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Omnibus Expert: Patricia Rodier

10 Apr

Autism just plain isn’t mercury poisoning. When can we move on?

Even some of the people who loudly promoted the mistaken idea that “autism is just a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning” have backed off. But, the groups that promote autism as vaccine injury are packrats: once they’ve collected an idea, bad or not, they won’t ever let it completely go.

Some of you will be thinking, dang, another mercury post. I agree, there are a lot of good arguments against blogging about the mercury-autism connection any more. For one, it gives the idea press that it just doesn’t deserve.

I do think this is worth posting about, though. “This” is the expert report from Dr. Patricia Rodier, submitted to the Autism Omnibus Proceeding. In a single document, we now have an expert on both mercury toxicology and autism. Not faux experts, or worse, businesspeople and public relations people, but an actual, bone fide expert in both fields. I.e. we have a good document to give to people who are being snowed under by the misinformation campaign promoting autism as mercury poisoning.

When Patricia Rodier testified in the Autism Omnibus Proceeding, I was very impressed–and I blogged it right away. I remember at the time telling a friend that it was good to finally see someone officially debunking things like Sally Bernard et al.’s paper, Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning. My friend pointed out that any college freshman in science (and most not in science) should be able to tear that “paper” apart.

Unfortunately, “should be able to tear the paper apart” isn’t enough. Many people don’t have the time and/or energy. So, many people still think that paper is valid. Let’s face it, that “paper” should have been retracted by the authors long ago, but they still soldier on with the “autism is mercury poisoning” message.

Dr. Rodier’s qualifications are quite good. Her summary is quite good:

As a research scientist who has studied both the toxic effects of methylmercury in animals and autism in children and animal models, I believe I am qualified to evaluate the scientific merit of the allegation.

She may be the only person in the world who has studied both mercury toxicity and autism.

What does she think? In a nutshell:

My conclusion is that the allegation has no scientific support and is highly improbable

Dr. Rodier notes that the comparison that autism and mercury poisoning appear similar isn’t even close.

In othcr words, because the symptoms of methylmercury poisoning
are not similar to those of autism, the authors have tried to construct a new, hypothetical kind of mercury poisoning from symptoms of toxicity of other mercury species and symptoms never reported for any kind of mercury exposure. The hypothesis is not based of facts; instead, the facts are being selected, manipulated, and shaped to fit the hypothesis. The hypothesis is then offered as evidence. But hypotheses are not evidence.

Ouch. Ouch, that is, if you are someone promoting autism-as-mercury-posinong.

Dr. Rodier can back up her words, as we discussed in the previous blog post. But, let’s say that again, Dr. Rodier uses research based facts, not manipulated hypotheses, to come to her conclusion.

I need to get a clean copy of that document, one that looks as good as the information it contains. That document needs to get into the hands of people being lured by the pseudo scientists promoting autism as mercury poisoning.

Thank you, Dr. Rodier for putting yourself on the line to testify. Thanks also to the HHS for allowing these reports to be made public.

Andrew Zimmerman Finally Speaks

24 Mar

A year ago I tried to talk to Andrew Zimmerman about the Hannah Poling case and was told:

Dr. Zimmerman…….is not able to publicly discuss this patient. As a participant in this case, the family provided consent for Dr. Zimmerman to share information with the court, but we do not have parental consent to discuss the patient publicly – as we are bound by HIPAA privacy regulations, as in any healthcare setting in the U.S.

And in the year that has followed the Polings have not allowed Zimmerman to publicly comment once. Now I’m beginning to understand why.

Sullivan told me that yesterday the Expert Witness reports for the Respondents were made public and that Zimmermans was eyebrow raising to say the least.

Furthermore, there is no evidence of an association between autism andthe alleged reaction to MMR a nd Hg, and it is more likely than not, that there is a genetic basis for autism in this child.”

“Michelle Cedillo’s developmental regression was likely to have been
preprogrammed before birth to emerge, as it does in Rett syndrome, long after birth.”

