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Dan Olmsted and Andrew Wakefield. Rumour Mongering Ahoy!

14 Jun

UPI journalist Dan Olmsted has released another in his series of autism related pieces. This one is entitled: *The Age of Autism: But is Wakefield Right?*

The piece then goes on to discuss Olmsted’s belief that he may well be. Lets take a critical look at Olmsted and also Wakefield’s beliefs and contrast them with what we know and strongly suspect about Wakefield and the whole MMR debacle. Olmsted begins with:

Let’s put aside the issues surrounding the Lancet paper and concerns about a measles epidemic and go straight to the heart of the matter: Does the MMR cause autism? In other words, is Wakefield right? After looking into the topic for more than a year, I’m very concerned that he may be — that, especially in children whose immune systems have been rendered susceptible by any number of possible exposures, the combined live-virus vaccine has its fingerprints all over numerous cases of regressive autism.

I can well understand Olmsted wishing to slide the inconvenient retraction by the Lancet aside. Unfortunately they cannot be so readily shunted away. This (does MMR cause autism) is at heart, a scientific question. Only well designed, thorough, replicable science can support or refute it. The Lancet paper was _not_ good science. The study group was tiny. It seems that not only were the group of subjects sourced via anti-vaccine lawyers but I have heard rumours that there were not twelve subjects in Wakefield’s original group but actually sixteen and that the ‘extra’ subjects were ignored when their outcomes didn’t support Wakefield’s hypothesis. I hasten to add that that is total rumour but if its true, it raises more questions about this study.

I can also well understand Olmsted’s wish to put aside concerns about a measles epidemic. After all, already this year one life has been claimed by measles and hospitalisation rates are exactly in line with those predicted by experts in 2004. These cannot be comfortable truths for a journalist as one-sided as Mr Olmsted to face.

However, Mr Olmsted wishes us to ignore these things – pretend they don’t matter – so lets humour him and discuss only his narrow view.

Mr Olmsted states that he’s been looking into the matter for over a year. I’ve been looking into the matter nearly three times as long as that. Does that mean I ‘trump’ Olmsted? He says that childrens immune systems have been compromised and that the MMR live virus has ‘its fingerprints’ all over numerous cases of regressive autism. However, as is usual in these reports, Olmsted fails to back up these unsubstantiated claims. Indeed, these are part of the same belief system that has led to the point where Wakefield is being investigated by the GMC.

Does MMR cause autism – its a matter of science, not propaganda. If Olmsted wishes to convince people capable of rational thought then he needs to provide the science.

Has any science so far managed to substantiate Wakefield’s claims? Here’s Ben Goldacre:

But let’s not forget, the Daily Mail was promoting Krigsman’s research back in 2002 as well: at that time, he was putting endoscopes into the bowels of young children with autism, and said he had found evidence of inflammation. 4 years later, looking on PubMed, the standard database for all medical papers, it seems this research still has not been published in a peer reviewed academic journal. Forgive my bluntness, but it seems a shame to go poking around up there if you’re not going to write up your findings properly. Meanwhile the Telegraph says that Krigsman’s most recent unpublished claim is replicating similar work from 1998 by Dr Andrew Wakefield, and 2002 by Professor John O’Leary. But there is no such work from 1998 by Wakefield, at least not in PubMed (in that year he publishes his infamous, very different, and partially retracted Lancet paper on MMR, of course). Meanwhile it is well documented that other labs have tried to reproduce the 2002 O’Leary study and come out with different results, and that the protocol was likely to have problems with false positives because of the tests used: two perfect examples of the importance of research being fully written up and published, so it can be replicated and assessed. Oh, and the newspapers didn’t mention that Andrew Wakefield was also an author on the 2002 study along with O’Leary, nor that Wakefield is also very closely associated with Krigsman (they are doctors together at Thoughtful House, a private autism clinic in the USA).

Bad Science.

So despite the claims of scientific verification from Krigsman’s work lets be clear: this work has not so far met the most basic standard of scientific credibility. Olmsted fails to mention this. It bears repeating: *Does MMR cause autism* is a scientific question. It can only be answered with good science. Krigsman’s work is not good science.

After talking about all the families he’s talked to, Olmsted adds:

You get the picture. “Anecdotal evidence.” But you have to wonder how many of these stories — one is tempted to say, bodies — must pile up before the medical authorities go back and take a fresh look at the issue. This blithe disregard for case histories — for what parents, the supposed bedrock of our “family-friendly” society, say — is one of the most appalling features of the current climate surrounding autism research.

Firstly, I have to say I am _not_ tempted to use the word ‘bodies’ in connection with autistic kids. Given recent events Mr Olmsted would do extremely well to choose his words with a little more care.

Lets also note that the ‘medical authorities’ _have_ taken repeated looks at this issue. The truth is that they can look until the cows come home. If there’s nothing there to find, nothing will be found. Ben Goldacre again:

in the May issue of the Journal of Medical Virology, there was a very similar study, only this one has actually been published. It looked for measles RNA in children with regressive autism after MMR vaccination, much like the Krigsman story. It used tools so powerful they could detect measles RNA down to single figure copy numbers. But they found no evidence of the magic vaccine-strain measles RNA to implicate MMR, and perhaps because of that unfrightening result, the study was loudly ignored by the press.

Readers may recall that as recently as last month, the usual tabloid suspects were screaming about MMR again, this time due to another unpublished poster presentation from Krigsman. Strangely, they failed to mention another IMFAR presentation which failed to replicate Wakefield’s work. No scope for shrieking headlines I guess and no scope for propaganda from Olmsted.

Olmsted also refers to Dr Peter Fletcher:

The official, Dr. Peter Fletcher, became an expert witness for parents’ lawyers, which of course creates a competing interest that needs to be factored in. But Fletcher said his new role gave him access to documents that deeply concerned him.

However, as readers may recall in an earlier piece I wrote at the time, Fletcher brings _nothing_ to the table except vague insinuation and conspiracy mongering. No new science is mentioned or discussed whatsoever.

Lets go through it once again: *Does MMR cause autism?* – this is a question of science. It can only be answered using the scientific method. So far, this science question has been answered in the negative. At some point Olmsted, if he wishes to continue thinking of himself as a journalist, will need to start looking a little more deeply at the issues he writes about. At the moment, he’s not a journalist. He’s a propagandist.

Geier and Geier ‘Significantly Misrepresent’ Themselves

10 Jun

Kathleen has written part one of a multi-part look at some of the recent actions of those purveyors of Lupron, the Geier’s.

