Andrew Wakefield, MMR and….The Observer??

8 Jul

I have a category tag on this blog especially for the loons at the Daily Mail (Melanie Phillips et al) which I usually select whenever I write about Andrew Wakefield or the MMR because its invariably one of them doing the writing.

This time I was amazed to see that it was that usual bastion of intelligence and propriety, The Observer, that had decided to play the role of media dumbass. Obviously the mail and Private Eye are having an off day.

First up was Andrew Wakefield himself – comparing himself to Vaclav Havel no less he pontificates:

Wakefield told The Observer that he has no regrets for saying what he did in 1998 nor for continuing to seek to prove his view of MMR as the likeliest explanation for the rise in cases of autism in Britain. Almost every child health expert, though, regards the jab as hugely beneficial to public health and rules out any connection between it and autism.

‘My concern is that it’s biologically plausible that the MMR vaccine causes or contributes to the disease in many children, and that nothing in the science so far dissuades me from the continued need to pursue that question’, Wakefield said.

Nothing in the science? Is he joking?

How about the sworn testimony of Stephen Bustin, the world expert in the technique Wakefield’s lab of choice screwed up:

What I immediately observed was that they had forgotten to do the RT step…….If you detect a target that is apparently measles virus in the absence of an RT step by definition it can’t be measles virus because it has to be DNA. It’s a very simple concept. At least it is to me. It’s not to everyone else……[b]ecause measles virus doesn’t exist as a DNA molecule in nature, they cannot be detecting measles virus….

What’s not to get here Andy? Your lab fucked up. And whats more, in your original study, you ignored the fact that you had been proven wrong:

Q Okay. Did you personally test the gut biopsy samples for measles RNA?
A Yes.

Q What tests did you perform?
A A PCR test, a polymerase chain reaction.

Q What results did you receive from the gut biopsy materials for measles RNA?
A They were all negative.

Q They were always negative?
A Yes. There were a few cases of false positive results, which I used a method to see whether they were real positive results or false positive, and in every case they turned out to be false positive results. Essentially all the samples tested were negative.

…….

Q So you personally tested while you were in Dr. Wakefield’s lab gut biopsy material, CSF and PBMCs?
A Yes, that’s right.

Q And all the results were either negative, or if they were positive it always turned out that they were false positives?
A Yes, that’s correct.

Q Did you inform Dr. Wakefield of the negative results?
A Yes. Yes.

Please, someone – anyone – I mean it, anyone. please explain to me _what science_ exists that supports Andrew Wakefield’s opinion that ‘it’s biologically plausible that the MMR vaccine causes or contributes to [autism]’.

Also in The Observer (where is the third to complete the Trifecta of Stupid?) is the story:

New health fears over big surge in autism

And how did The Observer know this?

A study, as yet unpublished, shows that as many as one in 58 children may have some form of the condition

An unpublished study…? So, in other words, hearsay? Is there any indication as to the methodology of this study?

Well, according to Public Address, the team used the CAST (Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test) tool for evaluation. CAST has the following conclusion applied to it by the team that developed it:

The CAST is useful as a screening test for autism spectrum conditions in epidemiological research. There is not currently enough evidence to recommend the use of the CAST as a screening test within a public health screening programme in the general population

Those sorts of questionnaires are preliminary, for children who *might* have an ASD, and who should be followed up. If you take the 1 in 58 having features that might make you suspicious of ASD, then it’s a much more realistic feature – go down the full diagnostic road and you’re going to find that not all of them have an ASD.

And yet this is trumpted as a new health fear? An alternate and much more accurate headline would be: _We think some kids may have autism but we haven’t really tested for it at all_ – not quite as snappy though I grant you.

And hey, how did this story get linked to the MMR?

Seven academics at Cambridge University, six of them from its renowned Autism Research Centre, undertook the research by studying children at local primary schools. Two of the academics, leaders in their field, privately believe that the surprisingly high figure may be linked to the use of the controversial MMR vaccine.

Well, well, I wonder how these two could be? Again, from Public Address (link as above):

Dr Fiona Scott and Dr Carol Stott. Stott is a psychologist and is about as qualified to comment on diseases of the gut, immunology and PCR testing (all of which are relevant to the MMR claims) as I am. But there’s more to it. Her name will be known to anyone who has looked at this saga. It was Stott who sent a string of abusive emails to Brian Deer, which led to a formal warning from the British Psychological Society. (Stott accused her colleagues of failing to support her in her battle with Deer because they were in thrall of drug companies.)