“Autism, in most cases, begins before birth, and the maternal
“environment” in the womb is likely to be important in the process.”

“there is no scientific basis for a connection between measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine or mercury (Hg) intoxication and autism.”

“Autism is primarily a genetically determined disorder.” There is a
hypothetical basis, but very limited evidence, for environmental factors
(such as stress or the drug terbutalinel l) that may act together with
an individual’s genetic susceptibility to increase the risk of autism.
There is strong evidence that the origins of autism begin before birth,
based on genetic and anatomical studies as well as chemical findings at birth in children who go on to develop autism. The usual time
period when autism appears and is diagnosed during the 2nd and 3′” years of life reflects the dynamic nature of the child’s developing brain and the appearance of pre-programmed disordered expression of genes and preexisting cellular abnormalities that result in the child’s regression with loss of language and social skills.”

Recall once more that this is the man – along with Jon Poling himself and along with John Shoffner (who also doesn’t think much of Polings beliefs) who co-authored the only piece of science performed on Hannah Poling.

No wonder the Poling’s were so keen to keep Zimmerman quiet.

Thanks to Sullivan for some of this.

Who carries the authority?

19 Feb

The recent Omnibus decisions are hoped by some to stem the tide of rabid anti-vaccine beliefs espoused by people who shame the name of autism advocacy. On Salon, Rahul K. Parikh says:

In the case of autism, science and reason have too often failed to reach people. And consequently they have turned to the courts. For those of us who believe in the scientific method, the autism trials have not been necessary. But judges, unlike doctors in their cold white coats, still command a great deal of respect, and so perhaps the court’s recent ruling will sink in and finally persuade parents to regain their confidence in vaccines.

Never happen Rahul, never happen. These same anti-vaxxers have already began spin campaigns not only against the legality of the verdicts but against the three Special Masters themselves. To this group, the Special Masters command no respect whatsoever and neither do their verdicts. Take this piece of rampant stupidity from Barbara Loe Fisher:

The U.S. Court of Claims special masters are hampered from considering evidence which has not yet been published in the medical literature regarding potential associations between vaccines and the development of regressive autism

I don’t see how it is possible to make a dumber statement. What she’s saying is she wanted the Special Masters to look at unpublished science. As is well known, unpublished science is not like an unpublished novel. Unpublished science means its science that has not been put through the rigour of peer review, not had its methods examined to ensure they are transparent and reproducable, not had its conclusions reviewd to see iof they are accurate and not had its data examined to see if it is usable. This unreviewed, unpublished ‘science’ is what got us to this stage in the first place. A ten year multi-million pound, dollar and euro effort to close down bad science.

So how does she and people like her get away with saying such things? *Just because they can* . Because people believe extremes and people believe celebrities. People believe bloggers and people believe those who have shared (or think they have) experiences. I’m not saying its right but its true. If anyone genuinely believes this ruling will shut the door on these people they’re wrong. For confirmation of that you need look no further than Rolf Hazlehurt, father of one of the kids who made up the three test cases from the Autism Omnibus.

If we win, we keep going.
If we lose, we keep going.
If we win, the going will be easier.
If we lose, the going will be more difficult.
However, the Court rules, we will keep going.

You have to understand. This is not about scientific truth – or even truth at all – to these people. Its about winning and its about pushing their antivaccine beliefs as fast and far as they can. Even as they claim to not be anti-vaccine they write emails to others clearly showing they are. One of these emails will come to light very soon I believe. Expect to see very familiar names on it.

To these people science has no authority. Doctors have no authority. The Special Masters have no authority. The only people who have authority – real authority – can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. David Kirby. Jenny McCarthy. Maybe Dan Olmsted. If one of these people were to bow to the obvious and say so publicly then we might have a very different scenario. But they won’t. They have too much invested in esposuing the anti-vaccine line.

Mainstream media have a lot to apologise for also. The red tops, the broadsheets and all those hundreds of little bitty TV channels all over the US that gave the anti-vaxxers airtime in the name of impartiality and allowed them to scare away facts and reason, they need to reverse that policy.

