liz_marcs | In Honor of Darwin Day: Vaccines and Autism Aren't Linked

Current Mood: hopeful

In Honor of Darwin Day: Vaccines and Autism Aren't Linked

In honor of Darwin Day (hat-tip to

stoney321 for the reminder), I am not going to talk about why we really need to drive religion (read: "Intelligent Design") out of the classroom to focus on actual science (read: Theory of Evolution).

Instead, I'm going to focus on the how "magical thinking" can lead people to erroneously link cause and effect when there is, in fact, none.

Like how vaccines cause autism.

They don't, by the way. The timing is actually coincidence. The signs and symptoms of autism generally emerge around the same age that children in the West traditionally "get their shots," specifically the the MMR. There really is no cause and effect.

Now I should stress that I've been fighting the good fight about vaccines since 1998, because the widespread belief that there is a link between vaccines and autism was based on a 1998 Lancet study that involved 12 children, 11 of which were boys.

Please re-read that underlined sentence again. Eleven boys represented all boys in the whole wide world who'd ever been vaccinated with the MMR, while one girl represented all girls in the whole wide world who'd ever been vaccinated with the MMR.

Does this describe a study that could even hope to be considered accurate?

If you really don't believe the whole vaccinations-cause-autism mess was based on a clinical study that involved no more than a dozen kids, 11 of which were boys, you can read the study for yourself. Here's the 1998 Lancet article that started it all in the electronic flesh. (Please be advised you have to register to see the article. Registration is free, but if you don't want to register, I've uploaded a PDF of the study to my SendSpace account. Click here to download it.)

Since I was already working the medical field when the study made the big splash, I knew enough to smell a big ol' rat when it came out. Hysteria based on a study that involved a mere dozen kids (and because it bears repeating: 11 of those kids were boys)? Really? It completely boggled my mind. I was sure it would blow over as additional studies came out either proving (unlikely) or disproving the link.

And yet more than 10 years later here we are debating it, despite the fact that there's almost no evidence supporting the "there's a link" side of the equation and a boatload of evidence supporting "there's not a single shred of evidence there's a link" side of the equation.

Needless to say, I've gone 'round and 'round on this issue. I've seen others go 'round and 'round on this issue. I've seen the study after study after study over a 10-year period showing that as soon as you actually had a sufficient sample population of children, the correlation between autism and vaccines was no greater than random chance. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control alone has produced 9 studies disproving the link between vaccinations and autism. There have been a total of 25 peer-reviewed articles saying there is no link (Warning! Links to PDF!), compared to three articles that do.

But the true believers — many of whom do not have autistic children or even children with Asperger's Syndrome — are as impossible to convince as, dare I say, a creationist or an a proponent of intelligent design.

It's enough to make you want to wham your head against the wall, especially when you point out to them that by failing to vaccinate their kids, they're putting theirs and other peoples' children at risk for diseases — diseases, I might add that can actually kill people. Hell, the so-called "childhood diseases" were killing people, mostly children, by the boatload in my parents' lifetimes. There are still people alive who can tell you, from first-hand experience, the terror of watching their friends get felled by polio, or who died from the measles, or got chicken pox-related pneumonia.

Just in time for Darwin Day, it's finally come out that Andrew Wakefield, the lead researcher in that ill-fated 1998 Lancet article...well...lied.

You read that right, Wakefield manipulated the data to manufacture the link out of whole cloth.

I hope Wakefield rots in all seven hells for this. And this. And this. And before I forget, this. But most especially, I hope he rots in all seven hells for causing emotional and mental anguish for God knows how many parents of autistic children.

This may be why no one is exactly shocked by today's decision from the U.S. Federal Court of Claims: Despite more than 10 years of research since the Lancet article, the case for a link between the MMR vaccine and autism is vanishingly small.

Yet, despite the evidence that continues to pile up on the "no link" side, despite the fact that we have a court ruling that's gone on for years coming down on the side of "no link," despite the fact that Wakefield lied about his results 10 years ago, and despite the fact that the incidence of infectious "childhood" diseases are not only on the rise but also claiming lives, everyone pretty much expects the fight over the autism-vaccination connection will continue.

And all the evidence in the world isn't going to change their minds.

So, for this Darwin Day, I'd like to make a wish:

That this one, harmful, deadly belief in the link between autism and vaccinations die a quick death, so researchers can finally devote their full attention into the real causes of autism and, hopefully, a cure for those parents and people who wish to be cured.

