Time and time again, anti-vaccine activists respond to charges of being “anti-vaccine” with a self-righteous wounded whine that goes something like this: “We aren’t ‘anti-vaccine.’ We’re pro-safe vaccine.” Alternative claims are that they are “vaccine safety watchdogs” and that they’d vaccinate if only the government would “green our vaccines” or “space them out” or that they think the government isn’t listening to them or whatever. Of course, all of these are smokescreens for their true agenda, which, at least among the activists, is anti-vaccine to the core.
In fact, so engrained are anti-vaccine attitudes in the movement that claims that vaccines cause autism against all scientific evidence that strongly argues otherwise, that its members frequently make inadvertent slips when writing that reveal their attitude. Examples include J.B. Handley crowing about “bringing the U.S. vaccine program to its knees” and Julie Obradovic advocating in essence destroying the vaccine program in order to save it.
Here is yet another in the annals of such quotes. This time it comes from Anne Dachel “Media Director” at the anti-vaccine crank blog, who is gushing over Dr. Mayer Eisenstein’s new book on vaccines. (Oh, goody.) In her post, Dachel writes:
And as someone who’s been active in the national autism community for a long time, I’ve seen tremendous changes. More and more people are speaking out. We are now an organized and united group, thanks mainly to the power of the Internet. Our message has severely eroded confidence in the cornerstone of health care: THE CHILDHOOD VACCINE PROGRAM.
She says that as though it’s a good thing, as though she’s proud of it, just as J.B. Handley was clearly proud of “bringing the U.S. vaccine program to its knees.” Fortunately, this is hyperbole, but unfortunately “eroding confidence in” and “bringing to its knees” the U.S. vaccine program are clearly what Dachel and Handley freely admit to be their goal. If it wasn’t, why be so proud?
That’s because she, like J.B. Handley, is anti-vaccine, all the denials notwithstanding.
If I’m in the mood, maybe I’ll address the canard of the VAERS reports. Or not, given how many times I’ve pointed out before that VAERS reports are unverified, self-reported “complications” of vaccines and how easily it is distorted by litigation and the anti-vaccine movement.
187 replies on “Yet another one in the annals of inadvertently revealing anti-vaccine views”
I don’t even have the energy to go through all the selective VAERS citations, but it seems to be the usual song and dance.
AoA: “#298905: A 6-month-old boy received a flu shot and collapsed while eating breakfast the next day. He was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead.”
VAERS: “Patient collapsed while eating breakfast at home. He was taken to the ER and pronounced dead. 12/18/07 Reviewed hospital ER records which reveal patient in usual state of health on 11/27 when coughed & then collapsed at home. Was unresponsive in ER & resuscitation unsuccessful. ER COD stated as sudden cardiac death. 1/21/08 Reviewed autopsy report which states COD as complication from congenital cardiac disease (probable arrhythmia.”
Simple.
@Otto: but, but, but you don’t understand!!!! The EEEEEEVVVVVIIIILLL vaccines caused the congenital cardiac disease!!! The baby was totally healthy and developing normally until then! /end AOA mind
Ooowwwww. I think I gave myself a headache trying to think that way. I am so glad that my employer blocks AOA or I’d be tempted to read the post and really get a headache – or burst out laughing hysterically which would really confuse anyone who is here at this time.
I can just about hear the ‘justification’ for that sort of distortion:
“Well, yabbut, of course you have to know how to read between the lines”
Don’t these whackos know you can always ask your pediatrican to space out vaccines? If you don’t want your child to get 5 or 6 at once, space them out over a week. Most are happy to comply. Oh wait– they don’t want vaccination period.
Whatever was I thinking?
I say bring it on. Job security. Never in my professional life did I expect to see a real-life case of measles or mumps. Now I have.
Of course, I’m being sarcastic about it. Of course I don’t want to see a child EVER go through anything like that.
Queue the posting of the first part of this comment to AoA in 5… 4… 3… 2…
Taking pride in destroying healthcare. Exceptional.
A pox on their stupidity.
Yes, because our health care system can certainly absorb & pay for the treatment of potentially thousands of people who would have to be seen for measles, mumps, etc – plus the added cost of quarantines as well (which we already bear, but multiply x10 or x100 if the vaccine program is eliminated).
Morons.
That anyone at AoA thinks their argument that they’re for vaccine safety after reading them simply shows just how far down the woohole they’ve gone. I admit to a very snarky post yesterday on the subject of AoA’s batshit craziness and their descent into becoming walking ads for woo and mavericky doctors selling books.
On a side note, Countering, for deliciously absurd reasons, is in the top five hits for “pharma ho” searches. May it quickly become one of the top searches for anyone who thinks to ask the google gods, “is AoA batshit crazy?” Right behind Orac’s site, of course. Google searches as a version of ask the eight ball: who would have thought it?
I’ve always wondered what these anti-vaxxers would do if an autism vaccine was shown to be effective.
@VJBinCT
You mean after Jenny’s chest and Handley’s head exploded?
Can we quote-mine too? This person has just agreed that the childhood vaccination program is “the cornerstone of health care.”
@Lawrence
plus the added cost of quarantines
It’s not the Andromeda Strain moron
Oh yeah Sid – because you’d have no problem with dozens or hundreds of people running around with highly infectious diseases in public spaces (on planes, movie theaters, mass transportation, etc) without any means of trying to control the spread of those diseases – in the worst case scenario of no vaccines, right?
Who’s the moron again?
Yeah we all know how the world ended in 1955 due to the rampant spread of the measles. We don’t want to make that mistake again.
Sid,
You can see what happens if we are not ready for a major disaster. Think oil. I’d rather be prepared especially since you and the fools at AoA are pushing hard for more vaccine preventable disease in the world.
Measles: Fall of Man, new for Playstation 3
Vaccines are Evil: Fall of Man, new for Playstation 4
@14 – Sid, in the mid to late 1950s (I was a kid then, but it had to have been before 1959 when we moved) the hospital in our rural area was so full of kids with measles that my sister was not sick enough to be admitted.
She was home, getting IV fluids, antibiotics and oxygen under the watchful eye of my mom (WWII hospital corpswoman) and my dad (WWII medic with battle experience) and a couple of neighbors.
Don’t underestimate the resources that surviving measles requires.
“@Otto: but, but, but you don’t understand!!!! The EEEEEEVVVVVIIIILLL vaccines caused the congenital cardiac disease!!! The baby was totally healthy and developing normally until then! /end AOA mind”
Or, the VAERS report can be discounted because it includes information from medical professionals who probably accepted a free drug company pen during training and are now Evil Pharma Shills for life. Just like the overwhelming scientific evidence for the safety of vaccines can be discounted because it’s all biased, while antivaxers’ cherry-picked reports from people like the Geiers are 100% believable and free from any taint of self-interest.
I had measles as a child – a miserable illness (along with mumps, chickenpox and rubella). I’m glad that my M.D. Pharma Shill father protected me with vaccines available at the time (polio, smallpox). I wish the updated vaccine series had been available then, but at least kids now don’t have to risk contracting all those diseases, unless their uninformed parents (largely vaccine-protected themselves) place them at risk.
You should go and learn how to write and think in a manner not consistently involving false dichotomy, Sid, before you come back and try to post here.
Maybe you wouldn’t read like such an idiot.
So Sid has no problem filling our currently over-burdened hospitals with thousands of new patients? And who exactly is going to pay for this care?
Of course, I guess we could just shunt those people to homeopaths, right?
OT(but are the misadventures of self-promoting woo-proselytizers *ever* _really_ OT here?)Today,Mike Adams appears to be announcing that,after two years of hard-selling the naturalistic,non-toxic wonders and health-freedom-friendliness of his newly-adopted home of Vilcabamba(a/k/a the “Valley of Longevity”),Ecuador,he is seeking “more privacy” and his home is for sale(for six figures)in the lovely gated community he talked up so convincingly these many months.Perhaps,like Gary Null and frequent guest,”trendcaster” Gerald Celente, he foresees the oncoming economic collapse(in 24-36 months),societal chaos,anarchy,gang warfare,food riots,etc. and feels that he needs to get even further away from civilization to weather the storm(in a self-reliant,sustainable fashion) until the “renewal” occurs.Celente and Null are betting on Kingston, NY.
That reminds me of an exercise I did recently, trying to list people with a direct financial stake in “vaccines (do not) cause autism”, on either side. I came up with:
1. The petitioners’ lawyers in the Omnibus.
2. All DAN! doctors.
3. A pile of people whose entire apparent livelihood is based on anti-vax blogging/advocacy, including Wakefield, Fisher, and Handley.
I couldn’t come up with a single individual who openly advocates the position that vaccines don’t cause autism AND has a direct financial stake in that position. There’s a clear financial interest for vaccine manufacturers, but in general they don’t actually talk about it while those like Orac, SBM, CDC, AMA, AAP do – and lack such a stake.
Out of context, I would have assumed some of these quotes came from an Evil Genius in some B-movie. “And if the government refuses to pay my ransom, then I will set in motion my evil plan to erode confidence in the cornerstone of health care: THE CHILDHOOD VACCINE PROGRAM. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!”
Paul Offitt.
Not saying that as a criticism, mind you, but to suggest that there’s nobody who advocates vaccination and stands to make a profit from vaccines is just a bit disingenuous.
We’re not dealing with saints, just science.
And then there are those that think we shouldn’t vaccinate our pets… http://bit.ly/aWpKFr, http://bit.ly/b27Kb0
so here is a question: i could link to the quote orac posted above (eroding confidence in childhood vaccines) on my facebook page, along with a snarky comment, and then link to the AofA article. but would that be better or worse? if someone followed the link they would end up at the age of autism drivel. on the other hand, feeling glad about eroding confidence in the cornerstone of health care is so horrible, and telling.
Sure, Sid Troll, I bet California tax payers really want to repeat this where “Hospital costs amounted to $18 million, two thirds of which was paid for by Medi-Cal.” Not.
(Insert random comment here that Sid Offit will take, distort, and spew out in order to get attention.)
(Watch how he responds below.)
This is slightly OT, but it was in the comments of that AoA article:
“I increased my son’s [vitamin] D3 before his DAN recommended it (and he potty trained within one week of the increase).”
LOL Talk about correlation not equaling causation!
@Enkidu
A friend of mine is anti-circumcisions because he says that he couldn’t walk for a year after he got his.
Think about it. :-p
@Rene Najera #31: that’s an old one….
One thing I don’t understand about the anti-vaxxers is why they do this. Is it a religious thing? Do they somehow profit off of it? Are they seriously evil enough to toss thousands of children into the grave just to sell books?
Chris: “Sure, Sid Troll, I bet California tax payers really want to repeat this where “Hospital costs amounted to $18 million, two thirds of which was paid for by Medi-Cal.” Not.”
Chris’s link says:
“Measles is a serious disease that can result in severe complications requiring lengthy and costly hospital stays.”
in 1967 the CDC said:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1919891/pdf/pubhealthreporig00027-0069.pdf
“The clinical disease is a characteristic syndrome of notable constancy and only moderate severity. Complications are infrequent, and, with adequate medical care, fatality is rare.”
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf
“The mothers of many infants who developed measles were young, and their measles immunity was most often due to vaccination rather than infection with wild virus. As a result, a smaller amount of antibody was transferred across the placenta to the fetus, compared with antibody transfer from mothers who had higher antibody titers resulting from wild-virus infection. The lower quantity of antibody resulted in immunity that waned more rapidly, making infants susceptible at a younger age than in the past.”
Nothing like screwing up natural immunity and then blaming natural immunity.
“Overall incidence rates were highest for Hispanics and blacks and lowest for non-Hispanic whites. Among children younger than 5 years of age, the incidence of measles among blacks and Hispanics was four to seven times higher than among non-Hispanic whites.”
Something to think about. Why? Does this apply to educated health conscious people of today or are all non-vaccinating people considered equal by science blogger standards?
unistrut, they are getting paid in the one currency they crave – attention. How else would a D-list has-been celebrity like Jenny “indigomom” McCarthy or a college kid like Jake Cosby have an audience. But there’s also a massive industry of “alternative treatments”, which, while not directly profiting from not vaccinating, make a lot of money of the same clientele by convincing them that they cannot trust regular science-based medicine.
@MI Dawn #32
You’re no fun.
@Denice Walter #22:
So the Health Deranger wants more prevacy, eh? May I suggest:
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-remote-places-on-planet-earth.php
BB @ 4: actually, many many pediatrician offices are NOT happy to play Lets make a Deal with vaccine schedules. There is a method to the schedule, and barring contraindications (like febrile illness at a point when should be getting vaccines) We as a group, would really truly prefer that parents follow the recommendations of the health and science community about when and how to vaccinate… you know..the “CORNERSTONE OF HEALTHCARE”
Sid Officious… @ several blog droppings above.. you are clueless or ignoring facts. Epidemic illness in this country would severely stress available resources, result in death and permanent impairment, and generally speaking, be a very scary scenario… but thankfully, for vaccine preventable diseases, it is a AVOIDABLE situation. The logistics of support for large numbers of severely ill people, for example, 100 ‘extra’ ventilator patients out of a illness population of 1000, on top of what is normally happening in a community, can SERIOUSLY exceed the total number of available ventilators in the hospitals.
But hey, please don’t let insight, information, facts, and reality interfere with your postings and opinions.
Anne Dachel:
“And as someone who’s been active in the national autism community for a long time, I’ve seen tremendous changes. More and more people are speaking out. We are now an organized and united group, thanks mainly to the power of the Internet. ”
Yes. More people indeed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37731513/ns/health/
Sid has intimated before that he thinks his high socio-economic status will protect him from diseases, or at least mitigate the symptoms to the point that for him personally, pertussis would be no worse than the common cold.
Unfortunately, while having more money can protect you from sanitation-borne diseases like typhoid or cholera, one doesn’t contract measles or pertussis from drinking contaminated water.
Unless one is prepared to completely isolate themselves at home they remain at risk for the latter diseases.
And before contracting the disease there’s no way to know how severe the course will be, nor can one know which complications will occur.
Oh gee… let’s throw away the most successful public health intervention ever. um… No. but thanks for playing.
Tsu: a “medic with battle experience” to deal with your friggin’ sister who had measles. Jesus. We should also be mercy killing all the old people too because, after all, they do take up alot of public health monies… I say laugh away at people like Jenny McCarthy because in the end, whatever the hell you say, she has her kid back. Kudos to her. Like she fucking cares that you all feel that what she did was not “science-based.” p.s. she also saved you taxpayers alot of money now that her kid doesn’t have to utilize special education and medical services. All you people need to go back to your labs. Do some real safety studies or something.
jen, are you seriously equating providing supportive care for an ill child with euthanizing old people to avoid paying for long term care? That’s either appallingly callous or a total non-sequitor.
(Note: I’m leaning toward the total non-sequitor, because I don’t think you’re really that callous. You’re just a lazy reader and lazier writer, resulting in very sloppy prose. You also evidently don’t think requiring IV fluids to be serious, which shows your mind is either utterly closed to inconvenient facts, or you really don’t have any understanding of serious illness. Which I suppose means you’ve lived a blessed life, so good for you, but don’t rob other people of life-saving care because you think someone *might* have gotten autism, which I’ll note is not fatal. One would have to be very callous indeed to think a person is better off dead than autistic. Note also that Jenny McCarthy has spent huge amounts of money on her son, and continues to treat him — how can you consider him “cured” if he still requires treatment? True, the public school system doesn’t have to pay for it, but that has more to do with her personal wealth than anything else.)
jen, you are as charming as ever. Jenny McCarthy blames the MMR vaccine, typically given between 12 and 18 months for her son’s seizure that occured when he was over two years old. I have touble beliveing anything she says, including the “cured” bit.