But more than that, scientists and doctors need to get online and blog, get on Twitter and use them. Talk to people in their own language. Screw decorum. Ask people who’ve been using their blogs to support vaccines for _years_ what to do and how to do it. People like Oracand Ben Goldacre are prime examples.

This needs to happen because we’ve already lost one generation of kids to their loony parents. The loony parents who only recognise the authority of celebs, authors and each other in nests of email lists and blogs. If we want to give up another generation to the reach of the internet then keep on keeping on and hope that Rahul K. Parikh is right. But he’s not.

Cedillos, Hazlehursts, Snyders

12 Feb

Three brave families who were placed in harms way not by an MMR injection but by a string of bad doctors, worse autism/antivax organisations and really terrible witnesses. A combination of these three factors placed these three families – they who stood for the utterly discredited idea that MMR/thiomersal or MMR alone cause autism – into harm the likes of which said doctors and founders of autism/antivax orgs will never have to face. I recall hearing that the Cedillo’s had taken out a second mortgage on their home to enable them to attend the legal proceedings.

I wonder if the leading autism/antivax groups will have enough about them to pony up to support the Cedillo’s for the rest of their lives? They should, they hung them out like a banner to wave.

This is from the Washington Post:

The decision by three independent special masters is especially telling because the special court’s rules did not require plaintiffs to prove their cases with scientific certainty — all the parents needed to show was that a preponderance of the evidence, or “50 percent and a hair,” supported their claims. The vaccine court effectively said today that the thousands of pending claims represented by the three test cases are on extremely shaky ground.

In his ruling on one case, special master George Hastings said the parents of Michelle Cedillo — who had charged that a measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused their child to develop autism — had “been misled by physicians who are guilty, in my view, of gross medical misjudgment.”

Hastings pinpoints the Geier’s, Krigsman and Wakefield by name in his verdict.

And here’s Special Master Vowell from the Snyder test case:

“After careful consideration of all of the evidence, it was abundantly clear that petitioners’ theories of causation were
speculative and unpersuasive.”

….

To conclude that Colten’s condition was the result of his MMR vaccine, an objective observer would have to emulate Lewis Carroll’s White Queen and be able to believe six impossible (or, at least, highly improbable) things before breakfast.

And here is Special Master Campbell-Smith from the Hazlehurt test case:

Because the linchpin of petitioners’ theory, the finding of persistent measles virus in the biopsied tissue taken from the gastrointestinal lining of autistic children, is glaringly unreliable, the basis for Dr. Corbier’s opinion that the MMR vaccine was causally related to Yates’ autism and his gastrointestinal symptoms is critically flawed and scientifically untenable. Petitioners have failed to prove that their theory of vaccine-related causation is biologically plausible as required by the first prong of Althen. Nor have petitioners demonstrated that the unsupported links of their proposed causal chain cohere to establish a logical sequence of cause and effect as required by the second prong of Althen. Having failed to satisfy their evidentiary burden, petitioners cannot prevail on their vaccine claim.

I should be happy that science has prevailed and I am to a certain degree. The fact that the Vaccine Injury Court demands a very, very low standard of proof should indicate clearly and concisely just how good the rubbish submitted as science was for these kids cases.

I can’t be happy and I can’t take any pleasure in the fact that these kids and their families have been coldly, cynically used by those who demand against all reason that vaccines cause autism. How could any right thinking person? These parents are penniless and will no doubt be coerced into taking part in a shame of an appeal, then civil cases. Civil cases where the standard of science is very much higher. I hope they step back and consider carefully the verdicts of the Special Masters, the horrendous quality of their so-called ‘expert’ witnesses and the utter lack of any science to support them.

Omnibus decisions in–acknowledging the test case families

12 Feb

The Omnibus decisions on MMR are in. Answer: no. Clearly no, they did not find that MMR with or without thimerosal cause autism. The court found that the cases were without merit.