ETA: I tried getting into British journalist Brain Deer's site earlier, since he's the one that wrote the Times piece unveiling Andrew Wakefield's con, but his site has been so overwhelmed that I only just now have been able to get into it.

There are two pages full of more information and a truckload of links for more information about how the non-existence link between MMR and autism managed to become "real" for so many people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I'm surprised that's still going on in the US, it's been known in the UK for a while now (I'm guessing a year at least but have no corrobarative(sp?) evidence to back me up on this) that the original study was a pile of hogwash because the study group was only a handful of children. Medical professionals in the UK had alweays said there was no link between the MMR jab and Autism - it was worried parents that always seemed to argue otherwise.

IMHO, in any sane world, the study would've been forgotten within one or two years, because that was how quickly studies came out in the UK and US debunking the whole mess.

However, there really is a significant minority who've bought into the antivax movement, a movement that has its share of celebrity spokespeople. It drives me absolutely bonkers.

I've gotten into fights with people I know and actually like about this, and even though I've waved evidence under their noses — they still don't believe me because that nice Jenny McCarthy would be marching around Hollywood spouting off medical lies, would she?

That's right: People who know and love me believe an actress-"comedian"-ex-Playboy model over the actual medical writer.

Can you tell I'm slightly irritated by it?

oh my god, that Jenny McCarthy, and NOW she claims her son is CURED of autism. I think she means she's figured out how to WORK WITH HER AUTISTIC SON. *smacks her*

Or that he never had autism, and instead had celiac disease. Since a gluten free diet is what supposedly cured him.

Excellent point, too. Although I'm not familiar with celiac disease, the footage of her son as a little guy was very similar to my sister, who is now 21 and severely autistic. Interestingly enough, a gluten-free diet helped her develop vocabulary. (Then again, she has 10 words now where as before she had 5. But for us, it's huge.)

The malnutrition and mal-absorption of nutrients caused by non-treated celiacs can lead to behaviors that can be described as "autistic-like." There was a big flail session over whether or not celiacs was a cause for autism, but that has since been debunked by science, too.

Excuse me for butting in, but celiac disease and autism do not have similar characteristics, afaik.

The symptoms of celiac that result from malnutrition and non-absorption of nutrients can be similar to autistic behaviors, which is why there was a flailing over whether or not there was a causal connection between celiac's and autism (which has since been debunked by scientific studies).

That's different from what I've read/been told about celiac, but I don't have any personal experience with it, either.

...I think my sister is that one girl. My parents have been on that lawsuit against vaccines from the get-go, and I've been trying to reason with them ever since. I do think that there could possibly be a connection with the timing of the two, but that would make it an underlying genetic issue that is merely brought out by the vaccine. Which means that autism is ALREADY THERE, FOLKS. But yeah. Vaccines are GOOD PEOPLE. I'm very pro-vaccine.

(Oy, I know someone that didn't vaccinate their child as a result of the fear of getting autism and let's just say the child almost died from something American children don't die OF. Yikes. VACCINES ARE GOOD PEOPLE. If anything, you don't DIE from autism, but you sure as shooting will die from Whooping Cough or Cholera.)

I do think that there could possibly be a connection with the timing of the two, but that would make it an underlying genetic issue that is merely brought out by the vaccine. Which means that autism is ALREADY THERE, FOLKS.

I TOTALLY agree with this. I know plenty of families who have chosen not to vaccinate but have autistic children, so CLEARLY the MMR does not cause autism.

If you're not already aware of his work, I think you'd like Bad Science (or via RSS feed as

bad_science. I've not been reading his stuff for too long, but his take on the MMR/Autism issue is that the media need to publicise the lack of link as much as they hyped up the scaremongering. (There's other stuff on there too, but there's a big Thing on the MMR/Autism situation at the mo.)

amen to everything you said!

I'm quite sure you already know him, but http://www.badscience.net/ is a great reading and in these days he's talking about this very same issue

WORD.

I've read too many science fiction novels, I know what a new pandemic would look like. My newborn daughter got all her vaccines at 2 months and will be getting all the four month ones next month.

Congratulations for being able to get all that information posted. I've tried to do it several times myself, but my blood pressure gets so high that I usually wind up having a mini-stroke before I can get it all done. The best I've been able to do is a few angry rants about this subject.

