“We support Dr. Andrew Wakefield”?

Scott Peterson murdered his wife and unborn son and women send him love letters in jail. Sadly, I see a parallel.

Really, the fact that they feel such a petition is needed says it all. The spike in Measles cases has not gone unnoticed. Hopefully this is a sign that the tide is turning against Wakefield and his groupies.

Wow. That speaker’s list for Autism One truly is a roll-call of The Elect of Believers.

I set myself the task of trying to think of any significant Anti-vaccine/Autism quack, apologist or booster who ISN’T on the speakers’ list…. so far I have come up with Jay Gordon and David Kirby. Any others?

This is just more evidence that this is a cult we’re dealing with. And not a particularly smart cult. They should be throwing Wakefield under the bus now that he has been so thoroughly discredited.

As to the question of how anyone can still support Andrew Wakefield… Please bear with me while I describe a case that has nothing at all to do with vaccines, but which psychologically shows interesting parallels, IMO.

I have been in correspondence with an acquaintance who is convinced that anthropogenic climate change science in general and the IPCC in particular is an enormous fraud.
She recently sent me an email showing how these people cannot be trusted, as they had “lost” 100,000+ sq miles of Arctic Ice cap. She included a link to the relevant NOAA article.

In that article the NOAA said that one of the sensors on a satellite had broken in early Jan, and they had just caught it on Feb 16 when the cumulative error showed up as 100,000+ sq mi of “missing” ice that they knew was there from other sources. That this was their “real time,” unevaluated data prior to inclusion in analysis and had no effect on their existing analyses. That the 2009 analysis would not include the bad data (obviously). In other words, this was the kind of equipment failure that experimental and observational scientists are only too familiar with, caught by redundancy in data collection, and excluded from results.

I mentioned this. I also attached a pdf of “Observations:
Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground. In: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” This is an analysis of all the data on the cryosphere as of 2007. There is a lot of it. It is not dependent on one sensor, one satellite, or even one government. The Russian permafrost (277 stations, as I recall) and terrestrial glacier results in particular were quite striking.
This was the response I got:

1. How do I know this is not all faked, given the latest, rather unholy, revelations about the IPCC?
2. Are you seriously expecting me to go through every nook and cranny of this paper or for that matter, did you care to/have the time to do so yourself?
3. This is from someone who has actually taken the time to read those inglorious IPCC reports: http://www.climate-skeptic.com/
4. A more personal question, because it seriously puzzles me: Why do you still trust politicians, institutions, researchers, or persons affiliated with/corrupted by them, who have long been exposed for their criminal, insane, misanthropic aims, rather than those trying to reveal the underlying truth? My Ohian friend recently told me, “ignorance is bliss.” I just sadly cannot agree, not with the times we are living in.

There we have it. Replace the link to climate-skeptic with a link to the anti-vaxer of your choice (to preserve the analogy, someone in finance or law who took a bit of biology in Uni), and you have a perfect anti-vax argument: 1. The medical research in support of vaccination safety is faked.
2. I can’t be bothered to actually go through the research. 3. Here’s one person vaguely educated in the matter who agrees with me.
4. Politicians are liars and BigPharma are evil bastards. All researchers who work for a government agency or have ever received a pharmaceutical company grant or are in any way affiliated with the mainstream are therefore corrupt and not to be trusted. Only people who work outside the system can be trusted. You are foolish and naive to trust anyone associated with any government agency such as CDC or NIH.

You can see the logic. To quote Lt Blackadder, there’s only one tiny problem. It’s bollocks.

Jen, just for the benefit of non-American readers who have never heard of it, could you please explain what Tylenol is and why US doctors consider it necessary to administer it with vaccinations?

The point that seems to have been lost on everyone is that these kids are having severe bowel issues, and doctors like Wakefield and Krigsman are among the rare few that are taking the time and effort to investigate why.

@Jen: To support this claim, you cite a page at Thoughtful House, whose executive director is Wakefield. There’s really no high quality evidence that autistic children have more bowel issues than non-autistic children. Some papers find no difference. But the question is studied by actual researchers who are not simply trying to launder vaccine injury claims through the science journals. There’s no conspiracy not to study it.

The attacks on Dr. Wakefield bring to mind the attacks on Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss who noticed the extremely high mortality rate from puerperal fever in hospitals but not among women who delivered their babies at home, assisted by midwives. When Dr. Semmelweiss instituted preventive measures, such as washing of the physicians’ hands, he met with fierce opposition and was even placed in a mental institution.
Dr. Frank Noonan, a family practitioner in Lancaster County, Pa. who has treated thousands of Amish for a quarter-centure states that he has not seen autism with the unvaccinated Amish children.
Also, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has paid out millions of dollars to parents whose children were injured by vaccines, including the parents of Hannah Poling.
Rates of Scarlet fever and tuberculosis (the number one cause of death in the U.s. in 1900) declined, not because of wide-spread vaccinations, but because of cleanliness, better diet, etc.

Dr. Wakefield is a man of honesty, integrity, courage, and proven commitment to children and the public health remove and replace with lying, greedy moneygrubber who can’t even falsify data properly.

@ Pearl C, even Lisa Jo Rudy of About doesn’t accept that urban/Olmsted myth: Do The Amish Vaccinate? Indeed They Do, AND Their Autism Rates May be Lower.

As for the Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss similarity, not so much. Semmelweiss made some keen observations that he backed up with meticulous research and some excellent statistical work for those days. Whereas Dr Wakefield may have started off with good intentions that were slightly muddied when he accepted undisclosed funding from people interested in litigation and then went badly awry when he started ignoring the findings of well-conducted research in his own lab and substituted data from others that was better suited to his liking but not the science.

The attacks on Dr. Wakefield bring to mind the attacks on Dr. Ignaz Philipp Semmelweiss who noticed the extremely high mortality rate from puerperal fever in hospitals but not among women who delivered their babies at home, assisted by midwives. When Dr. Semmelweiss instituted preventive measures, such as washing of the physicians’ hands, he met with fierce opposition and was even placed in a mental institution.

With the only difference being that Semmelweiss was right, and did not commit scientific fraud.

Actually, he wasn’t right in his etiology hypotheses. He was only more correct than his colleagues at the time, who had ideas that were not scientific in the least. So there’s no comparison to the present situation.

This Galileo gambit also seems exaggerated. Pearl C makes it sound as if Semmelweiss was placed in a mental institution as part of being persecuted for his views. Here’s the account from Wikipedia:

Beginning from 1861 Semmelweis suffered from nervous complaints. He suffered from severe depression and became excessively absent minded. Paintings from 1857 to 1864 show that he aged rapidly.[56] He turned every conversation to the topic of childbed fever.

A number of unfavorable foreign reviews of his 1861 book prompted Semmelweis to lash out against his critics in series of open letters[57] written in 1861–1862.[58] He bitterly attacked various prominent European obstetricians. The open letters were highly polemical and superlatively offensive,[59] at times denouncing his critics as irresponsible murderers[60] or ignoramuses.[61] The attacks undermined his professional credibility.

In mid-1865, his public behaviour became irritating and embarrassing to his associates. He also began to drink immoderately; he spent progressively more time away from his family, sometimes in the company of a prostitute; and his wife noticed changes in his sexual behavior. On 13 July 1865 the Semmelweis family visited friends, and during the visit Semmelweis’s behavior seemed particularly inappropriate.[62]

It is impossible to appraise the nature of Semmelweis’ disorder. It may have been Alzheimer’s disease, a form of senile dementia, which is associated with rapid aging.[63] It may have been third stage of syphilis, a then-common disease of obstetricians who examined thousands of women at gratis institutions.[64] Or it may have been emotional exhaustion from overwork and stress.

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Also, just because your autistic kid has bowel issues doesn’t mean that every autistic kid has bowel issues, or even that autism causes bowel issues, or that no non-autistic kids have bowel issues. Gastrointestinal problems also can cause behavioural issues, especially in young children who can’t communicate (well) why they’re feeling so lousy, especially since more often than not, the cause is hard to find.

Wakefield fudged his data because he’s an incompetent hack who was on the take (has anyone mentioned his standing to profit from developing an alternative to the MMR yet? or his thriving livelihood as an expert witness?).

Just because your kid has autism and a food allergy (I was a kid with cerebral palsy and multiple food allergies, and nobody was dumb enough to reckon that one caused the other) doesn’t mean that Wakefield was in any way right; it just means you’re acting human and seeing connections that probably actually aren’t there.

Also, just because your autistic kid has bowel issues doesn’t mean that every autistic kid has bowel issues, or even that autism causes bowel issues, or that no non-autistic kids have bowel issues. Gastrointestinal problems also can cause behavioural issues, especially in young children who can’t communicate (well) why they’re feeling so lousy, especially since more often than not, the cause is hard to find.

I don’t think that the relationship of bowel problems to autism is resolved. It is certainly plausible that some of it could be emotional. On the other hand, given the evidence suggesting that autism arises from a genetic defect influencing development of the nervous system, it is also plausible that the enteric nervous system of some people with autism is also abnormal.

Wow, the Omnibus ruling sure has started to bring out the crazy. The nutcases are really pushing the conspiracy angle. Are they afraid they are going to lose their mainstream media appeal?

Just a question for you anti-vaxers that like to make comparisons:

What do Galileo, the case of smoking being causing cancer, Semmelweiss and vaccine safety have in common?

They all are proven and supported by science. That’s right, when you pull out Galileo you are crediting science over personal belief. That’s right, science supported smoking being bad for you. That’s right, science supported Simmelweiss. That’s right, science supports vaccine safety. In every one of those cases anecdotes, personal beliefs and faked research were used to try and disprove science. In every one of those cases science was right. Does any of this sound familiar to your vaccine beliefs?

But, as a matter of fact I have noticed several of people on the local forums posting about “catching up” and what vaccines are more important than others. And this is from previous no vax people. It looks promising that reasonable people are now seeing through all of this.

Careful T. Bruce, you are going to confuse Jen with all of those big words. Remember, Wakefield is her hero – what she posted she picked up on a Yahoo group, she doesn’t actually understand it.

She didn’t even know she was trying to use Wakefield’s own research to try and prove his own research.

Vindaloo writes: “So yes, to this [desperate and scientifically illiterate] mom, Dr. Wakefield IS a hero, and anyone who slams this man’s quack’s reputation is my enemy [reason-injecting] enema.”

You’re damn right I was desperate. My son came very close to being institutionalized just a few months ago because his behaviors were so out of control. None of the psychiatrists had any explanation for his sudden onset of aggression and self-injury other than “hormones”. That was the only answer they could come up with. Not one of them even considered the possibility that he was acting out because he was in PAIN.

Prior to this, I had been very skeptical of biomedical approaches, but traditional medicine was not giving me any answers. I know my child better than anyone, and I was certain that there was much more going on with him than just hormones. The staff at Thoughtful House agreed and recognized right away that he was in pain, and treated him accordingly.

What you’ve written seems to conflate colonoscopy with diet, and bowel issues with aggressive behavior. That is, you start out by saying colonoscopies help with bowel issues, then provide an example where diet helped with aggressive behavior. I’m not seeing the connection. Can you help?>>>

Sometimes, all that is needed is dietary restriction (removal of gluten, casein, phenols, etc.), which is what they always recommend first. They don’t scope every child-only the ones with severe issues that aren’t responding to dietary intervention. Some kids have more severe bowel issues than others, and when diet doesn’t work, you have to look at the bowel mucosa to find out what is going on. You can’t effectively treat an issue if you don’t know what it is-hence the reason for the scoping.

Jen, just for the benefit of non-American readers who have never heard of it, could you please explain what Tylenol is and why US doctors consider it necessary to administer it with vaccinations?>>>

Tylenol is acetaminophen, perhaps known elsewhere as Calpol, Panadol, or paracetamol. As for why US doctors consider it necessary to administer it with vaccinations, I have no idea. Perhaps they don’t want to be bothered with calls in the middle of the night from hysterical parents with babies running 102F fevers. Maybe one of the more enlightened readers here could elaborate further, because I am not aware of any scientific evidence of the safety or efficacy of this practice.

I clicked on the AutismOne meeting link because I was curious and came across the description for their “Vaccine Education Seminar.” To quote:

“Have you ever wondered how to talk to your mainstream pediatrician and your in-laws, start a grassroots advocacy movement, coordinate a rally, educate other parents, gain a vaccine exemption using titers, or fight for the right of Informed Consent? What is the vaccine “political” landscape and the underlying structure of the Federal Vaccine Advisory Committees? How do industry, government, and organized medicine operate together? What vaccines are coming down the pike, what are the new adjuvants in development — what does the future hold? How can you participate in the process? Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the NVIC, Vicky Debold, PhD, RN, and Louise Kuo Habakus, HHP, AADP of the NJ Coalition for Vaccination Choice help empower you in this half-day seminar.

The best line is “How do industry, government, and organized medicine operate together?” Woo-hoo for giant conspiracies!!!!

You’re damn right I was desperate. My son came very close to being institutionalized just a few months ago because his behaviors were so out of control. None of the psychiatrists had any explanation for his sudden onset of aggression and self-injury other than “hormones”. That was the only answer they could come up with. Not one of them even considered the possibility that he was acting out because he was in PAIN.

I’ve been through similar episodes, Jen, and I know I would reject the notion that hormones are to blame. So tell me, what are Wakefield and the folks at TH doing to document and verify that “PAIN” is the source of these behaviors and that it is more common for autistic people?

From what I can tell, Wakefield has done nothing but insist that autism can be caused by MMR as evidenced by the Measles virus in gut tissue. Do you think that helps his credibility and demonstrates that some autistic kids do have genuine GI issues and may be in pain?

Not in my opinion. If anything, it makes it less likely that we will be able to understand the source of behaviors like those you’ve described.

Even if the bowel issues aren’t readily apparent, most autistic kids that I have seen have either chronic diarrhea, constipation, food allergies and/or food intolerances. This has been my experience with every single autistic child I have come across. Even if a parent says their child has no GI issues, a lot of the time, the child’s red ears are often a dead giveaway that they don’t process phenols very well.

Couple of points, Jen:

Chronic diarrhea, constipation and food intolerances are often a result of behavioral isssues in children. You would agree that ASD is a significant cause of behavioral issues, wouldn’t you?

Red ears and phenol processing – WTF?