This will obviously be a topic much discussed in the next few days. But, for right now, I’d like to acknowledge the bravery of the families who allowed their stories to be the “test cases” for the omnibus: the Cedillos, the Hazlehursts and the Snyders.

Yes, I agree with the decisions by the Court. Yes, I think the vaccine question has and will continue to sidetrack the greater autism community from more important efforts. But, the Court made a point in the decisions that the families stepped forward with good faith.

They put their lives in the public eye. They can appeal (and I expect it will happen). But they can’t do what the Krakow’s did, and what appears to be an option for the rest of the Omnibus families: change the story and resubmit to the court.

It was a good decision, and good for the autism community as a whole. For me, I’m taking at least a day to process before blogging the decision. In that time, I’d like to acknowledge that the Cedillos, the Hazlehursts and the Snyders put themselves on the line for what they believe in. They did it to try to help other families. I can disagree with them and still acknowledge the bravery of that action.

New thimerosal study, altogether now…

26 Jan

…there’s still no link.

‘Neuropsychological Performance 10 Years After Immunization in Infancy With Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines‘ is a new study from Italy.

Nearly 70% of the invited subjects participated in the neuropsychological assessment (N = 1403). Among the 24 neuropsychological outcomes that were evaluated, only 2 were significantly associated with thimerosal exposure. Girls with higher thimerosal intake had lower mean scores in the finger-tapping test with the dominant hand and in the Boston Naming Test.

And here’s the conclusion from the penultimate page of the paper (excluding references):

No study conducted to date has been able to provide conclusive evidence of an effect of thimerosal on neuropsychological development. Final judgments regarding this association must rely on the entire body of results from studies conducted in different settings and with different levels of validity and on the coherence of results. The lack of consistency among the results of our study and other available studies suggests that an association between thimerosal exposure through vaccination in infancy and neuropsychological deficits is unlikely or clinically negligible. Additional data from populations with wider ranges of
exposure to thimerosal and additional neuropsychological assessments at older ages may help to clarify the issue of potential associations between thimerosal and neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Oh, and for the conspiracy theorists:

The authors have indicated they have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose.

I’m not an epidemiologist so I’m not going to attempt to go through the nuts and bolts of this paper. Hopefully those who have more expertise can go through yet again why this shows that thimerosal in vaccines seems to be about as dangerous as the average housefly. I can’t imagine they really want to. God knows I don’t. But the stupidniks will no doubt need the finer points hammered home again.

Can you sense I’m getting bored with this yet?

Why is David Kirby grasping at straws?

9 Jan

Once more for the record, I like David. I tried very hard to get to see him in London last time he was over and we’d arranged to meet up for a drink but due to my family situation it wasn’t to be. However, I cannot let that stop me from recalling that we have very differing views on a wide range of things to do with autism and vaccines.

I have noticed of late a tendency for David’s HuffPo blog posts to be more than usually full of ‘if’ ‘maybe’ ‘might’ etc. However his skill as a writer buries these ambiguities and makes them appear certainties. I’m not even sure its a concious thing for David. His need to write well sometimes (I think) obscures a clinical need for precision in such delicate areas as he and I write in.

With that in mind, I recalled a post of his from November 2008 entitled ‘Tom Daschle: Friend to Many Autism Families’ in which he describes Mr Daschle thusly:

By nominating Tom Daschle to head up the Department, President Elect Obama has selected a man who has demonstrated an unflinching willingness to question vaccine safety, and to fight for the rights of those people who believe they have been, or may be, seriously injured by certain vaccinations.

I think David might’ve been trying to insinuate that Tom Daschle’s nomination was good for the autism/antivaccine community. Certainly however, as with the autism/antivaccine’s belief that RFK Jr would be appointed by Obama, this nomination might not be quite what that community is expecting. As blogged by Orac today, Daschle’s true feelings on vaccinations were spelt out by the man himself:

Immunization is probably as — as sound an investment as we can make in good health. I can’t imagine that we could do any better than ensure that every — every child is immunized, and that we understand the importance of — of broad-based immunization and the tremendous good health that can come from it.