Part of what really gets to me about this stuff is that Wakefield basically hitched his bullshit theory to the whole "cleanse yourself of toxins" thing that's been going on for the last few years. He basically decided that autism just HAD to be an issue with the digestive tract, and not genetic. I'm pretty sure he wound up writing a book about that just around the same time that he came up with the Lancet study.

But for someone like Jenny McCarthy, who apparently believes that the human body is full of toxins and evil poisons that can rob you of your magical powers (Jenny McCarthy apparently used to believe that her son was an Indigo Child, the next step in human evolution, with psychic powers and all kinds of other neat stuff.)

So now not only is there a growing movement to keep children from getting vaccinated, but any "unnatural" substance going into your body is now evil and horrible. You must get your toxins cleansed from your body as often as you possibly can, preferably through colonics or salt-baths or some other nonsense. And please, don't ever, EVER take antibiotics, cause those things'll kill ya.

It makes me angry, but it also just makes me so sad. Jenny McCarthy, along with thousands or possibly millions of people around the world, are pitiable. I honestly really do feel horribly for them, because they are so confused, so deluded, and so goddamned arrogant. Jenny McCarthy cannot possibly be wrong, because she is a mommy and mommy always knows what to do to help her child. If that means a few dozen children die thanks to a measles outbreak, well then that's apparently worth the risk. And when the herd immunity threshold gets breached, even the children who have good, responsible parents are at risk as well.

If we lived seven hundred years ago, Jenny McCarthy would be upset about the evil spirit that's taken over her son. It's the exact same kind of ignorant fear-mongering, only it's even more upsetting to see. We're supposed to be smarter than a serf from the Dark Ages.

*HULK SMASHES*

GAH everything here, yes. I've been bitching about this whole anti-bacteria fear etc etc for years, but what do I know about micro-organisms, I just have a degree in microbiology. Yes, let's all agree that "toxins" are bad and everything from nature is Good.

Isn't plutonium from nature? And rotenone, one of the most toxic things known to man which happens to be made from chrysanthemums...

Bah. Sorry, your comment just struck me to my TRUTH CORE.

Technically CYANIDE is from nature. It's just that non-bitter (non-cyanide-containing) almonds are a mutation on the normal state of things, that happened to get selectively bred by humanity because they were tasty.

*headdesk* "Oh, but it's natural..." *slaps stupid people upside the head*

I got sucked into the Indigo Craptrap a few years back- but happily didn't get stuck there. It's a bunch of new age nonsense built upon an utterance from a channel about 20 years ago, and appropriated by money-mongers who prey on parents who think their kids are 'special', when they're actually undisciplined brats.

I got about a zillion shots when I was a kid- because we lived overseas, and they shot me up with everything imaginable- from yellow fever, typhoid, and tetanus, to small pox and many other things. And while I suspect that I might have been labeled an 'Aspie' (had such a thing existed when I was a kid), the teachers instead told my mom that I was brilliant and eccentric.

I'll take that any day.

I got slammed for being a "troll" for disparaging the connection between MMR and Autism; I spent a whole lot of time, back in the late nineties, fighting the anti-vaccination people online.

The worst thing about the people who've poured time and commitment into pursuing this phantom is that they've made everything worse for their children and for the greater society. And the social costs are huge- from the best-case: loss of pay for parents who have to stay home with babies with measles (since the worst incidence is among babies under 18months who do not have full immunity from the vaccine) and the babies who have to suffer through what is at best a miserably painful disease to the worst: death or sever damage from high fevers and measels encephalitus. In the middle there are kids who have long-term sensory damage, including exacerbation of existing ADHD, learning disabilities, and ASD as well as visual and hearing damage.

I'm with you on that wish.

Julia, it does involve humans behaving rationally, though

Thanks for posting this. I'll send it to my mother, who - despite being the sort who does her reasearch - tried pretty hard to convince me not to have my son vaccinated with the MMR last year.

I did minimal research myself and came to the conclusion that the benefits far outweighed the risks, and my son had his MMR (and is fine), but I know a lot of people who didn't let theirs have their jabs.