ABNORMAL is a mother who stresses her child out so much (panicky, desperate, who knows, maybe even trying desperate dietary measures on her own) that his digestion is affected. ABNORMAL is someone who forgets that children typically have good circulation and thin skin. ABNORMAL is someone so gullible that they’ll believe hurting their child is really helping him, in the face of conclusive evidence to the contrary.

There is evidence of widespread use by parents of complementary and alternative therapies (CAM) including exclusion diets for their children with autism. Despite this, there is a lack of evidence to support the use of gluten and/or casein free diet as an effective intervention for persons with autism and also a lack of research on potential harms and disbenefits of such diets.Despite the problems of maintaining the integrity of such diets in the community it is possible to carry out randomised control trials to address these questions and more and adequately powered trials are needed in this area.

The quoted text is from the plain language summary of the 2008 Chochrane Review on gluten/casein free diets for autism.

With the current state of research, there’s no evidence to support restriction diets as effective treatments for autism. Jen, neither I nor any of the other evidence based medicine supporters put much stock in your anecdotal evidence when compared with the science. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I’ll agree with the science every time.

Did you even read the entire presentation?
Yep. Did you read my entire comment?

Do you REALLY think that a child that beats himself so severely that he requires narcotic induced respite is NORMAL?
No. I was talking about the pathology in this presentation.
Behavioral abnormality is not my field of expertise, so I didn’t comment on it. I know my limitations.

Peptic ulcers are NORMAL?
No. I saw one probable case presented. This happens in non-ASD spectrum kids,as well. One case is not data. The other “non-peptic ulcers” presented appear to be vascular congestion. I’ve seen these lesions biopsied frequently, and all that appears is a group of engorged capillaries – a normal finding.

Do you consider a child that has never had a formed stool to be NORMAL?
No. But maybe you could tell me what this has to do with the pathologic findings.

I’d sure like to know what you would consider ABNORMAL!
Oh, maybe something under the microscope that an anatomic pathologist would regard as abnormal.

Jen said, “Even if the bowel issues aren’t readily apparent, most autistic kids that I have seen have either chronic diarrhea, constipation, food allergies and/or food intolerances. This has been my experience with every single autistic child I have come across. Even if a parent says their child has no GI issues, a lot of the time, the child’s red ears are often a dead giveaway that they don’t process phenols very well.”

Every clown I’ve ever seen has been in the circus therefore every person who goes to the circus is a clown. AgeofAutism is the Clown Blog therefore it’s in a circus. There are animals in the circus and Clown Blog staff and readers are lemmings therefore the AoA-Clown Blog readers are in the internet.

With the current state of research, there’s no evidence to support restriction diets as effective treatments for autism. Jen, neither I nor any of the other evidence based medicine supporters put much stock in your anecdotal evidence when compared with the science. I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I’ll agree with the science every time.>>>

Suit yourself. All I know is that when my younger autistic child ingests gluten, I can expect explosive diarrhea from him the following morning. When the gluten goes away, the diarrhea goes away, too.

Trust me, I’m not happy about this, as we are big pasta and bread eaters, and the gluten free alternatives are not so good. And it’s a pain in the ass to travel an hour away to find the gluten free stuff at whole foods.

Do you really think that thousands of parents would go to such expense and trouble if there weren’t some benefit to it? For many, it’s at least worth a try.

Frankly, I would prefer not to have do the whole diet thing, but it’s either that or clean poo off the walls every morning.

Yeah, the diet’s worth it to save my kid the humiliation of crapping his pants in front of his classmates at school. So I keep at it, inconvenient and “unscientific” as it may be. Call me a bad parent, or “scientifically illiterate” if you like, I don’t really care.

And as for my older child, yeah, diet made a world of difference for him. He is happy, sleeping through the night, gaining weight, and looks healthy for the first time in years. It quite literally saved his life, because before we started it, he was essentially starving himself to death because eating was causing him pain.

So yes, I’ll continue to cough up hundreds of dollars a month for the elemental formula that insurance won’t cover because it’s not “scientifically” proven.

This is one I haven’t come across before. A single dose of paracetamol can cause autism? Seriously?>>>

Is that what I said? Selective reading, perhaps?

Tylenol is often administered to babies BEFORE vaccinations, and pediatricians will sometimes tell parents to dose every 4 hours as needed for a day or two afterwards. Do we know for CERTAIN that this is safe? Is there any scientific evidence?

Now, suppose that mom is breastfeeding and is taking Tylenol for a headache, and follows this advice. Oops…possible overdose. In addition, it is very easy to mess up the dosage when using the infant drops, since they are three times more concentrated that regular children’s liquid tylenol. Oops, possible overdose again.

Then, perhaps baby gets an ear infection…more Tylenol…cuts a tooth…more Tylenol…Then it’s time for the 4 month shots and 6 month shots…more and more tylenol…then possibly more ear infections, colds, croup…well, heck, tylenol is safe, let’s just keep giving it…except… Tylenol isn’t safe!…turns out that hundreds die and thousands more end up in the emergency room every year due to acute liver failure, caused by depletion of glutathione via Tylenol.

Oh, and then there’s all the studies that are linking Tylenol to allergies and asthma! (PubMed search: acetaminophen and asthma)

So, to clarify, NO I don’t believe that a SINGLE dose of Tylenol will cause autism, I think it’s very likely that MULTIPLE doses in utero and during early childhood just might.

Did you even read the entire presentation? Do you REALLY think that a child that beats himself so severely that he requires narcotic induced respite is NORMAL?

Jen, when a pathologist judges a tissue sample, they are not trying to decide whether the patient’s behavior or overall health is normal. They are trying to determine whether there is something wrong with that particular tissue. This is essential for accurate diagnosis. Even a very sick child will likely have some tissues that are normal by every medical test.

Jen said, “Unnecessary, my ass…drivel, drivel”

No, Jen. It’s was your son’s ass. And if I knew my mother would send me to some quack to have things shoved into my ass if I was acting up, I would back off, too.

Wakefield is ass. Unnecessary ass.

Also, having had a colonoscopy last year as part of something one does when one reaches a (cough cough) certain age, I can imagine that a child may change their behavior to avoid future colonoscopies!

(Though I am trying to figure out how one pins down a violent 14 year old to even get that done! Though I suspect that starving him for a day and then slipping some of the Fleet phospho soda into the kid’s drink might help.)

Even if the bowel issues aren’t readily apparent, most autistic kids that I have seen have either chronic diarrhea, constipation, food allergies and/or food intolerances. This has been my experience with every single autistic child I have come across. Even if a parent says their child has no GI issues, a lot of the time, the child’s red ears are often a dead giveaway that they don’t process phenols very well.

It is appropriate for none of us to prefer our anecdotal experience over well-conducted surveys and studies. Is it at all possible that, being human, you are subject to confirmation bias?

As for the red ears, I grant you that none of the studies that have looked for associations between bowel conditions and autism have cited that as an inclusion or exclusion criterion.

Plus, the more elaborate and theatrical the intervention (like a colonscopy), the trickier the diet and the more commitment that it needs, the better placebo response. Children are particularly good placebo responders. [Placebo references.]

Dr James Laidler gives a detailed account of his experience with a GFCF diet with his family and why he moved away from biomedical interventions to his present position.

Tylenol is excreted over a relatively short time period, so that therapeutic doses don’t cause buildup to toxic levels>>>

Perhaps so, but how do we know that glutathione levels in the body return to normal after it’s excreted? Has this been studied? Another concern might also be if the child is ill at the time it’s given, or if it is metabolized differently when taken on an empty stomach, dehydrated, etc. Lots of variables here.

As far as I know Wakefield, despite living in the US, remains a UK citizen. So he can sue Deer for libel, under the fairly permissive UK laws. Then he can have his day in court and prove that Deer is wrong in his allegations of fraud.

Oh, wait… Wakefield already sued Deer. And, rather than allow the suit to progress, he sought a series of stays, and then dropped the suit. He ended up paying Deer’s legal bills.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jan/06/broadcasting.channel4

The bit about condemning censorship in the petition is nicely ironic in view of some of the observations of the judge at one stage of the Wakefield v Channel 4/Brian Deer case. See paragraphs 30 to 37:

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2005/2410.html

30. These factors loom even larger in the present case in the light of certain conduct on the Claimant’s part which Miss Page has prayed in aid. It is her case that the Claimant is seeking to take full advantage of the fact that he has issued libel proceedings while avoiding any detailed public scrutiny of the underlying merits. In other words, she argues, he is seeking to adopt a strategy comparable to that generally characterised by the phrase “a gagging writ”. It is necessary to consider these allegations in a little further detail.

After discussing letters sent to the Cambridge Evening News, Dr. Evan Harris (a member of Parliament), and the Department of Health, the judge concluded (paragraph 37):

I am quite satisfied, therefore, that the Claimant wished to extract whatever advantage he could from the existence of the proceedings while not wishing to progress them or to give the Defendants an opportunity of meeting the claims.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about how science can be communicated more clearly to the average lay person, in hopes of elevating the appreciation of science.

I suggest that calling Jen desperate and scientifically illiterate and easily confused by big scientific words doesn’t help Jen or earn appreciation of science and scientists.

Jen is likely correct in pointing out that Tylenol might be overused because it is considered so safe. For adults, there’s the added danger that acetaminophen is an ingredient in so many OCT cold medicines and sleep aids.

She is also correct that parents know their children better than anyone else. From personal experience, I can vouch that if your child has a complicated or severe problem, that every specialist you are referred to will have a differing diagnosis and that if you see four specialists, you’ll likely end up with six different recommendations.

My experiences with my son were after a serious closed head injury and had nothing to do with vaccinations or autism. I’m all for vaccinations.

Chronic diarrhea, constipation and food intolerances are often a result of behavioral isssues in children.>>>

Nah, I think it’s the other way around. I think what a child eats has a direct effect on the way the child behaves. Have you heard of the Southampton Study?

Jen,
I am glad to hear that your children are doing better. I’ve never had ongoing GI problems, so I can only imagine how horrific that might be for anyone. That said, I’m surprised you are defending Dr. Wakefield.

He lied to you, plain and simple.

And now the whole idea of a connection between ASD and GI problems has been tarnished by his lies. No reputable scientist wants to take this on because it has been fouled by something far fouler than anything a gastroenterologist will ever encounter: falsification and, dare I say it, quackery.

So rather than helping you and your family, Dr. Wakefield has pushed the field back years. In your position I would be very upset.

Respectfully, JustaTech

So rather than helping you and your family, Dr. Wakefield has pushed the field back years. In your position I would be very upset.>>>

Trust me, I am very upset. As I previously mentioned, I was very skeptical of biomedical approaches prior to this incident with my child. I remember feeling very sorry for the parents who spent tens of thousands of dollars on every fly by night treatment, and feeling glad that I could accept my child for who he was instead of trying to “fix” him. I was left with no other choice, though. It was either try biomedical, or place my son in an institution, and the latter choice was just plain unacceptable. My son’s quality of life (as well as that of my entire family)was in the crapper, and doing nothing was not an option.

I should mention that I do not believe that the MMR vaccine or any other vaccine for that matter “causes” autism, although there was a time that I was convinced enough of a link that I refused vaccines for my younger son. However, when that child developed autism, too, I knew I had no choice but to accept that vaccines don’t cause autism. That was hard to admit. However, I do still think that vaccination is linked to autism via acetaminophen, and I do hope that someone will study this, and quickly.

FWIW, I do not believe that Dr. Wakefield LIED. I think he truly believes there is a link between MMR and autism. I happen to disagree with him. (sort of) I am upset, not necessarily with Dr. Wakefield, but at the others who, like you said, now refuse to study a link between GI issues and ASD, because of the negative PR surrounding the original Lancet study. For any researcher to even suggest that vaccination might possibly be linked to autism, directly or indirectly, is now the equivalent of career suicide. Instead of funding to find the true cause of autism, precious time and resources have been wasted trying to reassure frightened parents that vaccines have nothing to do with autism. It’s a shame.

What can I say, though? They listened to me when everyone else thought I was crazy. And my kids are now thriving because of their interventions. Can’t argue with results.

Mitochondrial disorders are estimated to affect 1 in 8500 people.>>>

I think those numbers may be much higher.

Mitochondrial disorders are tricky to detect, and most kids aren’t routinely tested for them, because it involves painful, invasive and expensive testing. (muscle biopsies, etc.)

<>>

Time will tell, I suppose.

FWIW, I do not believe that Dr. Wakefield LIED.

I do, because there’s abundant evidence that he did lie, on multiple occasions.

For any researcher to even suggest that vaccination might possibly be linked to autism, directly or indirectly, is now the equivalent of career suicide.

Advocating bad science and a refuted hypothesis that the vast preponderance of evidence does not support does tend to have a deleterious effect on a scientist’s career. Science is funny that way about Galileos. It’s not enough simply to buck the existing paradigm. You also have to be right. Michael Shermer once said, “Heresy does not equal correctness. He was right.

Here’s what I said about this very issue a few years back:

For every Galileo, Ignaz Semmelweis, Nicolaus Copernicus, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, etc., whose scientific ideas were either ignored, rejected, or vigorously attacked by the scientific community of his time and then later accepted, there are untold numbers of others whose ideas were either ignored or rejected initially and then were never accepted–and never will be accepted. Why? Because they were wrong! The reason the ideas of Galileo, Semmelweis, Copernicus, Darwin, Pasteur, et al, were ultimately accepted as correct by the scientific community is because they turned out to be correct! Their observations and ideas stood up to repeated observation and scientific experimentation by many scientists in many places over many years. The weight of data supporting their ideas was so overwhelming that eventually even the biggest skeptics could no longer stand. That’s the way science works. It may be messy, and it may take longer, occasionally even decades or even longer, than we in the business might like to admit, but eventually in science the truth wins out. In fact, the best way for a scientist to become famous and successful in his or her field is to come up with evidence that strongly challenges established theories and concepts and then weave that evidence into a new theory. Albert Einstein didn’t end up in the history books by simply reconfirming and recapitulating Newton’s Laws. Semmelweis and Pasteur didn’t wind up in the history books by confirming the concept that disease was caused by an “imbalance of humours” (although Semmelweis probably did hurt himself by refusing to publish his results for many years; his data was so compelling it remains puzzling why he did not do so). I daresay that none of the Nobel Prize winners won that prestigious award by demonstrating something that the scientific establishment already believed. No! They won it by discovering something new and important!

