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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.

CDDS Data, Flu Vaccines And Likely Predictions

12 Apr

So, now that the cases of autism are _still_ not falling (see Joseph and Interverbal) and we long passed David Kirby’s self imposed deadline of 2005 for rates to fall and are fast approaching his new goalpost shifted deadline of 2007 what can we expect from the mercury militia?

Well, excuses as to why that might be of course. Re-alignments of data and misleading impressions. For example, Rick ‘Train Wrecks’ Rollens gave the Schafer Mercury Report an exclusive. Well – there was a whole lot of guff before the actual figures. These were quoted as:

Between April 2002 and April 2003 there were 3,595 persons added to the system. Between April 2003 and April 2004 there were 3,088 persons added to the system. Between April 2004 and April 2005 there were 3,015 persons added to the system. Between April 2005 and April 2006 there were 2,869 persons added to the system.

But, as ever, we can disregard Rollens as he hasn’t isolated the 3 – 5 year old cohort. He counted everyone.

In case you couldn’t tell, I rolled my eyes then.

For a slightly more honest approach (key word: slightly) we turn to David Kirby who posted the following on EoH:

2004 545 -4.72%, 2005 524 -3.85%

Which is the percentage change year on year. However, Kirby tucked his bombshell in the previous paragraph:

It is too early to read a whole lot into these numbers, especially quarter to quarter, and obviously, *a drop in the net gain this quarter (instead of an increase of 6) would have been more supportive of the thimerosal theory*.

EoH

Which is quite a statement. No wonder Rollens is fighting to distance himself from it. I also notice Lenny Schafer didn’t quote Kirby in the SAR.

However Kirby then goes on to tell everyone:

But yearly trends for 3-5 year olds are down…

Which is not true. Yearly trends are still rising. To put it plainly there is a continuing increase in the amount of autistic 3 – 5 year olds entering the CDDS reporting system. What these figures show (except this new quarter) is a less than 1% decrease in the rate of increase year on year. And David Kirby _knows_ this is misleading. In an email exchange with blogger Citizen Cain, Kirby:

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

Citizen Cain

More misleading dishonesty Mr Kirby?

So, what can we expect from the mercury militia clinging desperately to the CDDS figures?

So, there’s the misleading conclusions and re-alignments of data. What about the excuses?

Well the biggie will be one that’s touched on by Kirby in his EoH post:

keep in mind that most of these kids are 4 and 5 years old, born between 2000 and the first quarter of 2002 (someone correct me if I got that wrong) and it is impossible to know exactly what thimerosal exposure rates were during that period in California, except to assume that they started to come down, perhaps gradually

Aha – the first emergence of what I shall take honour in calling the Great Backpedal Argument of 2006. In the GBA, mercury militia members will start to claim that rates are not falling because all the thiomersal still sitting on shelves to be used up. Its a _great_ argument as it can’t be proven or disproven – you just have to believe. Sounds familiar eh? Then of course, there’s the compounding factor of the flu vaccine. Except that the flu vaccine is not mandatory, not enforceable and as vaccine uptake is falling generally thanks to the mercury militia I would imagine flu vaccine uptake (and thus thiomersal exposure from this source) is at an all time low.

So back to all the thiomersal containing mainstream vaccines sitting on shelves up and down the country.

According to studies, the shelf life of thiomersal containing vaccines such as DTaP is between 5 – 9 months. Somebody remind me again – how long ago was it that thiomersal containing vaccines were halted for mainstream use? I forget.

And if you do come across some thiomersal containing vaccines, maybe you could send some to Safe Minds Executive Director Sallie Bernard. It seems that they were in very short supply as far back ago as June 2001:

A group of university-based researchers needs several vials of the older DTaP vaccine formulations which contained thimerosal for a legitimate research study. If anyone knows an MD who might have some of these vaccines or knows where to get them, please email me privately. Thank you. Sallie Bernard, Executive Director, Safe Minds.

Onibasu.

Makes you wonder why Ms Bernard didn’t simply wander into any GP’s office and buy some thiomersal containing vaccine off the shelves almost collapsing under the weight of the stuff.