Considering McCarthy is advocating that the diseases should come back, she is costing the tax players lots of money. This includes what it cost San Diego’s public health agency to keep the 2008 measles outbreak in check. In the future those listening to McCarthy could cost Medi-Cal much more than what was spent during the 1990 measles epidemic.
@ T.Bruce McNeely: HAHA! If only! But wouldn’t you agree that wherever he** winds up will have internet access,a microphone,and a surfeit of household help? **( the same goes doubly for the other charlatan)
Bluemaxx: “you are clueless or ignoring facts.”
What facts?
Bluemaxx, there is no way you’re a medical doctor. You must be a subordinate.
jen,
Wait a second. Did I miss the part where Jenny McCarthy’s child was kidnapped?
Of course – he was stolen by the Faerey folk and replaced with a changeling.
Seriously, I think autism may have been the origin of the changeling myth. The attitude of some of the antivaxxers is not much different from that of parents who thought their child was kidnapped and replaced with a non-human. Ordeal by Foxglove to determine if a child was a changeling is not far off from some the DAN treatments.
Jen-
My son has autism. He is NOT lost. Jenny McCarthy changes her story every time she opens her mouth. If vaccines cause autism, then tell me how my UN-VACCINATED son has autism?? We believed all of you anti-vax idiots and guess what! Our son showed signs of autism as an infant. When it was clear he was autistic at the age of 2, plus all the seizures he’s had since he was around a year and a half old, we had him vaccinated. So tell me, please- how did my son end up with autism? Wait, let me guess… Is it because of contaminated fish? No…. we don’t eat seafood. My husband, my son, and I are vegans who eat organic foods. Also, shortly after our son was diagnosed, my husband was diagnosed with Asperger’s. But nooooo… It can’t POSSIBLY be genetic and it’s all caused by vaccines and can be cured!! BULL!
I feel bad for little Evan, Jenny McCarthy’s son. He will grow up thinking he’s broken and that mommy doesn’t love him for who he is. At least I know my son will grow up to know he is loved, wanted, and accepted. I’m not a bitch who cares more about fame and fortune and selling books than I do about my own child. I don’t want little Evan to contract one of those preventable diseases. But in a way I hope he does so people will stop listening to his loud-mouthed mother.
Also, I work with autistic adults every single day. I have yet to meet one who wants to be “cured”. They want to be accepted! As far as those claims of “miracle cures”, we did try them. Nothing changed. What worked was my son’s therapies to help him improve on his social skills. He’ll always be autistic, but he’ll be able to get a job and communicate with others.
One more thing… How can ANYONE defend Jenny McCarthy when she claims that there are no autistic adults? She’s an idiot. I can’t understand for the life of me why someone would believe someone stupid.
May I, science bloggers, take our little Amanda to task for her emotional diatribe, which is along the lines of the AoA spew that you hate so much. I know that you can’t stand that emotional biased and ignorant crap that just came out of her mouth. I know that you stand for science, reason, and logic and you can’t stand it when someone uses emotion and lack of reasoning when making a point and using anecdotes on top of that.
Please o please let me have her first. Don’t any of you guys/gals jump on her first for being so stupid.
Orac, this one’s mine.
Amanda, no need to feel bad for little Evan. His mom did what she needed to do and he’s come a long way. There are, believe it or not, adults with autism who do feel it is possible that there autism was caused by environmental factors. In your son’s case it sounds like genetics is possibly the case, although maybe you had some vaccines when pregnant or other exposures-believe it or not I think there could be other environmental causes besides vaccines(there seems to be a small percentage for whom it is genetic- small). Just because bio-medical, chelation didn’t work for your child doesen’t mean that they don’t for everyone. I don’t disbelieve the probably thousands who are finding that it has helped their children. That’s also why I tend to think there is a huge environmental component going on here. You guys seem to be missing that fact. Oh yeah, they would have got better anyways, you’ll say. How convenient. When so many doctors are saying they have doubts about the vaccine agenda that also gets my attention. It wouldn’t be easy being a doctor and going against the tide of thought. It must be hellish to be in that position. And, no I don’t believe they are all doing that to rip -off parents. What about poor Dr. Alistair Thore’s Pluserix/MMR dilemmas? That changeling stuff is interesting but doesn’t mean that there haven’t always been some kind of environmental factors. By the way, for what it’s worth I don’t think either you or Jenny are bitches because of the approaches you’ve taken.
Vaccination is a quick simple procedure. If done in a hospital on an infant, without the permission of the parent, the child will not testify to that fact. Is it unethical to do so without the permission of the parents? Of course, but the medical profession is filled with the arrogant self-righeous who presume themselves to have god-like omniscience. Post-vaccination evidence may only be possible through medical records. Testing may or may not show such proof. When I complained to a lawyer about a procedure forced on my underage daughter right in front of me, he told me the courts give doctors discretion for their professional “judgment”. I have absolutely no confidence in an abscence of vaccination in an autistic child.
Vaccination is a quick simple procedure. If done in a hospital on an infant, without the permission of the parent, the child will not testify to that fact. Is it unethical to do so without the permission of the parents? Of course, but the medical profession is filled with the arrogant self-righeous who presume themselves to have god-like omniscience. Post-vaccination evidence may only be possible through medical records. Testing may or may not show such proof. When I complained to a lawyer about a procedure forced on my underage daughter right in front of me, he told me the courts give doctors discretion for their professional “judgment”. I have absolutely no confidence in an abscence of vaccination in an autistic child.
jen @ 50:
Her husband was diagnosed with Aspergers. It is almost certainly genetic. Also, why are you playing down genetics?
If she had a vaccine while pregnant, she would have mentioned it. Again, you play down genetics. Why?
Mary Podlesak @ 51 and 52:
So her son may have been vaccinated without her knowledge causing his autism? I find your hypothesis risible.
Off your meds again, Ms. Podlesak? Or are you a PTA parent who hates the real Mary Podlesak and are trying to make her look like an idiot? We will never know.
Um, jen… did you miss the bit where young Evan’s mom cannot even remember that her son’s seizures were months after he got the dreaded vaccine? Months, as in almost a year afterwards.
Also, why would chelation do anything? It is for certain metals, neither of which are in the MMR. Plus, real chelation will and can remove metals essential for actual life.
I consider it provable, from Jenny’s accounts alone, that EVAN MCCARTHY WAS ALWAYS DIAGNOSABLE AS AUTISTIC. In particular, she describes observing “flapping” (admittedly not what I consider an especially good criterion) by age 1. On top of that, she really hasn’t been able to give any coherent account of any changes in her son’s behavior, just babble about “the soul was gone from his eyes”. It’s time for this figurehead to go overboard.
I just thought of an experiment: Take the children of vaccine refusers, give them injections in front of their parents, and tell them they’ve been vaccinated. Only, half the children will have received no vaccine, just some kind of placebo. Then, when the “control” parents go on Oprah screaming that their children were injured by compulsory vaccination, then there will be experimental proof that they are delusional.
@Bill
Sid has intimated before that he thinks his high socio-economic status will protect him from diseases
I hope you’re not trying to intimate that I don’t care about the small people because I do. I care about all the small people
augutine @ #34:
Please provide credible evidence for your baseless assertion.
Also, nice job ignoring that just because a measles infection is often not very harmful, that doesn’t mean that with enough people getting infected that there won’t be serious cases. Oh, but let me guess what you’d say to that augie, something like… “healthy people don’t need expensive medical treatments for the measles” implying that those that aren’t “healthy” enough for you don’t matter. Does that sound like something you’d say?
========================================================================================================
jen @ #42:
Yet strangely many parents of autistic children that didn’t use Jenny’s therapies (or the other anti-vaxer “therapies) “got their kid back” too? How do you explain that jen?
Jen:
“I say laugh away at people like Jenny McCarthy because in the end, whatever the hell you say, she has her kid back.”
Damn right. I saw the film version of this. I believe it was called ‘Taken’
Sin Offit:
“I hope you’re not trying to intimate that I don’t care about the small people because I do. I care about all the small people”
Ha! You don’t give a flying f*** about people, let alone the ‘small people’ you condemn to short miserable lives defined by vicious but preventable diseases.
Seriously, I think autism may have been the origin of the changeling myth.
Uta Frith and Lorna Wing are on board with you there.
augustine troll @34:
I suppose we should at least congratulate him for going out and finding a link to PubMed.
After that, forget about it. This is a typical quote-mine. The paper augustine cites is titled “Epidimiologic Basis for Eradication of Measles in 1967” in which the authors are arguing that it is now possible (and desireable) to eradicate measles in the United States (in 1966-67 – thanks to the efforts of people like augustine we are still dealing with measles in the US in 2010).
Typical idiotic reasoning from augustine, I gather. And yet more quote-mining. The paragraph cited describes a measles surge in 1989-1991, caused by (wait for it)… low vaccination coverage (pp.7 of the article)!
What augustine fails to realize is that people in 1989-1991 were no less health-conscious than they are today. Indeed, I don’t think there was a lot of ‘new’ stuff to discover about measles in between 1989 and today.
The troll is also insinuating that us pro-vaccination folks are somehow racist. The evidence provided in the article suggests the opposite: that the anti-vaccination crowd is (unwittingly, I am sure) working to preserve white privilege, since the current US social stratification suggests that even today, blacks and Hispanics would probably bear the brunt of general measles epidemics if vaccination rates decline sufficiently.
The second article augustine cites quotes in its introduction:
Oops, forgot my concluding remark, which was if we made the effort to eradicate measles worldwide, there would be zero cases and zero deaths – and we could discontinue the vaccine.
@ 49
“I can’t understand for the life of me why someone would believe someone stupid.”
But you people believe Orac all the time.
Amanda @49
Bravo. I agree with you 100%. My son was diagnosed with autism when he was three, shortly thereafter his father was found to have aspergers. We didn’t even know what autism was when he was diagnosed, but after discovering what to look for we realized he started showing signs at about nine months. His diagnosis made all the pieces fit, we knew he was a bit different but after the diagnosis we knew why. It was a relief for us, then we could learn how to help him fit into society.
I love my son very much, he is my life just as much as my other children. Although I have been called delusional for this view; I wouldn’t want him any other way.
Haha – wow, such a zinger there – I’m so hurt.
LOL.
Fatality is rare? Compared to what, rabies? This is just wrong.
Measles is a serious disease and worth watching out for.
In the first world, 3 out of thousand patients will die. Complications are of course, more common and include things like blindness.
In the third world, it can be far more serious. Case fatality rates of 3 to 15% are not unknown.
With vaccination, this goes down to near zero. In fact, with adequate vaccination coverage, we could drive measles to extinction like we did with smallpox and have almost done with polio.
A modest proposal…
I think it’s about time dangerous idiots like Anne Dachel face consequences for what they write. Anyone who gleefully boasts that:
is, in my opinion, guilty of treason under Article III of the US Constitution by “giving aid or comfort” to our enemies. I would argue that the threat of transmissable disease is one of the greatest “enemies” of the United States, from the enormous health costs of any future pandemic to the threat to our military readiness (see the 1918 influenza epidemic).
I’m only 90% kidding about this. I’m so tired of idiots like jen and Sid posting their inane drivel, drivel that can kill people, that I really, really want to get under their skin. Shock them, just once, as they like to shock others with their over-the-top proclamations. Well, here you go:
jen, Sid, augie, I consider you traitors against the United States of America. You can throw in Jenny Mac and JB for good measure. I’d rather see Mary Podlesak receive appropriate treatment at a secure inpatient facility than go to jail, but that’s as far as my mercy is going to go.
So there!
Raven: “Measles is a serious disease and worth watching out for.
In the first world, 3 out of thousand patients will die. Complications are of course, more common and include things like blindness.”
Context my friend. Context.
————————————————————
Undernutrition as an underlying cause of child deaths associated
with diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, and measles1â
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/80/1/193
@amenhotepstein,
Using military terms and comparing vaccination to a “war” is propaganda not science. Please see pictures in below link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
well, Amen, I’m not even a U.S. citizen so I really can’t be a traitor. I’m Canadian (proud of our universal health care system-albeit it isn’t perfect). Actually, my friend was there in N.Y. yesterday having a doppler done on her neck to check for blockages re. M.S. If she has one she’s off to India for the liberation procedure. I say to her Godspeed. Nice try Raven, but North America isn’t a third world country and honestly the rate of deaths or serious disability would be extremely low. So much for your death VS autism gambit. Why are we promoting the silly rota crap stuff when it has known porcine virus contamination. You can’t even begin to defend that or if you do you are very silly. So terribly sorry, Callie, you prosaic wonder of wonders, if my prose is sloppy. You see I don’t have all day to write stuff on this science blog. I actually have children and a part time job.
Okay, fine, you’re Canadian. I’m Canadian too, and I’d gladly consider you a traitor against Canada.
@T. Bruce McNeely
Seconded.
You don’t understand Jen, she is paid by the Big Pharma.
Some months ago I found Orac’s site when I was looking for information about the flu vaccine. I have not scientific background,I don’t know anything about vaccines or the inmunologic system but Jen conviced me. She convinced me that the anti-vax have not a single rational argument against vaccines. (Whith a little help of Sid Offit, The parents of Ben, and Augustine)
So Go Jen, keep doing your god job, the little children of the world will thank you.
Jen sez…
“I say to her Godspeed.”
Do all idiots say this? Andy Schafly from Conservapedia is fond of this inanity as well.
(emphasis my own)
Great Jen. Thanks for showing your callousness. Doesn’t matter if some children/elderly or other vulnerable persons die. It will be just a few. Chances are they won’t be people close to you so c’est la vie.
Now I think you have shown your true colors. You are just like Sid and Augustine. The weak can go ahead and die.
VAERS: “Patient collapsed while eating breakfast at home.”
I’m surprised that nobody sees the obvious correlation here: Breakfast!
Did you know that breakfast is mentioned in the VAERS data twenty-five times! You can find out more at my website:
http://www.ageofbreakfast.com
Did you misread, jen? The source stated that in the first world death was 3 in 1000. That’s pretty remarkable.
Well, because it prevents death and suffering, and there is no medical reason to be concerned about viral particles which we are exposed to from many other sources. (Silly me.)
That’s understandable. Don’t worry about the style of your prose at this point. Use the precious time that you have on this blog to formulate more logical, coherent arguments.
I doubt it’s anything like that. More likely, she’s just following the spambot logic: Searching for key words. She saw “death” and “rate” vaguely close to “third world” and thus ignored it. Lots of trolls are unable to read for content or context.
One of the kook’s problems is inability to read anything that contradicts their fantasies. Like Jen.
3 out of 1000 dead children are the first world stats which she just skipped right over. The incidence of complications is much higher and include nontrivial things like blindness and SSP which can be fatal years later. I’m too busy to look up the complication numbers and Jen wouldn’t be able to see them anyway because they contradict her delusions but it usually runs around 25 to 50 per thousand for these type of diseases.
With vaccination, all this goes down to near zero, no disease, no complications, no dead children. No doubt the anti-vaxxers have killed a few kids here and there already.
“Why are we promoting the silly rota crap stuff when it has known porcine virus contamination. You can’t even begin to defend that or if you do you are very silly.”
OMG! Nooooo! Not porcine viral DNA!
Wow, imagine the horror…consuming an ORAL VACCINE (“rota crap”) that has porcine DNA in it. No one EVER consumes porcine viral DNA when eating a pork chop.
Kids would be much better off consuming rotavirus dsRNA. It’s ‘natural’.
As often as she brings it up (every thread on which she comments), I’m beginning to think jen is a shill for Big Pig DNA.
No, she’s apparently working to instill an undue fear of pork. She may be a shill for Big Chicken (“The Original White Meat”).