To which I would now add: But that glory doesn’t come to a scientist unless he turns out to be right. Wakefield wasn’t. Even worse, he falsified data, refused to publish data that he had been told about because it conflicted with his beliefs (Chadwick told him that he couldn’t find measles virus in those original 12 specimens; so Wakefield held back the data from the original Lancet paper and lied to the press that he had the virological data to support his hypothesis), had a conflict of interest that would make a big pharma exec blush, and didn’t reveal his COIs. The result has been a horrific decline in the MMR vaccination rates in the U.K., Europe, and elsewhere, leading to the return of vaccine-preventable diseases and even deaths.

Which is why I get really nauseated when Wakefield and his supporters try to paint him as some sort of Galileo. When I see an incompetent, dishonest, money-grubbing, lying piece of scum like Wakefield lionized by people just because he supports their pseudoscientific beliefs, I tend to get a bit annoyed.

“How much of that “vast preponderance of evidence” factors in the use of antipyretics?”

And where is the data supporting a link between autism and paracetemol/tylenol/acetaminophen that you keep bringing up?

There’s plenty of studies showing an association between asthma and aspirin or paracetemol/tylenol/acetaminophen, for instance. But that has nothing to do with rambling about tylenol (about as well studied a drug as you get) and autism.

The claims being made are shifting around at an alarming speed. But then again that is an effective tactic with some people. TV is a more effective place to use it though.

And where is the data supporting a link between autism and paracetemol/tylenol/acetaminophen that you keep bringing up?>>>
That’s what I’d like to know! I keep asking, and no one is producing!

“…But that has nothing to do with rambling about tylenol (about as well studied a drug as you get) and autism.>>>

I disagree. I don’t believe that the safety of Tylenol in conjunction with vaccination is very well studied at all, and I have reasons to believe that glutathione depletion via Tylenol and the resulting oxidative stress is linked to autism, as well as asthma and allergies.

Doesn’t it seem odd, that a drug used so commonly in conjunction with vaccinations, hasn’t been studied as a possible autism trigger, especially considering the thousands who report that their children regressed after vaccination? Is it just a coincidence that autism rates started spiking right around the time that aspirin was linked to Reye’s Syndrome and everyone was told to use only Tylenol for fever/pain in children? Doesn’t it at least warrant further research? Hmmm?

Also, if it’s so easy for infants to receive accidental overdoses of acetaminophen, why don’t we see more children with liver damage?>>>

Maybe they’re calling it something else…like SIDS?

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17654772?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

The simultaneous sudden deaths of twins rarely occur and therefore it has received limited attention in the medical literature. When the deaths of the twins meet the defined criteria for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) independently and take place within the same 24 h range it can be called as simultaneous SIDS (SSIDS). The case(s): Twin girls (3.5-month-old) were found dead by their mother in their crib, both in supine position. The infants were identical twins and delivered at a hospital by cesarean section. Both infants were healthy and did not have any serious medical history. Two days prior to the incident, the twins had received the second dose of oral polio, DPT and the first dose of hepatitis B vaccines and they had fever on the first day of the vaccination and been given teaspoonful of acetaminophen. Death scene investigation, judicial investigation, parental assessment, macroscopic and microscopic autopsy findings and the toxicological analysis did not yield any specific cause of death. The case(s) were referred to a supreme board composed of multidisciplinary medical professionals at the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Ministry of Justice, in Istanbul. The Board decided that the available data was consistent with SIDS. These SIDS case(s) are presented because twin SIDS are rare and this is the first time that a simultaneous twin SIDS have been reported in Turkey. Simultaneous SIDS cases have many implications regarding definition, diagnosis and medico-legal approach.

These 3.5 month old babies were given a TEASPOON of acetaminophen? Wouldn’t that be considered an overdose, especially if the infant drops were used?

And actually, there are many reports of acetaminophen induced liver damage in children, they just don’t always make headlines.

Jen said:

How about this? (Keep in mind the glutathione depleting properties of Tylenol)
http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=new-test-for-mitochondrial-disease-2009-02-11
“…A new study reveals that people with these diseases may be deficient in glutathione, a toxin-fighting molecule made by the body that helps repair damage wrought by wayward mitochondria.”
“…Among the most famous cases of mitochondrial disease: nine-year-old Hannah Poling, whose mitochondrial disorder caused autism-like symptoms that were exacerbated by routine childhood vaccinations.”

You are confusing cause and effect … mitochondrial problems can apparently CAUSE glutathione deficiencies (that’s the effect). But there is no suggestion in that article that lowering the glutathione level can run the other direction and cause mitochondrial problems.

Jen also said:

I do not believe that Dr. Wakefield LIED. I think he truly believes there is a link between MMR and autism.

His true belief, no matter how sincere, does not excuse the falsification of data that he did. He lied about the medical histories of the children to make his belief appear to be true, he lied about the lab results, he lied about the timing between the MMR and the appearance of autism symptoms, he lied about the randomness of his patient sample, he lied by omission byr not revealing his patent on a measles vaccine and his income from lawyers wanting to link autism to the MMR.

Hang on! A teaspoon is not a standard dose of anything in medicine. It is in baking though.

Can’t believe they got that published…

In reply to “And where is the data supporting a link between autism and paracetemol/tylenol/acetaminophen that you keep bringing up?”

Jen replied, “That’s what I’d like to know! I keep asking, and no one is producing!”

Wait, so all of this is based on a hunch? Thats it?

Jen, let me explain something to you. As much as you may not like it, people who are trained in medicine know more about it than you do. Just because you can use google and big words doesn’t mean you have the least idea of what you’re talking about, because it’s clear from every example you bring up that you don’t.
Or, of course, thousands of doctors are “in on it” and your one proven fraud, Wakefield, knows more than anyone else.
By the way, you *do* know that a year before his “study” he patented an “alternative” vaccination?

Jen,

Are you sure you’re not influenced in your belief in Dr. Wakefield because of his charisma, his stunning good looks? Dr. Dreamy, I think he’s called by some of the moms of kids with autism. Not to mention the fact that he took the time to REALLY LISTEN to you. That must have been really flattering and gratifying.

I often thank heavens for the relative non-charisma of Geier, father and son, and Boyd Haley. Imagine where we’d be if they were even 10% as handsome (swoon) as Wakefield.

As much as you may not like it, people who are trained in medicine know more about it than you do.>>>

Yes, of course. My thirteen years of experience as an LVN are completely irrelevant, and my first hand experience in raising two autistic boys and their improvements with biomedical treatments, as well as the thousands of other parents reporting the exact same results mean absolutely nothing. Gotcha.

You have also (despite being asked at Bad Astronomy) never presented any real evidence that Tylenol was or is routinely given to babies before vaccination. I’ve never seen it done,>>>

Actually, I did, you must have missed it. But I’ll post it again, just for you Chris. 🙂

“…Ask the doctor if it is OK to give the child a dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol) before or after a shot.”
http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/what_immunization_000090_1.htm

“…Note 10: Consider giving acetaminophen before DTaP and every 4 hours thereafter for 24 hours to children who
have a personal or a family history of convulsions.”

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/downloads/b_contraindications_guide.pdf

In addition, you can google “tylenol before vaccination” and see the hundreds of Q&A regarding this as well.

This practice is VERY common. And scientifically unproven.

The plural of anecdote is still not data.

I have no idea what an “LVN” is, but it is obvious that does not include any kind of science or research.

Also Wakefield is certainly not being helped by his twenty some of years as a medical researcher. He is not qualified to attend to patients:
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/6283/

Having two boys on the spectrum kind of points to genetics.

Raising two autistic sons you say, Jen? Ever occur to you it might not have to do with vaccines or bowels or Tylenol or anything environmental? Maybe it has something to do with the one big thing they have in common – their genetics? Noooo, couldn’t possibly be that … that would involve you not blaming someone else.

You have also (despite being asked at Bad Astronomy) never presented any real evidence that Tylenol was or is routinely given to babies before vaccination. I’ve never seen it done,>>>

Actually, I did, you must have missed it. But I’ll post it again, just for you Chris. 🙂

“…Ask the doctor if it is OK to give the child a dose of acetaminophen (Tylenol) before or after a shot.”

“…Note 10: Consider giving acetaminophen before DTaP and every 4 hours thereafter for 24 hours to children who
have a personal or a family history of convulsions.”

This is not “routinely giving Tylenol” before vaccination. It is done to prevent febrile reactions in children prone to febrile convulsions. These convulsions are set off by a rapid rise in temperature, and are very frightening to witness (although they are usually harmless). Only a minor proportion of children are prone to this, and they are the target of this advice. Tylenol prevents this temperature rise and is a proven method of preventing this complication.

As I suggested before, a dose of Tylenol before Hannah Poling was immunized theoretically could have prevented her onset of autism by preventing a febrile reaction. Mind you, the next febrile illness would probably set it off anyway…

Autism is the most common of these passive developmental disorders.>>>

Passive developmental disorders? ::scratches head::

Indy said, “Maybe it has something to do with the one big thing they have in common – their genetics? Noooo, couldn’t possibly be that … that would involve you not blaming someone else.”

The longest, most obtuse route between two points involves a trip through AgeofAutism, Generation Rexu, Yahoo! ABMD and other pits of lemming behavior and scientific illiteracy.

What we’re being subjected to in this thread is a lesson in inductive reasoning. She’s made up her mind and is now searching to gather evidence to support it. It’s sad, really, watching this desperate straw grasping.

As a college student, it was a sad, sad day when I walked into my Health class on the first day of classes, and my teacher proudly proclaimed that she had never given her children any vaccinations because she didn’t want them to get autism.

How a woman can get a Masters Degree in health science and still believe that…I don’t understand how rational and educated people can believe this so wholeheartedly that they would risk the lives of their children.

She then proceeded to tell us that we should never take more than two Tylenol or we would die. It was a long semester.

Chris, I give up. You asked for evidence that this is common practice, and I have provided that evidence, (from the CDC, no less.) I have stated that I have SEEN this practice, quite frequently in my many years of nursing, (that is what LVN stands for…Licensed Vocational NURSE) as well as given you suggestions on how to find this information yourself. Just because YOU haven’t personally seen this practice, doesn’t mean it is not happening.

So, having asked my ex-spouse, who is an RN, (you know, more education and training than an LPN/LVN), and she pretty much categorically disagrees with everything you said, especially the vague attempts at dragging Tylenol into this. A pretty nearly exact quote was:

“They give babies pretty band-aids with shots, why not blame autism on pretty band-aids? Wait, they often give babies water to drink in the same time-frame as vaccinations, why not blame water? No, wait, I KNOW, it’s breast-feeding. Breast-feeding has been on the rise for some time now…so are infant autism diagnosis. OBVIOUSLY, BREAST-FEEDING Causes da autism. Wait, it’s pacifiers. Babies with autism have pacifiers when the symptoms show up, obviously it’s RUBBER LEACHING INTO THEIR PRECIOUS IMMUNE SYSTEMS…and magic. Don’t forget the magic. Did this woman actually study chemistry or anything with the scientific method for her LVN/LPN, or did she get it in a box of tide?

And stop sending me this crap, you know the stupid puts me in a bad mood.”

Doesn’t it seem odd, that a drug used so commonly in conjunction with vaccinations, hasn’t been studied as a possible autism trigger, especially considering the thousands who report that their children regressed after vaccination?

How about the people who reported that their unvaccinated children “regressed” around the time they would have received their vaccines? When two things are known to happen around the same time whether or not they occur together, correlation in time is meaningless.

Maybe they’re calling it something else…like SIDS?

Jen, liver damage is dead easy to detect. Not only are there characteristic symptoms, but damage to the liver spills liver enzymes into the blood. Checking for liver enzymes is a routine blood test. If SIDS were something as simple and obvious as liver damage, it would have been figured out a long time ago.

Is it just a coincidence that autism rates started spiking right around the time that aspirin was linked to Reye’s Syndrome and everyone was told to use only Tylenol for fever/pain in children? Doesn’t it at least warrant further research? Hmmm?

Why stop there? If correlation is your sole criterion for what deserves further research, then it’s a long, long list. Is it just a coincidence that autism rates started spiking right around the time that leaded gasoline was banned? Is it just a coincidence that autism rates started spiking around the time serious efforts began to be made to reduce exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke? And on, and on.

Jen said “Chris, I give up. You asked for evidence that this is common practice, and I have provided that evidence, (from the CDC, no less.) I have stated that I have SEEN this practice, quite frequently in my many years of nursing, (that is what LVN stands for…Licensed Vocational NURSE) as well as given you suggestions on how to find this information yourself. Just because YOU haven’t personally seen this practice, doesn’t mean it is not happening.”

Again I say: the plural of anecdote is not data. (do you need a definition of that very old and common saying?)

So you cannot produce any real evidence that it is common practice. Yes, I have NOT seen it in my personal experience with children the same age as yours — which is anecdotal. That means it requires YOU to produce the evidence that it was standard practice.

What incentive do I have to go out and find evidence to prove you are correct? Why would I do that? If you have a claim that is so correct, YOU are the person who has a reason to provide that evidence. Yet you fail to do that one simple thing.

LVN stand for Licensed Vocational Nurse? Oh, so you are the type that is not a Registered nurse, not a full college degree nurse, but the one that comes from a community college vocational program. Kind of like the big difference between an engineer and a technical aide (side note: as an engineer I encountered a barely competent tech aide who told me she/he could have been an engineer, I asked “why be just a tech”, the answer was because he/she did not want to take the hard courses!). Oh, wow… that changes everything. For a while I thought the “V” was for veterinary!

Still, it if you were trained at a good veterinary university like UC Davis or Texas AandM you might understand the importance of real scientific evidence. Which is perhaps why I was so baffled at your obvious incompetence.

All right, here we go.
Febrile convulsions are caused by rising fevers.
Kids who have febrile convulsions could have such a convulsion if they have a febrile reaction to a vaccine.
Tylenol is a proven anti-pyretic.
Giving Tylenol to a kid at the time of vaccination will prevent a febrile reaction.
By preventing a febrile reaction, a febrile convulsion is avoided.

All of the above statements are medical facts.
Put ’em together and you have your evidence.