Following that, David made a fairly innocuous presentation from a US Army scientist look much more sinister than it actually was. He claimed that the army listed autism as a possible ‘health effect’ of mercury/thiomersal. It turned out that that was not actually the case.

Dr. Centeno’s presentation, entititled ‘Mercury Poisoning: A Clinical and Toxicological Perspective,’ did mention Thimerosal. However, its inclusion was specifically intended to point out that although there has been some speculation about a potential association between Thimerosal and Autism, currently there is no data or science to support such a claim. Neither the AFIP nor Dr. Centeno have been involved in or conducted research on Autism.

After that was the recent debacle when David mixed up Change.org and Change.gov – the latter being a website of Obama. The former a privately owned enterprise for at least the last 2 years. David thought (and committed to a blog post) that Obama had hired pro-neurodiversity bloggers and he imagined a conversation Obama might have with an autism parent:

It is hard to imagine the President one day saying…“I do not think we should devote resources to finding out what happened to your [autistic child]. I do not believe there is anything we can do to help him, and it is not desirable to even try.

This post made me sad and angry. I thought better of David than that. To say that any of us who do not believe vaccines cause autism do not think it is desirable to help our autistic children is massively insulting. I hope someday David can maybe spend a bit of time with parents who don’t think vaccines caused their child’s autism and see for himself how we help our kids. And maybe an apology might be forthcoming also.

David’s latest faux pas is regarding the latest MIND institute study. In a post entitled ‘UC Davis Study: Autism is Environmental (Can We Move On Now?)’ David says:

Autism is predominantly an environmentally acquired disease, the study seems to conclude. Its meteoric rise, at least in California, cannot possibly be attributed to that shopworn mantra we still hear everyday, incredibly, from far too many public health officials: It’s due to better diagnosing and counting.

The autism epidemic is real, and it is not caused by genes alone: You cannot have a genetic epidemic. It really is time that we, as a society, accept that cold, hard truth.

Here’s the full conclusion:

Autism incidence in California shows no sign yet of plateauing. Younger ages at diagnosis, differential migration, changes
in diagnostic criteria, and inclusion of milder cases do not fully explain the observed increases. Other artifacts have yet to be quantified, and as a result, the extent to which the continued rise represents a true increase in the occurrence of autism remains unclear.

Lets look at that last again:

…the extent to which the continued rise represents a true increase in the occurrence of autism remains unclear.

And yet David seems to to think its crystal clear. The paper itself also contains some direct and fairly easy-to-check errors. For example:

The inclusion of milder cases has been suggested as an explanation for the increase in autism. Neither Asperger’s
syndrome nor “pervasive developmental disorders not otherwise specified” qualify under the category of autism in the DDS system.

Here is what DDS passed on to me in Summer of 2007. I promised not to attribute the quote to an individual so I won’t, but you can email DDS yourselves and ask them.

The current CDER was written in 1978 and updated in 1986, which is why the language is so out of date ( e.g., Residual Autism). California has clinicians in the field who are, of course, using modern criteria in their assessments but then they have to go backwards and try to fit those kids into the 1986 CDER. So you are going to have Aspergers kids, PDD-NOS kids in both categories 1 and 2. Categories 1 and 2 are called ‘Autism.’ But because there are so many clinicians, using lots of different techniques for evaluation, there is a lot of inconsistency and enrollment figures should not be misused as epidemiological data.

Hertz-Picciotto might also be interested in a quote from Rita Eagle PhD of the California Dept. of Developmental Services (DDS) to Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, Vol. 34, No. 1, February 2004:

To many clinicians, it appears that more and more children who, in the past, would never have been referred to the regional centers for example, bright but anxious and slightly socially inept kids with average or better IQs and children who, in the past, had been or would have been diagnosed as ADHD, OCD, ODD, anxiety disorder, learning disabilities, psychotic, and so forth are now being diagnosed wit high-functioning autism and/or Asperger syndrome and referred to the regional centers for services.