If it was in short enough supply for Ms Bernard to require the help of people finding some back in 2001, how plentiful is the supply going to be either than or now? I’ll wager ‘not very’.

No Nonsense from Joseph

11 Apr

Its that time of year again – quarterly release from CDDS.

Joseph was very quick off the mark with an analysis. I’m going to quote the main points, shut off comments here and point you straight to the source:

As we can see, CDDS autism caseload continues to have strong growth. There’s an unexpected increase in the caseload growth this quarter (what’s usually referred to as “New Cases” by mistake). The prior tendency was for population growth to stabilize. Annual growth (calculated against the corresponding quarter the year before) has dropped a bit, but it still has a long way to go before it matches population growth in the state of California, about 1%, as would be expected in the long run. There is strong growth in the 3-5 age range, which suggests there is no drop in administrative incidence.

Just as a reminder, the 3 – 5 cohort is the cohort that David Kirby agreed was the only one worth measuring.

Despite law changes (Lanterman Act, 2003) specifically aimed at decreasing caseload growth, it’s clear administrative prevalence will continue to increase for a long time to come, perhaps one more decade. Trends in the 3-5 age range do not support an incidence drop following removal of thimerosal from vaccines. I recommend Dr. Geier’s paper be renamed to “Upward Trends in Neurological Disorders Remain Strong Following Removal of Thimerosal from Vaccines” if the paper is to be salvaged in any way.

Indeed.

Meanwhile over on the EoH group, poster Lynn asked if anyone had analysed the new stats yet. From the ringing silence, I guess we can assume they have.

You can comment on this story over at Joseph’s blog.

Upcoming Autism Conference

7 Apr

The Fifth Annual Meeting for Autism Research will shortly be going ahead in Montreal. There’s a few very interesting papers being discussed. Here’s a few abstracts:

No Autism Amongst Inuits From Northern Quebec?

_E. Fombonne, J. Morel, J. Macarthur_

*Background* : Autism has been found in most populations where it has been investigated. We have preliminary evidence that autism does not exist in the Inuit population of Northern Quebec

*Methods* : The authors know extensively the Inuit population (N=12,000) of Northern Quebec. They have been responsible for more than 15 years for pediatric care and special education in the 14 villages of this huge territory. There is a universal free health care and educational system, with repeated periodic medical examinations from birth onwards, compulsory attendance to school, and excellent medical/educational tracking record system for each child

*Results* : No case of autism was ever reported in an Inuit child in this population in the last 15 years. A computer search of discharge medical and psychiatric diagnoses failed to identify an ICD-9 diagnosis suggestive of autism or one of its variant. No case was referred for psychiatric evaluation or special educational assessment that would be consistent with autistic developmental impairments. In order to develop a full epidemiological enquiry, we have conducted a pilot study in 2 villages that demonstrated the feasibility of this planned investigation.

*Conclusion* : Autism appears to not exist amongst Inuits from Northern Quebec. If confirmed, it would have significant implications for the genetic understanding of autism. In addition, as Inuits are exposed through their fish-eating practices to high pre- and post-natal levels of mercury, it would also suggest that high mercury exposure in itself does not increase the risk of autism.

A STUDY OF MERCURY LEVELS IN YOUNG CHILDREN WITH AUTISM USING LABORATORY ANALYSIS OF HAIR SAMPLES

_P. G. Williams, J. Hersh, L. L. Sears_

Autism is a developmental disability characterized by severe, pervasive deficits in social interaction, communication and range of interests and activities. The neurobiologic basis of autism is well accepted, although the specific etiology is unknown. It has been theorized that autism may result from a combination of predisposing genes and environmental factors. While autism has a known association with some environmental factors such as rubella and valproic acid exposure in utero, other proposed environmental mechanisms such as mercury toxicity or other heavy metal exposure have limited research support. Despite this fact, interventions including oral chelation therapy are being used to treat autism after hair, blood or urine samples are analyzed by specialty laboratories. Controls and standards for these laboratories are often unclear with minimal data supporting differences in lab values for children with autism and typically developing children.