Campbell doesn’t tell his readers all that. He also forgets to note that Stott is no longer employed as a junior researcher at Cambridge. She now works with the California-based clinic Thoughtful House, which is run by – did you see this coming? – Andrew Wakefield. As you might expect, Deer takes a dim view of what goes on there.

Until Deer started writing about it, Stott and Dr Fiona Scott shared a website, on which they touted their “substantial experience in medico-legal and educational-legal expert witness work” to parents who might have been minded to pursue legal action in the belief that the MMR vaccine had caused their children’s autism.

It would appear that either or both of Stott and Scott are Campbell’s source, and that the timing of the story around Wakefield’s return to face the music before the GMC is no accident.

Suddenly, the story becomes clearer. Andrew Wakefield is on a PR campaign to paint himself as the beatific hero of the piece and his two glamorous assistants are happy to sell out their study partners in order to help him. of course, this will also entail rehashing all the unfounded and non-scientific fears about autism and MMR just to muddy the waters a bit.

I am not surprised at Wakefield or his two cronies. But The Observer? I’m surprised to say the least.

Update from Ben at Badscience

Ben has received email from Fiona Scott regarding this. Her email reads:

I can respond to your question in terms of the following which will be the
formal press release available from the National Autistic Society:

The Cambridge University Autism Research Centre have not yet released the
findings from their prevalence study, as the study is not yet complete. The
Cambridge researchers are surprised that an unpublished report of their work
was described out of context by the Observer. They are investigating how
this report was made available to the Observer. They are equally surprised
that the Observer fabricated comments attributed to their team. They do not
believe there is any link between rising prevalence and the MMR, or chemical
toxins. It is untrue that Prof Baron-Cohen “was so concerned by the 1 in 58
figure that he proposed informing public health officials in the county “.
Such journalism raises anxiety unnecessarily and is irresponsible.

So it really does seem as if The Observer has out-and-out fabricated comments. Incredible.

Elsewhere

Autism Diva
Autism Vox
BadScience
Black Triangle
Mike Stanton
Public Address
Shinga
Tim Worstall
Tony Hatfield

Wakefield Speaks

8 Jul

Diva’s take on Andrew Wakefield’s interview…..Read More

Do’C Do’s and Don’ts

7 Jul

The internet is filled with speculation and information about autism, and so-called autism ‘treatments’….. Read More

Nancy Snyderman and the NAA

7 Jul

Nancy Snyderman is a TV Doctor (for the Today Show apparently) who recently got the collective knickers of the mercury militia in a twist when she told her audience the truth about the vaccine/autism connection – that there isn’t one. What particularly galled them was being confronted with the truth of their own behaviour. When asked what she thought the motivating factor was for parents to be taking vaccine makers to court she replied with one word: ‘money’.

Several anti vaccine/autism groups published a group response, which you can find on the home page of our old friends and routine liars, the National Autism Association.

Let’s go through the main points of the letter.

Dr. Snyderman’s ties to Johnson & Johnson, defendants in vaccine injury litigation, are obviously dictating the agenda in her appearances on your network at the risk of the safety of our children.

Right. So is it OK to pay people or not? Or is it only OK if you’re the parent group of autistic kids? As I talked about recently, its clear that both the NAA and SafeMinds have financial interests of their own that need explaining. Either its bad for everyone to do it, or no one. Which is it?

NBC’s viewers were exposed to a blatant falsehood yesterday as Dr. Snyderman claimed that vaccines no longer contain mercury. This is not the case, and this misinformation has unfortunately given America’s parents a false sense of security that vaccines are now mercury-free. This false claim puts all of America’s children and the unborn at risk of great harm.

Before I start, I want to say I’m referencing the audio Bob Krakow of A-CHAMP helpfully provides.

In respect of the above quote, Snyderman says:

(thiomersal)…was taken out years ago and yet the rates of autism have increased….

So, NAA et al say this is a blatant falsehood and….

Mercury is still in most flu, tetanus, and diphtheria/tetanus vaccines–and an array of vaccines still contain “trace” amounts. (The term “trace” must be used loosely as this aspect of vaccine production is not being regulated and there is some variation on what constitutes a trace amount. As children often receive multiple “trace” amounts of mercury in one sitting, cumulative amounts and potential adverse effects are as yet unknown.)