Truth is that a lot of Hertz-Picciotto 2009 is simply wrong. For an extensive overview of why, please read Joseph’s technical takedown from which I’ll quote his conclusion:

H-P et al. is a surprisingly poor paper. It does not produce any new data in order to support its two main results. It makes an apples-to-oranges comparison between a Finnish epidemiological study and California DDS ascertainment over time. It tells us the obvious about “milder” cases. In the end, I don’t think this is an improvement over the 2002 MIND Institute report to the California Legislature. In fact, it could very well be worse.

The way H-P et al. have gone about trying to show there’s a real rise in autism incidence over time is not a very good way to go about doing things, in my view. There are other ways. For example, I’ve suggested trying to replicate Lotter (1967) in detail. This would not be as easily challenged.

David closes his latest error prone piece with:

But the sooner our best minds in science and medicine come to grips with the fact that these poor, hapless kids have been exposed to the wrong environmental toxins and/or infectious agents at the wrong time, the sooner we can find out how to best treat what really ails them.

This is a prime example of bad science leading the media. David has reported on a paper that has made fairly bad errors and taken them at their word. Sadly, this sort of thing will only continue as long as institutions like MIND (controlled by a man who is dedicated to proving vaccines cause autism) churn out error strewn papers.

David Kirby didn't look before he leapt

7 Dec

On Wednesday 3rd December, Ginger Taylor sent an email around to a maillist of journalists she maintains contact with saying:

Last spring I wrote to you and told you to be on the look out for the story of Hannah Poling, who was the first child with autism to be paid from the vaccine injury compensation fund. In the months following the Poling story, we found that she was actually at least the tenth child with autism compensated for her vaccine injuries by the government, but only the first to go public. Her case caused a profound shift in the public recognition of vaccination as one of the causes of autism.

I am writing to you today to let you know that tomorrow another story of equally profound weight will be breaking.

Specifically that the Department of Defense now holds the position that autism is one of the adverse reactions to the DTaP vaccine. In addition, The US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology holds that thimerosal is likely a cause of autism and recommends methyl B12 and chelation as the course of treatment for this mercury exposure

This entry is about the DoD story here but I really can’t let the Hannah Poling reference go by without a few notes. Hannah Poling was _not_ the first child with autism to be paid from the Vaccine Injury fund, a story first broken by Kathleen on her blog. And please note that yes, these kids had autism and yes these kids had vaccinations. And thats it. No link was ever made. This is just the same as the Hannah Poling case where no court or HHS employee has stated that Hannah’s autism was caused by her vaccines despite the numerous claims that they have. if anyone ever tells you they they have, ask for them to provide a link. All these cases are once you get right down to it are dressed up cases of correlation being presented as causation.

Anyway.

Following Ginger’s email, the next day found David’s blog post on the Huffington Post asking if the Pentagon was was a voice of reason on autism and vaccines, by which he means – do they think vaccines cause autism.

During the course of the post, he cited this presentation from José A. Centeno of the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and specifically referred to Slide 22 which I urge you to download and look at yourself (its a PDF). The slide is headed ‘Thimerosal’ and discusses sources, health effects and treatment. The health effects section states (in its entirety):

– Exposure to Hg in utero and children may cause mild to severe mental retardation and mild to severe motor coordination impairment;
– Autism?
– Dementia?

to which David asks:

My question is: Why does autism appear on a list of health effects on a slide about thimerosal, even if it is followed by a question mark?

To me its obvious: This PDF was created in 2005. . Some mainstream researchers still thought it was a slight possibility that thiomersal was involved I guess. Its further notable that even Centeno knew it was a doubtful link by the placing of a question mark after the word ‘autism’.

Lets also note that these are bullet points on a slide. I imagined the discussion at the time of presentation revolved around the debunking of the thiomersal hypothesis and it seems that was accurate.