Hair samples were obtained from 14 children with autism and 16 controls between the ages of 2 and 6 years. These *samples were then sent to Doctors Data Lab* where mercury levels were reported. *The autism and control groups did not differ significantly in age or gender distribution*. Analysis of hair sample data by t-tests for equality of means and equal variance yielded *no significant difference in mercury levels for the two groups*. Despite the small sample size, results raise questions about the usefulness of evaluation for mercury exposure using hair samples, and about claims of mercury toxicity in children with autism.

BLOOD METAL CONCENTRATIONS IN THE CHARGE STUDY

_I. Hertz-Picciotto, P. G. Green, L. A. Croen, R. Hansen, P. Krakowiak_

*Background* : Adverse effects on neurodevelopment have been observed for lead and mercury. Previous reports of associations between body burdens of mercury and autism have been inconsistent or come from studies lacking rigorous quantitation of metals.

*Objectives* : To determine if blood levels of metals differ between children with versus without autism.

*Methods* : The CHARGE Study has been enrolling a population-based sample of 2-5 year old children with autism (AU), children with developmental delay (DD), and general population (GP) controls frequency matched on age, sex, and geographic region. Venous blood samples were drawn and metals were measured by inductively coupled plasma/mass spectrometry. Metals determinations were completed on 380 total children (261 AU, 40 DD, 79 GP). The AU cases were further divided into regressive (n=101) and early onset (n=119). ANOVA with unequal variances was used to compare means across groups.

*Results* : No significant difference in blood mercury was observed between the AU children (mercury mean±SD: 0.50±1.15 micrograms/dl) and either DD (0.41±0.51 micrograms/dl) or GP (0.51±0.74 micrograms/dl) children. Blood lead values were similar across AU, DD, and GP children (1.38, 1.30, 1.41 micrograms/dl, respectively). Similarly, children with a regressive trajectory versus early onset did not differ in their concentrations of circulating metals.

*Conclusions* : In 2-5 year olds, neither mercury nor lead concentration in peripheral blood of children with autism differs, on average, with that measured in population-based controls. Sponsors: NIEHS, EPA, M.I.N.D. Institute

M.I.N.D? Oh dear, what _will_ Rick Rollens have to say about that> _Thats_ not the result he paid to get!

In the meantime lets all look forward to the full release of these and the many other papers that will be presented.

*Update* Just noticed Autism Street has a similar post up.

A Few Questions For David Kirby

28 Mar

A few questions for Mr Kirby.

(All originally posted in the comments section of the above blog post)

You state that a study has recently been completed that:

showed that a few minutes of exposure with even miniscule amounts of thimerosal can damage dendritic cells, causing immune dysfunction and cytokine-induced inflammation, both of which are found in autism.

I’m aware of the study you are referring to but I am unsure of which study you draw your conclusion from that cytokine-induced inflammation is found in autism. You also fail to mention if it is a typical or rare phenomenom. Certainly it fails to appear in the diagnostic criteia for autism and a Google Scholar search for “”cytokine-induced inflammation” autism” reveals nothing. The same is also true for your claim that immune dysfunction appears in autism. You fail to state whether this is a common or rare occurance and yet again, it fails to appear in the diagnostic criteia for autism. Based on those facts, I fail to see what worth your interpretaton of this study has.

You are a staunch believer in the mercury/autism connection despite their being no symptomatic connection between merucry poisoning and autism except for that published in the oft-refuted ‘Mercury: a novel form of mercury poisoning’ paper.

Further, In the New York Times in 2005 you stated:

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.

The rates of autism did not fall that year.

A couple of months later you told blogger 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

I was puzzled enough by the discrepancy of you adding on two years to email you to ask you to clear it up. You replied to me:

Many thanks for your note. The Times misquoted me. I actually asked for a correction, but did not receive one. What I told the reporter is that we should know in the next few years.

In the interests of being thorough, I prevailed upon the two reporters for the NYT for their version of events. Reporter Gardiner Harris replied:

Prior to publication, we read the entire passage relating to this matter to Mr. Kirby. He approved it.

And reporter Anahad O’Connor said:

…we stand by that quote. David Kirby was interviewed at length, and we verified that quote and additional information with him before the article was published. He certainly did not object to that assertion at the time.