I can't tell you how much this issue has filled me with rage. I've also gotten into arguments with anti-vaccine nuts who use the 'diseases like measles are no longer an issue because of improved sanitation' reasoning for denouncing vaccines. When I responded by asking them to explain chicken pox, and how my friends, my brother and myself managed to contract it without playing in an open sewer, they all had vacuous expressions on their faces. They couldn't seem to grasp the concept that indoor plumbing and hand-washing isn't enough to prevent the spread of a communicable disease like measles, especially among children.

I sincerely hope that this ruling and the revelation that Wakefield falsified his data will be enough to put this issue to bed, before more children suffer because of it.

I'm a parent with two kids on the autism spectrum, so clearly my viewpoint is informed (and probably colored) by that fact.

There was a time when I was positive that vaccines alone had caused my children's autism, and it wasn't just because of the timing -- my son had six separate vaccinations at his 12 month checkup, then spent the next month sick with scary-high fevers (up to 105 at one point), diarrhea and vomiting. This was declared by his pediatrician to be "fever of unknown origin," "unknown virus," etc. Basically, they had no idea what caused it, and the only treatment was to give him IV fluids and wait for it to pass. When it was over, Collin had lost the three words he had previously been speaking (and didn't regain any speech until we were finally able to teach him a few words at age 3.5). He didn't look at us anymore. He screamed for days (not hours, mind you, but days) for no reason we could see. He wouldn't eat foods (cheese, for one) that he had previously loved. At 23 months, he was diagnosed with severe autism.

So, with no history of autism on either side of our family (and this is quite common among families with an autistic child that I'm aware of), and previously-trusted medical professionals telling us they didn't know what caused it, I think it makes sense for parents to start looking for causes.

I think it's hard for people who do not have an autistic child to understand the desperation that can build when you're dealing with a child with autism. I've had moments, during his screaming spells, when I've pondered-- well, you can imagine what desperate people with no hope might consider. We have no rl friends because it's impossible to make friends when you can't ever go anywhere and your child can't stand having people over. We can't go to church or anywhere else where people are expected to be somewhat quiet -- or even anywhere that's usually loud, like a basketball game, because people make nasty comments when he squeals. Families with autistic children are thrown out of restaurants, theaters and churches

And I think it's understandable, when told that there are no answers, that people begin to come up with their own.

That said, I'm not convinced vaccines alone are the cause -- otherwise, there wouldn't be families with four normal kids and one with autism. Maybe there's a combination of environmental factors that contribute. Maybe genetic factors make some kids vulnerable to environmental insults. The point is, something causes it, Liz. Something caused a drastic increase in serious cases of autism (no, I'm not talking about the mild cases that might have been missed a generation ago, but the ones that are unmistakable.) And until science can point to a definite cause, people who are living with autism every day of their lives are going to look for answers where they can find them. Please don't fault them for that.

I'm not trying to start an argument, just wanted to present my point of view.

I'm all over this post, I know, but I wanted to let you know that I mod a comm for parents of kids with PDD. (I have a son with Aspergers, my brother has Aspergers, my sister is a non-verbal autistic.) There's a small group of us that pull together to give each other support, share what works, and what isn't.

pdd_parent.

We don't talk about what causes it, just how to live with it and get some quality of life.

Joined! And you're welcome to join my comm,

autism, though it's kind of huge and unwieldy and crazy at times. :D

Ours is very small and new, recently created out of folks off my flist. And thanks for the rec to your comm, will do!

There is also something you haven't considered about the autism increase, all of which have nothing to do with vaccinations (please note: vaccinations have been in wide-scale use since at least the 40s — possibly even earlier but I'm not 100% sure — and the increase in autism diagnosis ticked up in the 90s):

Up until the mid-70s kids who were "not right" were warehoused into institutions. This was more common than not, especially if your family was poor. There are people in their 40s in Massachusetts of all places who can tell you first-hand about that. If you had an autistic child before the late 70s or early 80s, God knows what their diagnosis was. These children were still autistic, but they may have been slapped with a label that said "retarded" or "psychotic" and never re-diagnosed.

Following on to my point above: improvements in diagnosis. Autism was simply not diagnosed as often, or the kids with autism were simply misdiagnosed unless they were severely autistic. Autism was most often confused with schizophrenia up until the mid-1940s. However, it was still believed to be on the schizophrenic spectrum until the late 1960s.

Increases in the size of the autistic spectrum: Once upon a time, that weird professor was just a weird professor. Now he (or she) has Asperger's. That's not a joke. The diagnostic criteria for Asperger's didn't even exist until 1989. Prior to the mid-1980s, these people would've been deemed social misfits, but otherwise normo-cognitive.