To play devil’s advocate: how do we know that children who suffer from febrile convulsions have the same reaction to Tylenol as other kids? How do we know that the fevers sometimes caused by vaccines aren’t caused by a different mechanism than by other fevers, thus making Tylenol useless in preventing those fevers? Where’s the double-blind control-grouped studies that shows that Tylenol is effective in reducing the incidence of convulsions among children who suffer from febrile convulsions?

Jen,

I have heard of parents routinely giving Tylenol with vaccinations in the US but it is not the routine to give any additional medications at all with vaccines here in the UK, yet our autism rates are equivalent to the best of my knowledge.

As for the earlier cited “teaspoon” of paracetamol given, has anyone commenting on this amount looked into the concentration used? Here there is not an “infant” version available and the appropriate dose for a child between 3 and 12 months is 2.5 to 5 ml, or up to 1 teaspoon.

I would also add that vaccine schedules vary from country to country so that would be expected to have an impact on autism rates if vaccines truly caused autism.

Dr Wakefield and nearly a dozen others did this research. So are we saying that most of the doctors in this teaching hospital are equally guilty?

Suppose his research is flawed or even wrong. How many other pieces of research are also wrong? Quite a lot.

Verstraeten and again almost a dozen others produced later research to show vaccines improved our IQ. Was this paper right or wrong? If it is right why did they change the data four times before the publication?

How do we know they doctored the figures when they never put down that this was their fifth attempt to prove vaccines are good for us? It was found years later by Wakefield and his supporters demanding the truth.

I believe in this argument that many things are being covered up, obfuscated and yes even lies are part of everyones armoury.

dt – thanks! You and many others on this thread have done exactly what I would wish – communicate, educate, and acknowledge ambiguities and apparent contradictions.

Jen, I hope you will do the same.

However much the anecdotal may be denigrated, it has the value of asking the question first sometimes. Of course, I am partial to anecdotal evidence because I wonder why closed head injury cases are often treated the same way that drug addiction is. Though treatment options are better than they were ten years ago, drug addiction treatment is lucrative… and other, not so lucrative mental illnesses are treated along side the addicted, not as primary patients.

Of course there are co-morbidities, and drug addiction may be a sign of an underlying mental illness, yet treating the addiction still does not treat the underlying illness.

Jen, the bottom line is that nobody knows what causes autism. It’s a wide spectrum as defined today and there may be multiple causes. It does no one good to hang it all on one hook. That merely closes avenues of research. Unfortunately that’s what Wakefield did. By lying, he possibly set science back years, if not decades.

Are you perhaps expecting too much? Science has not yet found a cure for cancer, and I must ask what makes you think autism is any less complex?

Jen, you have been fortunate to stumble upon something that helps your children. Give thanks for that, but do not discount the help that other children have found through other means and do not discourage parents from seeking help through other means.

Verstraeten and again almost a dozen others produced later research to show vaccines improved our IQ. Was this paper right or wrong? If it is right why did they change the data four times before the publication?

How do we know they doctored the figures when they never put down that this was their fifth attempt to prove vaccines are good for us? It was found years later by Wakefield and his supporters demanding the truth.

Denialists are so predictable. So now it’s tu quoque, is it? A true sign of desperation. I have no idea whether there is any truth to your implication. Frankly, I don’t care, and I doubt if anybody else does. I suppose that it might be relevant if parents were being urged to vaccinate to improve their kids’ intelligence. But they aren’t.

Dr Wakefield and nearly a dozen others did this research. So are we saying that most of the doctors in this teaching hospital are equally guilty?

Mr Fryer, as you know, most of the co-authors retracted their support for the work in this paper. Now this was mainly because they had concerns about Wakefield’s use of the data and his extrapolation of findings into a general rant about MMR, and that they had no idea he was compromised by such major financial conflicts of interest when he wrote the paper. I believe it was not because they explicitly had issues with the clinical data within the paper.

Wakefield is the first author, so is the primary driving force behind the writing of the paper. Co-authors are usually added on to a paper because they contributed to the work in some way – either helped look at cases, or analysed data etc. They would not necessarily scrutinise all the data contributed by others participating in the work carried out. It is quite feasible to imagine Wakefield producing a paper which his coauthors agreed with and were happy to sign up to, without them being aware that (say) it contained innacurate clinical information on the duration of autistic symptoms in some of the cases. Similarly, data on the histology findings would not be scrutinised in depth by everyone on the paper, just those who were histologists, or they could have just relied on histology reports or what Wakefield said was on the reports.

I suspect the coauthors were happy to “rubber stamp” the draft paper, giving the primary author the benefit of their trust in his integrity and probity, assuming he would write an accurate report reflecting all the true facts. This does not mean the coauthors were also corrupt, just perhaps they were naive and not as vigilant as they should have been.

Suppose his research is flawed or even wrong. How many other pieces of research are also wrong? Quite a lot.

Completely irrelevant. We are discussing Wakefield’s fraud here, remember. Let’s say the courts (wrongly) convicted you of murder. Someone points out that the evidence and the judgement is wrong. Would you be happy with the response “So what if we were wrong? How many other convictions are also unsound? Quite a lot” I am sure that attitude would reassure you greatly as you sweat things out on death row.

@John C. Welch,

It sounds like you let a very good woman slip away.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html

I hope this will be commented on. They are trying to make this child out to be the next Hannah Poling.

Is someone suggesting that these surgical-type procedures will help child mental health?>>>

Well…yes. If there are abnormalities or inflammation in the bowel mucosa found during endoscopy, treating the abnormalities will ease pain and increase nutrient absorption, hence producing improvements in behavior and cognitive function.

@Jen: Yes, sometimes quackery slips through the cracks and can become mainstream.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr-and-david-kirby/vaccine-court-autism-deba_b_169673.html

I hope this will be commented on. They are trying to make this child out to be the next Hannah Poling.

Kathleen would be to go-to person to comment on this. I’d keep an eye on the neurodiversity.com blog. I imagine Orac will want to comment too.

Apparently, Kirby, GR, RFK Jr. et al. are resorting to outright dishonesty now that the Omnibus was lost.

First of all, that case was not “recently unsealed.” They make it sound like it was kept secret until now. The verdict was handed down on July, 2007, as you can see in the filed ruling. Kathleen wrote about this case back in March 11, 2008.

Clearly, they knew about this case, but decided to publicize it now as something new and surprising – a “plan B” if you will.

They also talk about a “mysterious court” as if this were a separate court to the VICP court, which they’ve previously pinned their hopes on. That’s a change of discourse (or frame) on how they refer to the VICP court.

In a nutshell, the claimant in the case argues that the MMR vaccine can cause ADEM, which in turn is associated with PDD. Even though there’s no evidence at all that ADEM is associated with PDD or autism (I just searched PubMed), the Special Master finds it compelling that ADEM can be associated with mental handicap in general, and argues that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

It’s not a slam-dunk association by any means, if you read the decision.

The VICP has awarded thousands of cases. Whether these can be explained as coincidental events or actual vaccine injury events, is it surprising that some of the claimants happen to be autistic?

Well…yes. If there are abnormalities or inflammation in the bowel mucosa found during endoscopy, treating the abnormalities will ease pain and increase nutrient absorption, hence producing improvements in behavior and cognitive function.

Well, then what you’re describing doesn’t sound like autism. Rather, you have a behavioral issue of kids in pain who act out, or some sort of nutritional defecit that is affecting behavior.

Granted, an autisitc child in pain or malnurished may exhibit very neagtive behavior, but isn’t that as likely due to a cognitive inability to express him/herself in another way? And, if these symptoms are aleviated, and behavior imporves, have you really treated the autism? or just the symptoms?

Also, regarding the tylenol studies you cited:

Both studies indicate that there isn’t a good reason to use acetomenaphine as a prophylactic in the administation of a single type of vaccine. They don’t say that the acetomenaphine is detrimental, just that it doesn’t do any good. The first abstract does say “Unnecessary use of analgesics should be prevented.” but the results they report in the abstract don’t support that conclusion. Without reading the whole paper, or understanding whatever concerns Turkish pediactrics has regarding analgesics, it’s hard to understand why this would have been included.

Jen is under the impression that most or even all Autistic children have bowel or gut issues. I didn’t and I don’t. Oh but perhaps I belong to the magic group of Autistics where if you are able to object to harmful rubbish about your condition, then clearly you’re an exception in every way; even if Autistic adults who can talk make up the large majority of diagnosed Autistics(a fact which torpedoes the ‘epidemic’ lie which the vaccine conspiracy rests entirely on).

Jen, you do not give a flying fuck about the truth, admit it. The condition you and anti-vaxxers describe resembles Childhood Degenerative Disorder or even Landau-Kleffner Syndrome far more than it does Autism. So why pick Autism? Because it’s where the money is, it’s something you can wave a big stick at important people from a shaky moral high-horse. Autism is only picked because it is a gold-mine for quackery: not long ago the statistics were misleading and suggested it was rare. Now awareness and diagnostic methods have improved, something closer to the real numbers are revealed and it’s cultured a sticky, sweet nectar for charlatans to sink their mandibles into. If hysterical, careless parents play along they might get a taste of it too, even if it has devastating consequences for Autistics.

Yes fuck the others, who cares about stupid adults needing evidence-based protections, services and ethical public policies? It’s only YOUR own Autistic kin that deserve anything and stealing it from the rest is so much faster and easier if you bury science and ethics under PR, innuendo and politics where scientists fear to tread.

For example, I’m sure you’ll continue to post your thoroughly ridiculous and discredited hypothesis about Tylenol being linked to SIDS.>>>

Oh for crying out loud. I don’t really think that Tylenol is linked to SIDS…just pointing out an unusual case where two babies mysteriously died 2 days after vaccination that were possibly given too high a dose of acetaminophen. I don’t have access to the autopsy reports, so I don’t know what really happened, and neither do you. I’m sure if it was due to an acetaminophen overdose, like another poster noted, the liver damage would have been apparent, and the deaths would have been listed as acute liver failure, not SIDS. But again, without having access to the autopsy reports, we have no way of knowing for certain what happened.

Jen states:

Until someone studies it [the safety of giving vaccines and acetaminophen simultaneously] , we have no way of knowing for certain.

Is there any indication that acetaminophen is causing problems in combination with vaccines? For that matter, why would acetaminophen be “safe” to give for “wild-type” viral and bacterial infections and “not-safe” for attenuated, toned-down or dead viruses and bacteria?

Maybe we need to research autism in a population that doesn’t use Tylenol. Maybe the Amish?

For that matter, we have no way of knowing if giving vaccines and lollipops simultaneously (as my paediatrician did back in the Late Cretaceous) is “safe”. What about the combination of Jello and vaccines? Or Kool-Aid? I’m sure that those colors aren’t “natural” – they have to be bad for you, don’t they?

If there were any indication that the combination of acetaminophen and vaccines were “bad”, I’d be right there agitating for a study, but there isn’t any indication. Simply saying that one thing (autism) happens after another – especially something as ubiquitous as vaccines and acetaminophen – isn’t even an association. You could just as easily argue that autism is caused by the combination of vaccines and disposable nappies.

If Jen’s Google PhD had included some coursework in physiology, she would have noticed that acetaminophen depletes glutathione in the liver, the organ that metabolises it. Glucuronidation of acetaminophen, the secondary metabolic pathway for acetaminophen (sulfation being primary), creates a toxic intermediate (N-acetyl-p-benzoquinoneimine – NAPQI) which requires glutathione to “neutralise” it.

Since the brain – the organ generally thought to be affected in autism – doesn’t do this, acetaminophen cannot deplete brain glutathione. And, before Jen makes another error, glutathione is made in the cells where it is used – circulating (blood) glutathione has “leaked” out of cells.

You’ll also notice that even people who have taken hepatotoxic overdoses of acetaminophen show no brain-related symptoms (until their liver failure causes a build-up of “toxins”). They are often blissfully unaware of their plight for days to weeks. So, acetaminophen-related glutathione depletion can’t be “blamed” for autism.

Of course, you have to know a bit about biology to realise that.

That brings me to an oft-repeated theme of mine:

Being able to read the words in a scientific paper (or, as Jen has done, the abstract of a scientific paper) is not enough to be able to understand what it says. For that, you need to put in the time and effort to actually learn the material.

A Google PhD isn’t enough.

Prometheus

Jen, the point was that an antipyretic (such as acetaminophen or an NSAID) could “intuitively” be assumed to help prevent febrile seizures because it lowers body temperature. Yet as we now know, it does not do this. So “intuitive” thinking can be wrong. So it is just as wrong to accept Wakefield’s assertions of something being “intuitively right”. He could also be wrong, and in fact the evidence seen regarding most of his work suggests that he is wrong.

Prometheus, thanks +++ for your explanation about acetaminophen and glutathione depletion in the liver and brain. I knew this, but in the confusion of the posts above it had slipped my mind until you so elegantly reminded me of it. Slam dunk, I think.

Not that it will make a difference, but I should concede the point that acetamenaphine is not an anti-inflamatory. That was me misremembering. It is, however, a fever reducer. So, I still submit that its use in conjuntion with the typical fever seen post vaccination is an intuituve leap that seems reasonable, but is ultimately not supported by the science.

Oh, and Jen/notmercury:

Wonder why the average lifespan of an American circa 1900 was only 49 years? It wasn’t so much that most adults never made it to 50 — it’s that so many children died before they could reach adulthood. (The main reason your great-great-grandparents’ families had ten to twenty kids each was because they knew they’d probably lose at least two of those kids to various diseases — diseases that we are now safe from because we, and our parents and grandparents, were vaccinated as children.)

A mother’s kiss is present from birth, and is particularly strongly associated with vaccination. Anecdotal evidence suggests that 100% of autistic children have been thus infected by their mother’s saliva.
It contains a mix of organic compounds {some of which have been shown to be bio-toxic) viruses, and complex enzymes capable of breaking down human flesh. It has infectant and anti-bacterial properties, and is an ideal vector for spreading infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, herpes, and measles, among many others. So potent and so dangerous is this “natural” substance that individuals have been convicted of attempted murder for expectorating even a modest amount of this known bio-hazard – yet still “conventional medicine” refuses to acknowledge, or even investigate, any connection between this known pathogen and a wide range of childhood disorders including autism.
I demand that doctors investigate, at great expense, the obvious child-disabling properties of mother’s kisses. Or are you all in the pay of Big Toothpaste?