It is hard to escape the conclusion Mr Kirby, that you misled me and that you further tacked on a couple of extra years when the autism rates failed to decrease to support your original assertion. Will you now stand by your original statement that the incidence of autism should’ve fallen in 2005?

You attempted to use California DDS data to back up your continued assertion that autism rates had climbed throughout peak thimerosal useage periods and then dropped after thimerosal removal from the majority of vaccines. However, when blogger Citizen Cain pointed out you were using the data incorrectrly you conceeded:

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

Even a cursory glance at current and past CDDS data reveals that according to CDDS data, that cohort is still actively rising. Do you see that as another indicator that thiomersal plays no role in autism as you implied in your NYT interview?

In the course of this blog post you have made repeated mention of thimerosal still being in vaccines in the form of the flu shot. I wondered if you knew of the total mercury burden over time of mercury in vaccines?

US pre-thimerosal removal: 187.5 µg Hg.
US just flu shot: 25 µg Hg.
UK pre-thimerosal removal: 75 µg of Hg.

The US and UK have almost identical prevalence rates for autism. Given that we have very different thimerosal rates, how do you reach the conclusion that thimerosal can cause autism? Given those stats, shouldn’t US children have far more ‘full syndrome’ autism than UK children? How do you also account for the fact that even though US children are now recieving approx 7.5 times less thiomersal than they were at the height of thiomersals use the rate of autism amongst the 3 – 5 cohort is still climbing if we examine CDDS data – data that you refer to as the ‘gold standard’?

You are also a stauch proponent of the idea of there having been an epidemic of autism. You don’t base this on any science but rather what you claim to be an abscence of adults. Indeed on this very blog you asked:

But if autism is purely genetic (without an environmental “trigger”) and has always been prevalent at the same constant rate, then where are the 1-in-166 autistic 25-year-olds (those born in 1980)? Where are the 1-in-166 autistic 55-year-olds? Why can’t we find them?

You may remember that I mailed you a PDF report (http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/Doc/1095/0001881.pdf) from the Scottish government of a 2004 ‘audit’ of autism. One of the questions they asked the Health authorities, Trusts etc under the national banner was:

Research tells us that prevalence rates of autistic spectrum disorder represent an underestimate. To what extent do you consider the numbers above to be an accurate reflection of all those who live in your area?

Approaching 45% of all councils/executive/NHS Trusts questioned responded that the prevalence for adults was grossly underestimated, badly reported and that a lot of these adults exist without diagnosis. A typical response was:

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. _(Perth & Kinross Council)_

I apologise for mentioning this here but you failed to respond to my email regarding this matter.

Thanks in advance for your comprehensive answers.

UPDATE: Mike Stanton has found yet more evidence of your ‘hidden horde’:

_Liam Byrne, the health minister, said that 6,170 children under 16 had been diagnosed in England last year, compared with 3,100 in 1997-98. The number of cases including adults rose from 4,220 to 9,170 in the same period._

_So 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._

UPDATE No. 2: I just remembered an interesting quote from a New Scientist feature on the autism ‘epidemic’:

This view (that there are many children today diagnosed with autism who would not have been labelled as such in the past) is difficult to substantiate, but in 2001 a team led by Helen Heussler of Nottingham University, UK, had a crack. They re-examined the data from a 1970 survey of 13,135 British children. The original survey found just five autistic children, but using modern diagnostic criteria Heussler’s team found a hidden hoard of 56. That’s over a tenfold rise in numbers, which puts the California figures in perspective. Heussler and her colleagues concluded that estimates from the early 1970s may have seriously underestimated the prevalence.

DAN! Protocol For Dummies

20 Mar

Whenever anyone else hears the word ‘DAN!’ with that little exclamation mark do they go ‘DAN! – DAN! – DAN – DAN!’ to the opening four bars of the theme to ‘Dragnet’? No? Ah well, just me then.