Seems that a new study of theirs; ‘A Clinical and Laboratory Evaluation of Methionine Cycle-Transsulfuration and Androgen Pathway Markers in Children with Autistic Disorders’ was accepted for publication in Hormone Research and published online prior to being published traditionally.

The interesting bit is the claim of institutional affiliation to Department of Biochemistry, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA.

Intruiged, Kathleen contacted Dr. Allen Goldstein, Chairman of the GWU Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology to ascertain exactly what the Geier’s affiliation to GWU was. His reply was a bombshell and a further mark against the Geier’s honesty and reliability:

He described the affiliation with the Department of Biochemistry in the Hormone Research article as “fallacious,” and stated that it conveyed a “significant misrepresentation” of Mr. Geier’s position in the field of biochemistry.

I urge you to go and read the rest of Kathleen’s investigation into the Geier’s. Its a compulsive read.

As I understand it, this is _far_ from the end of the matter. There will be further parts to this ongoing issue. Keep an eye on the Neurodiversity weblog.

Creatinine, Chelation and Lupron…Oh my!

6 Jun

A recent news segment on NBC in America covered Chelation therapy as a treatment for autism. The response was as predicted. The pro-cure/biomed side went into raptures. Everyone else winced. As a UK resident I have to say that (sorry America) this seems to be a furtherance of the dumbing down of science in the US that has led to both this sort of report appearing on a serious news show and the joke of creationism being taught in science classes.

Anyway, thankfully, these types of things are still viewed by most people (over there and over here) as marginal and not representative of the truth. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that there is a lot of experimentation going on by so called ‘scientists’ and by some parents. My favourite quote so far from some retorting to the Dateline segment is:

A treatment used prior to proof is called an experiment.

ACSH.

So what can be said to be poorly understood and yet still be used?

Lupron for Autism

I recently had an interaction with a number of people on an Autism Biomed board after they stated that Lupron was ‘working miracles in recovering my child’. At least one of these people was someone who had assured me about a year ago that chelation was ‘working miracles in recovering my child’. A part of me fully expects to hear that car battery acid is ‘working miracles in recovering my child’ from the same person a year from now. After that? Tongue of Toad? Eye of Newt?

It was clear that the ‘scientists’ advising these people had not informed them of basic facts about the condition that was allegedly affecting their kids autism. Neither of them had had their childrens hand and wrist radiographed which is the standard way of determining if a child is undergoing Precocious Puberty or not. Basically, If bone age is within 1 year of chronological age, puberty has not started. If bone age is advanced by 2 or more years, puberty likely has been present for a year or more or is progressing more rapidly.

The single most basic fact about Precocious Puberty is that it is immediately subdivided into Central Precocious Puberty (CPP) or Pseudo Precocious Puberty (PPP). It is vital to make this difference as the treatment is different in each division. The division can only be made by testing for premature activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis. When I asked one of these people if the Geiers (yes, it was they) had subcategorised into CPP or PPP they did not know what I was talking about. They were entirely ignorant of these terms. It was clear neither of the two people I had spoken to had undergone this sub-categorisation.

They claimed it was ‘enough’ to ‘know’ that their children had excess testosterone. One of these children is female. This child’s parent was utterly ignorant of the fact that excess testosterone in females was not called ‘precocious puberty’ but indicative of ‘Androgen excess’. Lupron is not mentioned as a treatment for Androgen Excess.

One other interesting fact about increased testosterone is that in patients diagnosed with PPP, this can result from an excess of vitamins and other dietary supplements. Its common knowledge that this is a common part of DAN! and DAN! style treatment regimes. Yet again, the Geier’s patients parents were entirely unaware of this fact.

Sources

http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic1882.htm
http://www.emedicine.com/PED/topic1881.htm
http://www.androgenexcesssociety.org/signs.html
http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/ency/sex_hormones_tests.jsp

The Role of Creatinine in Relation to Porphyrins and Chelation to Creatinine

I’m not going to go over this subject as well as Not Mercury recently did but I want to highlight a few key concepts from that paper that it seems the authors either missed or didn’t account for.

The paper’s essence is that it is significant the their are elevated levels of Porphyrins in autistic kids. However, they fail to account for the likelihood that this is a false elevation. The study attempts to measure the amount of porphyrins in the urine of their subjects. However, because collecting urine of a standard volume, content and dilution is next to impossible, its necessary to use a stable compound to express the porphyrins as a ratio of – which is where creatinine comes in. So, the paper claims that, relative to creatinine, porphyrins are high in autistic kids.

However, as Not Mercury also highlights, its fairly accepted amongst DAN! practitioners:

Creatinine is often found to be marginal in the urine of autistics, and low creatinine can skew urine analyte results to high levels. So, also take note of creatinine levels if the laboratory results include ratioing to creatinine.

PDF translated to HTML from ARI

And Andrew Wakefield’s colleague, Paul Shattock, also reports low creatinine in autistic kids (see source on Not Mercury blog entry). So why does that matter? Now, I’m no scientist so I was struggling to find a way to visualise this in my head and I came up with the bar chart below. The thin black line is an arbitrary ‘baseline’ (where the creatinine stops and the Porphs start) below which in purple is creatinine levels and above which is Porph levels. Now, in the autistic representation note how the decrease in creatinine has led the baseline measurement for Porph to falsely raise the amount of Porphs. In other words, relative to the baseline, there are not more Porphs as such, but less creatinine. I’m open to interpretation on this by the way – I don’t want it to be misleading.

There are also anecdotal reports of various chelators reducing creatinine further:

my son’s creatinine has come down to 11 by round 3. why is it going down?how can i bring it back to normal? i have been giving glycine to him also during rounds – every 3hrs dmsa+ala

Onibasu.

And:

Importantly, recent data suggest that oral NAC administration > transiently lowers creatinine levels.

PubMed

So here we seem to have a situation wherein autistic children are already noted to have low creatinine levels and that these levels could be even further reduced by the chelators used either in the study itself or by parents externally to the study and still the study authors claim it is significant to epxress Porphs _as a ratio_ of creatinine.

Autism One

Meanwhile, over in Chicago, Autism One has been in full force (or should that be farce?). I’m reliably informed that one of the big draws was David ‘crowd pleaser’ Kirby so I downloaded his slides to have a looksee.

Incredibly, it seems that David Kirby has magically ‘forgotten’ everything he conceded to blogger Citizen cain regarding the use of CDDS data. Lets remind ourselves of what Kirby told Citizen Cain:

…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. He [kirby] also conceded that total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure….