This is a blatant falsehood. Thiomersal is _not_ in ‘most flu, tetanus and diptheria/tetanus vaccines’. It exists in one brand (out of three) of DTaP at a trace amount. The NAA and other alarmists may be interested in a blog post I made quite awhile ago about ‘trace’ amounts of ingredients. In it, I discuss how my bottled water has to list all ingredients including fat which exists at ‘trace’ levels.

In other words, the chances of you being overdosed on thiomersal from these vaccines are about the same as you getting fat from drinking spring water. Further, Snyderman is correct. There is no thiomersal _in_ these vaccines (which is what she was asked). These trace amounts occur from the use of thiomersal in the manufacturing process. Its extremely likely that there really is _no_ thiomersal in this one vaccine.

Now, Snyderman was asked about childhood vaccines in the context of the omnibus hearings. Here’s the anchor:

…as a result of getting vaccines when their children were babies….

So Snyderman’s answer of ‘none’ is absolutely correct. Flu vaccines, some of which still have thiomersal _in_ them are not specific to children and are not given to babies as part of the schedule.

As a physician representing NBC, Dr. Snyderman has failed to tell the truth about mercury-containing vaccines and the known dangers associated with them. There is simply no excuse for such careless and false reporting while this country is in the throes of a childhood epidemic of neurological disorders.

Woah…..neurological disorders again? Not autism? This is bullshit intended to allow one to say whatever they want. Hey – National *Autism* Association – how about sticking to autism. Is it because you are well aware that there is in fact no epidemic of autism? We all know what you think about that. You slandered the author of a study who performed science that disagreed with you and set your pack of parent harpies on him right? This was the result:

After Mr. Shattuck’s paper last year, he received “a half-dozen phone messages on my answering machine that were either vaguely or specifically physically threatening,” he said.

One person said, “Don’t be surprised if you get a knock on your door in the middle of the night and I’ll be there.” Another message said it was easy in the age of the Internet to find out where people live.

Anyway, back to the National Autism Association et al. the next part of their letter states:

During Monday’s NBC Nightly News Dr. Snyderman stated, “there really is no science” behind the autism/mercury link. Vaccines and the mercury-based preservative thimerosal have not been ruled out as a cause of autism. To the contrary, there are literally thousands of scientific, peer-reviewed studies supporting the extreme neurotoxicity of mercury and the relationship between mercury exposure and neurological injury

Hey look! There’s that ‘neurological injury’ thing again. What happened to _autism_ ? You are attacking Snyderman for answering a question that you don’t even tackle in your response. She was asked about _autism_ . Her answer was also totally correct. There _is_ no science behind the autism/vaccine belief system. Your response that there are thousands of peer reviewed articles about the toxicity of mercury and the link to neurological injury is utterly irrelevant and nothing more than a very transparent strawman.

In her most recent NBC appearance, Dr. Snyderman was asked why parents were filing claims on behalf of their vaccine-injured children, to which she answered matter-of-factly, “money.” This cavalier statement alone goes far beyond contempt and displays an appalling ignorance of the emotional and financial devastation faced by families of vaccine-injured children. This must be addressed by an immediate apology from NBC to all the parents of children suffering from vaccine-induced illnesses.

I urge Dr Snyderman _not_ to apologise or retract her statement as it 100% correct. It is the only possible outcome from these hearings. If they win, the petitioners get money. That’s why the court was set up. Its a ‘no fault’ system. Do you need it explaining again?

We urge you to speak with the growing number of scientists who have published research supporting a causal link between mercury in vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders, and can provide you contact information for these researchers.

No one needs to do that. The science should speak for itself. If thiomersal causes autism, the peer reviewed literature will show that. Guess what? It doesn’t. Peer review does not include quack journals like Medical Veritas or JPANDS.

Reporting false information is a disservice to the American people.

I find it absolutely unbelievable that this statement is on the NAA website, the source for the false information about Paul Shattuck that led to his being hounded and threatened.

There is a choice selection of the more extreme antivax groups and individuals who are cosigners of this letter (although no SafeMinds I note – wonder why…).