Ken Aitken is a psychologist. He’s also a DAN! Doctor. One doesn’t need to be an actual Doctor to be a DAN! Doctor apparently:

As for choosing a DAN!, it just depends on what type of treatment you are looking for. DAN!’s that are MDs or DOs are typically going to be much more into testing and genetics and lots of expensive and invasive stuff. This, of course, is a gross generalization and isn’t necessarily true of all DAN! MDs, but rather something to be cautious of. A DAN! who is a homeopath or naturopath is typically going to do things more naturally and less invasive. Again, it’s a generalization. There are chiropractors, allergists and other types of doctors that are DAN!s as well, so it is really the type of doctor and treatment that best suits your needs. Many people go with a MD or DO because they can get insurance coverage for some of the services.

Homeopaths and Naturopaths doing things ‘naturally’. Heh. Does this lack of training in medical matters prevent them from performing things like chelation (source as above)?

…which is why we went with a homeopath/naturopath…….We decided to get the mercury out because I knew that Seth had had way too much put into him and it wasn’t coming out at all (he’s a non-excretor).

Homeopaths and Naturopaths doing chelation. Cool.

I talked to one yesterday (a DAN doctor mind you) and how he got qualifications to be one is beyond me. He told me has a couple of autistic patients and knows of the chelation process. If this is all that is required to be a DAN doctor then I don’t see a distinct advantage to them either.

Source.

Is your mind boggling yet? Here’s the reply to this commenter (source as above):

I think that being on the DAN list (in the past) meant something like that the person had attended some DAN training– or something rather general like this. Someone (in some post, somewhere) who went to the recent DAN conference wrote about that there is/was some discussion afoot to try to improve on this and make the
info on doctors more useful (or more detailed….or something??)

This doesn’t sound like a recipie for disaster at all. Was Roy Kerry a DAN! Doctor? I don’t know.

I came across some priceless websites pushing the DAN! protocol. They had numerous things in common, chiefly the disclaimer – all variations on the theme of:

this is not medical advice

Which is odd because from that point on, they mostly plough into what can only be thought of as _advice_ about what _medication_ an autistic child should take. There’s a fairly representative sample of what a dutiful DAN! Doc should do on the website of Miriam Jang MD. First, the usual copout from responsibility:

At this point, I would like to point out that this is not medical advice, even though I am a Medical Doctor. Rather, this is a wish for your child or your loved one(s) to have the advantage of what took us eight years to discover. Please take this as a medical disclaimer. All suggestions here should be done at your own risk.

‘Own risk’. Right. Or actually – wrong. She means the risk of the child receiving the treatment. Thats whos health will suffer when if it all goes wrong.

Dr Jang decides to lead off with some impressive science:

In both Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, the sages believed that there were only two ways to health: one was to correct deficiencies; the other was to get rid of toxicities.

Ayurvedic? What the hell?

This ancient art of healing has been practiced continuously for over 5,000 years. The principles of many natural healing systems now familiar in the West, such as Homeopathy and Polarity Therapy, have their roots in Ayurveda. Ayurvedic practices restore the balance and harmony of the individual, resulting in self-healing, good health and longevity.

So, DAN! Doctors are homeopaths and naturopaths who practice er, Polarity Therapy. Polarity Therapy? What the hell?

Polarity Therapy is a comprehensive health system involving energy-based bodywork, diet, exercise and self-awareness. It works with the Human Energy Field, electromagnetic patterns expressed in mental, emotional and physical experience.

Riiiight. OK. Back to er, Doctor (?) Jang. Basically, there’s a load of stuff with no cites – such as:

An important finding is that about 85 percent of Autistic kids are high in Copper and low in Zinc. Furthermore, these kids are very low in an important protein call Metallothionein, or MT Protein.

Hmm. Searching PubMed for ‘Metallothionein autism’ reveals two results. One is an inaccessible review and one is a free PDF published in the confidence inspiringly named ‘Alternative Medecine Review’. A Google search for the same reveals the predicted circus of quackery.

Except….another one of the mercury/autism darlings, Vijendra K. Singh has a paper that states:

serum level of MT did not significantly differ between normal and autistic children. Furthermore, autistic children harboured normal levels of anti-MT, including antibodies to isoform MT-I (anti-MT-I) and MT-II (anti-MT-II), without any significant difference between normal and autistic children.

A dilema, no? (You can read more on this paper here.)

Dr Jang continues with:

I will include a list of supplements that Marky is taking. There are many protocols, with many rationales. When we write down the dosages, please take into consideration that Marky is 11 years old and weighs 75 pounds. Please adjust your dosages according to your child’s weight.

Marky is her son. But isn’t it amazing how a DAN! Doctor is assuming parents know *how* to adjust medications for weight – and is happy to trust them to do so without medical supervision or even consultation!

Towards the end of her piece she says:

Please remember that, if you introduce your child to a new supplement, it is not unusual for the child to experience some adverse effects for a short while…When this happens, it does not necessarily mean that you should discontinue the supplement, unless the adverse effects are dangerous, or persistent….If there are adverse effects, stay at this dose until the adverse effects are gone, then proceed to a slightly higher dose, etc.

So there may be adverse effects but don’t stop unless the adverse effects are dangerous, instead stay on the same dose until the adverse effects are gone. I can’t imagine any Doctor thinking this is good advice. Interestingly, the following appeared from Dr Jang as part of an email newsletter:

I would like to start with some very serious news: we do have to be careful of Vitamin A toxicity with our sweet kids. There is a child with reported Vitamin A toxicity that was so severe that the child had to be hospitalized for 12 days.

Her patient? I wonder. Maybe the practitioner (whomever s/he was) read her advice to ‘stay on the same dose until the adverse effects are gone’.

Dr Jang tells us in relation to supplements that:

We noticed a difference in Marky in less than a week.

And yet later on she says:

In addition, you may not see the beneficial effects of these supplements for a period of time.

Something of a glaring contradiction. Which is true?

Anyway, having expounded all this good advice, Dr Jang closes with:

So, be curious and be persistent. Take good care of yourselves so that you can endure this arduous journey called “Autism”!

Yes, be curious – try everything that takes your fancy. Be persistent – whats a little Vitamin A poisoning between friends? And above all take good care of _yourselves_ so that _you_ can endure this journey…..except, its not _you_ who’s undergoing all these treatments is it? Its your child.

Dr Jang is also a big clay bath fancier (clay baths cure autism? Who knew?)

“…I have put a huge number of patients on these clay baths and the levels of heavy metals – mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium have come down dramatically…I have been monitoring the levels of metals using all three methods (TD DMPS, oral DMSA and clay baths)and the clay baths are way faster in the removal of metals”.

Hoooo boy! Rashid’s going to be plenty pissed with her. Better than TD DMPS? Surely not! Why not use both? Smother your child with TD DMPS and then wash that stuff off in a nice clay bath? At least your child will have a nice happy splash in a bath.

So, Ken Aitken – welcome to your new role as a Dan! Doctor. I feel sure you can uphold the strong scientific standards your colleagues demonstrate.

On Using VAERS

14 Mar

Recently, KC posted a comment reflecting his strong suspicions that Dr Jim Laidler fabricated his infamous ‘incredible hulk’ report to VAERS:

You can’t backup Dr. Laidler’s…..VAERS bullshit with AutismWatch!

This is a common refrain. It’s been echoed by various people who choose to believe in the thiomersal/MMR/autism connection. Lets look again at what Jim Laidler said:

The chief problem with the VAERS data is that reports can be entered by anyone and are not routinely verified. To demonstrate this, a few years ago I entered a report that an influenza vaccine had turned me into The Hulk. The report was accepted and entered into the database.

This is what people routinely claim is ‘bullshit’. So, I thought I’d put it to the test.

VAERS has two ways of submitting a report. Firstly, you could download a PDF, fill it in and post it off. Or, you could do what I elected to do and fill in and submit a report online.

VAERS has a helpful popup which tells you exactly what it needs to know – which are the most important pieces of data it needs. However, the fact that I live in the UK was not deemed of importance. Neither was the fact that I told VAERS that my daughter had been turned into Wonder Woman. The only piece of contact data I submitted was my email address and I wasn’t even asked for that. I submitted it voluntarily.

I’m going to get a bit nerdy now.

VAERS use very, very simple Javascript form validation. It tripped me up a couple of times as I got confused about the fact you crazy Americans use mm/dd/yyyy rather than dd/mm/yyyy and it didn’t like the 24 hour clock either.

The Javascript routine caught the fact that I tried to submit an adverse event *before* the fictional date of my daughters birth but it failed to catch that I stated the vaccine was administered at 18months and that the date for vaccination I provided was only 6 months after the ‘birth’ date.

VAERS uses a ColdFusion backend. This means its easy to build a script that detects an incoming visitors IP address. It would therefore be just as easy to extend the script to use the IP address to determine what country the visitor is from. As it is, a UK resident has managed to successfully enter a record into VAERS.

But you don’t have to take my word for it, I ventured into Bartholomew Cubbins territory and recorded an AVI movie of me performing the whole process.

There’s a highly compressed and slightly lacking in quality version in SWF (Flash) format here (12mb) and a Hi-res version here (150mb). Please note that I use a ridiculously high resolution (1600 x 1200) so the SWF might encroach off the edge of your screens. If you’d rather download that file, right click it instead of left clicking it.

So what have I illustrated?

That Jim Laidler, far from ‘bullshitting’ about the record entry process and subsequent unreliablity of data was telling the truth. Anyone can enter any data into VAERS. Even someone from another country. Good source data? I think not.

Burden Of Proof

8 Mar

As one dives ever deeper into the science (or lack thereof) between the two camps of the autism/thimerosal debate, the questions become more and more interesting.

It occurred to me awhile ago to wonder how, if we agree that thiomersal in vaccines causes autism, the UK and the US have such very similar rates of autism but very dissimilar rates of thiomersal. The main stance I’m challenging (as ever) is that of Generation Rescue who make it clear they believe thiomersal to be the main culprit (60% of the ‘mercury facts’ page is devoted to thiomersal related questions and thiomersal has its own dedicated section on the GR site). Lets have a look at mercury intake at the height of both countries thiiomersal use:

UK
..a substantial proportion of children in the GPRD cohort will have had a cumulative Hg exposure of *75 µg* of Hg.

US
the maximum cumulative exposure in some US children was *187.5 µg* Hg.

Source

Thats quite some disparity. It raises a few questions almost immediately.

Firstly, are US children more ‘severely’ autistic than UK children? If not, why not? Surely if they’ve received more than twice what UK kids have via vaccines we should see vastly more severely (or low functioning, pick your pejorative) affected autistic people. Is there any evidence this is the case? Well, if IQ is anything to go by (which I fully accept is questionable and I’m only using because thats how the diagnostic criteria work) then the latest stats as quoted by Joseph indicate it is not the case:

Why is the prevalence of CDDS clients without mental retardation (presumably based on IQ testing) going up quickly?

Joseph.

Are there any other indicators that ‘full’ or ‘classic’ or ‘kanners’ or ‘full spectrum’ or ‘low functioning’ (again pick your pejorative) autism is increasing in the US compared to the UK at a ratio of 2:1 whilst ‘high functioning’ or ‘Aspergers Syndrome’ cases are not? I can’t think of any.

Secondly, where are all the dead autistic US children compared to still living UK children?

We hear all the time that autistic people are poor excretors of mercury and yet I find it incredible that given this supposed poor excretion, American autistic kids aren’t dying much earlier than their UK counterparts. Isn’t mercury ingestion eventually fatal? At what level is it necessary for someone to excrete mercury in order to maintain life? There seems to be no evidence to suggest more autistic people die from illnesses close in appearance to fatal mercury exposure than non-autistics and yet not only do they have this inability to excrete mercury, they have a huge mercury burden to start life with and exactly the same exposure to other forms of environmental mercury as non-autistics.

And the inverse is also true. If we accept by virtue of the fact that autistic people are not dying of mercury poisoning that they *must* be excreting it then why do their symptoms not improve? According to proponents of chelation, chelation not only removes the mercury it actually recovers/cures the patient. Is there some aspect to chelation that there isn’t to normal excretion paths? How does chelation reverse the alleged neuro damage when ordinary excretion apparently cannot?

No answers here, only questions.

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