I feel I need to add: people diagnosed with Asperger's are, in fact, lumped in with with autism when counting up the number of people with autism spectrum disorders.

So, saying that there's been a sharp uptick in numbers in the 80s and 90s isn't precisely correct. What happened is we got a whole lot better at diagnosis and counting people correctly.

Now, is it possible there's something environmental at work with the increase? Sure. But I'd bet you dollars to donuts that it's a heck of a lot smaller — as in a sliver thin impact — than the simple act of correctly diagnosis and correctly counting the population of people who fall under the autistic spectrum had over the past 20 years and will continue to have in the future.

Also don't underestimate the fact that we no longer warehouse or hide people who are autistic and then pretend they don't exist (at least most of us don't). Just the fact that people are willing to be counted (or at least have their relatives counted), when before the 1970s those people were in the minority cannot be underestimated either.

And, just add even more of a cheery note: researchers believe that the existing methods still undercounts the population of people with some form of autism.

And finally, there's also a case of over-diagnosis. Just like AHDH before it, I suspect that there are some kids who are being diagnosed as having Asperger's (which, remember, means they are counted as being in the autistic spectrum) who may, in fact, be actually OCD or AHDH or even (round back to the beginning) have mood disorders or be mildly schizophrenic.

One thing we do know: vaccines are not part of the cause and effect. The timing is coincidental, but it's just that...coincidental.

So, saying that there's been a sharp uptick in numbers in the 80s and 90s isn't precisely correct. What happened is we got a whole lot better at diagnosis and counting people correctly.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you. I'm sure some of the increase is due to better diagnostics, but I believe that's a very small part of it. My son and daughter (who has Asperger's rather than autism, so yes, I'm familiar with it) were diagnosed at the TEACCH center. When I questioned the experts there about the increases in autism, I specifically asked them if they thought it was due to better diagnosing. They very firmly told me no, that the huge increase they were seeing was not the mild Aspergers-types, but the severest cases that "no one could miss." They had no stake in the vaccination controversy -- actually, this was more than ten years ago, so possibly even before the controversy really picked up.

As I said in my original comment, I don't believe vaccines are the cause of autism anymore. But what I'd like is for the scientific community to stop telling me what DOESN'T cause autism and start telling me what DOES.

On that we do agree. :-)

But a large part of the reason why researchers have been stuck on the vaccines/autism thing is because Wakefield dropped a big lie in people's laps, and whole lot other individuals picked up and ran with it. Some of them had the best of intentions, but a whole lot more were looking to make a quick buck off of desperate parents. Then the desperate parents latch on to this being the silver bullet and then add to the pressure that someone, somwhere DO SOMETHING.

Then they suck in a whole lot of people who don't have children in the autism spectrum, but are ridding the antivax bandwagon anyway.

And that's exactly what's been going in for 10 years. Public pressure on governments to essentially prove a negative. And every time another brick gets slammed onto that wall, there's another round of "LA-LA-LA-LA I CAN'T HEEEEEEER UUUUUUUUU."

Then we all have to rinse and repeat.

All of that effort that we're putting into a negative (what doesn't cause it) has been yanked off the effort we should be making (what does cause).

Ultimately, you can thank Wakefield for being a factor in delaying the real work. Why? Because he took a bribe from lawyer for a class action suit, and then he lied his face off. And he kept lying about and is still lying about it.

Let me add: I don't blame the parents — many of whom are simply looking for answers. In their position, just the power of observation would make me look askance at what happened to my kid around that time including vaccinations.

Let me add: I don't blame the parents — many of whom are simply looking for answers. In their position, just the power of observation would make me look askance at what happened to my kid around that time including vaccinations.

I hate to sound like an ass here, but I can't help but ask: when do you blame them? I can understand a parent being scared or desperate and turning to anyone or anything that seemed like it could help their child. But at what point do you say that they have to be held responsible for their actions, particularly when those actions can and do lead to the ill-health and potential deaths of others?

In an indirect way, parents who refuse to get their children vaccinated aren't just hurting their own children, but they are hurting everyone in their community as well. Even someone who's been vaccinated can become infected and die from a disease if they are subjected to it via non-vaccinated carriers on enough occassions.