We demand the right of children to choose father’s kiss rather than mother’s kiss, despite the logical disconnect in differentiating between them as etiological agents of kissopathology.

We support all scientists, including Dr. Andrew Kissychops, in the freedom to conduct medical research into the biological mechanisms for kiss-related immune and brain dysfunction, including autism, without being attacked personally and professionally by the smooching industry, government, and organized medicine, even if this includes doing unpleasant, unnecessary things to our children like snipping out bits of their brains and then sending them to some bloke in a garden shed for analysis with a magnifying glass and a cracked petri dish.

We support scientific discovery, freedom to investigate, and freedom to speak about kiss pathology.

We renounce the global industrial complex kissing lobby groups and the London Sunday Times trying to intimidate doctors like Dr Kissychops, thereby preventing objective medical assessment of kissed children everywhere.

We condemn the censorship of the science of kissopathology. There are more than enough facts and evidence to support the case of kiss injury (or so Kissychops says), but the politicization of these issues has made it impossible to publish important and valid science. The debate is rigged in favor of BigSmooch and the illuminati-funded lizard men.

We also demand that billions more taxpayers dollars are spent investigating the links between kissopathology and nocturnal farting, and insist that a major new “no kissing, not ever” trial be conducted just in case it might show something that the previous 79 trials failed to show.

We insist that the Government, the WHO, the UN, Mugabe’s ZANU(PF) party and the Women’s Institute immediately remove all lethal, poisonous and radioactive dihydrogen monoxide from saliva, particularly since the molecules in it might at some point have been in contact with monkey viruses and aborted fetuses.

We demand you sign our petition now before it is too late, and remember… Always think of the children!

Jen just keeps on coming up with them:

As I mentioned above, there are lots of things that are “not well studied” in conjunction with vaccines – acetaminophen is just one of them. BTW, has anyone looked at the possible risks of giving vaccines in conjunction with organic apple juice? Until it’s been studied, we’ll never know if it’s safe!!!

As for acetaminophen’s anti-inflammatory action, recent research has confirmed that it is a relatively selective COX-2 inhibitor in humans (Hinz et al 2008) with an IC50 of 26 micromol/L for COX-2 and 114 micromol/L for COX-1. That said, it does not have clinically significant peripheral anti-inflammatory effect, for a variety of reasons (see: Anderson, 2008).

The antipyretic (fever-fighting) and analgesic (pain-relieving) effects of acetaminophen, however, are clinically significant, which is why it is so widely used. In fact, its lack of significant peripheral anti-inflammatory effects account for its good safety record (apart from massive overdosage).

Again, Jen is just reading the abstracts and trying to find something that seems like it supports her pre-ordained conclusion.

I’m not trying to say that people with no education or training in the sciences can’t learn about the aspects of biology that interest them, just that those people have to be very cautious about thinking that they’ve found something that “the scientists” have overlooked or are “ignoring”.

All too often, there is more to the story than the casual reader of the scientific literature is aware of.

Prometheus

Is it just me, particularly snarky bastard that I am, or does ridicule do more than anything else to shut those anti-vax fuckwits up?>>>

Indeed, some of us prefer to leave the childish name calling and insults on the kindergarten playground where they belong.

Sure doesn’t do much to help your credibility, though.

I’m sure you’ll go far in convincing parents to vaccinate their kids if you just throw the word FUCKWIT at them! ::eye roll::

So, on that note, I’ll leave you to your regularly scheduled programming.

No Jen – it’s not the parents, it’s people like you – indeed specifically you – who are fuckwits.
Pro-disease moron.

Prometheus said;

“I’m not trying to say that people with no education or training in the sciences can’t learn about the aspects of biology that interest them, just that those people have to be very cautious about thinking that they’ve found something that “the scientists” have overlooked or are “ignoring”.”

Good point.

The reason Jen runs from the truly snarky is that she knows they will call her on her bullshit, *call* it bullshit, and not let her move the goalposts and pretend like it’s not bullshit anymore.

People like her do not do well against the truly snarky, because she cannot bullshit them into taking her bullshit as anything but bullshit.

Jen said “I’ve already linked to several studies that suggest a possible link to prenatal acetaminophen use and asthma. If not glutathione depletion, what other possible mechanism could be linking the two? ”

Jen. You have had this explained to you nmany times on this page alone. But just in case somebody out there is reading this and is wondering.

Firstly, there is no link between tylenol and autism. Secondly, there is no link between tylenol and autism.
Thirdy, asthma is not autism.

What links tylenol and asthma is not in the slightest bit relevant to your continued and utterly unjustified and evidence-free assertion that tylenol causes autism. You wil not be permitted to shift the goal here.

Jen, why don’t you just admit that you lack both the education and the intelligence to understand science?>>>

Why don’t YOU just address the questions I posed, instead of resorting to personal attacks on my intelligence?

People like you are helping to spread harmful viruses that sane parents want to keep away from their children.>>>

How does discouraging the use of Tylenol help to spread harmful viruses? Please, enlighten me.

Besides, if you could read you would have seen that your questions have been answered already in overgenerous detail by several other posters.>>>

If someone addressed glutathione levels wrt therapeutic doses of acetaminophen, I must have missed it wading through all the personal attacks.

Are you not suggesting here that the vaccination procedures are suspect?>>>

Well, yes, I suppose I am. I think if you remove Tylenol from the equation, though, autism’s “link” to vaccination would probably disappear. But unless someone compares rates of autism between those children who receive tylenol in conjunction with vaccines and those who don’t, we won’t know for certain. Oh, wait…someone did that already…(yes, I am aware of the limitations of this small study)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18445737?ordinalpos=3&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

The present study was performed to determine whether acetaminophen (paracetamol) use after the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination could be associated with autistic disorder. This case-control study used the results of an online parental survey conducted from 16 July 2005 to 30 January 2006, consisting of 83 children with autistic disorder and 80 control children. Acetaminophen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was significantly associated with autistic disorder when considering children 5 years of age or less (OR 6.11, 95% CI 1.42-26.3), after limiting cases to children with regression in development (OR 3.97, 95% CI 1.11-14.3), and when considering only children who had post-vaccination sequelae (OR 8.23, 95% CI 1.56-43.3), adjusting for age, gender, mother’s ethnicity, and the presence of illness concurrent with measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Ibuprofen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was not associated with autistic disorder. This preliminary study found that acetaminophen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was associated with autistic disorder.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who suspects that Tylenol may be causing problems in conjunction with vaccines, but then Dr. Schultz is probably “scientifically illiterate” for posing the hypothesis, too, right? Because, you know, anyone who DARES question the sacred cow known as the US vaccination schedule is nothing more than a blithering moron.

There are people who ask questions because they want to know what the right answer is.>>>

Right. And so far, unless I missed it, no one has answered the question of how therapeutic doses of acetaminophen affect glutathione levels. I got an explanation of how OVERDOSES of acetaminophen overwhelm glutathione stores and induce liver failure, but I already knew that.

I would LOVE to be proven wrong, so I can quit beating myself up for giving Tylenol to my kids and taking it for frequent headaches and back pain during my pregnancies. And I wouldn’t be pushing this so hard if I didn’t witness severe behavioral regressions in my older son after ingesting acetaminophen, an association that I am only recently realizing.

But it is perhaps asking too much of you to understand both biochemistry and statistics. I admit that even medical researchers may have problems with these topics, as that study shows.>>>

I already mentioned that I am aware of this study’s limitations. This is a PRELIMINARY study, if you will note the conclusions. This does not in any way PROVE an association. I KNOW that. The authors of the study KNOW that. Obviously, much more research will have to be done in order to conclusively PROVE a causal association.

I have good news for you, Jen, you can stop blaming yourself. There is no proof whatsoever that Thylenol or acetaminophen or paracetamol, or whatever you call, it causes autism. Unfortunately, your faulty education shows itself once more, since you ask for a proof of a negative. It is impossible to proof that something is NOT the cause of autism. I can not proof that eating tuna sandwiches does not cause autism. Such questions are meaningless, please try to grasp that. And, once again, stop blaming yourself and stop wasting your time on a silly crusade, you are not doing anyone any good in this way, least of all our children.

I already mentioned that I am aware of this study’s limitations. This is a PRELIMINARY study, if you will note the conclusions. This does not in any way PROVE an association. I KNOW that. The authors of the study KNOW that. Obviously, much more research will have to be done in order to conclusively PROVE a causal association.

Just my point: this study is garbage and should never have been published.

By the way, the third ‘proof’ in my previous post should of course have been ‘prove’. See, I must be getting really tired of this discussion.

I just do it for the children out there…

I would LOVE to be proven wrong

If reality won’t do, you are going to be permanently unhappy.

so I can quit beating myself up for giving Tylenol to my kids and taking it for frequent headaches and back pain during my pregnancies

For fuck’s sake, you stupid woman, it’s not your fault if there’s anything “wrong” with your children. So the whole of the medical world has to suffer, and unvaccinated children are to die because of your misplaced guilt?
If you’d been an alcoholic, and your children had been born with foetal alcohol syndrome – that would be your fault. Or if you’d allowed your children to witness horrible domestic violence, or been uncaring or neglectful – then you would have to live with the guilt, justifiably, your whole life. But you haven’t (I assume)
What you do do is to constantly invent new things which you consider might have damaged your kids and then to transfer your blame to everyone else.

The pity is that in that all this you spend so much time pointlessly posting your paranoid views on sites like this, and inviting people like me to insult you and your ridiculous views, to no end whatsoever.
Why don’t you get away from the computer, kiss and cuddle your kids, take them out into nature….love them.
I guarantee you that, if asked, this is exactly what your want – and right now.
It really is not your fault.
Please stop coming here with your ridiculous posts.
I’m sure in many ways you are a lovely person and a wonderful mother.
But get off the computer and go and kiss your kids. Now. That works in every way, in every universe, and with any god, or even none!

But there’s a much much more important problem with this survey. The author, Dr. Schultz, recruited the case group from one of the well known biomed or anti-vax mailling lists. Not only that, he made it sound like he was on some kind of crusade to prove his hypothesis, and urged people to join him. Further, the control group was made up of friends of the cases. I can get you more information if you need it.>>>

Nope, that won’t be necessary. I’ve already read the critiques, and agree that there are problems with the study for the reasons you mentioned. I acknowledged this when I posted it. (See above)

I, like you, will need to see more research carried out in order to answer the question one way or the other. And since there is such a paucity of data wrt to acetaminophen and autism, the question is very much open for debate. In the meantime, since Tylenol is a useless drug that cures nothing, I will continue to avoid it like the plague.

YMMV, of course.

Um, no. I doubt it. Hey, as long as we are sharing personal anecdotes, I have two kids who apparently regressed around the recommended vaccination age. One was fully vaccinated, the other not at all. Neither had Tylenol. >>>

Well, without knowing your medical history, including use of any medications during pregnancy and while nursing, it wouldn’t be fair to tell you what did or didn’t cause your children’s autism. FWIW, my younger child was never given acetaminophen either(at least not directly) until after he was showing signs of autism, and it was only one time, when he was 22 months, when he was ill with a fever that was causing him to become dehydrated. However, I used acetaminophen regularly during the last trimester of my pregnancy with him, and I also took Tylox (which contains acetaminophen) for post cesarean pain, which is why I am very interested in the studies wrt to acetaminophen and asthma, since he also had wheezing episodes as a baby and toddler, in addition to the autism, that he seems to have outgrown with age.

At any rate, I am not saying that autism is caused solely by acetaminophen, only that it could possibly be a major contributing factor. That would be like saying there is only one cause of cancer. Nothing is that simplistic, and there are certainly other factors, including genetics to factor in as well.

Jen asks:

“You are not addressing how frequent, smaller, and therapeutic doses in utero and in early childhood affect glutathione levels.”

Actually, Jen, I did address just that. Let me quote from my own comment:

“…acetaminophen depletes glutathione in the liver, the organ that metabolises it.”

“Since the brain – the organ generally thought to be affected in autism – doesn’t do this, acetaminophen cannot deplete brain glutathione.”

“…glutathione is made in the cells where it is used – circulating (blood) glutathione has “leaked” out of cells.”

Let me be more clear, though, since I apparently wasn’t able to convey my meaning:

[1] Glutathione is made by each cell in the body.

[2] Each cell makes its own glutathione – they do not (in fact, cannot, because of the concentration gradient) absorb glutathione from the blood or plasma.

[3] Circulating (blood or plasma) glutathione is glutathione that has “leaked” out of cells. It is at a much lower concentration in the blood/plasma than it is in the cells.

[4] Acetaminophen (paracetamol) can deplete liver cell glutathione because the liver uses glutathione in one of the pathways that metabolise acetaminophen.

[5] Other tissues in the body either don’t metabolise acetaminophen at all (e.g. neurons) or metabolise only a trivial amount of acetaminophen – this does not lead to depletion of their cellular glutathione.

[6] To reiterate – brain tissues do not metabolise acetaminophen to any appreciable degree, so acetaminophen cannot deplete their cellular glutathione. In fact, even overdoses of acetaminophen deplete the glutathione of only one organ – the liver.

There, that should be clear enough. If Jen comes back asking if small, therapeutic amounts of acetaminophen received in utero and in early childhood can deplete cellular glutathione and cause autism, we will know that she is incapable of assimilating new information.

I’m sorry if I seem arrogant or condescending, but the “acetaminophen causes autism by depleting glutathione and causing oxidative stress” hypothesis falls apart as soon as you know a bit about the physiology of glutathione and the metabolism of acetaminophen.

Prometheus

Am I the only one reading Jen’s refrain of tylenol and red ears and having deja vu about Cynthia Janak and her ‘gut feelings’?

Now, as I said earlier I am not a research scientist and I can only base my opinion on what I know but I found something of great importance that further proves the causative factor of the infusion of L-Histidine in this vaccine…

I am begging the FDA, CDC and Merck to please please look at my findings. I am not a research scientist but I was the one to have to put the pieces of this epidemic together for you. Check out the dates of the studies that I have referenced. This information was available pre-licensure of Gardasil. Find out who was asleep at the switch to let all these findings be ignored.

jen writes: However, I used acetaminophen regularly during the last trimester of my pregnancy with him

Mouse embryos apparently did not experience glutathione depletion in utero as a consequence of acetaminophen administered to the mother, http://toxsci.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/56/1/150 .