These groups need to start looking at their behaviour. It is appalling. They have already led one researcher to being threatened over his phone because his _science_ didn’t agree with their _beliefs_ – what will happen to Nancy Snyderman? Maybe here is a telling sign. I got this from (you guessed it) the Evidence of Harm Yahoo group:

From: andrea52521991
Date: Apr 5, 2007 3:20 PM
Subject: [EOHarm] Re: Oprah, Autism Speaks, etc…
To: EOHarm@yahoogroups.com

……..

I’d like to meet Dr.Nancy Snyderman in a dark alley someday and shove a 100 HPV vaccines right up her smug ass!

………

The truth is that these groups have an ugly, ugly problem with violence and an unhealthy fixation on committing acts of violence towards people who don’t agree with them. They have recently introduced what seems to be a new policy of referring to ‘neurological disorders’ when responding to points about ‘autism’ and need to have a long, hard look at both the accuracy of their public statements and their methods of what seem to be little more than inciting violence towards people they don’t like.

Safe Minds and David Kirby

5 Jul

Suspicions have been circling for a long time that there was more than just coincidence to the timing of writing and publication of Kirby’s Evidence of Harm. Those suspicions were enhanced for me when it became clear that a lot of Kirby’s associations with certain autism/anti-vaccine groups such as the National Autism Association were on a financial footing.

The ‘official’ story regarding the writing of Evidence of Harm, as reported by Kirby himself, was that Kirby was casting about for something to write about of book length and had been approached by several autism parents who wanted to share their beliefs that vaccines had made their kids autistic. According to Kirby, he was skeptical and unsure about whether to proceed with it or not. What made up his mind apparently was seeing a news report that a politician had managed to attach a no fault rider to a bill passing through Congress, absolving vaccine makers of any legal responsibility.

However, I don’t believe him. Up until recently, that belief was simply a belief. Rumours circulated that Sallie Bernard of Safe Minds was listed as the domain controller (i.e. she’d bought and paid for) the domain evidenceofharm.com. I emailed her to ask her one way or the other. She refused to answer that question. Kathleen Seidel has asked David Kirby that question. He refused to answer.

Why does it matter? Because Kirby claims to be impartial in this debate. His reviewers claim he ‘walks the middle line’ in his book. that his account is ‘even handed’. I would like to know how someone who has an established financial relationship to one major autism/anti-vax group can possibly be impartial. Would the NAA continue to fund Kirby’s website if he said he didn’t think thiomersal caused autism? I doubt it.

Turning our attention to Safe Minds, we can look at their records – records they must supply be law as they’re a non-profit organisation – and see exactly what they have financed. You can access these records via the orgs IRS Form 990:

Form 990 is an annual reporting return that certain federally tax-exempt organizations must file with the IRS. It provides information on the filing organization’s mission, programs, and finances.

Attached is Safe Minds 990 for 2005. It has some interesting details in it.

If we look at line 43, it has a listing amount of $99,196 for ‘Professional Fees’ expenses placed under the ‘Program Services’ Category.

This means that they paid people they considered professionals almost $100k to provide services to their programs. On page 15 of this same document they go into detail about what these services are.

…..THE BOOK “EVIDENCE OF HARM, MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUSTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY” WAS RELEASED IN 2004 AND SAFEMINDS PRESIDENT, LYN REDWOOD, WAS FEATURED ON THE MONTEL WILLIAMS SHOW ALONG WITH AUTHOR, DAVID KIRBY. THIS IMPORTANT BOOK EXAMINES BOTH THE PERSONAL STORIES OF FAMILIES AND THE UNFOLDING DRAMA IN THE COURTS AND HALLS OF CONGRESS.

This is listed as a ‘Program Service Accomplishment’.

So what can we conclude? To me, this is pretty damning evidence that David Kirby was paid by Safe Minds to write Evidence of Harm. It certainly ties in with Kirby’s other financial benefits from the NAA. So much for impartiality.

I have some questions for Safe Minds and David Kirby.

1) Did David Kirby receive any kind of financial incentive from Safe Minds or NAA or any of their boards prior to writing Evidence of Harm?
2) If so, how much?
3) If not, please explain the 990 form from 2005 above and tell us exactly what the information in it means.

New Design

3 Jul

No you haven’t gone mad or landed somewhere else ;o)

I’m taking a new design approach – a bit more minimalist accessible.

This is not the final thing. This is a ‘standard’ template designed by someone else. I#ll be building on this design to make it more mine but it won’t all happen at once. What design bloggers call a ‘live redesign’ in that it is redesigned right before your very eyes!!!!

What will change?

30 Jun

The first of the nine ‘test’ Autism Omnibus cases has wrapped up. This was also the first of the designated three that will attempt to associate autism with MMR _and_ Thiomersal causation.

In todays’ Wall Street Journal, Professor Roy Richard Grinker, author of Unstrange Minds wraps up what we’ve seen over the last couple of weeks:

Over the last three weeks, I listened to testimony in the first of nine test cases in the U.S. Vaccine Court (Cedillo v. Health and Human Services) considering the question of whether a mercury-based vaccine preservative called thimerosal (which used to be in many vaccines), or the MMR (Measles, Mumps, Rubella) vaccine, or both together, caused autism in Michelle Cedillo, the plaintiffs’ daughter.

I heard some of the world’s leading experts on autism, immunology, and vaccines testify that there is no biological model to account for an autism-vaccine connection, no scientific evidence or credible studies linking the two. They argue, instead, that autism is largely genetic. And yet just last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote in the Huffington Post that there are “hundreds of research studies” from a dozen countries providing “undeniable” proof that vaccines cause autism and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Indiana) wrote a letter to the president of NBC claiming that there is increasingly conclusive evidence that thimerosal caused an “epidemic” of autism. Scores of websites and autism advocacy groups are convinced of the connection, and the vast majority of scientists and physicians can’t understand why.

………….

The scientific testimony has been devastating to the plaintiffs because the recognized experts on autism, vaccines, and immunology do not support even one of these premises, let alone a linkage between any of them. The only thing the government and Cedillos agree on is that Michelle Cedillo has autism.

However, I can assure you that those who support the Cedillo’s – and the Cedillo’s themselves don’t see it like that.

I was able to attend the hearing on Friday.

As I sat in the court room and listen to the twisted bull generated by the defense, I wanted to scream out, “you have proof of what
thimerisol does in the human body-look at all these damaged kids.”

This was posted by Holly (I assume Bortfield) on the Yahoo EoH group. Her response typifies exactly why it won’t make one shred of difference to these people what the outcome of the Cedillo case is – or the other eight to come.

These are not people who are swayed by science. To them, decent, peer reviewed science is ‘twisted bull’. To them idiocy posted to JPANDS, Medical Veritas etc is gospel truth.

This court hearing revealed once and for all Andrew Wakefield’s deliberate falsification of science and the O’Leary labs accidental false reporting of negative samples. In the O’Leary lab it was sloppy science. In Wakefield’s hands it was knowingly ignoring evidence that showed his error plainly. Without Wakefield and without the O’Leary results there was no MMR association to autism whatsoever. That testimony alone is enough to sink the Cedillo case and all other MMR related cases that may come after.

But as Arthur Allen writes in Slate:

None of that moves Laura Wildman, 47, whose son’s case is before the court and who drove from her home near Pittsburgh to watch the hearing, which ended this week. “I know what happened to my son after he got his MMR shot,” she told me. “I have no doubt. There’s no way they’ll convince me that all these kids were not damaged by vaccines.”

At some point we may have to realise that what we are dealing with here is simply blind, deliberate ignorance.

Even the plaintiffs lawyers realise this. Here’s a telling quote from Michelle Cedillo’s lawyer:

The government position is backed by the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence, which has repeatedly found the vaccines safe. But what the Cedillos and other parents lack in hard data, they have made up for with a stubborn passion and sorrow that science cannot dispute. _”It is parents versus science,”_ said Kevin Conway, one of the attorneys for the Cedillos.

Parents vs science. Indeed it is.

The real sorrow here is that the Cedillo’s continue, in the face of all reason, logic and evidence, to passionately insist MMR caused Michelle’s autism.

On the Evidence of Harm yahoo group – and on various other Yahoo groups, the conspiracy theories are already being polished.

Theory one states that the media – bought off by Pharma – have reported nothing but science and dismissed the opinions of parents. This theory goes on to continue to suggest that the three Special Masters will be under the sway of the media.

Its true that the media have not been kind to the mercury militia. This is because there is nothing to write about in their beliefs except for the fact that they are beliefs. The science lies with Respondents.

Theory two suggests that the Special Masters are Pharma plants. Various members of the mercury militia are carefully combing through the backgrounds of these three Special Masters for Pharma connections they can wave about.

Will they ever let this go? Of course not. You cannot reason someone out of a belief they did not reason themselves into.

Justice for Katie

28 Jun

Remember Katie

When Mike and Paul McCarron came to visit us recently, one of the most sombre and important parts of the day was them giving us some of the ribbon that they had selected to remember Katie. They had fashioned the ribbon into remembrance bows and as well as some of the loose ribbon, gave me one of the bows.

The bows are worn when the McCarrons go to court to do justice for Katie. I am proud and honoured beyond the capacity of words to express that I too, can wear my bow on the days the McCarrons go to court.

Today is one such day. A very important day. Today the judge who will hear the trial will decide if the confessions that Karen McCarron made (including the confessions made to the Police) will be admissible as evidence in the trial.

It may well sound strange to you that a confession – or in this case, a series of them – could possibly _not_ be admissible as evidence. It certainly did to me. It may well also sound strange to you that not only could a mother kill her child, she could also callously attempt to wriggle out of what she has done by trying to halt the admission of confessions she freely made into the evidence the court can hear. It certainly did to me.

Tomorrow is not the trial. It is not even the start of the trial. However, tomorrow could be the first day that Katie finally has just the twinkling possibility of some justice in her name.

On other subjects

Someone else who would benefit from some justice is Patrick Holford. Read where at NHS Blog Doctor, Holford Watch and Mike’s blog.

Andrew Wakefield and the death of the MMR debacle

27 Jun

On Day 8 of the testimony in the Autism Omnibus, Stephen Bustin – the leading world expert on PCR put a stake through the heart of the MMR debacle when he revealed that the testing done in Professor O’Leary’s lab on behalf of Andrew Wakefield and others was flawed due to uncontrolled contamination in O’Leary’s lab:

What I immediately observed was that they had forgotten to do the RT step…….If you detect a target that is apparently measles virus in the absence of an RT step by definition it can’t be measles virus because it has to be DNA. It’s a very simple concept. At least it is to me. It’s not to everyone else……[b]ecause measles virus doesn’t exist as a DNA molecule in nature, they cannot be detecting measles virus….

On day 10, the head was finally chopped off the corpse of this hypothesis. Day 10 featured the testimony of Nick Chadwick, a scientist who was a graduate students of Andrew Wakefield’s when Wakefield was being paid to find fault with the MMR. Here is the two killing sections of Chadwick’s testimony:

Q Okay. Did you personally test the gut biopsy samples for measles RNA?
A Yes.

Q What tests did you perform?
A A PCR test, a polymerase chain reaction.

Q What results did you receive from the gut biopsy materials for measles RNA?
A They were all negative.

Q They were always negative?
A Yes. There were a few cases of false positive results, which I used a method to see whether they were real positive results or false positive, and in every case they turned out to be false positive results. Essentially all the samples tested were negative.

…….

Q So you personally tested while you were in Dr. Wakefield’s lab gut biopsy material, CSF and PBMCs?
A Yes, that’s right.

Q And all the results were either negative, or if they were positive it always turned out that they were false positives?
A Yes, that’s correct.

Q Did you inform Dr. Wakefield of the negative results?
A Yes. Yes.

Same source material, same equipment, same lab. The only difference was in the results. The difference came about because Chadwick did it properly. Wakefield didn’t. But even after Chadwick _told_ Wakefield about the negative results and the false positives Wakefield had engineered, Wakefield carried on.

MMR as a hypothesis is dead. The initial results were errors. No replication has been done and published in reputable journals. Decent science has shown the exact nature of Wakefields ‘error’ and Chadwick has testified that Wakefield knew about the error.

MMR uptake dropped over 10% in 10 years in the UK. Lots of people were hospitalised, people in the UK and Ireland died.

Generation Rescue Survey Results

26 Jun

Brad Handley has commissioned a telephone polling company to perform a telephone poll:

Generation Rescue commissioned an independent opinion research firm, SurveyUSA of Verona NJ, to conduct a telephone survey in nine counties in California and Oregon. Counties were selected by Generation Rescue. Interviews were successfully completed in 11,817 households with one or more children age 4 to 17. From those 11,817 households, data on 17,674 children was gathered. Of the 17,674 children inventoried, 991 were described as being completely unvaccinated. For each unvaccinated child, a heath battery was administered.