Oh, I’m sounding very silly now…
Kristen and Amanda (64 & 49) both have similar stories about adults with autism, both diagnosed after marrying and fathering children. Amanda – “Also, shortly after our son was diagnosed, my husband was diagnosed with Asperger’s”
These kinds of Aspergers diagnosis just make my skin crawl when related to autism. I find it hard to believe anyone would attempt to compare an adult who was never diagnosed prior, who had enough social skills to marry and raise a child, and to apparently hold a job to someone unable to speak, in diapers, with no social skills living either at home with parents or in an institution or group home. Its like insinuating that poison ivy and the measles are the same.
mary podlesak is correct when she says hospitals inject babies without parental permission. My newborn son was given a HepB vaccine after I instructed the nurse not to do so (on video) I wasnt thinking about autism when I said no shots, I was thinking I didnt want Ben to suffer a needle prick less than an hour after being born. I didnt even know what HepB was at the time. It happens.
@63
We don’t. We believe the evidence. Orac just presents it. Any one of us can follow the links from Orac’s posts to confirm that he’s presenting the evidence correctly.
Raven: “No doubt the anti-vaxxers have killed a few kids here and there already.”
No doubt the pro-vaxxers have killed more than a few over the years. I know, I know the “benefit outweighs the risks”.
Zertec: “Please provide credible evidence for your baseless assertion.”
Is it that hard for you to understand or did you miss it the first time in your haste to attack from your non-biased view point?
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/meas.pdf
“The mothers of many infants who developed measles were young, and their measles immunity was most often due to vaccination rather than infection with wild virus. As a result, a smaller amount of antibody was transferred across the placenta to the fetus, compared with antibody transfer from mothers who had higher antibody titers resulting from wild-virus infection. The lower quantity of antibody resulted in immunity that waned more rapidly, making infants susceptible at a younger age than in the past.”
Composer @61
“Typical idiotic reasoning from augustine, I gather. And yet more quote-mining.”
When the quote can stand alone then it’s not quote mining.
So why did the author of the paper recognize that the measles was a mild to moderate disease and noting “complications are infrequent, and, with adequate medical care, fatality is rare.”
Because he was addressing 1967 americans/doctors not 1991 americans. And they knew that measles was not a big killer. They saw it all the time. Had the paper started off with the scare tactics seen in the literature today then he would have potentially lost his audience in the beginning. But this is a persuasion paper to convince people that virus eradication is attainable. Notice he didn’t use the severity of the disease as the basis for the goal as the ideologues do today. I wonder why?
composer: “The paragraph cited describes a measles surge in 1989-1991, caused by (wait for it)… low vaccination coverage (pp.7 of the article)!”
Low vaccination coverage by whom? Low socioeconomic. What is the typical non-vaccinating person of today? college educated. Not the same group. What are some other differences in these groups that may affect overall health status? Or do you believe there is no difference?
composer: “The troll is also insinuating that us pro-vaccination folks are somehow racist.”
Maybe you’re just too sensitive.
jen @ 68:
Good for you. I actually have children and a job too, and I actually don’t spend that much time here. I just take a little care to make sure that what I am saying makes sense. I’m serious; what I was responding to of yours did not make sense — parsed directly, it seems that you are equating providing emergency medical care to a severely ill child with euthanizing inconvenient elderly people, which is completely absurd. I think you probably meant something else. I *think* you meant that you thought TsuDhoNimh was exaggerating the seriousness of measles, but what came out was . . . well, what came out didn’t make sense, frankly. And that’s what I meant. Either you’re sloppy or have very little value for human life, and I seriously doubt the latter.
I know it’s hard to find time, and I don’t think you need to make more time for blog commenting. It should be very low on your list of priorities. Spend time with your kids; enjoy your career; go for walks; get a sitter and go out on a date with your husband; these are all better ways to spend time than commenting here. Commenting here is something to do with some of the remaining time. But just as a word of advice, from all the time I’ve spent on the Internet since college (when the real action was on Usenet and BBSes and mailing lists) — words matter, and speaking precisely now can save a lot of confusion, anger, and wasted time later on. So it’s worth measuring one’s words a little.
HaHa @ 63:
I can’t speak for everyone, but I don’t. I agree with him most of the time, but not always. Arguments should stand or fall on their own merits, regardless of who promotes them.
@Jenn the irrational:”well, Amen, I’m not even a U.S. citizen so I really can’t be a traitor. I’m Canadian (proud of our universal health care system-albeit it isn’t perfect).”
Uh…did treason somehow get decriminalized in Canada? Yes, newsflash the Internet is not synonymous with the USA. Many of us here are Canadians Jen…and some of us who used to enjoy a degree of elitism because we considered ourselves better educated than our friends across the border are kind of pissed off at you for spoiling that for us Jen.
“Actually, my friend was there in N.Y. yesterday having a doppler done on her neck to check for blockages re. M.S. If she has one she’s off to India for the liberation procedure. I say to her Godspeed.”
Ah…some kind of angioplasty for the presumed CCSVI syndrome – I hope she fares well because it’s a non-trivial treatment and the experimental evidence is thin. Kind of interesting insight into your psyche though.
“Nice try Raven, but North America isn’t a third world country.”
North America isn’t a country at all Jen. It’s a continent. Reading you is like watching whatever the US has instead of Rick Mercer (Colbert?). Just as Rick travels to the US and asks people there obvious questions and gets them to make fools of themselves. Your inability to grasp simple concepts has seriously damaged my nationalism…I hope you’re happy.
“Why are we promoting the silly rota crap stuff when it has known porcine virus contamination. You can’t even begin to defend that or if you do you are very silly.”
Can you show some actual evidence of non-vaccine related harm directly attributable to PCV1 Jen? Probably not. In fact I recall at least one study indicating that we are exposed to PCV1 pretty regularly – and likely at dosages much higher than in a vaccine probably through the same path too. Not to mention that at least some study has been done on the safety of exposure for the purposes of xenotransplantation. To date there is little reason to believe that a human can be productively infected by these circoviruses. Perhaps you can fill the rest of us in on the other kinds of harm you see in your crystal ball Jen.
“I actually have children and a part time job.”
Don’t forget your hobby of lowering peoples perceptions of Canadian intellect. Although some of us wish you would.
augustine @ #70:
Funny how that didn’t stop you, augie, from declaring….”Man cannot avoid sickness and death by waging war with microbes. Man is just not that smart.”
Age of Autism and vaccination against meningococcus: augustine post #250
As usual augie, you show yourself to be a hypocrite.
============================================================================================================
augustine @ #87:
Oh! I see then, it wasn’t just a baseless assertion on your part, it was another deliberate lie. You said that someone was “screwing up natural immunity”. “Screwing up” implies harming or damaging, but that’s not what your article really says now does it?
No augie, what your article says is that since measles doesn’t provoke as strong an immune reaction as catching the disease, that mothers aren’t passing on as much immunity to their children as if they had the full infection. How is that any different than a mother that didn’t have as strong a protection because she had less of an infection when younger? For that matter how is the lesser protection in such circumstances worse than no protection for the small percentage that didn’t catch measles?
Additionally, of course you’re deliberately trying to ignore that the maternally provided resistance is only temporary and doesn’t protect the child for the rest of the child’s life. About 90% of the population used to catch measles by age 15, remember? Also, you’re still ignoring that with sufficiently widespread vaccination the issue becomes redundant in the first place, especially if measles should ever be eradicated, but without the body count that your ideal situation would create.
Even today, with a flawed vaccination program, the body count is still much lower than your scenario, augie. How odd that you continually try to overlook that little detail.
=========================================================================================================
augustine #88:
It is when your are using it to argue something opposite that of the author’s intent and not disclosing the actual position of the author.
Shortly after the passage you quote the author states (my own comments are added in bold)…
augustine @ #88:
You already answered that for yourself in your own preceding sentences there augie. The reason why is that before the vaccine 450-500 children dead per year was the norm, and an improvement over earlier in that same century (and don’t bother trying to bring up again your baseless assertion that the fatality rates would be so much lower today without vaccination, we’ve already exposed the glaring flaws in that argument). The reduction of the fatality rate with vaccination was also somewhat theoretical at the time. Interestingly, 1967 (the article was written in March of that year) was the first year that measles vaccination had become widespread enough to show a sudden drop in the number of cases and fatalities. Now days we know that the vaccine protects against measles, we know that it has succeeded in lower the death rates. We also know that when others naively start to listen to people like you, that sooner or later people get hurt and sometimes die. That is why the medical community talks about increasing death and sequelae today.
Then again augie, we already know that you apparently don’t care about an increase in dead/injured since they weren’t “healthy” enough. That is why you refer to those that simply want to use modern scientific medicine to reduce human death and suffering as “ideologues”. It’s more projection on your part.
Another half-truth, Yes there are anti-vaxers today that are college educated, but there were some back then too. There are non-college educated among the anti-vaxer both today and back then as well, especially since the anti-vaxers try to promote their dogma among more than just the college educated.
I find it amusing how you have no trouble making baseless assertions that the harm would somehow be much less today due to the education levels of some of the anti-vaxers. Tell us augie, what evidence do you have to justify that conclusion?
===================================================================================================
As usual augie, your position is still apparently based on nothing more than the fallacy of Appeal to Nature.
Ben’s Parent
I wouldn’t expect you to understand any kind of subtle distinction. Autism is a spectrum of disorders. Get that? Different disorders. What you have described is the most severe of cases. The fact is that the majority of autistic persons are not quite so profoundly affected.
I can’t speak for Amanda, but my husband cannot function effectively on his own. He gets distracted and forgets to attend to his basic needs. If it were up to him he would sit at his desk all day and program games for the iPhone (his current obsession). He wouldn’t shower, go to work, eat anything resembling healthful food or have any contact with other humans.
He went from his parents home to a very regimented college (US Air Force Academy) and married me right after. He has never lived on his own. Before I knew about his aspergers I always teased him that he was a little left of normal.
It could “make your skin crawl” but it doesn’t make it any less true that aspergers is related to autism.
Seems to be that we don’t necessarily have an “autism epidemic” as much as an epidemic of autism spectum diagnosis. There is a distinct different – like developing a new test for cancers & finding a whole lot of new people with cancer – it doesn’t mean people are now more prone, it just means we are getting better at identifying (or in some cases, mis-identifying) people with the disorder.
And to agree above, the autism spectrum is huge – just like the cancer spectrum, some people show few symptoms, while others are more extreme.
Profanity follows. Apologies in advance.
@Augustine, Jen, Mary Podlesak and Sid Offitt:
Here is a story from the iol.co.za website.
Measles outbreak kills hundreds more africans
No, measles is not that bad. As far as I’m concerned, the four of you can go fuck yourselves.
the fact that you people have to nitpick says more about your bias than my intellectual level.(yes, North America is, duh, a continent-wow the things one can learn here! The intellectual level is astounding). And Callie, inasmuch as Lawrence pointed to the supposedly exorbitant costs of potentially treating measles (a relatively benign childhood illness),rather than looking at potential problems with this mulit-live virus vaccine, I can certainly make the point that maybe he thinks other cost cutting measures can/should be taken in terms of health care. It definitely seems to me that Tsu exaggerated measles. “A medic with battle experience…” I think some of you may be too young to even know that the vast majority of people had most of these illnesses and were just fine. You could also say the majority of people who receive vaccines may be just fine, although with the “fox guarding the henhouse” (CDC responsible for both surveillance and promotion of public health), we really don’t know. As I’ve said before Chris supplied me with a list of supposed vaccine safety studies and I went through the first five and found quite a few problems with them (small sample sizes, not long enough follow-up etc.) such that I didn’t feel it necessary to look any further. If Godspeed is idiot, well, poe and strawman are even funnier.
Zertec, You responded to the question “What is the typical non-vaccinating person of today?” by giving the exceptions not the general.
Zertec, you’re falling down the scienceblog cult tree heirarchy. If you keep posting you’ll soon be near Ender. You were previously near Todd but things have changed with your continued postings. You’re supposed to fight supposed fallacy with truth and logic not more fallacies of your own.
And then you say something like this:
“I find it amusing how you have no trouble making baseless assertions that the harm would somehow be much less today due to the education levels of some of the anti-vaxers. Tell us augie, what evidence do you have to justify that conclusion?”
Just a hint there. It’s called socio-economic status and it is not a cause. Cash in your pocket is not what causes one to get or not get a disease. A textbook in your house does not change severity. A degree on the wall does not kill the measles. But the effects of socio-economic status can be a factor in disease severity.
Say hey to Ender for all of the other sciencebloggers.
@jen
What is the rate of complications from measles? What is the rate of complications from the MMR? Please cite your sources when you answer.
Thanks.
Alternatively, you can use risk in place of rate.
Jen,
On the “vast majority” part, you’re looking at confirmation bias. The people we’re aware of are, in general, the ones who survived: the babies who die, or the disabled children locked up in institutions, aren’t noticed outside their families. Histories, and genealogies, are full of the survivors.
Suppose you had a population that included 10,000 children. Each of them gets several diseases, and each disease has a 10% death rate. After four epidemics, you have about 6650 survivors. You could accurately say “everyone got those diseases, and most of them survived”: but about a third of the parents would have attended a child’s funeral.
As for “not a third world country,” I wish health care, nutrition, and such in the United States were as good as you’re assuming. Since this is a First World country, the government didn’t leave individual cities to cope with epidemics of TB and AIDS on its own. Except they did: there were years in the 1980s when New York City spent more on TB than the national government. It’s not only in Third World countries that people are told, by word and deed, to go away and die, because they’re black, or gay, or poor, or drug users, or otherwise not deserving of compassion.
Do First World countries leave people to get sick and even die rather than provide fairly basic medical care?
If they do, it doesn’t matter for discussions of health care whether the United States is a Third World country. If they don’t, I think the onus is on you to prove that it isn’t one.
jen, I sincerely doubt you could adequately design a test, much less read a medical journal paper.
Hospital costs amounted to $18 million, two thirds of which was paid for by Medi-Cal.
Really, jen, do tell what the risks are for measles versus the MMR. Also explain why a retracted paper of twelve case studies has more weight than these (note that there are more than five papers):
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2010 May;29(5):397-400.
Lack of association between measles-mumps-rubella vaccination and autism in children: a case-control study.
Mrozek-Budzyn D, Kieltyka A, Majewska R.
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study.
Hornig M et al.
PLoS ONE 2008; 3(9): e3140 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003140
*Subjects: 25 children with autism and GI disturbances and 13 children with GI disturbances alone (controls)
MMR-Vaccine and Regression in Autism Spectrum Disorders: Negative Results Presented from Japan.
Uchiyama T et al.
J Autism Dev Disord 2007; 37(2):210-7
*Subjects: 904 children with autism spectrum disorder
(Note: MMR was used in Japan only between 1989 and 1993.)
No Evidence of Persisting Measles Virus in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells from Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
DâSouza Y et al.
Pediatrics 2006; 118(4):1664-75
*Subjects: 54 children with autism spectrum disorder and 34 developmentally normal children
MMR Vaccination and Pervasive Developmental Disorders: A Case-Control Study.
Smeeth L et al.
Lancet 2004; 364(9438):963-9
*Subjects: 1294 cases and 4469 controls
Age at First Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination in Children with Autism and School-Matched Control Subjects: A Population-Based Study in Metropolitan Atlanta.
DeStefano F et al. Pediatrics 2004; 113(2): 259-66
*Subjects: 624 children with autism and 1,824 controls
Prevalence of Autism and Parentally Reported Triggers in a North East London Population.
Lingam R et al.
Arch Dis Child 2003; 88(8):666-70
*Subjects: 567 children with autistic spectrum disorder
Neurologic Disorders after Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccination.
Makela A et al.
Pediatrics 2002; 110:957-63
*Subjects: 535,544 children vaccinated between November 1982 and June 1986 in Finland
Relation of Childhood Gastrointestinal Disorders to Autism: Nested Case Control Study Using Data from the UK General Practice Research Database.