Jen, you are not only a moron, but also a dishonest one. First you write:

But unless someone compares rates of autism between those children who receive tylenol in conjunction with vaccines and those who don’t, we won’t know for certain. Oh, wait…someone did that already…(yes, I am aware of the limitations of this small study)

Now, having been pointed out that the study you mention is not just small and limited but actually biased and thus worthless, you have the audacity to say:

I’ve already read the critiques, and agree that there are problems with the study for the reasons you mentioned. I acknowledged this when I posted it.

It is useless wasting my time arguing with you. Are you sure you don’t have an autistic personality disorder yourself? That would explain a lot.

It is useless wasting my time arguing with you.

So don’t do it. Problem solved. 😉

So Jen is an anti-vax loon? How does this excuse the stupid name calling. Either you criticise what she writes – not hard or you don’t. The name calling remains stupid.

Wait, so Jen comes in as an anti-vaxer, but really it’s about paracetamol/acetaminophen/Tylenol??? Then WTF was the beef against vaccines? Can Jen just agree that vaccines should be delivered minus paracetamol/acetaminophen/Tylenol?

What’s it going to be, Jen. Do you concede that we should stick to vaccinating our kids as long as we don’t give them Tylenol (I don’t see a reason for it anyway — babies are a lot more tolerant of fevers than adults)?

Or are you going to shift your complaint with a new hypothesis-du-jour despite the best presentation of facts?

Frankly, I think it’s shameful that a health professional would ever denounce one of the most effective preventive health practices ever developed.

What’s it going to be, Jen. Do you concede that we should
stick to vaccinating our kids as long as we don’t give them Tylenol>>>

Yes!

(However, I still disagree with the one-size-fits-all approach to vaccination.)

Yes, of course. My thirteen years of experience as an LVN are completely irrelevant, and my first hand experience in raising two autistic boys and their improvements with biomedical treatments, as well as the thousands of other parents reporting the exact same results mean absolutely nothing. Gotcha.

Actually, Jen, your experience as an LVN and a mother *are* irrelevant. Do you not understand the basic principles of science? Anecdotal evidence is not admissible.

Jen asks:

My question is…if the liver is exerting a good deal of energy metabolizing frequent doses of acetaminophen, do glutathione levels in the liver immediately return to normal? If not, is it possible that it may have difficulty processing other things that need detoxifying?

To begin with, the liver doesn’t “exert a good deal of energy” to metabolise acetaminophen – especially if the does is within sight of the recommended dose. In fact, the “backup” metabolic pathway using glutathione isn’t used very much unless the dose is very high.

Glutathione reductase rapidly returns “used” glutathione to service and the production of glutathione is readily “ramped” up to meet demand. In fact, the current best (and very effective) treatment for acetaminophen overdosage is N-acetyl-cysteine, which gets the rate-limiting amino acid cysteine to high levels very rapidly, allowing the liver to return its glutathione levels to normal and prevent damage.

Repeated doses of acetaminophen induce the enzymes of the sulfation pathway, which is why people who take acetaminophen regularly can easily tolerate doses that would kill someone who rarely or never uses acetaminophen.

I seem to remember reading about sulfation deficits causing problems with phenol processing, and in my son’s case, I did notice that his ears would turn very red at times, and my “googling” (since his pediatrician didn’t seem to know what would be causing it)came across some reading wrt sulfation deficits being caused by acetaminophen.

The “ears turning red” question comes up a lot in autism discussion, but asking a group of mothers of children without autism, I found that it was a fairly common phenomenon. It happens to me occasionally, in relation to nothing that I can determine. The spurious association with “phenol-containing” foods has never been tested.

You also seem to have confused/conflated “sulfation deficits” with acetaminophen. Acetaminophen does not deplete the body’s sulfate level. A few researchers used acetaminophen as a test agent to determine – so they thought – the “sulfation capacity” of children, which is probably the source of your confusion.

The reason they did this is that acetaminophen is metabolised primarily by sulfation and only secondarily by glucuronidation. By administering a dose of acetaminophen and then testing the metabolic products in the urine, the researchers thought they could determine the “sulfation capacity” of the children.

There are several problems with their line of reasoning:

[1] The sulfation pathway is inducible – meaning that the more it is used, the greater its capacity becomes – so a child’s “sulfation capacity” depends more on their recent exposure to substances (foods and drugs) that use sulfation for their metabolism.

[2] The sulfation pathway – like most metabolic pathways – is saturatable – meaning that it has finite (but expandable, with time) capacity, so the acetaminophen dose would have to compete with other compounds queing up for sulfation. If something else – a food or drug – had a higher affinity for the sulfation pathway, a larger amount of the acetaminophen dose would go down the gluronidation pathway.

[3] The speed, capacity and affinity of the sulfation and glucouronidation pathways for acetaminophen show a fair amount of genetic variation. Just because one child’s ratio of sulfated vs glucuronidated acetaminophen is higher (or lower) than another’s tells us nothing about the state of their “sulfation capacity”.

The final problem with the “sulfation capacity” study was that the researchers were clearly trying to prove their hypothesis that autistic children have sulfation deficits. They got one piece of data that was consistent with their hypothesis (although, in truth it only failed to contradict their hypothesis – there is a difference) and then made a lot of claims not supported by the tiny bit of data they collected.

Prometheus

It has never been expanded or repeated.>>>

I know…personally, I’d like to see more study, but I will say (and yes, I’m well aware that my anecdotes don’t count for much) that I noticed certain food items (especially FD&C food colorings-they were his WORST triggers) seemed to trigger behavior problems in my son, and when the offending foods were removed, the behavior problems improved as well.

[2] The sulfation pathway – like most metabolic pathways – is saturatable – meaning that it has finite (but expandable, with time) capacity, so the acetaminophen dose would have to compete with other compounds queing up for sulfation. If something else – a food or drug – had a higher affinity for the sulfation pathway, a larger amount of the acetaminophen dose would go down the gluronidation pathway.

So would it be reasonable to assume that a child who, in addition to ingesting acetaminophen, and is also exposed to other items that use up sulfates over a period of time, would tend to have more problems than a child not exposed to these other items?

I appreciate the additional insights, BTW, sans the personal attacks. Thank you.

Jen asks:

So would it be reasonable to assume that a child who, in addition to ingesting acetaminophen, and is also exposed to other items that use up sulfates over a period of time, would tend to have more problems than a child not exposed to these other items?

No, it would not be reasonable to assume that.

You are assuming – as did the reasearchers who did the autism-sulfation study – that these children (or any children) are somehow running “close to the edge” of their ability to sulfate xenobiotic compounds. This is not true and has not been shown in any study.

There is also a lot of conflation between the sulfation of xenobiotics (like acetaminophen and food) and the sulfation of proteins, sugars and the like. Even finding that someone has a “defect” in their liver’s ability to sulfate acetaminophen does not mean that their ability to sulfate cellular products is impaired. Different enzymes are used.

Even when the enzyme name is the same, different enzyme isoforms are often used to do different things.

If you are truly concerned about your child’s ability to sulfate xenobiotics, you should stringently avoid feeding them anything but highly processed and purified sugars, lipids and amino acids. The worst offenders for causing problems with liver metabolism are “natural” compounds – aflatoxin (found in peanuts) being just one example.

Your concern about an occasional gram or so of acetaminophen is misplaced, especially if you are letting your child eat potatoes or green vegetables.

Prometheus

Prometheus:
Thanks again for the reasoned response. However, I feel I am left with more questions. I feel like I’m missing something, and I’m not really sure what, or how to elaborate on it. Perhaps it would be helpful to discuss what specifically about the article I linked to (and I realize it is very lengthy, and that you have a life outside of this blog!) in order to tease apart what you feel is “fantasy” and what about it is more in line with reality. If anyone else reading would care to jump in and help out, it would be much appreciated, as well. All I want are answers, and only truthful answers will do, even if that answer is: “I don’t know.”

I just want to know what happened to my kid.

Bill,

I hope you’re being genuine. If so, you encompass hope.

Jen,

There was so much wrong in the “article” you cited that it might be easier if I just show you where they went wrong in the first paragraph. Maybe that will give you an indication of how unreliable the rest of the information is.

Phenolsulfotransferases (there are at least eight in humans) do metabolise phenol-containing xenobiotics (compounds made by other organisms – or synthesised – that end up in the human circulation). They do not metabolise hormones – that is the domain of an entirely different family of sulfotransferases.

There are about 40+ known sulfotransferases in humans, but interestingly, sulfotransferases have no role in breaking down heme, hemoglobin, biliverdin or bilirubin (the last of which isn’t broken down but excreted intact). The author got that one completely wrong.

Phenol-preferring sulfotransferases (the preferred name) are found in a variety of cells, including platelets (which are not, strictly speaking, cells), which make them easy to study.

Although this doesn’t come up until the next paragraph, it’s important to realize that phenol-preferring sulfotransferases also don’t use circulating sulfate, so increasing the amount of sulfate won’t “fix” a damaged or defective “phenolsulfotransferase”. These enzymes use 3′ phosphoadenyl sulfate as a sulfate donor (that’s why they’re called sulfotransferases).

The paragraph then segues into a discussion of Clostridia, although they seem to confuse C. tetani – which causes tetanus – with C. difficile, which can cause enterocolitis. In either case, the toxins produced by Clostridia are proteins, not “phenols”. Big difference, that.

And sulfotransferases are not involved in metabolising any of the Clostridia toxins – not tetanospasmin, not C. difficile toxin A or B and not botulinum toxin (“botox”).

I suppose this is nit-picking, but describing the action of tetanospasmin (the toxin made by C. tetani) as “reducing the production of GABA” when it actually reduces the release of GABA (and glycine), is yet another sign of the overall inaccuracy of the “article”. At any rate, confusing “tetanus” (which doesn’t cause enterocolitis) with C. difficile, (which doesn’t affect GABA or glycin release) is a major error.

In short, I found almost everything the author said in that first paragraph to be wrong. And the first paragraph isn’t unique in its degree of inaccuracy.

I could go on, but I’ve reached the end of the first paragraph. As you can see, to describe what is wrong in this “article” would take more time (and space) than it took for this person to write it in the first place.

It would probably be best to just ignore everything in this article, because the chaff outnumbers the wheat ten to one (or more).

Prometheus

Jen posted: I would LOVE to be proven wrong, so I can quit beating myself up for giving Tylenol to my kids and taking it for frequent headaches and back pain during my pregnancies. And I wouldn’t be pushing this so hard if I didn’t witness severe behavioral regressions in my older son after ingesting acetaminophen, an association that I am only recently realizing.

Wouldn’t acetaminophen only be given when there is some evidence of pain or fever, or I suppose in some cases before a vaccination? Isn’t it likely that this pain or fever itself is what caused a behavioural regression rather than the medication? My son is not autistic and I know this is only anecdotal, but he frequently has behavioural issues when he is in pain or ill and I have heard the same from every other parent I know.

Jen also posted: So, as you might imagine, I am quite alarmed by all of this, and am desperate and VERY determined to get to the bottom of it.

I would be alarmed as a parent as well, and likely looking at everything that might even potentially help my child. I just don’t understand why you believe there is something “at the bottom of this” other than genetics.

The thing is, Jan, you can read any article about any hypothesis, and after you incorporate interventions suggested, you’re bound to note improvements in behavior. Have you read about placebo effects in autism, e.g. Sandler (2005) ?

Yes, I’ve read about secretin and the placebo effect. And from what I’ve continued to read on the subject, while not every child improved with secretin, it has been shown to help those children with chronic diarrhea. Even the study’s authors admit that there were some limitations:

“Drs. Bodfish and Sandler noted, however, that the study had several limitations. Because the study was only four weeks’ duration, it could not detect any improvements that might have occurred over a longer period of time. Also, study participants received only one injection of secretin, and it is possible that more than one injection would be required before any effects were noticeable.”

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/secretin1299.cfm

This is part of what makes treating autism so very complicated. What may work beautifully for one child, might do absolutely nothing for another. There is such a wide spectrum of symptoms and sensitivities.

At any rate, I’d tend to agree with you wrt placebo effect if it were ONLY behavioral improvements that I noticed. You have to understand that these were not your ordinary, garden-variety temper tantrums. I’m talking about a kid that would physically attack police officers twice his size, would pick up heavy kitchen chairs and smash them to bits, then beat his head with the remaining pieces. He has left quite a trail of destruction in my house that will be costly to repair, including a huge crack in my new granite countertops! >:( Sometimes, he would go without sleep for days on end, and I think that it was actually this lack of sleep that may have triggered the seizure. The red ears also went away, as well as the very dilated pupils and profuse sweating. There was one time that he worked himself up so much that he jumped fully clothed in the middle of the night into the swimming pool!

We started noticing a pattern during his admissions to the state hospital, that his behaviors would improve, even without any medical interventions. It turns out that while he was at the hospital, he didn’t care much for their food, and refused to eat. But, when he returned home, and food consumption resumed, the behaviors would slowly start to return.

People who know my son IRL continually ask me what medication I have him on now, because he is just so calm and laid back now. He is on no medication, other than the dietary supplements prescribed by Thoughtful House.

Wouldn’t acetaminophen only be given when there is some evidence of pain or fever, or I suppose in some cases before a vaccination? Isn’t it likely that this pain or fever itself is what caused a behavioural regression rather than the medication? >>>

Initially, that’s what I thought too. This all started when we began working with a behavioral analyst that gave him skittles as a reinforcer. Ordinarily, I don’t let him have very much of that sort of thing, but I made an exception, because she made it clear that we needed to let him have some sort of incentive to make him do what we wanted. However, over a period of several days, I started noticing the behaviors returning, and since the skittles were the only thing new, I started reading up on FD&C food colorings and behavior. I wasn’t entirely convinced of a link yet, so just to be sure there wasn’t something else bothering him, I took him to his pediatrician to look him over. She couldn’t find anything obviously wrong with him, other than his throat looking a little red, but seemed to agree that this sudden onset of behaviors was unusual, so she gave me a prescription for Tylenol #3 and suggested giving it to him for a day or two to see if pain was really the problem. This didn’t really do much, so it was discontinued, and I continued to read up on the dyes, and I came across the Southampton study, and discovered that these are actually banned in parts of Europe now because of concerns wrt hyperactivity and behavior problems. So I removed all FD&C dyes, and to play it safe, sodium benzoate as well, and we actually had a few weeks of really good behavior, so I thought the problem was solved. I continued to read more, and discovered the Feingold diet, and decided to give it a try. Later on, when he started having issues again, and since aspirin and ibuprofen are not allowed, Tylenol was my only option for treating pain. At first, it seemed to help a little, but then I started suspecting that it might be aggravating his problems, and that’s when I discovered the above link. Things just made sense, and while there is quite a bit that I still don’t understand, it was enormously helpful.