I wondered at the time if David had actually spoken to anyone in the US military about this before passing it on to Ginger as a story of ‘profound weight’ and now, after reading David’s update on the post itself, it seems he didn’t:

UPDATE – I recently received a response to my query from Paul Stone, AFIP Public Affairs. He wrote that: “Dr. Centeno’s presentation, entititled ‘Mercury Poisoning: A Clinical and Toxicological Perspective,’ did mention Thimerosal. However, its inclusion was specifically intended to point out that although there has been some speculation about a potential association between Thimerosal and Autism, currently there is no data or science to support such a claim. Neither the AFIP nor Dr. Centeno have been involved in or conducted research on Autism.”

Its unfortunate David decided to ‘publish and be damned’ before waiting for a response from Centeno or the AFIP. Its clear that rather than a story of ‘profound weight’ this is something of a non-event. However, as is usually the case, no matter how incorrect it seems to be (and I am sure that this is _far_ from the last that will be heard about this from bloggers eager to get to the accuracy of this mini debacle) it will be quoted again and again and again from anti-vaccine believers who care little for accuracy. This will have an impact on both the well being of autism research and public health. I really hope David does the right thing and simply apologises and retracts the story.

Stephen M Edelson gets it wrong, wrong, wrong…

25 Nov

Communication is the members mgazine of the UK’s National Autistic Society. In an issue earlier this year, Mike Fitzpatrick, GP and author had an extract from his latest book published.

The extract touched on chelation and the death of Tariq Nadama.

This prompted a bilious response this month from Stephen M Edelson in this months Communication. The level of ignorance in his response is astounding. I have attached the whole response as a Word document to save me getting accused of taking things out of context. BUt for here, I’ll quote selected parts.

Fitzpatrick has been a longtime, outspoken critic of chelation. (Chelation involves a medication, such as DMPS or DMSA, which removes neurotoxic heavy metals, such as lead and mercury, from the body; it is given under the supervision of a doctor.) If an individual tests with very high levels of one or more heavy metals, chelation is the treatment of choice throughout the medical profession.

If test results indicate very high levels in someone on the autism spectrum, isn’t this person entitled to the same medical care as someone without autism?

This is far too simplistic. Of _course_ if someone on the spectrum has test results that indicate high levels of metals they should have the standard treatment. That is a strawman.

The _point_ is rather more complex that that as Mike mentions in his book and I have blogged about numerous times.

The labs that Mr Edelson and his DAN! colleagues recommend test for levels of metals in people on the spectrum very, very often give false results. Take this extract of the testimony of Dr Jeffrey Brent, a sub-specialty board certified medical toxicologist and the former President of the American Academy of clinical Toxicology.

…I have seen a number of patients now come to me because of these ‘doctor’s data’ type of laboratories which are based on urines – chelated urines – and they always have high leads in their chelated urines and I tell them ‘well, lets just do the gold standard test, lets get a blood/lead level and so far, *100% of the time they’ve been normal*.

So when ‘these Doctors Data’ type of labs do the tests they indicate the need for chelation. When _experts_ in the field such as Dr Brent do the gold standard tests ‘100% of the time they are normal’.

Dr Edelson needs to realise that _that_ is why chelation is an invalid treatment for autism. The fact that when taken to an expert in Chelation and Toxicology, the results usually indicate that chelation is not warranted.

Edelson continues:

In his article, Fitzpatrick brings up the accidental death of Tariq Nadama after chelation treatment. What he does not tell the reader is that Tariq was given the entirely wrong drug, one with a similar name and label that was nearby on the office shelf. Regrettably, these drug errors do
happen in hospitals and doctors’ offices and Fitzpatrick has exploited this unfortunate incident several
times in the past without explaining the complete story. (I have already corrected Fitzpatrick in a previous issue of Communication, and I am disappointed that the editor knowingly allowed such half-truths to be disseminated to NAS’ membership once more.)