Black C et al.
BMJ 2002; 325:419-21
*Subjects: 96 children diagnosed with autism and 449 controls
Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccination and Bowel Problems or Developmental Regression in Children with Autism: Population Study.
Taylor B et al.
BMJ 2002; 324(7334):393-6
*Subjects: 278 children with core autism and 195 with atypical autism
Time Trends in Autism and in MMR Immunization Coverage in California.
Dales L et al.
JAMA 2001; 285(9):1183-5
*Subjects: Children born in 1980-94 who were enrolled in California kindergartens (survey samples of 600â1,900 children each year)
Mumps, Measles, and Rubella Vaccine and the Incidence of Autism Recorded by General Practitioners: A Time Trend Analysis.
Kaye JA et al.
BMJ 2001; 322:460-63
*Subjects: 305 children with autism
Autism and Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine: No Epidemiological Evidence for a Causal Association.
Taylor B et al.
Lancet 1999;353 (9169):2026-9
*Subjects: 498 children with autism
No Evidence for Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine-Associated Inflammatory Bowel Disease or Autism in a 14-year Prospective Study.
Peltola H et al.
Lancet 1998; 351:1327-8
*Subjects: 3,000,000 doses of MMR vaccine
No effect of MMR withdrawal on the incidence of autism: a total population study.
Honda H, Shimizu Y, Rutter M.
J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2005 Jun;46(6):572-9.
Encephalopathy after whole-cell pertussis or measles vaccination: lack of evidence for a causal association in a retrospective case-control study.
Ray P, Hayward J, Michelson D, Lewis E, Schwalbe J, Black S, Shinefield H, Marcy M, Huff K, Ward J, Mullooly J, Chen R, Davis R; Vaccine Safety Datalink Group.
Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
@Chris
It is interesting to note that “small sample size” and “too short a follow-up period” are grounds to dismiss safety studies showing MMR to be safe, yet jen is still an ardent supporter of Wakefield and his Lancet study that had 12 subjects examined a handful of times, and which did not account for differences in type of MMR vaccine received.
Oh, and jen, here is another study that looked in part at the cost of health care to treat measles patients. In 2006 in Duisburg, Germany, there was a measles outbreak. Treatment of 614 patients cost about â¬229,000 (roughly US$289,400 in 2006). Germany is a pretty well-developed country with medical care comparable to the U.S. Treating measles is not cheap.
Orac,
I have a post that’s probably in moderation due to a profanity. Would you please shake it free?
Thanks.
per post 94 what I meant to have said was, “the fact that you people have to nitpick is more a reflection of your desperation (not so much bias, although that too would apply) than my intellectual level.”
Chris, I really don’t care if you think I can’t read a medical paper. I have read several that you have referred to and was not impressed. No doubt there is a cost to measles treatment. Just as there is a cost to vaccine damage -although not to the pharma companies anymore. The costs of autism are very real for the families. Actually, I’m reading Callous Disregard now and I can’t wait to see some of the re-challenge studies (re. MMR and maybe some other vaccines) that he mentions in the book. And apparently even the vaccine safety committees accept re-challenge “effects” as evidence of causation.
Only a smitten fan girl would think that Wakefield’s series of twelve case studies in any way is better than Hornig’s attempt to replicate it.
So what is the cost of “vaccine damage”? Where exactly is that data?
And when you finish reading that book, can you tell us which MMR vaccine he was investigating. The one approved for use in the UK before or after 1992?
Yeah, you know, I’ve got Aspeger’s and I find that equation between Asperger’s and what you describe as being pretty skin-crawling.
So stop fucking doing it, Jen and the rest of you antivax assholes.
Every time you claim a terrible autism epidemic, you’re equating Asperger’s with the worst possible manifestations of autism, because every single study that shows high rates of ASDs includes high-functioning Aspie types, because Asperger’s is an ASD.
“the fact that you people have to nitpick says more about your bias than my intellectual level.(yes, North America is, duh, a continent-wow the things one can learn here! The intellectual level is astounding).”
So just to clarify: knowing that North America is a continent is not very impressive. Then what should we infer about someone who would make such a trivial mistake?
You also appeared not to know that you can still be Canadian and a traitor.
You also failed to produce any evidence of harm for PCV1. Yet you still seem off-the-scale arrogant to assume that it does harm. Why Jen? Why must you let Canadians be mocked so?
Oh and it’s pretty interesting that you think it’s ‘bias’ that keeps us talking about your loose grasp of law and geography instead of accepting the possibility that your posts are so utterly devoid of actual science that you leave us little choice.
Even your criticisms are pretty lame – “small sample size” might be descriptive to someone who does – whatever job you do which is completely devoid of higher maths – but to those of us who actually took stats. We need a bit more. For starters how about the name/pmid of the specific study? Hmmm? That might actually be worthwhile wouldn’t it? The actual size instead of relying on your expert knowledge of what passes for a small sample. Could have used that eh Jen? Evidence of poor methodology or lack of randomization (like that crappy phone survey that was done a while back). How about seeing if larger scale studies exist, or multiple similar sized studies exist or if this study was used in a systematic review or a meta-analysis? Any of that has a chance of being better than your single proclamation that a study is “small”.
I’m glad you’ve come clean about swallowing Wakefields book whole and uncritically.
“I think some of you may be too young to even know that the vast majority of people had most of these illnesses and were just fine.”
Not sure why you are being ageist. It doesn’t matter how old you are there is plenty of information on mortality rates of these diseases. Interesting that you don’t see how relying on ones memory would be a detriment not an advantage.
I’m not sure what “just fine” entails clinically but personally, I care about the 160 000 measles deaths annually and the 3/4’s of which vaccination could easily and cheaply prevent. As well as the potential to eliminate the disease much like what was done with smallpox. Considering that you have provided no useful evidence that there is any harm in the MMR and that large scale MMR trials show no outcome associated with autism. Vaccination would be the rational choice.
“(CDC responsible for both surveillance and promotion of public health), we really don’t know.”
Except that that’s not true. Many studies are done without the input of the CDC. Some of these have been replicated in other countries. Your hypothesis requires that all these agencies are likewise corrupted and somehow are also responsible for the largest and most well-designed trials.
Not to mention that your argument is overly general (take a course or something) you could equally argue that Wakefield has (especially now) and conflict of interest as he stands to profit from promoting anti-vacationist ideas. I mean other than that what *real science* is he doing? So by your own measure “We really don’t know about vaccines causing harm” either.
@bensmyson: Who’s comparing? You mean that because it’s all part of the “autism spectrum”, then the implication is that people in the spectrum all have the same exact challenges? Or that they should?
Take any disability, say, Parkinson’s. Do all people with Parkinson’s have the same level of disability? Clearly not. Some are in the brink of death from it. Some have barely noticeable symptoms.
Werdna, you really need to get a life. My “loose grasp of law and geography” is a figment of your imagination. The sentence “North America is not a third world country” is factually true. Of course that NA is comprised of countries is also true. It’s really not a big deal except in your mind. I would heartily agree with you that knowing that North America is a continent is not very impressive. Great, we can agree on something. “Many studies are done without the input of the CDC.” Sure they are. I think there probably is a huge corruption problem in terms of the CDC and the medical journals/pharma companies (probably your workplace). Michael Ralston, I’m sorry but there pretty much is a terrible autism epidemic.
augustine @ #96:
Oh really? OK then augie, by all means please provide credible evidence showing a reasonably comprehensive demographic breakdown of the “anti-vax movement”. I noticed that you didn’t provide such info yet. BTW do you really think that the people counted at anti-vax rallies represent the totality of people that have bought into the anti-vax scaremongering?
You also still haven’t provided any credible evidence that such an outbreak would be considerably better today than just a decade ago.
[sarc]Oh noes!!!1!11![/sarc] As I already told you before augie it’s not about you, as much as your apparently inflated ego may want to believe otherwise.
Coming from someone that seems to be trying to set a record for the most fallacies and overt lies on this blog that’s rather amusing. Doubly so since you frequently accuse others of committing fallacies but then often seem to unable to elucidate it.
You made an assumption that the anti-vax movement has an homogeneous socioeconomic status, all I did is point out that it’s not that overly simplistic as you’d like to believe. So by all means please tell us exactly what fallacy I committed. You seem to have difficulty doing that accurately/honestly.
No duh Mr/Mrs False Assumption, you do seem to be awfully prone to those (false assumptions) augie. As I had already pointed out in the first post you’re assuming a homogeneous socioeconomic status among anti-vaxers that changed significantly (yet is somehow still homogeneous) between then and now. That is an unwarranted assumption. Since I had already pointed that problem out previously I can only assume that it’s either a failing of comprehension on your part, or another lie. The only reason I brought up college education is because YOU brought up college eduction, are your fallacies and lies getting to difficult for you to keep track of again?
If you want to claim that further outbreaks of measles will be much different you’ll first need to demonstrate the necessary demographics, and then demonstrate that the socioeconomic differences would be great enough to produce a sufficient difference in medical care top create the effect you’re assuming. You have yet to do either.
I made it clear that the “anti-vax community” comprises a number of people across various socioeconomic statuses. Do you have credible evidence to the contrary? You should since it’s the basis of your assumption. For every wealthy person there is in the anti-vax community, how many “working stiffs” and poor are there?
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Oh and just as a reminder, I notice that you still haven’t managed to refute any of the points I made about your other fallacies and distortions.
So augie, do you have anything more to the core of your position than the fallacy of Appeal to Nature? We’re still waiting for you to answer that one too. I for one would love to read about your “religious” objections, especially if that can’t be said to deny much of modern medicine in general.
At the risk of giving into ASD-baiting,[Race baiting is the use of racially derisive language, actions or other forms of communication, to anger, intimidate or incite a person or groups of people, or to make those persons behave in ways that are inimical, and often harmful to their personal or group interests…The term “race” in this context can be construed very broadly to include the social constructs…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_baiting%5D i also object to the extreme oversensitivity toward adult autistics being at all related or compared to juvenile autistics that have a slow development of desired skills. This paragraph :
Displays incredible melodrama that would no doubt hinder any child attempting to live with both autism and an over-dramatic parent. This would most likely lead to an autistic child MORE likely to develop life-skills more slowly or not at all; or even lead to a parent-fulfilling prophesy of being unable to live independently. A child needs peace and calm encouragement. Just like a pet will pick-up any small detail in the attitudes, emotions or even minute behavior of its owner, so too a child will notice such revulsion or disregard from a parent who might say that “autism kidnapped my child” or similar insults. I can testify that even autistic kids pick-up on spoken and unspoken emotions from their parents and such anxiety will lead to a MORE frozen life because of the stress in the environment.
I , myself was not diagnosed formally until age 40 yet as a child many psychologists and other medical professionals said i was “almost autistic” [at the time the label “Asperger’s syndrome” was not available]. I developed much slower than my peers and was always considered the strangest and most nearly-developmentally delayed [used to be called “retarded”] kid in the school of every stage of education i was in until junior college. Like it has been alluded to before, it is a matter of degree not in kind when people here relate an adult Asperger’s person with and autistic child. I WAS that child, but i was not written off as “not all there” etc. then subjected to obviously different treatment in relation to my behavior compared to my peers. Please just cut-out the melodrama [defined here: “…an unrealistic, pathos-filled, campy tale of… domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama and here: “…characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization” http://www.merriam-webster.com/netdict/melodrama then think calmly and logically for once. If your autistic child is not over the age of 25 [when brain development starts to “settle down”] then do not assume that your child will necessarily land in the worst situation that your emotions think of for him or her, please. In addition, please do not minimize the achievement of an adult autistic who happens to be married by nearly stating that one end of the spectrum of behavior is wholly divorced from another end of the spectrum of possible autistic behavior.
Regarding vaccines and autism, even **I** [who was no doubt was thought-of and called by kids like you as a teenager as a “retard”] can see that vaccines are not at all related to any cause of ASD in any rigorous fashion. Please, “jen” and “benismyson” types give it up!
When I say “autism” I mean autism, not autism spectrum disorder. I fully understand that Asperger’s is included in the spectrum and respect that Asperger’s has some potential for serious complications and disabilities. However adults, 40 year olds who seek out a diagnosis of Asperger’s even though they are independent, some are parents, holding jobs, and claim that diagnosis to explain away some other undiagnosed disorder or mental illness in order to better understand why no one likes them or whatever is disingenous and harms all those other 98% seeking understanding and services. Im speaking of autism, the disorder that disallows social intergration because of some serious limitations due to a malfunctioning brain. Those adults diagnosed with Asperger’s late in life are not who I would consider having autism. Autism is a very specific disorder with easily identifiable markers, it is not something you would miss for 40 years.
@jen: I am really learning a lot from you. I didn’t realize that the USA CDC has its fingers in studies done all over the world, in such places as China, Japan, Australia… that show autism rates SIMILAR to the US and Canada and the UK, with very different vaccine schedules, even if they don’t use the MMR (like Japan). Wow! As a conspiracy theory, that’s one of the best I’ve ever read! You must be a member of the Illuminati to know all that!
That statement of jen’s has to be maximally wrong.
Rubella is a known teratogen, causing serious birth defects.
Polio mained and killed tens of thousands.
Measles will kill 3 out of a thousand children and serious complication, which are higher include blindness and brain damage. In the third world, the death rate can be 3-15%.
Many of us are too young to know how devastating these diseases can be for a simple reason. The vaccines have driven them to very low levels. There hasn’t been a case of Rubella in the USA in over a year.
But all that is changing. We had a whooping cough outbreak a few years ago. A zombie disease came back to life and terrorized everyone.
BTW, the jen creature really is delusional and unreachable. I’ve seen that with HIV+ AIDS denialists. They will babble on about how HIV doesn’t cause AIDS up until the day they die. Of AIDS.
Has anyone else heard the sounds of goalposts shifting?
ROUND 1
Augustine, Jen, Mary Podlesak & Sid Offitt: Vaccines are dangerous!
Rest of us: Umm, no they’re not. (Provide overwhelming evidence)
ROUND 2
Augustine, Jen, Mary Podlesak & Sid Offitt: Vaccines are not effective!
Rest of us: Yes they are! (Provide irrefutable proof)
ROUND 3
Augustine, Jen, Mary Podlesak & Sid Offitt: The diseases aren’t that bad!
Rest of us: Yes they are! (Show hard data)
I wonder what they’re going to say for Round Four.
@ Julian
Rest of us? The rest of who? Where have you been? Sitting on the outside of the ring where it’s safe. Now you want to bark like YOU did something.
Typical high ego, low self esteem, geek.
Julian, I believe a Cochrane review has said that flu vaccines are really quite useless and pertussis seems to be a disease that kids will get in spite of having been vaccinated for it. It will be very interesting to see the efficacy of the Gardasil vaccine in terms of cancer prevention but the safety aspect doesn’t look so good. Raven, your info on Rubella is appreciated but I was talking about measles (Red)previously. P.S. Julian- you do not have evidence that vaccines are not dangerous. There is no double -blind, randomized study to show that.
Round 4: Random, unsupported assertions.
Bensmyson, you are a first-class a-hole.
Well, if they supported their assertions there would be nothing to debate. Because there is no real data to support their assertions.
Ah, yes… let us look at the levels of pertussis versus how easy it is to get an exemption:
Vaccine Refusal, Mandatory Immunization, and the Risks of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases:
(the “35” refers to this reference: Feikin DR, Lezotte DC, Hamman RF, Salmon DA, Chen RT, Hoffman RE. Individual and community risks of measles and pertussis associated with personal exemptions to immunization. JAMA 2000;284:3145-3150.)
Nonmedical Exemptions to School Immunization Requirements: Secular Trends and Association of State Policies With Pertussis Incidence :
In short: increased numbers of those who do not vaccinate mean more cases of pertussis. It is due to something called “eroding herd immunity.”
(out of curiosity, has jen, Sid or Podlesak ever posted any evidence… even once?)
jen, rubella very serious to children who are not born yet, that is “teratogen” means. And it is a known cause of autism.
There was an epidemic of rubella in the early 1960s that caused many stillborn children and many more born with permanent birth defects:
You don’t seem to be up on real data, or just don’t care about unborn children.
Oh, you care about “red measles”! So exactly what are the relative risks between red measles and the MMR? You have some real data on that, right? Remember no Wakefield fan girl rantings, but real data, please.
@ Julian:
It’s typical denialist behavior…. Deny the problem (in this case the seriousness of many diseases); Deny the solution (in this case vaccines for some of those diseases); Make various forms of Ad Hominem, Genetic Fallacies, in an attempt to Poison the Well; and when that fails deny that anything should be done about the problem in the first place.
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@ Raven and Chris:
That’s not surprising. In one of the other threads augie and I were debating a best case scenario for the measles survival before vaccination. Even with stacking the deck in favor completely in favor of augie’s position, the rate of harm from the most serious MMR side-effect was still a over two orders of magnitude better than the odds for surviving measles before the vaccine was developed. Age of Autism and vaccination against meningococcus: Zetetic post #224 (fair warring, it’s rather SIWOTI-fied)
Did that change augie’s mind? Of course not, augie, (like many anti-vaxers)seems to think that he/she and all other properly “healthy” people are invulnerable. Age of Autism and vaccination against meningococcus: augustine post #273
Typical.
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Come on augie… what fallacy specifically did I commit earlier in this thread? I’m still waiting for your promised “deconstruction” from one of the other threads you ran from, so where is it? I’ve called your bluff, it’s time for you to “show your cards” for a change.
Damn, found a typo….
“the most serious MMR side-effect was still a over two orders of magnitude better than the odds for surviving measles”
Should have read…
“the most serious MMR side-effect was still a little over two orders of magnitude better than the odds for surviving measles”
After all if augie’s going to complain about my using “college education” as part an indication of socio-economic status, when augie made the same connection in his/her own earlier post, I better make sure that augie doesn’t get further confused and think that I meant something like “3 orders of magnitude or greater”. Even though it was clear in the other thread.
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There you go augie, I just saved you from yet another attempt at falsely accusing someone of committing a fallacy when in fact they didn’t.
You’re welcome.
😉
Chris
I believe jen has posted evidence on occasion, but it always turned out that either the evidence contradicted her claims rather than supporting them or it was irrelevant to her claims.
However adults, 40 year olds who seek out a diagnosis of Asperger’s even though they are independent, some are parents, holding jobs, and claim that diagnosis to explain away some other undiagnosed disorder or mental illness in order to better understand why no one likes them or whatever is disingenous and harms all those other 98% seeking understanding and services.
Wow. You really do hate people with autism don’t you. I’m sure it’s very convenient for you for who knows what psychological reason to pretend that Asperger’s isn’t “real” autism, but it’s not true. Like many diseases, autism has a range of manifestations. But just as a person with a 2 mm mole with a few malignant cells has melanoma just as much as a person with multiple visceral mets, a successful, married person with Asperger’s has autism just as much as a person who never develops any language or skills to live independently. One is clearly more affected than the other by the disease but both have it.
Zertec:
It’s typical denialist behavior…. Deny the problem (in this case the seriousness of many diseases); Deny the solution (in this case vaccines for some of those diseases); Make various forms of Ad Hominem, Genetic Fallacies, in an attempt to Poison the Well; and when that fails deny that anything should be done about the problem in the first place.
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The EXACT same can be said for those who deny vaccine damage is happening:
It’s typical vaccine damage denialist behavior…. Deny the problem ; Deny the solution (because there is no solution for a problem that doesn’t exist); Make various forms of Ad Hominem, Genetic Fallacies, in an attempt to Poison the Well; and when that fails deny that anything should be done about the problem in the first place.
I would be willing to bet autistic children are even more sensitive to their parents estimation of them. My son seems to be very in tune with our emotions; he has a bad day when we are tired and frustrated, a good day when we are upbeat. He doesn’t show his emotions like other people (he lashes out, or doesn’t depending on how he feels) but he does have feelings.
Bens parent,
I don’t know if you are an idiot, an asshole or both. A 40-year old looking for a diagnosis is trying to understand why they have been painfully different all their lives.
Those with aspergers and those with high-functioning autism also have a very difficult time with social integration. My husband has had to memorize what different facial expressions mean, because he can’t read them. He can’t have a comfortable conversation because he can’t read subtle social cues (like a look that says; ‘quit going on and on about objective C already’). He is also very clumsy physically and hates sports with a passion.
Of course, I don’t know if you, or Jen or Augustine care about that. Perhaps you were the type that call them “geeks” or “nerds” or other derogatory terms. Apparently Augustine doesn’t have a problem calling someone a “low ego, low self esteem geek”.
Maybe you should look into what aspergers entails, instead of dismissing it as minor, or unimportant.
@122,
“There you go augie, I just saved you from yet another attempt at falsely accusing someone of committing a fallacy when in fact they didn’t.
You’re welcome.”
————————————–
You’re under delusions of grandeur.
@Augustine:
The rest of the commentators on this thread. You know, the ones who have basically dismantled your arguments
Talking about yourself, Augie boy?
@124
“You really do hate people with autism don’t you. I’m sure it’s very convenient for you for who knows what psychological reason to pretend that Asperger’s isn’t “real” autism, but it’s not true. ”
Let’s suppose for a second, just for the sake of argument that Autism and Asperger’s are not the same thing. Really let’s do that. Let’s pretend they are two completely different diagnosises.
The following is from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM IV
Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00 Autistic Disorder
(I) A total of six (or more) items from (A), (B), and (C), with at least two from (A), and one each from (B) and (C)
(A) qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
1. marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction
2. failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
3. a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people, (e.g., by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
4. lack of social or emotional reciprocity ( note: in the description, it gives the following as examples: not actively participating in simple social play or games, preferring solitary activities, or involving others in activities only as tools or “mechanical” aids )
(B) qualitative impairments in communication as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language (not accompanied by an attempt to compensate through alternative modes of communication such as gesture or mime)
2. in individuals with adequate speech, marked impairment in the ability to initiate or sustain a conversation with others
3. stereotyped and repetitive use of language or idiosyncratic language
4. lack of varied, spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play appropriate to developmental level
(C) restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests and activities, as manifested by at least two of the following:
1. encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
2. apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
3. stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
4. persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
(II) Delays or abnormal functioning in at least one of the following areas, with onset prior to age 3 years:
(A) social interaction
(B) language as used in social communication
(C) symbolic or imaginative play
(III) The disturbance is not better accounted for by Rett’s Disorder or Childhood Disintegrative Disorder
Diagnostic Criteria For 299.80 Asperger’s Disorder
A. Qualitative impairment in social interaction, as manifested by at least two of the following:
1. marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction
2. failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level
3. a lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. by a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out objects of interest to other people)
4. lack of social or emotional reciprocity
B. Restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, as manifested by at least one of the following:
1. encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus
2. apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals
3. stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g., hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)
4. persistent preoccupation with parts of objects
C. The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning
D. There is no clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)
E. There is no clinically significant delay in cognitive development or in the development of age-appropriate self-help skills, adaptive behavior (other than social interaction), and curiosity about the environment in childhood
F. Criteria are not met for another specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder or Schizophrenia
299.80 Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (Including Atypical Autism)
This category should be used when there is a severe and pervasive impairment in the development of reciprocal social interaction associated with impairment in either verbal or nonverbal communication skills or with the presence of stereotyped behavior, interests, and activities, but the criteria are not met for a specific Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Schizophrenia, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, or Avoidant Personality Disorder. For example, this category includes “atypical autism” – presentations that do not meet the criteria for Autistic Disorder because of late age at onset, atypical symptomatology, or subthreshold symptomatology, or all of these.
Kristen – “My husband has had to memorize what different facial expressions mean, because he can’t read them.”
And that’s a disability, that’s autism? You’re serious? Do you really for a second believe that people instinctly recognize facial expressions? It’s learned, memorized, we all do it.
And not everyone likes sports or can tap dance. My skin really is starting to crawl.
“The rest of the commentators on this thread. You know, the ones who have basically dismantled your arguments.”
Not one person has “dismantled” my arguments. They are, however,particularly good at constructing strawmen and attacking windmills.
I was involuntarily diagnosed after a crisis in my life–i never looked for it, but i have always been sympathetic to the “underdogs” in society. Yet, i was never into purposeful anti-social behavior and i tried my best to get along with everyone i met. After all the doctors got through with me, the ASD diagnosis fit my childhood and my adult life perfectly and many things made so much more sense to me. I was never looking for an excuse for making people angry, but a partial explanation found me.
I used to be somewhat independent because my father told me that he would let me go hungry if i did not learn to work at some job [it turns out that that was just a threat to motivate me but like a true autistic i took it literally] , but i have always had a husband or parent to smooth things out. At the time of my crisis that partner failed to be helpful, so now my parents have taken over. I was lucky that my crisis happened before they died because the interview that the doctors gave both my parents helped them to really pinpoint the diagnosis.
It is amazing that the lengths these vaccine denialists go to includes that they MUST first assume that every opponent that contradicts them is not a “real” autistic because that would be too damning and embarrassing i guess. “Down with the haters” is an appropriate slogan here.
BTW, i have never sought “services” or benefits that autistics are supposedly entitled to; but i am on “food stamps” if that applies as an autistic “benefit”. Other people suggested that i get those. Part of the reason i had my crisis was because i was trying very hard NOT to have to “get benefits”; because i have heard such disparaging remarks about people who “get benefits” in any form. I guess that is another typical misunderstanding my autistic brain forces on me.
@Chris:
“In short: increased numbers of those who do not vaccinate mean more cases of pertussis. It is due to something called “eroding herd immunity.””
Chris,
Happy father’s day.
Enjoy.
http://www.ima.org.il/imaj/ar06may-2.pdf
Pertussis is considered an endemic disease, characterized by an epidemic every 2â5 years. This rate of exacerbations has not changed, even after the introduction of mass vaccination â a fact that indicates the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing the disease but not the transmission of the causative agent (B. pertussis) within the population [19].
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/104/6/1381
âIt is unknown whether immunizing adolescents and adults against pertussis will reduce the risk of transmission to infants.â
I’d urge people to read the two articles augustine cites above. The first citation notes that pertussis vaccine reduced the prevalence of pertussis in affected populations from 872 per 100,000 to 0.47 per 100,000, and expresses concern that anti-vaccination fervor is leading to a resurgence of disease.
The second article “supports” augustine’s position equally well.
Ben’s parent,
We have not said Asperger’s is the same as profound autism. I have pointed out (as has others) that they are different extremes of a spectrum of disorders that are related.
But you don’t get it, which seems to be your modis operandi. I swear, beating my head against my desk would be more productive than trying to reason with you.
Forgot to mention: Yes, reading facial expressions is something learned. It is normally learned in infancy, not as a teen or adult.
I find it interesting that Ben’s parent decided to just pick out that one trait I mentioned and not any of the others I mentioned at #92.
Bensmyson,
No, I think the reality is that *you* are making my skin crawl. You don’t think that the kind of social deficits encountered by Asperger’s children (and adults) are a significant problem?
But guess what, pal. If you want to call autism an epidemic and use the 1-in-100 number that your anti-vax friends like to quote, you have to include them. Which makes you a freakin’ hypocrite.
Little Augie, you aren’t very bright. Why do you think the Tdap was introduced for adolescents? The 1999 paper was so last century. Why do you think the DTaP was developed in Japan? Neither dispute that states with more liberal vaccine exemptions have more disease, including pertussis.
Plus, you are an idiot. But that goes without saying.
Guess what, Little Augie… the 1999 paper was a commentary. There was an update to that which includes the sentence: “Pertussis will continue to be a problem until we address the epidemiology of B pertussis. The coming availability of dTaP vaccines for use in adolescents and adults and their universal use is the only solution to the âresurgentâ pertussis problem.”
So are you current with your tetanus immunization? Remember to get the version with the pertussis component the next time you are due so you can both avoid the 100 day cough and not pass it on to a vulnerable infant.
And again, it said nothing about the fact that states with lower vaccine rates due to lenient exemption policies have more pertussis.
Also, not that I care what you think, because you are an idiot… why does it have to be vaccines causing autism? Why not the increase of wifi, the internet or the number of pirates in Somalia?
Militant Agnostic: @ #123:
So has sid, and augie keeps doing so too. augustine’s most recent case is here at #134.
That’s a common pattern among denialists of all types. Sometimes I think it’s just because they deliberately lie/spin. Sometimes it’s because they don’t understand what it says. Other times it seems to be a case Morton’s Demon, where cognitive dissonance blinds them from what the article/paper actually states.
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augustine @ #125:
Oh goody, and augie chalks up yet another Straw-Man for his/her growing army of “Arguments the Pro-Vax Side Never Made”! You’re projecting again augie…
OK augie, by all means care to point out where anyone here on the pro-vax side said such a thing? Please note, saying that the risk of harm with vaccination is much lower, than the risk of disease is not the same thing as “denying vaccine damage” as you are asserting.
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augustine @ #127:
On the contrary I’m not the one that apparently thinks that he/she is smarter, or more noble that the the majority of the scientific medical community. Nor am I the one that apparently thinks that just asserting my “health” will protect me indefinitely from disease. Nor am I the one that apparently callously brushes off the deaths of others as insignificant, because they weren’t “healthy” enough.
You though have made numerous claims that others had committed fallacies, when in fact they hadn’t, then you’ve been unable to name the fallacy in question in spite of being repeatedly challenged to do so.
So augie have you finally come up with the name of the fallacy that listing possible suspects of a hypothetical autism “trigger” represents? You know, the one you accused Chris of making earlier.
How about the promised “deconstruction” you threatened earlier? We’re still waiting….
For that matter…
How about that evidence that the anti-vax movement is homogeneously, or at even by a sizable majority, composed of those with a higher socio-economic status?
How about that religious argument you were talking about? Have a religious principle yet that means “Thou shall not vaccinate” and that doesn’t rule out most of modern medicine in the process?
Have you come up with an explanation for why you claim that vaccination is primarily an “atheist ideal”, yet many of those that are religious develop or help to administer/distribute vaccines?
So far all you’ve done is cherry pick, lie, commit fallacies, refuse to account for any of your numerous (and growing) failings, and attempt to build a “house of cards” out of one baseless assertion after another that you have never been able to backup.
No augie, you seem to be the one here with delusions of grandeur.
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augustine @ #131:
LOL! And you accused me of being “delusional”! Poor little augie, still projecting (or lying) I see.
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augustine @ #134:
Like I been telling you for a while now augie, all you need to do to change a lot of minds around here is show that the use of vaccines outweighs the harm of not using them.
I see that you are still failing pathetically at such an effort. We’re still waiting for you to give us a valid reason for your position.
Kristin, you are really reaching when you infer that Ben’s parents don’t care about kids with autism and think they are inferior. You both obviously care about your kids and you believe in a different etiology. End of story. There is no correlation between the fact that some people believe in using chelation/bio-medical and name calling people with disabilities. I never teased anybody when I was younger and there was a special ed class in our school and I bet Ben’s parents didn’t either. I myself have had to deal with social phobia most of my adult life and that has not been a picnic. I have used a pharmaceutical and found that to help but other approaches have also (currently) been helpful.
Kristin, this reminds me of the scene in Bachelor Party when that druggie guy goes to drown himself in the bathtub, where Tom Hanks has drained all the water. He bangs his head on the floor of the tub, and says, “Whoa! Pain…is SUCH a rush.”
It has to be better than talking to these clowns.
jen writes:
No doubt manufactured by a different company than the creeps who make up all the so-called “research” supporting vaccines.
No, not one person, a whole bunch of people.
Anyway, Augie, the effort is unnecessary. See Jud’s comment @135. You’re doing a fine job all on your own.
http://www.adacel-locator.com/support/brochure/adacelpatientbrochure.pdf
Pertussis vaccine manufacturer:
“Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah…”
“It is unknown whether immunizing adolescents and
adults against pertussis will reduce the risk of transmission
to infants.8”
Apparently some of you “scientists” on here need to inform sanofi marketing team that it IS known…somehow.
Chris, maybe you could send them your research.
You obviously didn’t read my comments. I only suggested that Ben’s parent doesn’t seem to care about persons with high-functioning autism or Asperger’s syndrome.
It is quite obvious to me that Ben’s parents (both) love their son very much. It is also obvious that they care about other children with profound autism. But they don’t have any sympathy for children/adults who are less severely affected.
Thanks Pablo for the laugh. 😀
First, let me say that benmyson, whoever the hell that is, has been outed elsewhere as having stated (in AoA) his purpose in posting comments on blogs such as this: to troll, with no regard to what upset he causes.
This being said, I think it’s right to came back at him for being an idiot, regarding the diagnostic criteria. As has been pointed out to him elsewhere in the blogosphere, his assertion that autism and Asperger syndrome are not the same is based on very simplistic readings of the diagnostic manuals and a total lack of understanding of lifespan development (typical and atypical). Because of these factors, I can’t see anything in his statement below that isn’t some form of intolerance based on prejudice:
“These kinds of Aspergers diagnosis just make my skin crawl when related to autism. I find it hard to believe anyone would attempt to compare an adult who was never diagnosed prior, who had enough social skills to marry and raise a child, and to apparently hold a job to someone unable to speak, in diapers, with no social skills living either at home with parents or in an institution or group home. Its like insinuating that poison ivy and the measles are the same.”
I’ve italicised the last sentence because this is where he peristently demonstrates his stupidity: there are two studies, one of which (by Sally Ozonoff and others) compared the four children in Hans Asperger’s study against the DSM IV criteria for Asperger syndrome (299.80). These four children did not meet the criteria for Asperger syndrome (299.80). They met the criteria for Childhood Autism (299.00). The other study did the same thing with ICD 10 and came to a similar conclusion.
The criteria for 299.00 and 299.80 differ in the following ways:
299.80 specifies “no significant linguistic or cognitive delay”, and the word significant is all-important here: “clinically significant delay” means scoring on standardised tests of intellectual and linguistic ability is “no less than two standard deviations below the mean” (so, IQ <70 on a Wechsler scale). 299.00 does not specify any condition relating to intellectual ability. It does specify “delays or abnormal functioning in social interaction, language (as used in social communication) and symbolic/imaginative play”, but only one of these is required (and nothing is stipulated as to which one it should be). And this is the main point on which BMS is just playing at being clever, since anyone who otherwise fulfills the criteria for 299.80 also fulfills the criteria for 299.00; and in the criteria for 299.80, the specifier for differential diagnosis is “any other pervasive developmental disorder”. The specifier for differential diagnosis in 299.00 is for Rett’s or Heller’s* syndromes.
Heller’s syndrome is Childhood Disintegrative Disorder (specified as such in ICD 10).
The upshot of this is, of course, that Asperger syndrome and ‘autism’ are precisely one and the same thing: clusters of behavioural signs, the causes of which may be similar are radically different. And it is not for the likes of BMS (or anyone else) to decide this isn’t so (unless they have some training in these matters, i. e., developmental diagnostics). When I was training, I found that the Gillbergs’ criteria were the closest available to that diagnostic entity that Hans Asperger referred to as ‘autism’. And these criteria will detect autism, per F84.0 (ICD 10) and 299.00 (DSM IV, including TR). They differ from the ICD/DSM criteria, but – as the Ozonoff study (and the other one) demonstrate – the ICD and DSM criteria for Asperger syndrome might actually be wrong in and of themselves.
In other words, there is no difference between the two entities, except in as much as might be assessed using the DSM’s GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning), which registers on another axis in the DSM system, and is not specifically concerned with anything on the axis used for recording developmental issues.
This bit of BMS’s comment is fucking ridiculous:
“I find it hard to believe anyone would attempt to compare an adult who was never diagnosed prior, who had enough social skills to marry and raise a child, and to apparently hold a job to someone unable to speak, in diapers, with no social skills living either at home with parents or in an institution or group home.” (my italics)
My response to this trolling imbecile is this: I don’t fucking care if you believe it or not, and nor would the vast majority of clinical or educational professionals who understand development. And, for your information, BMS, I trained in psychology (my Master of education degree is in the psychology of special education, taken after the Finnish equivalent of a bachelor degree in applicable psychology). So, I’m trained in assessment and diagnosis, and we had to learn all this stuff in order to not end up being so closed-minded as to make false non-diagnoses. You, BMS, evidently have no such professional skills. I win. Deal with it. And, oh yeh… I’m autistic, too!
Now, BMS, stop fucking trolling and making yourself (and your AoA cronies) look like stupid twats; and get a fucking life! If not for yourself, then at least for Ben. Last thing he needs is his dad being an ever-so-irritating twat on other people’s blogs.
“And, oh yeh… I’m autistic, too!”
Of course you are Doctor David, and this was perhaps a self diagnosis at 40?
BMS, for your information:
I got a diagnosis in January 1997 from both of Dr. M. E. M. El Sherbini MB BCh, DPM, MRCPsych (yup, a real diagnosis, from a real psychiatrist at a real hospital) and Prof. D. J. H. Tantam BA (Hons), BM, BCh, MA, MPH, PhD, AFBPS, FRCPsych…. and so on… (ooh, BMS; look at that – a real professor, in a real university who is also another real psychiatrist). I was 34½ years old at the time.
Now, I could go on and say that, of course there’s not really a Ben involved in your existence and that your sole reason for being here is to lie about your life… but… if I actually did, I’d be as much of a disingenuous arse-hole as you. And I think most would agree that I’m actually a nicer person than you are.
However, if someone else were to suggest that there is no Ben, and that your sole purpose here is to lie your worthless arse off and annoy everyone else on the blog, then I’d not feel much compulsion to say anything to them about it (where. usually, I would bollock them, because it is the ultimate in shittiness to do that sort of thing – and you seem so willing to engage in that sort of shittiness, so you can go fuck yourself, as far as I’m concerned). Because, let’s face it, you actually deserve all the shit you get given – here and elsewhere (such as LBRB, for example).
You see, there’s other on the blog here whose postings I actually disagree with, but – so far – I haven’t seen them stoop as low as you have just now. And so far, I haven’t come straight out and said there is no ‘Ben’ and (even if there was) he’s not even got a diagnosis except for something you have no qualification to make. And that, BMS, is the difference between you and me… regardless of my rather colourful language, I have more class in my little finger and you have in your entire body.
And, yes, I do know my stuff about all this diagnosis stuff, because I actually made the effort and learned it on a proper postgraduate training course and – well, you didn’t. Your problem is that you hate being called on being wrong…
I think that Orac would agree with me, as would everyone else, if I said that now is the time for you to fuck off and leave this discussion to those who want to discuss stuff without the interference of concern trolls like you.
David-
If Im not mistaken Andrew Wakefield is also a learned and well educated man yet you and others here seem to discount his qualifications, so your diagnosis by some college professor et al proves nothing to me in regards to my comment about my own opinions of adults claiming an autism diagnosis at 40 or in your case at 37. To me autism is not something that can be overlooked for 37 years. Perhaps there is a “higher functioning” type of Aspergers that has yet to be labeled and given its own code, but it is my experience with autism that there is a reason the average age for diagnosis is 5 years of age. You cant miss it.
And by the way, I honestly dont care what one believes or doesnt believe about me, who I am is extremely unimportant. I state what I do to be honest, not to bait or troll or flame or whatever it is Im constantly accused of, I speak my mind and I try to extend the courtesy shown by others.
BTW, I do notice how classy you are by your choice of the vulgar language you so freely use to attempt to ruffle up your feathers. Sir, I wouldnt be surprised if when you get home tonight your mother washes your mouth out with soap.
David N. Andrews: “I have more class in my little finger and you have in your entire body.”
If you have to say it then you don’t.
“I think that Orac would agree with me, as would everyone else, if I said that now is the time for you to fuck off and leave this discussion to those who want to discuss stuff without the interference of concern trolls like you.”
Yes. Yes. Yes. Class exemplified.
bensmyson:
Wakefield gets bashed because he performed unethical things in his experiments, lied, misrepresented his position, and shilled for trial lawyers.
How many times do people have to keep telling you that?
troll:
Instead of relying on a marketing brochure on whether pertussis vaccination keeps down incidence rates (in other words, whether or not immunization of other people protects infants), why not you look at 20th century incidence rates for pertussis.
BMS: “If Im not mistaken Andrew Wakefield is also a learned and well educated man yet you and others here seem to discount his qualifications.”
I don’t. I know he is a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery, conjointly-awarded degrees which he holds at the University of London. Great. Brilliant. As far as I am aware, he does not hold a master’s degree. I do.
BMS: “To me autism is not something that can be overlooked for 37 years. Perhaps there is a ‘higher functioning’ type of Aspergers that has yet to be labeled and given its own code, but it is my experience with autism that there is a reason the average age for diagnosis is 5 years of age. You cant miss it.”
How stupid would I have to be to be you?
I was born in 1962. Childhood autism did not make it into the diagnostic manuals until … when…? Because as far as I know it wasn’t in ICD 9, which came out in 1977, when I was 15. You really are not bright. How can it be diagnosed properly (i. e., according to a set of recognised criteria) when it isn’t in the manual? Simple question. Want to answer? Don’t bother – you’re incapable of giving a good answer.
“so your diagnosis by some college professor et al proves nothing to me in regards to my comment about my own opinions of adults claiming an autism diagnosis at 40 or in your case at 37”
Even if the professor concerned is an internationally recognised expert on diagnosis in adults? Because if that counts for nothing, then what about the person who diagnosed Ben? Or do you not know what ‘expertise’ actually means? Or do you think you still know more that does? Don’t answer: we can all see that you think you do from the quote I’ve just used.
Dunning-Kruger syndrome going on there.
See, if someone has some expertise on something, I am happy to respect that, like Digby Tantam’s. And, yes, my own expertise has been recognised by a number of people in this country (which pathologically hates external expertise); I am also editor of an autism-specific journal, so pretty clearly, I have some proper expertise.
On the other hand, Wakefield was a surgeon. His specialty was entero-surgery. And – on issues of cutting up and re-suturing people’s intestines – can’t say I’d doubt his ability or expertise. His Fellowship of that organisation in Canada speaks that he is an expert in enteric surgery.
But not autism.
As for you having any expertise (which, when you say things like “but it is my experience with autism that there is a reason the average age for diagnosis is 5 years of age. You cant miss it”, you actually do claim to have) … well, since I’m qualified to ascertain the nature of someone’s expertise on autism (and you are not), I am in a position to say whether what you say is or isn’t bollocks. And what you say is bollocks. A case in point: you say “perhaps there is a “higher functioning” type of Aspergers that has yet to be labeled and given its own code”… what?
Did you really say that?
Firstly, Asperger syndrome has its own code (F84.5 in ICD 10, although it code-shares 299.80 in DSM IV – that’s a DSM IV Task Force issue; ICD has usually lead the way in these matters, and in fact DSM V is the first occasion on which DSM has lead).
Secondly, the whole issue with Asperger syndrome is that – according to the current ICD and DSM criteria – intellectual and/or linguistic ability are not significantly delayed.
So – your statement was a bit… redundant? Non-sensical, even? Shows how poor your ‘expertise’ on autism is. Hardly surprising … you base your whole ‘study’ on Ben!
You’re definitely a Dunning-Kruger type. That or just plain stupid/ignorant.
BMS: “I honestly dont care what one believes or doesnt believe about me”
Bit arrogant, aren’t you?
You might not give a crap about what people think of you and your spoutings… that’s fine. But your spoutings will stay here, demonstrating how incorrect you are (as well as how obnoxious you are), and – well, I know that I’m the one who put in the study regarding what I say about the autism issue. You have a qualification relating to it? Don’t answer… it’s pretty clear you don’t.
BMS: “I state what I do to be honest, not to bait or troll or flame or whatever it is Im constantly accused of, I speak my mind and I try to extend the courtesy shown by others.”
Oh? And saying things like “these kinds of Aspergers diagnosis just make my skin crawl when related to autism. I find it hard to believe anyone would attempt to compare an adult who was never diagnosed prior, who had enough social skills to marry and raise a child, and to apparently hold a job” is showing any sort of courtesy? Because – from the responses seen earlier int his blog to that specific comment, I think you might just have been very discourteous to more than just the people who have commented. And yes – that very much was a discourteous comment, like it or not. And, to then carry on the same line of attack on people… that is baiting, as someone else has pointed out. And you claim to be ‘honest’: your denial of what you’re obviously doing is far from honest.
The reason you’re constantly accused of those things is because they are exactly the things that you do!
Deal with it… you’ve been sussed. Bit of a no-brainer, really… look at what you say and the responses of people to it… it’s clear that you do it with intent. Ever apologised for ‘inadvertantly’ causing offence? Nope. You haven’t. Clearly you don’t give a shit who you upset or offend, or anger. And that is how we can tell you have no class. Class isn’t about whether one swears or not: it’s about whether one case about having upset or angered, or otherwise offended people. And, like I say, evidently you just couldn’t care less.
BMS: “I wouldnt be surprised if when you get home tonight your mother washes your mouth out with soap.”
Ahhhh …. condescension! So, in addition to being an arrogant, ignorant, discourteous, dishonest, ASD-baiting toe-rag… you’re patronising, too.
—————-
Ahhh … the celebrated ‘augustine’ comes along to proffer support: “If you have to say it then you don’t.”
*whispers* Between you and me, Augie, old chum… I’d usually agree, but BMS is a bit simple, see? So we have to spell it out for him.
“Yes. Yes. Yes. Class exemplified.”
Absolutely. I was STILL classy enough not to give him shit about Ben’s diagnosis in the same way that he gives others shit about theirs.
And THAT’s what I mean by ‘class’.
Interesting.
Autism in ICD 9 – listed, it is… but not where you’d expect it.
ICS 9 – Mental Disorders diagnosed in Childhood makes no mention of autism. See above.
It was still thought to be a psychosis. By the time ICD 10 came around…
Wonder if BMS would relish the thought that his child is ‘psychotic’! No? Thought not. Kid would be on serious tranquillisers, like I was as a child.
Incidentally, ICD 8 (WHO, 1965) makes no diagnosis of autism possible.
All you get is these:
296 Affective psychoses
297 Paranoid states
298 Other psychoses
299 Unspecified psychosis
My case was first brought to the attention of a paediatrician in 1966. And then to the attention of a child psychiatrist in 1967. So, BMS (since you are SOOOOOO wise!) … how on earth could either of them diagnosed a condition that wasn’t noted in the diagnostic manual?
There is no other answer to that question than “they couldn’t!”. So don’t even try foisting any other on me, or anyone else you’ve pissed off by your insensitive and disparaging comment(s).
Autism wasn’t in ICD 7 (WHO, 1955) either…
This is what they had:
(300-309) Psychoses
300 Schizophrenic disorders (dementia praecox)
301 Manic-depressive reaction
302 Involutional melancholia
303 Paranoia and paranoid states
304 Senile psychosis
305 Presenile psychosis
306 Psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis
307 Alcoholic psychosis
308 Psychosis of other demonstrable aetiology
309 Other and unspecified psychoses
(310-318) Psychoneurotic disorders
310 Anxiety reaction without mention of somatic symptoms
311 Hysterical reaction without mention of anxiety reaction
312 Phobic reaction
313 Obsessive-compulsive reaction
314 Neurotic-depressive reaction
315 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting circulatory system
316 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting digestive system
317 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting other systems
318 Psychoneurotic disorders, other, mixed and unspecified types
(320-326) Disorders of character, behaviour, and intelligence
320 Pathological personality
321 Immature personality
322 Alcoholism
323 Other drug addiction
324 Primary childhood behaviour disorders
325 Mental deficiency
326 Other and unspecified character, behaviour and intelligence disorders
BMS, can you find autism in that lot?
I did a word find on both ICD 7 and ICD 8… nada, zilch, the centre of a doughnut… fuck all.
BMS looking more unreasonable now… because:
a- his ‘expertise’ is shite; and,
b- he is claiming that something could have happened that patently could not have happened.
What does >a href=”http://www.wolfbane.com/icd/icd5h.htm”>ILCD 5 (WHO, 1938) have?
Again… nothing. Of course, this predates the use of the term ‘(childhood) autism’.
Point being that BMS thinks – because he has SO much more expertise (from being the parent of a child who was diagnosed at a very young age) than anyone actually TRAINED in diagnosis and in developmental psychology/psychiatry – my being autistic could NOT have been missed as a child.
Well, hello BMS – this has been the evidence that it COULD. And my medical records are evidence enough that it DID. I dare say that Julia, and others in our 40s who have read this blog and found what you said offensive/arrogant/etc., have also got records that show classic signs of an autistic child but – because autism did not enter the diagnostic manual until 1977 – could not possibly have been diagnosed autistic.
Didn’t mean that any of use weren’t autistic. Just means that there wasn’t a diagnostic category for it.
BMS: “Autism is a very specific disorder with easily identifiable markers,”
No, it isn’t.
“it is not something you would miss for 40 years.”
Yes, it is.
Your claim that it “couldn’t be missed” is false.
BMS: “Those adults diagnosed with Asperger’s late in life are not who I would consider having autism.”
So what? In the words of Hank Williams III… “go fuck you!”
(Orac, this is the one that has the html fixed!)
Interesting.
Autism in ICD 9 – listed, it is… but not where you’d expect it.
ICS 9 – Mental Disorders diagnosed in Childhood makes no mention of autism. See above.
It was still thought to be a psychosis. By the time ICD 10 came around…
Wonder if BMS would relish the thought that his child is ‘psychotic’! No? Thought not. Kid would be on serious tranquillisers, like I was as a child.
Incidentally, ICD 8 (WHO, 1965) makes no diagnosis of autism possible.
All you get is these:
296 Affective psychoses
297 Paranoid states
298 Other psychoses
299 Unspecified psychosis
My case was first brought to the attention of a paediatrician in 1966. And then to the attention of a child psychiatrist in 1967. So, BMS (since you are SOOOOOO wise!) … how on earth could either of them diagnosed a condition that wasn’t noted in the diagnostic manual?
There is no other answer to that question than “they couldn’t!”. So don’t even try foisting any other on me, or anyone else you’ve pissed off by your insensitive and disparaging comment(s).
Autism wasn’t in ICD 7 (WHO, 1955) either…
This is what they had:
(300-309) Psychoses
300 Schizophrenic disorders (dementia praecox)
301 Manic-depressive reaction
302 Involutional melancholia
303 Paranoia and paranoid states
304 Senile psychosis
305 Presenile psychosis
306 Psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis
307 Alcoholic psychosis
308 Psychosis of other demonstrable aetiology
309 Other and unspecified psychoses
(310-318) Psychoneurotic disorders
310 Anxiety reaction without mention of somatic symptoms
311 Hysterical reaction without mention of anxiety reaction
312 Phobic reaction
313 Obsessive-compulsive reaction
314 Neurotic-depressive reaction
315 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting circulatory system
316 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting digestive system
317 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting other systems
318 Psychoneurotic disorders, other, mixed and unspecified types
(320-326) Disorders of character, behaviour, and intelligence
320 Pathological personality
321 Immature personality
322 Alcoholism
323 Other drug addiction
324 Primary childhood behaviour disorders
325 Mental deficiency
326 Other and unspecified character, behaviour and intelligence disorders
BMS, can you find autism in that lot?
I did a word find on both ICD 7 and ICD 8… nada, zilch, the centre of a doughnut… fuck all.
BMS looking more unreasonable now… because:
a- his ‘expertise’ is shite; and,
b- he is claiming that something could have happened that patently could not have happened.
What does ILCD 5 (WHO, 1938) have?
Again… nothing. Of course, this predates the use of the term ‘(childhood) autism’.
Point being that BMS thinks – because he has SO much more expertise (from being the parent of a child who was diagnosed at a very young age) than anyone actually TRAINED in diagnosis and in developmental psychology/psychiatry – my being autistic could NOT have been missed as a child.
Well, hello BMS – this has been the evidence that it COULD. And my medical records are evidence enough that it DID. I dare say that Julia, and others in our 40s who have read this blog and found what you said offensive/arrogant/etc., have also got records that show classic signs of an autistic child but – because autism did not enter the diagnostic manual until 1977 – could not possibly have been diagnosed autistic.
Didn’t mean that any of use weren’t autistic. Just means that there wasn’t a diagnostic category for it.
BMS: “Autism is a very specific disorder with easily identifiable markers,”
No, it isn’t.
“it is not something you would miss for 40 years.”
Yes, it is.
Your claim that it “couldn’t be missed” is false.
BMS: “Those adults diagnosed with Asperger’s late in life are not who I would consider having autism.”
So what? In the words of Hank Williams III… “go fuck you!”
(Orac, sorry – THIS ONE is the one that has the html fixed!)
Interesting.
Autism in ICD 9 – listed, it is… but not where you’d expect it.
ICD 9 -other psychoses
* (299) Psychoses with origin specific to childhood
o (299.0) Autism, current or active
o (299.1) Childhood disintegrative disorder
o (299.8) Other specified pervasive developmental disorders
o (299.9) Unspecified pervasive developmental disorder
Any psychiatrist at the time would have diagnosed schizophrenia.
ICS 9 – Mental Disorders diagnosed in Childhood makes no mention of autism. See above.
It was still thought to be a psychosis. By the time ICD 10 came around…
Wonder if BMS would relish the thought that his child is ‘psychotic’! No? Thought not. Kid would be on serious tranquillisers, like I was as a child.
Incidentally, ICD 8 (WHO, 1965) makes no diagnosis of autism possible.
All you get is these:
296 Affective psychoses
297 Paranoid states
298 Other psychoses
299 Unspecified psychosis
My case was first brought to the attention of a paediatrician in 1966. And then to the attention of a child psychiatrist in 1967. So, BMS (since you are SOOOOOO wise!) … how on earth could either of them diagnosed a condition that wasn’t noted in the diagnostic manual?
There is no other answer to that question than “they couldn’t!”. So don’t even try foisting any other on me, or anyone else you’ve pissed off by your insensitive and disparaging comment(s).
Autism wasn’t in ICD 7 (WHO, 1955) either…
This is what they had:
(300-309) Psychoses
300 Schizophrenic disorders (dementia praecox)
301 Manic-depressive reaction
302 Involutional melancholia
303 Paranoia and paranoid states
304 Senile psychosis
305 Presenile psychosis
306 Psychosis with cerebral arteriosclerosis
307 Alcoholic psychosis
308 Psychosis of other demonstrable aetiology
309 Other and unspecified psychoses
(310-318) Psychoneurotic disorders
310 Anxiety reaction without mention of somatic symptoms
311 Hysterical reaction without mention of anxiety reaction
312 Phobic reaction
313 Obsessive-compulsive reaction
314 Neurotic-depressive reaction
315 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting circulatory system
316 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting digestive system
317 Psychoneurosis with somatic symptoms (somatisation reaction) affecting other systems
318 Psychoneurotic disorders, other, mixed and unspecified types
(320-326) Disorders of character, behaviour, and intelligence
320 Pathological personality
321 Immature personality
322 Alcoholism
323 Other drug addiction
324 Primary childhood behaviour disorders
325 Mental deficiency
326 Other and unspecified character, behaviour and intelligence disorders
BMS, can you find autism in that lot?
I did a word find on both ICD 7 and ICD 8… nada, zilch, the centre of a doughnut… fuck all.
BMS looking more unreasonable now… because:
a- his ‘expertise’ is shite; and,
b- he is claiming that something could have happened that patently could not have happened.
What does ILCD 5 (WHO, 1938) have?
Again… nothing. Of course, this predates the use of the term ‘(childhood) autism’.
Point being that BMS thinks – because he has SO much more expertise (from being the parent of a child who was diagnosed at a very young age) than anyone actually TRAINED in diagnosis and in developmental psychology/psychiatry – my being autistic could NOT have been missed as a child.
Well, hello BMS – this has been the evidence that it COULD. And my medical records are evidence enough that it DID. I dare say that Julia, and others in our 40s who have read this blog and found what you said offensive/arrogant/etc., have also got records that show classic signs of an autistic child but – because autism did not enter the diagnostic manual until 1977 – could not possibly have been diagnosed autistic.
Didn’t mean that any of use weren’t autistic. Just means that there wasn’t a diagnostic category for it.
BMS: “Autism is a very specific disorder with easily identifiable markers,”
No, it isn’t.
“it is not something you would miss for 40 years.”
Yes, it is.
Your claim that it “couldn’t be missed” is false.
BMS: “Those adults diagnosed with Asperger’s late in life are not who I would consider having autism.”
So what? In the words of Hank Williams III… “go fuck you!”
well, now, *that’s* a diagnostic criteria for you. I call it the “aspie chain-saw,” in which said aspie decides it’s time to demonstrate exactly *why* we tend to avoid eye contact.
There’s your “eye-contact.” With a smile. 🙂
augustine @ #146:
So among all of the other questions you haven’t been able to answer and the assertions you can’t back up, now you come up with this….
So now you’re reduced to using a C.Y.A. legalese statement as your evidence from a (by your own admission) a “marketing team”! LOL! Yeah augie, you’re just doing a wonderful job of supporting your assertions there.
=========================================================================================
augustine @ #152:
It’s still far more classy than lying about others and not apologizing for it. It’s more classy than just brushing off the deaths of innocents since they weren’t “healthy” enough. It’s more classy than trying to start a fight about religion over a false dichotomy fallacy just to avoid having to deal with actually discussing the subject honestly.
So augie we’re still waiting for your answers to the earlier questions…where are they? It can’t be that hard can it?
😉
A dojo bow to David N. Andrews.
@153 David – half the teachers in our area’s elementary school system have master’s degrees, three preschool teachers at our church’s daycare also have master’s degrees, this proves what? As per example, Dunning-Kruger, this is your professional learned diagnosis?
I get that you were born prior to an official diagnosis then 22 years later you sought out the autism diagnosis and received it, what Im critical of is that I find it hard to believe ANYONE can go 22 years, 37 years, 40 years without someone noticing something is wrong. Very hard to believe. And it irritates me because this Munchausenesque disorder of yours dilutes the meaning of autism and the public perception of it. I totally get that you dont fit in, it is extremely evident but what I dont get is your claim of autism, to me that is impossible. Show me studies of the reality of that, of true autism in adults first diagnosed as an adult, a professional, a parent, a job holding, modern era, successful, club joining, socially attuned family man. Show me those studies, those sociological, anthropological, documentaries and papers out there examining this phenomenon. Thank you.
zertec: “It’s more classy than trying to start a fight about religion over a false dichotomy fallacy just to avoid having to deal with actually discussing the subject honestly.”
Pot calling the kettle black? this is your favorite fallacy. One or the other no other hypothesis available. I don’t know if you do this intentionally or you’re just ignorant.;)
BMS: “what Im critical of is that I find it hard to believe ANYONE can go 22 years, 37 years, 40 years without someone noticing something is wrong. Very hard to believe. And it irritates me because this Munchausenesque disorder of yours dilutes the meaning of autism and the public perception of it.”
I could tell you (very justifiably, I might add) to go fuck yourself. Many would think that I should. Because you are the very height of public discourteousness and disrespect. However, I’ve got medical records going back to 1966 where there are definite problems of a nature that are not just about ‘not fitting in’. These notes continue from 1966 to 1997. Whether you accept that is fucking immaterial and you can say what you like after this, because all it will show is that you are a rather obnoxious bastard. I’m in no doubt at all that Orac will agree. As for ‘Munchausen’… you really are working on being offensive. For that you are getting told to go fuck yourself. And even now, I still haven’t done that same shit to you about Ben that you’re doing to me. Because, BMS, you are one classless twat.
BMS: “Show me studies of the reality of that, of true autism in adults first diagnosed as an adult, a professional, a parent, a job holding, modern era, successful, club joining, socially attuned family man. Show me those studies, those sociological, anthropological, documentaries and papers out there examining this phenomenon.”
Show me your son’s medical records.
Studies HAVE been done on this issue, and one of the people who would know is Digby Tantam. He did his first doctoral research on this issue. As for anything else, you can go hang, for all I care.
Like I say… in the face of what is really very disingenuous abuse (I hope you don’t treat Ben this way… but I wouldn’t be surprised if you do!), I’ve been very restrained. Others would have called you far worse. And by the way… now you’ve shown pretty conclusively that you are in fact ASD-baiting.
Orac… any words of wisdom for this harrasser?
augustine @ #160:
You just can’t lying can you augie? What’s the matter? Why are you so afraid of being honest?
You are the one that ties to make a false dichotomy between being religious/anti-vax and being atheist/pro-vax. That’s your argument augie, not mine. Would you like me to link to the direct quotes from you again?
But maybe you mean that I’ve made some other false dichotomy?
OK then, aside from the one that I had inadvertently made, Todd W. (not you augie) pointed out, and I conceded was an error…Exactly what other false dichotomy have I made? Please be very specific and provide sources. I’d really like you to see how you, misrepresent my words in your pathetic efforts at yet another Tu Quoque fallacy. I’m betting that it will be very amusing.
Remember though, it has to be a False Dichotomy, not a true dichotomy. Nor can it be simply pointing out the consequences of action or failure to act. Please try to get your fallacies right for once.
@155
So I understand why you would want the autism diagnosis then, to escape the psychotic diagnosis you had for 37 years. You still on your meds?
In my husband’s case, his elementary school teachers urged his parents to seek a psychiatric evaluation. My in-laws thought if they did he would be “labeled” and by thus wouldn’t live up to his true potential.
BMS adds nothing to the discussion, and has gone too far (IMNSHO). He/she will be duly grease monkeyed on my computer (good riddance).
kristen
Many children with learning disabilities are evaluated by a psychiatric examination. If your husbands issue was indeed autism then perhaps, as your inlaws proved and you suggest, ignoring the problem will help to treat the disorder. He obviously is living a successful and independent life, which is all any of us parents want for our kids. I doubt I have the courage to ignore my son’s autism as you suggest.
Show me studies of the reality of that, of true autism in adults first diagnosed as an adult, a professional, a parent, a job holding, modern era, successful, club joining, socially attuned family man. Show me those studies, those sociological, anthropological, documentaries and papers out there examining this phenomenon.
I don’t know about the “club joining” (how any person, with or without asperger’s could enjoy joining a club is beyond me, but that’s a different issue) and no one ever claimed “socially attuned” as you would know if you’d paid any attention to the actual posts. However, married, professionals diagnosed in adulthood? No problem. Pubmed is your friend and if you’d used it for 5 minutes you’d find that there are many, many articles written on the diagnosis of AS in adulthood. One example a study of AS in the elderly. If you go to the full text you’ll find that 3/5 patients discussed were married (each with long marriages) and all had successfully held jobs. Feel free to go through the other 494 abstracts found under the search terms of “asperger adulthood” for something that supports your position which currently seems to be based on simple prejudice.
@bensmyson: I’m not sure why you presume these studies would not exist. Take, for example, the recent adult prevalence study carried out by the NHS in the UK. They didn’t say most adults identified in the study were previously undiagnosed, but this is obvious. The rate of marriage was approximately half that of non-autistics. The rate of employment was only slighly lower (not a statistically significant difference.) All were professionally diagnosed with the ADOS.
There’s Nylander & Gillberg (2001). Of 19 autistic adults they found among the outpatients of a psychiatric hospital, only 2 were previously known to be autistic.
There’s Stahlberg et al. (2004). 30% of consecutively referred patients with ADHD were found to have “comorbid ASD.”
There are many other studies I recall, such as a study of fathers of autistic children who their spouses believed to be autistic, a study of autism diagnosed in the elderly, and several Baron-Cohen et al. studies.
@Kristen: I’m with you, and BMS is greasemonkey’d on my home computer. Unfortunately, can’t do it at work so will have to continue to scroll through their crap.
@Dianne and David Andrews: you might as well stop responding to BMS. She/He actually admitted over on AOA (no, I didn’t read it there, I refuse to waste brain cells on that site, got the info from Autism Blog – AKA LBRB in previous times) that all they do is purposely troll for reactions.
So, since they are now becoming very nasty, greasemonkey it is.
As for ‘Munchausen’… you really are working on being offensive.
And wrong. Unless he means that you’re faking the symptoms for the express purpose of taking the role of “patient” without any secondary gain. I think he heard the term “munchausen”, knew it meant something with people creating symptoms of a disease and just used the term at random.
MI Dawn: You’re right, of course, but…he’s WRONG! On the INTERNET! That can’t be allowed to go uncorrected.
Dianne-
Thank you for your link.
“This paper examines this issue in detail and presents five case studies of elderly individuals who the authors believe meet the criteria of AS.”
I guess it is possible that a very few adults could squeak by in life with people thinking they were mentally ill when in fact they have Aspergers. I seriously doubt however, a child with typical characteristics of autism would go unnoticed, much less hold a job, raise a family, marry, etc. It just doesnt meet the criteria.
One of these days I will learn how to read the entire PubMed studies rather than abstracts. When that day come maybe we will have less to argue about.
“Unless he means that you’re faking the symptoms for the express purpose of taking the role of “patient” without any secondary gain.”
Thats exactly what I mean. How much of this discovery is self reported? I mean its not like you can do a blood test or an xray. With children there is observation and tests that cant be faked. Im not saying this false reporting is intentionally done, but when someone is desperate to find why they dont fit in, why their children hate them, why they cant stay married, why they are violent, go from job to job, use profane language, are shunned, why they perhaps even hear voices that they will welcome an explanation that many people and organizations wrap their arms around. It beats people thinking they are crazy.
BMS: whether or not he is on any medication for his condition is none of your business, though odds are good that he is.
I am astonished that you would be at all snarky about his situation. You seem to be implying he *wanted* an autism diagnosis (which means you’re still ignoring the part where he said he wasn’t looking for it at all) in order to avoid the apparently worse diagnosis of psychosis. (Though note that “pschosis” is not a diagnosis but rather a class of diagnoses, and I felt he made that quite clear in the post you obviously didn’t read very closely despite responding directly to it.) This is not what he is describing. What he is describing is a long and painful journey through repeated misdiagnoses before FINALLY meeting a psychiatrist who understood how to diagnose the condition in an adult.
Are you aware that misdiagnosis happens? Do you understand how painful it is? Have you any glimmering of how much more painful it is for someone to throw that back in your face with the implication that you’re being self-centered?
(And of course you do. That’s why you say it.)
I’ll bet good money that there are plenty others like him. Not many people, psychiatrists included, knew much about autism forty years ago. Even when I was a kid (I’m younger), it wasn’t that well known. Kids were more likely to be diagnosed mentally retarded, if they had obvious intelligence deficits, and/or with a variety of other problems if they displayed the more difficult aspects of autism. Their conditions don’t disappear just because they get older. Some of them will learn to cope enough to function in society; others won’t, and I suspect a number of those will be found in jails across the country. And a few, like David, will persist in trying to get help until finally they meet a psychiatrist who at last recognizes what it is that is causing them so much grief, and at last, even if it is much too late for early intervention, they can at least start to understand how their condition works and why it causes them grief. And that’s the cornerstone of cognitive behavioral therapy.
Seeking a diagnosis isn’t done just because someone is weird enough to want a label that says “I have problems in my brain”. It’s because someone wants to understand what’s going wrong in their heads. Wouldn’t you? Or are you too convinced that you know everything there is to know, at least as far as is relevant to your lives? I have said before that you display a shocking lack of curiosity, and I still believe it is true, for you reject out-of-hand anything that differs from your expectations. You shouldn’t; even if your assumptions all turn out to be true, you can learn a lot about a rule by studying its exceptions.
Curiosity would imply that he’s a mere mortal, and not an infallible god, like the doctrine of anecdotalism implies.
Hence, he cannot express even the tiniest bit of curiosity for fear of living without his divinity.
Every time I see the abreviation BMS I think of Bristol Myers Squibb…a sign that Benmyson is really a pharma plant trying to make the anti-vaxers look heartless? A cosmic sign that the anti-vaxers are karmically aligned with their declared enemies? Couldn’t just be a coincidence, that’d be dull.
Calli- “What he is describing is a long and painful journey through repeated misdiagnoses before FINALLY meeting a psychiatrist who understood how to diagnose the condition in an adult.”
You assume this or know this for certain?
In my limited experience in life, Ive found that the person with everything from mental illness to bad breath, usually is the last to know.
“You seem to be implying he *wanted* an autism diagnosis (which means you’re still ignoring the part where he said he wasn’t looking for it at all) in order to avoid the apparently worse diagnosis of psychosis.”
Yes, exactly. Not saying he wanted the diagnosis consciously, just wanted to escape some internal conflict.
@ David N. Andrews
My thanks for your testimonial. And kudos for putting up with BMS. The callousness of this person is unbelievable.
No, seriously, is this guy for real?
He is complaining about no-one taking his son’s condition seriously, but then you show up with your story, he just throw it back at your face, and in the most offending and harming way possible. It happened with other peoples, too.
It is like he wants to be the only one here to whine about how much life is unfair to him. (not that you were whining, you were not, but he saw you as a competitor)
That’s beyond self-centered. That’s purely hypocritical.
Worse, I cannot help thinking he is hiding behind his son’s condition to throw insults at peoples without fear of retaliation. Does even Ben exist?
Yesterday, the callousness of BMS just trampled any goodwill I may have had toward his son’s condition. No more. BMS, go be seen by the Greeks (an old French version of f*** you).
“He is complaining about no-one taking his son’s condition seriously, but then you show up with your story, he just throw it back at your face, and in the most offending and harming way possible. It happened with other peoples, too. Sebo
If you havent noticed I take very little offense at the comments directed at me and my son. I have held my ground concerning my son’s vaccine injury and have been repeatedly attacked for it. Where were you then? Oh that’s right you were right in the middle of the pack.
“It is like he wants to be the only one here to whine about how much life is unfair to him. (not that you were whining, you were not, but he saw you as a competitor)
That’s beyond self-centered. That’s purely hypocritical.”
Exactly how is life unfair to me? Because my son is vaccine injured? Because my son has autism? Because I lost a load of money in some investments? Because I bought a lottery ticket and didnt win? Because what? Actually my life is pretty fair, Im not the only one who lost money, didnt win something, has a child with autism, nope what’s fair to me is anything and everything, its all a crap shoot and I actually prefer it that way.
The term I would use is I feel the vaccine injury was unjust, same as you would if your child was hit in the head with a baseball bat, you phone the police, give the identity of the person that did it and no one investigates. In fact no one says it ever happened. And there lay your son, on the ground for everyone to see. That’s not unfair, its unjust. Particularly unjust when someone pops up and says the same thing happened to him (me too) 37 years ago but is just now remembering the headache tainting all those other reports from parents such as yourself with a child laying on the ground minutes after the injury.
Reminds me of all those adults with newly found memories of early childhood ritualistic sexual abuses. After all that hit the media in the 80’s all you had to do was dress up like a pirate or devil to rape a child and get away with it.
David claims autism at 37, I find that hard to believe. Is that
Does BMS actually believe that no child, or very few, with an autism diagnosis (or having the symptoms to be diagnosed as autistic in the case of those born too early for the official diagnosis at that point) grows up to lead a “normal” life, with a job and a partner? Really? That is so incredibly sad for Ben.
We have some close family friends who have a son, A, who is now 18. We have known him since he was 2, and I even babysat for him sometimes back when I was a teenager. He was diagnosed autistic by the time he was 4 and even had one doctor suggest to his mother that nothing could be done, he would never progress. I think this must be the same doctor BMS has for Ben. A has grown into an amazing young man who currently is working a “normal” summer job before starting college with a nice scholarship in the fall. It’s a good thing his mother didn’t believe his diagnosis and where he was at 3 would prevent him having a successful, fulfilling life.
Wren-
“Does BMS actually believe that no child, or very few, with an autism diagnosis (or having the symptoms to be diagnosed as autistic in the case of those born too early for the official diagnosis at that point) grows up to lead a “normal” life, with a job and a partner? Really? That is so incredibly sad for Ben. ”
“…born too early” ?
Actually Wren me and others work very hard every day to bring Ben into a “normal” world with hopes of one day seeing him in love, with a family of his own and able to provide his needs on his own someday. That is the entire focus of my work right now.
What Im saying is that when someone receives a diagnosis (for the first time) at 37 or 40 it contradicts everything I know about autism. Sure with therapy and other intensive treatment a child that has been diagnosed with autism has a (I believe the statistic is about 50/50) slight chance at living an independent life on his own as an adult. Missing autism for the first 40 years, no therapy or treatment makes it extremely difficult for me to swallow the idea that this 40 year old has autism, again, based on my understanding of autism.
“It’s a good thing his mother didn’t believe his diagnosis and where he was at 3 would prevent him having a successful, fulfilling life.”
So is ignoring the diagnosis what you are recommending? Let’s just pretend you arent recommending that route of care for an autistic child so I can ask this – do you think “A” would have been able to be hold a job and attend college without the parent(s) being aware of the diagnosis of autism and providing some sort of therapy and treatment? Do you think autism just somehow eases up it’s hold on a person for some unknown reason, that a percentage of children with autism, left alone, diagnosis ignored, will recover on their own?
Some of you folks need to get yourself around a child with autism and see what this disorder is really like. Dont just peek in the window, step inside, spend a day or two with one. Id be willing to bet you will be better able to understand my point on this if you did.
He was diagnosed autistic by the time he was 4 and even had one doctor suggest to his mother that nothing could be done, he would never progress.
It sounds like A’s doctor didn’t know much about autism. I know an “A”, the child of a friend who was diagnosed with autism* at about the same time as A. After intensive therapy he is now in a mainstream second grade and doing very well. He tends to make only a few friends with whom he becomes very close and will probably never be great at verbal skills, but is able to talk, read (both with delays but delayed progress is not the same as no progress) and basically is a happy kid with some problems not the hopeless tragedy that AOA and their ilk pretend all autistic kids are.
*Note: He was diagnosed with autism rather than Asperger’s: significant delay of language development as well as social development.
Uh, yeah. The whole “vaccines cause autism” thing reminds me of recovered memories of abuse, too.
Credulous media panic, victimized parents and children, unscrupulous therapists cashing in and significant damage to health and well-being.
Hopefully to be followed by multi-million dollar lawsuits against the perpetrators.
WTF????
You know as one of AoA’s fans and a parent of a child diagnosed with autism, I find your statement (“the hopeless tragedy that AOA and their ilk pretend all autistic kids are.”) to be absolutely untrue. The truth is that the parents frequenting AoA and other sites is because they are full of hope. Hope that one day their child will recover, that their hopes will be redeemed due to the hard work and sacrifice they put in, that one day the world will know, with certainty, what causes autism and how to prevent it.
Just a thought…
BMS seems to be quite invested in this idea that only those showing severe symptoms at a young age (and then are diagnosed at a young age as well) are “truly” autistic and that “truly” autistic individuals wouldn’t be able to “hold a job, raise a family, marry, etc. It just doesnt meet the criteria.”
I have to wonder if BMS is sorta afraid that Ben will actually get better, to the point of going on to lead a normal life. I mean, if you’ve completely re-oriented your life and identity to center around the diagnosis and treatment of your child, what happens when they get better and leave? Who are you then?
Just trying to wrap my mind around why they’re so resistant to understanding how an autistic child born years ago would have been either misdiagnosed (retarded, psychotic, schizophrenic, etc.) or undiagnosed until such a time that the proper diagnosis, ya know, actually exsisted. This is not the same as saying they did not have the same exact symptoms/delays/issues as an autistic child born today would – just that nobody knew what the hell it was and thus did not have a way to diagnose it (correctly) or treat it.
@Poogles
I also get the impression that BMS thinks that diagnoses for young kids are never sought by the parents. The implication seems to be that if you are diagnosed as an adult, it must be because you sought it for X, Y or Z reason, but if you are diagnosed as a child, then it’s a real diagnosis. Sad to say, there are individuals who seek an autism diagnosis for their child, even when the child is not autistic, for a variety of reasons.
“In my limited experience in life, Ive found that the person with everything from mental illness to bad breath, usually is the last to know.”(emphasis added)
If only you would take the emphasized part above to heart and stop assuming that if it doesn’t fit with your experiences it must just be wrong not different experiences.
For instance, I’ve known since I was a small child that I was mentally ill (the self-injurious behaviors and fantasies of suicide kinda tipped me off). My dad resisted getting me diagnosed or getting me help because 1)he didn’t want to spend the money and 2) he didn’t want me to take drugs because they would “turn you into a zombie” and I suspect 3)he didn’t want to face his own role in my developing mental problems. I, unfortunately, bought into the idea that getting help would just mean I would be a drug-induced zombie. So, instead, I suffered until I had a breakdown in my junior year of college and decided I needed to get help before I ended my own life.
While others did indeed tell me they thought I needed help, it was not news to me – I knew since I was about 7-8 years old.
I hate to join in the dogpile, but BMS, you are totally, utterly and completely wrong about people with autism/Asperger’s being violent. I know two people with Aspergers: a young man I met in high school and a woman I met in college. Neither of them are violent, neither hear voices, and if you met them on the street, you’d never notice anything different about them- except for the young man’s nearly obsessive focus on reptiles. Both are college educated, one’s currently employed at a wildlife refuge, and the other’s a grad student. For the record, the young man was diagnosed in childhood, the young woman was diagnosed in her twenties.
And you might want to take into account the fact that girls and women are significantly underdiagnosed with Aspergers. Most doctors assume it’s a male-only disorder, and if a doctor isn’t looking for it, the patient might not be diagnosed correctly.
I’d also like to point out the use of the word ‘spectrum.’ Asperger’s, autism and learning disabilities differ widely from person to person. I have ADD, but I read and write without difficulty. Someone with dyslexia would not be able to read or write as well as I can, but they might be able to do high-level math without difficulty, so long as it’s expressed in a wordless equation.
Parental expectations also play a big part. If somone gives up on their child, feeling that the most they can expect is to toilet train the child, they aren’t going to push them as hard as someone whose goal is to have their child be ready for school or to do daily tasks like running an errand. It really annoys me that most people from Age of Autism give up on their children so easily and rely on snake-oil treatments rather than improving the child’s life by setting small goals and figuring out what works best for the kid. I don’t think autism or Asperger’s can be cured, but I think people can work around them and become successful.