So at what point do we have to say that a parent's desperation doesn't excuse this kind of ignorance? Believe me, I really do understand how desperate parents can get, but does that really give them the moral highground to put everyone, including their own children, at risk?

I'm sorry that Jenny McCarthy's son has autism, but that doesn't excuse the fact that people have died because of the insanity she's been promoting. I do blame her, and I think I would have to blame anyone else who promoted the idea as well, parent or not. I would understand their motivations, but I would still blame them.

But what I'd like is for the scientific community to stop telling me what DOESN'T cause autism and start telling me what DOES.

Please correct me if I'm not reading that right, but it sounds to me like you're suggesting that the evidence-based scientific medical community isn't trying to do just that, which I think is part of what aggravates people like myself. The medical community is trying quite earnestly to better understand autism, which is why it becomes so disappointingly distracting that they have to defend some of the most effective medical discoveries in the entirety of human history.

I understand your frustration in wanting to have a better understanding of what autism is, what causes it, and how it might better be treated, but there is a reason why the "scientific community" has to keep telling people what doesn't cause autism, and that reason is because people will DIE if this vaccine bullshit continues. People have already died because of it, and not just the people or the children of the people who decided to go without vaccinations.

And when it comes to the supposed epidemic in autism in the last ten-fifteen years, I can't say that I've ever seen anything approaching conclusive evidence to suggest that the actual rate of autism in the population has increased.

Because autism is a disorder that's diagnosed based on symptoms and not the physical mechanism of its cause, any significant change in diagnostic criteria is going to lead to a large increase in diagnoses.

A study published in the journal Pediatrics found that the apparent increase in autism rates has been accompanied by a significant decrease of diagnoses of mental retardation and learning disabilities. So while that certainly doesn't prove anything, it's definitely an important correlation and would support the idea that changes in diagnostic criteria is the main reason why autism rates have appeared to increased.

Now that's not me saying they definitely haven't increased, it's just me saying that I've never seen any evidence to support the idea, and I've definitely seen evidence to discount it.

I love this post. I can't begin to imagine how difficult it might be to have a child with severe autism, but I find it so frustrating that people are willing to endanger their children and other children based on the research of Jenny McCarthy and not of, y'know, actual doctors. In the UK (where I must disagree with rileysaplank, the debate is not over) and Canada doctors receive no financial gain from administering MMR, but still prescribe it because their many years of education taught them about the damage the measles, the mumps and rubella can do. No amount of self-research on the internet or in your local library is going to be as thorough and complete as 8 years in a university. I think it is a sickness in our culture that science, and the work of tireless scientists, is so under-valued.

That last bit makes me sound angry, and I am not angry, but I am a climate scientist and I can sympathize with the medical community here in that I consistently encounter people who feel that my research isn't valid because Larry King or Oprah told them otherwise. Every instance where hard science is given the proper recognition brings us closer to a day when the work of scientists may count for more in society than the word of a celebrity or lobbyist!

I find it so frustrating that people are willing to endanger their children and other children based on the research of Jenny McCarthy and not of, y'know, actual doctors

I think there are two reasons for this in the UK MMR context that haven't yet been covered. The first is BSE, when the government of the time was constantly saying that scientists said there was no problem, and later had to backtrack. So there was already a climate of mistrust. Much more significant, however, was the role of the media. Mainstream media gave Wakefield a platform, and a very high one. Reporting in this area has been appalling – not just the Daily Mail’s of this world, but programmes like “Today” always giving “both sides of the argument” so that parents and the general public are mislead into thinking that there is a genuine argument and scientific disagreement on the subject. It wasn't a case of 99% of the coverage being "this study is nonsense, no evidence" - it was implied that the debate was really 50:50, that there was a high level of uncertainty in the scientific community. Parents are swimming in misinformation, as if we were told "Well, most scientists say that apples don't give you cancer, but is it worth the risk?" and subjected to story after story about people who ate apples and got cancer. Why not switch to pears instead, especially as you know that apples are worrying because your milk teeth came out when you bit them aged 6?

Once people get an idea fixed in their heads, it's very hard to flush it out. It's not terribly unlike the conspiracy theorists. Doesn't matter how much evidence you stack up for them, they can always come up with some other way it's all a cover up.

This is a fascinating subject, and one deserving a large amount of study.

Thanks for bringing it forward.

Just Amen to all that - I have been beating this drum for a long time and I was so thrilled to see that he was now proved not only to be a rubbish researcher, but also a dishonest one.