Jen comments:

“Well, I’m not certain that it’s really fair to dismiss EVERYTHING in the article, especially since I was able to incorporate a few of the interventions suggested, and did notice improvements in behavior.”

Funny thing, I’ve heard the same thing from parents who used everything from vitamin B12 to HBOT. They try a number of “treatments” and – voila! – their child is better.

Even funnier – I saw exactly the same thing myself, when we tried a number of “remedies” to treat our son. Eventually, I noticed that “treatments” that had produced improvement in the past either stopped working or caused behaviors to worsen.

After a few years chasing our tails, we realised that we were superimposing our “therapies” on a remitting-relapsing behavior pattern (“two steps forward; one step back”) and that our “treatments” had nothing to do with the improvements or the “regressions” (except, of course, the more aversive “treatments” probably did produce some behavioral worsening).

Believe what you like, Jen, but remember our exchanges in the coming years when you start to wonder if anything is “working”. With luck, you’ll make this discovery before you end up in bankruptcy or, worse, end up hurting your child while attempting to help them.

The article you linked to is about 90% untruths, confused and conflated “facts” and unsupported speculation. The part that is correct is only trivial facts, like the existence of phenolsulfotransferases and their action on phenol-containing compounds, as related in the first paragraph.

It is not surprising that you should find some of the recommended “remedies” to be “effective”. If you get the chance, find an excerpt of a 17th century medical text and see what people thought was “effective” back then.

Bleeding, purging, blistering and mercury were all once thought to be “effective” based on clinical observations. It wasn’t until we actually started testing the treatments (scientifically, you know) that we discovered how easily it is to fool ourselves into believing that something “works” when it doesn’t.

The multi-centre secretin study, sponsored by Repligen (maker of recombinant secretin) showed that it was no better than an injection of saline. This study was never published – you might want to ask Repligen why – but the results were released by Repligen several years ago. Still, a number of parents and practitioners swear that it works.

“It might be more realistic for someone in my position (scientific illiterate that I am) to just read it, but take it with a grain of salt. A bit of skepticism is a healthy thing, and that’s true with most everything in life.”

I would suggest that you take this “article” you linked to with a train-load of salt. Skepticism is a good thing and never so much as when we find ourselves in agreement with someone. While we humans are very adept at coming up with reasons to not believe something we already don’t believe in, we are very bad at finding the flaws in things that seem to support our preconceived ideas.

I’ve pointed out the flaws in just one paragraph of that “article” – I could do the same for each paragraph. Yet, since it seems to resonate with your beliefs on the matter, you have come up with a reason to keep believing what it contains – you’ll just add a grain of salt and convince yourself that it is still mostly valid, even if 90% of the statements of fact are demonstrably incorrect.

Prometheus

Jen, it is great that you’ve found somehong that helps your son but I still don’t see why you are so certain that it is a single cause for both the autism and the digestive issues. Neither food issues not autism is so rare that they wouldn’t be expected to occur in the same person from time to time

Not only are neither terribly rare, (hello, household with lactose intolerance, mild reactions to hot dogs & capcacin, and rather colorful reaction to certain vegetables), but in some cases, both are the “go to” diagnoses. For example, my son is, for want of a better phrase, an “ADD Poster Child”. This is not surprising, I’m just as bad, if not worse. He’s also an only child, far more comfortable around adults than kids his own age, and up until really high school, very uncomfortable around kids his own age, in large groups.

I had several go-rounds with school counselors who wanted me to agree that he had Asperger’s. They meant well, but were looking for a way to buttonhole him, so their ‘standard’ programs could fit him better.

I refused as a) the psych he’d been seeing disagreed, and of the two, I know who was more qualified, and b) the behaviors they described only happened at school.

I think a large part of it was that they didn’t want him to feel bad, or maybe fail a class, but my response was, “He’s going to feel bad for a ton of other reasons in his life, and if he fails, then he deals with the outcome, and learns how to avoid it in the future. Life involves failure, and this is a far better time to experience it than in his 30s.”

It was all polite, but in the end, since I wouldn’t sign the papers, there wasn’t much they were going to do, and, no surprise, as he’s gotten older, we’ve worked together to find ways to deal with his ADD in ways that don’t require maintenance meds, etc. Slower going, but more effective in the longer term. (Much better than my unconcious way of dealing with it, in the bad old days before anyone really knew about it: Massive doses of caffiene. The few times I’ve seen a psych about it, they said, “Well, not as effective as other meds, but you wouldn’t be the first person with ADD to be a caffiene addict as a way of self-treating. Just watch your water intake.”

So there are a lot of people using Autism/food allergies as some magical “see, it’s not that he’s being a butt, he’s GOT A CONDITION” so that they can get put in the right box.

Doesn’t mean it’s true.

Just like there’s no magic bullet, which is what your quest is all about.

You’re looking for one “magic bullet” that will account for the dietary issues, the autism, the behavioral issues, and there’s probably not going to be one. In fact, your own actions show theire isn’t one. Your kid was in a lot of pain and discomfort from diet, acting out a lot over it, and when you changed his diet to alleviate that, he calmed down.

You didn’t “fix” his autism in the least with that dietary change, it’s that he’s no longer in pain. Funny how the cessation of pain can calm you right down. You’ve also discovered, the hard way, that there are certain food dyes that he needs to stay away from.

I hate to tell you this, but there’s nothing special there. Millions of people figure this out the same way: the hard way. You saw a reaction to the skittles, and intelligently, stopped letting him eat them. Surprise, that’s not some great miracle, that’s “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.” “So don’t do that.” “Hey, it stopped hurting”. You’re not a special snowflake here, nor is your kid. He just found another thing he can’t eat. That’s all.

Chances are, your kid may always have a highly restricted diet. I’ve not been able to eat 4 very popular veggies, one of which I actually like, for almost 35 years, since I first discovered I can’t eat them. On the other hand, at a very young age, orange juice gave me hives. By the time I was 6-7, it didn’t.

However, there’s no magic bullet that will let you say “THIS! THIS is what caused every.single.problem my child has.” Well, unless you want to count “genetics” as a magic bullet. But your insistence that it’s…vaccines/vaccines with tylenol/tylenol without vaccines/etc/etc/yadda show that you’re probably never going to accept the role of genetics here, even though, as we learn more about things like Autism, genetics seems to be the only cause that isn’t getting disproven.

But hey, it’s your windmill to tilt at. Just don’t be surprised when it doesn’t turn into a dragon.

While we humans are very adept at coming up with reasons to not believe something we already don’t believe in, we are very bad at finding the flaws in things that seem to support our preconceived ideas.>>>

Ah, yes. I came to that realization many years ago when I started questioning the whole religion thing. (Unrelated to the topic at hand, but similar parallels.) I’ll remember to keep that thought in mind as I continue this journey with my son.

K.R.,

Your adrenals produce cortisol (cortisone) – about 100 mg per day in good times, more when you’re under stress (like pain, for instance). The amount that was injected was most likely less than a day’s production without the added stress of pain and pregnancy.

In addition, most steroids injected for local inflammation are formulated for slow release, so the effect would have been spread out over several days.

Additionally, there are people who are on chronic steroid medication for a variety of disorders – there has been nothing reported about an increase in autism among these people.

Steroids can accelerate lung maturation in later fetal development, which is thought to be an adaptive response to maternal stress and the possibility of a premature birth. Apart from that, I’m not aware of any effects it has on fetal development.

Prometheus

Prometheus,

Thanks for the feedback!

Kel

Yes, many of us do.

And we are so very angry that Wakefield’s fraudulent paper has diverted funds and attention to the real needs of our children.

This debate has become a farce.
The issue is simple. Those of us parents that have taken the time and trouble to ascertaine the ingredients and processes used to compile these vaccines can only be lft in a state of complete disbelief.
Of my children (those that have not resided with me, but with their mother (a nurse)) have received multiple vaccines and I can see a difference.
If you know that a given chemical is a biocide, whether it be a preservative, an emulsifier or the tissues of chicken embryos, to suggest that you inject it into any one least of all an infant, is absurd.
If my child falls and cuts themselves, my first reaction is to clean the wound. But because these people in white coats come along with a language comprising of medispeak and tell you that no harm will come to your child, you are left either having to trust them, or trust in nature and provide them with the best possible diet, free of all corruptions as possible.
The medical institutions seem to be insanely driven to promulgate more and more of these nasty cocktails, why?
All culpability is denied and the producers of these poisonous mixtures protected from law. Why?
It is time, that this madness stopped. Unless of course you believe that humanity has become too numerous and culling is required (Johnathan Porrit and Sir David Attenborough).
All those of you who advocate this insanity, should before pushing this onto others, take all of the injections given to infants adjusted for your body weights. If you really believe these things to be harmless, you have no risk.
So here you are, I call you out, right now. Come forward into the light and place your names so that you can become our guinea pigs. You should be fine with this since as you keep telling us, these injections are harmless.

David:

Of my children (those that have not resided with me, but with their mother (a nurse)) have received multiple vaccines and I can see a difference.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

he continues:

If you know that a given chemical is a biocide, whether it be a preservative, an emulsifier or the tissues of chicken embryos, to suggest that you inject it into any one least of all an infant, is absurd.

Just tell us exactly what preservative is used in the MMR. It comes as a powder that is mixed with sterile water and must be used within eight hours (and both the powder and mixture must be kept under certain conditions!).

Also, tell us what issue you have with chicken eggs. I plan to have an omelet tomorrow for lunch, should I be worried?

By the way, the MMR is only given after a child is over a year old, by then they are no longer infants.

Also, do you know of any research that replicates what was in Wakefield’s now retracted paper? This one failed to replicate his tiny study:
Lack of association between measles virus vaccine and autism with enteropathy: a case-control study.

Unfortunetly for leena above, the ‘crackpot’ had his opinions validated and (indirectly) substantiated by the relevant institutional authourity.

Implied accusations of corruption and fraud may sound all well and good, but the rest of us would like to stick with the reality of what has actually occured, and not resurrect ten month old threads just to spill a load of cookie-cutter dross.

Hmmm, this is interesting. Leena uses the word “jab” and did not put a period after “Dr”. This must mean that she is in the UK. Wakefield has been in the USA running his clinic for the past several years (note, he is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas).

I sincerely doubt that Leena has traveled all the way to Texas.

I have no idea who J. Tommey is, though there is a Polly Tommey.

zOMG! Became autistic two months after the MMR vaccine? Holy smoke, stop the presses.

But wait, did your child do anything else in those two months? Go to a soccer game, maybe? Or eat at McDo’s?

zOMG! Soccer causes autism! And so do Big Macs!

I suspect Leena is indeed in the UK, where healthcare professional is a term that is now being expanded to mean “anyone who has ever opened a packet of bandaids.”

Yeesh.

As has been pointed out repeatedly in the past, Leena, autism is classified as a “developmental delay.” Not arrest. Not reversal. Delay. Meaning, handwaving and blame or none, a child with autism who continues to be nurtured will continue to develop socially, albeit at an altered rate and perhaps with an altered endpoint. There are many people who are denizens of scienceblogs who are on the spectrum, and who will tell you in no uncertain terms that they live full lives, and are not the damaged souls portrayed by your antivaccine quack movement.

Please continue to love and nurture your kiddo, and leave the blame bullshit behind. Good luck.

“As has been pointed out repeatedly in the past, Leena, autism is classified as a “developmental delay.” Not arrest. Not reversal. Delay. Meaning, handwaving and blame or none, a child with autism who continues to be nurtured will continue to develop socially, albeit at an altered rate and perhaps with an altered endpoint. There are many people who are denizens of scienceblogs who are on the spectrum, and who will tell you in no uncertain terms that they live full lives, and are not the damaged souls portrayed by your antivaccine quack movement.”

As an autistic adult, I will validate this words. I’m currently 24, and while in between jobs and houses at the moment, am able to develop socially.

And oh, wait, what’s this? I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 17.

WOW!!! and that’s without the benefit of all the nifty programs and specialized schooling that’s available nowadays.

Does this mean that every autistic doesn’t need aid and support? absolutely not. It just means I’ve clawed my way through life so far, and had a heck of a time with it, but am managing fairly intact. But that’s just me. I’m not everyone, and definitely not every autistic.

But there’s plenty of us out there who WILL agree that being autistic does not mean living in a static state of non-development. It means living in a delayed and somewhat off the beaten track development.

(and for the record, it’s been three months since my H1N1 vaccine. I’m in Canada, so that means the whole “toxin” version, and two months since my seasonal flu vaccine. And a couple of months since my last tetanus shot. oooooh…. still not more autistic)

To be blunt, that’s the point. It isn’t yours,it’s vulnerable children. One of the Lancet children subjected to this ended up dangerously ill with a colon perforated in multiple places.
Pearl C, Ware get your facts right. He was NOT one of the Lancet children.

If Jack Piper, the autistic child with the bowel perforated by a colonoscopy, was not one of the Lancet children, it really is a remarkable coincidence and it’s no wonder there would be confusion. The colonoscopy was ordered by Wakefield’s collaborator Simon Murch; according to Piper’s parents the intent was to establish a connection between his autism and bowel problems, the same connection the Lancet paper tried to draw; it took place at the Royal Free Hospital, exactly where all the Lancet children were seen.

I can’t at the moment get information precise enough to determine whether Piper’s surgery took place before or after the publication of the Lancet paper, but it’s obvious that room for confusion is rife and a curt dismissal like “Get your facts right” is unjustified.

In the wall of text word salad I managed to pick this out:

Immunuzation is not the proper way forward to safe guard the collective ‘herd immunuty’,but better education around the issues that govern true health. Health (like Autism) is a spectrum, and some people are naturally weaker, through genetics, but also through poor diet, sanitation, and also environmental influences

Um, huh. And you have actual evidence that immunization does not contribute to her immunity? Because that pretty much goes against all epidemiology science and statistics.

