, a quick toke on what DAN! promote those days should help with that!

But anyway, a quick example of one of the more extreme people who post at both these places (I didn’t know until today that this person posts at John’s blog but it wasn’t a surprise) is a poster called ‘dgdavies’ – real name Diane. I find her utterly fascinating and repulsive at the same time.

I found out via her that there is a conspiracy to somehow tie in the vaccine/autism hypothesis to the 11/9 WTC terrorism (which, by the way, was orchestrated by an internal agency according to her). She was, understandably, not clear on the details but she was adamant.

I found out via her that the vaccine/autism hypothesis could well be an Illuminati plot as suggested by FAIR Autism Media wacko David Ayoub.

Her latest fascinating conspiracy theory is that (and this truly is an awe inspiring piece of self delusion) is that the diagnostic criteria for autism was widened at the last DSM revision _in order to ‘hide’ the mercury poisoned hordes_ .

I hear tell, that like John Best himself, Diane doesn’t believe in evolution.

Is this the legacy of Bernie Rimland? A bunch of whacked out stoners swapping addled stories? Pass the hash pipe dude.

There’s also the small matter of at least one ARI DAN doctor being a paedophile, another being very closely associated with a convicted paedophile, DAN doctors belonging to cults like Scientology and, of course, the DAN! hierarchy happy to accept killers. These aren’t conspiracy theories. These are established facts. Why have these people been given any time at all in a supposed mainstream autism publication?

David Kirby – what have you done?

20 Dec

I want to follow up somewhat on Joseph’s techncial takedown of David Kirby’s recent act of intellectual suicide. On the Huffington Post he wrote a bewildering post called ‘Bad News for Mercury Defenders‘ which discussed how Dan Olmsted’s recent sleuth-like skills led him to talking about a report that undermined studies conducted using VSD data.

Let us begin:

Next June, when the Vaccine Trial of the Century gets underway in Federal Claims Court, government lawyers will defend the direct injection of toxic mercury into infant children by repeating the well-worn mantra that “five large population studies” in Europe and the US have completely exonerated the vaccine preservative thimerosal as a possible cause of autism.

My, my – vaccine trial of the century eh? I’ll have to remember that one when the verdict comes back. This is crap. No lawyer will have to defend the direct injection of mercury into infant children. What they will have to do is counter the accusation that thiomersal in vaccines caused autism. Kirby (as usual) presents a highly distorted view to his adoring fans. The truth is that as in all legal cases, the burden of proof lies on those making the accusation. The accusation is not that mercury is dangerous. the accusation is that it caused autism.

Again:

The VSD study is constantly held up by public health officials as EXHIBIT A in the defense of injecting mercury into little kids.

No, its not. If its held up as anything, its held up as a study that refutes the link between thiomersal in vaccines and autism. Seriously – isn’t this man a journalist? What’s difficult to grasp about this concept?

Kirby goes on to diss the remaining studies and surmises this section of his blog thusly:

With so many holes shot through their “five large studies” defense, the government lawyers will be left to argue that autism is purely genetic, that there is no environmental component, and that the rates of illness have not “really” gone up. We are simply better at recognizing and diagnosing the disorder, that’s all.

Well, if that is the case, the mercury-defense lawyers should have no problem proving it. All they need do is produce irrefutable evidence that 1-in-166 American adults of ALL ages (and 1-in-104 men) fall somewhere within the autism spectrum disorder, at the same rate as kids. But they can’t, and they won’t.

I can only surmise that Kirby is a big fan of the Wizard of Oz and had strawmen on his mind whilst writing this. Yet _again_ he fails to grasp the fact that what this trial is about is simply if thiomersal caused autism. All the vaccine makers have to do is refute the ‘science’ from the other side. And lets be honest, after the RhoGAM smackdown that’s going to be about as difficult as falling off a log. It’ll be surprising if any of the ‘scientific’ evidence ever gets past a Daubert hearing as it failed to do in the RhoGAM case.

And whilst we’re at it, no one has said anything about arguing autism is purely genetic. Why in Gods name would _that_ be required? Autism may well have an environmental component – I know I think it does – but unless Kirby is trying to say that the word ‘environment’ is interchangable with the word ‘vaccine’ then this is also just…meaningless.

And lets get back to the clinical science for a moment:

Instead, one must also consider biological studies (animal, clinical, test tube) when assessing causation. And that’s where the plaintiffs will come to court armed with reams of published evidence – produced at Harvard, Columbia, Davis, etc., and printed in prestigious journals – to suggest a highly plausible biological mechanism that would link a known neurotoxin with a neuro-developmental disorder

Has no one broken the news of the thiomersal/RHOGam/autism case to Kirby? _All_ the ‘science’ that Kirby is talking about here was brought to that trial (follow the link and you can download the entire Daubert findings and read the studies presented for yourself) and was cumulatively dismissed. Here’s what the presiding Judge stated:

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……[Dr. Geier] could not point to a single study that conclusively determined that any amount of mercury could cause the specific neurological disorder of autism.

So, that’s exactly what effect eliminating VSD based studies will have on the respondents case. None whatsoever.

But what about the plaintiffs? They have to prove beyond reasonable doubt that thiomersal in vaccines caused autism. And as Kirby helpfully points out:

….They wanted to know if the US database, the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), could be used to compare autism rates in kids before, during, and after the gradual removal of thimerosal, which began in roughly 2000.

Unfortunately, the answer was a resounding “not really.” A laundry list of “weaknesses” and “limitations” associated with the database would render such a comparative analysis “uninformative and potentially misleading,” the panel said, (though it did suggest some excellent ways to re-approach the data going into the future).

Some weaknesses had to do with changes in medical practices over time. But many of the limitations sprang directly from the poorly designed VSD study itself….

So what studies could be killed off by this examination. Well, there are two actually. The first one is Verstraeten et al (2000) which is the one we’ve been discussing so far and Kirby’s been bashing. The other one is Geier and Geier (2005) which they plagiarised from Verstraeten et al (2000). Oops.

Why does the nuking of Geier matter whilst the nuking of Verstraeten does not? Burden of proof, which lies with the prosecution. The Geier paper will be used to help _establish_ causation which is vital, not prove it didn’t happen, which is not called for. The Geier paper (which was crap anyway, lets face it) has now been neatly and effectively taken out by Olmsted and Kirby. Don’t Americans refer to that as friendly fire? By removing Geier 2005 from the playing field, the prosecution are now left with clinical science which has already failed one Daubert hearing (I believe the legal term is ‘setting a precedent’) and any epidemiological data they can scrape together from VAERS and CDDS.

As far as VAERS go, I’d like to remind people of my own experimentation with VAERS. And as far as CDDS data goes, lets remind ourselves one more time what Kirby has said about CDDS data:

“if the total number of 3-5 year olds in the California DDS system has not declined by 2007, that would deal a severe blow to the autism-thimerosal hypothesis.”….total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.

And here, helpfully provided by Dad of Cameron are the ever-growing numbers in that cohort.

There’s also the small matter of The Simpsonwood Conspiracy. To quote Joseph:

….it completely undermines the foundations of the Simpsonwood conspiracy theory. You see, Verstraeten et al. were supposed to have found significant associations between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental outcomes beyond those that were reported in 2003. But now Kirby is endorsing a NIH report which says that ecological studies on the VSD database, specifically those done by Verstraeten et al., are likely flawed.

In other words, without the VSD data being good, the Simpsonwood Conspiracy is a non-starter.

Amazing.

Just Sayin’ Part VI

19 Dec
← Older Entries
Newer Entries →