And yet, here we have slides showing Kirby demonstrating the change in the rate of increase, something he has conceded is inaccurate as a measure. He also refers to the increase in cases as ‘new’ cases when its been demonstrated time and time again that these are _not new cases_ . All in all, this is simply more dishonesty from David Kirby.

Autism and autistic people deserve better than this hodge-podge of sloppiness and dishonesty.

MMR and Metal Studies – Empty Discussions

28 May

Two new (not sure what to call them) papers? Abstracts? Press releases? Came out this week concerning autism and vaccines. Also, one _actual_ study was released.

Study number one is entitled…well, actually, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have a name yet. The first draft (which I saw in October last year) was called *Porphyrinuria in childhood autistic disorder*. The authors are Robert Nataf, MD Corinne Skorupka, MD, Alain Lam, BSc , Anthea Springbett, PhD, Lorene Amet, DPhil and Richard Lathe, DSc.

Richard Lathe is the heavy hitter in this bunch. He’s quoted in New Scientist as saying:

It’s highly likely that heavy metals are responsible for childhood autistic disorder in a majority of cases

New Scientist.

Strong words. However, as I said at the top of this piece, this study has not yet even been published yet. The only scientists who’ve read it are the scientists that performed the study. As far as I know, its not even been accepted for publication by Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. I _do_ know it was submitted to The Lancet and I’m guessing as the authors moved on to Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology that it was rejected by The Lancet.

I can’t discuss the science as it may have changed since the first draft I have a copy of. In the absence of the science, we can’t really discuss much of any importance.

However, we can take a look ‘behind the curtain’ at some of those names can’t we?

_Lorène Amet_ is an Editor of Medical Veritas – a journal that PubMed does not, as far as I know, index. MV’s ‘mission statement’ includes:

MV…recognizes that medical modalities promoted by public health departments and authorities are often compromised by conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies and other political and personal agendas. These areas of detrimental influence include, but are not limited to, the following: vaccinations, pharmaceutical drugs, pregnancy, childbirth and child care practices, treatments for cancer, AIDS and other diseases, food additives, pesticides and herbicides, water fluoridation,d ental procedures, including amalgams, medical procedures and surgeries

Nothing like going in with a preconceived agenda eh? That’ll help with scientific objectivity.

Ms Amet’s colleagues from Medical Veritas include Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati, who doesn’t believe HIV leads to AIDS, as well as someone called Kenneth P. Soller, MD who I’m guessing is Kenneth P. S *t* oller, MD – our new friend who likes HBOT for autism and who tried to smear Paul Shattuck and Andrew ‘Wakers’ Wakefield.

Source – NB: there is at least one person who is now deceased listed on that page.

Here’s some snippets from Ms Amet’s CV:

In the process of setting up an Autism Treatment clinic with the charity Autism Treatment Trust (former Action Against Autism). Principal Scientist.

(UK version of Generation Rescue led by Bill Welsh)

Received DAN! (Defeat Autism Now) doctor accreditation, Dec., 2005. Initiated and organised with Action Against Autism a conference called Treating Autism, Edinburgh UK, October 14-15, 2005. Participated to two clinic days with Dr. McCandless and Dr. Usman (16 children with autism). October 16-17, 2005.

Well, I guess we should all be reassured at how impartial any study featuring a DAN! practitioner and Editor of Medical Veritas will be. I sincerely hope their study has moved on since the first draft.

The second study/paper/abstract/thingy does at least have an actual title. It’s title is: *PERSISTENT ILEAL MEASLES VIRUS IN A
LARGE COHORT OF REGRESSIVE AUTISTIC CHILDREN WITH ILEOCOLITIS AND LYMPHONODULAR HYPERPLASIA: REVISITATION OF AN EARLIER STUDY* which is a bit of a mouthful. It basically claims to substantiate Andrew Wakefields earlier findings with the MMR vaccine.

Yet again, however, despite this being reported in at least two mainstream newspapers, it should be noted that the actual study has not been published. It will be discussed at the upcoming IMFAR conference in Canada but no-one has seen the paper yet. The presentation could not even legitimately be referred to as an abstract yet.

The authors are: Steve Walker, Karin Hepner, Jeffrey Segal and Arthur Krigsman.

There appears to be a fund raiser for this study on the website of the NAA where Andrew Wakefield and Jeff Bradstreet (who apparently used to recommend exorcism for autistic kids) are listed as ‘consultants’.

Lets not forget that the NAA have made a big deal of ‘outing’ Paul Shattuck’s non-existent connection to Merck so I wonder if we’ll be seeing them play the ‘conflict of interest’ card in the case of this study? Doubtful I’d guess.

However, the big connection here is Thoughtful House, Andrew Wakefield’s project. Steve Walker, one of the authors listed above, is on the board alongside such scientific luminaries as, uh, Martie Maguire of the Dixie Chicks.

A keen eyed observer might also note that one of the other authors is a partner of Andrew Wakefield’s. This hardly instils a great deal of hope in the objectivity of this paper.

So there’s our two non-papers which we can’t really discuss the science of as none has been made available. However, that hasn’t stopped people from going ahead and reporting on them as if it were.

The third bit of news from the autism/vaccine issue is (gasp!) an _actual_ paper, which has been peer reviewed, submitted and accepted for publication in a decent journal. Its title is: *Is There a ‘Regressive Phenotype’ of Autism Spectrum Disorder Associated with the Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine? A CPEA Study.*

And what does it say?

There was no evidence that onset of autistic symptoms or of regression was related to measles-mumps-rubella vaccination.

Of course, that story doesn’t get mentioned – its not as interesting as wild speculation.

The Shape Of An Elephant

17 May

Remember this old Bhuddist parable?

Five blind men of Savatthi are all describing an elephant. The problem is that one grabs the tail, the other a leg, the other the side, the other an ear and the fifth, the tusk. Each, remaining blindfolded, seeks to articulate the attributes of an elephant. The one who grabbed the tail insisted that the elephant was like a rope. The one who grabbed the leg was as certain that an elephant was not like a rope, but a tree. The one who was feeling the side of the elephant was convinced that an elephant was like a mud baked wall. The fourth blind man, feeling the ear, was shocked that the others could not understand that the elephant was like a banana leaf. The fifth denounced them all as he held to the tusk, insisting that an elephant was most like a brandished sword.

Every time I hear talk about the ‘autism epidemic’ I remember this parable.

The only way we can _definitively_ establish if thiomersal (or any other vaccine ingredient) causes autism is to take a hundred kids and do a double blind study involving injecting them with either an applicable amount of thiomersal containing vaccines or a control over an established time period.

Obviously, thats never going to happen. Firstly there are the obvious ethics of such a thing – with the prevailing beliefs about what autism is, no parent is going to risk ‘causing’ autism. Secondly there is the more practical reason that there aren’t really any thiomersal containing vaccines left in the West anymore – hence Burbacher’s need to get vaccines and then _add_ thiomersal to them. I suppose our ficticious study could do that but nobody really knows what confounders there may be in such an action. Burbacher certainly didn’t control for them.

So, what else can we do to try and establish if thiomersal (or whatever) can cause autism?

We can examine the symptoms of mercury poisoning (in the case of thiomersal) and see if there seems to be a relationship with autism. This is in essence what the Bernard et al paper tried to do. They concluded there _was_ a link but a closer examination of the paper shows that there is _not one_ common symptom between the diagnstic symptoms of mercury poisoning and the DSM(IV) diagnostic criteria for autism. This fact usually results in two counter-claims. Firstly that the DSM(IV) is not ‘up to the job’ of reflecting the current state of knowledge about autism. Secondly, that autism is such a novel form of mercury poisoning that autism is totally different from all other forms of mercury poisoning.

The first objection is essentially a call to retro-fit the DSM(IV) to fit one persons own beliefs about autism and thiomersal. This is pointless. The DSM criteria (which _are_ periodically adjusted) reflect the symptoms it requires to fulfil a diagnosis of ASD. This means the symptoms are common to _all_ autistic people. People have quoted gut issues, constipation and various other issues to me as ‘evidence’ of the damage resulting in autism, that thiomersal can do. Trouble is, none of the things that get quoted at me are common to all autistic people. These things may be comorbidities. If people have found ways to treat debilitating comorbidities then more power to them I say. I do exactly the same every time I administer a puff of a ventolin inhaler to my daughter. People then go on to say, well, maybe we should start sub-dividing autism into different ‘types’. However, we have no idea what prevalence these ‘sub-types’ might have. As far as we know they might only exist in statistically insignificant numbers that wouldn’t justify a sub-type categorisation. One of the biggest comorbidities is epilepsy. Should we create a sub-category of ‘epileptic autism’. Why? The underlying autism would be just the same. No – this is the very reason why secondary conditions are called comorbidities and not subtypes.

The second theory – that autism is so unique it doesn’t resemble any other form of mercury poisoning – is very hard to take seriously. Anorexia appears to be common across all types of mercury poisoning (its mentioned in Mad Hatters Disease, Pinks Disease and typical mercury poisoning) – why would it skip autism? Occams Razor applies here. The simplest explanation is one which requires no mangling/disappearing/ignoring of known facts – autism doesn’t really resemble mercury poisoning.

So whats next? Epidemiology. We’re left with looking at the numbers.

The ‘autism epidemic’ is central to the thiomersal hypothesis. The argument goes that as thiomersal useage increased both temporaly (vaccines were administered in shorter time frames) and in amount (maximum body burden in the US was 187.5 ug of Hg) that the number of autism diagnosis increased.

The main problem with the epidemic idea is that this chain of events is _far_ from established. The reason is mainly the quality of the underlying data.

There are three main US sources for prevalence data – the Dept of Education, VAERS and CDDS.

Many autism advocacy groups use the data collected by the US Department of Education (USDE) to show a rapidly increasing prevalence of autism. Closer examination of these data to follow each birth-year cohort reveals anomalies within the USDE data on autism. The USDE data show not only a rise in overall autism prevalence with time but also a significant and nearly linear rise in autism prevalence within a birth-year cohort as it ages, with significant numbers of new cases as late as 17 years of age. In addition, an unexpected reduction in the rise of autism prevalence occurs in most cohorts at 12 years of age, the age when most children would be entering middle school. These anomalies point to internal problems in the USDE data that make them *unsuitable for tracking autism prevalence*.

Source.

This is a shame but Jim Laidler is absolutely correct that we must use good, accurate data – USDE data clearly isn’t.

VAERS has massive problems. It allows anyone to enter any data at any time. I recently demonstrated this when I, a UK citizen, managed to submit a VAERS entry stating that a vaccine had turned my daughter into Wonder Woman. Clearly, this is not an acceptable source.

CDDS is the most contraversial. Rick Rollens has toally misintrpretted the data time after time. CDDS themselves state that their data should not be used for tracking autism prevalence. However, if it is insisted that we _do_ use CDDS data then we need to be clear about its use. Rick Rollens lumped all stats from all age groups together – quite obviously this results in meaningless data. As David Kirby conceeded:

…total cases among 3-5 year olds, not changes in the rate of increase is the right measure.

When one does isolate this cohort things are very different. In this cohort, nnot only are autism cases still rising, in the last quarter, the increase in the rate of increase is climbing.In other words, when one uses the correct group of cases to examine, data that David Kirby has referred to as ‘the Gold Standard’ for testing prevalence, shows that autism cases are still rising despite his statement in the New York Times in *2005* that:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child’s third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year.

However, despite all this, we need to rememember that CDDS disclaimers appply to our interpretation of the data as well as Rollen’s or Kirby’s. However, ours are more accurate and at least are preformed on the right section of the data.

Make sure to read Joseph’s first comment in this thread which addresses another failing of this data I forgot to address.

So there are very large problems with the epidemiology as well. This is vexing and means, as Paul Shattuck recently concluded, that the true growth of autism cannot be realistically determined. So we’re left with the opinions and research of experts – people who study autism. What do they say?

Almost to a man they say that the idea of an epidemic is questionable. They state there may well have been a rise in _numbers_ but not necessarily a rise in _prevalence_. The distinction is important.

What they say is that improved tests and more recognition adds up to more diagnosis. This is simple common sense. If you know what you’re looking for, you’ll find more of it than you would if you _didn’t_ know what you were looking for.

What do we know that might support this opinion? Here are a few ideas from my neck of the woods.

In 2004, an ‘autism audit‘ was performed in Scotland. One of the questions the audit asked was how accurate they thought the prevalence rate estimates were for their area. 45% of authorities who responded made a point of noting that they felt diagnosis for adults was very underrepresented. For example, Perth and Kinross council stated

Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.

Also, in a New Scientist piece last year, the findings of the University of Nottingham were reported. The team reexamined data from the 1970’s which resulted in five diagnosis. Using modern diagnostic criteria, the team found 56 cases, a ten-fold increase.

Lastly, earlier this year, Health Minister Liam Byrne reported figures that demonstrated autism diagnoses for children have nearly doubled in 8 years from 3100 to 6170. Meanwhile adult diagnoses have nearly tripled in the same period from 1120 to 3000.

That seems to pretty firmly establish the idea of widescale underdiagnosis. What about misdiagnosis? From its very start as a categorised diagnosis, autism has been misdiagnosed. Kanner mentioned several of his patients were diagnosed with schizophrenia. However, as Shattuck _also_ concluded, its not possible to ascertain to what degree diagnostic substitution in the past has resulted in more cases now we know better.

A fascinating news article caught my eye this morning and led to this post. It seems that even _after_ we factor in more availability of diagnosis and better tests for it, most doctors still don’t screen for autism because a lot don’t know how.

The study of 255 Maryland and Delaware pediatricians found that 209 (82 percent) said they regularly screen their patients for general developmental delays, but only 20 (8 percent) of them said they regularly screen for ASD. Of the pediatricians who said they do not routinely screen for ASD, 62 percent said they didn’t do it because they weren’t familiar with the screening tools.

Source.

Remember that this is in a time when awareness and screening tools are better than they’ve ever been – if they’re like this now, just imagine how bad they must’ve been 10, 15 or 20 years ago.

Do you see a rope? A tree? A wall? A leaf? Maybe a sword? Or do you put these things together and percieve an elephant?

Pediatrics Letter – More Misrepresentation

10 May

On the 5th May a Letter from Kenneth P Stoller appeared in Pediatrics.

UW-Madison researcher Paul Shattuck concludes that special education figures being used are “faulty and do not substantiate such a claim” (that there is an autism epidemic). Paul Shattuck seems to be saying that all the reported autistic children have always been here, they were just called something else.

Shattuck makes no such conclusion. In a clarifying comment on Scienceblogs, Paul Shattuck stated:

Unfortunately, the media and some advocacy groups have distorted what my article was all about. I was quite explicit in the article that A) my work does not prove or disprove the existence of an epidemic and I think that is still an open issue….My number one goal was to raise awareness about the limitations of the special ed. data.

As a pediatrician, who has been in practice for over two decades, I find it more than a little insulting as well as disturbing to have someone say that these children were always there.

Several pediatricians do not find it insulting. Suniti Chakrabarti for example – who diagnosed my own daughter – co-authored a paper with Eric Fombonne which confirned a high but stable prevalence for autism. There are also several interesting studies that indicate that ASD has historically been very underdiagnosed.

In 2004, an ‘autism audit‘ was performed in Scotland. One of the questions the audit asked was how accurate they thought the prevalence rate estimates were for their area. 45% of authorities who responded made a point of noting that they felt diagnosis for adults was very underrepresented. For example, Perth and Kinross council stated

Figures for adults reflect the national findings that the numbers known to services/diagnosed represent a significant underestimate of those individuals likely to be affected. For example day centre managers locally consider a number of people to be on the spectrum who have had no formal diagnosis.

Also, in a New Scientist piece last year, the findings of the University of Nottingham were reported. The team reexamined data from the 1970’s which resulted in five diagnosis. Using modern diagnostic criteria, the team found 56 cases, a ten-fold increase.

Lastly, earlier this year, Health Minister Liam Byrne reported figures that demonstrated autism diagnoses for children have nearly doubled in 8 years from 3100 to 6170. Meanwhile adult diagnoses have nearly tripled in the same period from 1120 to 3000.

The idea of ‘insult’ is irrelevant to the substantiation of a case. And yet again, Shattuck made no claim that ‘these children were always there’. Such purposefully misleading statements entirely invalidate Stoller’s case.

As a scientist, I find the current approach to the autism epidemic – “The Emperor’s New Clothes” approach – to be deeply disturbing.

Appeals to authority do not make one automatically correct. I’m sure there are several people who could say that ‘as scientists’ they question the idea of there being an epidemic of autism at all. That wouldn’t automatically make them right either. What does lend their viewpoint some weight as the fact that the science supports their opinions.

For years the vaccine division at the CDC and others have said the reason for the dramatic increase in autism is due to “better diagnosing” and “greater awareness.””They have encouraged those like Paul Shattuck to manufacture uncertainty.

This is quite simply yet more purposefully misleading rubbish. This study was funded largely by the Autistic Society of America. Paul Shattuck has also stated his affiliations with the CDC quite clearly:

As for the $540,000 from the CDC…it’s not entirely clear what they are talking about. I certainly don’t have a grant that big from anyone. They are probably talking about the autism surveillance grant that our center received from the CDC…a proposal which I helped prepare but am not listed as a co-investigator and am not funded from….I do have a small grant for about $12,000 from the CDC to investigate racial and socioeconomic disparities in the timing of autism diagnosis and service utilization.

Why Stoller indulges in such flagrant misrepresentation is not apparent. I am forced to conclude in the absence of a good reason, that Stoller has nothing to fall back on other than annoyance that Shattuck’s conclusions did not meet his beliefs and thus he felt it necessary to resort to distortion and spin.

There are no studies that have found the previously undiagnosed or misdiagnosed autistic individuals among older Americans. They simply aren’t there.

Mr Stoller is once again making assumptions. I have found no studies in PubMed that even attempt to pose this question, let alone answer it. How Stoller concludes there are none when no studies have sought an answer to this question is bewildering. I would like to suggest Mr Stoller examines the evidence from the three UK sources I quote from above. The US and the UK have a near identical autism prevalence. It seems reasonable that older patterns of prevalence might follow suit.

Now, the increase of autism has been linked to the increase in mercury exposure through fish and industrial sources, amalgam and additionally, through increased parenteral exposure to ethylmercurithiosalicate.

Its also been linked to alien invasion and plastic cups. Surely a scientist understand the concept of correlation not equaling causation?

A recent study, using infant Macaca fascicularis primates exposed to injected ethylmercury or those exposed to equal amounts of ingested methylmercury, showed that ethylmercuy was retained twice as much inorganic mercury in their brains in comparison to the methylmercury exposed primates.(Burbacher T, et al. Comparison of blood and brain mercury levels in infant monkeys exposed to methylmercury or vaccines containing thimerosal. Environmental Health Perspectives, 2005 Aug:113(8):1015-21.)These primates were exposed to mercury levels at a rate equal to what children in the United States received via standard childhood vaccines from 1991- 2003.

What’s not often discussed about the Burbacher study is the interesting point that the group did not use thiomersal containing vaccines. They used non-thiomersal containing vaccines and then added thiomersal to them. 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.

Cysteine and glutathione synthesis are crucial for mercury detoxification, and are reduced in autistic children, possibly due to epigenetic polymorphisms.

The Deth paper made no such claim. 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). However, autism and MSD are entirely dissimilar.

Therefore, autistic children have 20% lower levels of cysteine and 54% lower levels of glutathione, which adversely affect their ability to detoxify and excrete metals like mercury. (James, S.J. et al.: Metabolic biomarkers of increased oxidative stress and impaired methylation capacity in children with autism. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 80, 1611-1617 2004).This leads to a higher concentration of free mercury in blood, which then transfers into tissues and increases the half-life of mercury in the body, as compared to children with normal levels of cysteine and glutathione. As was shown by Bradstreet et al (Bradstreet, J et al.: A case control study of mercury burden in children with autistic spectrum disorders. J. Am. Phys. Surg. 8, 76-79 2003) in a study involving 221 autistic children, vaccinated autistic children showed about 6 fold elevation of urinary mercury than normal controls after appropriate mobilization with the chelating agent DMSA.

And so we get down to it – Bradstreet and JAPANDS. A man who recommends exorcism and a journal who don’t publish errata or retractions. Great. Next!

Stoller then goes on to describe a whole host of things thiomersal apparently does without ever stating the fact that none of these things appear in the diagnostic criteria for autism.

This is an unconscionable oversight failure at best, at worse it is an example that we have left consensus reality to be created by the liars, thieves, cheats, killers, and the PR junk scientists they employ.

Quite a statement from someone who has actively misled people regarding Paul Shattucks connections with the CDC. I would put forward the idea that a PR junk scientist is one who isn’t even able to research the simplest of facts and instead concentrates solely on misrepresentation and spin. As for killers, its my opinion that Dr Roy Kerry is a great example of a DAN! protocol follower.

We are living in a time where an incredible overplay and lies and self-aggrandizing behavior and non-science is the norm.

Stoller has no argument from me there. He would seem to me to be living embodiment of that statement. He cites studies from people like Burbacher who’s ‘science’is funded by SafeMinds – a group whos mission statement is to establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism. He cites people like Deth who are listed as expert witnesses for the prosecution in the omnibus proceedings against vaccine manufacturers.

Is it stretch to realize that by putting our heads in the sand about the autism epidemic we have made it possible for the groundwork to be put in place for Marshal Law?

Er, yes. Yes it is.

No something easy to contemplate? Then ask why haven’t pediatricians come forward to demand the end of the use of ethylmercurithiosalicate once and for all, and to advocate for the treatment of these children before it is too late?

Simple: they realise that the science doesn’t support your beliefs Mr Stoller. They understand the massive societal benefits of vaccination – a benefit being well demonstrated now that vaccine uptake is falling thanks to your scare mongering as Mumps epidemics sweep your country and measles epidemics resulting in 12% hospitalisation and at least one death so far sweep mine.

Stoller declares no conflicts of interest and yet in his signature he describes himself as a member of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association. This treament is a favourite of DAN! practitioners – people who profit by ‘treating’ autism – and yet there have been no published randomized controlled trials for low-pressure hyperbaric oxygen therapy as an autism treatment yet. Only one paper exists in Pub Med relating to HBOT and autism which blogger Dad of Cameron found at least one significant error in.

Mr Stoller establishes once more his propensity to bend or totally shatter facts by claiming no conflict of interest when it is clear he supports a therapy being widely utilised for profit on autistic children. Throughout this whole letter he willfully and (one must assume) knowingly misrepresents people like Paul Shattuck, relationships between people and institutions. He quite clearly has little knowledge of the limitations of the science he quotes as backing up his beliefs and then goes on to rage about ‘PR junk scientists’ whilst he promotes the use of a very expensive treatment with no established – or even reliably investigated- appreciable effect on autistic children.

JB Handley – Interweb Genius

3 May

After the launch of Put Children First, JB was flushed with pride at the mighty accomplishments of his lovely new website. So much so that he posted the following to the EoH group:

I have been watching the web hits on PutChildrenFirst.org. The most hits are from the CDC’s router. Hey CDC, go fuck yourself!! Lots of love, JB

JB Handley, EoH.

Woah! Pretty impressive!

Except….lets delve a little into the murky geek-ridden world of web stats for a moment. What is a hit? Why do people think they are a good thing?

There is a common misconception that ‘a hit’ means a person has visited a site. Not so. A ‘hit’ refers to one _object_ on a page being accessed once. For example, if a user visits a page that contains 14 images and nothing else then 14 hits will be registered. If we wanted to get really worked up by ‘hits’ we could all add a million images to a web page and then as soon as one person visited that page – we’d have a million hits! – cool huh?

No, not really. I hope its clear why.

What’s worth getting excited over in terms of web statistics are _unique visitors_ . This refers to the amount of unique visitors that the site has received. Obviously, this is a much better indicator of how many users have actually seen your pages. But even this does not necessarily refer to _people_ as search engines, RSS spiders and a whole host of other automated bots are counted as users too. But still, this is the best way to get a reliable approximation on how many people visited your site.

So, what have we learnt? Hits are nothing to get excited about.

But that wouldn’t make much a blog post now would it?

Two of my favourite visitors to my humble little blog are Sue M and Erik Nanstiel. Together they can be counted on to loudly trumpet anything and everything that comes from the holy apertures of a select group of people, including JB. So when the putchildrenfirst site was launched, along came Erik and Sue to mention it at every available opportunity.

Well, someone must’ve followed a link from here to there because someone from there subsequently followed a link from _there_ back to _here_. And how do I know this?

Let me introduce the concept of _referrers_ – basically, the page you are coming _from_ leaves a footprint in the page you are coming _to_ – its how web statistics packages track who links to the site they sit on.

So, my referral to putchildrenfirst.org shows up in JB’s web stats package – whomever it is monitoring these things (JB, one would assume based on the above post to EoH) – is curious and clicks the link which in turn places the referring page from putchildrenfirst.org into _my_ web stats package.

So, I login to my webstats package this morning and lo and behold – what do I find but a link straight into the heart of putchildrenfirst.org’s web stats package. Cool :o)

Let’s see how well its doing shall we?

I could point you to the relevant page if you like: It’s right here and you can see for yourself. But, I also took the precaution of making a copy and uploading it to this site – just in case ‘someone’ decides to finally get smart and apply some basic security to their web stats.

I also thought it would be polite to offer an explanation of what’s going on for the less techy amongst you.

OK, the first line to note is the average visits per day. PCF got an average of 444 unique visits per day through April. For a site that was advertised all over the press, apparently seen on TV and was heavily promoted at a rally, that’s pretty crap. My own site, by comparison, gets an average of 3140 unique visits per day.

But lets also look at the section entitled _Daily Statistics for April 2006_ as this gives us a very clear picture of the popularity of the site. Remember that ‘visits’ – the yellow column in that table – is the key indicator. Using that we can see that on only 3 occasions did PCF get more than 1000 visitors per day – the 5th, 6th and 7th. After that, the visitor stats take on the appearance of a slowly deflating balloon. By the end of the month, PCF is barely scraping in 100 visitors a day.

Like a lot of single issue group websites, PCF suffers from the fact that it never has anything new to say. To have a successful site the absolute _biggest_ point to address is that of fresh, engaging content. I don’t know who the copywriter was for PCF but the breathless, barely concealed hysterical conspiracy theory-esque edge really does the site no favours. To put it simply – PCF was a novelty site who’s novelty value lasted 3 days and who reached the wrong audience.

What do I mean the wrong audience? Well, as JB says, one of the most popular visitor IP’s referred back to the CDC. Scroll down to the section headed _Top 30 of 10917 Total Sites_ for evidence of that.

One of the largest amount of visitors (please note this table is *not* sorted on amount of visitors) came from WilliamsBailey.com….a firm of lawyers…guess what one of their specialties is….can you guess?

I have to admit I’m very confused by this as JB recently wrote an open letter to Paul Offit on EoH which stated amongst other things:

No one who paid for the Ad is a vaccine litigant. No one who paid for the Ad is involved with trial lawyers.

JB Handley, EoH

I guess it must just be one of those strange coincidences that the joint 10th most popular visitors was a firm of thiomersal/autism lawyers.

However, the most popular group of visitors indeed came from the CDC – 38 visits. The second most popular was the MSN Search Engine bot. This is not the MSN search engine referring people to PCF, this is a visit from the automated script that ‘collects’ sites. Another notable visitor seems to be the AAP. The rest I don’t recognise so I would assume are ordinary visitors.

Now, if I was pushing a website in a national newspaper ad, and splashing the URL all over the TV and on placards at a rally, then I’d really want the ordinary folk of the country to be my visitors. That’s who need to hear my message. However, its clear that the main people who heard PCF’s message were the CDC, the AAP and thiomersal/autism lawyers – oh yeah, and an automated script or two.

Isn’t that kind of a waste of time? Don’t they already know how you feel?

So, lets move on to the referrers list – the section entitled _Top 30 of 1121 Total Referrers_ is the one you want. This lists the top 30 sites who have provided links to PCF – sorted by ‘hits’ unfortunately, which as we’ve already discussed is a meaningless statistic.

The most popular links to PCF is…..PCF. Not surprising – Webalizer (the stats package PCF uses) can (I think) be configured to ignore its own domain but nobody did I guess.

However, the next referrer is a _doozy_ – David Icke, shellsuit wearing, self-professed ‘son-of-god’ who believes we are ruled over by a race of lizards.

The rest of the referrers are other anti-vaccine groups. The only two of any note are ‘The Hill’ and a Press Release site. Neither generated a lot of traffic for PCF.

So, in closing, I think its fair to say that PCF was about as successful as a Thames whale rescue. I’d like to thank Erik and Sue M, without whom, whomever clicked through from PCF would never have been able to do so and I would never have been able to access PCF’s web stats.

JB – if you’d like a decent web developer to handle your sites from now on, I’d be happy to provide a quote. I promise not to leave your bare arse hanging out for the world to see either.

UPDATE: Looks like JB’s up to his old tricks again.

Of Rashid Buttar and Stephen Hawking

23 Apr

I was recently sent the following link (thank you JNB ;o) ) which announces the creation of the ‘Cutler Hawking Project’. At first I suspected the formation of some soft rock combo but a quick glance at the site in question soon alleviated my doubts.

The majority of people need very strong evidence before they start believing in non-mainstream treatments, and this is the reason why we decided to contact Stephen Hawking to convince him to try Andy Cutler’s chelation protocol – so he can serve as an example. Confining him to a wheelchair since his mid 20’s, Mr. Hawking is a brilliant and famous English physicist who is suffering tragically from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a disease caused by chronic mercury poisoning. Now 63, he can only speak with the help of a computer voice synthesizer.

Oh, it gets better.

The reason why we selected Mr. Hawking is because of his very unique situation. If we convince a man of his mega-stature in the scientific community to try Andy Cutler’s protocol and he subsequently recovers from such debility, that would convince even the biggest of skeptics. Because Mr. Hawking has been confined to a wheelchair for such a long time, and since he is so famous, no doctor could come up with another reasonable excuse for his recovery, and no doctor could write it off as a faked illness, as it would be too obvious that the mercury amalgam & vaccine issue is real and that Andy Cutler’s mercury chelation protocol really works. Mr. Hawking would be living proof! There is no other person in the world that could make a stronger case! It makes a dynamic difference when you see a celebrity talk about a certain treatment, and see that person get out of the wheelchair after 35 years and walk again, and we believe that news channels would report on this “miracle” worldwide!

OK, so here’s a group of people who believe first and foremost that a whole range of things are caused by mercury poisoning – autism, bad backs, and apparently Motor Neurone Disease has now joined that elite group. Lucky lucky Professor Hawking. Why lucky? Because chelation will cure him!!! Yay!!!!!

Except…neither Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, nor indeed any other forum of neurone disease is caused by mercury poisoning. The official line is:

The cause of ALS is not known, and scientists do not yet know why ALS strikes some people and not others…in searching for the cause of ALS, researchers have also studied environmental factors such as exposure to toxic or infectious agents. Other research has examined the possible role of dietary deficiency or trauma. However, as of yet, there is insufficient evidence to implicate these factors as causes of ALS…Future research may show that many factors, including a genetic predisposition, are involved in the development of ALS.

Sounds strangely familiar doesn’t it?

And so we’re presented with the mental picture of some fairly odd people attempting to bother a sick old man just so they can try and persuade him to undergo some therapy. Nice.

And yet, it’s still not as bad as another treatment I heard about. Apparently Dr Rashid Buttar, adored by mercury boys and girls all over the world, the man who can cure cancer and reverse old age as well as cure autism with skin cream recommends another intriguing treatment for young kids – and this time, he’s not confining it to autistic kids: oh no, this ones good for _everyone_ :

Have any of your tried, or even heard anything about, doing urine shots to help the immune system? I don’t know much about it yet, but I know you use your child’s own urine, and filter it with special filters, before injecting it into their hip. I’ve heard really good things about it from a friend who tried it.

No, its not a joke. The answers came thick and fast:

I only know this was described to me to be a procedure used by Dr. Buttar about a year ago when my son was his patient, but the nurse said it would require an extended stay near the clinic and we live in Texas. We never tried it and moved on to another doctor.

Leslie, Chelatingkids2.

I’ll bet you did Leslie.

This was recommended by Dr. Buttar’s office for my NT son who has tons of allergies. I believe Dr. Imam in NY does it. It sounded too “out there” for us so we are currently sticking with justchelation for him.

Sangeeta, Chelatingkids2

Yeah, just chelation. That’s not ‘out there’ at all.

My grandson went through this beginning in October. It was a once a week treatment for 10 weeks. Before he began, he had lots of allergy problems that would often advance into sinus infection and ear infections. It’s almost April and he has not had one problem since. The only thing that I see is an occasional stuffy nose that lasts only a very short time.

andreagrammy.

Just in case you think you read it wrong, you didn’t. Rashid Buttar and others recommend taking some of the childs urine, filtering it and then injecting it back into them. This is apparently good for the immune system. Yummy.

Autism Becomes A Political/Legal Football

17 Apr

In the most recent edition of the Schafer Mercury Report, editor Lenny Schafer has a fascinating response to a letter writer. Its not really necessary to reproduce the letter, but Schafer’s response is a gem:

Myself and other autism activists believe there is enough evidence to support a causative relationship between mercury and autism in a court of law, in front of a jury, where standards of evidence are different than that of the narrow focus of scientific findings. And if you can convince a jury, you can convince the public. Since public health by definition is political, legal standards are even more so appropriate. The profound conflicts of interest amongst those who order, perform and draw conclusions from most of the no-connection evidence as alibis for vaccines, renders such evidence as tampered and thus, less than useless. The defenders of mercurated vaccines are in trouble and attempt to hide their malfeasance behind lab standards.

I mean _wow!_

This is a de facto admission that the scientific evidence to support an autism/mercury connection is very weak:

…. where standards of evidence are different than that of the narrow focus of scientific findings.

By ‘different’ Schafer really means ‘lesser’. I mean call me naive here but I was under the impression that the debate with the mercury militia on one side and the AAP, CDC, UK Gvmt, NHS, and ourselves – autistic advocates – were having was a _scientific_ debate. How silly was I? According to Schafer:

Since public health by definition is political, legal standards are even more so appropriate

Public health is by definition political? Really? Only if you can only see one thing at a time maybe. Widen the lens a little bit and I think every medical research scientist, patient and doctor/nurse might see public health as something a little bit more than a simply political process.

This is a debate at its core about what it means to be autistic. What causes people to be autistic. How in God’s name can that be political beyond the kind of infantile number crunching the Generation ‘6000% increase’ Rescue go in for? The people who have politicised this debate are the ones who employ media manipulation specialists such as Fenton Communications.

But hey – lets not worry about that – lets not worry about the *fact* that learning more about autism is a core scientific responsibility. Turning it into a manipulated football to kick about at the whim of a lawyer is much more realistic.

Schafer is absolutely right that scientific standards are greater than legal ones. Stronger, more stringent, demanding of _actual_ evidence. Maybe Schafer could remind me: was it science or a jury that discovered electricity? Was it science or a jury that discovered penicillin? Science or a jury that took men to the moon? Science or a jury that discovered our place in the stars? Our place in nature? Our place in the future?

But then again:

…if you can convince a jury, you can convince the public…

Because y’know, science is _hard_ . Stick instead to trial lawyers so we can let the sort of people who got OJ Simpson cleared, or the Birmingham Six banged up to sort out the tricky concept of autism. Great idea.

_”The profound conflicts of interest amongst those who order, perform and draw conclusions from most of the no-connection evidence as alibis for vaccines, renders such evidence as tampered and thus, less than useless.”_

Yeah, its all a big conspiracy. Like the one that saw SafeMinds purchase the domain evidenceofharm.com or the one that saw Wendy Fournier of the NAA build Kirby a website, like the one that had Richard Deth listed as an expert witness without his knowledge, or the one that tried to smear Paul Shattuck, or the one that had the Chair of the NAA working for thiomersal lawyers Waters and Kraus, or the one that saw Andrew Wakefield allegedly filing a patent for a rival vaccine to MMR *before* he published his paper, or the one that had Kirby add on two years to his statement regarding when the thiomersal connection would be in trouble, or the one that saw RFK Jr talking about the results of a study from the Geiers several months before it was published, or the one where the Geiers started patenting Lupron therapy, or the one where Generation Rescue placed words in the mouths of scientists.

Its true that your scientific case is very weak Mr Schafer. Without that science, so is your legal one.

The John Best Junior Thread

13 Apr

For some time now, John (aka ForeSam to the uninitiated) has been crying that he’s been banned from this blog and been using that ban as an excuse. I’ve decided to call his bluff.

For this thread, and this thread only, John will be free to argue, debate, insult, rage, pontificate and generally be the John Best we know and love.

In this thread will be discussing the following:

1) John’s belief that Eli Lilly invented autism in 1931. John says autism did not exist before Jan 1st 1931.
2) John’s belief that all autism is mercury poisoning from thiomersal in vaccines.
3) John’s belief that there was no autism in China prior to 1999. John says autism did not exist in China until Jan 1st 1999.
4) John’s role as speaker at mercury militia marches and his position with Generation Rescue
5) John’s opinion on homosexuality, which he believes is ‘a perversion’, and his subsequent opinion of David Kirby.
6) John’s belief that as an adult male, fist fighting with his eight year old autistic son is a sign of good parenting.
7) John’s belief that there has been an epidemic of autism.
8) John’s belief that because Dan Olmsted didn’t find any autistic Amish, this proves thiomersal causes autism.
9) John’s belief that it is acceptable to state that women he disagree’s with should be ‘horsewhipped’
10) John’s belief that phoning people he disagree’s with at their homes to abuse with them is acceptable.
11) John’s belief that the word ‘muslim’ is interchangable with the word ‘terrorist’.

Go for it. Either now, or wait for the man himself to defend himself. Just remember that John is typical member of the thiomersal/autim connection. I of course am open to correction on that from other believers of the thiomersal/autism connection along with an explanation of why.

Also remember John is a fully ‘paid up’ Generation Rescue Rescue Angel and his views on _all_ the above should be taken as representative of that organisation, unless of course, anyone from that org would like to deny John’s involvement with them on record.

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