Antaeus Feldspar:

And here’s where you sacrifice any credibility you were granted by referring in capital letters to an entity

How much credibility do you give to anyone who decided paragraphs are optional, argues through blatant assertion and who employs random capitalization?

In responce to a remark by Chris,
…’how much credibility do you give to anyone who decided paragraphs are optional, argues through blatent assertion and who employs random capitalization?’

I would just like to say, it was not my intention to annoy, but I feel strongly that every society has notions of what one should believe and how one should behave. Some of these societal conventions are given explicit formulation in a legal code, others are more intuitively held in a vast body of ethical and practical judgements described as ‘common sense’. Anyone with a curious and well-ordered mind, and who can exercise free thinking, this my friend is what’s important.
My own personal ideas and beliefs were hard earned. I may not pocess in your mind, the right quality of writing to express them appropriately, but the essence of my paragraph, no matter how articulately they are presented, remain the same.
After all, the correctness of a statement cannot be determined by whether it is held by a majority or has been believed for a long time by important people. A correct statement is one incapable of being rationally contradicted.

And in responce to a question raised by Antaeus Fieldspar “What on earth does ‘low lying’ mean?”
What was meant by this remark is my son is naturally immune compromised, and thus he does not pocesss the ability to heal or rid the body fully of an active infection, so it becomes persistent.
It is how ever, my intention to put forward another way of thinking in relation to the practice of immunization. Maybe, there is a safer way, as taking a “one-size fits all” approach, can and does lead to secondary disability and sometimes death in an infant who is in some way contraindicated prior to administration.This is not my own assertion,this is a well known medical fact.
Regards.

10 Years of intensive Research.

This is a quote directly from the General Medical Council’s (UK) findings on the Lancet study on January 28th, 2010: “The panel wish to make it clear that this case is not concerned with whether there is a link between the MMR Vaccination and Autism.”

This is directly to Orac: Your article is not only the most ridiculous piece of journalistic trash I’ve ever read but its also factually incorrect! whats sad is that all of you are talking about how the parents that support Dr. Wakefield are in a cult but most of you made comments on this article that had no original thought other than what was written in Orac’s article, if you can call it that. The GMC (UK) made no findings on the MMR vs. Autism link. Read the decision on the GMC next time your going to publically write an article about something it usually goes along with something called “Journalist Integrity.” Look it up.

On a personal note, I have a son with Autism who had a seizure 5 minutes after the MMR vaccine was adminstered with NO prior history of seizures. He was diagnosed with Autism 3 weeks later. He lost his speech, seized constantly, stopped looking us in the eye, stopped smiling. When I took him to the Dr. they said I’m sorry but he was born like this, interesting because I have video that proves he wasn’t. Doctors like Dr. Wakefield who founded Thoughtful House created a place where these parents can go to get help. My son now talks, laughs, looks us in the eye again after alternative treatments and goes to school with kids his age without even as much as an aid. I could care less of what you think of us as parents but we are fighting to see our kids get better and for those of us who have won we will never stop supporting the doctors who stopped at nothing to help us.

Gag, barf do whatever you must but while your doing that I’ll watch my son sleep at night knowing that Dr. Wakefield and Doctors just like him helped bring my child back to me. Sad that all you believe is what you read because the stories behind this man would bring you to your knees. I’m sure someone will write something in response to this that finds some way to discredit him for his work and the lancet study but do you even know who he was working for at the time he came out with that study? What happened afterwards? Do some research more than looking at blogs and you may find that you may be the ones in part of the kind of blind faith cult that you see us in…..best of luck because honestly you people are the ones who need it, we’re all good.

Well, I am glad to see there are still some thinking people around!
I decided to check out Andrew Wakefield for myself and I am pleased to find there are people on this site that will stand up to the insanity presented by the great gifted intellectuals! How sad when one becomes so educated they are blinded by their own light.

What I was looking for was a study done between a group of children where there was no autism and a group where there was autism and the ratio of vaccines given to said groups.
There has never been a formal study done, the door is open here.
But there is a group of children where there is no autism reported or recorded. This is a group of Amish children. Now for the death blow, there have been NO VACCINES GIVEN TO THESE CHILDREN. That would be the final word in my study.
I am looking forward to the ‘intellects’ explaining this.

Dr. Wakefield is NOT the first Dr. that has been vilified for voicing a connection between autism and vaccines. This will all die down and Dr. Wakefield will fade into the background and the next Dr. will be on the front line. Meanwhile the producers of the vaccines will make a few billion more and we will see 1 in 50 children afflicted with autism.
Perhaps when 1 out of 2 children have autism the medical/scientific profession will take note. But then again that would be dependent on how much money would be involved.

Still waiting for that study.

Having just spent some time reading the posts attached to this blog on autism and Dr. Wakefield I would like to tell the author of the article , if it could be called such, that he has done a damning and despicable disservice to the now millions of children in absolute agony due to their symproms of an illness that they were not born with, and on whom governments,the medical establishment, the media and special interest groups have turned their backs.
Oh! Wait, not exactly ! The special interest groups
( read : pharmaceutical companies) have found a way to profit even from this travesty by prescribing more and more drugs to alleviate the symptoms in these children.( which do not work .) Please be aware that attention deficit and related ” labels” are part of the autism spectrum and as such, these children support a multi billion dollar additional drug platform through such drugs as Ritalin etc.

Scientific Integrity demands following the principles of ethical research, taking a hypothosis through to its own natural conclussion and NOT trying to make the science fit the need or preconceived idea/ notion !

Contrary to what the media has said, Dr. Wakefield questioned a causal link between autism and the combination vaccine of Measles, Mumps and Rubella, noting that a new measles strain had been used in the combo jab.

And, the study HAS been duplicated, ad nauseum, in the US, Japan and Australia in the years since Dr. Wakefields first paper hit the headlines.

Further,many papers have been published that seek to understand the chronic inflammation of the gut associated with many autistic children.Papers have been published that look at the gut issues of ADHD children too, lest you think otherwise. And the evidence supports this as a relevant area of study, a relevant area of answer seeking.

Rather than attack one man, governments and medical establishments would be better off finding ANSWERS to the question of autism. In fact, each and every person who pays taxes should be demanding that the FDA fund those critical studies, now ! Most especially in light of the fact that the FDA is seeking more and more funding ( read: OUR tax dollars) in order to finance “research” and
” development” in “critical areas” on behalf of drug companies, which are global entities and the biggest sector of commerce. They DO NOT need the additional support from a government entity, OR our tax dollars. Unless they intend to gift all tax payers with the resulting medications free of charge to both us and our insurance providers ( read: of course this is a joke ! ) The ignorance and bias on this ENTIRE blog site is indicative of the sick culture that we have become. Know this then, autism issues are no different to those of cancer, diabetes, HIV Aids and auto immue illness…and as such they ALL deserve our investment in Scientific Integrity and transparancy from the Department of Health and Human Services. Drug companies are merely interested in profit, not solutions. There is NO MONEY in a cure, you ignorant bunch of fellow people.

Autistic children deserve our compassion and attention and their families NEED our help. But for the grace of god, there stands each and every one of YOU.

If we are able to turn our backs on our wounded soldiers and our damaged children, what does that say of us, and what have we become? Shamed, you have all been shamed.

Ignorance is no excuse.

Should you have something intelligent to say, you may contact me at:
[email protected]

First question, Ms. Snyder, why did you choose to grace us with your unsupported opinions on an article that is almost two years old? There are more recent articles on Wakefield, autism and vaccines. By the way, you are welcome to defend your position on those articles, we are not interested in private email debates. It is much more interesting when the discussion is public.

Now let us go through some of those unsupported opinions:

Dr. Wakefield questioned a causal link between autism and the combination vaccine of Measles, Mumps and Rubella, noting that a new measles strain had been used in the combo jab.

Please show us the evidence for that. Plus be specific on which MMR vaccine he was discussing. Was the one approved for use in the UK before or after 1992 (the difference between them was the mumps strain)?

And, the study HAS been duplicated, ad nauseum, in the US, Japan and Australia in the years since Dr. Wakefields first paper hit the headlines.

Please list those papers, noting in particular if they are independent (Wakefield, Krigsman and their collaborators are not authors), how many children (there should be at least twelve), and which MMR vaccine they received (it should be either of the two used in the UK between 1988 and 1998, which means that the Japanese study is not suitable).

I shall not deal with any more of your rant. If you had truly read this blog with coming up with this opinion “The ignorance and bias on this ENTIRE blog site is indicative of the sick culture that we have become.”, you would have commented on an active thread. Like the one on Bill Gates and the posted today.

Scientific Integrity demands following the principles of ethical research, taking a hypothosis through to its own natural conclussion and NOT trying to make the science fit the need or preconceived idea/ notion !

If you really believed that, why on Earth would you support Andrew Wakefield? Trying to make the science fit the need AND the preconceived notion is EXACTLY what he was doing. If you don’t believe that, then ask yourself, “Which came first? Andrew Wakefield seeing the twelve children upon which he based the Lancet paper? Or Andrew Wakefield deciding that he was going to try and depict MMR as a cause of autism?” Remember, Wakefield and Barr went to the UK’s Legal Aid Board specifically requesting funds with which to try and prove an MMR-causes-autism hypothesis before Wakefield examined a single one of the twelve children upon whose cases his hypothesis was supposedly based!

Not until I get “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” out of my head.

“Dinah, won’t you blow your horn?”

Remember, Wakefield and Barr went to the UK’s Legal Aid Board specifically requesting funds with which to try and prove an MMR-causes-autism hypothesis before Wakefield examined a single one of the twelve children upon whose cases his hypothesis was supposedly based!

Ooooh, interesting! Do you have a cite?

When people ( like you) use ONLY the information spoonfed to you by the journalists and medical journals something is sure to get lost in translation.
You ask why I posted on an old thread, well, I posted because I was replying to ignorance and malice. Those are the types of things that somehow never seem to grow old and fade away. It was sad, sad to see such animosity on a blog and postings…have any of you seen an autistic child? Tried to comfort one? Hold one? Tried to look into the eyes of a non verbal, rocking in agony child who is clearly in pain. Have you tried to imagine the life of a mother as she deals 24/7 with a child of autism, locked away in their own private horror show of fear and anger and pain with no end?
Didn’t think so.
I will refrain from answering each of the specifics of the immature commentaries posted subsequent to mine not because I am unable, merely because they are regurgitative of the spoonfeeding of pharmaceutical supported word junkies masquerading as ” journalists”….may I suggest that you take time off from blogging ” opinion” and do a little self serving independant journalism of your own!

In particular look at the studies of inflammatory gut in comparatives: ” normal” children versus autistic children.

Further, I am neither ” for” nor ” against” Dr. Wakefield, rather I am intrigued at how the frenzy has frothed around the individual, while relegating the study to “irrelevance”, as opposed to attacking the Science.

And it is hardly irrelevant now is it? There are far too many autistic children, many suffering horribly on a daily basis, for anything related, for better or worse, to be deemed ” irrelevant”.
As for the mention of funding: no science, no experiment, no diagnosis and no treatment is free of cost.
Funding is the cornerstone of science, and medicine.
R and R is what Big Medicine rolls out as an excuse to charge the public astronomical prices for mediocre medicines, repackaged and revamped to restart the patent clock, while at the same time costing more on the consumer end, and less on the pharma end ( how many times can they R and R a color additive for eg? to restart the patent clock!)

The papers which I mentioned earlier, as being subsequent to the Lancet Paper by Wakefield are indeed peer reviewed and NOT in any way affiliated with the original UK team.
In fact one was published in 2010….

And, just as some sub groups of Jews are predisposed to certain cancers, other ethnic and genetic groups are predisposed to certain illness. Black people IN Sub Saharan Africa are predisposed towards TB. The question is merely: WITHIN that subset, what are the factors of emergence, or cause, and WHY are some, in some way ” protected” ?

Dr. Wakefield is ONE man….his was ONE study…..many years have passed ( sadly) there have been many others and yet autism is on the rise….denialists say otherwise, the numbers prove my point.

Vaccines are NOT being handled cautiously enough from lab to consumer, Gardasil is another example…..it has been turned down in India after too many adverse reactions, while in the states it has been recently approved for boys too ! The study was conducted on 15 year olds and up, yet the FDA approved it for children as young as 9…..are they insane? Medications handed out like candy to children with ADHD carry this on their packaging info, ” the exact nature of the treatment mechanism is unknown”….. and the studies are all for short term periods of no more than 5 weeks….yet many many of these children have been on those meds for years, some started as young as 3 years old….

My point is merely that medicine has run amok, at the expense of our health, we are the most vaccinated country on the planet, and yet we are also the sickest country and spend the most per person on healthcare, while ” outcome” is no better and in fact is dropping sharply…I cite World Health Org on this by the way.

And in the meantime you write drivel about misreported and bastardized personal attacks, making light of what is a truly horrific issue, autistic children and what their families endure. Governments, media and Medicine has turned their backs on these families and YOU sensationalize it with verbal rubbernecking.

There, this Dinah has blown her horn, I will not return to this ethically and morally flawed site, and you can read more from me in my upcoming book:
FDA; CrimesAgainstHumanity:
Is FDA the Rogue Militia for Big Medicine
and why it matters……

Cure? don’t make me laugh….why would they want a cure…for anything…

yes indeed, go back to singing on your railroad…to nowhere.
Dinah Everett Snyder.

Other “wisdom” from Dinah in the comments of this post:

It is past time that the truth be revealed and I challenge the mainstream media to pick up their pens and start accurately reporting the truth to consumers about the chronic dangers associated with vaccines. For too long the media and FDA has been complicit in the coverup, allowing Big Medicine to reap tainted rewards from a fraudulent practise: that of vaccinating our vulnerable population groups: the young, the elderly and pregnant women. This is a crime against humanity and, Mr. Holden sir, you should be morally and legally obligated to try the pharmaceutical industry in a courtroom for this malpractise towards the population. Later this year a book will be published: FDA; CrimesAgainstHumanity…..and vaccines top the list for the sheer number of humanitarian violations, and don’t forget Guardasil which is an abomination and now being offered to our young boys, as if putting our daughters in harms way were not enough for these criminals. Convict each and every one. Time to clean house!

Dinah’s a new antivax wingnut. I don’t recall having come across her before.