Once more, Mr Edelson is quite wrong. Tariq Nadama was not given a drug by mistake ‘with a similar label that was nearby on the office shelf’.

When Dr Roy Kerry (who joined Mr Edelsons loose affiliation of practitioners after the death of Tariq Nadama) was prosecuted for the death of Tariq, the following was admitted by him:

70. Respondent admitted that EDTA is very rare to use on children.

71. Respondent admitted to using Disodium EDTA to chelate Tariq.

72. Respondent stated to Investigator Reiser that Disodium EDTA is the only formula of EDTA he stocks in his office.

73. Respondent admitted that CaNa2EDTA is available but that he has never used this agent.

I would recommend that Mr Edelson reads the entire complaint against Dr Kerry.

Edelson continues again:

Over the past 20 years, scientists have clearly documented immune system dysfunction and gastrointestinal problems associated with autism. Many of these problems can be treated successfully using established medical treatments.

Of course, this is twaddle. I challenge Mr Edelson to provide peer reviewed journal published science to back up these statements. As recently documented by Professor Stephen Bustin, the gastrointestnal ‘link’ to autism is not valid and never was.

I wonder why these treatments that so successfully treat autistic peoples autism have never had one single (that I can find) case study published?

Update 28 Nov 2008

An update from Mike who read some of this thread:

It is true that a number of environmental factors have been identified as causing autism in a small number of cases – these include viral infections (rubella, CMV) and drugs (thalidomide, sodium valproate). What is striking is that ‘over the past decade not a single new environmental factor has been identified as playing a significant role in the causation of autism’ (Defeating Autism: A Damaging Delusion, p 81). Indeed, it would be more accurate to say ‘over the past two decades’. By contrast, over this period there have been dramatic advances in the genetics of autism. Meanwhile intensive researches into alleged vaccine-autism links have failed to confirm any causative relationship.

‘The conviction of the biomedical activists that there must be some environmental explanation for the rising prevalence of autism has grown in intensity in inverse proportion to the emergence of scientific evidence in favour of any particular environmental cause.’

Who makes up the autism community?

16 Nov

On a recent post, Sullivan asks why vaccines should be included in any strategic plan when ‘vaccines-cause-autism advocacy organizations can’t ask for it?’

Its a good point. What _I_ want to pick up on is the claim that some of the groups who co-signed the letter Sullivan refers to are in any way (as they claim to be) ‘the autism community’. Lets take a look at some of the biggest news events of the last five years related to autism.

The top stories from 2003 came in July of that year. Of the top 100, less than 10 mentioned vaccines. Of the other 90% of stories Generation Rescue mention none, SafeMinds mention none, ARI mention none, NAA mention none, OAR mention none, TACA mention none, Unlocking Autism mention none.

The biggest month for 2004 autism news was May. Non-vaccine stories (on page 1) accounted for 87%. Again, none of the above organisations discussed any of these stories.

The biggest month for autism news in 2005 was August. Of page 1 results, 19% mentioned vaccines (4 were from AoA and about 6 were about the death of Abubakar Nadama). Of the other 81%, none were mentioned by the above groups.

2006 and October is the busiest news month. 3% mention vaccines. Of the 97% of stories that don’t, the organisations above mention none.

2007 sees the busiest news month as April. Of the 93% that do not talk about vaccines, none of the above groups comment on their websites.

2008 – so far April is the busiest news month with 9 mentions of vaccines in the top 100 stories. Of the 91% not talking about vaccines, yep, you guessed it, none of the above organisations talk about the stories.

The single top story regarding autism this year was World Autism day. No mention of this on the websites of Generation Rescue, SafeMinds, NAA, ARI, OAR, TACA or Unlocking Autism.

And these are the people who claim to be the autism community?

The truth is that these people are a series of single issue groups concentrating on vaccines and autism. The truth is that fully 7 out of the 11 (63%) groups who co-signed this letter have no interest in autism beyond vaccines/toxins.

These groups do not, in any way shape or form represent the autism community. I hope the IACC see this clearly.

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