Personally, I believe that the autism epidemic is environmentally caused- the internal toxin load in the mother creates an environment where the neurological systems get mis-wired during fetal development. The NPR report about this whole revelation mentions the fact that videos of the affected children taken before their vaccinations showed signs of autism already there- if people knew what to look for.

With the revelation that there is mercury in HFCS, with the highest levels in soft drinks, the moms might have primed their bodies to produce autistic children without knowing it. I'd love to see the track of increase graphed to the influx of the substance into our food-stream. Anyone eating the corporate-industrial diet would be building up their mercury load every time they took a drink- or fed such things to their small children.

Still, I don't think there's a single cause- it's much more broadly based than one substance. Our environment- from its air to its RF (radio frequency) load is radically different than that of the sixties, seventies, and early eighties. Today, we're bombarded with satellite, cellular, and other radio signals- many of them in the high microwave spectrum. Even if we don't have or use those items, there is no escaping the signals unless you turn your home into a shielded Faraday Cage. (It can be done, but it's expensive.) And there's the permeation of certain plastics, the overuse of certain pesticides and fertilizers, the influx of genetically modified plants with potentially toxic pollens- basically, many places of high- permeation into our environment that could add to the equation.

Liz said that the diagnosis of Aspergers did not exist until the late eighties. In examining my own behaviors, sensitivities, reactions, etc, and reading my old report cards, I probably would have been diagnosed with it myself as a kid. Instead, my teachers labeled me 'brilliant', 'gifted', 'eccentric', 'creative', and even 'odd' and 'an outsider'. I bumbled my way through school and early adulthood, and after a few harrowing encounters with people, decided to learn to 'read' them better. That probably saved my life. Still, I would not change who I am for anything- Aspie or not.

With the revelation that there is mercury in HFCS...

There has been no such revelation.

1. The "study" that claims this is not a true study, but a pilot study. This means they use a remarkably small sample size (20 samples from 3 factories). It would be like me flipping a coin three times, having it come up heads two of those three times, and then determinining that all coins will come up heads 66% of the time.

2. There is no mention as to what form of mercury was detected in the HFCS. There are different forms of mercury, and different levels of toxicity to each.

3. Even with the ridiculously small sample size of 20 samples, less than half of the samples had any detectable mercury.

4. Of the samples that did have detectable levels of mercury, these levels ranged from less than 1 part per BILLION to less than 1 part per million. Most of those fall well below acceptable ranges.

I also have to take umbrage with several of your ideas, particularly that radio signals of various kinds are potentially harmful, or that genetically modified plants and foods have been shown to have any kind of harmful effects.

This is the same kind of "it's new, I'm scared" mentality that leads to people avoiding vaccines in the first place. If you can find evidence that genetically modified foods or radio waves harm people, then by all means, let's talk about it. But since there is as of yet no evidence suggesting harm from either of those things, I think it's unfair and slightly dangerous to suggest we should be afraid of them.

You are welcome to take umbrage- although you're mis-reading me. Yes, the HFCS studies are mixed, and there is a lot of corporate bias in many of them- but this study, flawed as it was- should launch more detailed studies. And I sincerely hope they do. HFCS is in far too many foods, and I am an avid label reader and avoider of the stuff. It is the ultimate GM substance, and probably partially responsible for the explosion of diabetes and obesity in our country.

As for the RF radiation thing- I worked in a very heavily RF saturated environment for most of my military career. One of my workstations was near some RF ports that were supposed to have absorbtive 'dummy loads' on them, but often did not. One of the ports where I stood was active, and about 15 years later, I had surgery to remove some benign tumors that had grown there. Coincidence? Who knows. But the fact that they were in the spot where the port was made me wonder.

As for GM foods, they're great as long as the corporations who are creating and selling them have real beneficial purposes behind them. But the creation and spread of 'terminator' seeds, and Monsanto's very brutal enforcement of their patents does not bode well for people who simply want to eat clean, un-messed with food. I am a gardener, and have friends who are into small-scale local food farming- and Monsanto is trying to run them out of business because they save and cultivate their own seeds. That is something that everyone should take umbrage to.

I'm very much a technophile and futurist. The 'it's new, I'm scared' mentality does not fit me at all. I like new things, but my life experience has given me a more cautious- and maybe even skeptical outlook. I speak of these things from direct experience. Perhaps that understanding will mitigate your outrage a bit.

but this study, flawed as it was- should launch more detailed studies.