Oooh – exciting!

The results are damning apparently….

We surveyed over 9,000 boys in California and Oregon and found that vaccinated boys had a 155% greater chance of having a neurological disorder like ADHD or autism than unvaccinated boys

Woah, what? _Like_ autism…? And what the hell has ADHD got to do with anything? Oh right, right – I remember, Generation Rescue redesigned their site when they couldn’t make their old message of:

Autism is treatable. It’s reversible. It’s nothing more than mercury poisoning,” said JB Handley, founder of Generation Rescue.

stick. Now its more than just mercury and its more than just autism. Hey – if you can’t make one idea work, expand it and pretend you’ve _always_ meant that. In this survey, applicants were asked about ADD, ADHD, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, Autism, Asthma and Juvenile Diabetes. Nothing like muddying the water to make things clearer.

On the Generation Rescue page I link to above, Generation Rescue have kindly provided their source data but in closed access PDF’s. How helpful. Never mind, I turned all the aggregate data into an Excel file and had a bit of a look myself. UPDATE: All Generation Rescue Survey data is now available in Excel.

Now, my issue with Generation Rescue is solely to do with autism and vaccines. I really don’t care about their newly found interest in asthma or juvenile diabetes. Lets see what they say about their autism results:

Vaccinated boys were 61% more likely to have autism

Well, thats one way to look at it. Another way is to look at it properly. In the spreadsheet I created using Generation Rescue raw data the following was found.

Number of boys with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 3% of total
Fully vaccinated: 2%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is exactly the same as if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is exactly the same as if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with Autism
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 7% of total
Fully vaccinated: 3%
Fully and Partially combined: 4%

Conclusion: you are 5% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is 1% greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 4% of total
Partially vaccinated: 8% of total
Fully vaccinated: 5%
Fully and Partially combined: 5%

Conclusion: you are 4% more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of having an ASD is 1% greater than if you were unvaccinated.

These figures are laughable. 4% more likely? And that’s if your son has been partially vaccinated! If he’s been fully vaccinated the percentage increase drops to 1%. The figures for girls are even worse.

Number of girls with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 1% of total
Fully vaccinated: 0%
Fully and Partially combined: 0%

Conclusion: you are no more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 1% of total
Fully vaccinated: 0%
Fully and Partially combined: 0%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you are unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is 2% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with Autism
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of girls with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 3% of total
Partially vaccinated: 3% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are no more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of having an ASD is 2% less than if you were unvaccinated.

My goodness, this is _awful_ for Generation Rescue. Finally, we’ll look at girls and boys together:

Number of boys and girls with Aspergers
Unvaccinated: 1% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have Aspergers if you have been partially vaccinated than unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being Aspergers is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with PDD-NOS
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 2% of total
Fully vaccinated: 1%
Fully and Partially combined: 1%

Conclusion: you are 1% more likely to have PDD-NOS if you are unvaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being PDD-NOS is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with Autism
Unvaccinated: 2% of total
Partially vaccinated: 4% of total
Fully vaccinated: 2%
Fully and Partially combined: 2%

Conclusion: you are 2% more likely to have autism if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is no greater than if you were unvaccinated.

Number of boys and girls with all ASD’s
Unvaccinated: 4% of total
Partially vaccinated: 6% of total
Fully vaccinated: 3%
Fully and Partially combined: 3%

Conclusion:you are 2% more likely to have an ASD if you have been partially vaccinated. If you are fully vaccinated your chance of being autistic is 1% less than if you were unvaccinated.

There’s no getting away from this. This is a disaster for Generation Rescue and the whole ‘vaccines cause autism’ debacle. Generation Rescue’s data indicates that you are ‘safer’ from autism if you fully vaccinate than partially vaccinate. It also indicates that across the spectrum of autism, you are only 1% more likely to be autistic if you have had any sort of vaccination as oppose to no vaccinations at all – and thats only if you are male. If you are a girl you chances of being on the spectrum are _less_ if you have been vaccinated! Across both boys and girls, your chances of being on the spectrum are _less_ if you have received all vaccinations.

Elsewhere

Orac
Prometheus

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