Saying that the study should launch more detailed studies (which it should) is very different from saying that there has been a revelation that mercury is in HFCS foods. As I said, no such revelation has occured.

Coincidence? Who knows. But the fact that they were in the spot where the port was made me wonder.

Yes, coincidence. Your anecdotal experience does not trump the scientific evidence concerning non-ionizing radiation, which has never been shown to cause any form of cancer besides skin cancer (and that's only when you're talking about UV rays).

RF emissions are not mutagenic. The very worst thing they will do to you is raise your body temperature if you are exposed to them for too long. They are not going to cause you to grow tumors. Or, in the interest of speaking scientifically, I should say that there is absolutely no evidence suggesting that RF emissions will cause someone to grow tumors.

[GM companies harrassing small farmers] is something that everyone should take umbrage to.

I agree, but that's not what you were implying in your original comment. You were talking about the "potentially toxic" pollen, which is more than a little misleading.

The 'it's new, I'm scared' mentality does not fit me at all. I like new things, but my life experience has given me a more cautious- and maybe even skeptical outlook.

If it's a skeptical outlook, then it's certainly not of the Scientific Skepticism variety. When people start putting their own personal experiences above the rationality of facts and evidence, that's when we get things like the vaccine scare.

Jenny McCarthy experienced her son "dying before my eyes" after he got his vaccinations. Despite the mountains of evidence that say she's wrong, she's decided to put her personal experiences above the truth.

Being skeptical is wonderful. I call myself a skeptic, but I do so with the understanding that I need some system of objective reasoning to guide my decisions. I'm not suggesting that you have to wholeheartedly embrace anything new, but I am suggesting that you shouldn't be fearful of it when there is no reason TO be fearful of it. If you're upset about the big GM companies pushing around the little guy, then that's very different from being upset about potentially "toxic pollen," which sounds as if people are suddenly going to start dropping dead as if they were in the movie The Happening, or that entire crops were suddenly going to start dying out as the toxic pollen infiltrates their fields.

The tumor removed from my side was 'necrotized fat and tissue, possibly scarring from a deep-tissue burn'. The RF port did not have a dummy load on it to absorb any radiation because they thought there was no signal going to it. I thought nothing of leaning up against it while I took readings and adjusted equipment. The strength of the signal going out our antenna was powerful enough to turn on flourescent lights and cook hot-dogs. This port was a 'sample' port for that same signal.

I got burnt internally. And I have a scar to prove it. There are always exceptions to things.

As for 'The Happening'- let's hope that there aren't any supernovae within 25 light years. Thank goodness Eta Carinae is outside that range.

OK. I don't think I'm the only reader who thought you meant a cancerous tumor, not an internal burn. Still, there's a BIG difference between damage from leaning on the antenna and microwaving yourself internally and living in an environment full of RF noise. If I lean on the oven while baking a cake and burn myself, does that mean that being in a room with detectable infrared (IR) radiation is going to hurt me (or my potential children)? Hint: IR is heat.

this kind of thing is what makes me very worried for the world. any day now its all going to blow up in our faces. why would anyone believe any kind of scientific study with such a small sampling?
i have a thing against vaccines because i'm scared of needles. that doesn't mean i don't realize we all need vaccines. cheese & rice!

Thank you for this post. I work in a "hippy" preschool ( which requires vacations) and have ended up giving out copies of the various reports to about 10 parents.

You also made me feel dumb. :)

I'm pregnant and while I was planning to vacate, (I have spent way too much time in 3rd world countries not to.)I was also planning on delaying and spacing out the shots. While I didn't necessarily believe that the MMR ect. caused Autism, I seemed to have picked up the general "shots bad" from many of my friends. Do-uh!

Thanks again.

Actually, it's important to get the shots on time because they are at the optimum time for the child to develop immunity for these diseases as soon as possible so they don't catch the disease first.

I worry about my hippy college town because there are a lot of 2nd generation hippies who travel in 3rd world countries and may not have all their shots, thus bringing back vaccine-preventable diseases to un-immunized kids in the community. The university had a pertussis outbreak a few years ago.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

In Honor of Darwin Day: Vaccines and Autism Aren't Linked

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Yay Science and Reason!

Re: Yay Science and Reason!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject