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“I don’t make assumptions” about vaccines and people’s motives

Every so often, I like to try to get into the mind of an antivaccine crank, a quack, or crank of another variety, because understanding what makes cranks tick (at least, as much as I can given that I’m not one) can be potentially very useful in my work trying to counter them. On the one hand, it’s not easy, because understanding conspiracy theorists, really bad science, and a sense of persecution shared by nearly all cranks doesn’t come natural to me, but it’s a useful exercise, and I encourage all of you to do it from time to time. While it might not be possible (or even desirable) to “walk a mile in their shoes,” it is revealing to try to understand why they behave the way they do.

What provoked this bit of thought (if you can call it that was a recent, rather hilarious Twitter exchange involving everyone’s favorite conspiracy theorist crank (on this blog at least) but perhaps least favorite on a personality level crank, Jake “Boy Wonder” Crosby. In response to being called (along with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) “mercury obsessed” and, of course, antivaccine, Jake Tweeted:


Yes, that’s right. Jake is actually claiming that he “doesn’t make assumptions about people’s motives.” In fact, that’s all Jake does. His entire online “career” as a blogger and antivaccine activist has been largely based on making assumptions about other people’s motives.

Until recently, Jake was perhaps the most prominent rising star in the “vaccines cause autism” movement. He is young, just out of high school when he started blogging, reasonably attractive, and actually “on the spectrum,” which allowed the antivaccine movement to pretend as though it actually cared about issues of interest to autistic people. In other words, he was a perfect poster boy for the antivaccine movement. Even better (from the antivaccine movement’s standpoint), somehow Jake managed to get into the epidemiology program at George Washington University, which means that, should he graduate, the world will consider him an epidemiologist, although it’s doubtful that most epidemiologists will consider him one, given his propensity for the bad science, bad epidemiology, and in general bad reasoning of the antivaccine movement. So over the last four years or so, Jake has been churning out antivaccine rants for that crankiest of antivaccine crank blogs, Age of Autism, and basking in the increasing adoration of the vaccine-autism tinfoil hat brigade, whose praise of his “efforts” frequently bordered on the nauseating.

In fact, Jake developed an MO whose core is to question people’s motives. Basically, until recently, Jake was a “one trick pony” whose one trick was to impugn scientists’ and journalists’ motives by claiming undisclosed conflicts of interest based on tenuous “six degree of separation” links to big pharma or vaccine manufacturers. Indeed, when I first became aware of Jake’s propensities, he was busily trying to slime the founder of Scienceblogs and Seed Media, Adam Bly, as somehow being in the thrall of big pharma because as a teenager—yes, as a teenager—Bly had been the youngest guest researcher at the National Research Council, a Canadian government body that overseas scientific progress, studying “cell adhesion and cancer. He also suggested that Seed Media, which had in 2004 published a credulously awful portrait of Mark and David Geier as “brave maverick researchers” who did their research in the basement of Mark Geier’s house (one wonders how he got the permits or whether city knew about his doing biomedical “research” in a residential neighborhood) abandoned sympathy to the antivaccine viewpoint because of pharmaceutical company advertisement funding.

And that’s how Jake got started. If you peruse his oeuvre on AoA now, starting at the beginning, you will find numerous instances of Jake doing exactly what he denies doing, making assumptions about people and conspiracy mongering. Examples are legion, including his painting Brian Deer as a “narcissist” who, “starved for attention…knew how to get it – by targeting Dr. Andrew Wakefield” (which is nothing short of pure ad hominem and making assumptions about Brian Deer just because he had a lot of pictures of himself on his website) and his attack on Paul Offit as being “Nick Naylor from ‘Thank You For Smoking’ with an MD.” If you remember that movie, Nick Taylor was an unscrupulous lobbyist whose major client was the tobacco industry, and he would lie for the tobacco industry for money. If likening Dr. Offit to a hired flack who will say anything for money isn’t “making assumptions” about Dr. Offit’s motives, I don’t know what is. Ditto the assumption that Brian Deer posts pictures of himself on his website because he’s a narcissist and that Adam Bly somehow stomped on all blogging sympathetic to the antivaccine viewpoint in order to score some of that sweet, sweet pharma lucre for advertising. The list of vaccine defenders who have been subjected to similar attempts to impugn their motives as deriving from being in the thrall of big pharma (again, due to that sweet, sweet pharma lucre) is long and includes prominent bioethicist Art Caplan, Seth Mnookin, Scott Pelley (who, according to Jake, is responsible for the CBS antivaccine reporter Sharyl Attkisson being “silenced,” all because he sits “on the board of directors of the International Rescue Committee with Susan Susman, director of external relations for Pfizer, “which sponsored Pelley’s 60 Minutes report on H1N1 vaccine production”), and even a judge, Amy Clark Meacham, all because she is married to a lobbyist who has done work for the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (because, apparently, you know, being married to someone who works for physicians who are pro-vaccine is a hopeless conflict of interest that can’t be overcome). Jake even recently touted a talk he was to give at Autism One in which he claims he is “trying to convince people of scientific truth” while at the same time explaining how to look for conflicts of interest in obituaries (nice touch!), wedding announcements, Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles, news articles, and the like.

A while back, I predicted a bright future for Jake as an antivaccine “brave maverick scientist” (as a real epidemiologist, not so much) on par with Andrew Wakefield or even worse, churning out bad study after bad study linking mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves with autism, all to the adulation of the vaccine-obsessed conspiracy mongers that AoA claims as its base. Unfortunately for him, his tendency to ascribe evil motives extends even to his allies, leading to a rift in which Jake attacked his erstwhile allies for not being antivaccine enough and allegedly engineering a switcheroo that eliminated his favored “scientist” (Brian Hooker) from testifying in front of a Congressional panel. He even went so far as to insinuate that his former mentor Mark Blaxill was fooling around on the side.

Believe it or not, I didn’t write this just to have fun discussing Jake’s utter lack of self-awareness and propensity to engage in conspiracy mongering and attacking his enemies as hopelessly compromised and in the thrall of big pharma (although there is no doubt that it is fun to do so), but rather to provide an example to demonstrate what I think to be a larger point. Even though to us (and anyone with two neurons to rub together), Jake is a conspiracy theorist whose main technique is to impugn the motives of his enemies (which inherently involves making assumptions about their motives, by the way) is antivaccine to the core. Just perusing his AoA archive will produce numerous examples to illustrate both points. Yet he really, really doesn’t believe that he is antivaccine, and he really, really believes that he does not make assumptions about people’s motives, although I’ve just shown multiple examples showing that he does just that. I could produce many more if necessary. In this, he reminds me of Eric Merola, the film producer responsible for the antivaccine propaganda “documentary” Burzynski The Movie: Cancer Is A Serious Business, Part 2, who appears to honestly believe that he is not a conspiracy theorist, that he doesn’t engage in ad hominem attacks, and that he is an “objective” journalist. Other names that come to mind are Stanislaw Burzynski (of course), Andrew Wakefield, Sayer Ji, Dana Ullman, and many, many others. All share characteristics to a greater or lesser extent, specifically a denial that they are cranks and a complete lack of self-awareness.

True believers don’t think they are cranks. They believe, as Jake does, that they don’t attack science, don’t attack people, and don’t make assumptions, even though in fact that’s all they do. That’s why I rarely try to change the minds of such people. It’s a fool’s errand. The odds of succeeding at it are almost as slim as the odds that there is still a molecule of an original homeopathic compound in a 30C dilution. The strategy instead has to be to expose the fallacious arguments, demonstrate the crankery for crankery, and counter the ad hominem attacks. The goal, of course, is to show the fence sitters or those with little knowledge of the issues involved. It has to be.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

875 replies on ““I don’t make assumptions” about vaccines and people’s motives”

“I don’t make assumptions about people’s motives.”

This statement from Jake Crosby has so much Irony, you can use it to forge weapons for the armies of Isengard.

I saw in your twitter exchange that Jake continues to believe that I threatened him with physical violence. I believe that he is talking about the “dis rap” blog post I wrote a few years back. In fact, that must be it since he made such a stink about it in his email to the dozens of people at the health department where I worked at the time. I took his letter and what I’ve written about him to a lawyer. I am assured that nothing I wrote can be reasonably construed as a threat. On the contrary, what he wrote to my bosses can be interpreted at tortuous interference with a contract. Because my bosses at the time and I laughed it off, Jake didn’t hear back from me about it.

It’s a fair question to ask, though: How far can/will he go before someone decides to take legal action against his statements? He keeps coming close to stalking, to slander, and to threatening people’s livelihoods by accusing them of misdeeds and professional misconduct.

I’ll never see Jake as an epidemiologist, mostly because he makes a mockery of the profession. And I have to wonder if his family has the resources to back up and support the checks his writing out in his rants.

Jake doesn’t make assumptions. He thoroughly researches his statements and only provides well documented facts. If there’s any criticism to his method it’s that he considers whale.to a valid source.

I don’t think that word (assumptions) means what Mr. Crosby thinks it means. He and RFK Jr. have continued to push the mercury-in-vaccines-causes-autism line long after mercury was removed from vaccines and the autism diagnosis rate failed to drop as their model would have predicted. Calling them “mercury obsessed” is an opinion, yes, but it is an opinion based on facts, not an assumption.

Jake became fixated on mercury when he was 16 years old. Here, one of his earliest posts at AoA, “Discovering I Was Toxic”, he reveals how momma Nicole Crosby believed it was the mercury in the vaccines that Jake received in early childhood caused his thimerosal-induced-Asperger Syndrome:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/01/discovering-i-was-toxic.html#more

“…When my mother mentioned chelation last summer, I finally told her about the news report. She said she believed thimerosal was responsible, having known about it since I was 12. When I asked why she hadn’t told me then, she said she didn’t want to upset me; I had frequent meltdowns at earlier ages. The news program I saw was disturbing. Nevertheless, I began to see it as good news: relief that I knew both what had been causing my problem and that it wasn’t “me.”….”

Jake, I know you are lurking here. If your mommy told you that your Asperger Syndrome was caused by mercury…she is wrong. If your mommy told you that your paranoia caused your “six-sixty-six hundred degrees of separation” conspiracy rants and your stalking behaviors…she lied.

BTW Jake, I hope you keep pushing RFK, Jr. to publish his book on the mercury-autism connection.

@ Ren: I know nurses, doctors and others who have undergrad degrees in biology, chemistry and other sciences who have gotten their MPH-Epidemiology degrees, but never met a student or graduate of a MPH program, who had a BA, with a double major in History and Health: Science Society and Policy.

Orac links to a post by Jake that has intrigued me- the infamous Narcissus painting**:
you’ll notice that the subject of the painting has something to be narcissistic about – he’s lovely. He’s admiring himself rightfully- and so do we.

If you research carefully, I’m sure you could find other paintings that mock a self-idoliser or find artwork to convey arrogance and self-involvement. So why this painting?

If I dislike ‘Jane” and think her work is awful would I choose to portray her as Venus? Or might I opt for a more comic image? Or something that mocks her metier? MY choice of a Botticelli image would reveal more about ME than about my target, Jane.

Jake – unbeknownst to himself- probably also admires BD who is an accomplished journalist having had a long career which he’s proud of- and rightfully so. Is that narcissism or a healthy self-evaluation?

Sometimes adolescents outgrow their focus upon external traits as markers of personality. Jake apparently hasn’t yet.

I would venture that all of Jake’s targets are people he envies: scientists and journalists- trades he unsubtly apes by attemptingsimulotaneously to explain research and uncover scandals. Think of how he feels when he writes about DOCTOR DG or DOCTOR Offit or PROF of Journalism Seth or EPI Ren etc?

Like alt media ‘investigative reporters’, he questions the powerful and reveals their corruption and COIs.
When I watch him or the usual suspects, it reminds me of old movies in which the upstart journalist bursts upon the scene, revealing dirt etc. It’s as cargo-cult as you can get: both for science and reportage. Window-dressing and mimesis rather than substance
.
-btw- he didn’t like me or other minions much either. We narcissists hang together- looking good!
We can have a lot of fun with that moniker – nearly as good as ‘elitist’ and ‘pharma shills’.

** disclosure- prior to social sciences, I studied art and lit.

One thing that sticks out to me is that he seems to be implying that Orac is a conspiracy theorist. I’m confident Orac and most people here see the anti-vax community as an irrational woo subculture, not a coherent conspiracy with a devious hidden agenda. They’re not exactly hiding their agendas, or at least not doing a good job of it when they try. Even if they’re a borderline conspiracy by some definition, it’s certainly not on the same scale with those connoted by “conspiracy theorist.”

Jake Crosby is the poor man’s anti-vaccine version of James O’Keefe.

I should note before I run:

in feminist research about person perception ( 1970s on), subjects often disputed the validity of statements like, “Mary was first in her class at med school” by asserting that Mary wasn’t a real person or not a ‘real woman’ ( hint- homophobia rears its ugly head/ and misogyny- “her proper place is at home”) or that she had cheated somehow, slept with her prof and other nonsense.

In other words, deny her achievement and smear her.
Just like SB supporters are called “compromised shills”, not really experts, liars, cheats etc etc etc.

Obviously this makes alties feel better about themselves.

If vaccines cause Autism why isn’t there a wave of newly Autistic teenagers who just got their booster shots? Or a bunch of newly Autistic fellows in the military? I can tell you from experience that the military hands out vaccines like there is no tomorrow. I mean how can the vaccine/Autism tell the difference between an infant and a teenager?

Wow, the first few sentences are pretty similar to how I study the insanity of pro vaccination fans. I find it so fascinating how people can be so crazy in their vaccination support and I like to see how they think mentally. Vaccines go against everything that is human health. The body absolutely hates them.

Zen’s “retort” (such as it is) is what PeeWee Herman would call the “I know you are, but what am I?” gambit.

By Post Author

Sure, Zen. So the body hates vaccines but loves measles, pertussis, polio, influenza, etc better?

Talk about insane. Thinking people are better off getting sick, than avoiding illnesses with a tiny few antigens from a needle.

zen, from what evidence does your assertion “The body absolutely hates vaccines” derive from? Be as specific as possible.

I find it so fascinating how people can be so crazy in their vaccination support and I like to see how they think mentally.

OK, “Zen,” who makes these people? Please note that I am taking your pseudonym to actually connote something, rather than just being a really dumb choice.

Vaccines go against everything that is human health. The body absolutely hates them.
Gosh, the number of people I know who are vaccinated and have no side effects aside from immunity to life-threatening diseases… They must be lying or something.

I will go against my usual policy and actually answer in good faith.

Here’s the secret beyond the “insanity” Zen. If I admit that I am scientifically illiterate and need to be convinced about the issue, what will happen? I’ll tell you – “Orac’s Vaccine Pushers” will gladly link copious studies, with data readily accesible, and explain why those studies seem sound. Antivaccine crowd will maybe link something, but most probably will just start evading, projecting or telling about FDA supressing the evidence. And if there are studies posted, supposedly supporting the various “vaccines are evil” agendas they are either so faulty even person with basic knowledge can poke holes in them, they don’t mean what the antivaxxers thinks they mean and it is obvious from the conclusions of researchers or they are long discredited (aka Wakefield).

So there you go, here’s the insanity.

How many people die from prescription drugs
Or medical errors each year
Why do drug company funded trials have a perceived belief that they work 90% of the time compared to 50% to non drug company funded trials ???
Conventional medicine kills more people
Than illegal drugs ,guns ,wars ,car accidents,alcohol and cigarettes combined
YOUR EVIL GORSKI

What if Andrew Wakefield was right?

Is this a gag? The non-proofread press release pointing to a “PR firm” whose domain that was registered two days ago and which points nowhere seems like a bit much.

Dumpster diving a bit this AM, over at the Bolen Report. I was just curious to see if Jake has published there recently. Nothing about Jake in particular, but interesting tidbits about Autism One:

__
“Instead, as the AutismOne meeting in Chicago a few weeks ago shows us, they get together, pose, position, preen, and posture, for what few parents of Autistic children show up for the event – and VERY FEW are showing up these days. The attendance is dismal – less than fifteen hundred people including the posers, preeners and posturers.

Then, to close the event, in front of those same Autism parents, they get falling down drunk at a Karaoke night, leaving, as you might expect, a solid impression with those parents of what the Autism Community leadership REALLY has to offer.

Nothing. ”

Ah, almost up to our host’s standards of insolence. What is interesting here is that the attendance is so low at A1. Let’s hope it keeps dropping.

Maybe there was an indirect mention of Jake – chez Bolen:

“I wasn’t at AutismOne. All of my information came from those that were there, and were angry enough to call me. “

@ Denice Walter

in feminist research about person perception ( 1970s on), subjects often disputed the validity of statements like, “Mary was first in her class at med school” by asserting that Mary wasn’t a real person or not a ‘real woman’

For a more recent example (although not related to misogyny, but to racism), we have the reaction from certain circles to President Obama’s good results as a student at Harvard. Something about him cheating because he really is a Keynesian*.
Different places, same mechanism to deny someone’s achievements…

  • or was it a Kenyan?

@ Broken Link:

That article is hilarious.
Bolen does get one thing right: the activities of A1 are not very interesting to most parents of kids with ASDs. Most of them know that autism isn’t caused by vaccines- one of our regulars ( Kreb, I think) showed that only about 2% did.

About Karaoke and drinking:
last year the thinking moms did a good job of publicising that. ( check last year’s posts).

Bolen himself is part of the health freedom movement: they have their own axes to grind at conferences- perhaps he sees A!’s audience as potential followers for his own. They have a few conferences a year, one just a week before A1 at Chicago as well, I think. His earlier article promoted the idea that anti-vax belonged under the health freedom umbrella, i.e. his venue.

The activities of the congressman might be a good story for a political blogger/ television host of the liberal persuasion.

I guess we know where Jake is hanging out .

“I like to see how they think mentally.”

As opposed to how they think physically?

Of course Orac is evil. That’s why this blog is fun. 🙂

@Paul #24:

Conventional medicine kills more people
Than illegal drugs ,guns ,wars ,car accidents,alcohol and cigarettes combined.

Citation REALLY needed, and from a credible source. That means NOT Mike Adams, and NOT Gary Null.

@ Helianthus:

Sure. It’s a way to make themselves feel better about their own lot in life. Woo-meisters like to disparage fields and professions into which they had no chance of entering- thus their anger at the establishment and people who do well.

Venom-laced diatribes a la Adams or Null display their own inability to deal with reality: they couldn’t make the grade and they hate those who did.

And, -btw- I am also a Keynesian..
or it is a Kenyan? I forget which.

A key issue here is the stance/activity/demeanor to take against these pseudoscience people.

I think a lot of academics prefer to sit in their institutions and ignore the issue using any/all of the following excuses: (1) head buried-in-the-sand hoping it will all go away, (2) “nobody could possibly believe that crap”, and, (3) “I’m too smart/good/busy to be bothered having to counter those wackos.”

The problem is, ignoring it won’t make it go away, and silence can be viewed as assent. But engaging these people runs the risk of getting dragged down to their level and the inevitable ad hominens that will occur. And they’ll immediately act like your attention gives them legitimacy (because if they were total flakes, you would have ignored them–damned if you do ignore them, damned if you don’t take them on, I, guess). You also run the risk of threats and stalking by some of these people (eg Jake Crosby on Orac, anti-vaxxies on Dr. Offit,). If you open up on them with full force, they’ll claim persecution and incivility by you towards them, but if you try to engage on pure logic (with science and citations), they throw back some ridiculous citations from “journals” that aren’t worthy of bird cages and twist the science on you.

It stinks because (and sadly mostly due to a level of science education in many countries that hasn’t kept up with science) that a lot of what is done in SBM isn’t understood well enough by the average person to allow them to distinguish the science from magic. And when you try to explain the science to keep them from following the magicians, you lose their attention, such as when I’ve tried to give parents the Offit & Moser 2009 Pediatrics article “The Problem with Dr. Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule”. I’ll get the strangest looks from parents when I hand them this article–as in “you want me to read this?” It’s depressing, especially if I’ve just spent 20-30 unsuccessful minutes telling them why they shouldn’t skip/delay vaccines, and they then balk at reading 8 more pages after they’ve presumably somehow digested all of Dr. Bob’s 352-pages of unhealthy verbiage.

I read an article (can’t remember where) the other day about Alan Alda’s Center for Communicating Science at Stonybrook (http://www.centerforcommunicatingscience.org/health/) and was thinking maybe something along these lines might be more helpful, but yet, when you spend most of your day communicating with patients and parents and seem to be able to get everything else across well to them, you have sometimes just shake your head on vaccine hesitancy and silently scream “WTF?!?”

Paul – what about my evil Gorski?

When you discuss the harm that prescription drugs can do (and I think everyone will admit that they can do harm), it’s also important to keep that in the context of the good they can do. Any drug that does more harm than good should rightfully be thought of as either unsafe or ineffective. While there are too many such drugs, there are a great many that save lives, reduce suffering, and improve life overall. Your blanket condemnation is silly.

they then balk at reading 8 more pages after they’ve presumably somehow digested all of Dr. Bob’s 352-pages of unhealthy verbiage.

If the trolls on here are representative, the antivaxxers don’t read

they then balk at reading 8 more pages after they’ve presumably somehow digested all of Dr. Bob’s 352-pages of unhealthy verbiage.

If the trolls on here are representative, the antivaxxers don’t read

they then balk at reading 8 more pages after they’ve presumably somehow digested all of Dr. Bob’s 352-pages of unhealthy verbiage.

If the trolls on here are representative, the antivaxxers don’t read “Dr. Bob’s 352-pages of unhealthy verbiage”; they just pick up a few paragraphs off the Internet. Of course they don’t want to read eight pages. That would be too much work.

How many people die from prescription drugs
Or medical errors each year

I don’t know, exactly–why don’t you tell, being sure to provide the source of your figures?

Why do drug company funded trials have a perceived belief that they work 90% of the time compared to 50% to non drug company funded trials ???

I’m unaware such a perceived belief exists, nor who might hold such a perception–citations needed.

Conventional medicine kills more people
Than illegal drugs ,guns ,wars ,car accidents,alcohol and cigarettes combined

Show your math: what were the total deaths due to conventional medicine in 2012, the total deaths due to the illegal drug use and trafficking, wars, etc. and most critically what are the sources for your figures?

I mean, say what you want about the tenets of Antiscientism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos. I find it laudable that Paul does not bother with attempts at feigning sanity and goes for the jugular with ad hominem and nonsense.

One has to admire the commitment to the motion, even if motion itself is rather abhorrent.

JGC – I won’t speak to the actual numbers, but there are well reported issues with publication bias. Companies do tend to publish the more positive trials, and these can skew the perceived numbers. See Ben Goldacre’s blog at http://www.badscience.net and the All Trials web site at alltrials.net for a discussion of this and the push to publish all the trial data for any drug.

There may be publication bias, but the idea that we’d expect 90% of drug trials conducted by pharmaceutical companies to be successful is news to me–and I’ve worked in the industry providing assay support for Phase II and III clinical trials.

Perhaps he means we would expect drugs that have already jumped multiple hurdles, having successfully survived nultiple rounds of pre-clinical testing, then Phase I and Phase II clinical trials, to have a reasonable likelihood of succeeding in Phase III trials? That’s true, because you’re talking about a pool candidates that have demonstrated real promise for success, but that likelihood still doesn’t come close to 90%. Lots of drugs still fail in Phase III.

According to Paul:

Conventional medicine kills more people Than…

The annual figures in the USA (all figures from CDC or other government sources) are:
illegal drugs = 17,000
guns (intentional and accidental) = 32,000
wars = 1,000
car accidents = 38,000
alcohol = 75,000
and cigarettes = 443,000
combined = 606,000

A reasonable estimate is about 33,000 deaths due to medical injuries from all causes annually. That needs to be improved, of course, but gross exaggeration isn’t helpful.

Yes, Zen, I am sure my body hates vaccines. On the other hand it loves poliomyelitis that it has never forgotten its brush with it and 58 years later it cherishes the memory with a perceptible limp. If you think that vaccine-preventable diseases are so wonderful and natural, you can demonstrate your love by taking your children to one of those anti-vax havens in northern Nigeria and exposing them to polio. I’m sure they’ll have plenty of occasions to thank you later.
You are living proof that apparent intelligence and arrant stupidity can coexist in the same brain quite nicely. Idiot.

Another problem with Jake’s riposte is that, in addition to being contradicted by his blogging career, its characterization of Gorski’s Tweet is inaccurate, or at least incomplete: “mercury-obsessed” and “antivaccine” are not just ascriptions of motive, they are also descriptions of behaviour.

Indeed, the ascription of motive follows from the obseved behaviour.

Crosby et al are “mercury-obsessed” and “anti-vaccine” because that’s what they write & speak about.

If you think that vaccine-preventable diseases are so wonderful and natural, you can demonstrate your love by taking your children to one of those anti-vax havens in northern Nigeria and exposing them to polio. I’m sure they’ll have plenty of occasions to thank you later.

If they survive it, they may be able to do so, otherwise, not so much.

Renate, why wouldn’t they survive when we’ve got such wonderful medical advances? We’ve come a long way from the days of the iron lung. Why wouldn’t his kids, if any, appreciate such medical marvels as battery-powered wheelchairs with portable ventilators? Hell, they might even make it long enough to get really practical powered exoskeletons to help them move around. I’m sure Zen wouldn’t mind laying out the big bucks in the name of defeating us mindless soldiers to the Big Pharma Army.

In other news, AoA is throwing its support being an anti-Vaxxer documentary raising funds through IndieGogo.com claiming that “new evidence that has been uncovered that suggests [Andrew Wakefield’s] findings were correct.”

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/06/bought-a-film-by-jeff-hays-and-bobby-sheehan-what-if-andrew-wakefield-was-right.html

I looked into the filmmakers behind this surefire piece of…work. It seems the director, Bobby Sheehan, last made a movie which tried to defend chiropractors from the evil medical establishment. Jeff Hays, the producer, is also behind a couple of conservative documentaries, including an attack on Michael Moore. He also made a Big Pharma movie called “Medical, Inc.”

@ Old Rockin’ Dave
Well, I think polio still can be deadly, but I might be wrong. Recently I read Nemesis by Philip Roth, which is about some polio-epidemic.
I don’t understand why anyone would take the risk of a child getting infected with polio.

@ Sebastian Jackson: I’m already on it. See my posts at # 21 and #27. 🙂

Why don’t you post the AoA update at the SkewedDistribution blog?

“How many people die from prescription drugs
Or medical errors each year”

How can you stop the sun from shining?
What makes the world go round?

Renate,

Well, I think polio still can be deadly

How can that be? After all, all of the best anti-vaccine authorities say that the reason that the number of serious complications from childhood illnesses (up to and including death) in developed countries has decreased so dramatically is a combination of better sanitation, better hygiene, better nutrition, and modern medical techniques. Given that, how could anyone POSSIBLY think that diseases like polio, measles, or pertussis could create any risk whatever in any child who is not already dying of, say, a toxic overload or psychic illness, possibly left over from a past life or original sin? I’m shocked – SHOCKED – to think that these diseases might actually be dangerous. Why even smallpox, tuberculosis, and plague should only be minor inconveniences now!

I know that polio can been deadly…

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs114/en/

Key facts

Polio (poliomyelitis) mainly affects children under five years of age.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5% to 10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

Polio cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an  estimated 350 000 cases then, to 223 reported cases in 2012. The reduction is the result of the global effort to eradicate the disease.

In 2013, only three countries (Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan) remain polio-endemic, down from more than 125 in 1988.
As long as a single child remains infected, children in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. Failure to eradicate polio from these last remaining strongholds could result in as many as 200 000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world.

In most countries, the global effort has expanded capacities to tackle other infectious diseases by building effective surveillance and immunization systems.

and…

Progress

Overall, since the GPEI was launched, the number of cases has fallen by over 99%. In 2013, only three countries in the world remain polio-endemic: Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In 1994, the WHO Region of the Americas was certified polio-free, followed by the WHO Western Pacific Region in 2000 and the WHO European Region in June 2002. Of the three types of wild poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3), type 2 wild poliovirus transmission has been successfully stopped (since 1999).

More than 10 million people are today walking, who would otherwise have been paralysed. An estimated more than 1.5 million childhood deaths have been prevented, through the systematic administration of Vitamin A during polio immunization activities.

YOUR EVIL GORSKI

OUR evil Gorski? I doubt that any of us have ownership over him. Maybe he’s Lord Draconis’, but definitely not “ours,” per se.

Even better (from the antivaccine movement’s standpoint), somehow Jake managed to get into the epidemiology program at George Washington University, which means that, should he graduate, the world will consider him an epidemiologist, although it’s doubtful that most epidemiologists will consider him one, given his propensity for the bad science, bad epidemiology, and in general bad reasoning of the antivaccine movement.

Oh, dear. This could be no end amusing given that I have an epidemiologist in the family (as in, teaches research methods when she feels like dipping into academia.) And she and a fair number of her friends from grad school would love to sharpen their claws on anything like we would expect our boy Jake to produce.

Insert evil laugh.

Ren – I assumed he was talking about MY evil Gorski. They come in six packs now.

OUR evil Gorski? I doubt that any of us have ownership over him. Maybe he’s Lord Draconis’, but definitely not “ours,” per se.

It’s always like that, you can’t keep him; it’s not as if he were a tame lion.
(Apologies to CS Lewis)

Geez. 1,500 people would be a rather large turnout, and Bolen’s trying to paint it as a failure? TAM probably won’t hit that number. It’s depressing to think that there are more antivaxers than skeptics.

By Post Author

@Orac: I am disappointed that Autism One hasn’t posted any video or transcripts from the 2013 conference, in stark contrast to past years. It’s been a month already. Perhaps because they don’t want to post anything that can be used against them in court?

I was in that conversation on Twitter for a bit, gave me a good laugh at Jake and drove up my Klout score. LoL

Renate, I know polio can still kill, but I think you kind of missed the implied sarcasm.

@ Todd W (67) and @ lilady (#68): I think it was mentioned on poxesblog.wordpress.com about the Hepatitis A outbreak here in the Southwest recently (I think now about 90 cases and interestingly only one child). The source of the outbreak was a contaminated (by pomegranate seeds from Turkey) frozen berry smoothy mix sold by a certain big box store. The CDCs advice (which was easy for all the phone calls we got) to parents was if your child had even 1 dose of the Hep A vaccine, there was no worry.

I can usually get parents to do the Hep A vaccine. I’m not sure if its because it doesn’t have much of a fever risk or because we are close to an international border and Mexico has higher rates of Hep A outbreaks or because it’s just a 2 dose series or some combination of the above. but it was nice not to see any blossoming of this Hep A (such as in a daycare setting).

@ Sebastian Jackson:

I think that sceptics’ tendency of making mincemeat of their presentations might have had something to do with it!

You see, if they put up a video, someone SB can trash it effectively. Therefore, sceptics’ criticisms serves another purpose as well:
it cuts into the amount of propaganda that they can circulate on the ‘net used for “educating” their followers and wooing prospective followers.

Similarly, if we make it known that they assiduously police dissenting comments at websites like AoA and can illustrate it ( sceptics reporting that they never got past the censor; only a few allowed- exceptions that prove the rule)- we force them into a little more honesty.
Oddly, Jake has helped us unwittingly in this by shouting about how much he is “censored” in comments ( AoA/ facebook).
How about that! Jake Crosby assists the Evil Ones in their Evil Plan to Destroy Innocent Children’s Brains, or whatever it is that we do.

@ lilady, #71–

I didn’t want to slam Costco–not their fault for the contamination, but they do a good job on letting customers know about faulty products (I’ve had some LED light bulbs they’ve recalled, and this is where computers and databases earn their keep).

I my office got ~8 calls from parents on this berry mix. All the kids of those parents had at least one Hep A vaccine (thankfully, berry smoothies aren’t part of the under-1-year-of-age diet around here), so we told the parents not to worry about their children, but also what to look for if they (the parents) had been exposed and had not received a Hep A vaccine.

@Denice Walter: Even though I don’t attempt to comment on AoA, I manage to post on a slew of other blogs that have wider audiences. I’m with Jake Crosby…urging Kennedy to publish his book…

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/06/robert_f_kennedy_jr_vaccine_conspiracy_theory_scientists_and_journalists.single.html#pagebreak_anchor_2

@ Dr. Chris: I think Costco has demonstrated that they are proactive to get to their customers who purchase a recalled food product. They have also offered free hepatitis A vaccines, administered by their pharmacists and reimbursements for the costs of the immunization when customers go to their private doctor.

Disclaimer: Not shilling for Costco; just a long-term Costco member.

Time to get their spiritual leaders to discuss these issues within those communities.

Sometimes, Haredi poskim are part of the problem. There are a lot of moving parts here.

Lord almighty!
@ AoA facebook, the editor ‘splains who the sceptics are:

an “astroturf front collective.. contracted to defend certain biotech companies’ products and policies…
champion pre-emptive war, genocide and exploitation of other cultures which are viewed as inferior or who don’t adhere to western worship of modern tech…
Orac and Respectful Insolence.. Seth.. Brian.. Offit,, anonymous commenters. .rationalism… scientiific method…
. believe in the idea that thought and belief actually alter DNA” (?????)

Although I don’t get that last line ( sounds more like Bruce Lipton to me), she left out:
eat puppies au gratin for lunch
endure indentured servitude to alien tech war lords
attend great parties on tropical islands
make comment notes on the back of investment earnings reports
type away whilst wearing pale lavender Christian Dior undergarments and eating bon bons
oppose anti-vax truth-tellers for free
are primarily gay men, workaholics,slutty women, atheists and changelings

Did I miss anything?

AoA facebook, the editor ‘splains who the sceptics are

That’s a keeper. Any idea just whose colander is loose?

@Narad: I think Kim Stagliano handles things on the Facebook side.

Right. Sounds like her writing style ( also her photo there)-
altho’ the politically infused subject matter ( war, genocide, contra low tech cultures) appears that she also samples alt media I survey ( NaturalNews, PRN etc)..

What’s next, pray tell? Economic Ragnarok a la Stansberry et Celente?

Anti-vax, alt med, naturaliist, libertarian, anti-governmental, anti-corporate, pan-globalist memes tossed together and blended together into an irrational smoothie of woo.
Think I’ll pass.

@ Shay:

No, posh high-rise ivory towers with great views, courtesy of our corporate masters’ beneficience.

What’s with the, “champion pre-emptive war, genocide and exploitation of other cultures which are viewed as inferior or who don’t adhere to western worship of modern tech…”? I thought we agreed to keep those parts of our agenda for the developing world secret at the Bilderberger meeting last week. First we lull them into a false sense of security by introducing effective preventive medicine, clean water, sustainable agricultural techniques, education, raising their standards of living, increasing their life expectancy and then? I think I missed the next bit when Tony Blair started blathering about the great business opportunities in Syria selling arms to the rebels. Has Kissinger finished typing up the minutes yet?

Can I get an EVIL GORSKI bobble head doll to put on my dashboard?

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Bolen attended a fundraiser for Wakefield at a “health freedom” expo in Long Beach California last year. If he thinks 1500 (which is possibly an exaggerated number from autismone) is small, he must think the chip in for Andy meeting was to tiny.

But Bolen was part of the Wakefield thing, so he’s not going to tell us they didn’t even break even on the room rental in Long Beach.

@82
I think the leak was on the part of the Learned Elders of Zion. I told you guys not to include them in the depopulation plan, but noooo, everyone was so enthusiastic about getting Jewish gold to finance the chemtrails. And now the cat is out of the bag.

Also, I’ll send you the copy of the minutes once Kissinger cought them up.

Man, I’m sorry I can’t be there at the meeting, I had some suggestions about how to cover up our HAARP activities. Travel fell through at the last minute, and now I’m just sitting at home, playing fetch with my Evil Gorski. He is a cute little thing, even if it’s a pain giving him separate baths for his furry and scaly portions.

Doesn’t “Evil Gorski” sound like a coctail? Besides vodka, what would it have in it?

@ AoA facebook, the editor ‘splains who the sceptics are:

I can’t find it and I’m on AoA’s facebook page.

Alain

@D. C. Sessions:

Doesn’t “Evil Gorski” sound like a coctail? Besides vodka, what would it have in it?

With the word “evil” in the title, something like Tonic water.
Or maybe absinthe?

So here I am reading another of Orac’s boring, whiney blog as it meanders toward nothingness. Hey Orac, are you just as whiney and boring in person? Perhaps I should leave your wife to answer that. Anyway, it touches a few times on pro-vaxers creepy admiration of Offit. It, nevertheless, leads me to start reflecting on how I also see Offit. Do I see him as many anti-vaxer see him as the devil incarnate, seeking to drive a stake through the heart of kids, and only to devour them shortly after? Perhaps having neurotypical kids I can afford a less harsh view of Offit. I see Offit as in the same boat as other ‘distinguished’, ‘successful’ individuals who are victims of their egos, and specifically their inabilities to tame it when it is in conflict with their ideals. Think about it — why did you guys decide to pursue prestigious, distinguished professions in science and medicine? You wanted important jobs where you could truly improve the lives of people and have a lasting impact on your world? Please! Most likely it was about your egos and making a name for yourselves. All other considerations of ideals were secondary, and only important to the extent that such ‘noble’ pursuits would bring you further notoriety. Still, don’t get me wrong; ego can align with ideals — often it does– and in those circumstances it’s possible to significantly advance ideals, and, not to mention, really boast ego. So, here we have Offit as a co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, with him essentially placing his stamp on the highly acclaimed, ‘successful’ vaccination program. How much more worthy can you prove yourself knowing that you are saving kids from the scourge of an infectious disease? Further does his acquired fortune from the vaccine not put him in the higher echelon of awesomeness? Yes, ego and ideals can get along great as buddies when they agree. When they disagree, however, and ego is the more important of the two, expect ideals to be unceremoniously shown the door. Returning to our Offit case, we had him plodding along merrily, perfectly contended in his belief that he was more than doing his philanthropic duty of saving mankind from dreaded, debilitating infectious diseases. Then evidence started mounting that vaccines are responsible for an emerging autism epidemic. What was Mr. Offit to do? This news threatened to turn him and other pro-vaxers into instant goats that unwittingly unleashed a monster in the name of autism. Does he do the ethical thing and admit to the mistake, and right a wrong? No! Mr. Offit and other pro-vaxers instead chose the more self-serving path of trying to preserve their reputations and essentially saving their asses. They set the ‘vaccine causing autism denial knob’ on ‘high’ and deny, deny, deny! What remaining semblance of ideals they once had is buried underneath the convenient mantra that the benefits outweigh the risk: Whenever I see Mr. Offit in an interview it always strikes me how often he parrots the line that vaccines are a victim of their own success. As he speaks the words you can almost sense that he is fighting to refrain from screaming into the camera – ‘you ignorant, ungrateful a-holes! So what if vaccines cause autism? Do you want to return to the days when everyone was suffering and dying in droves from debilitating infectious diseases?’

Yeah Paul and other pro-vaxers, you meant well. Too bad it had to go so badly and now you don’t have the courage to admit to your mistakes.

Then evidence started mounting that vaccines are responsible for an emerging autism epidemic.

Evidence…
You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Yeah Paul and other pro-vaxers, you meant well. Too bad it had to go so badly and now you don’t have the courage to admit to your mistakes.

It hasn’t gone badly at all, it has gone extraordinarily well. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been saves and there have been remarkably few problems. Billions of children are protected by vaccines globally, and we are as certain as we can be that vaccines do not cause autism. Deal with it.

Greg’s is a sad and ignorant voice crying in the wilderness, ignored by everyone who can read and understand the evidence. He appears to be twisted up by jealousy of Offit’s wealth and success because he has never done anything of note, and judging by the content of his comments, never will.

@ Alain:

I couldn’t find it again. Must have gone ‘disappeared’.

@ Julian Frost:

Absinthe for sure. It also needs to have mad bubbles to suggest the Evil Lab wherein the Evil G works.
-btw- we have recently learned that the name of the Doctor is an adjective in an arcane and ancient European tongue.

Doesn’t “Evil Gorski” sound like a coctail? Besides vodka, what would it have in it?

Some particularly potent schapps, I think. Not the candy-flavoured crap sold in North American, the European stuff that burns going down.

Plus a dash of thimerosal .

Hey Guys,
Took a little break but now I am back. Did you miss me? So what’s the latest that’s up with RI’s echo chamber other than your kinky little fitish of spying on AoA. Oh — I also saw somewhere that you are planning a FAQ for standard rebuttal of trolls. Let me know if I can contribute anything. Hee, hee, hee! So guys, before I really get into things I wanted to know what is the lastest news with the Swansea measles outbreak? How is the ‘calamity’ that shows what happens when vaccination lapses proceeding? How many actual confirmed cases of measles were there?

@Lilady,
Delurker, please explain to lilady –again!– that she is not really ignoring me if she is telling me that she is ignoring me. And I thought convincing you guys that vaccines cause autism was hard.

Still ignoring ignorant craving-for-attention Troll.

So do I.

I couldn’t find it again. Must have gone ‘disappeared’.

They must read RI.

Alain

@Denice Walter

Well, you know what they say, absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.

That distant burbling noise reminded me of the Swansea measles outbreak, and I wondered if it was under control yet. The latest information is that there have been 1,213 confirmed cases. Only one death, as the statistics would predict, but lest anyone forget that these statistics represent real people, here’s an interview with the mother of the young man who died (he had a 3-year-old daughter, to add to the poignancy. Slow handclap for Greg and the antivaxxers. Hee fncking hee.

I should perhaps have pointed out that the 1,213 cases were patients examined by a doctor who diagnosed measles. Only 303 of these cases have been confirmed by laboratories in Wales (cases confirmed in English labs are not included in this figure), because the local labs were overwhelmed. Taking both under-reporting of milder cases and false positives into account, the true number of cases is very probably well over the reported figure.

The true mortality from this measles epidemic won’t be known for a while since some of the apparent survivors may yet die lingering painful deaths from SSPE. Hee fricking hee, indeed.

Does anyone else find greg really rude and boring? I mean, he can’t even be bothered to use titles correctly.

I vote for tequila in the Evil Gorski. Tequila shots are evil enough for ANYONE.

lilady:

Still ignoring ignorant craving-for-attention Troll.

Especially one who has not grasped the usefulness of paragraphs.

Hmmm, an Evil Gorski? Well, it would have to taste good. So it might be vodka with ginger ale and something else.

I did have a lovely drink on a volcano yesterday: coffee with brandy, Kahlua and whipped cream. It was very cold, there was still snow around the inn. We sat in the rustic lodge in comfy chairs sipping the hot spiked coffees while hikers (some who had been to the summit) came in and draped their gear on the mezzanine railings to dry.

Test. To see if the moderation problem I have at SBM has migrated here.

Bad medical advice provided over the internet eventually
results in tragedy, as Kreb reports:

if a person provided equivalently awful information about CARS that led to the damage or destruction of CARS, I think the audience would become irate and quickly abandon the Car Quack- perhaps even call for his head, or for his wrench, at least.

Yet people support the likes of those I survey where human life is concerned..
It’s not just about providing information-
they creates a sub-culture wherein the followers identify with the leaders; part of this involves hatred of an out-group, the flames of which are fanned continuously by the perpetrators.

Woo needs conspiracy mongering in order to explain why it was never accepted by the mainstream ( hint: it’s really because it doesn’t work) thus, we hear of plots to cover up information, secret deals, governmental corruption, corporate malfeasance, media enablement. See AJW, RFK

So pseudo-science- not supported by facts or data- has to erect a superstructure of skulduggery in order to stand.
It draws upon followers’ suspicions of elite experts and professionals-
truly, the main alt media sites I monitor now spend more time on economic and political scaremongering than they do on health fearmongering.

They say, in effect, “Don’t trust the government, professionals or the media- they’re all corrupt. Trust ME.”

But why should we? I’ll put it to you as I did to Jake:

Is it more likely that there is a baroque imbroglio of intricately intertwining plots, supterfuge and cover-ups, involving thousands of people, worldwide, over decades that has diverse multinational organisations working together seamlessly
OR
that there is a liar/ scoundrel/ data fixer, what have you, at the root of it?

If your car is broken, you go to a car expert: if you have health problems or worries, why would you go to anyone on the internet who claims superior knowledge?

They point their fingers at others to take the attention off of their own corruption, malfeasance and loathesome actions.

@Denice Walter – I believe that “Big Garage” is responsible for most of our automotive difficulties. I would rather trust my car to some product with the word “miracle” in its name than some fumblethumbs auto mechanic. Just listen to Car Talk sometime, and see if you ever trust a mechanic again.

How do I know the Big Garage conspiracy exists? Easy:
– where is my vehicle that runs on water?
– where is my flying car?
– haven’t you noticed how much a Porsche to buy and then to maintain?
– KITT obviously exists, because I’ve seen it on TV. Why was the production model suppressed?
– why are people so adamant that Brown’s Gas generators don’t work because of conservation of energy unless they fear them?

My own take on the Evil Drink:

needs bubbles ( lab ref)
needs to have a hint of green or violet ( to look evil)
vodka

AND?

Ratzeputz

Yes, I would include that in an Evil Gorski just for the name alone. It sounds like an insult one might use against a particularly annoying, juvenile troll. 😉

I would rather trust my car to some product with the word “miracle” in its name

Anti-static straps… petrol-magnetising fuel economy devices… woo is alive and well among drivers.
Clearly cars benefit from the placebo effect.

And some licorice flavored booze.
Riga Black Balsam. Or Gammel Dansk.

On the topic of evil liquors, it turns out that Malteser Akvavit is not made using real Maltese. Imagine my disappointment.

Is Ratzeputz on the list of banned words? all I did was say it sounded like a good insult for a puerile self-orienting troll (and an excellent ingredient for an Evil Gorski)

Denise Walter (my suggestions in bold):

My own take on the Evil Drink:

needs bubbles ( lab ref) – ginger ale
needs to have a hint of green or violet ( to look evil) – Cassis
vodka – yes!

AND? mint plus a twist of lime

@Krebiozen

“He appears to be twisted up by jealousy of Offit’s wealth and success because he has never done anything of note, and judging by the content of his comments, never will.”

Sometimes the greatest thing to do is nothing.

@ Edith Prickly:

How about , as an insult:
“Du bist eine Gottverdamte Ratze UND ein Putz” ?

@ Denice Walter: The last four letters of the schnapps I recommended for the “Evil Gorski” cocktail caused my comment to get stuck in moderation for hours. 🙂

Sometimes the greatest thing to do is nothing.

It would be great if you were to run along and take your own advice.

@Krebiozen,

“I should perhaps have pointed out that the 1,213 cases were patients examined by a doctor who diagnosed measles. Only 303 of these cases have been confirmed by laboratories in Wales (cases confirmed in English labs are not included in this figure), because the local labs were overwhelmed. Taking both under-reporting of milder cases and false positives into account, the true number of cases is very probably well over the reported figure.”

Indeed, only 303 confirmed cases of the reported 1,213 cases. But listen to the pro-vaxxer continue to sing the fear card — ‘don’t go so fast — it’s gonna be bad –bad!’

@Krebiozen

“Only one death, as the statistics would predict, but lest anyone forget that these statistics represent real people, here’s an interview with the mother of the young man who died (he had a 3-year-old daughter, to add to the poignancy. Slow handclap for Greg and the antivaxxers.”

Please get back to me if you have know of any source that confirms that the man’s death was indeed due to the measles. Last I heard, the initial autopsy was inconclusive.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22299596

Ok, Orac’s VCADOD (vaccines causing autism denialism obsessive disorder) group, here is your question for the day….

It is estimated that 1 in 50 kids have autism. Soon these kids will be aged out of the school system, and as adults they will become an even greater burden on society. The lifetime care for each of these individual is estimated between 3 to 5 millions. Do you believe that society and government can continue to burden these growing costs, already estimated at $137 billion annually?

http://money.msn.com/now/post.aspx?post=00d9751b-dad1-4d2a-b3ea-01287216ce21

“Think about it — why did you guys decide to pursue prestigious, distinguished professions in science and medicine? You wanted important jobs where you could truly improve the lives of people and have a lasting impact on your world? Please! Most likely it was about your egos and making a name for yourselves. All other considerations of ideals were secondary, and only important to the extent that such ‘noble’ pursuits would bring you further notoriety.”

Projecting much, Gregory?

My own recipe for “YOUR EVIL G*RSKI”

1 oz of ursus vodka
1 oz of peach schnapps
2 oz of orange juice
3 oz of red devil

It’s “Sex With the Devil,” since everyone accuses our host of doing that, anyway.

Do you believe that society and government can continue to burden these growing costs, already estimated at $137 billion annually?

Other than finding additional resources to meet the growing need what would you suggest we as a society do, greg? Cease providing support entirely? Euthanize autistics?

(BTW, please note that the fact public support for autistics (both within and aged-out of our public school systems) may require increasing expenditure of available public funds in the near future does not in any way speak to whether or not a causal relationship between routine childhood immunization and the development of autism spectrum disorders exists.)

Just in case any lurkers mistook Greg for a reasonable person who weighed the evidence fairly before plummeting to a conclusion*, let me point out yet another double standard Greg has shown he subscribes to:

  • According to Greg, a parent with no medical training who learns their child has autism, and guesses purely from temporal proximity that the cause must be vaccines, must surely be correct.
  • But also according to Greg, if actual trained medical professionals who study for years, learning among other things how to diagnose diseases by their symptoms, diagnose 1,213 cases of measles in a region having a meales outbreak, they must be wildly inaccurate except in the roughly 25% cases where the laboratory proved their diagnosis correct.

So, parent trying to do the job of a medical professional without training: to be assumed right, until proven otherwise (and sometimes still to be assumed right, even then. Medical professional doing the job they received years of training to do: to be assumed wrong, until proven otherwise, and then only in those specific cases where the evidence is ironclad.

I wonder if there are any antivaxxers who don’t rely on a blatant double standard?

  • Not that I can picture anyone thinking Greg a reasonable person after reading his rant in this comment. I was going to respond to the parts of it that were more than just bald, unsupported assertions or irrelevant insults… but there were none.

Only 303 laboratory-confirmed cases, only one death, only 86 hospital admissions, only anecdotal evidence from his mother that it was measles that killed Gareth Colder-Williams (it will be interesting to see what the inquest decides). Yet as Antaeus pointed out, Greg unquestioningly accepts anecdotal evidence from parents (that we know is unreliable), but only if it supports his prejudices about the causation of autism. Despicable.

Sorry, typo – Gareth Colfer-Williams, not Colder-Williams. He definitely had measles BTW, and he definitely died, so it is very likely indeed that he died of complications from the measles, probably from pneumonia since he was asthmatic. It is very unusual for men of his age to die for no reason.

After all, those anecdotal accounts from untrained parents confirm what greg already knows to be true. Of course their conclusions are correct.

I’m sure if their findings also confirmed what he already knows to be true greg would cheerfully accept the trained medical professionals’ conclusions as well. Since they don’t, however–since they demonstrate what he knows to be true is actually wrong–he has no other choice but to discount them.

But Antaeus,

Trained medical professionals have COIs tainting their judgement: unlike parents, they are in league with the Medical Industrial Complex , the Fascistic Police State and Mainstream Media Presstitutes and are hynotised by their own ‘Cult of the Professional, a self-serving Orthodox belief system which over-values their own mercenary opinions and suppresses the Truth seen by the People

How’d I do?

So I do have a seriously off topic question:

Of the people diagnosed with an ASD, what percentage will require substantial care related to that ASD over a lifetime?

@Mephistopheles

I can’t access the paper itself, and according to the abstract it seems to mostly focus on differences in the cost of treatment for different autistic age groups instead of differences in the actual rate of use, but PMID: 22941343 may have an answer for you.

Re Mr. Colfer-Williams’ autopsy:

Mr. Colfer-Williams was found dead on April 18. The article was published on April 25. The gross autopsy findings would be available, but the microscopic sections and examination were probably not finished, and certainly any toxicology screening, special stains on the microscopic sections, and microbiologic and molecular procedures would not be done so soon. A pathologist would be a fool to report anything other than “inconclusive” at this point, on what is undoubtedly a complex medical autopsy. But then, Greg is the Go-To Guy if you want to know what a fool would do.

Okay, this may be the better thread for this link. And hopefully with coffee and recovering from a four day car trip around the state (which included wine country tasting), I present this “Ask Amy” question. Does some of the following seem familiar (hoping I don’t muck up the HTML again):

For the past few months, the child’s mother has made almost daily Twitter and Facebook posts about their son’s condition that really upset my fiance. The shared pictures and quotes make it seem like their child is very impaired by his condition, which he isn’t. He’s being painted as a helpless victim who will need lifelong care, not the intelligent, funny and lively boy that he is.

I don’t think she realizes how offensive and hurtful this is on my fiance’s end. He has the same relatively mild diagnosis and he grew into a happy, successful adult. It’s hard for him to see her talking about their child as if his future went from bright and happy to bleak and full of challenges the second he was diagnosed.

Wow, Chris: It appears that the mother has violated that child’s privacy in the most egregious manner. The label “autistic” doesn’t change the fact that the youngster is developing at his own pace and seems to be happy and socially adept.

I’ve seen a number of child custody legal papers, incorporated into legal separation and divorce papers. Usually, the court orders “joint custody” with one parent having the responsibility to provide custodial care…with stipulations that the non-custodial parent must be informed by the custodial parent of every appointment made with medical/psychology specialists, meetings with teachers and IEP meetings…so that both parents can be present.

Mommy is playing the martyr role now…and the fiance ought to call her out about her behaviors.

in other news:

It seems anti-vax legal eagle (?) Mary Holland has taken on Art Caplan ( see AoA today). The comments contain a few gems.

Antaeus Feldspar,

Of the people diagnosed with an ASD, what percentage will require substantial care related to that ASD over a lifetime?

About 7% of individuals with autism are severely intellectually impaired, according to this article, but as I understand it this a comorbidity, not a result of the autism per se. Clearly some autistic individuals will require lifetime care of some description, but the $3 million figure would appear to apply only to the most severely disabled individuals.

Sorry, that last comment was meant to be directed to M. O’B., not Antaeus.

TBruce,

A pathologist would be a fool to report anything other than “inconclusive” at this point, on what is undoubtedly a complex medical autopsy.

I think we can safely conclude that in this case, a young man with asthma and generally poor health (according to the interview with his mother), measles (which has been laboratory confirmed) certainly didn’t help.

@Krebiozen – as evidence of the double-standard, anti-vax individuals still use the incident of the young woman who was killed in a car accident (she was a passenger) after getting the HPV Vaccine as evidence of an adverse reaction……

Indigo_Fire, Krebiozen,

Thanks. Then it’s much as I thought – a substantial percentage of people with a disorder on the autism spectrum benefit from various therapies. However, the number who require extensive, long term therapy or care is substantially smaller. This is something some might keep in mind when discussing the cost of treatment.

We have to also remember that in the olden days, ASDs may have been under-diagnosed primarily for the Asperger’s end of the spectrum.

The pendulum may swing back a bit thanks to DSM 5 ( see Jon Brock / Cracking the Enigma, a few months back).

AoA will certainly not be pleased. As they have already squawked.

My comment directed at ***Mary Holland’s rebuttal of Arthur Caplan’s medical ethics article just got through moderation…after two hours…too many links, I suppose. The Dachelbot’s flying monkey squad is out in force; Autism News Beat is already posting, and Dorit Reiss has posted a rebuttal to Holland’s rebuttal:

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/billofhealth/2013/06/21/guest-post-crack-down-on-those-who-dont-vaccinate-a-response-to-art-caplan/#comment-204867

***Mary will not be pleased with my reply.

The Dachelbot also sent Maureen Meleck to this blog. I posted twice (I left out the link I referenced in my reply). My first post is out of moderation.

http://ktna.org/2013/06/25/medical-officials-concerned-over-low-vaccination-rates/#comment-79307

@MOB
“Thanks. Then it’s much as I thought – a substantial percentage of people with a disorder on the autism spectrum benefit from various therapies. However, the number who require extensive, long term therapy or care is substantially smaller. This is something some might keep in mind when discussing the cost of treatment.”

Really?

“According to a National Autistic Society survey of over 450 children and adults with autism, an astonishing 70% of adults with autism are unable to live independently. Of these individuals, 49% live with family members, creating a huge financial burden on aging parents, and 32% livle in residential care facilities, which offer little or no privacy, autonomy, or stimulation.

Only 3% of adults with autism live fully independently. In
terms of employment, only 6% of adults hold paid, full-time jobs.
Regarding mental health, over half of adults with autism have been
diagnosed with depression some time in their adult life while 11% say they have suffered a “nervous breakdown.”

And even though the majority of adults surveyed had participated in at least two autism interventions in childhood, 65% continue having difficulty making friends. Of teens surveyed, 74% stated that they had difficulty making friends. Of children under 13 years old, 31% participated in no social activities at all.

Clearly this data shows the burden on quality of life for adults
with autism, issues such as independence, self-determination,
employment, mental health, social support, and meaningful relationships
are virtually ignored when planning treatments, assessing treatment
outcomes, or evaluating an overall program’s “effectiveness.’

The Evil Gorski needs to include Maudite (literally “damned”), a beer from Quebec that has a 9% alcohol content. It would taste evil, and the resulting hangover would make you feel damned.

I second that 🙂 Furthermore, I could be convinced to make a few barrel of a custom made beer if needed; just that I can’t taste it.

Of the people diagnosed with an ASD, what percentage will require substantial care related to that ASD over a lifetime?

I don’t know but going off on a tangent, being non-verbal but understanding basic instruction, a person with idiopathic autism (i.e. no other origin than genetic at this point) should be able to solve the RSPM test so the appropriate question would seem to be how to tap in that potential to learn how to:

1-: do basic living as independantly as possible (long-term issue).
2-: how to read (but they get to do that early and with ease).
3-: budget.
4-: not being taken advantage off (difficult even for me).

anything else? Unfortunately, I’m not conversant enough on psychoeducation to help in these regard.

Alain

http://isearch.avg.com/search?cid={F88C4AEF-
@Alain
“Greg, citation please?”

ED87-4158-8E63-BB960EE57DF8}&mid=fa3454ed23f0fc90d43a964dc9377585-38c78e6c743769c85d6d847ea567789348026496&ds=AVG&lang=us&v=15.2.0.5&sg=&pid=avg&pr=fr&d=2011-12-03%2006:29:50&sap=dsp&q=national%20autistic%20society%20survey%20450%20autistics

@Krebiozen
“About 7% of individuals with autism are severely intellectually impaired, according to this article, but as I understand it this a comorbidity, not a result of the autism per se. Clearly some autistic individuals will require lifetime care of some description, but the $3 million figure would appear to apply only to the most severely disabled individuals.”

Actually Krebiozen, this was actually what said in the link you provided…

“The cost of providing care for a person with autism in the U.S. is an estimated $1.4 million over their lifetime, according to a study funded by advocacy group Autism Speaks. For those with autism who are impacted with intellectual disabilities (with an IQ of 70 or less) — nearly half of the autistic population — the cost jumps to $2.3 million.

That’s in addition to the standard costs associated with raising a child, including food, education and housing.”

Greg, I read the text but in no way it point to the survey itself, which is what I want to read.

Alain

Greg, I wish I could cost 1.4 million dollars to taxpayers but so far, I have an overestimate of 196 536$ on public dollops (that basic calculation assume 19 years of disability income but I have worked for many years). That is in direct cost. Indirect cost amount to 10 000$ at most because I never received any support before going to university and the 10 000$ is also an overestimate.

Now if we figure a life expectancy of 70 years, with 1.4 million dollars, that get us an average of 20 000$ per year. What’s the cost of disability income out of that? (and btw, we need to assume that it’s only when we are 18 years old or older do we get this amount).

Alain

@JGC

“After all, those anecdotal accounts from untrained parents confirm what greg already knows to be true. Of course their conclusions are correct.
I’m sure if their findings also confirmed what he already knows to be true greg would cheerfully accept the trained medical professionals’ conclusions as well. Since they don’t, however–since they demonstrate what he knows to be true is actually wrong–he has no other choice but to discount them.”

Imagine for once that pharma is late with your paycheck and you are not as disposed to do their bidding and hear me out. As demonstrated with my drinking bleach analogy, it’s completely foolish to ask out of hand to dismiss anecdotal evidence because it is deemed unreliable. Whether not drinking bleach, or not crossing the street on red, or not scaling a 21st floor balcony, we rely almost exclusively on anecdotal evidence with a fair degree of accuracy and success to navigate our world and get through our days. We do not ask for a double-blind scientific study to determine whether slicing ourselves with a knife is a bad thing. Yes, generally one can provide examples where anecdotal evidence was wrong, but if the facts were known these are mere exceptions.

If you want to argue that we should not trust the countless parents’ stories that their children were harmed after vaccines then the onus is on you to prove this. Pointing to a few cases in which the parents were mistaken by not observing that their kids showed signs of autism before MMR is not sufficient. (I might add that even these cases do not necessarily disprove causation because we don’t know if prior vaccines were contributing to subtle effects and an additional round of vaccines pushed things over the edge and where symptoms became quite noticeable).

The onus is on you to provide the definitive evidence that the parents’ stories are wrong. Half-baked pharma studies that explore a few vaccine ingredients, or surveilience studies with gross methodological issues and are authored by a fugitive are not enough. If you cannot do a human vaxed/unvaxed study due to ‘regrettable’ (hee,hee,hee) ethical concerns, then provide one that shows a 1 in 50 autism rate for an unvaxed population. There again we see the benefits of pursuing the conclusive studies: Not only would we have our answer about the relationship between vaccines and autism, but we would also know indeed if the parents were mistaken and it was all a big coincidence.

Until your side provide the definitive proof JGC, expect me to remain firmly in the parents’ corner and treat your complaints as BS.

http://isearch.avg.com/search?cid={F88C4AEF-
@Alain
“Greg, citation please?”

ED87-4158-8E63-BB960EE57DF8}&mid=fa3454ed23f0fc90d43a964dc9377585-38c78e6c743769c85d6d847ea567789348026496&ds=AVG&lang=us&v=15.2.0.5&sg=&pid=avg&pr=fr&d=2011-12-03%2006:29:50&sap=dsp&q=national%20autistic%20society%20survey%20450%20autistics

Something tells me that poor Greg doesn’t realize what he just did.

Imagine for once that pharma is late with your paycheck and you are not as disposed to do their bidding and hear me out.

Done. HTH. HAND.

I think I have missread part of a quote:

The cost of providing care

does the 1.4 million and 2.3 millions is for applying ABA/IBI for life? Is the cost figure include any comorbidity or it’s just for idiopathic autism?

I’d like to see someone in their 40’s and receiving ABA.

Alain

Greg: Of teens surveyed, 74% stated that they had difficulty making friends. Of children under 13 years old, 31% participated in no social activities at all.

Perhaps it’s just me, but I don’t see how that’s a defect. I played alone or with my sibs during childhood, and when I hit my teens, most of my friends were people I met online. I found my peers quite dull, frankly and preferred the company of a good book.

Secondly, I have to ask, again, if you would prefer to risk your children during an epidemic? Would you still love them if they became disabled due to a vaccine-preventable disease, or would you view them the same way you view autistic people- as disposable?

Apparently the millions of anecdotes from parents whose children were vaccinated and didn’t develop autism mean squat.

As do the “anecdotes” from people like Autismum and Agaeshem that their autistic children were showing signs of their autism before they were vaccinated.

@Politicalguineapig

You are asking silly questions. If Greg’s children were disabled dur to vaccine preventable disease Greg would immediately knife them and went on to cry in outrage that Big Pharma spreads disease (little like Jews were supposed to do with Plague) to force people to vaccinate their children with thos terrible, terrible Fair Folk produced, child stealing vaccines.

@Greg #157: do you think we all have amnesia and/or Alzheimers? You posted that study before on http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/04/06/can-antivaccinationists-knock-it-off-with-the-autism-holocaust-analogies-already/ and it was torn apart. The sample size was just 458 out of 1200 questionnaires mailed out.
Narad pointed out: the selection bias –

The survey was designed by NAS, reviewed by eight NAS members, and sent to NAS members. I am not seeing any reason for the exclusion of 8 of the 458 parental replies, but maybe it’s in there someplace.

and that you distorted a lot of what the survey said.
Did you really think that you could get away with posting hogwash that was refuted before?

Smith of Lie: I know you’re joking…but that sounds terrifyingly like something that Greg would think was a great idea. I think that’s what worries me the most about the AOA parents; that they see any child that’s less than perfect as disposable. I can’t imagine how badly some of those parents would treat a child who became blind or deaf, given that they can’t cope with autism.

@Lilady

“The Dachel bot has notified her groupies about a Time Magazine blog that features autistic triplets in Spain. There are just a few comments there and I had the opportunity to post directly back at Dachel:”

Lilady, great job keeping tabs on those quacks. A pro-vaxxer also told me that he snuck into the bathroom after Olmstead took a big cr@p. He said the giant turd actually read, ‘vaccines cause autism’. Can you believe the guy defecating like that? He thinks he can get away with stuff but little does he know how closely you guys are watching them. Didn’t even flush… Jerk! (hee,hee,hee!)

@Julian

“@Greg #157: do you think we all have amnesia and/or Alzheimers? You posted that study before on http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/04/06/can-antivaccinationists-knock-it-off-with-the-autism-holocaust-analogies-already/ and it was torn apart. The sample size was just 458 out of 1200 questionnaires mailed out.
Narad pointed out: the selection bias –

The survey was designed by NAS, reviewed by eight NAS members, and sent to NAS members. I am not seeing any reason for the exclusion of 8 of the 458 parental replies, but maybe it’s in there someplace.

and that you distorted a lot of what the survey said.
Did you really think that you could get away with posting hogwash that was refuted before?”

I have been trying real hard for a long time to be nice and avoid slamming you but, finally, let me say this: You
are no different than any member of an oppressed group who conspires with his oppressor against his own people. These individuals include Jews during the Holocaust who snitched on other Jews, or ‘Uncle Tom’ Blacks who turned other Blacks in during Slavery. Does your high functioning status afford you the luxury of turning your back on your ‘lesser’, ‘more embarrassing’ non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing peers? Criticize Jake all you want but at least he has the decency and courage to stand up for his own people.

@PGP

“Secondly, I have to ask, again, if you would prefer to risk your children during an epidemic? Would you still love them if they became disabled due to a vaccine-preventable disease, or would you view them the same way you view autistic people- as disposable?”

PGP, oh you are such a piece of work! Let’s stop mincing words here. What do you want a parent to do — rejoice after watching a perfectly previously healthy child destroyed by vaccines?

Hey Orac,

Didn’t really mean to irk you as you were more than likely planning another of your boring, whiney blogs. So am I to infer you are taking issues with my Holocaust anology because it is ‘obnoxious’. I provide one of your excerpts….

“RI an echo chamber? Oh, that is so hilarious. What happens to people who go over to AoA and strenuously object to the hive mind’s position on vaccines? They disappear or ultimately are banned as “trolls,” no matter how polite they are. What happens to people who try to object to something I say here? They get to post, only getting banned if they flood the comments with dozens upon dozens of repetitive and obnoxious posts (like Didymus), become abusive and insulting over a fairly long period of time, or rejoice over the death of my dog.”

So Orac’s what’s your criteria for determining if a post is indeed ‘obnoxious’, or is just a matter of your personal decision? Seems to me that RI echo chamber is indeed not so welcoming of free thought, much as you will protest.

Greg:

Does your high functioning status afford you the luxury of turning your back on your ‘lesser’, ‘more embarrassing’ non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing peers?

Oh the irony. Do you know who else was “non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing” as a child?
Temple Grandin.

Criticize Jake all you want but at least he has the decency and courage to stand up for his own people.

I think I’m about to die laughing. Crosby stalks and harasses people who are pro-vaccination. What do I do? I’m a self-advocate and blogger. If you think that I’m not doing any good for low-functioning autistics, you know even less than you think you do.

@Greg:

There is a difference between expressing an alternate opinion that doesn’t go along with the majority and denigrating whole classes of other commenters by comparing them to Nazi collaborators and “Uncle Toms.” It’s disingenuous in the extreme of you to try to draw a parallel. You can argue all you like that vaccines cause autism, that Jake is a wonderful person, and that vaccines are pure evil. But make such vile analogies about other commenters? Well, that gets my attention.

In any case, it’s blog, my rules. Don’t like it? Go somewhere else and rant about how you were abused because I got annoyed that you started comparing high functioning autistics who comment here to sonderkommandos and Uncle Toms.

By Post Author

@Greg – if you can’t see how your “analogy” is blatantly offensive to anyone and everyone, you are less self-aware than I even gave you credit for…..of course, since you believe all autistics are brain-damaged burdens on society, I should have expected nothing less.

Actually Krebiozen, this was actually what said in the link you provided…

I know what it said, which is why I linked to a well-referenced article that suggests that only 7% of autistic individuals are also severely intellectually impaired, and pointed out that the intellectual impairment is not necessarily a consequence of autism, but a co-morbidity. You have to take publications by advocacy groups with a pinch of salt, as they are, quite rightly, highly motivated to maximize the requirements of the group they are trying to get more resources for. Also worth noting is that the figures quoted also include the costs of highly dubious “biomedical” treatments, such as vitamin therapy.

No one is denying that a sizeable number of individuals with autism will require some assistance in living, but only a tiny minority are non-verbal and doubly incontinent, requiring round-the-clock care, contrary to what you continually imply. Trying to exaggerate the cost of caring for individuals with autism, and ranting on and on about vaccines, which we are as certain as we can be do not cause autism, is less than helpful.

As for your attack on Julian, I suppose that as well as showing that you are a despicable worm who despises people with autism, despite claiming to care for them, it also demonstrates that you have nothing to back up your empty claims.

@Lawrence,
Shut up man! Shouldn’t you be ignoring me or something like that?

@Orac,
Hey Orac, quit with the hypocrisy. I have been treated with the worst abuse here. I’ve been called vile, a scumbag, and told countless times to screw myself. I’ve been compared to a dog that eats his own vomit. Likewise, I routinely hear other anti-vaxxers being treated with such scalding insults. Not once did I object to such abuse, Orac. Now pro-vaxxers all seem to get their knickers in a knot when someone uses the Holocaust analogy. They see it as hitting below the belt. Please! You said it Orac, it’s your blog and you decide on the rules so quit with the hypocrisy of being so welcoming of free speech. Also, when you decide to ban me at least have the decency to publicly announce it so that no one is confused about what RI is truly about.

Cry me a frickin’ river. From my perspective you provoke people and go beyond mere insults. And, yes, here Nazi analogies are a trigger that get my attention, particularly when it comes to someone with your sordid history here.

By Post Author

If you want to argue that we should not trust the countless parents’ stories that their children were harmed after vaccines then the onus is on you to prove this.

You’ve got it backward once again: you’re the one claiming that vaccines injure chidlren, so it’s you’re responsibility to provide evidence to support that claim. Anecdotal accounts from parents claiming they’re children were harmed do not constitute evidence they actually were harmed, anymore than the anecdotal accounts of people claiming they were abducted by aliens and taken aboard flying saucers for medical examinations constitute evidence they actually were abducted and examined by aliens.

Direct question: do you believe we as a society must enact public policies based on the presumption alien abductions are real, committing financial and military resources to seek out and deter alien invaders from kidnapping US citizens, unless we can disprove each and every anecdotal account of an abduction?

What do you want a parent to do — rejoice after watching a perfectly previously healthy child destroyed by vaccines?

And the evidence that routine childhood vaccinations destroy perfectly previously healthy children?

Oh, that’s right: you don’t have any.

Greg: What do you want a parent to do — rejoice after watching a perfectly previously healthy child destroyed by vaccines?

Do you rejoice when a previously healthy child is disabled or killed by measles or mumps or any of the other diseases you love? Probably. I am not a foul bag of wind like you, and I hold parents accountable for not getting their children the help they need and harming them by resorting to dubious treatment. Most of the so-called bio-med treatments for autism make as much sense as a parent forcing a child to eat carrots to recover their sight.

Greg: I’ve been called vile, a scumbag..
Here’s a clue, bud; the shoe fits. Maybe if you don’t want the commenters to call you out for being a vile scumbag, you shouldn’t ACT like a vile scumbag.

I’ve been compared to a dog that eats his own vomit.

That would indeed be ridiculous. You’re more like a dog that rolls in its own vomit and then hops on the bed after scooting its anal sacs on the carpet.

Likewise, I routinely hear other anti-vaxxers being treated with such scalding insults.

You keep saying this without providing examples.

Still, I am finding some amusement in Greggie’s increasingly hysterical efforts to get himself banned, which I imagine would provide him with the usual Sad Sack variety of satisfaction. Ah, I can remember back when he was feigning ignorance of AoA’s “moderation policies.”

@Narad – he reminds me of when someone from the Westboro Church gets upset when people call them names…..

Or better yet, the “feigned outrage” by people from AoA at being called “anti-vaccine” yet they can’t name a single vaccine they are in favor of……or a single instance where a positive story has been posted on AoA about vaccines…..

I’ve been called vile, a scumbag, and told countless times to screw myself. I’ve been compared to a dog that eats his own vomit.

As I have said before: “It’s not an insult, it’s a description.”

Good afternoon everyone 😀

You’re more like a dog that rolls in its own vomit and then hops on the bed after scooting its anal sacs on the carpet.

This. Made. My. Day! 😀 😀 😀

Alain

As demonstrated with my drinking bleach analogy, it’s completely foolish to ask out of hand to dismiss anecdotal evidence because it is deemed unreliable.

Believe it or not, Greg has actually said something sensible. If someone was actually suggesting that anecdotal evidence should be dismissed “out of hand” (which I take to mean “without sufficient consideration”) just because it is anecdotal evidence and anecdotal evidence is unreliable, then that would indeed be foolish.

Of course, that’s not what’s actually happening. The anecdotal evidence is not being dismissed without consideration, it’s being dismissed after consideration. And why is it being dismissed? Because we have better evidence which conflicts with that anecdotal evidence. Despite Greg’s confused disquisition, “reliable” does not mean “turned out to be correct in an individual case”; we call anecdotal evidence unreliable because no matter how many examples we conjure up of it being right, it is wrong too often for us to rely on it. Un-able to rely = unreliable. Even stretching the boundaries of “anecdotal evidence” wildly, to the point where “anecdotal evidence” is supposedly the reason we don’t drink bleach (seriously? does Greg think we have no scientific proof that bleach is caustic and causes harm, it’s all anecdotal?) the “fair degree of accuracy and success” that anecdotal evidence purportedly provides us day-to-day is not sufficient for big policy decisions. “I’ve managed not to off myself by scaling a 21st floor balcony so far, and that proves anecdotal evidence works! Therefore, anecdotal evidence, even when contradicted by scientific evidence, should be enough reason to ban vaccines!” Yeah, doesn’t quite work that way.

If you want to argue that we should not trust the countless parents’ stories that their children were harmed after vaccines then the onus is on you to prove this.

Of course, this has already been done. As we have already said, we have scientific evidence that vaccines do not cause autism, in the form of all the epidemiological studies which have looked for a correlation between vaccination and autism and found none. Remember, these are the same kinds of studies that have detected actual vaccine side effects with a rarity of 1 in 100,000; if even a significant fraction of those “countless parent stories” represented actual children whose autism had actually been caused by vaccines (and thus would not have happened without the vaccines) there’s no way all those extra cases of autism could not show up as a detectable difference in the data. But every time it’s looked for, it isn’t there.

You can’t say “there is no detectable difference between the rate at which unvaxed kids get autism and the rate at which vaxed kids get autism, but nevertheless because of parents’ stories we believe that vaccinations must be causing a lot of cases of autism which would cause the rate among vaxed kids to be higher.” It’s like saying “The oldest son is six feet tall; the youngest son is also six feet tall; we’re now going to speculate on what causes the older son to be so much taller than the younger.” It’s like saying “Emergency room personnel have all these stories about how the full moon must make people crazy because there are so many more cases during the full moon than anytime else; we’ve looked at the actual data and found that the number of cases during the full moon is pretty much the same as at any other time, but still, since those anecdotal stories sound so good, we’re going to speculate how the full moon causes that huge spike in cases which doesn’t actually exist.”

You’re more like a dog that rolls in its own vomit and then hops on the bed after scooting its anal sacs on the carpet.

I suspect that he has lost all continence and p1ssed himself with pleasure, now that he’s received the attention he craves.

I’m sorry guys, I really am. I believe that some of the insults leveled at certain people who post here are, frankly, excessive. I know that emotions run high; I know that people truly believe that some people are a danger to all around them and a poor role model (while trying all the while to pretend they’re filled with sweetness and light). But really – do FOAD, DIAF, comparisons to dog vomit, or comparisons to Nazis really add to the conversation? I personally cringe when I read them, as they don’t reflect well on the people writing them.

I’ll admit to taking the occasional pot shot (I like to think they’re witty when I write them, but that’s for others to decide), but I like to think that most responses in these threads are reasonably thoughtful and intended to discuss the issue. Gross insults, well, that just makes people sound like people who post on nbc.com or cnn.com.

Naturally, any statement that’s fact based is perfectly fair.

Sorry for tone trolling. Please carry on.

@MOB – I agree, it has and can get excessive. Unfortunately, that’s what Greg wants…

If any of my replies were off-base, I apologize.

Though not to Greg….

I suspect that he has lost all continence and p1ssed himself with pleasure, now that he’s received the attention he craves.

I’m actually having trouble finding the comment in which Greg was “compared to a dog that eats his own vomit.” It would be most helpful if he could provide it. Maybe it’s from someplace else that he graced with his presence.

You know what? So am I. I started looking in the WordPress back end for the exact comment Greg is referring to, and I can’t find it. Perhaps he could enlighten me and point out where this particular comment is, as I’m beginning to think that he’s either confusing this blog with another blog or making it up. He could easily prove me wrong, though.

By Post Author

It’s a Biblical reference: Like a dog that returns to his vomit is a fool who repeats his folly. (Proverbs 26:11). Perhaps he insulted someone on a religious forum?

I’ve been ignoring the ignorant craving-for-attention Troll for weeks.

I’m sorry.

The points that have been made about how, when someone is pretty clearly trying to goad us into banning him for his vile behavior, so that he can go out and lie and pretend it was because we just couldn’t handle the heavy truth trip he had for us, and that someone manages to elicit any sort of personal insult in response to his own copious personal insults, it’s a loss for our side – these points are completely correct.

But I can’t stop myself. I’m just too disgusted to hold back. I’m about to compare Greg to something much, much worse than a dog eating vomit:

Greg is like a guy who claims to be neurotypical, not on the autistic spectrum at all, who tells other people who are on the autistic spectrum that they have to accept whatever crackpot theory he, the neurotypical, believes about the origin of their autism, or else be labelled by him as traitors to their own kind – again, by someone who strenuously denies that he’s one of their kind.

I’m sorry, folks, for finding something so very odious to compare Greg to. Perhaps it would have been kinder to compare him to a dog returning to his vomit, as the dog is less disgusting on almost every level than a neurotypical who tells autistics what they have to do to be “good” autistics – but sometimes you can’t sugarcoat things.

Try your google fu “Greg Age of Autism”, to see how the Troll went crawling back to the mother ship for advice on interpreting the many studies the RI Regulars posted at him. Troll got no help from the experts at AoA…just some comments about the RI Regulars.

lilady, Krebiozen, Antaeus Feldspar – please refer to my statement regarding fact based comments.

Perhaps he insulted someone on a religious forum?

I assure you that did exercise some editorial restraint before submitting that one. Realistically, it doesn’t even merit the effort required for a decent insult at this point. I mean, what, repeating the NAS stuff as though nobody would notice?

Like I said, now that the notion seems to be sinking in that its trademark taunt has gone threadbare and there’s no other there there, it’s just getting angry. It’s lost track of its own comments. It has lost at every turn to the commentariat, so now it demands — indeed, probably craves — the playing out of some sort of bizarre fantasy showdown with the host.

@Mephistopheles O’Brien,

I admit I went overboard with my picture of economists some time ago in another thread but in my exchange with Greg, I never knew anything about FOADIAF until Greg mentionned it and I googled it. It’s funny at the moment but then I don’t expect to use it again in this lifetime because I am sensitive to my fellow and most humans but then again, I’m also sensitive to be called a damaged good with injured brain. I know I should develop the humility of not lowering myself to the level of the name caller and sometime, I can but sometime, I can’t.

It’s always a balancing act.

Alain

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group, sometimes I get the impression that you are frustrated and angry with me. Now I know I tease you a lot about wanting to help you with your denialism disorder but underneath all that ribbing there is sincerity. Do you see that we have a situation where the parents of autistic kids hate you with every bone in their bodies? They despise you to the high heavens and would like nothing better than to lay a serious butt whooping on you for what you did to their kids. Now even though my kids are not autistic, I don’t particularly like you either but I try to be fair. I ask, if my reputation and butt (remember what I said about the butt whooping) was on the line with vaccines causing autism wouldn’t I also deny, deny, deny? I would like to say no but we can never be sure.

Anyway, what we have is the most impossible stand-off: The parents desperately want to whoop your butts because you keep denying the obvious, and the more you sense that they want to lay a beating on you the more you deny the obvious. And, with every passing day of the standoff the autism mess worsens. We have more vaccine-damaged kids and the autism rate skyrockets. The situation definitely is not sustainable and surely is bound to come to a ‘French Revolution style’ head.

What is needed is a resolution, but with the two camps so polarized how will we ever find one? It would be nice to have a middle-ground moderating voice to break the impasse. Being the nice guy that I am I decide to be that moderating ambassador and I venture into your RI camp. And yes, through all my teasing and taunting I try to get you to see that your denial game is not sustainable. Now perhaps the frustration and anger that you have for me stems from your awareness that the autism mess is so intractable and there will be no easy solution. Sooner or later you will have to incur some butt whooping. Still, all I can do is remind you that the longer you wait and play the denial game the worse your beatings will be.

Oh Greg, frustrated and angry with you? A known child murder advocate, who never has anything useful or insightful to say? Why would we be angry with you? Because you, while yourself an infantivore shapeshifter lizard, only come here to deal in allegations and insane conspiracy theories?

Let’s face it – you are pretty worthless when it comes to discussion. Anti-vax position or not, you have yet to demonstrate a response that is not a non-sequitur or ad hominem.

Greg: sometimes I get the impression that you are frustrated and angry with me.
Try annoyed, douchecanoe. Your reading comprehension is poor and your ears appear to be non-functional vestigal organs. Also, any person who claims to be ‘nice,’ especially if male, aren’t really and should be either avoided or thrown into the nearest body of water.
As for the butt-whooping..oh, honey. I happen to be a black-belt. I’d like to see them try.

there is sincerity

Your well-established habit of ignoring direct questions posed to you pretty much rubbishes that one.

Narad; I guess the Troll got zilch from the brain trust at AoA.

P.S. I love that Google trick 🙂

Greg:

It would be nice to have a middle-ground moderating voice to break the impasse.

Certainly. Just provide the PubMed indexed study from a competent researcher that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease. You have had several weeks to come up with that answer. Why have you ignored this question?

Is it some kind of science denial?

@ Everyone but Greg,

I have a question for you all: Between our side and the antivax side, what would represent the middle ground (or as middly ground as possible)? Take as much time as possible to think about it.

In the meantime, a test that I have been wanting to do for a long time:

Enjoy 🙂

@Narad and Orac: I believe Greg is referring to Herr Doktor Bimler’s comment at http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/04/06/can-antivaccinationists-knock-it-off-with-the-autism-holocaust-analogies-already/#comment-252139 where he says:

As a dog returns to his vomit, so Greg returns to the Aktion T4 rationales (noted by Elburto back in comment #16)

Admittedly, it’s a bit of a stretch to argue that that analogy says what Greg says it says.

I guess the Troll got zilch from the brain trust at AoA.

They may well have realised that he is trolling AoA for reactions just as much as he is trolling at RI.

I believe Greg is referring to Herr Doktor Bimler’s comment

Ah, thar she blows. His very first thread, yes? Perhaps it could be bronzed or something.

Perhaps it could be bronzed or something.

Naturally I am reminded of “Been Down So Long”, where Pappadopoulis’ flatmates make the same suggestion.

lilady, Krebiozen, Antaeus Feldspar – please refer to my statement regarding fact based comments.

Actually, I put considerable thought into my comment, and I would say it is fact-based.

The fact is that Greg has behaved atrociously to the people here. The fact is that the treatment he whines about being subjected to is mild compared to the deliberately obnoxious treatment he has gleefully inflicted upon others, and clearly plans to continue inflicting.

I understand your point. It’s truly unfortunate that we should be wasting any time discussing Greg’s personal deficiencies instead of refuting the arguments he’s presented in a fact-based manner.

But this is a sample of what Greg is perfectly willing to introduce to the conversation – a piece of gross scatological foolery. It clearly has absolutely no content relevant to any of the discussion; its only purpose is to disgust and therefore punish anyone who dares to not agree with Greg. That is not the behavior of adults.

When Greg attempts to produce an argument suitable for adults, one that involves facts and logic, I answer it in a fact-based manner. When he posts vile abuse that has no factual content whatsoever – as he has several times and will probably do again – I don’t feel that we should be restricted to silence as a response.

It is obvious the the sun revolves around the earth, but scientists persist in denying this. Do they expect us to ignore the evidence of our own senses? What is needed is a resolution, some middle ground both sides can agree on, but with the two camps so polarized how will we ever find one?

Greg – now metaphorically gobshite-ing.

I was in an observational study that was initiated because of anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, these anecdotes didn’t seem to apply to me and I have no idea how the whole thing turned out. Anecdotes by themselves are useless.

Greg – now metaphorically gobshite-ing.

I was in an observational study that was initiated because of anecdotal evidence. Unfortunately, these anecdotes didn’t seem to apply to me and I have no idea how the whole thing turned out. Anecdotes by themselves are useless.

I was going to ignore Mephistopheles O’Brien’s admonition, as I have ignored the Troll’s comments for weeks. I called him out within hours of his post, two months ago.

Troll’s behavior is a bid for attention and every time someone responds to him with the derision he so richly warrants…he derives pleasure…no different than the other trolls who came before him.

You handle the Troll in the fashion you want M O’B, and I will continue to ignore him. I’ll make observations about his pathological need for attention, his atrocious calculated-to-hurt remarks about autism and his fact-free posts, while I manage to engage in meaningful dialogue with others.

“Gross insults, well, that just makes people sound like people who post on nbc.com or cnn.com.”

Sorry M O’B, but I do post on those websites, whenever I see cranks posting there…that’s they way I roll.

@ Alain:

First of all, about those required courses, I would make sure to NOT take them all at once- that would be a heavy load for anyone. You don’t need that type of stress.
I don’t know whether you have to complete other courses for the degree- if so- try to mix in liberal studies with the more science-y ones.
-btw- if you don’t mind revealing it- how much further have you to go for the Bachelor’s? And what would be the areas of concentration?

Next:
you ask a very interesting question- what’s the mid-point? Well, sometimes * tertium non datur* but I’ll try anyway.

Given that the SB position relies upon data and research and the antivax relies upon anecdote and emotional response, perhaps a trained observer might look at written material produced by the two sides and vascillate between the two modes of functioning on some sort of agreed-upon schedule and tally up points over time which then would be compared to the responses of several hundred others who behaved similarly which could then be tested statistically.
I’m joking.

Usually when negotiation is involved, the person who decides needs to consult external reality in the form of evidence: the two sides as portrayed would present their positions or opinions and why they believe in them.

Here’s the problem:
one position ( anecdote) presents an extremely limited perspective on reality ( N=1) whereas the SB side would be presenting studies which already involve multiple observations, utilise the scientiific method and mathematical analysis ( N= many).

Of course critics might say there is bias towards the latter position: a bias towards external reality with checks and balances intact.

Critics might also say that SB consensus is fixed, compromised and beholden to Pharma-
easy solution, show evidence for those claims. Evidence does not include your opinions, feelings or deepest hopes but photos, phone records, money transfers et al. As in a court of law.

-btw- there have been decisions involving ‘courts’ like the GMC or the vaccine course ( e.g. Cedillo). Anecdote didn’t fare well at all.

They despise you to the high heavens and would like nothing better than to lay a serious butt whooping on you for what you did to their kids.

And the evidence that we or anyone else actually did anything to their kids?

Oh, that’s right: you don’t have any.

@MOB

“I’m sorry guys, I really am. I believe that some of the insults leveled at certain people who post here are, frankly, excessive. I know that emotions run high; I know that people truly believe that some people are a danger to all around them and a poor role model (while trying all the while to pretend they’re filled with sweetness and light). But really – do FOAD, DIAF, comparisons to dog vomit, or comparisons to Nazis really add to the conversation? I personally cringe when I read them, as they don’t reflect well on the people writing them.”

MOB, you don’t know how much it warms my heart to have your rear dissenting view. It nicely breaks up the monotonous drone of the RI echo chamber. Anyway, I don’t necessarily agree with you, and do feel that as a communicative tool offensive comments can have their value. They should be accepted as Free Speech. What should not be accepted is Hate Speech, attacks on prbhibited grounds such as gender, religion, sexual orientation and so on. Banning offensive posts runs the risk of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Actually, I didn’t really have an issue with my comparison of a dog eating his vomit. Come to think of it, Elburto once described me as a winnet. I had to look ‘winnet’ up. It’s described as dried, crusty feces around an anus. Yuck! I give it and surely should be able to take it.

My issue is with Orac allowing offensive posts but getting his knickers in a knot whenever someone uses the Holocaust analogy. Did you hear that, Orac? Be consistent!

“They despise you to the high heavens and would like nothing better than to lay a serious butt whooping on you for what you did to their kids.”

What, exactly, did any of us do to their kids, Gregory?

@Antaeus Feldspar – I was unclear, and apologize for giving the wrong impression.

Greg, I want to ask you something. Are you aware that Nazi Germany killed people? It seems to me that whenever someone compares their opponent to the Nazis they think that they were just a bunch of annoying people.

@lilady – I was ambiguous in my wording and apologize to you as well. I saw your statement that you were ignoring a certain poster as purely fact based. I regret my second post and would like to withdraw the comment.

@ Ren:

You put your finger on something I’ve observed ( and sensed) often- the idea that a crime/ wrong has been committed by SBM ( and its supporters, apparently) against them and their children and that retribution is on its way, either through a legal means ( prison) or otherwise. Quite a few who post/ comment at A-V sites express these sentiments.

The question of how to respond to trolls will never go away. Some of us enjoy poking them with a stick to see how they react, some of us are curious as to their psychology and motivations, some of us advocate ignoring them in the hope they will get bored and go away, some of us like to answer them in the hope that lurkers who might be in doubt see that their claims are empty. There is no right or wrong way.

If there was a way of ignoring them using a script, like there was in the good old days, it might help, as it can get a bit wearing looking for any interesting comments amongst the dross. Is there anyone we can contact at National Geographic or WordPress to suggest this?

Is there anyone we can contact at National Geographic or WordPress to suggest this?

The NatGeo monkeys can’t even get two widgets to work properly. Unless somebody can modify the Greasemonkey script (I’ve tried unsuccessfully), this is it.

@ Krebiozen:

Perhaps we can craft a stereotypical reply on our own. I believe that there are several commenters here who can produce an apropriate response. Hmmmmm?

I should clarify that: a single line that is easily identifiable when someone scrolls. Everyone here can then reply in this manne- easy to see, easy to read.

Well, there’s always the brain-macro — that is, rather than an elaborate script to hide their posts, you see them and scroll past them without reading them. Or….

If you see them posting in the thread
And they start to rant, each time they post
Scroll on by, scroll on by
Make believe
That trolls aren’t really in this thread
Just let them be
In private ’cause each time they get replies
They break down and cheer

Scroll on by, don’t stop
Scroll on by, don’t stop
Scroll on by

(With apologies to Dionne Warwick.)

My issue is with Orac allowing offensive posts but getting his knickers in a knot whenever someone uses the Holocaust analogy. Did you hear that, Orac? Be consistent!

And guess what? I don’t care. Offensive, inappropriate, and inflammatory Holocaust analogies are a pet peeve of mine (so much so that for a few years back in the early history of this blog, I dedicated a regular feature to mocking the people who use them). Don’t like it? I don’t care. I really don’t. Think I’m being unfair and inconsistent? Again, I don’t give a rodential posterior. Want to keep using Holocaust analogies? Feel free to do so and be banned, as you have received your one and only warning. Your call. I don’t really care what you end up choosing.

By Post Author

Are you aware that Nazi Germany killed people? It seems to me that whenever someone compares their opponent to the Nazis they think that they were just a bunch of annoying people.

Oh, Greg’s analogy goes beyond that. Remember, he didn’t compare autistics who accept the science that says that vaccines don’t cause autism to Nazis, exactly. He compared them to the sonderkommando, namely the Jews in the death camps who agreed to collaborate with the Nazis in return for not going straight to the gas chambers. They did things like collect the clothing before gassing, collecting the bodies after gassing, running the crematoria, etc. In other words, Greg compared autistics who combat antivaccine nonsense to traitors to their kind who actually collaborated with the very evil that was murdering their kind. It was a very specific and very intentional analogy.

By Post Author

@MOB

“@lilady – I was ambiguous in my wording and apologize to you as well. I saw your statement that you were ignoring a certain poster as purely fact based. I regret my second post and would like to withdraw the comment.”

Better step back in line quickly before they try you for treason. Just ask Calli. Hee,hee,hee!

Greg, please provide the PubMed indexed study by a reliable researcher that shows a vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

You have had more than enough time to answer that question, or admit that the vaccines are safer than the diseases. Why is that so difficult?

chuckles I’m not saying anybody has to ignore you, Greg. Just saying that if they do want to, they don’t need a fancy script to do it. 😉

And I’m the sort of person who likes writing scripts. Sometimes I just recognize that there’s a simpler solution.

if you don’t mind revealing it- how much further have you to go for the Bachelor’s? And what would be the areas of concentration?

about 140-150 credit; I’m starting anew. I don’t mind the time it will take but according to rules, I have to finish my bachelor in at most 8 years. I expect to take 6 years.

The bachelor will be in physics engineering and the concentration in medical engineering and photonics (description in french)

About the internships, I can choose how many internships I want and they have a formula where an internship is 9 credit of a separate microprogram which doesn’t count toward the bachelor but otherwise, give out experience credits for the order of engineer of Quebec.

I admit this will take a while but as my mentor recommend, I’ll be taking it in baby step; one day at a time. The important point is that I’ll be happy.

Regarding the financing, I don’t need to pay back student loans because they’ve been converted into grants (because of my diagnostic of autism).

Alain

The bachelor will be in physics engineering and the concentration in medical engineering and photonics (description in french)

Wait, there are 35 courses for the base degree? Is this on the “quarter” (i.e., trimester) system, or semesters? I imagine there’s a distribution requirement outside of the major, as well.

@ Narad:

But don’t you think that the visual effect of (perhaps) 2 dozen F#CKOFF!s in sequence would be satisfying to say the least?

Did you hear that, Orac? Be consistent!

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

@ Alain:

I have a similar question to Narad’s: any more requirements ( pre-reqs to the curriculum/ other)?

Sounds like a lot of work- but if it is your area of strength and interest then it may be exactly what you want/ need.

But don’t you think that the visual effect of (perhaps) 2 dozen *F#CKOFF!*s in sequence would be satisfying to say the least?

Something something Alice’s Restaurant something. At the very least, I would take Ken White’s “snort my taint” as a model.

There’s no major & minor in French language university so, it’s indeed 35 courses in the base bachelor. The courses are 45 hours each (including exams) so that makes them 4 month course (a semester) with one midterm and a final (which I find easier compared to english school like Bishop’s where I’ve had 4 exams for one course).

One big difference between english and french language university is that the french goes for depts first while the english one goes for breadth first. Takes a cell & molecular course at Bishop’s; my last course covered 18 chapters of the book in 36 hours while an equivalent course at Sherbrooke university is split up in 2 courses (cell bio, molecular bio), they cover 10 chapters each in 45 hours of course. That leave up a lot more time to assimilate the instruction and allow the professor to go much more in depth which is what I prefer.

Alain

For the prereqs, I need calculus I & II, linear algebra, physics mechanics, electricity and optics and finaly, chemistry I & II.

As for general interest course, I may be allowed to take some and will takes them in law school.

Alain

I seem to be on a roll; In an email exchange, I and Dr. Casanova agreeing on doing a one year internship in his lab. That will happen once I’m allowed to do internship (which require a minimum of 30 credits in the engineering program). I may wait until I have more courses under my belt (say 45 credit of engineering) but it will happen nonetheless.

Alain

Do you see that we have a situation where the parents of autistic kids hate you with every bone in their bodies?

Funny, the impression I get is that they hate their autistic kids for not being “normal”. But as that goes against their self-serving portrayals of themselves as brave “warrior parents”, they aim their anger at those who have the temerity to point out that their views are mistaken and they are endangering their children’s health with false beliefs about vaccines and quack treatments.

They despise you to the high heavens and would like nothing better than to lay a serious butt whooping on you for what you did to their kids.

The correct term is “open up a can of whoop-ass”. But again, no one has done anything to their kids. Until they finally face the truth that autism is genetic and accept their kids as they are, they will continue to seethe with misplaced anger.

Being the nice guy that I am I decide to be that moderating ambassador and I venture into your RI camp.

Uh no, you showed up here for the sole purpose of trolling the skeptics – it was evident right from the inept attempt at comedy that was your first post. As for being a “nice guy”, I stand by my comment on the RFK Jr. post that you’re a mendacious little twerp.

I stand by my comment on the RFK Jr. post that you’re a mendacious little twerp.

Don’t forget the simpering.

@Orac
“And guess what? I don’t care. Offensive, inappropriate, and inflammatory Holocaust analogies are a pet peeve of mine (so much so that for a few years back in the early history of this blog, I dedicated a regular feature to mocking the people who use them). Don’t like it? I don’t care. I really don’t. Think I’m being unfair and inconsistent? Again, I don’t give a rodential posterior. Want to keep using Holocaust analogies? Feel free to do so and be banned, as you have received your one and only warning. Your call. I don’t really care what you end up choosing.”

So I guess Orac this amounts to a tacit admission by you that you are not tolerant of free speech? Oh deary dear, what have we here — a science blog that is not accepting of free speech and which operates on the principle of being an echo chamber? Just what is the world coming to?

@Lilady
“I was going to ignore Mephistopheles O’Brien’s admonition, as I have ignored the Troll’s comments for weeks. I called him out within hours of his post, two months ago.
Troll’s behavior is a bid for attention and every time someone responds to him with the derision he so richly warrants…he derives pleasure…no different than the other trolls who came before him.”

So not only are you ignoring me by telling me you are ignoring me, but now you are also starting to discuss me in lengthy passages. Lilady, you are really starting to confuse me! Are you really ignoring me?

You could respond by telling me again that you are ignoring me, but as I mentioned already that is not really ignoring me. If you say nothing and don’t respond then that is a sign that you are really ignoring. Still, given that your usual approach is to tell me that you are ignoring, not responding may suggest that you never saw this post and, hence, you don’t respond. Oh geez, Lilady! You see how you are really confusing me?

(It’s been 2 month already! How time flies when you are having so much fun.)

Greg, please provide the PubMed indexed study by a reliable researcher that shows a vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

You have had more than enough time to answer that question, or admit that the vaccines are safer than the diseases. If I have to ask this question again, we will assume the latter is true.

So I guess Orac this amounts to a tacit admission by you that you are not tolerant of free speech?

Oh, please. Are you really that dense? Freedom of speech does not imply a right to a particular outlet for that speech. Even if I were to ban you, you would remain perfectly free to say what you want elsewhere, or even start your own blog devoted to attacking me. You wouldn’t be the first person to do that. A certain Burzynski troll comes to mind as having blazed that trail before you.

All it “amounts to” is a statement that you have reached a certain level of annoyance for me and my readers that I am forced to contemplate whether your “contributions” are worth our having to put up with your sheer obnoxiousness.

By Post Author

Greg – Orac is not tolerant of people being deliberately offensive with Nazi references. On the other hand, your whining about how unfair the person whose blog this is is is unbecoming.

But then, we know you like beating up on people while trying to pretend you’re not.

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group,
Before I wrap things up, I almost forgot my question of the day….

Now we have all seen the graphs that show that many infectious diseases were well on their way out even before the introduction of vaccines. We also know that other diseases have also disappeared even without vaccines. Do you think that, similarly, diseases like polio could have also disappeared on their own?

Well, since Greg did not answer my question, that is a tacit admission that vaccines are safer than the diseases.

Now I have a new question for him because he claims the diseases were on their way out I have this question for him.

Greg, if you have stopped ignoring me, here is a table of measles incidence in the USA from census data dating through out most of the 20th century. Why did the rate of measles incidence drop by 90% between 1960 and 1970?

Do not mention deaths/mortality, any other decade or any other country (Wales and England are not in the USA, and yes, some people need to be told that). Do not mention any other disease.

Here is the data:
From http://www.census.gov/prod/99pubs/99statab/sec31.pdf
Year…. Rate per 100000 of measles
1912 . . . 310.0
1920 . . . 480.5
1925 . . . 194.3
1930 . . . 340.8
1935 . . . 584.6
1940 . . . 220.7
1945 . . . 110.2
1950 . . . 210.1
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4
1965 . . . 135.1
1970 . . . . 23.2
1975 . . . . 11.3
1980 . . . . . 5.9
1985 . . . . . 1.2
1990 . . . . .11.2
1991 . . . . . .3.8
1992 . . . . . .0.9
1993 . . . . . .0.1
1994 . . . . . .0.4
1995 . . . . . .0.1
1996 . . . . . .0.2
1997 . . . . . . 0.1

@Orac

I think you are deliberately trying to confuse things. The question is not whether I have a right to free speech somewhere else. It’s about ‘your’ outlet! Barring my speech shows that ‘you’ are not tolerant of free speech on your forum — at least some!

Yeah, it is one of my faves. I have yet to see anyone true believer answer my question.

I especially loved that a citizen of the UK, John Stone, tried to use the ChildHealthSafety poorly done graphs for Wales and England. You would think he knew that he was not living in an American state, but, alas, he is as clueless about geography as he is on, well, almost everything.

Oh, Greg, since you are around. Here is the data on polio from the CDC Pink Book Appendix G:
Disease: Polio in the USA
Year__Cases____Deaths
1950__33,300___1,904
1951__28,386___1,551
1952__57,879___3,145
1953__35,592___1,450
1954__38,476___1,368
1955__28,985___1,043
1956__15,140_____566
1957___5,485_____221
1958___5,787_____255
1959___8,425_____454
1960___3,190_____230
1961___1,312______90
1962_____910______60
1963_____449______41
1964_____122______17
1965______72______16
1966_____113_______9
1967______41______16
1968______53______24
1969______20______13
1970______33_______7

Now why did it go away so quickly in the 1950s?

@Orac

At the end of the day, Orac, I don’t give a hoot whether I get banned. My main focus is to do my part in cutting through RI hypocrisy and showing it for what it really is — a pro-vaxx echo chamber whose main agenda is to promote vaccines, and even if it involves barring dissenting ‘free’ speech.

Knock yourself out.

You’re a very silly man, though. If you end up getting banned, it won’t be for a “dissenting” view. It will be due to your steadfast insistence on being a vile human being and using vile analogies.. Quite frankly, my dedication to free speech has traditionally been such that I’ve been critical of laws banning Holocaust denial and the jailing of David Irving. However, there’s a huge difference between governments cracking down on speech and a blogger deciding that he doesn’t want to have to deal with offensive speech comparing people with autism to sonderkommandos or Uncle Toms.

By Post Author

@Chris

Yes, indeed a sound argument can be made that vaccines essentially finished off these diseases. Still, with the trend in the diseases declining ‘steeply’ prior to vaccines what makes you think that over time these diseases wouldn’t have naturally reached the rate that they are today (even if it would have taken a longer time)?

Greg,

Can I ask you something? Which person on this list do you most admire, and consider has the best scientific and logical judgement? And why?

Mark Blaxill
Dan Olmsted
Paul Offit
Mark Geier
Orac
Andrew Wakefield
Kim Stagliano
Michelle Dawson
Richard Grinker
Paul Shattock
Paul T. Shattuck

If you would like to suggest someone else, please do so.

Just interested in the way your mind works.
Thanks.

Greg,

As I’m not very involved with this so perhaps I could elaborate for others – the argument that people they have a “right” to harass a blogger and their readers is as silly as.

It’s projecting a way – projecting what is true on any number of denial sites. Frequently denial sites block readers (solely) because their views differ from the denialist writer of the blog post.

By contrast, what science bloggers typically draw a line on is how people treat others. (I do too; written down in my comments policy in my ‘About’ page.)

All science blogs I know of allow people with all kinds of opinions to write, bar a handful (figuratively speaking) that don’t offer comments. You’re being allowed to write, right?

In any event, comments sections of blogs—any blog—isn’t for others to ‘own’ – it’s the blogger’s. You can’t ‘demand’ they be one way that suits you. They’re not public spaces in the sense of a town square.

Greg: “Still, with the trend in the diseases declining ‘steeply’ prior to vaccines ”

Please explain which years indicate that measles was declining steeply prior to 1960? Here are some more detailed data from the CDC Pink Book Appendix G:
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases
1950__319,124
1951__530,118
1952__683,077
1953__449,146
1954__682,720
1955__555,156
1956__611,936
1957__486,799
1958__763,094
1959__406,162
1960__441,703

And exactly how much did polio decline the five years before the polio vaccine was introduced?

It is interesting you said those words without even looking at the tables I posted.

Now, once more: what caused the rate of measles incidence to plummet 90% between 1960 and 1970?

@Orac,

“However, there’s a huge difference between governments cracking down on speech and a blogger deciding that he doesn’t want to have to deal with offensive speech comparing people with autism to sonderkommandos or Uncle Toms.”

Actually Orac, in truth, the only real difference is that the blogger can make a claim that he has a ‘noble’ reason for cracking down on free speech, and especially after he started a blog soliciting for it. Come to think of it….governments sometimes make the ‘noble’ claim so maybe there really isn’t a difference.

Now we have all seen the graphs that falsely purport to show that many infectious diseases were well on their way out even before the introduction of vaccines.

For the benefit of any lurkers who are wondering “What graphs are they talking about? Do they really show infectious diseases ‘on their way out’?” the answer is “No, no they don’t. It’s very simple to understand, once it’s been explained, why these graphs don’t show infectious diseases ‘on their way out’ – which means anyone still trying to claim they show that is surely being deliberately dishonest.”

You see, any reasonable person’s interpretation of the statement that a disease was “on its way out” would think that meant fewer people were getting that disease. That’s a measurement called “incidence”.

But the graphs anti-vaxers show around, and claim represent the disease “going away”, aren’t graphs of incidence, they’re graphs of mortality – i.e., how many people not only got the disease but died of it.

In other words, if the disease was blinding people, deafening people, leaving them sterile, scarred and mentally impaired left and right, but wasn’t actually killing them, the anti-vaxers’ graphs would claim the disease wasn’t there at all!

The anti-vaxers trumpet deliberately misleading data. Ask yourself why they would need to do that if the real data supported their worldview.

Has anyone ever pointed out that the perception that something went wrong in the children’s development when they got a vaccine could be explained by very common reactions like injection site soreness? I had to get a meningitis shot for grad school purposes about a year ago, and that mfer hurt for a week (no, I did not VAERS it). Well, if I had been about a year or two old, therefore probably not able to understand that it would stop eventually, definitely not able to rationalize it as a trade off for something useful, with a reaction like that I’d probably act out a bit too.

Now suppose all that but in a kid who’s going to turn out on the spectrum…so, probably can’t express that it hurts with words or gestures, and might have a sensory integration issue making it feel worse, probably prone to odd behavior. I could see that situation being the first time a kid’s behavior is far enough outside the normal kid range for a parent without other training to notice, and then what has been seen cannot be unseen, so after that they notice some of the smaller quirks, and the kid is getting to the age where it’s easier to tell anyway.

It just doesn’t mean what they think it means. But…maybe if this series of events was described and acknowledged as consistent with science, fewer people would feel like their story as they perceive it fits better with the quacks, nuts, and curebies.

@Greg, if you really see government censorship as the exact equivalent to the owner or their designee having rules about what is discussed and how on private property, I’ll be right over* to paint a pro-vax billboard on the front of your house, and you’ll be OK with me speaking freely by that method.

*Actually might have to send someone, and it might take a few days to sort the details…don’t wait up

@Broken Link

“Greg,

Can I ask you something? Which person on this list do you most admire, and consider has the best scientific and logical judgement? And why? ”

As a collective body, the countless parent who can vividly recount how their children were dramatically damaged after vaccines. I consider they have the best scientific and logical judgement because more than any of the other parties they best embody the scientific spirit of integrity, humility and passion for truth.

@ Greg, would you please answer a few question for me? Could you tell me if I have integrity, humility and passion for the truth? And if not, why?

Alain

Dear fellow commentators, I would like to make a suggestion in dealing with Greg’s intellectual dishonesty. If you wish to ignore him, as I have been doing for weeks now, just ignore him, don’t provide him with attention by saying you are ignoring him.

If you find you can’t ignore him, perhaps it might be better to just point out without elaboration Greg’s intellectual dishonesty. An example might be “Another example of Greg being intellectually dishonest”. The drive by readers will quickly realise that is the case and ignore what Greg is posting.

When Greg has provided that reference that Chris has asked for regarding the numbers of seizures caused by disease and by vaccines, it might be time to engage with him again.

Greg is obviously posting here in an attempt to wind others up, but as they say about wrestling a pig …

Barring my speech shows that ‘you’ are not tolerant of free speech on your forum — at least some!

Perhaps you should again take this general topic up with AoA. By the way, do you have to make that “hee, hee, hee” noise with your nose when Olmsted’s balls are otherwise blocking your airway?

@ChrisP: Greg is boring, and infantile in his name calling. But he’s also very amusing when he so blatantly ignores questions he can’t answer.

He hasn’t YET answered what vaccine is worse than the actual disease, which Chris has been asking him for over 2 months. He hasn’t answered about why morbidity of diseases only declined after vaccines were introduced (mortality had, of course, decreased due to better hospital/medical care, but that did nothing for the incidence of disease, nor for the sequelae from the disease).

I don’t usually read what he’s written, because he repeats himself, calls people names, and is otherwise irritating. But I do check to see if he actually answers someone’s questions (so far, his score for honest, peer-reviewed answers is zero)

I’m not holding my breath as to when Greg actually says something honest, answers a question with a provable answer, or admits he’s trolling.

Still, with the trend in the diseases declining ‘steeply’ prior to vaccines what makes you think that over time these diseases wouldn’t have naturally reached the rate that they are today (even if it would have taken a longer time)?

Provide a single rational argument why this would occur. Note that you must define the word “naturally.” Your proposal should also quantify “a longer time” in the form of a “natural” time constant.

ChrisP:

When Greg has provided that reference that Chris has asked for regarding the numbers of seizures caused by disease and by vaccines, it might be time to engage with him again.

Actually after him not addressing that question for two months has provided the appropriate answer:

Greg know that the vaccines are safer than the diseases.

Now it is up to him to read the tables I provided (including the sources!), and tell us the years that measles and polio declined steeply! That should be amusing.

but as they say about wrestling a pig …
…Perhaps the pig will learn to sing.

No, wait, wrong proverb.

It took me quite a while to get through moderation and my comment is now posted there.

I take the legal element to be largely rhetorical per se. But having fairly heavy hitters keeping the lights on strikes me as quite valuable. L-ord knows Alex Spourdalakis is certainly no longer of any value to LJ Goes, Wakefield, or AoA.

Greg: I consider they have the best scientific and logical judgement because more than any of the other parties they best embody the scientific spirit of integrity, humility and passion for truth.

Where are you from, a parallel universe? Because I’m pretty sure your crowd wouldn’t know humility or truth if those concepts bit them on the fundaments. Btw, those people you so admire run a place that’s far more ‘echoey’ then this. Orac usually lets any and all commentators through and gives them quite a lot of rope. AOA only lets members comment; it’s rare to see anyone but the same old names there. I got three comments in before they started ‘losing’ my posts.

@ Narad: I fully intend to keep up the pressure when I post on other blogs…hoping that a mainstream journalist picks up on that “back story”. Too bad Trine Tsouderos has left the Chicago Trib…but she has a Twitter account…

https://twitter.com/ChicagoScience

Okay the sentence is:
Greg knows that the vaccines are safer than the diseases.

We know this because he has not presented any real scientific evidence that any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

All he needs to do now is justify his statement: “Still, with the trend in the diseases declining ‘steeply’ prior to vaccines…”

That phrase does not seem to conform with the data. Because no vaccine preventable disease has a history of declining steeply prior to any vaccine.

Poor Greg has managed to corner himself. Rather than the usual linear slithering, he has now, in short order, managed to develop two axes: (1) the imbecilic yet implicitly priggish “free speech” angle* and (2) the “VPDs just die out” game.

I want that time constant for a reason, because Cliffy Miller’s exposition regarding item 2 is demonstrably false. Well, that and the fact that there would likely be a riotously funny internal drama were Greg to try to start ciphering.

There is nowhere left to move except from check to check.

  • “For such a mongrel between pig and puppy, begotten by a wild boar on a bitch wolf, never before in any age of the world was suffered by the poltroonery of mankind, to run through such a career of mischief.”

Try your google fu “Greg Age of Autism”

When Greg is boasting at AoA about the rhetorical battles he is waging on their behalf, it is odd that he doesn’t provide links to his specific comments, or even to the RI threads in which they appear. He is certainly not encouraging his readers to decide for themselves how accurately he has characterised his victories, or whether he is the kind of person they want representing them.

I know I will recieve no answer from Greg, as he has nothing of value to say, but I am still tempted to ask, just for the fun of it.

You see Greg, I am pretty poorly educated when it comes to medicine (the nickname chosen is indicative of my profession as well as education), yet I see one problem with thesis that “sanitation caused the decline of VPDs”.

If we assume that it was indeed sanitation and general lifestyle improvement and not vaccines that almost eliminated various diseases, why is it that, in western, “civilized” countries no less, wherever the antivaccination movement you so endorse is successful, we see outbreaks of those diseases?

You either must admit that vaccines are responsible for protection from… well, VPDs (Tautological!) or that antivaxxers are not very sanitary people, who create risk for public health by beaing veritable incubators of disease (shall one call them disease ridden?).

So, which one is it?

#284 Really? When I got the meningitis vaccine I thought the nurse hadn’t given the shot yet. I kept waiting and she was like “Done!”

I don’t remember any after-pains either. Though tetanus, tetanus did and still does (as of last year, when I had my last booster) hurt like a … well it hurt a lot. And kept hurting for days.

Worth it, though, as it included pertussis and I can now hold babies without worrying that I will kill them by transmitting a seemingly-harmless-“cold.”

@ Khani: I know you would. 🙂

Unfortunately I was not permitted to link to the RI blog, but I’m hoping that some of the advocates who posted, or the folks at the Autism Self Advocacy Network will come on over to see Orac’s blog and our comments.

Hey Orac,

It seems that you are starting to flag my comments for moderation. Again, if you do decide to really ban me, at least have the decency to announce it so everyone can decide for themselves what RI is really about.

‘Greg comments are outrageous and vile.’

Hey Orac, is Julian’s repeated FOADIAF commands not vile? Let’s be honest, even MOB said it is before he scuttled back to the herd. What about Lilady accusing parents who honestly believe vaccines harmed their kids and who vent on AoA as being ‘bad’, ‘disgusting’ parents. What about comparing AoAers on the whole as a bag of feces left on someone’s doorstep. Really Orac, is ‘vile’ only frowned upon on RI if it is coming from an anti-vaxxer?

Still, with the trend in the diseases declining ‘steeply’ prior to vaccines what makes you think that over time these diseases wouldn’t have naturally reached the rate that they are today (even if it would have taken a longer time)?

The trend in most of these diseases was not declining steeply prior to vaccines. That’s the point that antivaxxers always seem to miss, even when it is repeatedly pointed out to them.

The incidence of varicella (chicken pox) in the USA where it is routinely vaccinated against, and the UK where it isn’t is very different, a difference which can surely only be due to the vaccine.

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group,

The weekend is here and family life calls. I must take a break. Give me a week or so and I will more than likely return with my ‘vile’, ‘outrageous’ self.

Greg,
There are limits to Orac’s toleration, and they apply equally to everyone, regardless of their views on vaccination or anything else. If you do succeed in getting banned from this blog, which is clearly your intention, it will be because you broke Orac’s rules of discourse, not because your idiotic views are being censored. Despite this I’m quite sure that if you are banned you will scuttle off to AoA claiming that you are being repressed, which is quite ironic given their utter intolerance of anything resembling dissent from their party line.

@Narad,

Oh Geez! I knew I left before saying something….

“By the way, do you have to make that “hee, hee, hee” noise with your nose when Olmsted’s balls are otherwise blocking your airway?”

Narad, that was actually quite funny. Vile, but funny… (hee,hee,hee)

Some of you questioned what the middle ground might look like…

Well it’s nice, it’s a place where one can hold both the idea that vaccines work and have saved millions of children from untimely death and a place where one can question if vaccines contribute or have anything to do with the onset or exacerbation of autism.

It’s a place where people realize that good science moves slowly, building a base of knowledge to work from, where people try to assess the entirety of the available evidence, not latch on to conclusions that are expedient to their cause.

The problem with the ground lying to either side of the middle is that people are thoroughly convinced of their positions based on anecdote or scant evidence and an insufficient understanding of what kind of knowledge needs to be acquired to have an informed understanding of the situation.

You see, since the whole autism and vaccine debacle started there has been a tendency towards polarization, which ultimately is a waste of resources and time and potential (examples abound here at RI.) Unfortunately, this polarization garners center stage and it becomes difficult for those of us in the middle ground to have a genuinely productive conversation with those residing at the poles. It’s as if a mob mentality exists and any kind of reasonable arguments have to get snuffed out and thrown to the dust bin.

At this moment there exists reasonable evidence (or lack of) to consider the question of vaccines and autism.

  1. Growing body of evidence implicating dysregulation of immune system in both behavioral manifestations of autism and possibly the etiology of autism. (especially MIA, which has been replicated by research groups around the world)

  2. Evidence implicating immunogenetic factors and gene networks related to immune system signaling in the etiology of autism

  3. Very limited information on the details of how the vaccine schedule is received by neonates and infants (immunological details such as specific immune responses. Moreover, specific responses coupled with certain immunogenetic backgrounds)

  4. Growing body of evidence implicating early life immune insults with later life behavioral problems and or mental health issues.

  5. Insufficient epidemiological evidence exonerating vaccines from playing a role in either the onset or exacerbation of autism or symptoms, respectively. (Thimerosal and MMR notwithstanding)

So far, I haven’t seen a compelling argument to leave the middle ground for one side or the other. I am personally in a holding pattern, maintaining that the possibility exists but there is insufficient evidence, currently, to leave my turf.

Hope this helps in understanding.

Sincerely,

skeptiquette

Dear skeptiquette,
Welcome back. Still trying to link vaccines with autism? You aren’t in the middle ground, dear. You are polite, but still wrong. But, if you want to show you are the middle ground, please answer the question Chris posts above: which
vaccines cause more harm than the disease?

Then please answer these questions:
1. Why did the incidence of disease decline after vaccines were introduced?
2. What is diagnostic substitution?
3. Why might a parent WANT a child to be diagnosed if they seem to be developmentally delayed?

Also please give us any evidence you have that points to vaccines might cause autism that is peer-reviewed in reputable journals.

As far as point 3 goes, neonates, babies, infants, toddlers are exposed through daily living to FAR more items that provoke an immune response than vaccines do. From birth (a vagina isn’t sterile) onwards, a child is exposed to bacteria, dirt, germs of all types. A baby with a healthy immune response handles all of them with no problems. Immunodeficient children don’t. Immunodeficient children are very vulnerable. Vaccines often don’t work for them. So they depend on herd immunity. Are you old enough to remember “The Boy in the Plastic Bubble”? THAT is a child whose immune system can’t handle immunologic insult.

Sincerely,

MI Dawn

It seems that you are starting to flag my comments for moderation. Again, if you do decide to really ban me, at least have the decency to announce it so everyone can decide for themselves what RI is really about.

Silly boy. I was asleep when you posted. WordPress flagged your comment for moderation because there were too many links in it. More than two links will send a comment straight to moderation. It’s a common filter that helps cut down on comment spam. Trust me, if I ban you, you at least, will know it.

By Post Author

IIRC, the WordPress moderation function was explained to Troll before, when he accused Orac of suppressing his “right to free speech”.

Greg said: As a collective body, the countless parent who can vividly recount how their children were dramatically damaged after vaccines. I consider they have the best scientific and logical judgement because more than any of the other parties they best embody the scientific spirit of integrity, humility and passion for truth.”

Where did you meet these parents? Oh, so you haven’t actually met them, you just read their stories on line.

Here’s an interesting compilation of “vaccine-injury” stories.

http://www.followingvaccinations.com/

Looks very convincing, doesn’t it? 1100 parents reporting vaccine injury. That list was the result of a long and vigorous Facebook campaign, where parents were urged to tell their vaccine injury stories. I, personally, saw that appeal dozens of times.

But, wait just a little. When you actually start reading the stories what strikes you is how different they all are, not how similar. Parents blame all kinds of different vaccines, and the delay between the vaccination and onset of symptoms is highly variable. We have examples of hours and examples of months. 1100 stories of vaccine injury out of the millions of people who probably saw those appeals on Facebook.

That’s what happened with Wakefield. He “advertised” widely through JABS, and when the children arrived at the hospital, he, too, found that their stories were highly variable. So, he simply fudged the data. He eliminated children who did not fit, he changed the timelines etc. And he pretended that the children had not been recruited. He committed fraud.

You see, Greg, Wakefield used to be a scientist. He knew that a random collection of stories that were recruited would not be convincing. Statistically, there are bound to be children who appear to develop symptoms of autism around the time of their vaccinations. That’s because autism often becomes apparent about the age that vaccines are given. It’s very hard to diagnose language delay in a one month old baby, because they don’t ever have language.

It’s not that the individual parents are lying. They aren’t. It’s that an individual story has no statistical power to convince unless it is consistent.

@Greg #305:
Whale.to? You used whale.to as a source?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Whale.to is a load of conspiracy theorist, antisemitic tripe written by a man who needs serious medication. John Scudamore thinks that “satanic ley-lines” (his phrase) burnt his backside. He believes that dolphins can levitate and control gravity. If you want the truth on something, look at what whale.to states and then believe the opposite.
I hereby invoke Scopie’s law: “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately and gets you laughed out of the forum.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!

Whale.to? You used whale.to as a source?!

Greg apparently was too lazy to figure out that Obomsawin has been addressed here repeatedly and is too dense to have picked up on that little difference between mortality and incidence that has been pointed out to him. One might wonder whether he even bothered to examine the contents of this sad piñata.

The semiliterate Yahoo Voices one is priceless, though. “My interests are vaccine dangers, gourd growing and art, end time prophecy a new look [sic], computers tech articles, tutorials and instructionals.” As far as content farms go, this is the bottom of the barrel. It makes Demand Media look like OUP.

I think that Orac is correct in holding off banning the creature- unless he really goes off into Verbotenland.

Interestingly, he sounds like John Stone, who carries on about censorship whilst he broadcasts his opinion all over the net ( including medical journals) or MIkey/ Gary who cry perpetually about the intrusive police state/ fascism they live in while having their own alt media networks, making so-called documentaries and raking in lots of money.

“Help, Help, I’m being repressed!” ( -btw- I had to play that clip… funny, I strongly remembered the speaker of that hallowed phrase as being Terry Jones: it wasn’t- but he was in the scene)

Greg has about as much insight into RI/ SBM as he does into yours truly- how hilarious was his portrayal!. He has trouble differentiating jest and seriousness. He over-estimates his own abilities and range of knowledge. His education, from what I can surmise, is probably an undergraduate degree in general psych- which doesn’t necessarily include much focus upon physiology, testing and statistics/ research design/ criticism. He is easily convinced by emotional appeals about innocents being destroyed by the powerful.

So I say: let him fire away!

Let him realise that tolerance of his dodgy material by Orac ( and RI minions) reveals that he has the patience of a proverbial saint (‘saint’ is metaphor for a very good person, so atheists can use the term) and is indeed, “the host with the most”.

By allowing him to comment, Orac, each day, demonstrates that he has very little in common with Stagliano et al.

Free speech however does include Orac and minions telling him to F#CKOFF!

Greg being silly:

First link to whale.to — “Deaths”, not incidence.

Vaclib link — Death rate, not incidence.

Natural News link — “Weather radicalization worsening, global food supply at increased risk of regional failures”, despite the web address it has nothing on diseases or vaccines.

Voices Yahoo link — an editorial with no real evidence, argument from assertion.

Second link to whale.to — just some random quoted, no evidence.

Obviously, Greg had an issue with basic vocabulary. The reduction of deaths is not the same as incidence. Again, Greg, answer my question on what years this big reduction of incidence occured before vaccines for both measles and polio in the USA.

And I have a question for Skeptiquette: The MMR with Jeryl Lynn mumps component vaccine was introduced in the USA in 1971. In 1978 the rubella component was replaced with a improved version, plus the MMR was the preferred vaccine for the Measles Elimination program that started that year. That means it was used for at least a decade before the UK introduced three different MMR vaccines in 1988. If autism increased so much due to those MMR vaccines in less than a decade in the UK that Wakefield noticed it, where is the data that shows an equivalent increase in the USA before 1990? Because by 1990, the MMR vaccine had been in use for almost two decades, surely if it was connected there, then an increase in autism would have been noticed in a much larger country over a twice a time span.

Skeptiquette, it has already been established by Greg not answering my question on the relative risk of seizure between vaccines and the diseases, that the vaccines are far safer than the diseases. Of course, you are welcome to post the PubMed indexed study from a reliable researcher to show otherwise. The criteria is a vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule, and the objective symptom is seizures.

Narad: “Greg apparently was too lazy to figure…”

Greg was too lazy to read the tables I posted in my comments with the actual numbers.

Greg was too lazy to read the tables I posted in my comments with the actual numbers.

In some sense, he can’t do this, as a matter of self-preservation. Ergo, toss out a list of ridiculous links as a distraction, announce that “family life calls,” and presumably hope to change the subject at the next simpering appearance.

Except, I won’t let him change the subject. After two months of not answering my question on relative risk for seizures between vaccines and diseases, I have concluded that Greg has not data. Therefore the vaccines cause much fewer seizures than the diseases, and are safer.

Seriously, Chris, you the man! ( woman, actually)

AoA’ s Dachel curiously links to a new Stanford study ( JAMA Psy) about hyperconnectivity/ salience networks in ASD
AND, to a 2012 study about detection of ASDs as early as 6 months via imaging.

Canary Ginger Taylor takes on Bolen’s latest about civil war in anti-vaxland.

skeptiquette –

Firstly, and quite sincerely, let me express a deep appreciation for your civility and politeness. It’s quite a welcome change from the content-free carhorning we’ve been barraged with lately.

However, I must disagree with your claim that both sides are approaching the evidence in the same way, drawing too-hasty conclusions from anecdote and “scant evidence,” and that neither side has really thought about what evidence they need to look for to really make their case.

The science-based side actually knows quite well what we’re looking for that the anti-vax side completely fails to provide, and that’s a falsifiable hypothesis (and one that’s isn’t already falsified).

What does that mean? Well, let’s take a look at a non-falsifiable hypothesis that has literally caused millions of deaths across cultures throughout history: the belief in witchcraft. This is the belief that when something bad has happened to you, the cause of it is that someone evil has conspired with supernatural forces to make it happen to you.

Today, in the modern world, recognizing what senseless tragedies have come from the belief in witchcraft, we dismiss it. (At least in most places; in certain places like Nigeria, innocent people, some of them children, are still getting put to death because of the belief in witchcraft.)

But here’s an important thing, skeptiquette: No one has ever disproved witchcraft. We didn’t stop believing in it because science was able to collect evidence that proved witchcraft wasn’t happening. Instead, we stopped believing in it because we realized that it was an unfalsifiable hypothesis. By definition, supernatural forces can do anything; no matter what bad thing happens, you can claim it was supernatural forces that did it at an evil neighbor’s behest. No matter how false that claim is, it can never be proven false.

Now I’ll give the anti-vaxers this much credit: there was a time when they were proposing “maybe vaccines cause autism” in a form where it was falsifiable and not yet falsified. There was a time, who knows how long it was after the condition of “autism” was first introduced into the medical literature, when someone said “hey… this kid has this condition, and I swear no one seemed to see any signs of it until after the kid got that vaccination … I wonder if the vaccination caused it somehow?” They looked around, found other parents who hadn’t seen any signs they recognized as autism until after a vaccination. The more they looked for such parents, the more of them they found – which is also totally consistent with confirmation bias, but which they interpreted as signs they were onto something. They came up with this hypothesis: “Vaccines cause many children to be autistic who would otherwise not have the condition.”

Now that’s a falsifiable hypothesis, at least for any reasonable value of “many”. To give you an idea, there used to be a rotavirus vaccine (since replaced with a better one) that was pulled because data was collected in epidemiological studies that suggested that 1 in 100,000 infants who got the vaccine experienced a dangerous side effect. When those who believed in a vaccine-autism connection said “many children” were autistic as a result of vaccination, they were talking about far more than 1/100,000. Therefore, the hypothesis was falsifiable: do the same kind of studies that detected a 1/100,000 side effect and see if they detect this vaccine-caused-autism that’s hypothesized to occur much, much more frequently than 1 in 100,000.

And those studies have been done; more of them still get done, as a matter of fact. They all get the same results: no higher rate of autism among children who get their vaccinations appropriately than in those who don’t. Those results falsify the hypothesis: they look for the data that would exist if the hypothesis was true, and when that data is just not there, they conclude it’s because the hypothesis is false. A hypothesis is no good if it doesn’t match the evidence.

But the anti-vaxers didn’t do what real scientists do when their favored hypotheses are disproved, and try to find a new falsifiable hypothesis that matched up with the evidence. Instead, they made minimal changes to the hypothesis so that it was no longer falsifiable. “We believe that in extremely rare cases, rarer than 1/100,000, so rare that epidemiological studies just can’t detect such a small number of cases, vaccines cause autism!” Has science proven that hypothesis wrong? No, because it’s not a falsifiable hypothesis. You can’t prove it wrong, any more than you could prove that no child anywhere ever got autism because of witchcraft. “Unfalsifiable” doesn’t mean “not false”; it means “it could be the falsest idea in the universe and the evidence still wouldn’t show you that.”

(Incidentally, many of the anti-vaxers who switched to the “too rare for epidemiological studies to detect” hypothesis are still claiming “many” at the same time; they’re claiming that vaccines cause autism in children with extremely rare preconditions, and that this has caused an “autism epidemic”. If you’re following the explanation I’ve been given, you know that this is simply impossible: you can’t have a hypothesized vaccine-caused autism that is both wide-spread and undetectably rare!)

Now, if an antivaxer comes up with a hypothesis for a mechanism by which vaccines cause autism, that might well be a falsifiable hypothesis – even if the cases in which this was alleged to happen were incredibly rare, even unique. After all, the “Berlin patient” is believed to be the only person in all of the world in all of history to go from HIV-positive to HIV-negative, but despite the uniqueness of his condition, the hypothesis that the bone marrow transplant he received for leukemia is what eliminated HIV from his system is a falsifiable hypothesis that’s taken quite seriously by scientists. The rarity of a phenomenon doesn’t form an impassible barrier to working out a hypothesis of its cause.

But even when an actual falsifiable hypothesis is proposed, and even when that hypothesis is not already falsified by evidence, that does not mean that the correct way to look at the hypothesis is “equally likely to be true or false”.

If we applied that standard in the legal system, your neighbor could say “Skeptiquette bewitched my little Brenda to fall down and break her leg!” and you’d protest that witchcraft was an unfalsifiable hypothesis, and your neighbor amends her story to “Skeptiquette didn’t make my daughter fall and break a leg through witchcraft; what she did was she cunningly placed a small pebble right in Brenda’s path that she knew Brenda would step on, slip on, and fall!” Do you think the attitude the court should take is “well, she has absolutely no evidence to indicate that a tiny pebble caused the fall, and absolutely no evidence that you had anything to do with the placement of any pebble, but since she has a hypothesis that that’s the case, it’s only fair that you should be treated as probably guilty of doing those things”?

Science, like the legal system, has to look at where the burden of proof is. It’s not enough for your neighbor to simply speculate that you might have placed a malicious pebble in a little girl’s path; she needs to show evidence that this actually happened. It’s not enough for antivaxers to speculate that there might be some mechanism by which vaccines result in autism.

The Geiers have made a lot of money off their ‘hypothesis’ that mercury in vaccines binds to testosterone and somehow amplifies the effects of that testosterone (as opposed to what chemical binding usually does) and that testosterone amplification is what’s called autism. But have they ever shown that the binding of mercury to testosterone can even happen the way they speculate it does in the human body, at body temperature? No, the only conditions under which mercury has ever been demonstrated to bind to testosterone is in a high temperature benzene solvent; in other words, nothing like the human body.

I realize that you think you’re occupying the “reasonable” ground between two unreasonable camps. But the science-based camp is stating “we have simply not been presented with anything like a convincing case that vaccines cause autism, and it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they do or probably do in the absence of a convincing case.” If you’re asserting that that’s an unreasonable position, then you’re asserting that either you think a solid case that vaccines cause autism does exist (in which case, you’re not between the two camps at all, you’re in one of the very camps you called unreasonable) or you’re asserting that the science-based camp should be taking seriously the speculation that vaccines cause autism just because someone came up with such a speculation.

@Anateus Feldspar – that post is a thing of beuty. Allow me to add one little thing to it, which you somehow indirectly tackle.

You can’t prove a negative. Science will never be able to come with “absolute evidence that vaccines do not cause autism” more than “absolute evidence that Unicorns exist”.

There was actually this awesome talk by The Amazing Randi (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJTUAezxAI).

So, people like Greg come here and ask us for definite proof that there is no causal link between vaccines and autism, while they themselves only bring claims to the table. Imagine if I came to you and told you that I have an invisible pink unicorn in my home – how would you go about proving it isn’t there?

And that’s how we end with current situation, described in great post by Anateus Feldspar.

I agree, that was excellent. Take a bow, AF.

Notice how attributing illness or bad fortune to witchcraft is similar to attributing autism, MI or physical illness to vaccines, meds or diet/ lack of supplements, by antivaxxers/ woo-meisters:
negative results come from external forces/ events and are NOT an intrinsic part of the sufferer who is GOOD.
These conditions are not natural but imposed from without by malign ( witches, demons, doctors, pharma, the food industry et al)

Adam: ” I swear I was fine until SHE tempted me”
Eve: “ME? I was minding my own business UNTIL this Snake came along and started telling me how …..”

Flip Wilson: “The Devil made me do it”

Thus, of man’s first dis-obedience..
well,he didn’t do it.

I noticed a mistake in my #326 post. I meant:
Science will never be able to come with “absolute evidence that vaccines do not cause autism” more than “absolute evidence that Unicorns do not exist”.

Forgot about the negative in the second example.

@Khani (#302):
The meningitis shot itself wasn’t any worse than the usual e.g. the flu shot and TDaP or DTaP or whatever the heck order the letters go in (as far as I’m concerned, if it makes me not get the hundred day cough, or have to panic about every cut or scratch, they can call it a MRFGRBL) that I’ve gotten since then. I didn’t feel much anything after the actual poke for the TDaP; the flu shot itched for a minute or two a few minutes later and there was a roughly pea-sized region of tiny red dots, like a very mild rash, around the injection site, which was a new one for me as far as I remember; that meningitis shot, though, was unpleasant. However if it needed yearly boosters I’d roll my sleeve up again tomorrow rather than roll the dice on meningitis because a sore upper arm for a week is no bad bargain when it prevents things like death, brain damage, and having to eat hospital food.

Last year’s flu shot stood out in my mind; that thing stung for a couple of days.

Skeptiquite: The problem with looking for a middle ground is that there isn’t one. There’s only right and wrong, and you are in the wrong.

The only vaccine reaction I’ve ever had was to this year’s flu vaccine, and that was just a sore shoulder for a couple of days. Admittedly, it was a VERY sore shoulder; it felt like I’d done five hundred one-handed chin-ups with that arm. But it was certainly less pain than I’d have gotten from the flu, that’s for damn sure.

@The Smith of Lie,

Imagine if I came to you and told you that I have an invisible pink unicorn in my home – how would you go about proving it isn’t there?

An invisible unicorn cannot be pink and a pink unicorn is by necessity not invisible. It is therefore its very existence would be a logical inconsistency, and therefore it vanishes in a puff of logic.

However, I would also take the following actions.
1. seal every entrance and exit to the house.
2. gain your assurance that the invisible pink unicorn is still there.
3. segment the building into multiple zones with barriers impassible by invisible pink unicorns.
4. introduce at least one known virgin into each zone.

But Mephistopheles, isn’t a known virgin also logically inconsistent?

Denice,

Oh, dear, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I shall never know a virgin!

Now to search of the elusive triple entendre (which should be a high potency Belgian ale).

Denice,

Oh, dear, I hadn’t thought of that. I guess I shall never know a virgin!

Now to search of the elusive triple entendre (which should be a high potency Belgian ale).

@MOB

And all you would prove is “none of the virgins managed to detect the Invisible Pink Unicorn, not that it does not exist. Similarly to throwing reindeer from the roof of scyscraper would only prove that the chosen batch of reindeer under the testing circumstances failed to achieve flight.

Though I admit, my example is far worse then one used by Randi, since a singular claims are testable, by bad.

@ Mephistopheles:
re the triple entendre:

“I’m not a mean girl- I’m above the mean. And I mean it”.

“I’m not a mean girl- I’m above the mean. And I mean it”.

Word-play à la mode!

Antaneus,
It is my pleasure to engage in a civil discourse. So often the discussion devolves into a mockery and is generally counterproductive. I think this is partially a consequence of the impersonal nature of internet communication; there is a lot of subtext in someone’s general disposition, facial expressions and hand movements when you’re talking to them face-to-face, which helps to maintain the positive nature of the discourse (that can go the other way as well!). But anyway, the only way a discussion can really move forward is if people maintain their civility. This isn’t going to be a problem for me, because I don’t have any vested interest one way or another, it also helps that I have a background in immunology and can appreciate the impact vaccines have had on our society over the last century.

…and that neither side has really thought about what evidence they need to look for to really make their case.
The science-based side actually knows quite well what we’re looking for that the anti-vax side completely fails to provide, and that’s a falsifiable hypothesis.

There is a little confusion that I can see in the above sentences. In one you are talking about evidence and the other you are talking about a falsifiable hypothesis. I am sure you are aware of what I am going to say, but just to clear it up for others reading.

A falsifiable hypothesis is not evidence, but rather when coupled with intelligently designed experiments that are carried out, is the means by which evidence is gathered. So, I would contend what we are looking for is evidence that supports the claim that vaccines contribute to or exacerbate the condition of autism. Furthermore, this evidence has to be gathered by using testable hypotheses.
I am sure we can all agree on this, but let me know if anyone objects.

I also found your example of witchcraft to be fitting. Like you said witchcraft was attributed to many scientific or medical phenomenon for lack of a better understanding of what was or might have been happening. This is the key, it’s not that there were not a plethora of testable hypotheses, it’s that people of the time (when science was non-existent or very nascent) did not have the knowledge to formulate the required hypotheses to test so they said it was caused by evil spirits. In other words, the testable hypotheses were always there and in abundance, it just took many years of arduous scientific work to build the base of knowledge that was needed to guide the minds of scientists of the time.

I think the corollary to this in the current discussion of vaccines and autism is that there are an abundance of testable hypotheses that have to be uncovered, some of which already have been uncovered through the accumulation of basic research in various disciplines.

For example, we know that cytokine signaling is critical in normal brain development and therefore dysregulation of these networks is implicated in the development of autism, specifically the cytokine IL-6. We also know that genetic factors that affect these same proinflammatory cytokine networks are related to an autism diagnosis. Lastly, we know that vaccination affects (they have to or else they wouldn’t work) these same proinflammatory networks during critical periods of brain development.

Therefore, I could hypothesize that an abnormal or dysregulated (either higher or more prolonged) proinflammatory response (one could use IL-6 here as the biomarker)to a vaccine at the ages of birth, 2, 4 or 6 months confers an elevated risk of a diagnosis of autism. I guess what confuses me is why this isn’t logical or reasonable since it is completely consistent with the consensus of autism being dictated by both genetic and environmental factors as well as being consistent with many of the basic observations that have been made over the past decade.

This is just one of many different hypotheses that could be formulated based on what we know right now, let alone what we will know in 5 or 10 years.

In order to help me guage your (collective) position and relative understanding could you explain how you feel about the five points I made in my last post. It can be as simple as agree, disagree, or don’t know. However, if you disagree would you be so kind as to briefly state why. Here they are again:

  1. Growing body of evidence implicating dysregulation of immune system in both behavioral manifestations of autism and possibly the etiology of autism. (especially MIA, which has been replicated by research groups around the world)

  2. Evidence implicating immunogenetic factors and gene networks related to immune system signaling in the etiology of autism

  3. Very limited information on the details of how the vaccine schedule is received by neonates and infants (immunological details such as specific immune responses. Moreover, specific responses coupled with certain immunogenetic backgrounds)

  4. Growing body of evidence implicating early life immune insults with later life behavioral problems and or mental health issues.

  5. Insufficient epidemiological evidence exonerating vaccines from playing a role in either the onset or exacerbation of autism or symptoms, respectively. (Thimerosal and MMR notwithstanding)

    I am trying to boil down why there is a discrepancy between my scientific reasoning and what I see here at a predominantly SBM motivated site. Also, if you feel so inclined, would you propose your own testable hypothesis based on your understanding of the extant literature, this will help me realize what level of knowledge you are working with. Remember, a hypothesis that pink virgin unicorns in the vaccines are causing autism will indicate that you have no general understanding of the underlying immunology of autism and/or vaccines, kind of like falling back on witchcraft as the explanation.

I guess I just think that my approach would facilitate some bridge building and go a long way to appease the minds of the many that are concerned. At least we are then approaching the problem critically and keeping up with the new evidence that comes in. This is in stark contrast to the current strategy which generally includes a “we know we are right, there’s nothing more to look at” attitude and derision towards the concerns of others, thus engendering a feeling of deceit and lack of trust, which is much harder to overcome in the long run. Anyway, sorry it took so long for me to get back at you. I await your reasoned response.

Remember science takes a long time to untangle complicated things such as autism… be patient.

skeptiquette

PG:

Skeptiquite: The problem with looking for a middle ground is that there isn’t one. There’s only right and wrong, and you are in the wrong.

I’m never wrong. I once thought I was wrong, turns out, I was mistaken.
– Unknown

No, seriously though, science isn’t about right or wrong, more so it’s about evidence, bias and interpretation.

Skeptiquette

Skeptiquette,

I rather think you are overstating the quality of the evidence in favor of vaccines causing or exacerbating autism. You say you are skeptical, you say you understand the importance of testable hypotheses, yet you clearly missed the point of the witchcraft analogy — it was NOT that people of bygone days lacked the ability to test the hypotheses, it was that they didn’t bother to form hypotheses in the first place. They went straight to conclusions. Special pleading (that it was too hard for them to test it) doesn’t give the witch hunters a pass. Could they have proven that anyone wasn’t using undetectable magic to poison their cattle? Of course not. But they likewise made no attempt to prove that anyone was. They did make attempts to bolster their claims, but as you no doubt realize, that is not the same thing.

Your approach I’m afraid will not facilitate bridge building. It’s pandering to false equivalence.

“Remember, a hypothesis that pink virgin unicorns in the vaccines are causing autism will indicate that you have no general understanding of the underlying immunology of autism and/or vaccines, kind of like falling back on witchcraft as the explanation.”

Ah. Perhaps you do understand the analogy after all, but simply have failed to see what it was pointing out. They aren’t demonstrating a lack of understanding, because they aren’t seriously claiming invisible pink unicorns cause autism. They are making an analogy to the claims that vaccines cause autism.

Look. You seem to be looking for evidence for how vaccines could cause autism. But you have skipped the same step that the witchhunters also skipped — you have failed to first determine whether or not they are causing it in the first place. Before you can even speculate about the “how”, isn’t it worth first seeing whether there is anything happening at all?

Homeopaths spend considerable effort speculating as to mechanisms by which homeopathy might work. Acupuncturists do the same with acupuncture. Reiki therapists do the same with reiki. They do this despite considerable evidence that these therapies generally do nothing whatsoever. Dr Harriet Hall likes to call this “tooth fairy science” — spending effort cataloging the behavior of the tooth fairy, speculating about the mechanisms of the tooth fairy’s operation, without ever first determining whether she even existed.

Many studies have now shown there is no correlation between vaccination and autism. Speculation (and the five points you listed are really all speculative, not as evidentiary as you seem to think) about how vaccines can cause autism is therefore pretty much a waste of time. We know vaccines don’t cause autism; why is it necessary to go on to prove that they don’t cause it by all these various proposed routes? What’s more, as you challenge us to propose a hypothesis for autism causation, you seem to think that to reject the vaccines-autism connection, we must first propose an alternate. But that is nonsense. You actually can reject some propositions without having a better one handy. Newton didn’t have to discover photons to prove that light wasn’t actually emitted from the eyes, which is a good thing because he didn’t discover photons. And Michaelson & Morlay didn’t have to understand the nature of light to disprove the luminiferous ether.

BTW, phrases like “the immunology of autism” are pretty suspect. What evidence do you have that autistics are in any way immunologically unusual?

You say you are skeptical, you say you understand the importance of testable hypotheses, yet you clearly missed the point of the witchcraft analogy — it was NOT that people of bygone days lacked the ability to test the hypotheses, it was that they didn’t bother to form hypotheses in the first place. They went straight to conclusions. Special pleading (that it was too hard for them to test it) doesn’t give the witch hunters a pass.

No, I didn’t miss the point at all. In fact, I said that they didn’t form testable hypotheses because they did not have the knowledge to do so. I never said anything about it being too difficult to test or lacking an ability to test a hypothesis.

I was trying to point out that the analogy is really bad. Cockamamie.

I am not looking for evidence of how vaccines cause autism, but rather, looking at the current suite of evidence for guidance on how a good testable hypothesis could be formed.

I guess you find it a waste of time, I don’t yet. Like I said before, based on the current evidence, I think there is much to be explored still.

Skeptiquette

BTW, phrases like “the immunology of autism” are pretty suspect. What evidence do you have that autistics are in any way immunologically unusual?

Calli, there is actually quite a large body (and growing) of evidence in peer reviewed journals here is a small small sampling of what is available from a search in pubmed typing in “autism and cytokines” or just type in “autism and immune system”

You should get up to speed on this stuff, it is really quite interesting!

Here is a sampling of titles from a pubmed search:
**Note this is not a gish gallop trying to prove vaccines cause autism. so don’t try to tell me that is what it is.

Thanks, Skeptiquette

Expression profiling of autism candidate genes during human brain development implicates central immune signaling pathways.

Plasma cytokine levels in children with autistic disorder and unrelated siblings..

Modeling an autism risk factor in mice leads to permanent immune dysregulation.

Maternal immune activation by LPS selectively alters specific gene expression profiles of interneuron migration and oxidative stress in the fetus without triggering a fetal immune response.

Maternal immune activation causes age- and region-specific changes in brain cytokines in offspring throughout development.

Cytokine dysregulation in autism spectrum disorders (ASD): possible role of the environment.

Effects of maternal immune activation on gene expression patterns in the fetal brain.

The major histocompatibility complex and autism spectrum disorder.

Autism spectrum disorders: from immunity to behavior.

Myeloid dendritic cells frequencies are increased in children with autism spectrum disorder and associated with amygdala volume and repetitive behaviors.

IL-6 is increased in the cerebellum of autistic brain and alters neural cell adhesion, migration and synaptic formation.

Brain IL-6 elevation causes neuronal circuitry imbalances and mediates autism-like behaviors.

Alteration of brain volume in IL-6 overexpressing mice related to autism.

The role of the innate immune system in psychiatric disorders.

Neuropoietic cytokines in normal brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Peripheral and central inflammation in autism spectrum disorders.

Altered neurotrophin, neuropeptide, cytokines and nitric oxide levels in autism.

Skeptiquette, where are the PubMed indexed studies of autism increases in the USA dated 1990 and before due to their introduction of an MMR vaccine in 1971?

That would go a long way to answering this part of you research: “I am not looking for evidence of how vaccines cause autism, but rather, looking at the current suite of evidence for guidance on how a good testable hypothesis could be formed.”

Because why would have Wakefield figured out that one of the three MMR vaccines used in the UK between 1988 and 1992 caused autism, if one vaccine used in the USA for almost two decades did not show a similar effect?

The obvious answer to many of us was the UK taxpayer Legal Aid funds flashed in front of his face by a lawyer. If you have verifiable evidence dated before 1990, it would really help.

@skeptiquette, lists of phrases that might be article titles are not good evidence. Why don’t you pick what you consider to be the best evidence from your list and give the link to it?

@LW

Indeed. Also, if skeptiquette is correct and that there is some immune dysfunction that causes autism, thereby implicating vaccines in causing autism, there is a very, very pertinent followup question: what is fundamentally different about vaccines from an infection, which carries with it a far greater immune challenge and (subsequently) response?

If a vaccine causes some dysfunctional immune response, then, based on what we know of immunology, an infection would reasonably be assumed to have a greater risk of causing a similar response. Therefore, we would see greater numbers of autists in areas rife with infectious diseases, and the overall balance would still favor vaccination.

Skeptiquette,
I don’t see the connection between the fact that autism is associated with immune system abnormalities, and the (failed) hypothesis that vaccines cause autism. Looking at the evidence, it seems much more likely that the developmental and immunological abnormalities in autism have a common cause and that this is something that happens prenatally.

@ Chris:
@ LW:
@ Todd W.:
@ Krebiozen:

Have you ever heard the phrase-” it’s like talking to a brick wall/ dining room table/ chest of drawers “( choose one)?

There either IS an association between vaccines and autism or there ISN’T.

@Todd – that’s an excellent question, since we know that just about everyone was exposed to VPDs in the past…..of course, that just plays into the thought that “adjuvants” are what are actually responsible (I’m sure that’s the mantra from the anti-vax people going forward).

Skeptiquette,

I have a simple question: Do you think immune system disruption is the source of autism or else, a consequence of autism?

Alain

LW: “@skeptiquette, lists of phrases that might be article titles are not good evidence.”

Not using a proper cite that at least contains the journal title and publication date does not inspire any confidence in her research skills.

I also believe she is tying to find a way vaccines can cause autism, without first answering the question of whether they are even associated. (Hint: the balance of evidence says “no.”)

@Chris,

I just see it as correlation vs causation. Did the immune system eat part of the brain? (please, don’t answer, let it up to Skeptiquette to answer).

Alain

@ Skeptiquette @ 348: I’ve looked at the abstracts for those studies that you provided us and I don’t see any mention of vaccines given to an infant are implicated in cytokine storms.

What I have seen in those study abstracts, are some studies that implicate maternal infections and the resulting maternal cytokine production during pregnancy…and the possible change in fetal brain structure.

So…pick any of those studies you provided and explain to us how you drew the conclusion that somehow the immune response to V-P-Ds acquired during pregnancy, or acquired during early childhood, elicit lesser amounts of cytokines.

About those mouse studies you provided, you might want to look at this commentary from Emily Willingham, before you reply:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/01/07/mouse-behavior-from-autism-studies-not-reproducible/

“…If the study in question is about mice, never talk about how the results will lead to a therapy or a cure or write about the mice as though somehow, they are just tiny humans with tails. Mice have misled us before. They are only a way to model what might happen in a mammal sorta kinda related to us. They are not Us, otherwise we’d live in tiny, crowded places, having 10 children at once and ignoring them when they grow fur, and this autism thing wouldn’t be an issue…”

Skeptiquette, that list is pretty much exactly a Gish Gallup. Saying “this isn’t a Gish Gallup” is a bit like insulting somebody and saying “no offense”. You seem to think there’s some compelling evidence somewhere in that mound of studies. Why not point me specifically to it, rather than expecting me to spend hours trolling through a bunch of studies in hopes of maybe figuring out which bit was the compelling bit.

Plus, you seem to think none of us here are aware of work that has been done to attempt to link autism to immunological disorders. You might want to utilize the search feature on this blog; the topic has been extensively discussed, as it underpins a great deal of autism quackery, which is a topic of some interest here.

And you still are missing the point of the witch hunting analogy:

In fact, I said that they didn’t form testable hypotheses because they did not have the knowledge to do so.

I am very tired of the widespread impression that people in the Middle Ages and Renaissance were stupid, ignorant, or both. They weren’t. Hell, Josef Lagrange solved the three body problem about the same time American colonists were putting people on trial for witchcraft. Witch hunts were successful not because people were ignorant but because they satisfied a certain political or social undercurrent.

By the way, did you know witch hunts are still going on today? Are you going to claim that people today lack the tools to properly hypothesize before investigating claims of witchcraft? Of course not. That’s not why they aren’t hypothesizing properly.

In the case of witchcraft, the real reason so few people took a skeptical approach was not because they lacked the knowledge to do so, or because their understanding of the natural world was too poor. It’s because they didn’t want to. Why would they? They felt they had their answer, and it would mean they would get to feel all righteous and justified as they butcher somebody that they’ve probably had a grudge against anyway.

Be very careful of that happening. There are a lot of people I’ve seen who are convinced that vaccines cause autism. This prevents them attempting to determine whether vaccines cause autism. So they jump ahead to finding out the path by which vaccines cause autism, even though really they don’t know that they do. And you can see from the studies they’ve published that their links are very tenuous — which is probably what you should expect when there’s no there there, so to speak; of course immunological reactions happen in autistics, because autistics are human beings and these are conditions that can happen to human beings.

I really do still think you’ve overstating the quality of the evidence. Perhaps this is because you haven’t been following this for as long as some of us have, but with autistics in my family, it’s something of interest to me. I have the impression that you mean well, but that you are new to this manufactroversy — new enough that you don’t yet realize that it is a manufactroversy. Nor enough to realize that while you plead for bridge building, you are quite happy to insult those who disagree by suggesting they are close-minded for not agreeing to entertain notions that don’t seem to have a lot of basis for them:

This is in stark contrast to the current strategy which generally includes a “we know we are right, there’s nothing more to look at” attitude and derision towards the concerns of others, thus engendering a feeling of deceit and lack of trust, which is much harder to overcome in the long run.

Talk about feelings of distrust. Here you talk about bridge building, yet you completely misrepresent the science-based approach.

Look. Do you seriously think that immunological origins of autism are the only things being studied, that you can draw such a dichotomy between those who entertain the notion of vaccines causing autism and the close-minded? If so, you have missed out on a tremendous amount of autism research. The bulk of it, in fact. I submit that like the witch hunters, you have gotten ahead of yourself. You are speculating about how vaccines could cause autism without first determining that they do. And if you don’t like the witch analogy, how about acupuncture? Do you think it is reasonable to devote years of research to hypotheses about altering the flow of qi in the body before first determining whether or not acupuncture even does anything at all? Must I entertain speculation about how acupuncture works when I am unconvinced that it does work?

I think we may be talking past each other here. In my mind I am using the example of an illness hitting a small community in the middle ages, and the community leaders attributing the onset of the illness to evil spirits. In my estimation these people didn’t have a grasp of the natural world that would have been relevant to the etiology of the illness and therefore resorted to witchcraft as the explanation.

This is in its most basic form driven by ignorance. I would submit that if they had a firm grasp of microbiology and immunology as well as disease transmission, and say, cell biology, then the outcome would have been different, like, they wouldn’t have presumed witchcraft to be the culprit.

Using this example and applying what I am reading from you, it would seem that they do have an understanding of the natural world relevant to the onset of this disease, but they are choosing to ignore this understanding for political or social expediency.

We may be talking past each other because we are choosing different examples.

Let’s forget about this whole witchcraft business, as it is not moving the discussion at hand forward anyway.

Skeptiquette

Instead let me ask this:

Which epidemiological studies are the go to studies for showing that vaccines do not cause autism (I am having a hard time finding them in pubmed and I figure you guys have a reference list somewhere). Let’s start from the first vaccine and work from there.

  1. Hep B
  2. Rotavirus
  3. DTap
  4. HiB
  5. Pneumococcal
  6. Polio

Alain, I think in some cases it may be the source and some it may be a consequence, depends, autism is a very heterogenous condition.

Todd, this is a great follow up question! and one that would be very important to explore.

The fundamental differences between a vaccine and the corresponding disease would be related to the immune response that is provoked and the timing of that response. It would be imperative to look at both the qualitative differences as well as quantitative.

There is a study that kind of offers some insight into this and it looked at the fundamental differences between the immune response from the acellular pertussis vaccine vs. the whole cell vaccine.

Interestingly they were totally different. One, the response to the acellular vaccine was dominated by a Th2 profile of cytokines whereas the response to the whole cell was dominated by a Th1profile of cytokines and this was not the only thing that was observed. It was also observed that these immune responses persisted for a long time, even when the immune cells were challenged by a general immune stimulant.

This points to the fact that we cannot just make assumptions about what is happening or generalize between the immune response from vaccine vs. disease. We have to actually study it to understand it.

Good question though!

Chris and LW,

I am sorry for being so informal in my citing, but this is a blog. I am not writing a manuscript for a peer reviewed journal. Furthermore, would it really be that difficult to cut and past those titles into Pubmed, where I said I got them?

It’s a little nitpicky if you ask me and says nothing of my research abilities, but hey, you are entitled to your opinion!

Skeptiquette:

Which epidemiological studies are the go to studies for showing that vaccines do not cause autism

Why is MMR missing from that list? Was it because you could not find any article dating prior to 1990 linking the MMR to autism from the over a decade’s use in the USA? Was there an increase in autism in the mid-1950s when the first polio vaccine was introduced?

If you want some nice epidemiological studies, you can start here (be sure to go to the bottom and click on the journal articles between 1998 to 2003): http://www.immunize.org/journalarticles/conc_aut.asp

There is also this list:
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/library/vsd_pubs.html

And then there are these specific articles:
Vaccine. 2012 Jun 13;30(28):4292-8. Epub 2012 Apr 20.
The combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines and the total number of vaccines are not associated with development of autism spectrum disorder: The first case-control study in Asia.

Vaccine. 2012 Jan 5;30(2):247-53.
Lack of association between childhood immunizations and encephalitis in California, 1998-2008.

Pediatrics Vol. 126 No. 2 August 1, 2010 (doi: 10.1542/peds.2009-1496)
Lack of Association Between Acellular Pertussis Vaccine and Seizures in Early Childhood

BMC Public Health. 2011 May 19;11:340.
Congenital rubella syndrome and autism spectrum disorder prevented by rubella vaccination–United States, 2001-2010.

(this one covers the entire list you provided)
Pediatrics. 2010 Jun;125(6):1134-41.
On-time vaccine receipt in the first year does not adversely affect neuropsychological outcomes.

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.

Pediatrics, February 2009, Vol. 123(2):475-82
Neuropsychological Performance 10 years after Immunization in Infancy with Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines

By the way, insisting there be a study that looks at each of those vaccine individually is a tactic called “moving the goal posts.”

Calli,

I am sorry for dumping those titles on you, I figured you could quickly read through the abstracts to falsify the claim that you implicitly proposed with your question. (it would really only take 15 or 20 minutes)

I will try to take the time over the next day to summarize some of the more recent research findings that would help you and probably others here understand the immunological differences.

By the way, insisting there be a study that looks at each of those vaccine individually is a tactic called “moving the goal posts.”

Really? what is the logic you are using there?

Thanks for posting what you did post I will check out a couple that look interesting!

Skeptiquette:

I am sorry for being so informal in my citing, but this is a blog. I am not writing a manuscript for a peer reviewed journal. Furthermore, would it really be that difficult to cut and past those titles into Pubmed, where I said I got them?

Only for the tedium. To require at minimum of a title, journal and date would not be that much of a stretch. Having a journal name indicates if it is a journal that is worth bothering with (like we would ignore the ones that Shaw and Tomljenovic have recently been published in). And having a date would tell us if it worth bothering with also, like ones dated before 1960 (and yes, those have been posted). Filtering out irrelevant papers is important when dealing with a Gish Gallop.

Also, there is one person elsewhere who has a habit of listing only the titles with just a little bit changed so they can’t be found. The reason that she does this is because the articles do not say what she says they say.

Also, I believe we have now established that the MMR vaccine is not associated with autism. First there are several epidemiological studies that say so, plus there is nothing before 1990 in the literature. Surely, if Wakefield can claim it caused autism in the UK in less than a decade, then it would have been noticed in a much larger country over more than a decade of use. Though we now know the only evidence he had was the stuff he made up.

Chris,
Ok. Fair enough regarding the citation norms.

I think it is fair to say that the epidemiological evidence favors the rejection of MMR and Thimerosal as causative agents of autism, I was more interested in the other ones that are given at such early ages.

I am going to read the one that looks at timely receipt of vaccine in the first year, thanks!

Because insisting that we come up with studies on the individual vaccines, when they have all been included as a group in epidemiological studies, is putting in a new criteria. That is common with some folks from AoA. It is a way to make it so that no study would satisfy their needs.

You might try reading a definition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_the_goalposts

And, again, before you can establish how a whatnot causes something, you must first prove that the what actually causes something. Right now, there is no real evidence that vaccines cause autism. So looking for some kind of some kind of immunological impact from vaccines is a wild goose chase.

Especially since the impact on anyone’s immune system from the actual disease is far greater than from any vaccine. But if you have evidence that any vaccine on the present causes more harm than the disease, go for it. I like to use an objective bad outcome like seizures. Just post the PubMed index study from a reputable researcher that a vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease, please present the title, journal and date.

Actually, Skeptiquette, if you think the Hib vaccine has more risk than the disease, you should present that. Along with the other vaccines.

Though be advised that the more recent ones (HepB, Hib, etc) are not even made from the original pathogens. The HepB vaccine is made from baker’s yeast.

And if there was an issue with any of them, it would have shown up through the Vaccine Safety Datalink Project. This is how problems (like one in over a hundred thousand) in the first rotavirus vaccine showed up. And it was even more rare issues with oral polio vaccine that prompted replacement with IPV.

Alain, I think in some cases it may be the source and some it may be a consequence, depends, autism is a very heterogenous condition.

Ok, in the case where the immune system is the source of autism, do you have a basic mechanism of action? I don’t need an elaborate mechanism, just something plausible.

Alain

To be more explicit, just tell me what the immune system does to the brain (and do we agree that it involve the brain and not just the enteric nervous system?).

Alain

@Calli,

Bravo, Calli! Masterful job at turning the tables on skeptiquette! Skeptiquette never implied that the evidence of ‘how’ immune system is activated in autism is ‘proof’ that vaccines ‘do’ cause autism. She merely suggested this as not ‘proof’ but ‘evidence’ that vaccines may cause autism since they also activate the immune system. And, based on this evidence you would expect that we would be more buoyed to do the definitive studies to determine if vaccines ‘do’ cause autism — say an unvax/vax study, or if this cannot be done for ethical reason, a study to determine if an unvaxed population has a 1 in 50 autism rate.

What your argument essentially boils down to is to say let’s not worry about any evidence until we have proof. If this is not the anti-thesis of science then I don’t know what is. Still, you crafted and concealed it quite well that it may have escaped numerous readers detection, including skeptiquette. Bravo, again, on a job well done!

Also, overall, although you did quite well, you did have one ‘little’ screw-up:

At #346 you asked sketiquette, ‘what evidence do you have that autistics are in any way immunologically unusual?’………

Only to declare at #360, ‘of course immunological reactions happen in autistics’…..

I guess your initial question was mere testing of the water.

You know Greg, I only interpreted skeptiquette the immune system dysregulation cause autism or is caused by autism. I’ll see when vaccine enter the picture if any. Of course, if you have any evidence, I’m all ears.

Alain

By the way, Greg, immunological reactions happen to all sorts of people. Like the itchy eyes and sneezes I’ve had over the past due to my allergy to grasses and ragweed. I am also exhibiting other reactions on my arms from some bug bites I got while weeding.

The interesting thing is there is often an implicit reasoning that vaccines cause more immunological reactions than the diseases, or even pollen. That is just silly.

Oh, and thanks for confirming that vaccines are safer than the diseases by never providing any real evidence on the relative risk of seizures. Obviously the diseases cause many more seizures than the vaccines. You have no cause to protest, since you had over two months to answer the question.

Y’know, even in medieval re-enactor blogs, people get pressed for specific citations for claims. Saying “there’s a study that says this…” is a really annoying way of “proving” something. After all, my scrawled ramblings about medieval food could be considered a study, even though as a note I might write “that recipe for duck in the egg book” which means squat to anyone else.

I had actually typed up a response to this in the early morning, but it was swallowed by a server error when I tried to submit it, so it had to wait for the end of a long day for me to recompose and send it.

I will have to start by repeating a point I made before:

… the science-based camp is stating “we have simply not been presented with anything like a convincing case that vaccines cause autism, and it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they do or probably do in the absence of a convincing case.” If you’re asserting that that’s an unreasonable position, then you’re asserting that either you think a solid case that vaccines cause autism does exist (in which case, you’re not between the two camps at all, you’re in one of the very camps you called unreasonable) or you’re asserting that the science-based camp should be taking seriously the speculation that vaccines cause autism just because someone came up with such a speculation.

That point needs repeating; without an answer to it, what you’re doing is saying “the science-based camp hasn’t done enough to ‘build bridges’ to anti-vaxers” but refusing to tell us what that ‘bridge-building’ would consist of.

Moving on from that, I must point out that I discussed a major element of the science-based view which you did not respond to or even acknowledge, and that is the issue of “burden of proof”.

That’s a very important part of the science-based position, so to leave out “burden of proof” and discuss the various vaccines-cause-or-exacerbate-autism hypotheses as if testability was the only meaningful criteria, and therefore any hypothesis that was deemed “testable” was therefore automatically one that deserved testing, would badly distort reality.

However, it may be that the point about burden of proof was not clear to you, so let’s look at it again, approaching it from a slightly different angle. Let’s talk about “Occam’s Razor”. This very famous principle has been stated many ways over the years; one of the most precise formulations is “Avoid multiplying entities needlessly”, but the modern version, easier to understand, is “when there are multiple explanations for the evidence, the simplest is the most likely to be true.”

“Some cases of autism are caused by vaccines” sounds simple enough; it sounds so simple, we might be tempted to think there couldn’t be a simpler explanation. Except it only sounds that way because we’re leaving out part of it; when you state it fully, you find out it’s a hypothesis that “multiplies entities needlessly.” It’s an established fact that some children who were never vaccinated nevertheless developed autism. Therefore the VCA (vaccines cause autism) hypothesis, spelled out in full, has to be “There is something which isn’t vaccines that causes autism (entity 1); in addition, there are some cases of autism that are caused by vaccines (entity 2).” You know what’s a simpler explanation than that, which involves only known fact and not speculation like the VCA hypothesis? “There is something which isn’t vaccines that causes autism.”

Now the situation would be different if the evidence was different. Some VCA believers, as I mentioned before, still claim that vaccines have in fact caused an “autism epidemic”. If such a claim was true, then unvaccinated children would still develop autism, due to entity 1, at a rate we’ll call A%; vaccinated children would develop autism at the higher rage A+X%, where X% are the children who wouldn’t have developed autism due to entity 1, but did due to vaccines, entity 2. The elephant in the room here, Skeptiquette, which you seem unwilling to acknowledge, is that every attempt to measure X% comes up with a figure indistinguishable from zero.

Now, can those who are absolutely wedded to the vaccines-cause-autism hypothesis find a way to alter it, so that it no longer predicts things which the data already shows to be false? Yes, sure, of course they can, but that proves nothing. We could hypothesize that vaccines don’t actually cause autism, they just exacerbate it; we could hypothesize that vaccines cause autism only in children with certain particular preconditions; we could concoct any number of hypotheses that aren’t totally torpedoed by the data the way “there’s an autism epidemic caused by vaccines” is. But what’s wrong with every one of those hypotheses?

Two things. First of all, each one is not an attempt to do actual science, but simply to co-opt the authority of science. Real science is about seeing where the data leads you; asking “how can we make the data point to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?” means you’re not doing real science.

Second, once again, Occam’s Razor. For each and every variation on the “something which isn’t vaccines causes autism, and also vaccines cause autism” hypothesis, there is a corresponding hypothesis which is simpler and fits the data at least as well if not better: it is formed by dropping the unneeded entity of “autism caused by vaccines”.

I am sorry for being so informal in my citing, but this is a blog. I am not writing a manuscript for a peer reviewed journal. Furthermore, would it really be that difficult to cut and past those titles into Pubmed, where I said I got them?

Let us briefly rewind:

here is a small small sampling of what is available from a search in pubmed typing in “autism and cytokines” or just type in “autism and immune system”

You should get up to speed on this stuff, it is really quite interesting!

Your first! query! Brings up! 182 results! Your second brings! Up! 340! Let’s! look! at (part of!) the first!

Cytokine dysregulation in autism spectrum disorders (ASD): possible role of the environment.

#20, Goines.

Effects of maternal immune activation on gene expression patterns in the fetal brain.

#23, Garbett.

The major histocompatibility complex and autism spectrum disorder.

Does not appear.

Autism spectrum disorders: from immunity to behavior.

#19, Careaga.

Myeloid dendritic cells frequencies are increased in children with autism spectrum disorder and associated with amygdala volume and repetitive behaviors.

#15, Breece.

IL-6 is increased in the cerebellum of autistic brain and alters neural cell adhesion, migration and synaptic formation.

#62, Wei.

Brain IL-6 elevation causes neuronal circuitry imbalances and mediates autism-like behaviors.

#35, Wei.

Alteration of brain volume in IL-6 overexpressing mice related to autism.

#17, Wei.

So what we have here looks an awful lot like a cut and paste from a sloppily assembled personal bibliography, coupled with assertions that it is not a specific sort of Gish gallop, an “apology” for “being so informal” despite the preassembly (which has Excel written all over it), a disdainful remark about “keeping up,” and not a damn thing to say about any of it.

Very impressive, thanks.

I had actually typed up a response to this in the early morning, but it was swallowed by a server error when I tried to submit it, so it had to wait for the end of a long day for me to recompose and send it.

The “Textarea Cache” add-on for Firefox comes in very handy for such situations.

Skeptiquette,

Which epidemiological studies are the go to studies for showing that vaccines do not cause autism (I am having a hard time finding them in pubmed and I figure you guys have a reference list somewhere).

You may find this paper (PDF) useful. It has many of the papers Chris refers to with a summary and links to the studies themselves.

By the way, which epidemiological studies are the “go to studies” showing that broccoli does not cause autism? Or television, mobile phones, miasmas, witches, astrological aspects, invisible demons… I hope you get my point.

Pass the Kewpie pon the left-hand side.

A string of Kewpies is a joy for Heather.

Instead let me ask this:

Which epidemiological studies are the go to studies for showing that vaccines do not cause autism (I am having a hard time finding them in pubmed and I figure you guys have a reference list somewhere). Let’s start from the first vaccine and work from there.

1. Hep B
2. Rotavirus
3. DTap
4. HiB
5. Pneumococcal
6. Polio

Skeptiquette, if you understand anything we’ve been saying, you should understand that you need reason to think a hypothesis is true before you can start asking other people to disprove the hypothesis.

You do not have such a reason. “Autism might have something to do with the immune system and vaccines have something to do with the immune system” is not a reason because those facts provide exactly the same support to the hypothesis “vaccines prevent autism”. As they say, you can’t tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks.

On the heterogeneity of autism (which would tend to argue against any single-cause hypothesis):

This was published Tuesday by the Simons Foundation, Health records reveal autism’s full picture

…..there is a different application of electronic health records that may be even more important in our understanding of autism overall. That is the use of electronic health records to understand the full set of symptoms and clinical trajectories that people with autism traverse — not just their neurobehavioral profile but also their multiple non-neuropsychiatric symptoms.

For example, last year, we conducted one of the largest-ever studies of autism comorbidities using electronic medical records of more than 14,000 individuals with autism over a 15-year period7. This study confirmed well-known findings: for example, a prevalence of about 20 percent of seizures in people with the disorder.

But the study also found that 12 percent of people with autism have a variety of bowel disorders, and an increased rate of autoimmune disorders, such as inflammatory bowel disease and type-1 diabetes. We also confirmed the well-known increased prevalence of autism in those with fragile X syndrome and tuberous sclerosis complex, and the much less-documented, but also surprisingly high, autism prevalence of five percent in the muscular dystrophies.

These electronic-health-record-driven studies have also shown that such comorbidities are not spread evenly across the population, but cluster within specific subtypes of autism.

Overall, children with autism who have seizures have trajectories or clusters of symptoms and other clinical findings that differ from those of children with autism who have anxiety disorders and psychiatric comorbidities, such as schizophrenia or major depression. There are also other subgroups, characterized by frequent ear infections and hearing loss, or inflammatory bowel disease, that have their own distinct developmental trajectories.

The existence of these distinct subgroups suggests an underlying biological architecture that may represent distinct causative or compensatory mechanisms.

Original paper:

PLoS One. 2012; 7(4): e33224.
Published online 2012 April 12. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0033224
PMCID: PMC3325235
The Co-Morbidity Burden of Children and Young Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

I don’t see any point to ‘bridge-building.’ The anti-vax crowd has proven, time and time again that they are resistant to facts. It’s a waste of time to attempt to educate them..or even talk to them.

@ Liz Ditz: Thanks for that SFARI article. I think it confirms what I have been stating all along, about the supposed increase in children diagnosed with ASDs.

There are hundreds of identified genetic syndromes (and hundreds of additional genetic syndromes where the specific genes mutations have yet to be identified), where kids have epilepsy, feeding and bowel problems, in addition to their congenital skeletal, cardiac, brain anomolies and dysmorphic features. For a partial list of these genetic syndromes, see Table I:

http://www.nature.com/gim/journal/v10/n1/pdf/gim20082a.pdf

I’m quite interested in the emerging studies of children diagnosed with ASDs, who have subtle dysmorphic features:

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/in-brief/2012/clinical-research-facial-features-can-help-diagnose-autism

children diagnosed with ASDs, who have subtle dysmorphic features:

The concept of FLK syndrome is familiar to clinicians.

Can I extend one of my question? I’d ask everyone here to tell what happen to the brain of an autistic so that he/she is autistic?

It’s okay if you make mistakes and in fact, encouraged. This will become an educative moment.

I’ll start first by answering the question by myself:

In the case of idiopathic autism, the cells are much smaller and the minicolumns themselve are slightly smaller (about 5% average) but includes more cells. There appear to be a migrational problem with the cells not making their way to the final destination. A cluster of minicolumns around the perceptual areas and the senses makes for a more reliable memory and picture perfect memory. I don’t know what happen to the cognitive areas of the brain.

Skeptiquette, Greg, everyone else, it’s your turn.

Alain

@ herr doktor bimler:

“children diagnosed with ASDs, who have subtle dysmorphic features:”

“The concept of FLK syndrome is familiar to clinicians”

FLK (Funny Looking Kid) syndrome is familiar to parents as well. One of the subversive neurologist/genetics specialist who attended that super-secretive Simpsonwood Conference, nailed down by son’s rare genetic disorder when he was 2 years old. The de novo gene mutations for his syndrome were identified a few months before he died, June, 2004.

Sometime, I hate being the resident autism expert; I ask the right questions to shut down a thread.

Alain

OH and BTW, the same happen at school when I correct a prof on computer science.

Grumble.

I think it’s just bad timing. Everyone in the US takes the fourth off.

@Alain,
There is one thing that brain physiologists (I don’t know the correct term) have discovered. Autistics have more brain cells than neurotypicals. During very early childhood, there is a period when a lot of brain cells suddenly die off, but this either doesn’t happen, or happens less, in autistics.
Again, I don’t know the complete ins and outs of this.

Hey Guys, guess who is back? Did you miss me? Now my last outing wasn’t too acrimonious between Orac and myself. Privately though, I spoke with him and he apologized for being so grumpy. He explained, “Greg, do you know how tiresome it gets coming up with these yawners of blogs? It’s always about he is a quack…she is a crank…they are jerks for subscribing to quack medicine….blah, blah, blah!” He also added that being the overlord of the RI echo chamber, the constant, monotonous drone starts getting on his nerve after a while. Yeah Orac, it all gets tedious, doesn’t it?

Anyway, before I get started I would like to tie up a few loose ends by revisiting some topics from my last outing. Re autistics functioning capacity as a whole, Krebiozen at #184 said,

“No one is denying that a sizeable number of individuals with autism will require some assistance in living, but only a tiny minority are non-verbal and doubly incontinent, requiring round-the-clock care, contrary to what you continually imply.”

Very well then Krebiozen, let’s consider the stats as they pertain to autistics functioning levels. First it is estimated that between 25% and 50% of autistics are indeed non-verbal.
http://www.dcc-cde.ca.gov/af/afbasic.htm
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0025505

Re autistics IQ scores, their average score is 70. This figure is taken from the link you provided Krebiozen.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/02/pf/autism/index.htm

I quote them: “(f)or those with autism who are impacted with intellectual disabilities (with an IQ of 70 or less) — nearly half of the autistic population…”

Krebiozen, just reflect on this score for a second. Individuals with an IQ of less than 70 are considered mentally retarded.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_retardation

Imagine, nearly half of autistics qualify as mentally retarded! In contrast, 95% of the general population has IQ scores within the range of 70 to 130 with only 5% falling within the retarded range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient

Krebiozen, with the autism rate of 1 in 50, with 1 in 31 boys, we are talking 1 in 62 boys who are mentally retarded. As these boys mature into adults in the near future, we will start having 1 in 62 retarded men! Now ladies – I know what you are thinking – we are already there, and it’s more! Seriously though, think about it, 1 in 62 retarded men! Imagine a sports stadium at capacity seating of say 50,000. If we divide by half to get the total amount of males (actually this is rather generous because it is not likely to be 50% ladies attending a sporting event) then we would have 25,000 men. Approximately 400 of them would be mentally retarded –enough to fill an entire seating section! Say what you want about Dachel, but these are the frightening scenarios that she has in mind when she talks about what will happen when autistics are aged out of school and become adults.

Now some may argue that IQ scores are not good measures of autistics’ functioning abilities in their communities. They may add that autistics may not reveal their true potentials with IQ tests; perhaps they do not follow instructions or are not motivated to perform. Let’s look then at what the numbers are really saying about how autistics are faring in society. I gave you guys the source that cited the UK’s National Autistic Society’s stats. It reported that out of a sample of 450 autistic adults and children only 6% were living fully independent, and only 3% held full-time employment.
http://www.child-autism-parent-cafe.com/adults-with-autism.html

Still, you complained for various reasons about these numbers. I thought the numbers were straight-forward but you still complained. Anyway, here is what another source has to say about how autistics are succeeding with their employment:
http://health.usnews.com/health-news/news/articles/2012/05/14/employment-prospects-dim-for-young-adults-with-autism

“….researchers examined data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2, a nine-year study of adolescents who were enrolled in special education because of autism, learning disabilities, intellectual disabilities or speech and language impairments…”

And…..

“For example, only 55 percent of young adults with autism had paid employment, while 86 percent of those with a speech or language impairment, 94 percent of those with a learning disability and 69 percent of those with mental retardation did.”

So there you have it: Even when we discount autistics’ IQ performance and consider real things such as their employment, they are still lagging significantly behind other disability groups, including the mentally retarded. Now these truly are the sobering facts that we should keep in mind when we are presented with the oddball scenarios of autistics with Einstein’s intelligence and who are making their mark in quantum physics, or when we are presented with stories of employers eyeing autistics as an untapped, employment boon.

Krebiozen, after all I presented to you, can you still honestly say that I am exaggerating the dismal state of how autistics are truly faring?

Greg:

Hey Guys, guess who is back?

My favourite scratching post, that’s who.

Later, I want to address the controversy of incidence vs mortality when we look at the trend of declining infectious diseases prior to vaccines. In the meantime, here is my question of the day: For the MDs, and specifically pediatricians in the house, when a parent approach you with their ailing autistic kid, do you feel rather silly pretending that you are baffled by the cause, even though in the back of your mind you are actually thinking — ‘those darn vaccines!’? What tricks do you employ to not show your discomfort? (Hee, hee, hee)

Later, I want to address the controversy of incidence vs mortality when we look at the trend of declining infectious diseases prior to vaccines.

Oh goodie. And what controversy would that be? I am pretty dumb when it comes to finer aspects of medicine but even I can see difference between mortality and incidence. But on the other hand I have no agenda in finding some way to twist facts so that they could fit my lies (since I usually lie about simple things, like: “why shouldn’t our client pay for the things he bought due to procedural mistakes in the invoice”).

What tricks do you employ to not show your discomfort? (Hee, hee, hee)

What tricks do you employ not to show your apetite to devour the people you interact with daily? (Hee, hee, hee).

Greg #398,

That is one of the most deceitful and deliberately misleading comments I have seen in a while. You wrote not long ago of, “the current tsunami of 1 in 6 kids with brain damaged autism and other impediments such as adhd and speech delays.”, and of, “non-verbal autistics, who scream, head bang, and are still in diapers”. That is a gross exaggeration so I suppose seeing you moving to a figure of 1 in 62 boys is progress of sorts.

First you take the very highest estimate you can of the number of males with ASDs (not autism), apply that figure to both males and females and claim that is the number of people with autism. It isn’t. The California Department of Education page you linked to states that, “1 in every 250 children is diagnosed with autism”.

You then take the very highest estimates you can find for non-verbality and intellectual impairment in autistic children, and claim it applies to all people with ASDs for their entire lifetimes. Autism is developmental delay, not developmental stasis.

The California Department of Education page also states that, “up to 50% of individuals with autism are non-verbal”, but provides no references for that figure. The PLOS page you linked to states that, “up to 25% of children with autism are non-verbal”. The references it gives for that figure state that:

follow-up studies of 2-year-olds suggest that 75–90% of children with autism acquire functional expressive communication (Eaves and Ho 2004; Charman et al. 2005; Koegel 2000; McGee et al. 1999; Turner et al. 2006)

So between 1 in 2,500 and 1 in 1,000 children are non-verbal and autistic, not 1 in 6 as you have claimed.

The other reference says:

88 percent of the sample demonstrated at least some functional language

These are children, not adults, so we cannot assume from this that these individuals never develop language. Even assuming they don’t, according to this study we are looking at fewer than 1 in 2,000 with non-verbal autism.

As I stated before (with citation), according to the CDC the majority (62%) of children identified as having ASDs do not have intellectual disability (intelligence quotient <=70). Only 1 in 250 people are autistic, so we are talking of perhaps 1 in 650 people who are autistic and mentally impaired, not 1 in 62 as you claim.

The unreliability of figures from special interest groups who are looking for resources has been addressed before.

Krebiozen, after all I presented to you, can you still honestly say that I am exaggerating the dismal state of how autistics are truly faring?

Yes, you are grossly exaggerating the problem and trying to stir up prejudice against people with autism by portraying them as “non-verbal autistics, who scream, head bang, and are still in diapers”. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Of course the number of people with autism who need support is of concern, but exaggerating the problem is not helpful. Neither is persisting with a disproven hypothesis, which distracts from research which will hopefully come up with ways to help those with autism that need it.

Later, I want to address the controversy of incidence vs mortality when we look at the trend of declining infectious diseases prior to vaccines.

There is no controversy. If mortality is the only thing going down, the disease isn’t “declining” at all.

One really wonders what Greg’s purpose in coming here is. He must know that, far from drawing any undecided lurkers to the antivax side, his bizarre behavior and dishonest argumentation serves only to make SBM stand out as even better by comparison.

One really wonders what Greg’s purpose in coming here is.

At this point? To try to get banned, of course.

Hey Guys, guess who is back? Did you miss me? Now my last outing wasn’t too acrimonious between Orac and myself. Privately though, I spoke with him and he apologized for being so grumpy. He explained, “Greg, do you know how tiresome it gets coming up with these yawners of blogs? It’s always about he is a quack…she is a crank…they are jerks for subscribing to quack medicine….blah, blah, blah!” He also added that being the overlord of the RI echo chamber, the constant, monotonous drone starts getting on his nerve after a while. Yeah Orac, it all gets tedious, doesn’t it?

No Greg, those are the voices in your head having to listen to you.

@ Julian,

You may be referring (sp?) to the list of papers of Dr. Casanova (for whom I will work for) here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Casanova+MF%5BAuthor%5D+AND+minicolumns

I don’t think cell pruning is a problem here (or it’d be a minor one) but instead, the cell are definitely smaller, there are more cells per minicolumns and also there’s a slight increase in the number of minicolumns. There may be a figure of 23% more brain cell on average and this might be correct but I don’t know if it has been scientifically validated or else, extrapolated (from an area to the other) given a pathology report of cell migration problems in the brain.

Alain

Greg:

Later, I want to address the controversy of incidence vs mortality when we look at the trend of declining infectious diseases prior to vaccines.

You see your exact claim was “Now we have all seen the graphs that show that many infectious diseases were well on their way out even before the introduction of vaccines.”

In modern English that means that the incidence of diseases went down, and this has nothing to do with mortality. If your claim was true then the incidence of measles was down before 1960. But the data show that measles incidence went up and down until the mid-1960s.

Now you are going to have explain why measles plummeted in less than one decade after a series of up and down years.

The oneclear thing is that you do not understand your claim clearly claimed morbidity decreased, but your evidence only showed mortality. Obviously you do not understand the definitions of the words: mortality, morbidity (incidence) and controversial.

Hey Guys, guess who is back? Did you miss me? Now my last outing wasn’t too acrimonious between Orac and myself. Privately though, I spoke with him and he apologized for being so grumpy. He explained, “Greg, do you know how tiresome it gets coming up with these yawners of blogs? It’s always about he is a quack…she is a crank…they are jerks for subscribing to quack medicine….blah, blah, blah!” He also added that being the overlord of the RI echo chamber, the constant, monotonous drone starts getting on his nerve after a while. Yeah Orac, it all gets tedious, doesn’t it?

Just so that any new readers don’t think I actually speak with Greg, let me just say that the above is simply Greg’s fantastical delusions of adequacy leading him to think that he could ever get me to say anything even slightly resembling his fantasy.

By Post Author

It makes sense he has voices in his head that he thinks are real conversations. Just like the thinks there is a controversy between “incidence” and “mortality”.

@Julian Frost –

Well, there are lots of ways the process of cell removal could be going wrong in the autism population. It turns out, the brain’s immune residents, microglia, are participating in this process; i.e.,

Synaptic Pruning by Microglia Is Necessary for Normal Brain Development (Science. 2011 Sep 9;333(6048):1456-8)

It just so happens, when we look at those microglia in the autism population, their phenotype is different than the ‘normal’ population. Perhaps, this changed microglial status is part of a disruption in the pruning process in autism. Animal studies on immune challenges in early life tell us that such insults appear to be capable of persistently altering the morphology of microglia, as well as cause behavioral disturbances in affected animals. Food for thought.

@Alain – Do you realize that Dr. Cassanova is extremely skeptical of a static rate of autism? See his latest blog post on cortical chauvinism on the Flynn effect.

Also, there is no reason that something that could cause altered minicolumn structure (very early in embryological life) could not also affect synaptic pruning (much later in late fetal / early postnatal life).

For data on increased number of neurons in the autism population (in some parts of the brain), try,

Neuron number and size in prefrontal cortex of children with autism (JAMA. 2011 Nov 9;306(18):2001-10)

Other areas of the brain look to have reduced neuron numbers; i.e.,

Stereological Analysis of Amygdala Neuron Number in Autism

All of these studies, including the minicolumn studies you reference above, suffer from a very, very low number of samples, unfortunately.

Greg:

…when [parents] approach you with their ailing autistic kid…

I was hardly ever sick as a child. And from what I’ve been reading, autistics tend to have rather robust immune systems.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.

@Julian Frost: but, you know, according to Greg, you’re not a real autistic. You don’t headbang, scream, smear poop on the walls…

Instead, you post thoughtful, insightful comments on RI and other sites. How could Greg take you seriously as autistic?

(I have a cousin with children who have a genetic syndrome that leads to developmental regression, and the age that the regression begins varies with the severity of the syndrome. It’s a very hard life, and she fights every day for her children to have a good life. But don’t try to tell her that vaccines, toxins, fluoride etc caused it. She’ll rip you apart. She’s science based to the core.).

Ah, but does Julian Frost count towards the 1:6 number?

@pD,

I’m aware of the flynn effect (and Dr. Casanova) but don’t know its effect on the incidence of autism because no epidemiology studies answer that question.

BTW, myself and Dr. Casanova hold different opinions but we always respect each other’s opinions.

Alain

As these boys mature into adults in the near future, we will start having 1 in 62 retarded men! Now ladies – I know what you are thinking – we are already there, and it’s more!

In case anyone still had any doubts that Greg doesn’t really give a sh!t about those with disabilities.

Greg, you do know most people would permanently ban you for lying about them on their own website. Orac is being far more patient with you than you deserve.

There’s something to be said about the scientific method being a bitch: it require a lot of imagination & a lot of time to iron out the many competing null hypothesis and it can’t prove a negative but then, it’s the best method bar none to build reliable foundation. Anything else is piss pour and I know that comment passed 90 feet over the head of Greg but that’s just because I want to :D.

Alain

ABSTRACT—Autistics
are presumed to be characterized by
cognitive impairment, and their cognitive strengths (e.g.,
in Block Design performance) are frequently interpreted
as low-level by-products of high-level deficits, not as direct
manifestations of intelligence. Recent attempts to identify
the neuroanatomical and neurofunctional signature of
autism have been positioned on this universal, but untest-
ed, assumption. We therefore assessed a broad sample of
38 autistic children on the preeminent test of fluid intelli-
gence, Raven’s Progressive Matrices. Their scores were,
on average, 30 percentile points, and in some cases more
than 70 percentile points, higher than their scores on the
Wechsler scales of intelligence. Typically developing con-
trol children showed no such discrepancy, and a similar
contrast was observed when a sample of autistic adults was
compared with a sample of nonautistic adults. We conclude
that intelligence has been underestimated in autistics.

This bear repeating:

Their scores were, on average, 30 percentile points, and in some cases more than 70 percentile points, higher than their scores on the Wechsler scales of intelligence

Along with this:

Typically developing control children showed no such discrepancy

It stand to reason that an IQ test which can be applied to non-verbal child will show improvement over the WISC. But. What can be said about that test?

from:
What one intelligence test measures: A theoretical account of the processing in the Raven Progressive Matrices Test.
Carpenter, Patricia A.; Just, Marcel A.; Shell, Peter
Psychological Review, Vol 97(3), Jul 1990, 404-431.
doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.97.3.404

In this article, we analyze a form of thinking that is prototypical of what psychologists consider to be analytic intelligence. We use the term analytic intelligence to refer to the ability to reason and solve problems involving new information, without relying extensively on an explicit base of declarative knowledge derived from either schooling or previous experience. In the theory of R. Cattell (1963), this form of intelligence has been labeled fluid intelligence and has been contrasted with crystallized intelligence, which more directly reflects the previously acquired knowledge and skills that have been crystallized with experience. Thus, analytic intelligence refers to the ability to deal with novelty, to adapt one’s thinking to a new cognitive problem. In this article, we provide a theoretical account of what it means to perform well on a classic test of analytic intelligence, the Raven Progressive Matrices Test (Raven, 1962).

That’s right, Autistics do better on a non-verbal test for fluid intelligence as compared from a verbal test for crystallized intelligence. Sometime much better (hey, can’t test a non-verbal kid on the WISC).

food for thought.

Alain

@Krebiozen

‘The California Department of Education page you linked to states that, “1 in every 250 children is diagnosed with autism”.

Actually Krebiozen, this rate was an old one not the current one. Protest all you want, but indeed nearly 50% of autistics has IQs in the mentally retarded range. I sizable amount of them are also non-verbal and suffer from a whole host of medical and developmental issues. And yes, the prospect of employment for many of them is dismal. In fact, its more likely that they will need around- the-clock care throughout their lives, and that will cost taxpayers multiple billions.

Krebiozen, don’t get angry with me about this mess. I did not create the problem, but vaccine pushers like you did.

Neither is persisting with a disproven hypothesis, which distracts from research which will hopefully come up with ways to help those with autism that need it.

Really? Did anyone get in your way when you guys were spending over a billion dollars on genetic research into autism? How is that going anyway?

Ok Orac’s VCADOD (vaccinese causing autism denialism obsessive disorder) group,

I did not receive any response to yesterday’s question of the day of how you hide your guilt when a parent approaches you with their autistic child and seeks an explanation. Anyway, I know how sensitive the issue is so it’s understandable that you are not so forthcoming.

Later today, I will follow-up with my opinion on incidence vs mortality and whether vaccines did indeed save us. In the interim, I would like to pose another question of the day:

Passing on news from AoA , with Japan suspending its recommendation of the HPV vaccines due to safety concerns, do you think public health figures in the US will have an even more difficult job of defending the vaccine?

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/06/japan-suspends-recommendation-for-hpv-vaccines-for-12-16-year-old-girls.html

I did not receive any response to yesterday’s question of the day of how you hide your guilt when a parent approaches you with their autistic child and seeks an explanation.

There is no guilt to hide, because there is no scientifically valid evidence that vaccines cause autism, just crap studies by antivaccine-leaning “scientists,” conspiracy mongering by the scientifically ignorant, and the confusing of correlation with causation.

Hope that helps. 🙂

By Post Author

Later today, I will follow-up with my opinion on incidence vs mortality and whether vaccines did indeed save us.

Oh, this should be hilariously entertaining to read. I can hardly wait. 🙂

By Post Author

@MI Dawn,

(I have a cousin with children who have a genetic syndrome that leads to developmental regression, and the age that the regression begins varies with the severity of the syndrome. It’s a very hard life, and she fights every day for her children to have a good life. But don’t try to tell her that vaccines, toxins, fluoride etc caused it. She’ll rip you apart. She’s science based to the core.).

How much times must you keep bombarding us with this news of having an autistic cousin whose autism was not caused by vaccines?? Geezzz!! Please post your cousin’s entire health records so that I can verify your claim. Note that failure to do so will be deemed that you are dishonest.

skeptiquette:
Oh, thank you so much for that. All that I said, and the only response you had was to flounce on the witchcraft analogy and then insult me by suggesting you had overestimated my capacity for reading abstracts. You didn’t overestimate my capacity, you overestimated my patience for people who post piles of study titles in lieu of an argument. Look, maybe your pile of study titles is legit, but after having waded through dozens of Gish Gallops from the people you want to build bridges with, I am not interested in any more wild goose chases. The last one I went on was for Greg, and guess what? The studies largely didn’t claim what he said, and in several cases contradicted what he said. So you’ll have to excuse me if I am tired of doing that.

Greg:
At #346 you asked sketiquette, ‘what evidence do you have that autistics are in any way immunologically unusual?’……… Only to declare at #360, ‘of course immunological reactions happen in autistics’…..

And here we have Greg again totally misunderstanding, probably deliberately, since he’s left out the context. Of course autistics have immunological reactions but so do everybody else. Are theirs in any way unusual, or do they occur with unusual frequency? That’s the question I’ve not seen adequately answered.

@ Alain: I’m willing “to bet” that Orac is aware of Jake’s new venture. 🙂

@ Calli Arcale: After those totally O/T copy pasta studies that Skeptiquette posted, she did tell us “This is not a Gish Gallop”.

The Troll’s latest comments about economic costs to society, are parroting what the Dachelbot has been posting recently on news stories.

@Greg: I did not say my cousin’s children were autistic. I said they have a genetic syndrome that leads to developmental regression. 2 different things. I do have some autistic/ASD (or they would have been diagnosed as such today) people in my family, but the autistic cousin died in an institution in 1956- you know, the place where families “hid” members who weren’t normal (and the only vaccine he got was smallpox; the rest of VPDs he had as most kids did in the 1930-1940’s except polio). The others were more on the ASD spectrum, and lived fairly normal lives although most were “weird” kids who married late if ever.

And no, you have no right to my family’s medical records. Not mine, not my children’s, not my extended family. And, though I know you won’t believe me, we are all fully up-to-date with vaccines. When you post answers to the questions you’ve been asked, and prove that you actually work with autistic people, then we can talk about me providing you with some proof. But I don’t currently trust you enough to give you proof.

I did not receive any response to yesterday’s question of the day

You might want to get used to that, given your wholesale inability to answer them.

To get back on topic, welcome to Autism Investigated by Master Jake Crosby!!!!!!

Oh goody! A completely unedited and unleashed Jake Crosby to relay his stalking events and six-degrees of separation conspiracies.

Please post your cousin’s entire health records so that I can verify your claim. Note that failure to do so will be deemed that [sic] you are dishonest.

Please post a picture of your Johnson copy of your postsecondary transcripts so that we can point and laugh evaluate your purported credentials. Note that failure to do so will deemed to indicate that you don’t have one any.

OT: Does anyone know offhand at what ages the Salk vaccine was administered at when it was introduced? I refer to this.

She asked me to watch my younger sister (3yrs old) while she went to the neighbors next door. (I found out later she was making funeral arrangements out of ear shot.) While she was away, my younger sister went into convulsions.

@ Alain:

re #423

Merci beaucoup, mon ami.

At any rate, didn’t I forercast that if AoA tossed the tosser, he’d probably start his own blog/ enterprise? And holy cats! There it is! Lots of fun** for Orac and the minions in the future.

I do not howeve, claim pre-cognition. Jake has
an axe to grind and will grind it wheresoever he can – if he is not welcome at others’ places, he’ll get his own place.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time now to eviscerate*** him
but I’m sure that someone else will promptly.

Hoever, I do shudder to think that this is what’s been occupying his mind rather than more pressing matters such as completing degree requirements as scheduled.

-btw- I am enjoying my respite from the pressures and duties of everyday life.

** not at itchycoo park, though. It’s too itchy there.
*** figuratively,not literally.

Before I depart-
from Jake’s blog:

” To maintain independent coverage, Autism Investigated will not accept sponsorship or commercial advertising of any kind”.

I see.

I see.

I see something, too: “Taken aback, I replied, ‘Thank you for not answering my question.'” Where have I heard this before?

Oh, right, here. Of course, when he creepy-crawled Offit, he was instead “stunned.”

Greg:

Passing on news from AoA , with Japan suspending its recommendation of the HPV vaccines due to safety concerns,

Japan is a good example of how to have bad vaccine policies, especially when they bend to anecdotes.

For instance, they bent to anti-vaccine pressure and stopped vaccinating all under age two for pertussis, which resulted in 41 infant deaths in 1979:
Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story

Later, when there were issues with the Urabe mumps component in their MMR, they removed it made measles vaccination voluntary. The result were over eighty deaths, mostly children:
Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan

And wait, there is more! A quicky PubMed search reveals: a rubella epidemic!
MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2013 Jun 14;62(23):457-62.
Nationwide rubella epidemic – Japan, 2013.

And they actually stopped vaccinating for mumps, and guess what:

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2009 Mar;28(3):173-5. doi: 10.1097/INF.0b013e31818a8ca8.
An office-based prospective study of deafness in mumps.

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2009 Mar;28(3):176. doi: 10.1097/INF.0b013e31818a8cc6.
Commentary: Is Japan deaf to mumps vaccination?

Lancet. 2009 Nov 14;374(9702):1722. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61341-6.
Time to revisit mumps vaccination in Japan?

MI Dawn:

@Greg: I did not say my cousin’s children were autistic. I said they have a genetic syndrome that leads to developmental regression

That is a good example of his reading comprehension. Like, Orac, i can’t wait for him to tell us all about how his statement that the diseases were going away before vaccines is the same as mortality. I am sure it will be another badly done graph with cherry picked data that looks like a failed fourth grade math assignment.

@Calli Arcale –

Of course autistics have immunological reactions but so do everybody else. Are theirs in any way unusual, or do they occur with unusual frequency? That’s the question I’ve not seen adequately answered.

I don’t know if you are honestly interested in knowing the answer to this question or not, because the answers are amazingly simple to find, and I am positive that you are clever enough to do so.

But, in case anyone else out there might want an answer to this question, this is a good example:

Macrophage Migration Inhibitory Factor and Autism Spectrum Disorders [available full free online]

Here are a few snipets:

Thus, the literature on the presence of immune problems in probands with ASD and their families contains a critical mass of information for generating a hypothesis regarding the involvement of autoimmune genes in the etiopathogenesis of ASD. At present, views of possible immune dysfunction in ASD range from conclusions that it may contribute to manifestations of the disorder in some patients18 to hypotheses that neuroimmunopathogenic responses play a fundamental role in ASD.34 Studies suggest that innate rather than adaptive neuroimmune responses are associated with ASD

Thus, the central hypothesis underlying this research was that a genetic predisposition to a particular level of MIF production may lead to a proinfammatory profle of cell activation that, if present during a neurodevelopmentally sensitive period, might contribute to the etiopathogenesis of autism

(MIF is a well known upregulator of the innate immune response, I imagine that Skeptiquette could speak in more detail to that than I could).

This was a large study; they had over two hundred children with autism that were genotyped, with a total of over five hundred people genotyped. There were also blood draws. It was published in Pediatrics. It was funded, in part, by NIH grants. This was a very labor intensive, expensive study to undertake; and their underlying hypothesis was involved an a state of increased inflammation during neurodevelopmentally sensitive timeframes.

Their findings were that the autism group was over represented in alleles consistent with over-expression of MIF, something that was consistent with circulating levels of MIF when measured in plasma; a validation of the hypothesis being tested.

Earlier in this thread, in #360, you mentioned that “Plus, you seem to think none of us here are aware of work that has been done to attempt to link autism to immunological disorders. You might want to utilize the search feature on this blog; the topic has been extensively discussed, as it underpins a great deal of autism quackery, which is a topic of some interest here.”

Do you suppose that the researchers from Yale, Moscow, and Japan undertook this research as ‘quackery’?

Why do you suppose that these researchers genotyped five hundred people with the specific purpose of looking for alleles in genes known to modify the immune response if the link with autism and the immune system was so nebulous and the domain of quacks? Do you think maybe they haven’t read all of the ‘extensive discussion’ about immunological findings in autism on this blog? Has the IRB board at Yale gone crazy, giving the OK to perform tests on two hundred children with autism based on flimsy evidence? Have the people funding grants at the NIH become so enamoured with quackery that they applied precious dollars to this study without any understanding of how a relationship between autism and abnormal immune reactions just doesn’t have any quality evidence?

The alternative explanation, the one I prefer, is that the case for altered immunological function in autism, and indeed, nearly all psychological disorders is so strong that funding this study, performing this study, and publishing the results made perfect sense. The upshot to this line of reasoning is that it is your understanding of the immune findings in autism that is not adequate. If you are using the search feature on this blog as the source of your information, I can see how that might be the case.

As Skeptiquettes list of links demonstrates, there is a lot of data implicating abnormal immune function in the autism population.

So, we might look to researchers in Spain who drew blood from twenty nine children with autism :

Altered Cytokine and BDNF Levels in Autism Spectrum Disorder (Neurotox Res. 2013 Apr 19)

The contribution of neuroimmune functioning and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) to functional dysregulation in autism spectrum disorder was assessed in 29 patients under treatment in two specialized centers of Basilicata (Chiaromonte and Matera), Southern Italy, through analysis of serum levels of cytokines and BDNF. Elevated levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine, including interleukin-1, interleukin-6, interleukin-12, interleukin-23, tumor necrosis factor-a and BDNF were observed, regardless of age and gender

Or, seventy children with autism in Saudi Arabia

Pro-inflammatory cytokines in autistic children in central Saudi Arabia (Neurosciences (Riyadh). 2005 Apr;10(2))

This study showed a significantly increased production of TNF-a, IL-1 and IL-6 from the sera of autistic, attention deficit disorder, Rett`s syndrome and Asperger syndrome children.

Or measurements of IL-17a, again in Saudi Arabia

Elevated serum levels of interleukin-17A in children with autism (J Neuroinflammation. 2012 Jul 2;9:158)

Children with autism had significantly higher serum IL-17A levels than healthy controls (P <0.001), with increased serum levels of IL-17A found in 48.9% of the autism group. Patients with severe autism had significantly higher serum IL-17A levels than those with mild to moderate autism (P=0.01), and raised serum IL-17A levels were significantly more common in children with severe autism (67.9%) than in those with mild to moderate autism (17.6%), P=0.001.

Or, we could look to Italy with twenty two adults with autism:

Increased serum levels of high mobility group box 1 protein in patients with autistic disorder (Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2010 May 30;34(4):681-3)

High mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) is a highly conserved, ubiquitous protein that functions as an activator for inducing the immune response and can be released from neurons after glutamate excitotoxicity. Compared with healthy subjects, serum levels of HMGB1 were significantly higher in patients with autistic disorder (10.8+/-2.6 ng/mL versus 5.6+/-2.5 ng/mL, respectively, P<0.001). After adjustment for potential confounders, serum HMGB1 levels were independently associated with their domain A scores in the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised, which reflects their impairments in social interaction

Or, in sixty six American children,

Altered T cell responses in children with autism

Overall these data indicate significantly altered adaptive cellular immune function in children with ASD that may reflect dysfunctional immune activation, along with evidence that these perturbations may be linked to disturbances in behavior and developmental functioning.

What if we look at Danish children with cord blood measurements?

Neonatal levels of cytokines and risk of autism spectrum disorders: an exploratory register-based historic birth cohort study utilizing the Danish Newborn Screening Biobank

Samples of 359 ASD cases and 741 controls were analyzed using Luminex xMAP technology and clinical data were retrieved from nationwide registers. Findings showed that children developing ASD were more likely to have decreased levels of both T helper-1(Th-1)-like cytokines (i.e. IFN-?) and Th-2like cytokines (i.e. IL-4, IL-10) which may suggest a depressed or hypoactive immune cell activity during neonatal period in ASD.

They were all asking a variation on the same question, is there altered immune function in autism?, and coming up with the same answer: yes. Are we to believe that all of these researchers have independently found evidence for dysregylation of the immune response in the autism population in a spurious manner? Is there a global conspiracy of quacks? Do all of these researchers need to utilize the search feature of Respectful Insolence?

How many more studies do we need to show in order to ‘adequately answer’ the question of if the immunological responses in autism are ‘in any way unusual, or do they occur with unusual frequency’? If you want that question answered, well, there you go. It has been answered. There are a ton more studies with similar findings. Pretending that the T-ball home-runs beating up on Jake Crosby that serves as ‘extensive discussion’ on this blog on the immune abnormality studies in autism isn’t good enough; if you want to hold the mantle of critical analysis and application of the scientific method, you’ll need to start coming up with reasons why all of the studies I posted above fail to show abnormal immunological function in the autism population. Good luck with that.

(Why am I not surprised that we are graced with the Skeptiquette/pD Tandem Tag Team?)

I’m calling b.s. on those random studies posted by Skeptiquette and the same old, same old, walls of words from the self-awarded degreed/parent of an autistic child.

Perhaps pD, would like to explain how the cytokine “storm” and the activation of macrophages and T cells reported in autistic kids and their parents…and reported in other neurological disorders (Alzheimer Disease), and in immune disorders, has been implicated in the thoroughly debunked vaccines-autism theory?

“How many more studies do we need to show in order to ‘adequately answer’ the question of if the immunological responses in autism are ‘in any way unusual, or do they occur with unusual frequency’? If you want that question answered, well, there you go. It has been answered. There are a ton more studies with similar findings. Pretending that the T-ball home-runs beating up on Jake Crosby that serves as ‘extensive discussion’ on this blog on the immune abnormality studies in autism isn’t good enough; if you want to hold the mantle of critical analysis and application of the scientific method, you’ll need to start coming up with reasons why all of the studies I posted above fail to show abnormal immunological function in the autism population.”

Who are we to believe pD….a parent who awards himself degrees in biology, physiology, biochemistry, immunology and other sciences….or a developmental biologist with a child diagnosed with an ASD?

http://www.emilywillinghamphd.com/2012/08/autism-immunity-inflammation-and-new.html

I urge you and your tandem tag team partner, Skeptiquette, to go and post on Crosby’s blog…that’s where all the “genomics” specialists, the vaccine deniers and other assorted crank posters will be congregating.

Greg,

Protest all you want, but indeed nearly 50% of autistics has IQs in the mentally retarded range. I sizable amount of them are also non-verbal and suffer from a whole host of medical and developmental issues.

So your estimates of the prevalence of intellectually impaired, as opposed to non-verbal, autistic individuals (by measures that may be inappropriate as Alain points out) are now down to below 50%. I’m glad you have abandoned your claims about, “the current tsunami of 1 in 6 kids with brain damaged autism”, and “non-verbal autistics, who scream, head bang, and are still in diapers”. It seems we are slowly getting through to you, and I’m sure the longer you hang around here, the more doubtful you will feel about vaccines causing autism. You can only deny the facts in front of your face for so long, after all.

You persist in conflating autism and ASDs, using the terms interchangeably depending on which term suits your purposes. The largest and most reliable studies suggest thatprevalence of autistic disorder is 1–2 per 1,000; for ASDs, which include autistic disorder, PDD-NOS and Asperger’s, the prevalence is 6-11 per 1,000 (PDF). Intellectual impairment is unusual in PDD-NOS and does not occur in Asperger’s by definition.

The important point is that it is simply untrue that there is a tsunami of people with intellectual disability. We actually have fewer than ever before, since congenital rubella syndrome and various childhood diseases that permanently disabled thousands of children every year are very much rarer then ever before. The prevalence of intellectual disability in the US fell by 1.5% between 1997-1999 and 2006-2008. How is this possible if vaccines are the (or even a) cause?

BTW, it’s also interesting that the prevalence of moderate to profound hearing loss fell by 31% over the same period – can you guess why Greg?

Alain:
A cluster of minicolumns around the perceptual areas and the senses makes for a more reliable memory and picture perfect memory. I don’t know what happen to the cognitive areas of the brain.

Seems to be consistent with recent brain-connectivity research [Disclaimer: Have not read the source paper yet].

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group,

The much anticipated time is here when I will discuss diseases’ incidence vs mortality, and whether vaccines really did save us. Perhaps it wasn’t fair of me to keep you all in suspense for so long. I know how important it is for you to feel that you have at least one ‘good’ reason to maim kids.

First, we can all agree that mortalities from diseases were well on the decline even before vaccines due to improved sanitation, better nutrition, and in general, better living conditions. The following peer reviewed studies detailed this reduction in mortality rates that was not due to vaccines:

· “The questionable contribution of medical measures to the decline of mortality in the United States in the twentieth century“. McKinlay JB, McKinlay SM, Milbank Mem Fund Q Health Soc. 1977 Summer; 55(3): 405-28.
· “Symposium: Accomplishments in Child Nutrition during the 20th Century. Infant Mortality in the 20th Century, Dramatic but Uneven Progress” Myron E. Wegman School of Public Health, University of Michigan: J. Nutr. 131: 401S–408S, 2001.

Complimenting these studies, I recommend that you review the video in the link below. In this BBC broadcast by professor Hans Rosling, he graphically demonstrates the dramatic correlation between increase wealth and declining mortality rates of 200 countries over 200 years.
http://vaxtruth.org/2012/03/the-polio-vaccine-part-2-2/

Second, I am sure we can also agree that ‘mortality’ is a fairly reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness. After all, dead bodies are dead bodies, and they are not easily missed. So then, our next question is whether ‘incidence’ is a reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness?
Reading through various sources, I come across strong arguments that ‘incidence’ has shown itself as an unreliable tool for discerning the impact of vaccination.

For instance, with the case of the purported decline in measles incidence rates after the introduction of the measles vaccines, the source below explains that, “doctors were told the vaccine prevented children getting measles when introduced in the late 1960′s so after that time a substantial reduction in diagnoses would be expected.” The allegation then is that the steep decline in incidences after the measles vaccine was merely the result of motivation leading to better detection or confirmation of cases that were previously misdiagnosed. In fact two measles cases are provided as examples showing how measles incidences can vary significantly from confirmed cases:

http://childhealthsafety.wordpress.com/graphs/
“A. Laboratory confirmed cases of measles, mumps, and rubella, England and Wales: October to December 2004
Notified: 474, Tested: 589†, Confirmed cases: 8
RATE OF OVERDIAGNOSIS:- 589/8 = proportionately 7400% or 74 times overdiagnosed
SOURCE: CDR Weekly, Volume 15 Number 12 Published: 24 March 2005 “
We can also look at the current Swasea measles ‘epidemic’ as another clear example of discrepancy between measles incidences and confirmed cases. Of the over 1000 reported incidences, only 300 were confirmed as measles.

As well, in the ‘vaxtruth’ link, they also argue that the dramatic reduction in polio incidences after vaccines was also the result of tightening of detection criteria. I quote them as follow:
“The standards for defining polio were changed when the polio vaccine was introduced. The new definition of a polio epidemic required more cases to be reported. Paralytic polio was redefined as well, making it more difficult to confirm, and therefore tally, cases. Prior to the introduction of the vaccine the patient only had to exhibit paralytic symptoms for 24 hours. Laboratory confirmation and tests to determine residual paralysis were not required. The new definition required the patient to exhibit paralytic symptoms for at least 60 days, and residual paralysis had to be confirmed twice during the course of the disease.”

Discussing incidence vs mortality also begs another question. Even if disease incidences did not really decrease before vaccines, then so what? So what if with the aforementioned factors of increase sanitation, better nutrition, and improved health, mortalities were vastly reduced and the diseases became relatively harmless, would it then have been so beneficial to introduce vaccines, and given the serious fallouts from vaccines that we are currently seeing?

(How it begrudges me that I now find myself arguing with you in such a scholarly manner when it is so much more entertaining to mock you. Anyway, I will continue.)

Perhaps we can best answer this question by looking at the HIV disease and AIDS as an example. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, mortality rates from AIDS were on a significant upswing worldwide. The situation seemed dire and everyone was screaming for the invention of a vaccine to combat the problem. Since then, with advancement in medicine to treat the diseases, mortality rates from AIDS are on a significant decline. In the source that I provide below, they even go on to make the claim that studies, ‘(show) that the drugs used to treat AIDS may also stop its transmission’ and ‘If that proves true, the drugs could achieve much of what a vaccine would.’

In conclusion, the incidence vs mortality issue, and the conundrum of whether vaccines really did save us demonstrate the pitfalls, again, when pro-vaxers and anti-vaxers become too polarized in their views. On one side, we have the pro-vaxxers who claim that vaccines were the greatest invention known to mankind and without it everyone would still be suffering and dying in droves. On the other side, we have anti-vaxers who consider vaccines as having no benefits whatsoever, and on the contrary, they argue that vaccines are the most disastrous invention. Personally, I will assume the middle ground: I believe vaccines did essentially finished off infectious diseases that were already on the decline in both mortality and incidence rates (sorry but I do believe that there is merit to the argument that the incidence rates were also declining before vaccines, and if it wasn’t for tightening of confirmation criteria after vaccines we would have seen this). I will also add that even if vaccines were never invented there is no saying that other medical advancements would not have been found to redress the problem of infectious diseases. And, in the end, with the current autoimmune crisis such as autism, I would say the benefits of vaccines do not outweigh the risks – at least not the benefits that are obtained from our current day immunization schedules.

HDB and anyone else, it’s behind a paywall, email me for the paper:

alain.toussaint at securivm.ca

Al

pD and Skeptiquette, So far, you haven’t posted an hypothesis on how the immune system affect the brain. Where I stand is that the immune stuff is a correlation exercise (autistics tend to have different immune system, well duh…)

No need to bombard us with papers from immune researchers who know nothing about the neuroscientist and their brain studies.

I’m all for looking up comorbidity but may I suggest you that instead of wasting your time here posting random garbage that you instead fire up your email software and do as I do, i.e. contact researchers and asking them that simple question: how the immune system affect the brain for autistics subjects (and not the mouses studies).

Alain

@Krebiozen,

Where did you get the information that it is 50% autistics, not ASDs, with IQs below 70? Krebiozen please review the stats in the link below and you will see that it is referring to ASDs. Notice also that these stats are CDC’s numbers! After reviewing the numbers, I expect you to kindly respond with an apology.

BTW Krebiozen, the link you provided that show autism rates was for 2006 — not very current.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html

In conclusion, the incidence vs mortality issue, and the conundrum of whether vaccines really did save us demonstrate the pitfalls, again, when pro-vaxers and anti-vaxers become too polarized in their views.

Leaving aside the spectacular fail, you don’t actually know what a conundrum is, do you?

I am sure it will be another badly done graph

Even better, it’s the whole of Cliffy Miller.

Correction: @#450 I flip-flopped the ‘child heath safety’ and ‘polio-vaccine’ links. Do the switch-a-roo and you will find the information that I pointed you to.

Discussing incidence vs mortality also begs another question.

This is breathtaking.

re #454

@Krebiozen, Where did you get the information that it is 50% autistics, not ASDs, with IQs below 70?

Greg, he got it from your own comment #425 (I won’t attempt to link using the device I’m on right now; my emphasis)

July 6, 2013@Krebiozen

‘The California Department of Education page you linked to states that, “1 in every 250 children is diagnosed with autism”.

Actually Krebiozen, this rate was an old one not the current one. Protest all you want, but indeed nearly 50% of autistics has IQs in the mentally retarded range.

Serriously, Greg – can’t you even remember what your own claims are? You claimed this today, and not that far upthread.

How it begrudges me that I now find myself arguing with you in such a scholarly manner

Oh, G-d, make it stop before my sides explode.

I flip-flopped the ‘child heath safety’ and ‘polio-vaccine’ links. Do the switch-a-roo and you will find the information that I pointed you to.

No, you appear to have scrambled the whole thing on the way to the HIV payload.

I’m still gobsmacked that someone believes that “sanitation” had anything to do with preventing the spread of airborne diseases……

I’m still gobsmacked that someone believes that “sanitation” had anything to do with preventing the spread of airborne diseases……

At least it worsened the effect of poliovirus.

I will also add that even if vaccines were never invented there is no saying that other medical advancements would not have been found to redress the problem of infectious diseases.

“Redress”? Greg, I’ll assume that you’ve never studied Latin. Indeed, you plainly haven’t studied much English. But perhaps you could explain just how you came to choose this prefix.

@Krebiozen and Chemmomo,,

According to the CDC it is actually 38% of ‘ASD’ kids with an intellectual disability. I quote them:

“The majority (62%) of children the ADDM Network identified as having ASDs did not have intellectual disability (intelligence quotient <=70)"

With a current day ASD rate of 1 in 50, and 1 in 31 boys, this would still mean that 1 in 83 boys has an intellectual disability! Again, Krebiozen, do you still think I am over-exaggerating the problem?
http://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/data.html

The sustained use of “incidences” (in a scholarly manner, mind you) is also a thing to behold. I can scarcely imagine the feverish hours it took to poorly glue together the putative Spencer Pond and Neil Miller.

Actually, now that I think about it, “Spencer Pond” could get Marcella Piper-Terry neck-deep in IRS fun. Thanks for the reminder, Greg.

Second, I am sure we can also agree that ‘mortality’ is a fairly reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness. After all, dead bodies are dead bodies, and they are not easily missed. So then, our next question is whether ‘incidence’ is a reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness?

Notice how Greg is trying to reverse the burden of proof. He is the one that came here spouting the old tired refrain “these graphs show that the diseases were ‘going away’ before vaccines.” When it was explained to him, quite clearly, why they show no such thing – a disease that infected 90% of the poulation and caused blindness, deafness, or permanent damage to motor function in 95% of infected people, but did not result in death, would be deemed to be, not just ‘going away’, but not even there by the antivaxers’ graphs – an honest person, at that point, would have said “Wow, obviously those graphs don’t show diseases ‘going away’ as I was led to think they did; I guess I won’t cite them any more.”

Instead, with characteristic dishonesty, Greg pretends that it’s the effectiveness of vaccines, rather than of his “let’s sit on our thumbs and let vague unspecified improvements in sanitation and nutrition work magic” strategy, that’s under discussion.

Of course, no matter what strategy we are discussing for keeping diseases from inflicting misery on humans, there is no “incidence vs. mortality” controversy at all. Mortality is the wrong measure, period. Why? Because out of a huge range of possible consequences of disease – death, disfigurement (e.g. smallpox scars), blindness, deafness, paralysis, sterility, brain damage, amputation of limbs – mortality measures exactly one. Measuring a decrease in incidence, by contrast, measures the prevention of all the negative consequences of a disease, because when you don’t get the disease, it doesn’t make you blind, deaf, sterile, etc.

As for the rest, because he is plagiarising most of his material straight from the crank blog “childhealthsafety” without applying any critical thought, Greg ends up claiming something quite amazing. He claims that official reports of incidence should not be trusted, because they are getting it wrong – by both underestimating and overestimating it. Yes, both.

If the data looks to all the professionals like the number of cases of measles dropped dramatically after the introduction of the vaccine, what must have really happened, says Greg, is that there were just as many measles cases as before but doctors didn’t recognize them as such because measles wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.

But, but, but of course, hastens Greg to add, when it comes to the current outbreak of measles in Swansea, those same doctors must be overcounting; just because they have over three hundred laboratory-confirmed cases of measles, it’s not logical to think that any of the other patients who live in the area where measles is known to be circulating and who have the symptoms of measles actually have measles!

(Why these factors of undercounting and overcounting would not distort his favored mortality statistics as they supposedly do incidence statistics, Greg never says. After all, even though ‘a dead body is not easily missed’ it is presumably just as possible to misattribute a cause of death as it is to misattribute a cause of illness. But then, anyone who’s surprised by Greg applying a double standard has to be new here…)

Greg re #466: The fact the that I didn’t link the comment doesn’t mean folks can’t scroll up. I quoted you.

Are you backing off your claim from #425?

indeed nearly 50% of autistics has IQs in the mentally retarded range</blockquote

Are you trying to add nuance to what you've said?

Data on intellectual ability are reported for the seven sites having information available for at least 70% of children who met the ASD case definition (Figure 2). When data from these seven sites were combined, 38% of children with ASDs were classified in the range of intellectual disability (i.e., IQ ≤70 or an examiner’s statement of intellectual disability), 24% in the borderline range (IQ 71–85), and 38% had IQ scores >85 or an examiner’s statement of average or above-average intellectual ability. The proportion of children classified in the range of intellectual disability ranged from 13% in Utah to 54% in South Carolina. The two sites with the highest proportions of children classified above the range of intellectual disability (IQ >70) were Utah (87%) and New Jersey (73%). In all seven sites reporting data on intellectual ability, a higher proportion of females with ASDs had intellectual disability compared with males, although the proportions differed significantly (52% for females and 35% for males; p<0.01) in only one site (North Carolina). When data from these seven sites were combined, 150 (46%) of 328 females with ASDs had IQ scores or examiners' statements indicating intellectual disability compared with 608 (37%) of 1,653 males.

source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6103a1.htm?s_cid=ss6103a1_w

Let’s assume that those who are reported (i.e. not tested) as having an intellectual disability are non-verbal, according to the publication I linked a few comments ago, such non-verbal would test in the superior intelligence range using the Raven test and thus, I have a question:

The fact that a non-verbal autistic cannot do the WISC or the WAIS, is it a failure of himself/herself or is it a failure of the educator who is not trained to understand the Raven SPM and to help find educative method destined to help the autistic thrive? (and which the autistic can find himself if he want).

Alain

Greg says: “Please post your cousin’s entire health records so that I can verify your claim.”

Anybody got an explanation as to why one would engage with such a fool?

Another question:

all those taking care of autistic child/adults be it psychologist, social worker, psychoeducator and other staff in the social sciences, how many publications do they read from the top 5 research groups:

Eric Courchesne
Nancy Minshew
Simon Baron Cohen
Uta Frith & Francesca Happé
Laurent Mottron
Might include Marcel Just

I have a small sample size in which there’s annual meeting in Quebec which include all of these people and the sad fact is that they don’t read and most of the researchers in these social science gear up on ABA.

Alain

The proportion of children classified in the range of intellectual disability ranged from 13% in Utah to 54% in South Carolina.

Having not yet read the primary reference, I will merely note again that Utah and New Jersey show a concordance despite differing vaccine-uptake numbers and that it seems to have to do with to public spending.

Oh, this is wonderful. Now let me repeat the conditions I posed when I asked my question:

Do not mention deaths/mortality, any other decade or any other country (Wales and England are not in the USA, and yes, some people need to be told that). Do not mention any other disease.

Now let us look at Greg’s “scholarly” reply, bit by bit:

“The questionable contribution of medical measures to the decline of mortality in the United States in the twentieth century“. McKinlay JB, McKinlay SM, Milbank Mem Fund Q Health Soc. 1977 Summer; 55(3): 405-28.
· “Symposium: Accomplishments in Child Nutrition during the 20th Century. Infant Mortality in the 20th Century, Dramatic but Uneven Progress” Myron E. Wegman School of Public Health, University of Michigan: J. Nutr. 131: 401S–408S, 2001.

Hmmm, did I say it was okay to mention mortality. I think not.

Second, I am sure we can also agree that ‘mortality’ is a fairly reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness. After all, dead bodies are dead bodies, and they are not easily missed. So then, our next question is whether ‘incidence’ is a reliable measure of vaccine effectiveness

Again, there is a reason for not allowing “mortality”, because it ignores all the disabilities and has nothing to do with incidence. Just because we can keep those with pneumonia, does not mean they did not get measles.

“A. Laboratory confirmed cases of measles, mumps, and rubella, England and Wales: October to December 2004

It seems that Greg missed out on geography lessons. Neither England nor Wales are part of the USA. It should be pointed out that each country has their own disease tracking system. There is even a gap in the Canadian measles incidence data.

was introduced. The new definition of a polio epidemic required more cases to be reported. Paralytic polio was redefined as well, making it more difficult to confirm, and therefore tally, cases.

Polio is not measles, and the Vaxtruth website is not scientific. Especially since it is written by Neil Z. Miller, who has been known to bring on the fail with lots of statistical nonsense and just plain forgetting to post his Conflicts of Interest.

Discussing incidence vs mortality also begs another question. Even if disease incidences did not really decrease before vaccines, then so what? So what if with the aforementioned factors of increase sanitation, better nutrition, and improved health, mortalities were vastly reduced and the diseases became relatively harmless, would it then have been so beneficial to introduce vaccines, and given the serious fallouts from vaccines that we are currently seeing?

Because, you claimed the diseases were decreasing when the data does not support the claim. And you have by not providing contrary evidence for over two months support that the evidence shows that the vaccines cause much fewer seizures than the diseases, and are therefore safer.

Perhaps we can best answer this question by looking at the HIV disease and AIDS as an example. Back in the late 90s, early 2000s, mortality rates from AIDS were on a significant upswing worldwide.

Just goes to show that medical treatment improved, and those people still have HIV. The incidence has not declined, mostly because those that have live longer. Also, it is not measles, and not the decade between 1960 and 1970.
I believe vaccines did essentially finished off infectious diseases that were already on the decline in both mortality and incidence rates (sorry but I do believe that there is merit to the argument that the incidence rates were also declining before vaccines, and if it wasn’t for tightening of confirmation criteria after vaccines we would have seen this).

Then do tell me what caused measles in the USA (remember England, Wales and Japan are not part of the USA) to decline by 90% between 1960 and 1970. If the measles was almost finished off before the vaccine, it should have been sooner than 1963. Do tell us why the census data does not show that trend.

Also, since you are all about reducing mortality without preventing the diseases, why don’t you tell us how treating one out of ten kids who gets measles in the hospital is more cost effective than preventing measles with two MMR vaccines. Remember, before 1960 almost every kid got measles by the time they were fifteen years old. So in your utopian non-vaccine world, that is one out of ten of every child in the country. The most common reason is for a special kind of pneumonia, and from my experience with a toddler in the hospital: respirator support is not cheap!

Aargh…

First one: Just because we can keep those with pneumonia alive, does not mean they did not get measles.

Then blockquote fail:

I believe vaccines did essentially finished off infectious diseases that were already on the decline in both mortality and incidence rates (sorry but I do believe that there is merit to the argument that the incidence rates were also declining before vaccines, and if it wasn’t for tightening of confirmation criteria after vaccines we would have seen this).

And on and on… he seriously does not understand that there is lots of money needed to keep someone who is paralyzed alive, someone with pneumonia from dying, or that encephalitis tends to produce negative outcome (blindness, deafness, other permanent neurological damage).

Greg, how many hospital bills have you ever received? I had a few, and several due to real illnesses, including a now vaccine preventable disease. (Example: an ambulance from my house to the hospital that is two miles away is $700, that is just a start). You seriously do not have a clue of what it is like to have a seriously ill child. It is deplorable that you want more misery and more hospitalizations in lieu of preventing these diseases.

Chris,

Greg has one thing in common with the psychopath I met, he always reframe our phrase and paragraph in the most evil way he see fit.

Alain

Alain:

pD and Skeptiquette, So far, you haven’t posted an hypothesis on how the immune system affect the brain.

They have also not posted how a vaccine affects the immune system more than the actual disease. I contend you get a greater “cytokine storm” from influenza, measles, Hib, etc. than any of the diseases.

If they have scientific evidence that any of the vaccines on the American pediatric schedule produces a cytokine storm greater than the disease, they are welcome to post the PubMed indexed study from a qualified reputable researcher.

I figured one symptom of an immune response was seizures (which is what sent my kid to the hospital while he had a now vaccine preventable disease). I gave Greg two months to tell me with evidence what vaccine caused more seizures than the disease, but he never answered. So we assume that the vaccines cause fewer seizures than the diseases.

If we don’t get an answer on which vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes a greater risk of cytokine storm than the disease with proper scientific evidence in the next week or so, we will assume that the diseases are more dangerous than the vaccines.

Alain, Greg does not have the luxury of reframing our phrases, because this is a written format. One could always go back to the original.

It is his and his friends’ tendency to switch around wording when they “cite” a study. Which is why we always need to go back and check the actual source. Because most of the time they have misquoted or cherry picked the quote. This is also why they like to use the Gish Gallop (like Skeptiquette), thinking no one would check on the stuff.

Chris,

I need to get up-to-date on things like Gish Gallop which I had to google but found a very fine explanation on the rational wiki.

Alain

Off-topic, but speaking of vaccines – what do people here make of Kelly Brogen? A story of her’s has been making the rounds (Your Body. Your Baby. Their Flu.) She says she “she remains on faculty” at NYU/Bellevue/VA Hospital.

Greg,

Where did you get the information that it is 50% autistics, not ASDs, with IQs below 70?

Where precisely did I say that? You claimed at #398 that:

First it is estimated that between 25% and 50% of autistics are indeed non-verbal.

This clearly refers to those with autistic disorder, not those with PDD-NOS or Asperger’s, and non-verbality is not the same thing at all as intellectual disability. Yet you take this figure and apply it to estimates of the prevalence of all ASDs to come up with your inflated estimates. That’s why I called you dishonest. I did give an example of doing the opposite to get a much lower estimate, but that appears to have gone over your head. Perhaps I should have made it clearer.

While I remember, you stated:

Re autistics IQ scores, their average score is 70. This figure is taken from the link you provided Krebiozen.

I can’t find any such statement on the page linked to.

According to the CDC it is actually 38% of ‘ASD’ kids with an intellectual disability. I quote them: […]

I quoted the same passage back at #403.

With a current day ASD rate of 1 in 50, and 1 in 31 boys, this would still mean that 1 in 83 boys has an intellectual disability! Again, Krebiozen, do you still think I am over-exaggerating the problem?

I think you have desperately backpedaled to a more tenable position, hoping people are too stupid to notice. We aren’t.

I can see why Greg thinks all autistic people scream and bang their heads. Most people he communicates with probably have that reaction, autistic or not.

Alain,
It seems clear to me that IQ tests are good at identifying people who are good at doing IQ tests, but little else. Have you read Stephen Jay Gould’s ‘The Mismeasure of Man’? It’s an interesting look at the history of IQ testing, and how the tests always seem to rate the people who devise and administer the tests as having the highest IQs.

I haven’t read it (the mismeasure of man) but this should make for good reading. BTW, I spent the night getting familiar with the rattle data mining software and did a FOIA request for data about the number of adult on the autistic spectrum who are benefiting from the social security program in the province. When I receive the data, I shall communicate with known epidemiologists (such as Eric Fombonne) about how to transform that pile of data into a publication.

Alain

Ugh!

@Grant: Please post a warning that your link goes to TMR. I clicked on it and now I need to go find some brain bleach. (I started reading the article right away and didn’t notice the site header until I read further down.)

This woman is a psychiatrist. How very sad for her clients if she is sill in practice (I refuse to go back and read more). All things can be cured through natural measures….ARGH!

@Krebiozen

Very well then, it is 38% of ASDs, not 50% with an intellectual impairment. Still, this is what you said earlier….

“About 7% of individuals with autism are severely intellectually impaired, according to this article, but as I understand it this a comorbidity…….”

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/02/pf/autism/index.htm

Krebiozen, the article never said anything about 7% of autistic individuals having an intellectual impairment. In fact, it cited Autism Speaks that it was nearly 50% with an intellectual impairment (again I am assuming the 50% figure applies to autistics alone).

Krebiozen, really, who is doing the most misleading here?

Also Krebiozen, do you not think we should be alarmed with 38% ASDs figure, 1 in 83 boys who has an intellectual disability! Yes Krebiozen, we have our PC terms but lest anyone be confused, these boys are mentally retarded. Once more Krebiozen –backpedaling aside– how am I over-exaggerating the problem?

Greg,

Did it occur to you that even genius like me are still on SSDI? Hell, I wanted to work last year when I went to manpower to have my file reenacted, despite going there 12 times over 6 weeks, they never bothered to complete my file and it probably went into the trashbin.

And you have those like Autism speak claiming that autism cost 1.6 millions to support? I’d like to see that and I think they’d be better off directly giving the money to me; I’ve been supporting myself for a while. So are a number of adult autistics.

Regarding the 1 in 83, they’ll end up in the same place and they won’t have to apply for job anyway because the answer will always be No.

Alain

Greg, I am autistic, and I have a job as a computer programmer, and several others I know also have jobs. Did it ever occur to you that we won’t simply believe everything you say? You’re not the consummate liar you think you are.

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group,

We had only one person who weighed in on yesterday’s question of the day of whether health officials in the US would feel more heat with Japan retracting its recommendation of the HPV vaccine. Chris’ position essentially is that Japan is like any other person who put stock in anecdotal evidence: stupid! Very well then, Chris, I guess anytime now we can expect those Japanese teens to start coming down with cervical cancer in droves. Monitor the situation and just let us know when!

Very well then, let’s have today’s question of the day:

When they vaccines causing autism denial racket is up, how best do you think we should proceed with vaccines? Do you think we should concentrate on scaling back on vaccines for everyone, or identifying the subgroup of kids who are susceptible to vaccine reactions and proceed with caution with them?

Gray Falcon,

Tell me more about your job and the application process. I need to hear (see in this case) positive stories.

Alain

@Gary

“Greg, I am autistic, and I have a job as a computer programmer, and several others I know also have jobs.”

Gary, for every one of you there are literally thousands who are indeed nonverbal, and who head bang, and poop smear. Great that you’re doing well, but many of your peers are not so fortunate.

Alain, in this case, I got the job because of a project I did for them as a master’s level thesis. Sorry about that.

Greg, we genuinely believe that vaccines work, that they save lives, and that they don’t cause autism. Don’t make assumptions as to our motives.

Greg,

Could you please let us know how you and your gang are going to end the “vaccines causing autism denial racket? (assuming that there is indeed a racket, pretty far fetched)

Alain

MI Dawn,

re “Please post a warning that your link goes to TMR.” – I realise you may writing tongue-in-cheek, but you can see where a link points to by placing the pointer over the link without clicking it — the target should appear in the web browser’s status bar 😉

I just wrote hoping someone here might know more about her. Haven’t found a lot through a little searching. (Not trying hard – late on Sunday here.) For some reason I was reminded of a woman Orac wrote about quite a while back about a psychiatrist, but searching this blog didn’t show up anything that rung a bell and almost certainly a different person.

Is it possible Greg is John Best Jr? He’s the only one I know who is:
a) That loathsome and dishonest.
b) Gets my name wrong when it’s printed in front of him.

Grant,

what do people here make of Kelly Brogen?

That article is certainly a target-rich environment – she appears to have swallowed every antivaccine trope around, after “pouring” over the literature, even down to misspelling thimerosal as “thimerosol”.

I particularly like this:

Well, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that if there were even a one in a billion chance of life long paralysis or death, most people would take their chances with a week of the flu instead. And these are obvious adverse events.

Why would anyone prefer a disease that puts up to 1 in 1,000 people in the hospital, and greatly increases the chances of an acute cardiopulmonary hospitalization in pregnancy, to a risk of “life long paralysis or death” that is so small we can barely measure it? Influenza itself causes Guillain-Barré, the source of the “life long paralysis” she mentions; influenza vaccination actually lowers the risk of Guillain-Barré. It is also worrying that she doesn’t appear to understand pneumonia is a complication of influenza.

How can a person with her educational background end up believing such nonsense about vaccines?

for every one of you there are literally thousands who are indeed nonverbal

This is false, according to previously quoted statistics, this is one in two, not one in a thousand.

Alain

Is it possible Greg is John Best Jr?

I don’t think so, John Best would have launched a full frontal attack on me.

Alain

Greg,

Very well then, it is 38% of ASDs, not 50% with an intellectual impairment. Still, this is what you said earlier….

“About 7% of individuals with autism are severely intellectually impaired, according to this article, but as I understand it this a comorbidity…….”

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/02/pf/autism/index.htm

Krebiozen, the article never said anything about 7% of autistic individuals having an intellectual impairment. In fact, it cited Autism Speaks that it was nearly 50% with an intellectual impairment (again I am assuming the 50% figure applies to autistics alone).

Krebiozen, really, who is doing the most misleading here?

You, since I linked to this article not the article you claim. Reading comprehension problem?

Again Krebiozen,

Please answer the question. Accepting the CDC’s own figure that 38% of ASDs has an intellectual disability — mentally retarded –shouldn’t we be alarmed at these numbers. How am I exaggerating the problem? How can we honestly tell families that ASDs are not big deals?

Greg,

How am I exaggerating the problem?

#132 “It is estimated that 1 in 50 kids have autism.”
#398 “First it is estimated that between 25% and 50% of autistics are indeed non-verbal.”
You have clearly been implying that between 1 in 100 and 1 in 200 children are non-verbal due to autism, which is a gross exaggeration.

How can we honestly tell families that ASDs are not big deals?

Where have I suggested any such thing? I think families should be offered the support they need whatever diagnosis their child is given.

What I object to is your apparent campaign to convince people that there is a “tsunami” of “non-verbal, head banging, poop smearing autism”.

As I pointed out, the prevalence of intellectual disability (what you charmlessly insist on calling “mental retardation”) is decreasing. Any comment on that?

@ Grant:

I have ALSO seen Brogan’s material being tossed around by the usual suspects. I think they are very pleased with her because she waves her woo-flag whilst claiming reasonably decent credentials so they can claim that an orthodox * doctor* goes against the brainwas… I mean, ‘consensus opinion’, into which she was educated.

They take this as a harbinger of the long-awaited paradigm shift.

At least it worsened the effect of poliovirus.

And rubella too I might add. I am also laughing heartily at Greg’s continued misuse of incidence. Such a rookie mistake.

Miss Brogan certainly is a target-rich environment. Starting with the worshipping of the natives, who of course always know best.

Greg doesn’t make me want to bang my head, but probably his head. But actually I’m not that violent and if I am, it is mostly aimed at myself.

I’ve always been interested in the “end game.” Unfortunately, there is only one way to end this whole “vaccines are the devil’s piss” argument between scientists and conspiracy theorists. It won’t end with yet another study that disproves the link between vaccines and autism. That study can be done over and over and over and over, and it will not satisfy, let alone shut up, the anti-vaccine crowd. On the other hand, if biology, physics, and biostatistics were to be turned on their heads and scientists put up their arms and said, “Eff it, you’re right, vaccines cause autism,” then the anti-vax crowd would shut up.

Well, they’d shut up about vaccines. They have their sights set on so many other things as well. The trolls would be in here crying about fluoride or baby powder or some other thing their guru’s proclaimed to be the enemy.

Lucky for us science doesn’t work by acclamation. Unlucky for us that the trolls won’t shut up.

@pD, you and skeptiquette have not advanced a vaccine causation for autism at all. In fact to cling to it in light of all the available evidence, mostly including your own, does little for credibility. There is still a ‘chicken and egg’ problem and it is likely that any abhorrent immune profiles seen in subsets of those with ASDs have been initiated at conception and/or in utero. It is rather painful to watch you continue to torture the data to fit with a vaccine causation merely because immunological biomarkers have been found in association with some ASDs.

Greg:

Chris’ position essentially is that Japan is like any other person who put stock in anecdotal evidence: stupid! Very well then, Chris, I guess anytime now we can expect those Japanese teens to start coming down with cervical cancer in droves. Monitor the situation and just let us know when!

What in the world does that even mean? First off, cervical cancer takes years to occur after the initial HPV infection.

And right now Japan is having a real epidemic of rubella, with actual increases in Congenital Rubella Syndrome, along with continued cases of mumps with subsequent deafness in many kids.

Now, Greg, where does the incidence of measles drop to almost zero before 1960?

Also, I noticed I put up the wrong graph earlier. Here is the CDC Pink Book Appendix G for Polio:
Disease: Polio in the USA
Year__Cases____Deaths
1950__33,300___1,904
1951__28,386___1,551
1952__57,879___3,145
1953__35,592___1,450
1954__38,476___1,368
1955__28,985___1,043
1956__15,140_____566
1957___5,485_____221
1958___5,787_____255
1959___8,425_____454
1960___3,190_____230
1961___1,312______90
1962_____910______60
1963_____449______41
1964_____122______17
1965______72______16
1966_____113_______9
1967______41______16
1968______53______24
1969______20______13
1970______33_______7

And here is the Census data for polio from the same table as the measles one came from:
Year…. Rate per 100000 of polio
1912 . . . . 5.5
1920 . . . . 2.2
1925 . . . . 5.3
1930 . . . . 7.5
1935 . . . . 8.5
1940 . . . . 7.4
1945 . . . 10.3
1950 . . . 22.1
1955 . . . 17.6
1960 . . . . 1.8
1965 . . Less than .05
1970 . . Less than .05
1975 . . Less than .05

Greg, you said:

I believe vaccines did essentially finished off infectious diseases that were already on the decline in both mortality and incidence rates (sorry but I do believe that there is merit to the argument that the incidence rates were also declining before vaccines, and if it wasn’t for tightening of confirmation criteria after vaccines we would have seen this)

Where is the decline by more than half for polio between 1912 and 1955? Where is the decline by more than half for measles between 1912 and 1960? If they were already in decline, they would have done more than the few year cycle.

Science Mom,

I am also laughing heartily at Greg’s continued misuse of incidence.

Not to mention his misuse of simple English like “conundrum”, “begs the questions” and “begrudges”, when he was trying to convince us he was being scholarly. That was very funny, but I don’t think it was intended to be.

Some friendly advice Greg, if you aren’t sure of the meaning of a word, either look it up first, or don’t use it.

Greg’s conflation of ASDs with autistic disorder, of intellectual disabilities with severe intellectual disability, and his assumption that anyone with an intellectual disability is non-verbal are also notable. I would think he was confused if it wasn’t that all his conflations and assumptions support his prejudices, which suggests he is probably both confused and dishonest.

Science Mom:

@pD, you and skeptiquette have not advanced a vaccine causation for autism at all. In fact to cling to it in light of all the available evidence, mostly including your own, does little for credibility

I see two major flaws in their “research”:

1: They are trying to find how vaccines cause autism without any evidence that vaccines do cause autism.

2: Their pet theory has to do with immune response, except that it makes no sense that an immune response from a vaccine would be greater than that of the actual disease.

All I actually see them doing is long winded typographical hand waving.

2: Their pet theory has to do with immune response, except that it makes no sense that an immune response from a vaccine would be greater than that of the actual disease.

To be fair, the immune response with a vaccine isn’t ‘greater than’ that of the respective disease but in many cases, a different response to over-simplify it. It is this difference that pD likes to use as a ‘gotcha’ that we shouldn’t dismiss immune responses to vaccines as causal for some ASDs. Except nothing I have seen thus far is supportive of this most tenuous connection.

@Ren

” It won’t end with yet another study that disproves the link between vaccines and autism. That study can be done over and over and over and over, and it will not satisfy, let alone shut up, the anti-vaccine crowd.”

Try us with an vaxed/unvaxed study, or one showing an unvaxed population with a 1 in 50 autism rate. What do you got to lose? Oh — I forgot! Everything! (Hee,hee,hee).

Greg, answer my questions. Show us the incidence of both measles and polio plummeted before the vaccine. And by “going away”, it has to be a steady decrease by at least 50% between 1912 and the introduction of the vaccine.

Ok Orac’s VCADOD group,

Please continue to provide your responses on our endgame question. For now I must take a break. I will be back shortly to take your answers up.

Greg, want to do a double-blind study of parachutes? That’s the reason we don’t do that kind of study.

Listen closely, Greg. We have every right to ban you from here simply for making false accusations and libelous insults. We do not have a financial interest in vaccination, and even if we did, it wouldn’t invalidate our evidence. Theoretically, we could sue you for what you say. Do not try to dictate the terms of this discussion, you surrendered all right to do so when you called us “sonterkommando”.

Greg, I am not going to give you two months this time. You have until the end of the day today to show us how polio and measles incidence were declining before the introduction of their vaccines.

Failure to do so will confirm that they did not start to consistently decline until the vaccines were introduced. Just like your lack of answering my previous questions shows you also believe that vaccines are safer because they cause much fewer seizures than the diseases.

@Alain –

So far, you haven’t posted an hypothesis on how the immune system affect the brain. Where I stand is that the immune stuff is a correlation exercise (autistics tend to have different immune system, well duh…)

Well, there are two questions being asked:

1) Are there differences in the immunological functions of autism?
2) Is there a mechanism by which vaccination could affect neurodevelopment?

[Why is that a ‘duh’ question, anyways? Do you think this is an expected finding? Why?]

I was answering question 1. Also, you might notice that at least two of the studies I posted above also found correlations between degree of propensity for an inflammation and behavioral severity. There are several more that I didn’t publish, but I’d be happy to if you’d like to see them!

contact researchers and asking them that simple question: how the immune system affect the brain for autistics subjects (and not the mouses studies)

If you think that this question is “simple”, I’m starting to get a better idea of why you can’t be reached. Hint: None of this stuff is simple. We are still very, very much in the beginning stages of understanding how the immune system interacts with the brain, especially from a neurodevelopmental standpoint.

But hey, did you know that there is a double blind, placebo controlled study of cox-2 inhibitors (i.e., downregulating inflammation) that shows benefits in the autism group?

Celecoxib as adjunctive treatment to risperidone in children with autistic disorder: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial (Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2013 Jan;225(1):51-9)

What a crazy coincidence! And again, I am left to wonder, why on Earth did these researchers bother with recruiting these children, blinding themselves, drugging the children, writing a report, and publishing it, when all they really needed to do was ask a ‘simple’ question of some researchers (which ones?) and ask them ‘how the immune system affect the brain for autistics subjects’? It’s a little more work than using the search button on RI, but it sure does seem easier than performing this study.

Maybe you should write to them, just in case they are planning more trials; after all, I’m sure they’d love to understand your thoughts on the strictly correlational nature of immune interactions with autistic behavior.

I’ll get to mechanisms in another post.

@Chris

They have also not posted how a vaccine affects the immune system more than the actual disease. I contend you get a greater ‘cytokine storm’ from influenza, measles, Hib, etc. than any of the diseases.

I’ve told you, specifically, YOU, again and again that the factor of importance is developmental timeframe. If you can’t figure that out, I’m sorry, I can’t help you.

If they have scientific evidence that any of the vaccines on the American pediatric schedule produces a cytokine storm greater than the disease, they are welcome to post the PubMed indexed study from a qualified reputable researcher.

How could I do that? No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants. If I am incorrect in this statement, it should be simple to disprove. If vaccines have been studied with such intensity, why not show me that half of the data?

See my response to SM below regarding the problems with assuming that there is a single measurement of immune response, and our metric is ‘bigger or smaller’.

@ScienceMom –

@pD, you and skeptiquette have not advanced a vaccine causation for autism at all. In fact to cling to it in light of all the available evidence, mostly including your own, does little for credibility

You know more than the rest of this gang that our existing research suite is designed around thimerosal and the MMR. That is the ‘available evidence’. Talk about clinging.

I’ve posted a gazillion animal studies that show that early life immune challenge results in persistent modifications to the immune system and behaviors. I post animal studies, I get accused of gish gallop. I don’t post them, and I haven’t advanced a causation mechanism. Sounds legit.

I do like the fact that someone out there thought I had some credibility to lose at one point anyways. That’s a nice touch. Easy come, easy go.

There is still a ‘chicken and egg’ problem and it is likely that any abhorrent immune profiles seen in subsets of those with ASDs have been initiated at conception and/or in utero

I am not writing off the in-utero environment at all; but that doesn’t mean that what happens later can’t be having an effect also. You might be interested in looking up some of the data on glial priming and/or double (multiple) hits. Or perhaps not. In any case, I don’t understand the idea that because a system is skewed at birth, it cannot be further disrupted after birth. Your concerns would be valid if I were proposing that vaccination, and vaccination alone, is responsible for altering neurodevelopment from normal ==> autism. I’m not advocating that, I apologize to you, and anyone else, who got that idea. I am advocating that our existing research isn’t sufficiently designed to understand if we are modifying our infants in unexpected, subtle ways through vaccination. The immune profiles we see in the autism population make them candidates for a susceptible subgroup for those types of disturbances, because the autism group shows a propensity for increased innate immune responses and impairments in regulating the immune response. [See reduced IL-10/IL-4 in cord blood study from Denmark I posted above.]

To be fair, the immune response with a vaccine isn’t ‘greater than’ that of the respective disease but in many cases, a different response to over-simplify it.

Indeed, I did find some amusement in the fact that when someone posts something about ‘boosting the immune system’ via supplementation you’ll get the SBM crowd to rain derision on the gross over simplification on the idea (they should), but when the issue is vaccination, suddenly, all immune responses are the same, just bigger or smaller. [eyeroll.jpg]

For an example of the differences in infection versus faux-infection and the subsequent neuro-immune response, you might find this paper of interest: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21536105

Of course, LPS is a lot different than a vaccine; but by the same token, a vaccine is a lot different than a pathogen.

Our kingdom has spent a few hundred million years evolving alongside entire pathogens and generating immune responses correspondingly; it seems to me to be incredibly naive to think that we can take tiny parts of those pathogens, embed them with aluminum salts, bypass the skin, and expect that the quality of the immune response would be “the same, just less”.

It is this difference that pD likes to use as a ‘gotcha’ that we shouldn’t dismiss immune responses to vaccines as causal for some ASDs.

It exposes the fact that, indeed, our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population. You seem to have taken a good look at lots of data in this environment, if I’ve missed the papers measuring the innate immune response post vaccination in an infant population, why not post them here, instead of just talking vaguely about what you have read and haven’t read? Those studies are available, aren’t they?

Also, for crying out loud, how many times do I have remind people that the timeframe is a critical component to this whole discussion? That’s the bigger gotcha, and a concept that seems very elusive, which is confusing considering the simplicity of it.

Why is that a ‘duh’ question, anyways? Do you think this is an expected finding? Why?

Look pD, don’t play word games on me, you already posted enough evidence there is to say that the immune system is different. What I’m looking exactly is a causal mechanism from the immune system which causes much smaller brain cell, 5% smaller minicolumns size and brain cell division problem affecting the motility of the brain cell (which does not migrate to the target region). Until you answer that, the immune system abnormality is just a correlational exercise.

Alain

@Chris
We will talk later. Seriously, I must take a break.

@Gray
You need to calm down with your talk of suing me. Also, Orac would never ban me. We are friends. I give him good constructive advice on how to improve his blogs. I will see you later also.

Posted for posterity (sp?) on Master Jake’s blog:

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

What’s the commenting policy here?

Alain

Greg: “@Chris We will talk later. Seriously, I must take a break.”

No, you have had enough time. I have provided you the data. End of the day, when it is no longer Sunday on any part of this planet.

No response will mean that you understand that incidence for measles and polio did not go down substantially prior to the vaccine introduction. Just like you have conceded that the diseases are more dangerous because they cause more seizures than the vaccines.

pD,

No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants.

[Falls off chair, climbs back up off floor]
What? That’s simply untrue. What about this? Or PMID: 9169747, PMID: 11535343, PMID: 15356430, PMID: 19941997, PMID: 20419805 and PMID: 22653733. Those alone took me all of 2 minutes to find. They are all studies looking at cytokines in human infants after vaccinations.

It exposes the fact that, indeed, our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population.

Non-existent? Where have you been looking? Just looking for papers on PubMed with (cytokine OR interferon) AND (vaccination OR vaccine) in the title alone brings up over 500 papers since 1965. There’s a ton of research out there – here’s a paper about the different cytokine responses by human cells exposed to either yellow fever or yellow fever vaccine, for a start. Guess what? There is a far greater release of cytokines in infection as compared to vaccination.

You need to improve your PubMed skills.

I missed the two links I mean to add which were this one looking at cytokines in infants after BCG vaccination and this one comparing cytokines released by human Kupffer cells after infection with either vaccine or wild Yellow fever.

forgot to say that I keep getting riled today and it’s making me cranky. Blame lack of sleep.

Alain

Alain,
You seem to me to be showing exemplary patience, and in a second language too, which never fails to impress me.

Seriously, Greg, do you have any idea how brazen your lies are getting?

Alain I’ve cautioned you before about posting on AoA and other crank anti-vaccine, anti-science blogs. Do you want Jake to pursue you on the internet, at school and at your home?

@ Alain: You comment on Jake’s blog is up and he posted a reply. What time did you post your comment…because the time of posting is July 7, 2013 @ 8:46 PM?

Where (what time zone), is Jake’s blog registered?

“What do you got to lose?”

I don’t got anything to lose. I don’t have anything to lose, either.

@lilady,

I’ve seen that but was busy making spaghetti.

Do you want Jake to pursue you on the internet, at school and at your home?

No but I’m a public figure and thus, I’m seeing in my logs that peoples run google search on my domain and I did so myself to see what I have exposed, it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Keep in mind that I am prepared.

Alain

Where (what time zone), is Jake’s blog registered?

substract 3 hours from the time (UTC-1, I wonder where that is).

Alain

Try us with an vaxed/unvaxed study

This is yet another question that you’ve proved incompetent to answer run the hell away from when pressed.

Give me (1) the confidence level, (2) the power, and (3) the signal threshold that would satisfy you that there is no signal, and I will give you the sample size. If you can’t do these things, you are demonstrably too damned stupid to raise the topic in the first place.

My prior encounters with pD demonstrate he likes to cherry-pick and over-interpret/torture research studies with a vengeance, so it comes as no surprise he ignores the many studies of cytokine responses following vaccination.

And one thing he has never been able to tell us is why he feels that vaccination, with its regular but very infrequent challenges to the developing infant immune system, should be so much more hazardous than the regular and far more numerous natural challenges to the immune system.

We had only one person who weighed in on yesterday’s question of the day

Fortunately, only one person will be required for my “question of the day,” and that’s you, Greg. When approached by your compatriots who are able to recognize that you have just received a stomping of the first water, will you feel a bit silly? What tricks will you employ to not show your discomfort?

@Alain @Science Mom

Regarding causation, there are several lines of evidence to support the idea that immune challenges in early life can persistently affect neurodevelopment. At this time, I do not believe our level of knowledge is sufficient to understand when windows of sensitivity close; there seems to be little legitmate argument on whether immunological stimulation in utero can affect neurological outcome, whether or not postnatal events can also affect change is an open question. If either of you, or anyone else, has some type of evidence that exhonerates the postnatal environment, I’d love to see it.

In any case, there are a plethora of animal studies examining the relationship between an immune challenge in early life and subsequent developmental alterations. It appears that there are timeframes of maleability wherein an insult can cause persistent changes. Here are a few reviews that are available online, in full. They each contain references to a dozen or more experiments that utilize different mechanisms to ask the question of if an infection, or faux-infection during early life can persitently modify the CNS.

Neonatal programming of innate immune function (Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2011 Jan;300(1):E11-8)

The early life environment can be crucial in influencing the development of an animal’s long-term physiology. There is now much evidence to suggest that perinatal challenges to an animal’s immune system will result in changes in adult rat behavior, physiology, and molecular pathways following a single inflammatory event during development caused by the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS). In particular, it is now apparent that neonatal LPS administration can influence the adult neuroimmune response to a second LPS challenge through hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis modifications, some of which are caused by alterations in peripheral prostaglandin synthesis. These pronounced changes are accompanied by a variety of alterations in a number of disparate aspects of endocrine physiology, with significant implications for the health and well-being of the adult animal. In this review, we discuss the newly elucidated mechanisms by which neonatal immune challenge can permanently alter an animal’s endocrine and metabolic physiology and the implications this has for various disease states.

A lifespan approach to neuroinflammatory and cognitive disorders: a critical role for glia (J Neuroimmune Pharmacol. 2012 Mar;7(1):24-41)

Cognitive decline is a common problem of aging. Whereas multiple neural and glial mechanisms may account for these declines, microglial sensitization and/or dystrophy has emerged as a leading culprit in brain aging and dysfunction. However, glial activation is consistently observed in normal brain aging as well, independent of frank neuroinflammation or functional impairment. Such variability suggests the existence of additional vulnerability factors that can impact neuronal-glial interactions and thus overall brain and cognitive health. The goal of this review is to elucidate our working hypothesis that an individual’s risk or resilience to neuroinflammatory disorders and poor cognitive aging may critically depend on their early life experience, which can change immune reactivity within the brain for the remainder of the lifespan. For instance, early-life infection in rats can profoundly disrupt memory function in young adulthood, as well as accelerate age-related cognitive decline, both of which are linked to enduring changes in glial function that occur in response to the initial infection. We discuss these findings within the context of the growing literature on the role of immune molecules and neuroimmune crosstalk in normal brain development. We highlight the intrinsic factors (e.g., chemokines, hormones) that regulate microglial development and their colonization of the embryonic and postnatal brain, and the capacity for disruption or “re-programming” of this crucial process by external events (e.g., stress, infection). An impact on glia, which in turn alters neural development, has the capacity to profoundly impact cognitive and mental health function at all stages of life

[Please note the focus on early life experiences.]

There are dozens of individual experiments I could list here that provide more detailed analysis of the neuroimmune and behavioral outcomes of the early life immune experiences of the treatment animals; if you’d like specific examples, ask me.

Yes, these are animal models with all of the caution that this type of work entails. None the less, these researchers continue to get funded and continue to get funded; this is not because of a need to understand more about rodent brain development, it is because even with their failings, animal models can teach us valuable lessons.

I don’t know if the act of vaccination can have a similar effect of programming immune and HPA-axis systems as described in animals; but I do know that studying the presence of absence of thimerosal doesn’t help us understand that question any. Similarly, I know that studying the MMR is useful, but doesn’t tell us about the majority of the vaccine schedule, which is given at much, much earlier ages.

But what about more direct mechanisms of action? Earlier in this thread I referenced the very new finding that the new immune sentries of the brain, the microglia, are actively particpating in optimizing the neural network during development.

Microglia sculpt postnatal neural circuits in an activity and complement-dependent manner (Neuron. 2012 May 24;74(4):691-705.) [available full free online]

Microglia are the resident CNS immune cells and active surveyors of the extracellular environment. While past work has focused on the role of these cells during disease, recent imaging studies reveal dynamic interactions between microglia and synaptic elements in the healthy brain. Despite these intriguing observations, the precise function of microglia at remodeling synapses and the mechanisms that underlie microglia-synapse interactions remain elusive. In the current study, we demonstrate a role for microglia in activity-dependent synaptic pruning in the postnatal retinogeniculate system. We show that microglia engulf presynaptic inputs during peak retinogeniculate pruning and that engulfment is dependent upon neural activity and the microglia-specific phagocytic signaling pathway, complement receptor 3(CR3)/C3. Furthermore, disrupting microglia-specific CR3/C3 signaling resulted in sustained deficits in synaptic connectivity. These results define a role for microglia during postnatal development and identify underlying mechanisms by which microglia engulf and remodel developing synapses.

The other paper I referenced earlier, published in Science is

Synaptic pruning by microglia is necessary for normal brain development (Science. 2011 Sep 9;333(6048):1456-8)

Microglia are highly motile phagocytic cells that infiltrate and take up residence in the developing brain, where they are thought to provide a surveillance and scavenging function. However, although microglia have been shown to engulf and clear damaged cellular debris after brain insult, it remains less clear what role microglia play in the uninjured brain. Here, we show that microglia actively engulf synaptic material and play a major role in synaptic pruning during postnatal development in mice. These findings link microglia surveillance to synaptic maturation and suggest that deficits in microglia function may contribute to synaptic abnormalities seen in some neurodevelopmental disorders.

[@Lilady – I would urge you at once to send a letter into the editors of Science with the alarming news that a blogger with an autism child has made the stunning announcement that mice are not people; perhaps they will retract this study based on this extraordinary claim, as this study was based on rodents. Please keep us all updated on how this works out.]

So, how does this fit into our discussion? It just so happens, the microglia studies that display interactions with developing neural circuits demonstrate that the microglia are performing this task in their quiescent state, i.e., they are not “activated”. In other words, they haven’t received a signal to change morphology as a result of central or peripheral signaling.

But this presents something of a problem; our population of interest, autism, has signs of a dysregulated immune system (“duh”, according to Alain). In particular, several studies (see above) show a propensity for increased inflammation and impairments in regulating the immune response. The rub is, when we trigger the immune system in the periphery, we also trigger the immune system in the CNS; that is how fever is mediated centrally; that is how the LPS/e-coli infection paper I referenced to SM above observed a (different) neuroimmune response post insult. Other examples of peripheral insult == microglial change available upon request.

Unfortunately, at the time we are vaccinating, our microglia are busy trying to other things, namely helping sculpt the neural network as evidenced by the papers above and many others. But triggering the peripheral immune system modifies the microglial morphology. Infancy is a once in a lifetime chance for the brain to develop; the chemical signatures that orchestrate streamlining of the neural network are spatially and temporally varied. It isn’t like going back and picking up a game of solitaire; if the chemical milleau in place is different once microglia return to a resting state that does not necessarily mean that you get to just pick up and get started where you were. We don’t get a chance to repeat these operations; they happen once in a lifetime, and there are good reasons to think that we could be altering them with our actions.

There is also the very new area of understanding the hows and whens of microglial proliferation into the brain, another area of interest considering the different microglial densities observed in autism. Maybe next post. Beta drink.

  • pD

Krebiozen (#499) –

“How can a person with her educational background end up believing such nonsense about vaccines?” – wonders never cease I guess. I had pretty much the same thought. In fact, I was left me wondering if she’d ever really had the education she touts. Her maths is muddled elsewhere too – missing that off-target flu prevention is better than none, for example.

lilady (#507): Thanks. (She has “not reported” most things as it turns out.)

Denice Walter: (#509): Her twitter account shows her sending links to her article to many of the ‘key’ anti-vaccine people – looks as if it wasn’t ‘picked up’ but them, but promoted by her.

Liz Ditz (#513),

I wonder if they’re working towards a genetic study of autism based on Iceland’s deCode genetics database?

@Krebiozen –

They are all studies looking at cytokines in human infants after vaccinations.

No they aren’t. Jesus Christ, the ones that bothered to take measurements all specified that they utilized drawn, and stimulated cells to achieve their metrics, but you think this is “in infants”. They are measuring cytokine production, after vaccination, using stimulated cells, in vitro. That is a whole different thing that measuring what happens after you vaccinate, in the actual child, by measuring cytokine levels before and after vaccination in vivo. For crying out loud!

I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not, but in vivo things just might be a little bit different than stimulated in a test tube after a couple of days of stimulation with whatever agent. I will admit that this is one step up from ‘bigger immune response’, but just barely. Just saying.

pmid: 12922130

Cytokines play an important role in the immune response to live measles virus immunization. To gain further insight into the cytokine production profile in response to measles vaccination, we studied interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), tumor necrosis factor (TNF-alpha), soluble IL-2 receptor (sIL-2R), interleukin-2 (IL-2), interleukin-4 (IL-4), and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in both supernatants from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) stimulated with phytohaemagglutinin (PHA), and plasma

So tell me, how does the stimulation of PHA tell us what happened in vivo, post vaccination?

id: 11535343

To better characterize the cytokine response to measles virus vaccine, we examined the levels of IL-2, IL-4, IL-5, IL-10, IL-12 and gamma-interferon (gamma-IFN) in measles virus-stimulated peripheral blood mononuclear cells from 18 donors before and 2 weeks after vaccination.

pmid: 20419805

wenty-one cytokines and chemokines were tested in supernatants from diluted whole blood cultures that had been stimulated for 6 days with Mycobacterium tuberculosis PPD.

The stimulated for six days with PPD. Does that sound like it gives us good information about the in vivo response from a vaccine?

PMID: 15356430

Doesn’t even take measurements

This article’s objective was to evaluate the influence of cytokine genetic polymorphisms onto the humoral immune response to hepatitis B vaccine in infants.

Qualitatively a different thing that the innate immune response.

The reason it took you two minutes is that you don’t know what you are talking about and think that typing ‘cytokine’ and ‘vaccine’ and coming up with a number is a meaningful argument. Show me a study like this:

PMID: 15976761

Find infant participants. Draw blood sample A. Vaccinate. Wait. Draw blood sample B. Compare cytokine levels. Evaluate for differences.

[facepalm.jpg]

@Dingo

And one thing he has never been able to tell us is why he feels that vaccination, with its regular but very infrequent challenges to the developing infant immune system, should be so much more hazardous than the regular and far more numerous natural challenges to the immune system.

But I’ve said it again, again, and again. Developmental timeframe. If you can’t understand that there might be a difference between a two month old and a five year old child, that is your issue, not mine. And, I said it above, if 90+% of all children got these diseases when they were two months old, this wouldn’t be a discussion point.

Side note to pD: I never did hear back from McManus on the mystery 2828 denominator, but I’m a bit too frenzied to pester at the moment.

pD,

No they aren’t. Jesus Christ, the ones that bothered to take measurements all specified that they utilized drawn, and stimulated cells to achieve their metrics, but you think this is “in infants”. They are measuring cytokine *production*, after vaccination, using stimulated cells, in vitro. That is a whole different thing that measuring what happens *after you vaccinate*, in the actual child, by measuring cytokine levels before and after vaccination in vivo. For crying out loud!

I’m not sure if you are aware of this or not, but in vivo things *just might* be a little bit different than stimulated in a test tube after a couple of days of stimulation with whatever agent. I will admit that this is one step up from ‘bigger immune response’, but just barely. Just saying.

You don’t seem to understand that measurement of cytokine profiles after antigen stimulation of white blood cells is a standard methodology. You need large quantities of white blood cells to measure unstimulated cytokine profiles, which would require very large amounts of blood. In infants particularly this would certainly result in them, “crying out loud”. This method allows far smaller blood samples to be used. Here’s a study that validated this technique against unstimulated cytokine measurements.

pmid: 12922130 […] So tell me, how does the stimulation of PHA tell us what happened in vivo, post vaccination?

It was stimulation with, not of, PHA, and again this is a standard method of looking at cytokine production capacity of white blood cells. From the abstract, that you somehow managed to omit:

We enrolled 57 healthy infants and children residing in an area where no measles virus circulated in their lifetimes. Overall analysis of cytokines in supernatants from PBMC showed that a predominant Th1 cytokine pattern occurs after the second dose of measles immunization. However, plasma levels of Th1 cytokines (IFN-gamma, sIL-2R and TNF-alpha) were preferentially activated by measles virus after the first dose of measles vaccination.

Moving on.

PMID: 15356430 Doesn’t even take measurements

I’ll give you that one – they refer to several other papers that measured cytokines in infants post-vaccination, but they didn’t measure them. As I said, this was a quick scan of the available literature.

This article’s objective was to evaluate the influence of cytokine genetic polymorphisms onto the humoral immune response to hepatitis B vaccine in infants.
Qualitatively a different thing that the innate immune response.

Sorry, you didn’t specify the purpose of measuring cytokines post-vaccination. By the way, the innate immune response does include humoral responses as well as cellular ones.

The reason it took you two minutes is that you don’t know what you are talking about and think that typing ‘cytokine’ and ‘vaccine’ and coming up with a number is a meaningful argument.

It isn’t me that doesn’t understand what antigen-stimulated cytokine profiles are.

Show me a study like this: PMID: 15976761

You answered your own question there – the study you refer to measured an increase in interleukin (IL)-6 which is, as I’m sure you are aware, a cytokine. Several of the studies I cited do exactly this; it isn’t my problem that you don’t understand the methodology used.

It looks like there are a lot of huge gaps in the syllabuses of your self-awarded degrees. Perhaps you should ask for a refund.

[facepalm.jpg]

Indeed.

I scroll right over. Not worth perturbing any electrons or brain cells.

Now on to the good stuff, to wit, Grant at #548:

I wonder if they’re working towards a genetic study of autism based on Iceland’s deCode genetics database?

Now that would be very interesting.

@Antaeus

“Notice how Greg is trying to reverse the burden of proof. He is the one that came here spouting the old tired refrain “these graphs show that the diseases were ‘going away’ before vaccines.” When it was explained to him, quite clearly, why they show no such thing – a disease that infected 90% of the poulation and caused blindness, deafness, or permanent damage to motor function in 95% of infected people, but did not result in death, would be deemed to be, not just ‘going away’….”

This is rather disingenuous of you, Antaeus. You are suggesting that even though we may have less deaths, we will still have the worst health outcomes. Isn’t it reasonable to assume that with less deaths, we will also have less blindness, deafness and permanent damage?

“Measuring a decrease in incidence, by contrast, measures the prevention of all the negative consequences of a disease, because when you don’t get the disease, it doesn’t make you blind, deaf, sterile, etc.”

Again rather misleading. Here, again, you are suggesting that incidence will result in the worst health outcomes and not conceding that its impact is contingent on other factors such as health of the individual and available medical treatment(s).

“Greg ends up claiming something quite amazing. He claims that official reports of incidence should not be trusted, because they are getting it wrong – by both underestimating and overestimating it. Yes, both.”

Actual if you look at the context, Antaeus, there is no contradiction. What I mentioned was that motivation will affect the reporting of ‘incidence’. With the introduction of the measles vaccine back in the 50s, doctors expected to see less measles so they were more likely to confirm less cases. With the Swansea measles outbreak, on the other hand, with the hype about the measles (probably stemming from a concerted effort to discredit Wakefield even further) measles were over reported, only later to be corrected by confirmed cases. Rather than being a contradictory argument, it demonstrates quite well how unreliable incidence measurements can be.

“(Why these factors of undercounting and overcounting would not distort his favored mortality statistics as they supposedly do incidence statistics, Greg never says. After all, even though ‘a dead body is not easily missed’ it is presumably just as possible to misattribute a cause of death as it is to misattribute a cause of illness.”

Fair enough, Antaeus. It’s possible to get the cause of death wrong. What is more likely though, mistaking a rash to be the measles, or doing a full autopsy on a person only to get the cause of death wrong?

BTW, in case you forgot, you are still a phony. Denice Walter is a phony also but she is self-professed to being ‘hot’. At least ‘hotter’ than Wakefield. What is your excuse? (Hee, hee, hee).

@Greg:

With the introduction of the measles vaccine back in the 50s, doctors expected to see less measles so they were more likely to confirm less cases.

Citation needed.

With the Swansea measles outbreak, on the other hand, with the hype about the measles (probably stemming from a concerted effort to discredit Wakefield even further) measles were over reported, only later to be corrected by confirmed cases.

Again, citation needed.

Isn’t it reasonable to assume that with less deaths, we will also have less blindness, deafness and permanent damage?

No, it isn’t. Even though modern medicine may be able to save the lives of children suffering from encephalitis, that does not mean that modern medicine can repair the damage done by the encephalitis to various parts of the brain. As a physician once said to me, “I can do a lot, but I cannot raise cells from the dead.”

If anything, it would be reasonable to expect more blindness, deafness, and permanent brain damage as mortality goes down but incidence does not.

I know that common sense can be misleading, but …

We are the product of a billion years of multicellular evolution, tens of millions of years of mammalian evolution, millions of years of hominid evolution, and a hundred thousand years of human evolution. In all that time, our ancestors were under continual assault by viruses and unicellular organisms, and it is only in the last hundred years, and only in some places, that any babies were born in sanitary conditions.

Previously, babies were born in whatever caves, tents, mud huts, or hovels their mothers happened to live in. They were nursed by mothers who washed, if at all, in whatever unfiltered water was available using soap, if any, that was not at all antibacterial. They were laid in beds (so to speak) that were often crawling with vermin of various kinds, so they might be bitten by bedbugs, fleas, and lice their first day of life. And they were constantly exposed to whatever diseases might be around in the general population.

Given that background, is it really credible that a full 2% of the population would respond to a mild immunological insult in infancy by developing autism?  And if so, would we not see that a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic?  The only way we wouldn’t see that, I think, is if that 2% pretty much all died in infancy, except for the very few who survived long enough to be recognized and killed as changelings. 

And if that is the case, then the genes that caused that condition would be under ferocious selection pressure with an infant mortality approaching 100% — so how have those genes managed to survive into the present?

@LW – exactly, because incidence is unchanged, but mortality rates decrease, you see an “increase” in severe side effects – since a larger percentage of infected survive.

This isn’t rocket science, this is logic…something Greg doesn’t seem to understand.

@Liz Ditz

Indeed. Greg’s good for a giggle now and then, though one does risk whiplash from the head-shaking resulting from disbelief about the new and inventive ways he can torture logic.

As for pD, “brevity” seems to be an unknown word.

@PD

Thanks very much for your very well detailed, well reasoned arguments on how early infectious insults during the critical time-frame of infant brain development may lead to autism. What you have to say have a lot in common with Russell Blaylock’s immuno-excito-toxcity theory. Are you familiar with Blaylock’s theores? If so, what’s your take?

Greg, it is Monday morning and your answer for:

Where is the decline by more than half for polio between 1912 and 1955? Where is the decline by more than half for measles between 1912 and 1960? If they were already in decline, they would have done more than the few year cycle.

… is zilch. So now it seems that you have no reason to declare:

Now we have all seen the graphs that show that many infectious diseases were well on their way out even before the introduction of vaccines.

You made the common mistake of thinking mortality is the same as morbidity. Except if a person gets pneumonia from measles and still lives, that does mean they actually had measles… and a large hospital bill to pay.

Well add that to your admission that vaccines are safer than the diseases because you could not come up with any real scientific studies showing they caused more seizures than the diseases.

Would any rational person argue that because fewer people with polio died after the invention of the iron lung that polio had somehow ‘gone away’? Yet that’s essentially what’s being argued when anti-vaxers claim decreased mortality means infectious diseases were going away.

@JGC – all it means is that modern medicine got better at keeping people alive, as opposed to having them die of various (at the time) untreatable complications…..

There was still SSPE, encephalitis, secondary infections, blindness, sterility, deafness, congenital birth defects, etc, etc, etc – in fact, more noticeable because a larger percentage of those individuals were now surviving the onset of the original infection…..

Oh, good grief I skimmed over this gem:

With the introduction of the measles vaccine back in the 50s, doctors expected to see less measles so they were more likely to confirm less cases

So what measles vaccine was introduced in the 1950s?

For those who are halfway intelligent, here is some historical context, they really did not expect much from the vaccine, especially only certain kids (higher income) received the vaccine:

Measles epidemiology and vaccine use in Los Angeles County, 1963 and 1966

Mass measles immunization in Los Angeles County

Greg is illustrative of what kind of limited and bad information is passed along in sites like AoA. And he has no clue how to even research real science.

@Chris,
I will provide you shortly with your own evidence where you conceded that the decline in some past infectious diseases was due to sanitation and antibiotics. Gotcha!

Greg, if you had that information, you would have posted it already. You don’t threaten people with information, you give information.

How Sweet! The Troll and pD have found each other on RI.

Meanwhile, back at AoA, Katie Wright has posted about the activities of Mark and Jen who “volunteered” their own time and used their own money to advance the vaccine-autism link…and to convince Issa and the members of the Congressional Oversight Committee to hold the sham autism hearing and to attend the Autism One Conference.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/people-who-get-done.html

It’s funny how the same subjects come up over and over again. We really do need a FAQ.

No one is denying that the introduction of flushing toilets, sewerage systems and improved hygiene (based on the development of modern scientific medicine) did not reduce the incidence of some infectious diseases; they did, dramatically so.

I would estimate that about 90% of the reduction in mortality from infectious diseases over the past 150 years was due to the near elimination of diarrheal diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery. If you look at causes of death a century or more ago, these were by far the biggest killers. Hygiene improvements changed people’s health from appalling to simply awful. It took vaccines to make deadly contagious diseases so unusual some people have lost all fear and respect for them.

Antivaxxers look at the declines due to improvements in hygiene and assume they would have continued without vaccines, even though there has been little improvement in basic hygiene in the past 70 years or more, and they also assume that similar reductions would have been seen in airborne diseases.

As has been repeatedly pointed out, the incidence of diseases spread through coughing and sneezing, such as measles, pertussis, smallpox, diphtheria etc. are not affected by improvements in hygiene at all. That’s why we inevitably see outbreaks when vaccination uptake falls too far.

The chances of serious and permanent sequelae after measles, for example, now are of course lower than they were 100 years ago, but I would still much rather get vaccinated and avoid the infection altogether.

My point exactly: enabling more people to survive a disease doesn’t mean the disease is going away. Improved combined drug therapies for patients with AIDS has greatly increased the number of those living with the disease, but that isn’t at all the same thing as HIV ‘going away’.

Which is why morbidity, not mortality, is the appropriate metric to measure the impact of immunization.

Apologies for the erroneous double-negative in my last comment. I meant:
“No one is denying that the introduction of …improved hygiene…reduced the incidence of some infectious diseases”

Greg, I gave you actual evidence.

New questions, you have 24 hours to answer:

1: What evidence do you have that antibiotics caused a decline in measles, a viral disease?

2: What great sanitation breakthrough happened between 1960 and 1970 to affect measles?

3: There was an outbreak of measles in Japan that killed over eighty people (mostly children) not that long ago. What horrible declination in sanitation caused that measles epidemic?

Provide real evidence for your answers, which you should have late Tuesday morning.

Orac’s VCADOD group, I almost forgot my question of the day. It’s on the same theme as yesterday’s endgame question:

When the vaccines causing autism denial racket is up, how do you expect things will be conceded? Do you think there will be a full about-face concession? Or, do you think there will be some weaseling, involving statements to the extent that the emerging evidence is showing a link after all, and finding scapegoats?

The clock is ticking, Greg. You make assertions, therefore you have to back them up. Failure to do so is admitting you were wrong.

1: What evidence do you have that antibiotics caused a decline in measles, a viral disease?

2: What great sanitation breakthrough happened between 1960 and 1970 to affect measles?

3: There was an outbreak of measles in Japan that killed over eighty people (mostly children) not that long ago. What horrible declination in sanitation caused that measles epidemic?

We, however, haven’t forgotten the question we’ve been asking greg for the past couple of months:

What evidence suggests a causal relationship exists between routine childhood vaccination and the development of autism spectrum disorders?

Andafter two months the answer has become clear– greg doesn’t have any.

Heck, I’m still waiting for Greg to tell us when he stopped beating his wife – I wonder why he refuses to answer the question (unless he hasn’t stopped.)

By the way, Greg, over ten years ago on a listserv I was on for my son’s disability the Mercury Militia were declaring there was going to be stunning proof showing us once and for all that vaccines caused autism. Well here is that great proof:
Med Hypotheses. 2001 Apr;56(4):462-71.
Autism: a novel form of mercury poisoning.
Bernard S, Enayati A, Redwood L, Roger H, Binstock T.

Well it went over like a lead balloon. Especially since due to the precautionary principle thimerosal was already being removed from vaccines. So much so that one of the authors of that silly paper went looking for DTP vaccines with thimerosal for research:

Subject: Thimerosal DTaP Needed
From: Sally Bernard
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 00:01:50 -0400
Yahoo! Message Number: 27456
Onibasu Link: http://onibasu.com/archives/am/27456.html

Hi all:

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

Thank you.

Sallie Bernard
Executive Director
Safe Minds

And yet, there were still increases in autism. Here is the thing, Greg, why don’t you answer my questions honestly. Because until you come up with some real proof of your contentions, you will only be a laughing stock on this blog.

pD,

For instance, early-life infection in rats can profoundly disrupt memory function in young adulthood, as well as accelerate age-related cognitive decline, both of which are linked to enduring changes in glial function that occur in response to the initial infection

This is not compatible with picture perfect memory and the much published literature of excellent memory in autism. Furthermore, early cognitive decline hasn’t been demonstrated in autism where the savant keep their ability well into old age.

Did you read some of the publication listed there: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Mottron%20L%5BAuthor%5D&cauthor=true&cauthor_uid=23622174

Your immune system finding has to match their finding for increased memory, perception and savant ability.

Alain

  1. There is no vaccine causing autism denial racket.
  2. In the unlikely event (based on what we currently know) that it is shown with high quality, reproducible evidence that vaccines do cause autism spectrum disorders in some reasonable percentage of those who are immunized (say, in excess of 1:10000 cases) I’d expect the following to happen:

– public discussion of whether this changes the risk/benefit ratio of mass vaccination
– possible recognition of this condition as being subject to recompense by the vaccine injury courts
– further research designed to determine how to minimize or eliminate the risk of this condition in future

@Krebiozen

My other site, antiantivax.flurf.net, is an attempt at addressing some of the more common anti-vaccine myths. I admit, though, I have not updated it in a while, so there is definitely room for expansion.

As enjoyable as it is to observe Greg being completely dismantled, I am nonetheless happy to reprt that, courtesy of Michael Devore, there is now a working Greasemonkey killfile script for SB.

It does not draw the kill/hide comment/show comment links that the old Daniel Martin one did, but I consider this to be an improvement, as there’s no ready temptation to undo it. If you find this useful, I suggest dropping by his place and letting him know.

Greg, I have a question of the day for you as well: Have you washed the blood of infants you ate today already, or are you letting it dry on your hands because you love the smell of murdered innocents too much?

Greg, here’s a question for you: If you were on trial for a terrible crime you didn’t commit, how would you feel if the prosecution used the tricks you’re trying to use on us?

Wait, are you actually telling us that Greg did not commit some heinous crime? I find that hard to belive. Especially in the light of fact that I know that he is regular infantivore.

If I were on trial and the prosecution was using the tricks greg’s using I’d be absolutely overjoyed they were so completely failing to make any kind of case whatsoever in support of my being guilty.

Greg @572

When the vaccines causing autism denial racket is up, how do you expect things will be conceded?

I expect you will continue to weasel, and try to reframe your own statements, in spite of the fact that you made them in print for all to read.

(And in case this is too subtle for you, when I refer to the racket being up, that’s when you, Greg, stop posting delusional mis-statements about vaccines and autism.)

Took a break, and I see this thread has been continuing business as usual.

What I find funny about the mortality/incidence confusion Greg is trying to foster is that it extends a metaphor I’ve used: Alties think reality is a video game operating on boolean values and fixed procedures.

For example, homeopathy treats symptoms like the “frog” condition in Final Fantasy games. Use the frog spell (homeopathic remedy) on a healthy character, and you get a frog. Use the frog spell on a frog, and you get a healthy character. It allegedly works by flipping a binary flag for the “frog” status condition.

The mortality/incidence confusion Greg is trying to spread treats human health like a binary flag: Healthy or dead. Or he’s assuming that diseases are restricted to only one certain outcome instead of a wide, probabilistic spread of morbidity.

So let me get this straight. According to Greg, the proper way to measure the increase or decrease in disease is by mortality rate. Autism nowadays is almost never fatal.

By this logic, I can conclude that there is no increase in autism, thus no autism epidemic.

So let me get this straight. According to Greg, the proper way to measure the increase or decrease in disease is by mortality rate. Autism nowadays is almost never fatal.

By this logic, I can conclude that there is no increase in autism, thus no autism epidemic.

Quite! Let’s all go home now then, shall we?

PS: belated Happy Birthday, Bronze Dog!

Well add that to your admission that vaccines are safer than the diseases because you could not come up with any real scientific studies showing they caused more seizures than the diseases.

And the unmistakable concession that any and every uttering of the phrase “unvax/vax study” on his part is the functional equivalent of appearing on stage solely to dump a pail of garbage over his head, as his ignorance of the most primitive relevant parameters involved is apparently so profound that he couldn’t even muster one of his trademark incredibly stupid retorts.

Meanwhile, back at AoA, Katie Wright has posted about the activities of Mark and Jen who “volunteered” their own time and used their own money to advance the vaccine-autism link…

“If I can make sure Christian gets his GABA and 5HTP before bed I am at the top of my game.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. On the essentially nonexistent chance that you’re going to get this from gut to brain (for which the time frame seems off), the net effect would be a sustained, direct effort at downregulation of the receptors, which is widely known to be a Very Bad Idea.

The frequently changing list of occupations is peculiar, as well. I mean, what exactly would cause someone to think that “Naturopathic Surgeon” is a bright idea to put down?

I was hoping that, in my absence, vaccine efficacy denialists ( otherwise known as ‘disease promoters’) might have come clean and confessed their errant ways- bending facts and logic, wallowing in self-promotion by creating new blogs, living in fantasy, lying… but I guess, NO dice.

Oh, well.

In my travels, did I run into woo! Later, I’m too tired**

@ Science Mom:
Agreed.

@ Krebiozen:
I’ve discovered that often feigned erudition reveals malapropism.

@ Chris:
point 2: exactly.

@ Alain:
I’d also like to know what causal mechanism would lead differences in autistics’ abilities. Dying to know, -btw-.
Also- you’re writing in EFL/ESL. Impressive.

@ dingo199:
Agreed.

@ Narad:
Ha ha ha.

@Grant:
Her article was also aired and discussed at Progressive Radio Network- the sinkhole/ cesspit to rival all sinkholes/ cesspits.

@ Liz:
I also skim and scroll.

@ LW:
re “caves, tents, mud huts” – oh, agreed.

@ The Smith of Lie:
I misread “infantivore” as “insectivore”. Both are funny.

@ Bronze Dog:
Black and white thinking is an important characteristic of particular styles that are of great interest to people like me.

@ W. Kevin:
Correct.

** and my eyes are not working as well as they usually do- am I just tired?
Did I ever mention that caught measles right before I was scheduled for my vaccine appointment? I’m not sure how much it affected my vision. but I have light sensitivity and many,many floaters since childhood.

(I must apologize for the diversion, but this stuff is terrific. This is where she “completed a residency.” Dr. Steenblock seems to have had some issues. “Under no circumstances shall a post office box serve as an address of record.”)

Here’s what Katie Wright (Mother Warrior) and her husband have done (to Christian), to “recover” Christian from autism…and the measles virus in his gut…and Christian’s immune system (that is) “akin to a late stage AIDS patient”.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/09/katie-wright-on.html

“…Katie Wright has two young boys. Her oldest son, Christian, is severely affected by autism. He developed normally; smiling, talking, walking; only to lose every skill and every word by the age of 2 and a half. Upon the advice of medical professionals Katie and her husband were advised to pursue only high quality behavioral therapy, speech and OT for Christian. It had no meaningful impact on Christian until his parents sought help from DAN! doctors who treated the underlying causes of Christian’s descent into autism. Christian has improved but still has far to go. He has Inflammatory Bowel Disease, the measles virus in his gut and an immune system akin to a late stage AIDS patient. Christian does not have a psychiatric disorder. Before autism, Katie Wright was the Clinical Director of Sexual Assault Crisis Center in Stamford Connecticut. Katie is proud to serve on the Boards of NAA and SafeMinds.”

IIRC, Bobby Kennedy defended Katie Wright when she stated that she had subjected her child to chelation for mercury toxicity.

@ lilady:

If he had “an immune system akin to a late stage AIDS patient” (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) wouldn’t that be… erm.. detectable?
What’s wrong with these people?

@Denise – that’s why I don’t get anti-vaxxers in general, I mean, if what they say was true, it would be so obvious that even basic medical practitioners would be able to consistently report factual findings of what was going on….instead, we get a lot of stories, with absolutely no back-up information, no valid medical tests, no published results, etc…..if groups like AoA & SafeMinds can’t even come up with any kind of research results, well, I think that speaks volumes…..

You know more than the rest of this gang that our existing research suite is designed around thimerosal and the MMR. That is the ‘available evidence’. Talk about clinging.

No there isn’t. There are ‘too many too soon’ and some small vaxxed v. unvaxxed studies, not to mention all the tangentially-related research ( e.g. ASD, disease and vaccine epidemiology) that does not indicate a vaccine correlation let alone causation.

I’ve posted a gazillion animal studies that show that early life immune challenge results in persistent modifications to the immune system and behaviors. I post animal studies, I get accused of gish gallop. I don’t post them, and I haven’t advanced a causation mechanism. Sounds legit.

I do like the fact that someone out there thought I had some credibility to lose at one point anyways. That’s a nice touch. Easy come, easy go.

To be honest, I think you get rather harshly treated and dismissed too easily. I think you have some interesting thoughts however as long as you cling to a vaccine causation without sufficient evidence to support it then I can see the frustration dealing with you.

Yes there is a post-natal period of immune development which is influenced by both antigenic stimulation and the lack thereof (hygiene hypothesis) which may lead to alterations in numerous systems. However the extent and persistence remains to be seen. Animals do not exhibit the same behaviours as humans nor do they process or metabolise substances in the same manner as humans. I’ll give you a guess where LPS, a potent immune stimulant, is and where it isn’t. So can you see why you are over-reaching in your conclusions and interpretations of the literature?

Yes you have credibility as far as I’m concerned but you haven’t come close to supporting your hypothesis. I also don’t think you Gish Gallop, you make a sincere effort to support your claims, you just unfortunately misinterpret the literature and leave some relevant literature out.

I am not writing off the in-utero environment at all; but that doesn’t mean that what happens later can’t be having an effect *also*. You might be interested in looking up some of the data on glial priming and/or double (multiple) hits. Or perhaps not. In any case, I don’t understand the idea that because a system is skewed at birth, it cannot be *further* disrupted after birth. Your concerns would be valid if I were proposing that vaccination, and vaccination alone, is responsible for altering neurodevelopment from normal ==> autism. I’m not advocating that, I apologize to you, and anyone else, who got that idea. I am advocating that our existing research isn’t sufficiently designed to understand if we are modifying our infants in unexpected, *subtle* ways through vaccination. The immune profiles we see in the autism population make them candidates for a susceptible subgroup for those types of disturbances, *because* the autism group shows a propensity for increased innate immune responses and impairments in *regulating* the immune response. [See reduced IL-10/IL-4 in cord blood study from Denmark I posted above.]

Subsets of ASD populations appear to have some abhorrent immunological biomarkers but nothing in the Danish study you cited is consistent with any of the cytokine/infant studies Krebiozen cited. I don’t think you have given the impression that vaccines are the only cause for ASDs but the fact that you are tilting at windmills with the suggestion that because A then D with no consideration for the gaps in between and go on to repeat some anti-vaxx tropes does tend to strain your credibility.

Indeed, I did find some amusement in the fact that when someone posts something about ‘boosting the immune system’ via supplementation you’ll get the SBM crowd to rain derision on the gross over simplification on the idea (they should), but when the issue is vaccination, suddenly, all immune responses are the same, just bigger or smaller. [eyeroll.jpg]

You do have a point here but please consider your tenuous claims. There are valid criticisms of some vaccines and policies and gaps in our knowledge. Stick to those and they are defensible.

Our kingdom has spent a few hundred million years evolving alongside entire pathogens and generating immune responses correspondingly; it seems to me to be incredibly naive to think that we can take tiny parts of those pathogens, embed them with aluminum salts, bypass the skin, and expect that the quality of the immune response would be “the same, just less”.

Who is ‘we’? Surely you wouldn’t be using some comments on a blog and extrapolate them to the research and medical communities involved with vaccinology would you? By the by, numerous pathogens ‘bypass the skin’ and even MALT all on their very own to provide nice little infections on a mass scale. It’s a shame you would repeat such an obvious mistake.

It exposes the fact that, indeed, our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population. You seem to have taken a good look at lots of data in this environment, if I’ve missed the papers measuring the innate immune response post vaccination in an infant population, why not post them here, instead of just talking vaguely about what you have read and haven’t read? Those studies are available, aren’t they?

I believe Krebiozen has done a nice job of providing some data on the very question that you seem to think is unanswered. I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that in spite of my expertise in diagnostic tests that I didn’t know infant cytokine profiles needed to be measured in the way they are but makes perfect sense. Perhaps you should accept the gaps in your own knowledge.

I am content to let the research provide answers and now that more biomarkers in ASDs are being identified, this leads the way to understanding the aetiology of ASDs and other psychiatric disorders. If valid evidence comes to light that infant vaccines are responsible for some ASDs then I would certainly accept that but I will wait for such evidence rather than myopically establish a conclusion and torture the existing evidence to fit.

I think it’s time to announce the Lurker Challenge I’m placing on Greg. What does this mean? Well, it means that any lurker (or non-lurker, for that matter) who thinks at any point that Greg has made a good point or asked a reasonable question need only speak up and say “hey, what about thus-and-such, does he have a point there?” and I, for one, will do my best to give that person a solid answer. I encourage others to join me in this challenge, answering questions when they come up.

Of course, the consequence of this challenge is that when Greg makes what he claims to be a point and not a single person thinks it’s worth following up, it means no one is buying Greg’s BS. (And yes, Greg, we all know your long-term goal is to get yourself banned so that you can lie to your friends at AoA and claim you got silenced for challenging the establishment, but not even the average AoAer will confuse “got banned for sockpuppeting” with “got banned for Speakin’ TRUTH To Tha Man”.)

Anyways, Greg’s latest fewmet is thin on anything that can be even pretended to be a real point; I’ll only reply to a few bits:

Isn’t it reasonable to assume that with less deaths, we will also have less blindness, deafness and permanent damage?

It is never going to be reasonable to ignore the actual data in favor of an ‘assumption’ about what we would find if we looked at the data. Even if we didn’t have well-known historical examples where a decrease in mortality accompanied an increase in other sequelae (when the iron lung was developed, the number of deaths from polio went down and the number of people living with paralysis went up) it’s still self-evidently wrong.

If you met a baseball fan who refused to answer the simple question “what was the score of the game?” and instead said “isn’t it reasonable to assume that whichever team struck out the larger number of opposing pitchers was the team with more skill, and therefore the team that won?”, what would you conclude? Almost certainly, you’d conclude that his favored team was the one that lost, otherwise he’d just be telling you the score.

you are suggesting that incidence will result in the worst health outcomes and not conceding that its impact is contingent on other factors such as health of the individual and available medical treatment(s).

But since we are discussing Greg’s false claim that the diseases had pretty much “gone away,” the actual severity of those health outcomes is irrelevant. If you get the disease and you die, if you get the disease and you’re blinded and paralyzed for life, if you get the disease and you just lie in bed with muscle aches and sniffles for a week and then you’re fine, all three of those things mean the same thing, that you got the disease and it hasn’t “gone away” as Greg mendaciously claims.

What I mentioned was that motivation will affect the reporting of ‘incidence’.

Greg may assert that motivation affects the reporting of incidence. But on the one hand, we have the actual medical professionals, people with real medical training who actually examined the patients in question. On the other hand, we have Greg, who does not have medical training, who has not examined a single one of the patients (doesn’t even believe evidence should be examined, apparently, not if it might conflict with ideology, better in such a case to just “assume” the data is what we want to believe it is) and with the exception of about one thousand cases, he’s doing all this second-guessing at a distance of over half a century. I don’t see a single reason there to think Greg’s getting it right and the professionals got it wrong.

With the Swansea measles outbreak … measles were over reported, only later to be corrected by confirmed cases.

Except, of course, nothing of the sort happened. When a laboratory says “Based on symptoms, we had already concluded that Patient A had measles; now laboratory testing confirms that diagnosis,” it does not mean anything about Patients B, C, D, E, etc. It does not mean that their diagnoses of measles were false positives that have now been “corrected.” I don’t know of even a single case in the Swansea outbreak area that was initially pronounced to be measles and then determined by the laboratory not to be. If someone wants to argue that there in fact have been a substantial number of such cases, enough to constitute actual “over-reporting” in any meaningful sense of the word, they’re free to provide actual evidence of such cases. “Actual evidence”, to be specific, implies something from a more reliable source than the misnamed “childhealthsafety” blog.

BTW, in case you forgot, you are still a phony. Denice Walter is a phony also but she is self-professed to being ‘hot’. At least ‘hotter’ than Wakefield. What is your excuse? (Hee, hee, hee).

I left this in simply because it demonstrates what kind of person Greg is. Who writes meaningless drivel of this sort and then expects to be taken seriously on the issues?

Science Mom,

I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit that in spite of my expertise in diagnostic tests that I didn’t know infant cytokine profiles needed to be measured in the way they are but makes perfect sense.

There’s no shame at all in not knowing about this stuff. This isn’t really my field, but since I have a background in diagnostics I tend to pay attention to methodology when reading papers on vaccination.

I do tend to get a bit prickly when people fire, “Jesus Christ”, “For crying out loud” and ” and “[facepalm.jpg]” at me, while telling me I don’t know what I’m talking about, while apparently suggesting we measure cytokines in vivo without a blood draw..

As I understand it, it is a matter of assay sensitivity, and the amount of blood that can be practically extracted from infants to accurately measure the small increases in cytokine production after vaccination. For example this study looked at cytokine production after a novel influenza vaccine, and found no measurable changes in unstimulated cytokine levels in saliva and blood, but measurable changes when WBCs were stimulated with the appropriate antibodies.

More sensitive assays using amplified ELISA have recently become available that can measure unstimulated changes, I believe. Much of the recent work looks at up and down regulation of various genes that regulate cytokine production, rather than cytokine production per se.

I agree that some of pD’s ideas are interesting, though somewhat disconnected and unsupported. However, I couldn’t ignore his claims that:

No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants.

Which isn’t true, and the ludicrous claim that:

It exposes the fact that, indeed, our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population.

I thought pD might have learned his lesson after the last time I pointed out the huge amount of research into post-vaccination immune responses during the development of vaccines over the past 100 years or more, but it seems not.

Dammit, just when I’m trying to convince everyone I’m not an eejit – “stimulated with the appropriate antigens”.

Also- you’re writing in EFL/ESL. Impressive.

If I have a savant ability, language might be it because not too long ago (in 2008), I had a score of 905/990 on the French language test at University of Montreal and as for English, I get similar marks.

The thing is, I never learnt that at school because when I was a children and adolescent, I never got past high school level 2 and was having low marks in everything except English.

First, I learned english at the local library at age 12 (no one in my family speak english). Then, I was reading a book a day (mostly renting them at the library); regardless of language.

It is by implicit learning that I learned how to write, by reading books and I was hyperlexic.

nowaday, I lost a few skills (I am no longer able to read a book a day) and my English & French suffer a little bit but just a little.

Alain

Antaeus,

I don’t know of even a single case in the Swansea outbreak area that was initially pronounced to be measles and then determined by the laboratory not to be.

I don’t know about this case, but having looked at a number of HPA and Health Wales reports recently, I think the true positive rate of confirmed measles cases in notified suspected cases is normally 50-70%, as there will always be a number of cases that a GP thinks may be may atypical measles and checks to be on the safe side, that turn out not to be.

Even assuming that every single case of actual measles was among those notified, which is unlikely, and that only 50% of those notified were actually measles, when that figure may be higher during an outbreak, that is still over 600 cases of measles in an area that had only 5 confirmed cases over the same period the previous year.

There is also the death of that young man, now confirmed to be caused by measles, but I suspect that because he was not in the best of health and was going through alcohol detox at the time of his death, some people will claim he doesn’t really count.

I have found that very small children in France speak impeccable French. This says tremendous things about the French educational system, because I never learned how to say much more than “deux vin rouge s’il vous plait.” and “Je ne parle pas français”. Of course, I never studied French, but still…

Short version of above – contagious diseases are always over-reported, because notification is essentially screening and laboratory confirmation is diagnostic. I would love to see some evidence of under-reporting because doctors don’t believe vaccinated patients can possibly have the disease.

I just looked at the Child Health Safety pages on the Swansea outbreak. As you might expect Cliff is as dishonest as ever. I particularly like his way of explaining away the hundreds of laboratory confirmed measles cases:

And in ten years time might we be amused by a confession like:
Oh dear, how the janitor when cleaning up accidentally spilled measles virus into all of those negative samples by accident before I tested them, and he did not tell me til yesterday.

Despicable as always.

@ Lawrence:

I know.
That’s why they HAVE to come up with ludicrous tales of governmental/ corporate malfeasance ( i.e hiding data)
because if it WERE true, researchers would be absolutely thrilled as they would have an entirely new line of inquiry and, because it affects children, there’d be money .

What gets me is that although there is no data, they still go on to weave elaborate, convoluted theories of vaccine-caused-autism- the type that doesn’t show up in real research/ population studies.

Really. If even a small subset of children were so affected ( just like for ANY med/ intervention),it would show up in data. E.g. even RARE side effects are discernible and reportable.

BTW, in case you forgot, you are still a phony. Denice Walter is a phony also but she is self-professed to being ‘hot’. At least ‘hotter’ than Wakefield. What is your excuse? (Hee, hee, hee).

I left this in simply because it demonstrates what kind of person Greg is.

This certainly struck me as his most impressive demonstration to date of why a pine box beats a sealed casket six ways to Sunday.

As you might expect Cliff is as dishonest as ever.

Jeezums, did he “redesign” that thing? The only question to my mind here, which will likely never be answered, is the how the certain intercourse with Stone, who’s been beating the same drum for the demographic of “people who do not specialize in parsing extremely disordered ranting,” went down.

And, last I checked, all the UK cases outside of Wales were still laboratory-confirmed and not epi-linked.

@Krebiozen

“No one is denying that the introduction of …improved hygiene…reduced the incidence of some infectious diseases”

OMG! I keep asking you guys to warn me before you concede anything. The shock really is too much.

OMG! I keep asking you guys to warn me before you concede anything. The shock really is too much.

Don’t pat yourself on your pre-pubescent back there Greggums. It’s not a concession; it’s mere fact. Which is probably why you are having so much difficulty with it.

OMG! I keep asking you guys to warn me before you concede anything.

This delicious meltdown reminds me that as a lad, I thought lime Jell-O was more enjoyable as a warm beverage than after it had been allowed to gel.

@Dingo

"So let me get this straight. According to Greg, the proper way to measure the increase or decrease in disease is by mortality rate. Autism nowadays is almost never fatal.

By this logic, I can conclude that there is no increase in autism, thus no autism epidemic.

Quite! Let’s all go home now then, shall we?”

Dingo, by the same token public health figures have been saying that they misdiagnosed autism for decades. So there is another example where we can say incidence figures are unreliable indicators. Agreed — let’s go home!

Someone still doesn’t know the difference between airborne and waterborne diseases……

Someone still doesn’t know the difference between airborne and waterborne diseases……

Hmph. Sorry about the double post. “Service unavailable” isn’t a very helpful message.

Dingo, by the same token other side of the same coin public health figures have been saying that they misdiagnosed autism for decades. So there is another example where we can say incidence figures are unreliable indicators.

FTFY. You just tossed overboard all your own incidence numbers lock, stock, and barrel, BTW, viz., you have conceded the fanciful argument.

@ Science Mom:

Concession? More like the reality that the world is not neatly arrayed into crisply delineated whites and blacks, dichotomously good vs evil.

Woo likes to paint SBM as being based solely on meds, not including hygienic, dietary and exercise advice for patients: rather than portraying SBM accurately, it instead reveals its own inability to process more complex, multiple factored analyses. .

Often, I hear woo-meisters carry on about how they can cure people sans any meds, relying upon nutrition : similarly, this is stultifyingly dense and unrealistically simple.

Obviously differing factors involve the rates of different illnesses and more than one variable causes decline.

There’s something called ‘cognitive complexity’: it’s on the phone, saying ‘hello’.

There’s something called ‘cognitive complexity’: it’s on the phone, saying ‘hello’.

I hope you’re not trying to drag the Electric Light Orchestra into this, as opposed to, say, this lot.*

  • I’m fixing for a move, so apologies for any frazzled detritus.

@MOB

“In the unlikely event (based on what we currently know) that it is shown with high quality, reproducible evidence that vaccines do cause autism spectrum disorders in some reasonable percentage of those who are immunized (say, in excess of 1:10000 cases) I’d expect the following to happen:”

“possible recognition of this condition as being subject to recompense by the vaccine injury courts”

I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone. So, when the admission that vaccines do cause autism is made, and with the expected ensuing tsunami of claims what do you propose for obtaining additional funds?

(hushed voice) Also MOB I see how you are trying to cover your tracks, but as a friend, I must warn you to do a better job. They will sniff you out as a traitor and come after you, MOB. They will torture you, MOB, because they are absolutely ruthless! Take care and godspeed. We will meet again under the cover of night.

I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone.

This demonstrates that your “understanding” is either a childish self-fiction or simply a flaming bag of dοgshit left on the front porch. Tell me what the the Treasury number is, Greg. This should take you about five minutes, at which point you can pony up the numbers.

@Denice Walter

“What gets me is that although there is no data, they still go on to weave elaborate, convoluted theories of vaccine-caused-autism- the type that doesn’t show up in real research/ population studies.”

You mean the pharma studies that reek of conflict of interest — plagued by poor study design — looking into a few vaccines contents only — authored by a fugitive of the law. Did I miss anything?

As my previous comment wound up in the moderation queue, I shall rephrase it: Greg, what is the balance in the relevant account as of the end of the first calendar quarter of this year? It has 12 digits and a radix mark.

Greg, wake up and smell the f@cking coffee:
there’s a searchbox fx @ RI- Orac has already covered that anti-vax, perseverative whine- time and time again.

Greg, there is plenty of information that the “fugitive from the law” was a minor secondary author, whose crimes had no bearing on the results. You are either a brazen liar, and therefore have nothing worth listening to, or a complete fool, and therefore have nothing worth listening to.

Also MOB I see how you are trying to cover your tracks,

That was almost humorous. Just like the Joker’s lapel flower.

Greg: Isn’t it reasonable to assume that with less deaths, we will also have less blindness, deafness and permanent
damage?

Well, no. Because death kind of erases any damage. Other commentators have covered it better than I could. But, ya know there’s a reason we have less deaths. And, btw, measles can’t be treated with anti-biotics. I don’t know if you knew that, or if it fell out of your microscopic brain.

I’d also like to point out that I know a lot of people with learning disabilites and two with confirmed ASDs. The two with ASDs both have master’s degrees. What degree did you get at your cow college?And why do you assume that autism is static?

@ Denice,
Narad and I had an email exchange over my choice of career and I must update you on this. It turn out that I won’t do the necessary studies to become an engineer or a medical doctor for that matter. As I mentioned in my previous comment, reading and writing text are my strong suit; not math (ask Narad for a resume) and thus, a career in physics engineering is far from recommended despite how much I would have liked.

A career in science is good but there is a long way to go and I’ll be 37 in 2 month and a few and I want to limit studying to a PhD and thus, 1-: a postdoc is off-limit and 2-: I always wanted to have a professional diploma with a science diploma. This is why I looked up a few combination of diploma and settled with the JD/PhD in law & neuroscience. It’s offered by both Vanderbilt university as well as the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

As far as what I’ll do, is finish my neuroscience bachelor but in the meantime[1] I am doing a law certificate using distance education at Laval university (starting in September).

[1] ==I’m waiting to reintegrate Bishop’s university, I have a 1 year delay to wait for my reintegration because of my failed math courses, my average marks being too low.

Thus, the plan is: law certificate –> neuroscience bachelor –> 2 options listed below:

option 1: Master of science in neuro[something] or physiology or…. –> JD/PhD combined track at UWisconsin-Madison –> work.

option 2: law school at McGill –> work.

option 2 is much cheaper as tuition cost for QC students is around 80 or 85$ per credit (see my blog post: Only in Quebec for the details…)

Alain

p.s. nearly forgot, work == paralegal, legal clerk for a judge, jobs like that; not lawyer.

God, I love Greg. He outright stated that if data aviable does not suit his belifef it does not invalidate his bliev, it does invalidate data. (#616 where he fails to note it was W. Kevin Vicklund not Dingo, who noticed that by Greg’s very own standards there is no autism.)

Also I see no answer to my question of the day, so I will just assume that Greg lets the blood of infants dry on his hands so he can smell it through the day. You are a sick man Greg, how can you do such things?

(ask Narad for a resume)

Note to DW: You’re welcome to do this if so inclined.

Greg, you have already conceded after two months that vaccines cause much fewer seizures than the diseases. Plus your lack of an answer on on the decline of incidence before vaccines for both measles and polio indicates you know that did not happen.

But you returned with some spurious allegations that sanitation and antibiotics have anything to do with measles infections. So you have until Noon Pacific Daylight Time to answer the questions I posted in Comment #571.

Failure to do so will render Comment #564 as a futile straw man attempt, that was very very stupid. And note I gave you at least three more hours from what I stated before (only assuming you live on the East Coast of this continent, you spell like my spouse so I am assuming Canadian).

Have a good sleep in. But make sure you have that evidence at the stated time.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Greg, the clock is running. You made a claim about antibiotics and sanitation when the question was about measles. So now it is time for you to come up with some real answers.

Or learn about the differences between airborne and waterborne pathogens, the differences between bacteria and virus, or the importance of certain vectors.

Oh, Greg! How will you ever learn to live in a word that is not black and white!?

What degree did you get at your cow college?
As a graduand of Massey University a.k.a. Cowtech I must protest about any the pejorative use of “Cow College”.

OMG! I keep asking you guys to warn me before you concede anything. The shock really is too much.

Instead of gleefully warming your hands on a flaming straw man, you really should get yourself a better education – maybe start with some medical history.

Liz Ditz (#552) – They’ve got the genetics, now they have the diagnoses – it’s quite possible it’s already in the publication pipeline.

@Krebiozen –

Take a look at Chris’s response earlier re: ‘cytokine storm’. That isn’t about subsequent stimulation, it is about what happens as a result of the vaccine. When Science Mom (correctly) stated that the resultant immune response post vaccination was different, she wasn’t talking about post stimulation in a test tube.

The study I linked to didn’t utilize drawn and subsequently stimulated blood; they were evaluating what happened in vivo as a result of the vaccination process; how did the immune system respond to the vaccine at administration time? Can you show me which of your studies that you linked to performed this operation?

@Todd W.:

If my style of prose does not suit you, I apologize.

@Greg –

I haven’t looked too much at the Blaylock stuff. He’s got a terrible reputation online a quick googling has him showing up in some places that I tend not to trust.

That being said, the imbalance in excitatory/inhibitory factors is of interest to me but I haven’t had much time to really dig into it.

A lot of my thoughts in regards to immune challenges (or other early life stressors [or protectors!]) rest on a foundation of a programmable set of systems; be it immune, hpa-axis, energy metabolism, whatever. It turns out, a lot of these systems look to be intertwined, so when we look for ways to persistently alter systems involved with maintenance of the excitatory/inhibitory balance, you’ll find intersting associations; i.e., PMID: 23483921, 20666652, 19524372. [and many others]

@LW –

A couple of thoughts.

It is generally accepted as a mantra around here that autism rates are static, or at least, nearly static; in other words, the belief system here is that, indeed, ‘a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic’. That’s the only way we get a stable rate of autism that is genetically mediated! [Feel free to replace 2% with whatever the prevalance numbers de jour are.]

It’s funny how that doublethink works; when someone says, ‘tell me why we didn’t see so much autism before’, the answer is: ‘we are getting better at seeing it!’. Someone says, ‘here is a mechanism by which immune challenges can modify neurodevelopment’, suddenly the answer is, ‘we never saw X% of autism before!’. Talk about switching the goalposts! Which is it?

I said with some clarity above that I am not making the arguement of early life immune insults are a single cause of all autism. Every factor we find that appears to be a risk or protective factor for autism exhibits low penetrance. Given those facts, what has caused you to think that I am advocating that early life immune activation as a possible risk factor is stand alone and must be responsible for all of our prevalance observations?

I went to great lengths above to detail why the autism population appears to be a group specifically susceptible to this type of interaction due to their immune phenotype; your analysis would appear to presume that the only way to achieve this altered phenotype is through genetics. How does your common sense analysis tackle the question of factors external to genetics being able to alter the immune function of our infants; i.e., what has convinced you that the differences in immunological function we see in the autism population have been stable through time? If those values have not been stable through time, what effect does this have your model?

If we go back to pre-modernity, you aren’t allowed to only ‘keep’ the changes that are expedient to your argument. How does your analysis take changes in infant mortality into consideration? Or our changing immune systems as evidenced by increases in ‘traditional’ immune disorders in the modern world compared to pre-modern socities?

If all other things were equal, and the only change we’d made was improved sanitation, and we had good reason to think that 100% of immune alterations in the autism population was genetically based, then, sure. But we don’t have good reasons to think that, and we’ve changed a lot more than what you described. Common sense only goes so far when trying to understand complicated problems.

  • pD

@Chris

“Tick tock, tick tock.

Greg, the clock is running. You made a claim about antibiotics and sanitation when the question was about measles. So now it is time for you to come up with some real answers.

Or learn about the differences between airborne and waterborne pathogens, the differences between bacteria and virus, or the importance of certain vectors.

Oh, Greg! How will you ever learn to live in a word that is not black and white!?”

Chris darling — (BTW, are you a man or a woman? ‘Chris’ being one of those gender neutral names) —
you need to calm down a little. I thought I spelled out clearly at #451 my position on whether vaccines really did save us. Again Chris, there is the question of how reliable the figures are in those charts that you keep harping on. ‘Incidence’ as I mentioned has shown itself to be an unreliable indicator of vaccines effectiveness. We have documented cases where incidence rates were actually over reported in the thousand percentages. We see this over reporting again with the Swansea measles let’s-hype-a-measles-scare-so-we-can-bury-Wakefield-further-and-make-vaccines-look-better-outbreak. That said Chris, despite my position that we should not put too much faith in the charts, I am open to the position that the measles vaccine did swiftly finish off the measles, but the measles was already on the decline in both mortality and incidence. Also Chris, yes, I know that the measles is viral and anti-biotics won’t help. I brought up the whole sanitation and anti-biotics argument to remind you that even you are open to the position that these factors did effectively combat some past diseases. As it stands, Krebiozen has also made this shocking concession.

Well Orac’s VCADOD group, what a fine morning it is! Let’s get started with my programming… (Hey Orac, sorry about the ‘my programming’ thing. Don’t mean to steal your action but I thought things were getting rather blah around here that I should provide some entertainment. Carry on anyway with your quack, crank, anti-vaxxers-are-such-losers spew. )

So folks, let’s get started with our question of the day:

For the mother struggling daily with a nonverbal, screaming, head banging, poop smearing autistic child… For that mother who is filled with tremendous despair that her dream of having a happy, rewarding parenthood has essentially turned into a nightmare…. If you could look that mother in the eyes and say one thing, what would it be?

@pD

No need to apologize. Your comments are always very level-headed, and you try to back up your arguments with evidence, which is laudable, but sometimes the walls o’ text are just too daunting to wade through.

Whenever I read Greg’s posts (don’t get excited Greg, I usually scroll past them), I am reminded of the conversation between Lord Blackadder and Captain Rum on an Elizabethan ship.

Blackadder: Look, there’s no need to panic, someone in the crew will know how to steer this thing.

Rum: The crew milord?

Blackadder: I was under the impression that it was common maritime practice for a ship to have a crew.

Rum: Opinion is divided on the subject…All the other Captains say it is, I say it isn’t.

@Greg:

I thought I spelled out clearly at #451 my position on whether vaccines really did save us.

All you gave us was your opinion, “backed up” by cites from known antivaccination websites.

‘Incidence’ as I mentioned has shown itself to be an unreliable indicator of vaccines effectiveness. We have documented cases where incidence rates were actually over reported in the thousand percentages.

Citation needed for the over-reporting, particularly since you’ve made this claim before.

We see this over reporting again with the Swansea measles let’s-hype-a-measles-scare-so-we-can-bury-Wakefield-further-and-make-vaccines-look-better-outbreak.

Given that Gareth Colfer-Williams’s death has now been confirmed as having been caused by the measles, you have some cheek describing the outbreak as a “measles scare”.

I am open to the position that the measles vaccine did swiftly finish off the measles, but the measles was already on the decline in both mortality and incidence.

You’re a fool. In every case where a vaccine was introduced in a country, the incidence of the disease it protected against plummeted. That’s true across diseases and across nations. Whenever the vaccination rates have fallen the diseases have returned. Yet you seem to think this is just a giant coincidence. It isn’t.

For that mother who is filled with tremendous despair that her dream of having a happy, rewarding parenthood has essentially turned into a nightmare…. If you could look that mother in the eyes and say one thing, what would it be?

Courage. It will get better.

@ Greg, I wouldn’t give such an overtly despicable, dishonest waste of human tissue such as yourself a shred of personal information about myself.

Also I see no answer to my question of the day, so I will just assume that Greg lets the blood of infants dry on his hands so he can smell it through the day. You are a sick man Greg, how can you do such things?

Yes, Greg is clearly in massive denial about his baby-eating habits.

If you could look that mother in the eyes and say one thing, what would it be?

Stay the hell away from Greg, he wants to eat your baby!

Still ignoring the ignorant thread derailing, craving for attention Troll.

Stagmom, has an interesting post up today at AoA, about her youngest daughter Bella. Bella is the child who was not vaccinated, yet is the child who has been diagnosed with more severe impairments associated with an ASD diagnosis.

Look how Stagmom uses her own childhood experiences about the alarming increase of children who are non-verbal and who are on the Spectrum…to prove that it is “teh ebil vaccines that done did it”.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/if-autism-brought-blindness-instead-of-apraxic-mutism-would-media-care.html

“…..So when did being NON-VERBAL become acceptable? I don’t remember ever hearing about children NOT BEING ABLE TO SPEAK when I was a kid. Even children who were developmentally disabled (or as they were called “mentally retarded”) could talk. I’m sure there were children who didn’t speak, but they were rare. I would have been very interested in seeing someone like this. Now they’re everywhere and no one is asking why. This is frightening. We’re conditioned to children like this, thanks to stories like these. Every one of these stories brings up the issue in a very matter-of-fact way. I stopped when I found 20 stories from the last month. It didn’t take me long and I had lots to choose from….”

@lilady

I would ask Kim, “So, when you were a kid, how often did you visit psychiatric asylums?”

“Still ignoring the ignorant thread derailing, craving for attention Troll.”

Oh gosh! Lililady, still loves me! She didn’t remind me in a while that she is ignoring me, but now we have this. I just get this warm, fuzzy feeling all over.

Lilady, do you want to hook-up with our laptops? We could have a friendly game of who can search out the most autism stories and post pro and anti-vaxx comments. Something tells me though that you would probably win. A competition between you and Dachel? Now that would be a sight to behold!

According to greg, we can now blithely ignore all those anecdotal accounts from parents claiming that their children were perfectly fine but regressed almost immediately following vaccination. After all, according to greg over reporting in the thousand percentages happens all the time…

We see this [“thousand percentages”] over reporting again with the Swansea measles let’s-hype-a-measles-scare-so-we-can-bury-Wakefield-further-and-make-vaccines-look-better-outbreak.

No,“we” don’t. You simply are too devoid of cognitive function to understand when epi-links are appropriate or that all of the non-Wales UK cases reported were laboratory confirmed

So folks, let’s get started with our question of the day.

I’m afraid that you haven’t finished your homework from yesterday yet. This was an ultimatum question, and you have since made two comments. You have one left.

Oh gosh! Lililady, still loves me!

And that’s three. You have just conceded that “I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone” was a wanton crock of shıt.

@ Todd W. Stagmom and her older buddy the Dachel bot “never heard/never saw” a non-verbal autistic child…ergo they didn’t exist when they were growing up.

Never mind that Kim and the bot never visited a psychiatric center when they were growing up, where have they been, since their children were diagnosed with ASDs? Some of those children who were placed in those human warehouses are adults now. They still languish is the back wards of the existing psych centers and in the back wards of existing developmental centers.

Have either of them advocated on behalf of the establishment of alternative living situations for these children and young adults…right at home, right in the neighborhood?

@Science Mom

You know what I admire most about parents of autistic children who believe vaccines cause autism? Their courage! It would have been so much easier for them to consider that it was all due to genetics and nothing could have been done. Nor is it easy for them to go up against the establishment where they will be treated with disdain and ridicule.

Why would I install Greasemonkey, Narad?

The reason why I don’t address the Troll directly is because he’s the latest incarnation of Thingy…just as deranged…just as ignorant…just as craving for attention. You all have fallen into the Thingy trap, by replying to the troll directly, instead of posting around him.

Greg, so I guess you admire lemmings courage as well? How cute.

I have a question to you, not that you will answer any, but hey why not try?

How would you call a man, who belives that flying machine heavier than air is impossible and when taken aboar of an airplane claims that this is very proof that people who took him there can not be trusted and flying machines are impossible?

How would you describe that man?

Greg, there is nothing brave about them. They seek the “perfect” child they think they deserve, and seek someone to blame for an act that was nature’s alone. Be glad that people do not get what they deserve. People who live in fantasies and refuse to face reality are the greatest kind of coward.

You know what I admire most about parents of autistic children who believe vaccines cause autism? Their courage! It would have been so much easier for them to consider that it was all due to genetics and nothing could have been done. Nor is it easy for them to go up against the establishment where they will be treated with disdain and ridicule.

That isn’t courage moron; it’s the opposite. Courage is what is displayed by parents who love and accept their children for who they are and provide the means to ease their challenges. Not making up bogeymen to assuage their broken dreams and de-humanising their children by pumping them full of awful concoctions to “cure them”. You pathetic poseur.

Are young earth creationists also courageous? How about flat earthers?

By what rational argument is believing something that all available evidence indicates is untrue a courageous act?

Greg:

That said Chris, despite my position that we should not put too much faith in the charts, I am open to the position that the measles vaccine did swiftly finish off the measles, but the measles was already on the decline in both mortality and incidence.

You have not answered which years between 1912 and 1960 the incidence of measles was on decline. It is very simple, look at the census table I provided and provide the years that there was a consistent and substantial decline.

Some selected years from that census table:
1912 . . . 310.0
1955 . . . 337.9
1960 . . . 245.4

Yeah, not a whole lot of decline there. And the more detailed one from Appendix G of the CDC Pink Book:
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases
1950__319,124
1951__530,118
1952__683,077
1953__449,146
1954__682,720
1955__555,156
1956__611,936
1957__486,799
1958__763,094
1959__406,162
1960__441,703

Nope, don’t see anything substantial other than the regular up and down for epidemic/non-epidemic years.

Oh, and all of those Cliffy Miller graphs were mortality, which has not the same as morbidity (which is incidence) . You made the claim that incidence was declining, but the data does not support that.

You fail.

Oh, and another thing about the Cliffy’s graphs, the bacteria that causes scarlet fever has not gone away. It is just that when kids get strep throat (same bug) they then get antibiotics. Also, there is something interesting about that particular bug: like tetanus you do not get immunity. You can get strep right after recovering over and over and over again. It happened to my kids one very long painful spring a few years ago.

The reason why I don’t address the Troll directly is because he’s the latest incarnation of Thingy…

I’m not the first person to point out that pointedly and repeatedly stating that one is ignoring someone isn’t in fact ignoring them, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the first time that I’ve said this.

Wasn’t there an episode of “Happy Days” in which Marion and Howard “weren’t speaking to each other” and instead stood in the same room and had Richie play Monkey in the Middle? Maybe it was “All in the Family” with Gloria, whatever.

I think all answers to Greg should start with ” When did you stop beating your wife” and repeating this until he answers because allowing to continue to spew his nonsense and attempt to answer his accusations a idiocy is not getting us anywhere. So, let me be the first (and I know someone has started this before but I think it bears repeating until Greg answers):
GREG – WHEN DID YOU STOP BEATING YOUR WIFE?

If you could look that mother in the eyes and say one thing, what would it be?

It depends on the context. Most likely I’d start with “howdy”, which would be my one thing.

HDB: Sorry, that was mean of me. Actually, I doubt Greggles ever went to any college.

pD,

Take a look at Chris’s response earlier re: ‘cytokine storm’. That isn’t about subsequent stimulation, it is about *what happens as a result of the vaccine*. When Science Mom (correctly) stated that the resultant immune response post vaccination was *different*, she wasn’t talking about post stimulation in a test tube.

The study I linked to didn’t utilize drawn and subsequently stimulated blood; they were evaluating what happened in vivo as a *result* of the vaccination process; how did the immune system respond to the vaccine at administration time? Can you show me which of your studies that you linked to performed this operation?

I thought I had explained clearly enough, but you have apparently misunderstood what I wrote about having to use stimulated white blood cells when dealing with the small sample sizes in infants. I suggest you read this paper (PDF) which explains cytokine measurement in some detail. Here are some relevant passages:

…due to the local effects of cytokines, the study of their blood levels is of limited value for an understanding of the pathophysiology of these mediators. This explains the development of alternative approaches to assess the ability of cells to produce cytokines. […]
The detection limit of the majority of cytokine kits is around 5pg/ml, i.e. greater than the circulating concentrations of many cytokines not only in physiological, but also, sometimes, in pathological conditions.

As I wrote before, the increase in blood levels of cytokines after even infection is too small to be easily measured, so stimulated levels are often used instead, especially in infants. It also seems that because cytokines largely act intracellularly, circulating blood levels are of limited use. You can tell how much liquid is in a sponge by squeezing it, to use an analogy.

pD,

It is generally accepted as a mantra around here that autism rates are static, or at least, nearly static; in other words, the belief system here is that, indeed, ‘a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic’. That’s the only way we get a stable rate of autism that is genetically mediated! [Feel free to replace 2% with whatever the prevalance numbers de jour are.]

I suspect the prevalence of autistic disorder, or classic autism, has always been around 0.5%.

It’s funny how that doublethink works; when someone says, ‘tell me why we didn’t see so much autism before’, the answer is: ‘we are getting better at seeing it!’. Someone says, ‘here is a mechanism by which immune challenges can modify neurodevelopment’, suddenly the answer is, ‘we never saw X% of autism before!’. Talk about switching the goalposts! Which is it?

I don’t remember anyone here saying anything like that. I would suggest that if post-natal immune stimulation can have a profound effect on neurodevelopment we would see a very large difference in prevalence in the pre-vaccine and post-vaccine eras. Specifically I would expect to see far more autism back when infant mortality due to contagious diseases was well into double figures (40% over the first year in 18th century London), since survivors must surely have had large immune responses during any and all of the windows of neurodevelopmental sensitivity you have suggested. We don’t see this.

The only way this might work is if there is some hormetic mechanism in place. That isn’t impossible, as we have seen a number of counter-intuitive effects of changes in environment and in vaccination e.g. an increase in paralytic polio after hygiene improvements, and an increase of average age of contracting rubella into the child-bearing age range with poor rubella vaccination coverage. However, I don’t see any evidence for this happening. Finding evidence to support a mechanism to explain non-existent observations isn’t how science normally works.

Perhaps broccoli, which contains immunomodulatory chemical, can cross the placenta, or end up in breast milk and cause autism. Perhaps a thousand other things might do the same.

I suppose all the people who might have been rendered autistic (if such a thing happens) by a disease might have just, well, died instead.

I’m with Krebiozen on the broccoli hypothesis. I would add various others of the “effete” vegetables as well, including cooked cauliflower, Brussels sprouts (which I did see once in a market in Belgium), and asparagus.

Brussels sprouts (which I did see once in a market in Belgium),

What did they call them there? I’m wondering if it’s like syphilis, which was the French Pox in England, the Italian Pox in France, and the English Pox in Scotland (disclaimer – I am actually very fond of all brassicas, and only pick on broccoli for its comedy value).

Krebiozen – I have to admit, it’s been too long and my view too fleeting. I recall seeing them but not the sign next to them (they were still on the stalk like a miniature Christmas tree). I’ve heard that the Belgians refer to them as English Cabbages but cannot say from personal experience that is true. I’ll ask my Belgian friends.

I do find many of the cruciferous vegetables inedible, though, when cooked. There is no amount of cheese sauce that will cover the taste of some of them.

@passionlessDrone

It’s funny how that doublethink works; when someone says, ‘tell me why we didn’t see so much autism before’, the answer is: ‘we are getting better at seeing it!’. Someone says, ‘here is a mechanism by which immune challenges can modify neurodevelopment’, suddenly the answer is, ‘we never saw X% of autism before!’. Talk about switching the goalposts! Which is it?

I’m pretty sure that the way doublethink works is that the same person has two mutually opposing thoughts, not that a person has one thought in mind and points out that the other opposing thought does not make sense. Which is what I was doing. 

I said with some clarity above that I am *not* making the arguement of early life immune insults are a single cause of all autism.

I have never been able to tell from your comments what fraction of autism you believe to be caused by early life immune insults, not even to the nearest order of magnitude. Putting that aside, you may not believe that virtually all autism is caused by early life immune insults (read: vaccination) but Greg most certainly does.

Greg has stated:

1)  In the halcyon days of yore when vaccine-preventable disease had free rein, the autism rate was 1/10,000.

2)  Today the rate is 1/50, or 200/10,000.

3)  All of that increase is due to vaccination, because some percentage of the population — at least 2% — would respond to a mild immunological insult in infancy (read: vaccination) by developing autism.

If this were true, I’d expect pre-modern societies to have an autism rate caused by early life immune insults of at least 2% which Greg denies; Greg claims that without vaccination the rate would be 1/10,000.  I see this as a problem with Greg’s argument; perhaps you don’t. 

Of course, as you point out, infant mortality plays a role here. But according to Greg, 199/200 potentially autistic children would have to die in infancy to produce the “proper” autism rate  When half the children die before reaching adulthood, 2% dying from early life immune insults wouldn’t even be noticed. True. But by the same token, any genes that produce that outcome would be under ferocious selection pressure, don’t you think?  If only 0.005% of the carriers live long enough to reproduce, there’d have to be some substantial benefit for their collaterals to keep the genes in the population. 

 

How does your common sense analysis tackle the question of factors external to genetics being able to alter the immune function of our infants; i.e., what has convinced you that the differences in immunological function we see in the autism population have been stable through time?

It strikes me that it is your burden to prove that autistic people in the Twenty-First Century BC had different immune function from those in the Twenty-First Century AD, if your theory depends on that.

Common sense only goes so far when trying to understand complicated problems.

And there we can agree.

(they were still on the stalk like a miniature Christmas tree)

They appear like that in UK supermarkets around Christmas, the traditional time of year to consume Satan’s grapes, as I have heard them described. Sadly the tradition is also to cook them until they are a soggy, pale and foul-tasting mockery of what a properly al-dente-cooked Brussels sprout should be.

Food talk at RI? Must be bed-time for me.

“The reason why I don’t address the Troll directly is because he’s the latest incarnation of Thingy…”

“I’m not the first person to point out that pointedly and repeatedly stating that one is ignoring someone isn’t in fact ignoring them, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the first time that I’ve said this.”

OMG — a fight between two of pharma’s best attack dogs! We have Narad, the powerful and lethal rottweiler vs Lilady, the ferocious, determined pit bull. Who will be left when they finish off each other? Lawrence? But how will he prove his dedication? Heck, he doesn’t even vaccinate his kids!

Sadly the tradition is also to cook them until they are a soggy, pale and foul-tasting mockery of what a properly al-dente-cooked Brussels sprout should be.

I’ve heard that is an English tradition. Happily when I’ve eaten in England that has not been the case, though I have deliberately avoided mushy peas.

Guys,

Seriously, I must interrupt myself and take a break. I’ll be back! Most likely in a week or so.

@Pd
Thanks very much for the studies. I am also providing this utube link of a 14 pt video in which Russell Blaylock explains his immuno-excitotoxcity theory. I think it would be good if you don’t judge a book by its cover and check out what he has to say. I would greatly appreciate your take.

@Orac’s VCADOD(vaccines causing autism denialism obsessive disorder) group

While I am gone, I encourage you to continue reflecting on my questions of the day. Maybe you guys can discuss them amongst yourselves. In case anyone forgot, the four questions are,

  1. With Japan retracting its recommendation of the HPV vaccine, will this make it harder for US health officials to defend the vaccine?

  2. Given that vaccines cause autism and some of you being MDs, how do you hide your unease when a parent approaches you with an ailing autistic child seeking an explanation?

  3. What would you say to a parent who is struggling day-to-day with a very difficult autistic child and who feels all hope is lost?

  4. When the vaccines causing autism denial racket is up how do think things will be conceded?

@ Krebiozen:
@ Mephistopheles:

re miserable, cruciferous vegetables:
I hate them all but make an exception for broccoli ( and then, only the darkest green florets are fit for consumption). Even the most talented Indian/ Pakistani curry wallah cannot make cauliflower palatable.

Unfortunately, I once drove through the Brussels sprout capital of the world, which is near both the artichoke capital and the garlic capital ( Watsonville, Gilroy etc)- I forget which one is which as I despise them all- thus I saw thousands of acres of them baking in the noonday sun.
Let them remain there.

@ Alain:

I think that you might want to find a programme that will allow you the option of working then returning to school- at your own pace: a paralegal would be able to work and then continue onwards later. Some educational pathways make it difficult to stop and start- i.e. you need at least a grad degree to even start work.

Research some more but Quebec sounds like a good place.

Greggy: “While I am gone, I encourage you to continue reflecting on my questions of the day.”

Why don’t you work on your reading comprehension while you are away. Considering how Japan had allowed pertussis, measles, mumps and now rubella to come back, I doubt that the US would follow its example. (as I told you in comment #443)

And do work on your counting skills. You keep claiming that the incidence of measles was declining prior to the introduction of vaccines., yet the numbers themselves show that is wrong, wrongety, wrong! (see comment #668)

Only a week, Greg? Take as much time as you need for your butt to heal, a year or two perhaps. You deserve it.

OMG — a fight between two of pharma’s best attack dogs!

What you apparently fail to grasp is that rational disagreement is perfectly acceptable in the open around here.

I will add as a postscript that I don’t argue with pD, but his question about the Brugha denominator was perfectly legitimate, and I at least made an effort to track this down. Have I finished the job? No.

You seem to have no grasp of the distinction between good and bad faith.

Even the most talented Indian/ Pakistani curry wallah cannot make cauliflower palatable.

Have you taken leave of your senses? A mere gobhi sooji uppma is sublime.

FURTHERMORE, I have never had Brussels sprouts come out pooorly except for the one time I accepted the design of Brother Ron Pickarski. Adding seaweed does not improve the situation.

It is generally accepted as a mantra around here that autism rates are static, or at least, nearly static; in other words, the belief system here is that, indeed, ‘a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic’. That’s the only way we get a stable rate of autism that is genetically mediated! [Feel free to replace 2% with whatever the prevalance numbers de jour are.]

It’s funny how that doublethink works; when someone says, ‘tell me why we didn’t see so much autism before’, the answer is: ‘we are getting better at seeing it!’. Someone says, ‘here is a mechanism by which immune challenges can modify neurodevelopment’, suddenly the answer is, ‘we never saw X% of autism before!’. Talk about switching the goalposts! Which is it?

I’ve got to be blunt here, pD; usually I don’t have any trouble understanding what you write, and here I’ve read over just these two paragraphs at least ten times and I’m still not sure exactly what argument you’re trying to make.

I’m going to try and respond to what I think you’re arguing, but if I didn’t understand you, it may because you’re using new idioms like “switching the goalposts” and leaving us to puzzle out what you mean by them (the established idiom is “shifting the goalposts,” and if that’s the idiom you meant to use, it may not mean what you think it means.)

You talk about there supposedly being a “mantra” that “‘a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic'”. I’ll tell you, from just about any other antivax commenter, I would think they were trotting out that straw man out of an unwillingness to engage with the actual science-based position. From you, I think it’s that the foundation of your “self-awarded degrees” is much thinner than you are aware of, and you don’t understand as much as you think you do of the science-based position.

I explained the principle of Occam’s Razor to Skeptiquette upthread; I recommend that explanation to you. Basically, it means that for a given state of evidence, the best, most likely explanation is the simplest. You can’t go demanding that people accept the explanation you favor just because it matches the evidence; if a simpler explanation also matches the evidence, that simpler explanation is the better explanation.

Many people have come here demanding that their explanation of “vaccines cause autism” be accepted, because supposedly it’s the best explanation for how autism ‘came outta nowhere; we never had autism before and now it’s all over the place!’

Well, obviously, to determine what explanation best fits the evidence, you need to first get your evidence right. The science-based camp says “Hmmm, ‘we never had autism before’? That’s a strong claim, and hard to verify. Perhaps a more realistic version of that claim would be ‘we didn’t perceive autism happening in such numbers before’. We can be sure of that part, which we can’t about the much stronger claim that it wasn’t even happening.”

And when you look at that more cautious version of the evidence, it turns out that there’s an explanation much simpler than “there is some entity, and it’s probably vaccines, causing an autism epidemic”. That explanation is “whatever is causing autism now was probably causing autism then, except back then, we were more likely to call it ‘mental retardation’, or some other condition that was more familiar than autism.”

And you know what? The science-based camp has done what the antivax camp doesn’t do, and tried to falsify their own hypothesis; they’ve gone back and taken the material that caused child patients to be diagnosed as mentally retarded in earlier decades, and presented it to modern-day professionals and said “How would this child be diagnosed today, upon this evidence?” If no more than a tiny minority of those child patients had been re-diagnosed as autistic, then it would have done serious damage to the “diagnostic substitution” hypothesis – but that didn’t happen; enough children who were previously considered “mentally retarded” were re-diagnosed as autistic to make it very plausible that autism was around then, too, just not widely recognized as such.

That’s why I’m so nonplussed at your claim that the science-based camp has some sort of mantra about “autism incidence has always been stable at 2%, always, always, always, never going up or down!” If that’s supposedly our mantra, please explain to me why I’ve never heard it from anyone in the science-based camp? Nothing about the diagnostic substitution hypothesis says that the true incidence of autism is stable, or “genetically mediated,” or 2%, or anything like that; it just says that autism incidence does not have to be skyrocketing in order to account for people’s perception that it is skyrocketing.

You accused us of “switching the goalposts” (as well as of something I’m not going to pretend I understand what you mean, something about saying “we never saw X% of autism before!”) Well, the idiom is actually “shifting the goalposts” or “moving the goalposts”. It refers to when someone makes a representation of what standard of evidence they would accept for a particular point, and then when that challenge is met, they retroactively change the standard to exclude the evidence they find inconvenient. (There’s an example you should remember, pD, since you were here for it. That’s the fellow who came here insisting that there was no such thing as an unvaccinated autistic child, and he should know, since he’d asked all over the Internet and found no such children. When it was pointed out to him that there were plenty, for instance the hundred or so that were reported in a Generation Rescue phone survey, he changed his tune only slightly: there was no such thing as an unvaccinated autistic child, and he should know, since he’d never had the complete medical records of such a child presented to him for his examination. So, basically, taking strangers at their word was okay until they weren’t saying what he wanted, and then suddenly complete medical records were needed.)

Since no one has pulled that sort of standard-of-proof switcheroo with you, you don’t have legitimate grounds for complaining that anyone’s been shifting the goalposts. But somehow I suspect that there’s more to your “switching the goalposts” than just getting the idiom wrong. I think you think you’re actually answering the right question and us mean science-based people are demanding something other than what you’re offering, just because we don’t like the implications of your answer.

But what’s really happening is that you keep hammering home on your answer to the third question, and you can’t or won’t understand us that the third question comes after the first and second. First is “What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalence, as opposed to just the perception of one?” If we get a solid answer to that, the second question is “What factors are suggested by the evidence to be correlated with this increased autism risk we’re seeing?” If an answer to that second question turns out to be “vaccination”, then and only then does it make sense to ask the third question of “how might vaccines play a causal role in autism?”

I’m sure it’s frustrating to you that we seem to shoot down so casually all your theorizing about mechanisms by which vaccines might cause autism, but it’s no less frustrating to us that when we ask “Where is one shred of solid evidence to demonstrate that vaccines are doing anything of the sort?” the only thing you give us is more speculation about mechanisms.

I think brocoli is a plausible trigger for autism…along with the latex ports in vaccine vials and the latex packaging for vaccine syringes. What ever happened to the latex-fixated commercial adhesive salesman?

Who’s dissing my cruciferous veggies? You haven’t experienced the divine lightly-sauteed-in olive oil and garlic cauliflower florets…with a wee amount of crush red pepper flakes.

AF @694, I just want to thank you for continuing to comment. Your writing has an exceptional clarity to it that I hope to emulate in my own writings.

Greg:

1. With Japan retracting its recommendation of the HPV vaccine, will this make it harder for US health officials to defend the vaccine?

Given Japan’s sad experience with withdrawing other vaccines, I think not.

2. Given that wooden-headed antivaccinationists believe vaccines cause autism and some of you being MDs, how do you hide your unease when a parent approaches you with an ailing autistic child seeking an explanation?

FTFY. Given that there is no evidence that vaccines cause autism, what unease?

3. What would you say to a parent who is struggling day-to-day with a very difficult autistic child and who feels all hope is lost?

I would refer them to Temple Grandin’s autobiography “Emergence: labelled autistic”. Grandin was a “very difficult autistic child” (to use your phrase) and she turned out ok. I’d remind them that things do get better and that there are supports and help out there.

4. When the vaccines causing autism denial racket is up how do think things will be conceded?

You may as well ask me what I plan to do when I win the lottery.
I don’t play the lottery.

As usual I find I missed interesting food talk while I slept.
M. O’B.,

I have deliberately avoided mushy peas

They are much more pleasant than they sound – there’s a certain snobbishness about them among southerners in England as they are a northern delicacy. Think of them as a kind of hummus. I recently watched a TV show about Indian cooking (Rick Stein’s India) and one of the street chefs in India used mushy peas as an ingredient, which amused me.

I’m with Narad and lilady on cruciferous vegetables. I’m a PCT taster, and I love them, partly because of the slightly bitter taste. My wife is a non-taster and isn’t at all keen. Is there a connection? We may have been through this before, but I don’t recall.

Just dropping back in for a quick second…

” You know what I admire most about parents of autistic children who believe vaccines cause autism? Their courage! It would have been so much easier for them to consider that it was all due to genetics and nothing could have been done. Nor is it easy for them to go up against the establishment where they will be treated with disdain and ridicule.”

“That isn’t courage moron; it’s the opposite. Courage is what is displayed by parents who love and accept their children for who they are and provide the means to ease their challenges. Not making up bogeymen to assuage their broken dreams and de-humanising their children by pumping them full of awful concoctions to “cure them”. You pathetic poseur.”

Please review the videos of the challenging autistic cases, and let me know if they in any way alter your view.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/the-pretty-and-the-ugly-sides-of-autism.html

@Antaneus Feldspar –

I am saddened that I have left you confused, funny enough, I was experimenting with a more concise response to try to remove the wall of text thing. Hah.

I’ll try to clarify my thoughts in another post, later today or tonight.

@Krebiozen –

I had written my response regarding blood draws before reading one of your follow ups. I’ll try to post more about this later.

@ SM –

I guess we disagree on some things. I had started a response, but it got rambling. I’ll try to tighten it up.

@Alain –

Autism is highly heterogeneous in manifestation. There is not going to be any risk factor that can explain every feature of ability or disability in autism. How does the presence of a MET-C allele, or SHANK3 mutation, or a mother being infected with ruebella explain enhanced spatial memory in some instances of autism?

@ Narad:
@ lilady:

If your beloved cauliflower is really so good why do you have to drown it in all of these clever seasoning tricks?

@ Krebiozen:

I don’t like any kind of peas- mushy or otherwise. If you’re going mushy, you might as well just make soup.

On the subject of being a ‘taster’ or not- I’m not sure: it seems I have some of the characteristics that are listed but not others.

If your beloved cauliflower is really so good why do you have to drown it in all of these clever seasoning tricks?

As far as Indian cookery goes, uppma is very mildly seasoned indeed.

@ Narad:

Oh, I’m partially joking.

The point being that I really dislike some of these vegetables and also don’t like coffee or chocolate – particular spices/ herbs can ruin a dish for me ( allspice, cinnamin, oregano esp), I despise red wine. According to the BBC test, I’m a supertaster but then I don’t hate cilantro and I relish blue cheeses and eat Indian food, wasabi.
I’ve never done the test strip or the blue tongue routine.

I like broccoli and cauliflower, but not sprouts (though they’re tolerable if they are roasted and sprinkled with some salt). The former two are quite tasty raw or lightly steamd. Broccoli cut in “sheets” and pan seared, served with garlic chips is also quite yummy.

Boiling any of them is not recommended, and boiling them to the point of squishiness is right out.

I don’t “drown” cauliflower in seasoning, Denice. I’m wondering how MO’B cooks his veggies that have to be drowned in cheese sauce to make them palatable.

The only time I’ve been able to east cauliflower is as part of a curry dish, and usually, when our family makes curry, we tend to add every vegetable we can find, including chick peas, sweet potatoes, and jalapeno peppers. Somehow it works.

Given that vaccines cause autism…

And the evidence that vaccines cause autism, Greg? Oh, that’s right–you don’t have any.

I’m wondering how MO’B cooks his veggies that have to be drowned in cheese sauce to make them palatable.

I lightly steam broccoli with a little salt and lemon juice until it is bright green and just tender. I do not, however, eat it regardless of how it is prepared and I cook it as a service to others. I’ve been served broccoli with distressing frequency in various dishes at Italian and Chinese restaurants in particular. I find it inedible regardless of the recipe. I made the mistake of throwing some broccoli that I fished out of Chinese take-out into the trash rather than the disposer the other week – within minutes the smell in the kitchen was sickening, as was the smell in the garage when I took it to the outside trash can.

Cauliflower is perfectly fine raw, possibly with a little dressing.

Cabbage is fine raw and cooked certain ways, though boiled cabbage is not my idea of a good time. Sweet and sour red cabbage is particularly tasty.

When people describe sprouts roasted and drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, it sounds like it SHOULD be good and I SHOULD like it, but they still taste like sprouts to me.

I haven’t yet tried grilling brassicas, but so far I haven’t found a vegetable that doesn’t taste perfectly delicious when grilled correctly. Actually, I haven’t yet found ANY food that doesn’t taste better when grilled right. On my ship one night, the unlucky suckers that were on duty in a liberty port came in for supper. My friend says “oh lovely, leftover chili mac and fetal cabbages” but I have found that brussels sprouts when cooked only to barely to tenderness in cream are fine indeed.

oh, and if you can find the colored cauliflower, the orange ones roast into a very delicious thing with olive oil and salt. I like plaine white as well, but the orange ones seem a bit sweeter and milder.

I have on occasion been fed broccoli cheese soup and was told that I would be unable to taste the broccoli. That statement was incorrect. Perhaps a homeopathic 20C preparation…

Actually, I haven’t yet found ANY food that doesn’t taste better when grilled right.

I wholeheartedly agree with that, with the possible exception of rice.

Are we all in agreement now, about grilled veggies?

I enjoy every kind of vegetable…with the exception of lima and fava beans…and okra.

MO’B: I only have garbage pickups twice weekly and you have a holiday interrupt one of those pickups, I resort to freezing my stinky garbage, rather than having racoons dining on rotting raw meat and raw fish trimmings. 🙂

quote pD

Autism is highly heterogeneous in manifestation. There is not going to be any risk factor that can explain every feature of ability or disability in autism. How does the presence of a MET-C allele, or SHANK3 mutation, or a mother being infected with ruebella explain enhanced spatial memory in some instances of autism?

Do you have any good reason(s) that we should ignore that body of knowledge especially since Dr. Casanova provide a causal link to increased memory (i.e. saying autism is heterogeneous don’t cut it)?

Are you saying that autistics from Quebec are different to autistics from elsewhere in the world?

Alain

@pD,

To address your point below:

For instance, early-life infection in rats can profoundly disrupt memory function in young adulthood, as well as accelerate age-related cognitive decline, both of which are linked to enduring changes in glial function that occur in response to the initial infection

have a look at that MRS meta-analysis:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22832731 (open-access)

who found out that the autistic brain have lower level of common neurotransmitters (normal, the brain cells are smaller) as compared to control up to 35 years old where level of neurotransmitters are normal.

In other words, the brain keep producing new cells until 35 years old. That’s not compatible with age-accelerated cognitive decline.

Now, couple that with the memory finding, the minicolumns finding (23% more brain cell in the brain) and this meta-analysis (i.e. a combination of experimental papers to stress it fully) and you have pretty robust finding against degenerescence.

When does the neurotypical brain attain maturity?

Alain

@ pD (and everyone else).

The dark age of research when we compared autistic brain to injured brain (Phineas Gage, ring a bell) is deader than dead. It’s not a case of brain insult and a number of research groups agree with that and moved from that area of research. When will you follow suit pD?

Alain

I enjoy every kind of vegetable…with the exception of lima and fava beans…and okra.

Sufferin’ succotash! I’ll give you the okra, although perhaps I’ve just never had it prepared well.

I like okra in gumbo. The rest of my family likes it fried; some like it pickled or boiled.

Our other family recipe is a nice, simple one: Saute some onions, add some chopped tomato and let simmer for a bit, put in some kidney bean, let cook a while longer, add bell pepper and jalapeno, serve with cheese over rice.

I agree with Krebiozen about okra- but only if done in the Indian or Pakistani style.
Otherwise, no.

DW: How can you claim to be a foodie and dislike all the best stuff? It boggles the mind as to how anyone could dislike garlic. Or chocolate and coffee; the best ice-cream I’ve ever had was a coffee/chocolate blend.

@ Politicalguineapig:

I never claimed to be a foodie but I adore going to restaurants. I’ll admit that I have strong likes and dislikes. I do however love coffee ice cream or yoghurt.
Not the stuff people drink.

Ugh! Coffee ice cream? That is sacrilege. Why would you ruin perfectly good, wonderful ice cream by adding coffee flavor? Blech.

Fried okra. With ketchup.

(It’s the Southern side of my family coming out).

I wonder how much of our food likes and dislikes are innate and genetically programmed and how much they are culturally learned. Many foods are an acquired taste – the mere fact there is a term for that phenomenon is telling.

How many people really like garlic, black olives, chili or beer the first time they taste them? That said, my daughter had a love of black olives as a toddler. She would also eat Marmite by the spoonful. Genetics or learned behavior?

@ Krebiozen:

I would guess a great deal is learned- perhaps associated with positive experiences or relationships.

I remember the first time I tasted blue ( bleu?) cheese and thought it awful. Later I liked it. Don’t know why.

I’m with learned behavior for the most part, but as I’ve said repeatedly, appreciation of Malört seems like a strong candidate for genetics.

Never did lose my aversion to olives, though.

@Krebiozen –

As I wrote before, the increase in blood levels of cytokines after even infection is too small to be easily measured, so stimulated levels are often used instead, especially in infants.

Well, as SM mentioned, let’s go ahead and acknowlege that my ignorance is wide and vast. It is acknolwedged. I’ve said in some places that my primary concern is that, as a species, we aren’t clever enough to understand possible unintended consequences of our actions, and because I consider myself part of that species, I will state for the record that my areas of inexpertise are large.

That being said, let’s look at

Serial measurements of C-reactive protein and interleukin-6 in the immediate postnatal period: reference intervals and analysis of maternal and perinatal confounders [PMID: 11375286]

From the methods section:

CRP and IL-6 values were prospectively obtained for 148 healthy babies (113 term, 35 near-term) at birth and at 24 and 48 h of life and from their mothers at delivery.

Now, I’m curious as to why the researchers bothered to perform this analysis if, indeed, blood levels of cytokines are too small to be easily measured? These measurements were taken immediately after birth, and again 24 and 48 hours later. How were they able to obtain these measurements?

Here are some of the results:

The IL-6 values observed in the delivering mothers and in their babies at all three neonatal ages were negatively associated with gestational age. In the immediate postnatal period, IL-6 dynamics for term babies were significantly different from those for near-term babies.

(That is actually a pretty interesting finding!)

But more saliently to this dicussion, can you explain to a simple layman like myself why the researchers bothered with this experiment, and how thay arrived at differnet values? These were healthy, normal, children, and yet, they drew blood with the intient of measuring IL-6. They didn’t stimulate it. How is this possible considering your reference?

Similarly, the sepsis area seems to have a ton of studies where these types of cytokines were successfully measured without stimulation; i.e.,

The role of IL-6 for predicting neonatal sepsis: a systematic review and meta-analysis (PMID: 23056824)

A review paper.

Meta-analysis was performed on 13 publications including 353 infants with sepsis and 691 control infants. The pooled sensitivity and specificity of IL-6 was 0.79 and 0.84, respectively.

Can you tell me how this type of analysis possible if these types of measurements are not possible? What is missing in my understanding between the reference you posted above, and a meta-analysis of 13 papers on IL-6 in infants? [I’d note that a ton of ‘control’ infants had blood drawn for this experiment.]

It turns out, recently, there has been some attempt to identify measurements of inflammation post vaccination in infants, i.e.,

Inflammatory responses to hepatitis B virus vaccine in healthy term infants (PMID: 23358708)

Therefore, we prospectively studied interleukin-6 (IL-6) and CRP responses to HBV immunization. In 70 healthy term infants without signs and symptoms of sepsis and sepsis risk factors, IL-6, CRP, and white blood cell count levels were determined before and 24 h after immunization. Significant increases in CRP levels were seen 24 h after vaccination (p?<?0.001). Although CRP levels of 22 infants at second evaluation were above the cutoff level for sepsis (4.82 mg/L) they had no clinical signs and symptoms of sepsis.

(Whoa)

And yet, again, the methodology and reporting of results, seems at odds with your posting regading the difficulty in detecting increase in blood cyokine levels.

Perhaps there are different tools available lately, considering your reference was from 2000? Maybe our existing kits are superior to those available to the authors of the paper you referenced? I really don’t know, but it seems like a lot of people are publishing results of the thing that you say is too difficult to capture.

Your statements seem, to my uneducated eye, to be at odds with an array of literature. How is this possible? What am I missing?

Specifically I would expect to see far more autism back when infant mortality due to contagious diseases was well into double figures (40% over the first year in 18th century London), since survivors must surely have had large immune responses during any and all of the windows of neurodevelopmental sensitivity you have suggested. We don’t see this

Suddenly the 1900 guys were supposed to be as good at seeing autism as we are now too? I thought we were just getting good at this, and that’s why our figures are all about perception, not actual change!

Maybe you and AF should discuss the concepts of increased awareness and diagnostic shifting; those mechanisms are capable of causing us to recognize autism today, when the same situation occurred in the past but we weren’t as good at identifying it. (I happen to think that diagnostic changes have made a big effect in our observation of rates.)

  • pD

@Antaneus Feldspar –

[love the wall of text!]

Let’s take a look at what LW wrote.

Given that background, is it really credible that a full 2% of the population would respond to a mild immunological insult in infancy by developing autism? And if so, would we not see that a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic? The only way we wouldn’t see that, I think, is if that 2% pretty much all died in infancy, except for the very few who survived long enough to be recognized and killed as changelings.

He says the only way we wouldn’t see a ‘full 2%’ of the population developing autism would be a mass die off. He gives no credence to a decreased awareness of autism. There is no recognition of the concept of a low penetrant effect. He gives no credence to the idea of a broadening of what autism means to include less affected children; indeed, he seems to think that the remaining infants who didn’t die would be identified as ‘changelings’. I get the sense that if Greg or I described the entire autism spectrum as ‘changelings’ so obviously different that pre-modern societies would immediately recognize (and murder!) them as such, I would get crucified; LW does it and nobody bats an eye. Where is the outrage?

For whatever reasons, probably including a lot of what you describe, we DO NOT see the same rates of autism when we look to past populations. None of that entered in LW’s thought experiment and nobody seemed to notice.

Now, you go on to give a well thought out explanation of the concepts of diagnostic widening, greater awareness, and diagnostic shifting. But those are the reasons that we are given generally as to why we don’t see X% of autism in ‘every pre-modern population’; that’s the entire idea behind an epidemic of awareness, that is the underpinning of a perception of change, as opposed to an actual change. Can you show me where the ideas of greater awareness and diagnostic changing are reflected in LW’s common sense analysis? Where is the recognition in this analysis that our current conceptualization of autism includes children who are subtly different, when his thought experiment has surviving infants identified (and killed!) as changelings? That is why throwing a ‘why don’t we see 2%’ argument at me is hilarious; it ignores the concepts of diagnostic variability and greater awareness, it allows for none of them.

From you, I think it’s that the foundation of your self-awarded degrees’ is much thinner than you are aware of, and you don’t understand as much as you think you do of the science-based position.

LOL.

Many people have come here demanding that their explanation of ‘vaccines cause autism’ be accepted, because supposedly it’s the best explanation for how autism ‘came outta nowhere; we never had autism before and now it’s all over the place!’

Technically true. I do not believe that I have done so. (?) I’ve had people tell me that vaccines are 100% safe; should I could around here and start alluding to how that got told to me once, and therefore, it has salience for your arguments? I do not believe it is appropriate to try to make me defend other people’s arguments.

The science-based camp says ‘Hmmm, ‘we never had autism before’? That’s a strong claim, and hard to verify.

I have never made that claim.

That explanation is ‘whatever is causing autism now was probably causing autism then, except back then, we were more likely to call it ‘mental retardation’, or some other condition that was more familiar than autism.

OK. But then why is LW so amazed that we don’t see a full 2% of autism in pre-modern societies?

Nothing about the diagnostic substitution hypothesis says that the true incidence of autism is stable

Uhh. I think you kind of lost me there.

First is ‘What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalence, as opposed to just the perception of one?’

Reliance on behavioral diagnostic data will never achieve this. When rates went from .5% to 1% it was diagnostically driven. When rates go from 1% to 2.6%, it was diagnostically driven. If rates came out tomorrow at 5%, or 10%, the same arguments of diagnostic changes would lose none of their ability to explain away the whole of the change. Barring a time machine, I am not confident that reliance on a diagnostic as fuzzy as autism will be able to convince you of this. (?)

In any case, the increased parental age as a risk factor data clearly indicates some of the increase is actual. Similarly, our ability to keep pre-term babies alive, with an associated increased risk of autism strongly suggests other components of the increase are real.

Take a look at PMID: 23337946; it includes 1M+ samples, and shows a dose relationship between maternal CRP levels (i.e., inflammation) and autism risk. Ask yourself if, as a population, we have increased, or decreased, our levels of inflammation compared to pre-modern societies. What implication does this hold for the an increase based solely on perception?

What about PMID: 22492772; which shows that having metabolic conditions during pregnancy (i..e., diabetes, hypertension, obesity) are risk factors for autism. Ask yourself, as a population, have we become more obese, or less obese over time? What implications does this have on the concept of an increase that is based entirely on perception?

Unless these studies are wrong, in the same way, some of the increase is real. How much? I don’t know. How much evidecce do you have that 100% of the increase is perception?

Here is a thought experiment that might actually get us a closer understanding. Lots of places have been storing things like cord blood and maternal samples in large numbers, and as we begin to evaluate them, we are finding associations with what those values look like, and risk of autism. If we can collect sufficient data from these types of samples taken in the past, we could get a much more precise understanding if the risk factors for autism have been changing or not. You will note that these types of studies speak toward mechanisms different than vaccination; I don’t have a problem with that at all.

The question is, how much of the increase is real? I don’t know the answer to that question, but I am of the mindset that any value is pretty scary. I have been accused of an over zealous use of the precautionary principle.

Where is one shred of solid evidence to demonstrate that vaccines are doing anything of the sort?

You know as well as I do that we don’t have the studies to answer this question. If I suggest a vax/unvax study, I’m told it is unethical (correct). If I suggest utilizing subsets of people that don’t vaccine (Chicago idiots / Christian Scientists idiots / new age idiots), I’m told that the crazy beliefs of the parents unduly influence the medical attention seeking of the parents such that we cannot reliably count on their rates being sound (again, a valid argument). If you are going to tell me that the experiments cannot be performed, that’s OK, but you cannot simultaneously beat me up on the fact that I cannot provide unperformable experiments.

the only thing you give us is more speculation about mechanisms.

Fair enough. What do you think about the altered microglial morphology with consequent effects on neural sculpting line of reasoning I presented above?

@LW –

I have never been able to tell from your comments what fraction of autism you believe to be caused by early life immune insults, not even to the nearest order of magnitude.

I don’t have an answer to that question; I just am worried that a value greater than zero is biologically plausible. Considering the wide reach of the vaccine program, this drives part of my concerns.

I will not be burdened by defending anything Greg may have posted.

It strikes me that it is your burden to prove that autistic people in the Twenty-First Century BC had different immune function from those in the Twenty-First Century AD, if your theory depends on that.

I am making the case that the altered immune function observed in autism is a risk factor for interactions with early life immune function; your model requires that immune function in everyone has been the same over time. If, instead, more people have altered immune function consistent with increased risk, then your model falls apart.

In any case, have you perused any of the data regarding the incidence of food allergies? [PMID: 22944484]

What about the differences in conditions like asthma and allergies based on maternal and childhood living conditions; i.e., rural vs urban? Check out the hygeine hypothesis; there really isn’t any legitimate debate regarding if modernity confers an increased risk to a great number of autoimmune disorders, we aren’t really sure how, but the sheer volume of associations are staggering.

How about PMID: 21874618 which looked for associations between maternal obesity and inflammation in the offspring.

The odds ratio (OR) of HR children having detectable hs-CRP levels was 16 times greater than that of LR children after adjusting for confounding variables, including BMI z-score, Tanner stages and gender (OR: 16; 95% CI: 2-123).

Now, tell me, do you think that pre-modern societies had less, the same, or more obese mothers?

The presence or absence of helminths clearly alters immune profile; that isn’t to say that having helminths is good, per se, just different. Do you think that humans in post modern societies have less, the same, or higher incidences of helminth infection?

So yeah, I kind of thing things are different now than they used to be. The things you presented as reasons are also part of the equation.

  • pD

@Alain –

Do you have any good reason(s) that we should ignore that body of knowledge especially since Dr. Casanova provide a causal link to increased memory (i.e. saying autism is heterogeneous don’t cut it)?

Alain. Dude. If you would like to make the claim that all autism is characterized by increased memory, I can’t stop you, but I’d like to see more evidence than something that Dr. Cassonva ‘proved’ it. What were the sample sizes? Considering ~ 30% of people with autism also present with intellectual disability, how was this measured?

If you want to make the claim that ‘increased memory’ is a facet of all people with autism, bypassing the heterogenous nature of the diagnosis, you’ve got some serious work cut out for you.

Look, I get the neurodiversity concept. I get that in some instances, there are good differences associated with autism. Sometimes different is good. [You might be surprised to find I’ve been personally accused of being ‘eccentric’ IRL.] Unfortunately, in the world we all inhabit, one dominated by social communications, loud noises, bright lights and many things to keep track of simultaneously, those changes seem to very frequently be attached with poor outcomes. Believe me, no one likes this less than me. Trust me, I see it all the time, every day, 24/7. But those are the facts on the ground, man.

I get that you have autism and are doing well, you understand grammar, you understand the internet, and research, and being insulted, and Dr. Cassanova, and Quebec. Good for you. Lots of todays kids with autism don’t understand any of those concepts and a billion more you are taking for granted. Please try to keep this in mind.

Are you saying that autistics from Quebec are different to autistics from elsewhere in the world?

I have no idea what this refers to.

The dark age of research when we compared autistic brain to injured brain (Phineas Gage, ring a bell) is deader than dead. It’s not a case of brain insult and a number of research groups agree with that and moved from that area of research. When will you follow suit pD?

If you can provide an instance where I referred to an autistic brain as ‘injuired’, or ‘damaged’, I wil retract it.

The facts are, the autistic brain does appear to be different. In most instances, this difference appears to be associated with problems in a societal relationship, as well as very strong comorbidity ties.

The comorbidity of autism and epilepsy is between ten and thirty times that of ‘normal’ people (at least). If you want to insist that this is different in a non-pathological way, I can’t stop you. But you might want to consider stopping yourself.

  • pD

@pD,

Here’s a preliminary list of finding wrt autism and memory:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?LinkName=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=11280421

Read the first publication on that list and examine the others in relation to the first.

As for Dr. Casanova, he documented an hypothesis of autistic having 23% more cells in the brain. Could you tell me to which purpose serve those cells? Especially if they don’t increase memory.

If you can provide an instance where I referred to an autistic brain as ‘injuired’, or ‘damaged’, I wil retract it.

Sure, here it is:

For instance, early-life infection in rats can profoundly disrupt memory function in young adulthood, as well as accelerate age-related cognitive decline, both of which are linked to enduring changes in glial function that occur in response to the initial infection

To address another point:

The comorbidity of autism and epilepsy is between ten and thirty times that of ‘normal’ people (at least). If you want to insist that this is different in a non-pathological way, I can’t stop you. But you might want to consider stopping yourself.

Where did I speak about epilepsy and neurodiversity? You seem to project unto me a view that I didn’t ascribe to. I have never been associated with neurodiversity even if I may share some of the benefits or idea (or whatever) and I would ask you to please check with me before infering any opinion on that matter.

Alain

P.s. I know that a rat is different from an autistic but then again, you extrapolate rat finding wrt autistic subject.

Alain

DW: fair enough. I don’t go out to restaurants much; I’m poor and there’s a chef in the family. I like fairly strongly flavored foods, and I’m used to eating all sorts of things.

Todd W: If you think that’s bad, consider that I live in a town where someone made a smoothie with bacon for a recipe contest- and it came very close to winning. Compared to that, coffee flavored ice cream is -nothing-. (And btw, I dare you to try the Pavarotti flavor from Sebastian Joe’s and tell me it’s not good. It’s the coffee-chocolate-something else blend I mentioned. I hope it still exists.)

“Look, I get the neurodiversity concept. I get that in some instances, there are good differences associated with autism. Sometimes different is good. [You might be surprised to find I’ve been personally accused of being ‘eccentric’ IRL.] Unfortunately, in the world we all inhabit, one dominated by social communications, loud noises, bright lights and many things to keep track of simultaneously, those changes seem to very frequently be attached with poor outcomes. Believe me, no one likes this less than me. Trust me, I see it all the time, every day, 24/7. But those are the facts on the ground, man.”

With all due respect, you don’t seem to “get” neurodiveristy.

It’s not about “good” differences or “bad” differences. It’s about the fact that a person is valued the same irrespective of the differences. It’s about the rights of a person being inalienable–even if one is disabled.

I threw “diversity” into google. Perhaps if you dig around a bit you can find places where epople talk about “this group has advantages that group doesn’t” You find statements like this:
““A diverse community is essential to achieve our mission of creating the best possible learning environment and educational experience, because only by exploring issues with people of different backgrounds and viewpoints can we challenge our assumptions, test our ideas and broaden our understanding of the world.”

http://www.northwestern.edu/diversity/

The Girl Scouts’ statement on diversity is about inclusion.
http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/diversity/

But throw “neuro” in front of diversity and suddelnly it’s about “better” traits.

The confusion is easy to understand in many cases. Many neurodiversity advocates have countered the depiction of autistics as “less” which usually involves the depction of disability as less and a reason for pity.

I hope that society will help my kid out of respect, not out of pity. Yes, I realize it is a harder sell. But I don’t have the right to trade my kid’s dignity. That’s neurodiversity. Not, “help my kid because some autistm traits are beneficial”

pD –

I will give a fuller response to your latest comment tomorrow, when I will hopefully have stopped swearing at your jaw-dropping misinterpretation of LW long enough to be able to explain calmly why that misinterpretation is either utterly dishonest or ludicrously incompetent.

In the meantime, I will respond to this little bit here:

First is ‘What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalence, as opposed to just the perception of one?’

Reliance on behavioral diagnostic data will never achieve this. When rates went from .5% to 1% it was diagnostically driven. When rates go from 1% to 2.6%, it was diagnostically driven. If rates came out tomorrow at 5%, or 10%, the same arguments of diagnostic changes would lose none of their ability to explain away the whole of the change. Barring a time machine, I am not confident that reliance on a diagnostic as fuzzy as autism will be able to convince you of this. (?)

The answer you are giving is an answer to the wrong question. The question you are trying to answer is “If we start with the assumption that there is an actual increase in autism prevalence, how do we reconcile that with the data?” If that actually were the question, your answer would be fine –

– but that isn’t the question, because you don’t get to start out with your favored assumption. That’s what we keep trying to communicate to you. You can’t say “There’s a great big gap in the data, and I have managed to make myself believe that the data we don’t have would have all looked like this if we’d been able to collect it, and because that scenario I’ve woven in the absence of all that data seems utterly plausible and self-consistent to me, you should accept it as what really happened.” Hypotheses are to explain the evidence; if you’re trying instead to explain why there is no evidence for your hypothesis, you are bringing the wrong coin to the store.

Ugh! Coffee ice cream? That is sacrilege.

Of the Holy Seed? I think not. I could see tiramisu being derided as vulgar, but coffee gelato predates the Constitution.

No Vienna Iced Cafe? Many, many, years ago during a very hot summer in Austria we learned to order this drink. It was simply cold coffee poured over vanilla ice cream. Yummy. Actually we mostly drank it in Salzburg, which is the only European city we purposely visited twice.

Coffee gelato? I’m swooning with memories of all the coffee gelato I ate while in Umbria last summer.

Dear hubby makes the best coffee for me in the morning. He has the patience to slowly fill the water reservoir on the electric drip pot.

@passionlessDrone:

I get the sense that if Greg or I described the entire autism spectrum as ‘changelings’ so obviously different that pre-modern societies would immediately recognize (and murder!) them as such, I would get crucified; LW does it and nobody bats an eye. Where is the outrage?

Have you been reading what Greg has to say?

He has said, repeatedly, over a period of weeks, that 2% of young children are now autistic and that autism means “non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing”. He uses those same words over and over and over and over and refuses to acknowledge that there even is a spectrum or that broadening of criteria might cause children with subtle differences to be included as “autistic”. 

Would pre-modern people be able identify that there was something unusual about a child who was “non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing”?  I’m pretty sure they would.  Would we be able to identify such people in a pre-modern society even without a broadening of criteria?  I’m pretty sure we would. 

You seem to believe that I was objecting to your arguments as contrary to common sense; I was not, as Antaeus Feldspar and others recognize. You seem to be describing subtle differences caused by early life immune insults but Greg is not, even though he enthusiastically accepted your arguments as bolstering his own. I was responding to Greg, not you. Is that clear?

To spell out in excruciating detail what Greg has argued for weeks:

1). Once upon a time, when the world was pure and clean and vaccine-preventable diseases raged unchecked, the rate of autism was 1/10,000. 

2) Today the rate of autism is 1/50 or 200/10,000. 

3) This change is exclusively due to vaccines; no other possibility (such as diagnostic substitution or broadening of criteria or better recognition) is even conceivable and anyone who suggests such a possibility is a lying child-killer.

4) A very large proportion of people with autism are “non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing”.   (There’s been some success in arguing him down from “virtually all” to “50%”.)

@passionlessDrone, please read this list of Greg’s claims. Do they look like what you have argued?  No. Please look back at Greg’s numerous comments. Do you think I’ve mischaracterized his claims?  I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve exaggerated them. 

@passionlessDrone, given what Greg has claimed, not what you have claimed, why do you not consider it a reasonable response to ask why, when babies were exposed to far more immune insults that they are in Twenty-First Century First World countries, 2% or so of the population was not autistic by Greg’s definition, i.e., “non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing”?

And it’s not just Greg, of course. Any anti-vaxxer who claims that the reported increase in autism is not due to diagnostic substitution or broadening of criteria or better recognition, but is exclusively due to vaccines — necessarily implying that “autism” diagnosed today is identical in effects and severity to autism as diagnosed fifty years ago — raises the same question in my mind.

Where is one shred of solid evidence to demonstrate that vaccines are doing anything of the sort?

You know as well as I do that we don’t have the studies to answer this question. If I suggest a vax/unvax study, I’m told it is unethical (correct). If I suggest utilizing subsets of people that don’t vaccine (Chicago idiots / Christian Scientists idiots / new age idiots), I’m told that the crazy beliefs of the parents unduly influence the medical attention seeking of the parents such that we cannot reliably count on their rates being sound (again, a valid argument). If you are going to tell me that the experiments cannot be performed, that’s OK, but you cannot simultaneously beat me up on the fact that I cannot provide unperformable experiments.

“Beat you up”? Do you seriously think that you are entitled to figure out the mysteries of autism, and if you get stuck because data is impossible to collect, science is obligated to say, “Well, you went as far to support your hypothesis as you ethically could, therefore we’ll just wink and pretend that you actually got the data you wanted and it proved your beliefs”? And if that doesn’t happen, it’s so unfair to you it’s like being beaten up? Science does not scale grades, pD!

This is not the first time people trying to do science have said “Damn, I bet if I could only collect the data from XYZ, I’m convinced that it would confirm my hypothesis! But I can’t collect that data, because it’s unavailable or it would be unethical to do the experiments!” The problem is, as maddening as it is to be stuck in that unfortunate situation, it would corrupt the whole meaning of science to say “all right, everybody who is stuck not being able to get the data they want, you get a free pass!”

pD,
This is getting tiresome. My point is that the immunological effects of vaccines on infants, adults and animals have been measured, in detail, by thousands of researchers, including a wide range of cytokines. You claimed that:

No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants.

And:

[…] our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population.

This is not true. I’m not really interested in getting into the minutiae of what people have or have not measured and the different analytical techniques they used.

Now, I’m curious as to why the researchers bothered to perform this analysis if, indeed, blood levels of cytokines are too small to be easily measured? These measurements were taken immediately after birth, and again 24 and 48 hours later. How were they able to obtain these measurements?

I didn’t claim that “blood levels of cytokines are too small to be easily measured” I wrote:

the increase in blood levels of cytokines after even infection is too small to be easily measured, so stimulated levels are often used instead, especially in infants.

Your failure to comprehend the difference between measuring cytokine levels, and measuring an increase in cytokine levels renders most of the rest of your comment irrelevant, since I never claimed what you somewhat sarcastically attack, however…

It turns out, recently, there has been some attempt to identify measurements of inflammation post vaccination in infants, i.e.,
Inflammatory responses to hepatitis B virus vaccine in healthy term infants (PMID: 23358708)

I take it you are admitting you were wrong in stating that:

No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants.

You continue:

Therefore, we prospectively studied interleukin-6 (IL-6) and CRP responses to HBV immunization. In 70 healthy term infants without signs and symptoms of sepsis and sepsis risk factors, IL-6, CRP, and white blood cell count levels were determined before and 24 h after immunization. Significant increases in CRP levels were seen 24 h after vaccination (p<0.001). Although CRP levels of 22 infants at second evaluation were above the cutoff level for sepsis (4.82 mg/L) they had no clinical signs and symptoms of sepsis.
(Whoa)

Whoa? You do know that CRP (C-reactive protein) is not a cytokine, don’t you? There is no mention of any increase in cytokine levels in the abstract of this study (I don’t have full access at my current location).

And yet, again, the methodology and reporting of results, seems at odds with your posting regading the difficulty in detecting increase in blood cyokine levels.

Yet again, you fail to comprehend what you have posted.

Perhaps there are different tools available lately, considering your reference was from 2000? Maybe our existing kits are superior to those available to the authors of the paper you referenced? I really don’t know, but it seems like a lot of people are publishing results of the thing that you say is too difficult to capture.

It seems to me that you really don’t know, and people are publishing nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, as I wrote back at #602:

More sensitive assays using amplified ELISA have recently become available that can measure unstimulated changes, I believe.

You continue:

Your statements seem, to my uneducated eye, to be at odds with an array of literature. How is this possible? What am I missing?

I think I have adequately explained that. Let me know if anything is still unclear, I’m happy to help.

Temporary interruption of hiatus…..

@LW

” A very large proportion of people with autism are ”non-verbal, head banging, screaming, poop smearing”. (There’s been some success in arguing him down from “virtually all” to “50%”.)”

LW, please point to where I said, specifically, that a very large percentage of autistics are head bangers, screamers, and poop smearers? Yes, I referred to these autistic cases repeatedly to drive home my point that autism is not a trifling affliction. No where, however, did I give their exact percentages.

As to mentally retarded autistics (sorry for not using the PC term but I think PC terms are often too convenient in masking problems), indeed around 40% of ASDs are mentally retarded, in contrast to the general population average of 5%. I did previously mention 50% of autistics are mentally retarded, but this figure appears to be for autisitcs alone.

As to non-verbal autistics, depending on the source, anywhere from 25- 50% of autisitcs are claimed to be non-verbal. I am not sure if this figure is for the ASD group as a whole or just autistics.

You are right through about me believing that the diagnosis substitution and better detection arguments are ‘crocs’. Indeed, I do believe that autism has exploded in real numbers over just a short few decades for some ‘inexplicable’ reason.

@Narad

but coffee gelato predates the Constitution

Argument from antiquity. To think, Narad, I once thought quite highly of you. To see you fall for such a logical fallacy…tragic!

@Chris and lilady

Coffee is the work of the devil (if such a being exists…and if not, it’s still evil) and it is so sad to see you fallen victim to the myth that coffee actually tastes good. The first step to recovering from your delusion is to admit that you made a mistake.

Though I am disappointed that so many of my RI compatriots have been conned in to believing Big Java’s lie, I will not let such a rift come between us. No. To do so would make Greg too giddy, his head would explode. And no matter how inane he might be, I could not have even his death upon my conscience.

Now, back to the cytokine show.

Note also that my initial ‘1 in 6 poop smearing, head banging, non-verbal autistics and those with adhd and other autoimmune conditions’ comment still does not amount to me saying that 1 in 6 autistics are head banging, non verbal and poop smearing. The ‘1 in 6’ number is generally tossed around referring to ‘all’ disabilities, be they autism, speech delays, ADHD, ADD, allergies, and so on.

Should anyone (pD) doubt my claim that:

the immunological effects of vaccines on infants, adults and animals have been measured, in detail by thousands of researchers, including a range of cytokines

I suggest you search for the name of a specific cytokine, such as “interleukin” (or specifics such as “IL-10″, IL-17” etc.), “interferon” ( “INF”), transforming growth factor beta (“TGF-β”), or “tumor necrosis factor” (“TNF”), along with a specific vaccine such as “measles vaccine'” on PubMed or Google Scholar. That should come up with enough hits to keep you busy for quite some time. People were measuring blood interferon levels in children after measles vaccination nearly 50 years ago.

Greg,

The ’1 in 6′ number is generally tossed around referring to ‘all’ disabilities, be they autism, speech delays, ADHD, ADD, allergies, and so on.

The 1 in 6 figure isn’t “tossed around”, it derives from the statistics, in that approximately 1 in 6 (1 in 6.3 or 15.8% to be more precise) of anything that follows a normal distribution will measure more than 1 standard deviation below the mean, by definition, just as 2.2% will be more than 2 SD and 0.1% more than 3 SD below the mean. See Wikipedia on percentiles.

To clarify my last comment, to point out that 1 in 6 people is of below normal X, so we should be very, very afraid is dumb, because we define abnormality in such a way that 1 in 6 people will always be below normal X, whether X is intelligence, height, weight or shoe size.

It’s like stating that 50% of people are now of below average intelligence, and asking why no one is doing anything about this terrible tsunami of broccoli poisoning.

Speaking for myself Todd, I am in league with the devil. I don’t care what The Troll believes and if Troll’s head explodes. It couldn’t be any worse than the brain material I cleaned up from the floor, ceiling and drapes on our blog, when the “SFB Troll’s” head exploded.

@ Krebiozen

“It’s like stating that 50% of people are now of below average intelligence, and asking why no one is doing anything about this *terrible tsunami of broccoli poisoning.”

*New terminology from AoA HQ…(“Autism: Tornado in the Brain”)

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/autism-tornado-in-the-brain.html

@Greg: you continue to assert: 

You are right through about me believing that the diagnosis substitution and better detection arguments are ‘crocs’. Indeed, I do believe that autism has exploded in real numbers over just a short few decades for some ‘inexplicable’ reason.

The “inexplicable” reason is, in your mind, indisputably vaccination and anyone who says otherwise is a lying child-killing pharma shill.

With that out of the way, the question remains, why wasn’t the autism rate at least as high in the bad old days?

And don’t tell me it’s because that was a long time ago. I personally met a woman in the 90s who remembered that when she was a small child in the United States at the turn of the century, babies frequently died of dysentery. Read about the Great Depression for more illustrations. There were plenty of people of that time still around when autism was being studied.

So, Greg, if vaccination has this devastating effect, producing an autism rate of 2%, why did the much worse immune insults in the recent past produce a rate of 0.01% (according to you)?  You are not allowed — by your own words — to argue that the rate was just as high but only now recognized because of greater recognition or diagnostic substitution. You have to show that mild immunological insults in infancy produce autism but severe immunological insults cause no trouble at all (except for, you know, death or, in the survivors, blindness, deafness, paralysis, and brain damage — which is not autism by the way — all of which are perfectly acceptable outcomes to you).

CIA Parker has accused all you Shot of Prevention paid shills of being…paid shills for Shot of Prevention:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/11/every-child-by-two-frozen-caveman-pharma-front-group.html

“I think the front group that has inherited the banner, Shot of Prevention, is spending hundreds of thousands of this largesse a year paying their commenters, some of whom appear to be there shooting down vaccine-damaged families 24-7-365. They’ve hired an Aussie now, and an ex-pat living in the U.K., in addition to their core of five, some of whom move on once their contracts are up, and are replaced by others. I think it’s interesting that they realize they need to have real live people who spend their days repeating the same old pharma-lies ad infinitum, trying desperately to counter the intelligent, well-informed fury of the tens of thousands of vaccine-damaged families who are quite effectively waking the public up to the dangers of vaccines. In 2000, when my baby was born, less than 1% of families refused any recommended vaccines: now, in places like Oregon and Alaska, between 5 and 10% of families are refusing all or some of the vaccines, because they believe us and not the pharma shills.

Posted by: cia parker | July 10, 2013 at 11:30 PM”

BTW, I haven’t been able to get comments through on the SOP blog for months. Christine Vera and her techie people think the problem is because a few numbers in my IP address are in the same sequence as one of their trolls IP address.

some of whom appear to be there shooting down vaccine-damaged families 24-7-365

I thought most of this time was spent shooting down Cynthia Parker’s endless parade of sockpuppets.

Oh, and…

Christine Vera and her techie people think the problem is because a few numbers in my IP address are in the same sequence as one of their trolls IP address.

Time to get new tech people. This makes no sense whatever, regardless of the truth value of the statement.

Todd W.:

You are indeed correct: coffee is the work of the probably non-existent devil ( or his proxy)* who obviously heads the cartel to deny the benefits of tea
.
“Tea is the drink of intellectuals”, said de Quincy (when he wasn’t imbibing something else); empires have run on tea ( witness GB, Japan, India and China), revolutions began because of it and it has spawned no evil Starbucks ( a/k/a Crapbucks**) franchises to grab all of trendy folks’ available cash.
Polyphenols readily available in tea promote long life and vibrant caffeinated health.

What is more important, like empires, I run on tea.

  • the other Mr D***
    ** DC Sessions
    **** there are a lot of Ds around RI, ever notice that?

-btw- there is no rift: Big Java is accepted by all minions- even if we despise its products- because it is merely an alternative BIg Pharma dispensing an Amerindian, pre-Bronze Age drug system.

@ Krebiozen;

Thank you for explaining “1 in 6” so I didn’t have to do it.
It would be so much easier if we could draw it, no?

@ Narad: I have the emails from Christine. According to her, I have one 3-number sequence, and two 2-number sequences in my IP address that are either “blocked”, or that are put into moderation.

I posted several “test posts” and then immediately notified Christine of the exact EST/EDT times I posted. My test posts never made the “moderation” queue.

What I have noticed is the little green circle in the top left corner does its counterclockwise function, but does not do revert to its clockwise function, after I hit “submit”.

In addition to Krebiozen’s explanation, there’s this, from a blog post 18 months ago:

The source of the “one in six” is a paper in Pediatrics, Boyle et al. (2011) Trends in the Prevalence of Developmental Disabilities in US Children, 1997–2008 Pediatrics. 2011 Jun;127(6):1034-42. Epub 2011 May 23. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-2989)

From the abstract :

Participants and Methods:We used data on children aged 3 to 17 years from the 1997–2008 National Health Interview Surveys, which are ongoing nationally representative samples of US households. Parent-reported diagnoses of the following were included: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; intellectual disability; cerebral palsy; autism; seizures; stuttering or stammering; moderate to profound hearing loss; blindness; learning disorders; and/or other developmental delays.

Screening for and remediating learning disorders are my areas of expertise. I would say the one in six figure (16.6%) is possibly low. Dyslexia is classed as a developmental disability. Some dyslexia experts put the actual prevalence rate at up to 20%.

Dyslexia in particular is under-diagnosed and under-treated.

494:
Greg
July 7, 2013

@Gary

“Greg, I am autistic, and I have a job as a computer programmer, and several others I know also have jobs.”

Gary, for every one of you there are literally thousands who are indeed nonverbal, and who head bang, and poop smear. Great that you’re doing well, but many of your peers are not so fortunate.

Forget 1 in 6: Greg actually believes AT LEAST 99.95% of autistics are non-verbal, head banging and poop smearing.

Given that background, is it really credible that a full 2% of the population would respond to a mild immunological insult in infancy by developing autism? And if so, would we not see that a full 2% of every pre-modern population was autistic? The only way we wouldn’t see that, I think, is if that 2% pretty much all died in infancy, except for the very few who survived long enough to be recognized and killed as changelings.

He says the only way we *wouldn’t* see a ‘full 2%’ of the population developing autism would be a mass die off.

Or you could pay attention to the very first sentence you quoted from LW. What you have falsely described as the “mantra” of the science-based position is actually LW examining an antivaxer’s claims and saying “If these claims of yours were accurate, then logically we would see this consequence. Since this consequence would have been very visible throughout history and yet no one reported observing such a thing, it is not really credible that these claims of yours are accurate.”

That’s why I described your misinterpretation of LW as “either utterly dishonest or ludicrously incompetent”; you took a statement in the form “If A happened, which I don’t find very credible, then wouldn’t B have happened as a result of it?” and you started shouting “LW thinks B! LW came out and said B! B is the mantra of the whole science-based camp!”

He says the only way we *wouldn’t* see a ‘full 2%’ of the population developing autism would be a mass die off.

Or, you twit, if the hypothesis that 2% of infant immune systems are so fragile that a mild immunological insult is all that’s needed to cause autism is wrong, which everyone except you recognized as the point LW was making.

First is ‘What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalence, as opposed to just the perception of one?’

In any case, the increased parental age as a risk factor data clearly indicates *some* of the increase is actual. Similarly, our ability to keep pre-term babies alive, with an associated increased risk of autism strongly suggests other components of the increase are real.

Are you being deliberately dense? Pointing to obviously non-vaccine factors that increase the incidence of autism and claiming them as support for your unproven hypothesis of vaccine factors causing an increase in incidence of autism is just dumb. It’s like saying “Of course, Bigfoot is real! There’s footprints in the garden! Of course, they’re footprints belonging to you and me, not to Bigfoot, but still, they’re footprints and that’s evidence that Bigfoot leaves footprints!”

Nothing about the diagnostic substitution hypothesis says that the true incidence of autism is stable

Uhh. I think you kind of lost me there.

No kidding. Given that you couldn’t tell the difference between “If your implausible premise A was true, we would have seen consequence B” and “B is our mantra!” I wouldn’t be surprised if I lost you with the notion “Socks first then shoes”.

How much evidecce do *you* have that 100% of the increase is perception?

None. And guess what? I don’t need it, because “100% of the increase is perception” isn’t the science-based position, only your crappy straw-man distortion of it. You keep acting as if your hypothesis is the default position, the most reasonable one, and that if you can just distort everyone else’s hypothesis so it sounds less reasonable, then yours won.

But that’s crap, because a) you’re not debunking anyone else’s actual hypotheses, just your own distorted versions of them, and b) your hypothesis is not the default.

@Stu

I was pondering whether or not to point out that particular misstatement by Greg.

@ Liz:

A new figure is being tossed about by the Canaries, TMR, etc.: 50% of children now have a chronic condition that is attributable to SBM and modernity in general- this figure includes ASDs, LDs, MI, asthma, allergies, you-name-it.

Some of them go further and include other conditions like MS, AD, ALS which usually affect only adults. Thus, the anti-vaxxers approach overlap with alt med/ natural health folk..

@ Antaeus:

re you twit
my thought exactly.

Mu, that maternal antibodies idea has gigantic holes in it. Among other things, if maternal antibodies “cause” autism, how about the many typically-developing younger siblings? The maternal antibodies don’t just go away, you know.

@Mu

Ed Yong also wrote about that study here. A question I asked him on Twitter and which the study does not address at all, as far as I could see: what causes the production of the antibodies?

Also, what Liz said.

I’m not saying it’s a causal relation, so far all I see is correlation. As for the sibling part – there is a noted elevated risk for siblings to also develop autism. And antibody numbers do change depending on stimulus, especially in autoimmune disorders were you have long periods of inactivity coupled with flares. It’s easy to imagine that only in a flare you’d have enough of the antibodies to affect the fetal development. Which would also leave the possibility that the true number of mothers with the antibody is much higher but the antibody concentration is too low to be detected at the point of the study. All speculative at this point, but at least it has a plausible mechanism for an effect during the critical fetal development.

Maternal antibodies cause autism? Why wasn’t the autism rate higher in the good old days when vaccine-preventable diseases were called “childhood diseases” because almost every child got them and therefore had antibodies to them? And furthermore tended to be re-exposed to them by children in the vicinity so that their titers stayed high?

“Christine Vera and her techie people think the problem is because a few numbers in my IP address are in the same sequence as one of their trolls IP address.”

Try posting from Starbucks or McDonalds

I have the emails from Christine. According to her, I have one 3-number sequence, and two 2-number sequences in my IP address that are either “blocked”, or that are put into moderation.

Like I said, whatever factual situation underlies this, it’s so nonsensical as to defy belief. Keep in mind that Christine has an ongoing spam problem that could trivially be nuked. This is not a tech-competent operation.

Greg: ADD/ADHD are not disabilities. Do not talk about things you know nothing about, beef-witted cankerblossom. The only difference between a person with ADD/ADHD and a ‘typical person’ is that we think faster and are slightly more distractable; we do not need pity. Although thinking faster than you wouldn’t be hard, you aggravating slowcoach.

Try posting from Starbucks or McDonalds

The most charitable interpretation is that they’ve blackholed a dynamically assigned /24 block.

Denice:

-btw- there is no rift: Big Java is accepted by all minions- even if we despise its products- because it is merely an alternative BIg Pharma dispensing an Amerindian, pre-Bronze Age drug system.

Amerindian? You are confusing Big Java with Big Cocoa, I think. 😉 (Not that cocoa isn’t at least as awesome.) Renaissance-era Arabs invented coffee; though it may have been consumed in the Bronze Age, there is no evidence of it.

On a serious note, I suspect Big Java would be considerably more powerful than Big Pharma, especially if Big Java were also Big Tea and Big Coffee, especially as global climate change threatens to make these crops less productive, reducing supply.

@Stu, that you for the citation. I knew Greg had said things like that, but I wasn’t prepared with citations because it didn’t occur to me that he would deny it. I guess I gave him too much credit. I was going to look for good quotes from him after work, but you saved me the trouble.

Matt Carey:

Try posting from Starbucks or McDonalds

I had to do that when one website would not even load on our wifi. I also went to the library.

What makes to horrible is that is seems to be the same group of about four people who create multiple sock puppets. Their style is fairly recognizable. One is a nasty kind of libertarian who is into conspiracy theories, another has what seems to have an untreated bipolar issue which manifests as huge walls of text, and another is just dumber than a rock. Oh, then there is Thingy.

@ Calli:

I did vaguely recall that origin but wanted to use the word ‘Amerindian” and subliminally suggest pre-Columbian sacrificial rituals involving beating hearts torn out of bodies…. ( Draconis is involved as per usual)
and what makes a victim’s heart beat faster than coffee?

Allow me the poetic licensure as it is after all, a joke.

@AF –

The answer you are giving is an answer to the wrong question.

You asked this question:

What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalance, as opposed to just the perception of one?’

The parental age data doesn’t answer the question of having evidence for an actual increase in autism? [seriously?]
The fact that we are keeping pre-term babies alive with more consistency doesn’t answer this question?

What type of evidence would you accept as evidence, up and above those two types of evidence?

Considering you don’t seem to have any faith in the scads of parental age data, your hypothesis, that the increase is solely based on perceptions appears to me to be impossible to falsify. I’m terrible at reading minds, so maybe you could tell me what evidence would you accept that some amount of the increase is real?

Science does not scale grades, pD!

You have asked a question (“shred of evidence”) to which you know in advance does not exist, and cannot be collected ethically. I’m not complaining about “science” or “entitlements”, I’m complaining about you applying a double standard; insistence on me providing data that we both know is not available.

@Matt Carey –

Did I say anywhere I didn’t value people with autism, or indeed, value them less?

I agree with your sentiments, but we have different ideas on the feasibilty of achieving them. Nature is the one who is dispassionate about this. In any case, my intent was not to offend, but in the event it has happened, I apologize.

@Krebiozen –

Regarding the Hep-B study from Turkey, this study was performed in 2013. It involved 70 kids. In the US, we’ve been vaccinating roughly 4,000,000 children a year, every year, for twenty years or so with this vaccine. If that is your definition of studied, well, I guess I’m seeing where some of our disagreements lay.

But more importantly, why bother with this study at all, if thousands of researchers had already done this work? Why draw blood from neonates three times when the literature has dozens of hundreds of papers that tell us about the immune response in neonates from this vaccine?

As far as your advice on searching for specific names and vaccines; I think this is a great, great idea for everyone who is skeptical of my claims (or yours) to try out!

That is the hilarious thing, and I mean uproarious, performing exactly these types of searches is what convinced me that we’d barely bothered to look in the first place.

I am forced to wonder if you tried this in pubmed before recommending it. (?)

Here are a few I ran this morning in pubmed:

TNF hepatitis b vaccine — 31 hits. (8 mice studies / 5 on IBS patients)
tnf dtap vaccine — gives 4 hits; one from 2012, 207, 2003, 2001. [one mouse study]
tnf hib vaccine — gives 1 hit [a study on dexamethasone use in bacterial meningitis]
tnf polio vaccine — gives 5 hits (2010/2007/2005/2002/1996) [one mouse study / an arthritis study / an elderly study / two on ‘biological preparations’]
tnf pneumoccocal vaccine — gives 50 hits (mice == 17 hits)

IL-17 hepatitis b vaccine — gives 2 hits (2013 / 2011) [one mouse study / one on hep b vaccine alongside hep c infection]
IL-17 dtap vaccine – zero hits
IL-17 hib vaccine — zero hits
IL-17 pneumococcal vaccine — 19 hits. First hit was 2006
IL-17 polio vaccine — zero hits

TGF beta DTAP vaccine — 2 hits [both mouse studies!]
TGF beta hib vaccine — zero hits
TGF beta pneumococcal vaccine — zero hits
TGF beta polio vaccine — zero hits
TGF beta hepatitis b vaccine — six hits (2013/2011/2010/2008/2004/2004)

IL-6 dtap vaccine – 8 hits. (3 mice studies)
IL-6 hib vaccine – 1 hit [study on patients with leukemia]
IL-6 pneumococcal vaccine — 39 hits (mice == 19 hits)
IL-6 hepatitis b vaccine — 8 hits [2 on haemodialysis patients / an adjuvant study]
IL-6 polio vaccine — 5 hits [1 mouse study / 2 ‘biologial preparation’ studies (duplicates) / 1 elderly study]

To try to weed out some chaff, try these searches with ‘infant’ as a search criteria.

IL-6 pneumococcal vaccine infant — 5 hits
IL-6 polio vaccine infant — 1 hit
IL-6 DTAp vaccine infant — 2 hits
IL-6 hepatitis vaccine infant — 2 hits
IL-6 hib vaccine infant — 1 hit

tnf dtap vaccine infant — 1 hit (2012)
tnf hepatitis b vaccine infant — 4 hits
tnf polio vaccine infant — 0 hits
tnf hib vaccine infant — 1 hit [same dexamethasone study as above]
tnf hib pneumococcal infant — 1 hit [same dexamethasone study as above]

IL 17 pneumococcal infant — 1 hit
IL-17 dtap infant — 0 hits [1 hit searching for ‘IL 17’]
IL-17 hepatitis b vaccine infant — 0 hits

TGF beta hepatitis b vaccine infant — 0 hits

tnf hepatitis b vaccine infant – 4 hits
tnf dtap vaccine infant — 1 hit
tnf polio vaccine infant — 0 hits
tnf hib vaccine infant — 1 hit [same dexamethasone study as above]
tnf pneumococcal vaccine infant — 1 hit / dexamethasone

So, yeah, that kept me busy for ‘quite some time’. What will keep someone busy for quite some time is trying to find studies like the Turkish study above where a child was immunized, and the resultant changes in inflammatory response in the infant are measured as a result of the vaccination. You tell us that this technology is now available to perform this analysis; it just seems that it hasn’t been performed, especially in infants.

All of the vaccines I listed above are front loaded in the vaccine schedule; those are the vaccines that infants get at 2/4/6 months. Where are the ‘thousands’ of hits? Seriously.

I urge everyone to take Krebiozen’s advice. Try the searches above in pubmed, then think about the fact that our vaccination program touches four million newborns a year, and then wonder to yourself where all of the ‘thousands’ of researchers have been publishing their results on the vaccine schedule? It sure isn’t indexed in pubmed! If Krebiozen is right, where are the studies on IL17 and dtap? Where are the studies on IL-6 and hib? See for yourselves how robust the data is. Ask yourself if cultured cells taken a month after a vaccine and subsequently stimulated with agonists in a test tube give us a good understanding of how an infant is reacting to a vaccine when it is given. That is the information that is missing from the data set. That is the information that Krebiozen cannot provide.

Now, if you perform these searches, but try for antibodies instead of cytokines, but keep in the ‘infant’ filter, you get a ton of hits; i.e.,

hepatitis b vaccine infant antibodies — 830 hits.
dtap vaccine infant antibodies — 219 hits (seems low?)
hib vaccine infant antibodies — 341
pneumococcal vaccine infant antibodies — 481
polio vaccine infant antibodies — 623 hits

Is anyone else able to discern any difference between the two types of searches?

Do you, or anyone, have any ideas why there is such a huge discrepancy between our available literature on ‘tnf polio vaccine infant’ (0 hits) and ‘polio vaccine infant antibody’ (623 hits)?

It tells me that measuring antibody generation has always been the focus of vaccine research; that makes good sense as generating antibodies is the driving force behind vaccination. Unfortunately, it is only very recently that we have begun to understand that inflammatory events during development can cause change, even if there are no pathogens involved. We didn’t perform the analysis because we couldn’t see a reason to; we could see a reason to perform the antibody experiments, so we did it in mass. That is why we see such a highly skewed number of studies. I am open to other explanations, should anyone have any.

Google scholar will give you lots of “hits”, if that is important to you; if you often times find quality data on the third page of google results, then this set of links is a goldmine. Unfortunately, they don’t always have all of your keywords, and you can’t really extrapolate from a number of hits to meaningful research.

I’ll show you what I mean:

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?as_vis=1&q=autism+chelation&hl=en&as_sdt=1,10

A google scholar search for ‘autism’ and ‘chelation’. It returns 3,650 hits. (!!!!!)

Now, I won’t get into the ‘details’ of all of this research, what with getting caught up in tiny details and all, but I guess this big number of thousands of results means that chelating autistic kids is being actively investigated by hundreds or thousands of researchers. I thought it was the domain of quacks, but it has this gigantic footprint in Google Scholar, so that must mean that there is a lot of quality data out there on it. Who knew?

TL;DR: Pumbmed yawns at your searches. Details are important.

I guess this big number of thousands of results means that chelating autistic kids is being actively investigated by hundreds or thousands of researchers.

Not so fast, the first 3 pages are from the usual gang of snake oil peddlers such Geiers & Geiers, Bradstreet, et al…

it also contain link to publication discouraging the use of chelation in autistics.

Alain

@Gary

“Greg, I am autistic, and I have a job as a computer programmer, and several others I know also have jobs.”

“Gary, for every one of you there are literally thousands who are indeed nonverbal, and who head bang, and poop smear. Great that you’re doing well, but many of your peers are not so fortunate.”

—

“Forget 1 in 6: Greg actually believes AT LEAST 99.95% of autistics are non-verbal, head banging and poop smearing.”

I keep wanting to leave but you drug pushers keep tempting me back in. Can’t you guys stop pestering me and find something else to do? Shouldn’t you be attending pharma’s ’employee summer barbecue’? I heard Offit will be there to hand Narad a runner-up GOAT shill plaque. Supposedly he was upset that Lilady got one and he didn’t. (Hee,hee,hee).

Anyway, so let’s do some crude number crunching and see what’s the likelihood of having a non-verbal, head banging, poop smearing autistic to one that is a computer programmer like Gray. Now let’s consider the chance that an autistic is non-verbal since we actually have that figure. It is reported between 25 to 50%. Let’s air on the low side and say 30% or .30. Now what’s the likelihood that an autistic will find a job as a computer programmer? I gave you the UK’s National Autistic Society survey that said only 3% of autistic was working. I think it’s also fair to say that if the autistics as a group had such a tough time finding employment then most likely all they found was unskilled work. We can all agree that a computer programmer is a skilled job; a highly skilled one at that –congrats Gray! So let’s speculate then of the 3% working autistic what percentage would find a job as a computer programmer. I will be generous and say 10% or .003. And, let’s compare the final numbers then: We have .30 non-verbal autistics to .003 computer programmer autistic. This is a ratio in the hundredth.

Ok, I apologize! For every computer programmer like Gray, we will only have 100 non-verbal, head banging, poop smearing autistics.

Greg:

Can’t you guys stop pestering me and find something else to do? Shouldn’t you be attending pharma’s ‘employee summer barbecue’?

Except I still have a child who suffered seizures from a vaccine preventable disease before that vaccine was licensed. Aglso, the Pharma Shill it is old and tired.

And you have admitted by not answering for over two months that the vaccines cause fewer seizures than the diseases. So you are ignoring yourself.

Have fun with that, silly man.

@Pd,
Pd, thanks again for asking some very good questions about why the research into childhood vaccines and inflammatory chemicals is so very scant. I think the following info nicely compliments what you have to say
http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/04/dr-blaylock-on.html

Also, for those of you who missed my earlier link on the ‘ugly side of autism’, I am posting it again. I encourage everyone to watch it and ask, why are we subjecting kids to such horrible fates.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/07/the-pretty-and-the-ugly-sides-of-autism.html

Greg, exactly how to vaccine cause more neurological damage than the actual diseases? One symptom is seizures, so obviously if vaccine are worse than the diseases they would cause more seizures. And yet after more than two months you came up with nothing.

Anyway, so let’s do some crude number crunching and see what’s the likelihood of having a non-verbal, head banging, poop smearing autistic to one that is a computer programmer like Gray.

Nice goalpost shift there Greg. Gray was referring to the fact that he is gainfully employed and able to live independently, not to the fact that he was a programmer. Oh, and speaking of programmers, SAP in Germany has engaged the Danish company Specialisterne to help locate autistic developers and testers.
Finally, you are still using numbers from that survey after you were called out?

I keep wanting to leave but you drug pushers keep tempting me back in.

No, you repeatedly make a show of departing and failing to do so. At least when you started with this imbecilic game, it was plain that you were merely running away and hoping to change the subject. At this point, it’s pure farce.

Hey, who am I?

Seriously, I must interrupt myself and take a break. I’ll be back! Most likely in a week or so.

I keep wanting to leave but you drug pushers keep tempting me back in. Can’t you guys stop pestering me and find something else to do?

“Pestering” you? Nobody gives a flying fυck about you. You would fade from memory almost instantly if you would actually make good on your miserable evasions. But instead, you’re plainly sitting around following the thread after repeatedly putting on a show about doing nothing of the sort.

Here’s a tip, Greg: You can use your hosts file and make it all go bye-bye. And when you undo it, you will know exactly who is responsible.

I will futher call to your attention, Greg, that your sustained and sad attempt to frottage pD has been well and duly noted. You’re not even close.

I am forsworn. I said I would ignore the G person. But he vexed me mightily, so I have a comment in moderation about autistic folk who do not fit into his vile and hateful binary depiction of autistic folk.

@Narad

I don’t for a sec pretend to be as knowledgeable as Pd on neuroscience stuff. He is in a class of his own, and so much so that he is doing a great job at schooling you guys also. You see Narad– that’s the rub or to use your term, ‘frottage’! You can bury yourself in all the science stuff and still come back to the same, inescapable, conclusion as a parent that can vividly recount how they watched vaccines dramatically destroy their previously healthy child: Vaccines cause autism.

Also Narad, your anger and frustration at me is unbecoming. (Hee,hee,hee).

Greg:

You can bury yourself in all the science stuff and still come back to the same, inescapable, conclusion as a parent that can vividly recount how they watched vaccines dramatically destroy their previously healthy child: Vaccines do not cause autism.

FTFY

@Liz Ditz

“I am forsworn. I said I would ignore the G person. But he vexed me mightily, so I have a comment in moderation about autistic folk who do not fit into his vile and hateful binary depiction of autistic folk.”

Haven’t seen your comment yet. The fact that it is moderation suggests that you have some very nice ‘pleasantries’ for me! As it is still early, Orac is most likely sleeping and unable to attend to it. I can just imagine what he is dreaming……..

Orac (snoring): Anti-vaxers are cranks, quacks, conspiracy theorists. Olmstead, Wakefield bad. Bad, bad, bad! Cranks, quacks believing in alternative medicine. Bad, bad, bad!

Orac’s wife: Wake up you clown. You were dreaming about the same nonsense again.

Liz, I work with autistics and I surely don’t hate them. In fact, it’s out of respect for them that I continue to call it how I see it.

That is mighty nice of you Greg, to be worried about Orac’s peaceful sleep like this. I am glad that you share our care about this blog’s esteemed host health.

In general your words of admiration and respect are great inspiration for all of us, or at least for me. Seeing how you are obviously influenced by Orac’s posts brings new hope, that more and more people will become educated by him on matters of SBM.

I will repeat my earlier Lurker’s Challenge: anyone other than Greg who thinks he has made a valid point anywhere in his ramblings is invited and encouraged to highlight that point for discussion.

If no one takes him up on it, and no one has shown any signs of doing so, it means that even other antivaxers think Greg’s comments are utterly devoid of substance.

Greg seems to have missed the fact that passionlessDrone doesn’t support his claims that 199/200 autism cases are caused by vaccination:

I have never been able to tell from your comments what fraction of autism you believe to be caused by early life immune insults, not even to the nearest order of magnitude.

I don’t have an answer to that question; I just am worried that a value greater than zero is biologically plausible. Considering the wide reach of the vaccine program, this drives part of my concerns.

Also, this complaint by passionlessDrone is exceptionally amusing in this context:

He [meaning me] gives no credence to a decreased awareness of autism. There is no recognition of the concept of a low penetrant effect. He gives no credence to the idea of a broadening of what autism means to include less affected children

That doesn’t actually describe me. It does, however, completely accurately describe Greg. (hee hee hee)

@LW

Again, please point to my exact text where I said 199/200 cases of autism are caused by vaccines. Let me make clear my position on the issue. I believe the vast majority of autistic cases are caused by vaccines. Are there autistic cases that are not caused by vaccines? Yes — but they are in the significant minority.

As to the complaints that I am showing myself to be a bad anti-vaxx role model, please note that I am not here to represent any affiliate anti-vaxx group. I do not have an AoA employee badge. I represent myself only and my primary goal out of good conscience is to speak up against the great injustice that is being committed against kids in the name of vaccination. If AoA were to cease being in an instant, I would still be here carrying on with my ‘obnoxious’ self.

Greg, why should we trust you? You’ve lied to us before, often quite brazenly. What reason do we have to believe what you say?

pD,
I have been quite patient with you so far, considering your repeated, sarcastic accusations that I don’t know what I am talking about, which I have repeatedly demonstrated are untrue. Instead of acknowledging your ignorance and apologizing for your baseless and insulting accusations, you go on the attack.

What I wrote was:

My point is that the immunological effects of vaccines on infants, adults and animals have been measured, in detail by thousands of researchers, including a range of cytokines.

You have twisted what I wrote. There are thousands of papers on the immunological effects of vaccines. This is an area people have been researching for over a century. There are also a number of papers on cytokines and vaccines; I never claimed there are thousands of these specifically; it appears to be an area of research that hasn’t led anywhere interesting. Such as:

Regarding the Hep-B study from Turkey, this study was performed in 2013. It involved 70 kids.

The one that didn’t find any measurable increase in the cytokines they measured, which supports what I have been saying all along, and the one that showed you think that CRP is a cytokine?

In the US, we’ve been vaccinating roughly 4,000,000 children a year, every year, for twenty years or so with this vaccine. If that is your definition of studied, well, I guess I’m seeing where some of our disagreements lay.

Do you seriously think this is the only study that has been done on the immune response to the Hep B vaccine? That drug companies just cook some stuff up in a vat, stick it in ampules and send it out to to doctors without bothering to see what it does? This is the sort of jaw-dropping ignorance I keep seeing from you, and you appear to be incapable of learning.

But more importantly, why bother with this study at all, if thousands of researchers had already done this work? Why draw blood from neonates three times when the literature has dozens of hundreds of papers that tell us about the immune response in neonates from this vaccine?

Why bother? Let’s see what the abstract says:

Conclusion: our study showed that HBV vaccine is responsible for CRP elevation in term infants after vaccination at birth. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study evaluating CRP response to HBV vaccine at birth in term infants. We suggest that this response should be considered in differentiation of early neonatal sepsis to avoid unnecessary antibiotic use.

As I have already pointed out, CRP is not a cytokine, and it is not normally considered to be part of an immune response, it is an acute phase protein, a marker for inflammation. I have done a lot of work on CRP over the years, including working on a high sensitivity CRP assay, as it happens. Anyway, this study was aiming at reducing false diagnoses of septicemia post-vaccination, that was their purpose.

Your searches for various vaccines and various cytokines confirm that there has been research on cytokines and vaccines and that it is not “non-existent” as you claimed earlier. I wasn’t inviting you to try searches for various combinations of vaccines and cytokines, point out that some get few or zero hits, and then gleefully shout “I told you so!” in some kind of juvenile victory dance. I was suggesting that you will find a great deal of research on immune responses post vaccination if you look for it, but it seems I overestimated your intelligence. If you really think we have “barely bothered to look” for immunological changes after vaccination, that says more about your research abilities than the state of the “non-existent” research. If you don’t get hits for DTaP, look for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, if you don’t get hits for IL-17, look for interkeukin-17 etc. etc.

I also didn’t suggest anywhere that the number of hits was of any significance, it’s you who appears to be playing that silly game. I was offering a starting place for some searches that will come up with plenty of research into immune response after vaccination, including cytokines, if you use a bit of intelligence.

Mostly you will find that cytokine levels do not greatly increase after vaccination, with some exceptions, such as interferon and IL-10. They certainly don’t increase as much as they do after infection, which I believe is where this discussion started. That is why there is relatively little research on post-vaccination levels of most cytokines, because there is little response in most cases. That’s why researchers have moved onto looking at functional assays and cytokine genetics in this area.

Do you, or anyone, have any ideas why there is such a huge discrepancy between our available literature on ‘tnf polio vaccine infant’ (0 hits) and ‘polio vaccine infant antibody’ (623 hits)?

Is this a serious question? It is antibody production that relates to the efficacy of a vaccine. In any case, since you appear to be obsessed with hit numbers, I get 798 hits when I search for “tumor necrosis factor” and “polio vaccine” on Google Scholar, 408 if I add “infant”. Clearly most of those hits are not relevant, but some of them certainly are.

TL;DR: Pumbmed yawns at your searches. Details are important.

This is simply a straw man. I never claimed that the number of hits in a search was of any significance, you did. You now seem to be claiming that the thousands of papers on immunological responses to vaccination, and dozens of papers on post-vaccination cytokines, that anyone can find on PubMed somehow support your claims that:

No one has bothered to measure cytokines generated as a result of vaccination in our infants.

And:

[…] our research into the post vaccination immune response is non-existent; especially in the infant population.

I’m struggling to find a polite way of putting it; really, most of what you have written about this is simply BS.

Again, please point to my exact text where I said 199/200 cases of autism are caused by vaccines. Let me make clear my position on the issue. I believe the vast majority of autistic cases are caused by vaccines. Are there autistic cases that are not caused by vaccines? Yes — but they are in the significant minority.

So it’s not 99.5%, just a significant majority. To-ta-lly different thing guys.

You’re really, really bad with numbers, aren’t you Greg. Maybe you should find an autistic person (preferably one of the one in two thousand that’s not currently busy smearing poop on the walls, natch).

may I apply a minor correction:

I don’t for a sec pretend to be as knowledgeable as Pd on neuroscience immunology stuff.

I await proof that the immune stuff is causing increased memory, a larger number of smaller brain cells and increased perception.

Alain

Oh, Lookit! This thread has reached 800 comments- that means free airline miles for Orac!
The rest of the minions just get free drinks at our next Pharma shill meet-and-greet cash bar.

@Denice Walter

Which is nothing to shrug at, given the prices of drinks at some locales.

As for the cytokine stuff, pD, I actually took the time to read through your replies, and I have to agree with Krebiozen. You’re changing your arguments instead of addressing what he actually said.

Up thread, you made the claim that changes in cytokine levels post-vaccination had not been studied, the implication that there did not exist a single study, at all, looking at this. Krebiozen provided you with examples of studies that did, in fact, look at changes in cytokine levels post-vaccination. You subsequently went off on some other tangent which, to me, seemed like you were trying to avoid admitting that you made a mistake.

I recommend dropping the subject, admitting you were incorrect in your original claim, and move on.

As Kreb notes, much ado ….. Good question, Alain.

AoA has an immunologist-by-proxy, Teresa Conrick, who similarly spins tales about immunological response and autism, as Todd W. knows only too well.

Here’s my question: why doesn’t someone in the field take up this area of research- aren’t there thousands of researchers worldwide who are looking for grants and students who are in need of that evasive thesis/dissertation topic?
Why has no one gone this route?

At any rate, a few years ago, a friend of a friend, persisted in the belief that almonds prevent cancer ( right, Edgar Cayce’s old “6 a day”)- so I searched out any and all combinations of the terms and didn’t find data that showed any merit to this idea. The closest thing I found was that high fibre food ( almonds have fibre) may help prevent CR cancer. Which is not the same thing- which is almonds in particular and cancer in general.

People who aren’t in a field don’t have the same outlook on research as people who are and have had standard education that has covered the area well. You might be surprised how many modern day parents who have adult children with SMI want to believe that SMI is caused by a teacher’s scolding, rejection by a sought after romantic partner or a lack of B vitamins. They wonder why the research isn’t being done or why vitamins shouldn’t be tried out as a potential cure.

People who study an area on a graduate level see research differently.

I encourage everyone to watch it and ask, why are we subjecting kids to such horrible fates.

The idea that we’re subjecting kids to anything at all is simplify an unsupported assertion on your part, since despite being asked to do so for a few months you haven’t offered any evidence supporting the premise a causal link between routine immunization and autism spectrum disorders exists.

Maybe we should make a request for actual evidence of a causal link the next “respond in three posts or concede the point” challenge?

Also Narad, your anger and frustration at me is unbecoming

I can assure you that no further demonstrations of your boundless self-aggrandizement were required. I am as cool as a cucumber, baby. Contemptuous ridicule requires neither anger nor “frustration.” The fact that you would fantasize yourself to have engendered the latter is merely a another display of your wholesale lack of self-awareness.

You have failed at and/or run away from every challenge to your painfully embarrassing babbling, and that includes the following:

I work with autistics and I surely don’t hate them.

You’ve been asked before, Greg: What are your credentials? What combination of education and professional training led to your purported vocation?

The fact that it is moderation suggests that you have some very nice ‘pleasantries’ for me!

Oh, look, wrong again. There’s a shock. Of course, if you had been paying attention rather than merely clamoring for attention at any cost, you would have been able to detect the foolishness of the insinuation beforehand.

Aha! What an amazing discovery she made, Todd! My eldest daughter is autistic, and guess what? The same thing happened to her! She received her normal infant vaccines, and, during her first year of life, her eyes went from a stunning blue to a deep, chocolate brown! It must be the MERCURY! Of course, none of her shots had mercury, but still. Somehow. And of course two of my brothers’ had the same thing happen. And the second child, who was similarly vaccinated, kept her blue eyes.

(I also find it hilarious she tried to support her case with a study about mercury vapor causing the lens to discolor. You’d think she’d be smart enough to at least know that the lens is not the same thing as the iris, and that a discolored lens causes vision problems, while brown irises do not. But I don’t really expect logic from her given her initial premise.)

Thank you Narad.

I’d like to second your request for some information about his educational history and training.

“What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalance, as opposed to just the perception of one?”

“You have asked a question (“shred of evidence”) to which you know in advance does not exist, and cannot be collected ethically.”

Except that evidence does exist, can and has been collected without ethical violations. It’s possible to review both current and historical medical records, to apply current diagnostic criteria to children diagnosed prior to changes in the DSM, etc., and draw conclusions regarding whether or not diagnositic substitution, broadening of diagnostic criteria, etc., contribute to the increase in autism diagnoses without violating any one’s right to privacy (e.g., the California study by Shattuck and the UK study by Bishop, to name two off the top of my head.) Then there’s the Brugha study (Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults in the Community in England) which looked at autism incidence in adults vs. children using a common diagnostic procedure (ADOS-G) and found no significant difference in incidence, which would not be expected if the actual number of autistic individuals had increased over time.

rease in other diagnoses.

Evaluating a common population using the same criteria but different diagnostic protocols also results in different rates of incidence. For example, there are two commonly used diagnostic tools: ADI (Autism Diagnostic Interview R) and ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule). Looking at a population of adults with a history of developmental speech disorders, Bishop found that if one required indivdiuals to meet teh criteria of both tools to receive an autistic diagnoses incidence was 21%. while if instead they were required to meet the criteria of one or the other incidence was 66%.

What do we know?

Diagnostic criteria for autism was broadened greatly with the publication of DSM IV.

Changes in diagnostic criteria has been demonstrate to result in increased incidence of diagnoses of autism.

When one examines historical medical records for indviduals previously diagnosed using useing narrower historical criteria and applies the broadened criteria from DSM IV one sees a statistically significant increase in autism diagnoses with a corresponding decrease in other diagnoses.

The number of diagnoses has been seen to vary not only with change in iagnsotic criteria but aslo with differing diagnostic tools and procedures.

No actual increase in the numbers of he number of autism diagnoses with time was found when children and adults were examined using the same criteria/tools.

All of this argues strongly for increased number of autistic diagnoses over time rather than an actual increase in the number of autistics over time, and if the findings had been different–if for instance the Brugha study had found more children diagnosed with autism than adults, for example– these studies could have providedevidence of an an actual increase in autism prevalance without any ethical violation.

@Liz Ditz

Meant to say thanks for posting your comment about other gainfully employed and successful autists.

I wonder, though, if the giggly one will try to claim that for each of those specific cases there would also be 1,000 non-verbal, head-banging, poop-smearing autists. I wouldn’t be surprised if he did, math and honesty are not his strong suits. He may say that it’s still 1:1,000, though he might concede and instead state that for every 1 successful, gainfully employed autists there are only 200 of the sort he looks down on.

Again, please point to my exact text where I said 199/200 cases of autism are caused by vaccines. Let me make clear my position on the issue.

It was a calculated value from comment #680.

Greg has stated:

1) In the halcyon days of yore when vaccine-preventable disease had free rein, the autism rate was 1/10,000.

2) Today the rate is 1/50, or 200/10,000.

3) All of that increase is due to vaccination, because some percentage of the population — at least 2% – would respond to a mild immunological insult in infancy (read: vaccination) by developing autism.

If this were true, I’d expect pre-modern societies to have an autism rate caused by early life immune insults of at least 2% which Greg denies; Greg claims that without vaccination the rate would be 1/10,000. I see this as a problem with Greg’s argument; perhaps you don’t.

Of course, as you point out, infant mortality plays a role here. But according to Greg, 199/200 potentially autistic children would have to die in infancy to produce the “proper” autism rate When half the children die before reaching adulthood, 2% dying from early life immune insults wouldn’t even be noticed. True. But by the same token, any genes that produce that outcome would be under ferocious selection pressure, don’t you think? If only 0.005% of the carriers live long enough to reproduce, there’d have to be some substantial benefit for their collaterals to keep the genes in the population.

@AF –

The answer you are giving is an answer to the wrong question.

You asked this question:

What evidence do we have that there is an actual increase in autism prevalance, as opposed to just the perception of one?’

The parental age data doesn’t answer the question of having evidence for an actual increase in autism? [seriously?]

I never imagined that I would have to actually spell out for you that “an increase in autism” in this context specifically means “an increase in autism that is not otherwise accounted for”. But then again, I never imagined that you would quote-mine LW the way you did, so there we go.

Can you actually understand why, now that it’s pointed out, why “we have an increase in autism that already has an explanation” does not automatically send reasonable people running to find other explanations for the same increase?

The fact that we are keeping pre-term babies alive with more consistency doesn’t answer this question?

Exactly the same objection as before. There’s not even a need to go into whether the link between pre-term birth and autism is undisputed. It still makes no sense.

What type of evidence would you accept as evidence, up and above those two types of evidence?

Those two “types of evidence” aren’t evidence that is useful to your case. I will say it again: “an increase in autism” in this context specifically means “an increase in autism that is not otherwise accounted for”, and I never imagined that you could have trouble understanding why.

Considering you don’t seem to have any faith in the scads of parental age data, your hypothesis, that the increase is solely based on perceptions appears to me to be impossible to falsify.

Whether or not I have faith in the parental age data is irrelevant, since an increase in autism which is caused by increasing parental age is not an increase in autism for which we need to puzzle out “Gee, wow, what could the cause of this possibly be? Could it be vaccines?”

(Of course, it occurs to me that perhaps that you think this is scientifically logical: that if a factor such as increasing parental age poses an increased risk of autism, there must be a mechanism by which that happens, and that means suddenly it’s appropriate for you to speculate wildly about how vaccines are that mechanism, right?)

(Sadly for you, no. You’re still trying to fit the data to your hypothesis. Science is about trying to fit your hypothesis to the data. You’re just trying to shift a question you can’t answer – what reason is there to finger vaccines as a culprit in the autism developed by these children? – to a different set of children, which still leaves the actual question completely unanswered.)

I’m terrible at reading minds, so maybe you could tell me what evidence would you accept that *some* amount of the increase is real?

You mean, some amount other than that already accounted for by other factors?

Let’s start by repeating the hard truth that you don’t seem to want to face. You are not entitled to make scientific breakthroughs. No one is. Researcher A might have a great hypothesis about a certain scientific matter, and the hypothesis might even be completely correct. But if Researcher A cannot obtain the evidence that shows the hypothesis to be correct, science cannot go ahead and say “yes, you’re right; because you provided us with all the evidence you could obtain, we’ll consider that good enough.” Not even if the reasons why Researcher A can’t obtain that evidence were, without question, not their fault. Look at all the great scientific hypotheses that were only settled after the scientists who proposed them had died, when advanced evidence-gathering methods such as DNA testing had been developed.

Science does not scale grades, pD!

You have asked a question (“shred of evidence”) to which you know in advance does not exist, and cannot be collected ethically. I’m not complaining about “science” or “entitlements”, I’m complaining about you applying a double standard; insistence on me providing data that we both know is not available.

And I’m fully aware that that’s your complaint, and furthermore I’m agreeing that you’re correct about almost every part of it. The one part that you are wrong about is when you call it “a double standard.” It is not. It is the standard, the one that applies to all science and all scientists, from the most stridently pro-vaccine to the most stridently anti-vaccine.

Suppose we rewind history a little bit and make it go differently. Suppose that we go back to just before the first study was performed that examined for differences the autism rates between unvaccinated and vaccinated children. And furthermore, let us suppose that the results of that first study showed something different than they did in our world: they indicated that in that fictional, hypothetical world the rate of autism was higher for vaccinated children than it was for unvaccinated children, to a statistically significant degree.

You know what science would decree was the simplest hypothesis that fit the evidence, in that hypothetical world* where all the evidence that had been collected so far (small an amount as it was) showed a correlation between vaccination and autism? That vaccination and autism were causally related somehow. Anyone who had the hypothesis that there was some other explanation for the correlation besides a causal relation, the burden of proof would be on them to figure out an alternate hypothesis – and then the burden of proof would be on them to gather additional evidence, of whatever sort was necessary, for their hypothesis to be the simplest one that explains all the evidence. If they couldn’t do that – for instance, because the process of collecting the evidence would be unethical – then we’d feel sorry for them but we would not change the rules and say “All right, because you can’t get the evidence that would prove your hypothesis, we’ll give you a pass and deem your hypothesis proven without evidence.”

The purpose of that exercise just now, looking at the imaginary world where it was the pro-vaccine people who didn’t have the evidence on their side and couldn’t go collect it – the purpose of that was not to give you a spontaneous orgasm. It was to drum into your head that this is not a double standard, it is the standard.

To whine and call it unreasonable is even sillier than complaining that the driver whose car crossed the finish line first is considered the winner, and the same consideration is not shown to the driver whose car couldn’t cross the finish line because his axle broke. I am precise in saying “sillier” rather than “just as silly”, by the way: car races are human-created endeavors, and we can change the rules any way we want, to make the race more entertaining. Science is not for our entertainment. Science is our way to learn as much as we can about this complex, challenging world we live in, without getting fooled by all the tricky illusions the world or our own perceptual systems can throw at us. We change the rules for one and only one reason: to try and reduce error. To change the rules instead so that claims are accepted not because they checked out when they were checked against the evidence, but because they couldn’t be checked against the evidence, would be utter absurdity.

  • It’s sad that I have to keep stressing that to deter quote-miners.

About the immune system stuff, I have been alerted of this article which claim that autoimmune antibodies in the mother is linked to 1/4 of the autistic newborn:

http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2013/07/11/researchers-cause-autism/18297/

publication here:
http://www.nature.com/tp/journal/v3/n7/abs/tp201350a.html

I think it’s a better causal link than any of the stuff that pD presented here. Now, if the mother have immune issues, wouldn’t it be normal that the autistic child have immune issue, which is not necessarily a causal link to autism.

Haven’t disected the study but count on it that I will dissect it soon.

Alain

Oh! and, if autoimmune issues from the mother is a causal link to autism, wouldn’t it be normal to find autistics (at least 1/4 of the population of current autistics) since prehistoric times?

Alain

@ Liz:

Somewhere Greg told me that his background was in psychology: I doubt that any graduate work/ degrees were involved because I hear neither the statistics/ research design focus nor that of physio nor of testing screaming loudly in my ears- which I would hear if he had any sort of grad degree from any U worth its salt.

If you take a peek at Jennifer Larson’s autism group via AoA ( visit Holland), you’ll notice that many of her staff have undergrad degrees in psych and precious little else.. so I assume it IS possible to work with clients who have ASDs without much background or training.

There are also alt meddish life coaches who work with all manner of ASD. LD and MI. Probably not very well, I’d venture.

@ Denice,

so I assume it IS possible to work with clients who have ASDs without much background or training.

A person I know, she was and is asperger; she worked with autistics child but her two bachelor are in cinema and something else that I don’t remember and definitely not psychology.

BTW, the organism she worked in, never paid her for her work.

Alain

@Narad
Are you sure you are not angry? You’re kinda sounding like you are! (Hee, hee, hee).

Oh yes, my credentials…..

What if I were to tell you that I am a high school dropout who looks after my neighbour’s twin autistic boys casually, and spend most of my free time looking up autistic stuff on the net? Would this automatically disqualify me from having the honour on conversing with you guys?

Greg,

It would show that you have not been practicing the scientific method because you were never given the chance. You also don’t know how to weight scientific evidence.

Alain

Are you sure you are not angry? You’re kinda sounding like you are!

Yes, I’m quite sure. At this point, it would be like being “angry” at Philip Glass. You, on the other hand, seem to be overflowing with incredibly stupid, schoolyard-variety aggression.

Perhaps your psychological training was not sufficient to inform you that it is perfectly possible to bluntly tell someone whom one respects when they’re full of shıt. And you have earned no such courtesy.

Greg – I apologize if this is too personal, but you’ve shown yourself to be incapable of understanding other people’s emotional states more than once. Have you been evaluated? I ask this as a well wisher, in that I do not actively wish you harm.

Would this automatically disqualify me from having the honour on conversing with you guys?

Of course not but you need to check that arrogant ignorance at the door. I would also question the mother who would allow you to look after her boys.

@Greg:

Again, please point to my exact text where I said 199/200 cases of autism are caused by vaccines. Let me make clear my position on the issue. I believe the vast majority of autistic cases are caused by vaccines.

Of course Greg didn’t say 199/200. That would require higher mathematics (i.e., arithmetic). However, when he first graced the comment section of this blog with his presence, he sneered this in his persona as one of his fantasized pro-vaxxers:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/04/06/can-antivaccinationists-knock-it-off-with-the-autism-holocaust-analogies-already/#comment-250480

The anti-vaxers are so frustrating. They just don’t believe us when we tell them what really causes autism. Autism is caused by abused mothers, old mothers, fat mothers, stressed mothers, old fathers, old grandfathers, fathers in their 40s marry women in their 20s, engineer and tech parents, having siblings too close together, women not taking folic acid during pregnancy or having a fever or flu during pregnancy, lack of vitamin D, c-section deliveries, low birth weight, living too close to a highway, lots of rainfall, air pollution. Everything causes autism except vaccines!
…
Back in 1995 when the Autism rate went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 500 we told them that the sudden rise was due to better detection. We were concerned that this explanation would not wash, but incredibly they believed it! In 2007, the rate jumped exponentially to 1 in 150 leaving us no choice, so in desperation we used the better diagnosis argument again. Could you believe it folks? Astoundingly, they fell for it, again! Now that the rate is 1 in 50 we are still saying its better detection and they are still buying it! Our luck is just not running out! Their gullibility is beyond words. 

So, here we have Greg stating that the autism rate was formerly 1/10,000 and is now 1/50. Greg evidently has not mastered fractions so is unaware that 1/50 = 200/10,000, and further that 200/10,000 – 1/10,000 = 199/10,000, so the “excess” cases in his view are 199/10,000. Moreover, in order to compute what fraction of all cases are excess, we divide excess by total, like this: (199/10,000)/(200/10,000) = 199/200. Hence, in Greg’s view, as evidenced by his own words above, “excess” autism cases are 199/200 of all autism cases. 

I apologize to those who have graduated from elementary school, for belaboring the computation.

Note that Greg sneers at every explanation other than vaccines as an explanation for possible real increases in autism, including older parents, which his hero, passionlessDrone, insisted on as a real cause. 

Continued in the next comment to avoid moderation.

So we’ve established from Greg’s own words the 199/200 autism cases are “excess”. But does he claim that they are all caused by vaccines?  Yes he does:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2013/05/01/autismone-2013-a-quackfest-just-as-quacky-as-ever/#comment-256136

Still, where autism is concerned, I will always see the vast majority of autistic individuals as vaccine, brain damaged. They were not born that way. Autism was not their destiny and instead was a scourge that was forced upon them. To not accept this is to betray the autistic individual by denying his/her legacy. This I feel is the ultimate disrespect. I also believe the pro-vaxers do feel a lot of guilt and instead of owning up to the crime committed against the autistic individual, will sooner blacklist anyone who speaks the truth as being an ableist. Such hypocrisy is what I believe is truly reprehensible.

Re your position that even if vaccines were ‘shown’ to cause autism then you would still advocate the existing recommended vaccination schedule, I fail to understand the sense in this thinking.  We are talking about 80,000 yearly vaccine brain damaged autistic kids. (Emphasis added). 

Approximately four million children are vaccinated each year. If indeed the 1/50 number is correct, we would expect 80,000 of them to be autistic. Greg says vaccination causes 80,000 cases of autism per year (with his usual polite and charming terminology). Therefore, Greg says all cases of autism are caused by vaccination.

I was giving him credit for acknowledging his own figure that 1/10,000 would be autistic without vaccination, but perhaps that was too much credit.

I have more of Greg’s greatest hits, but after scrolling through three posts with comments by him, I feel I’ve make sufficient sacrifice for the day.

@LW

Seems like you went into some serious calculations to suggest that I am arguing that all autistics are vaccine damaged. Yet, in the sample of my text that you selected, I argued, “still, where autism is concerned, I will always see the vast majority of autistic individuals as vaccine, brain damaged.” The obvious question then is if it’s so conclusive that I believe ‘all’ autistics are vaccine damaged, why did I say the ‘vast majority’ and not ‘all’? Also, notice how even as of today, I am still using the precise ‘vast majority’ term, which is consistent with my previous post from two months ago.

LW, where do you think those dates/ figures ( 1:10,000; 1:50) come from?
Exactly where you’d imagine: AoA, TMR, Natural News, etc.

At any rate, being a sceptic or SB person requires no specific education or training and having a higher education isn’t a guarantee of a capacity for critical thinking: these skills and the outlook itself can be learned or cultivated.

Some of us are fortunate enough to have acquired first-rate educations for whatever reason: talent, inclination, family culture, happenstance. More recently, it has become difficult for adults to go about completing degrees in the traditional fashion ( although on-line schools offer additional opportunities) because of costs and economic realities- juggling a job, family and school isn’t easy- I sometimes work with clients who are atttempting this.

I think that on-line sceptical groups ( altho’ we have been called an “intellectual lynch mob” or suchlike) provide instant educational pointers for whosoever wants information and direction, for free, in an entertaining format. We are the alternative to the alties: Orac leads the way.

I would venture that the reason that ludicrously ignorant self-promoters- like those I survey- get a large audience is because they pretend to have cutting-edge information that will help people to improve their lives- in reality, they just want to sell useless products and their posturing as educators is merely a ruse. But the audience does clamour for science and realistic ways to help themselves- they’re just looking in all the wrong places.

Many of us here could use our spare time to work for pay but instead find our hobby rewarding in non-monetary ways.

Late question of the day……

I asked this question before and I think it’s worth asking again. You guys are all seeming to suggest my ‘rantings’ amount to that of a madman on the street. Well, if that’s the case, why did this thread reach over 800 comments, when the other threads that I am not involved in averages, say, 100 or so comments. Asked another way, why do you guys feel so compelled to engage a ‘madman’?

Oh Greg, I love engaging with madmans on the street; they are genuine in their conviction and show an awesome lot of dedication to their cause. They are also very frank and don’t play any games at all.

You should have seen the one who slept 2 hours per day for the last 6 month and who was totally dedicated to make 50 000$ in a few more month on the street; he had an awesome drive to make it.

You? you have crusts to eat to attain the same level of Marg and Judith with their 2500+ posts in a thread.

Good luck.

Alain

I’d say the gleeful opportunity demonstrate how easy it is, with the help of legitimate citations, to consistently smackdown Greg’s woefully citation-befeft antivax bleatings for the benefit of the lurkers would factor mightily into the length of the thread.

Also, notice how even as of today, I am still using the precise ‘vast majority’ term

Well, there’s something one doesn’t hear every day.

Asked another way, why do you guys feel so compelled to engage a ‘madman’?

Alain has already capably addressed this, but nobody except you has characterized you in this fashion. Why did you “feel so compelled” to describe yourself as such?

I’m taking the over on “nothing left but squirming evasion.”

Greg:

Well, if that’s the case, why did this thread reach over 800 comments, when the other threads that I am not involved in averages, say, 100 or so comments.

Because you are hilarious!

You have managed to not answer questions with any data for over two months. And then you whine when you are given a deadline of noon then next day.

Remember, we are not laughing with you.

which his hero, passionlessDrone, insisted on as a real cause

I wouldn’t say that pD is Greg’s “hero,” but rather that Greg fancies him as some sort of potential yet decidedly subservient ally. Just another object, like his (B’siyata d’shmaya, imaginary) “brain-damaged,” “retarded” victims.

@Denice Walter, oh, it’s not that I believe anything he writes, it just amuses me to point out the logical consequences.

Do you think 99.5% is a reasonable approximation for the “precise ‘vast majority’ term”?

Orac’s VCADOD Group,

I left this departure message on a wrong thread: Anyway, with the weekend here, I want to take a little break. Over 800 comments are quite something! I might drop back in to read stuff, but I ask that you refrain from any targeted comments that may tempt a response from me (hee, hee, hee). Maybe you guys can discuss stuff amongst yourselves for the time being. When I return — perhaps in a few days or so — we may continue with our exchanges.

Fancy posting on the wrong thread, Greg. Just about everything you have posted here has been wrong, so we shouldn’t be surprised.

@ LW:

Oh, I know. As I mentioned above, we frequently amuse ourselves as well as- hopefully- engaging lurkers.

As an aside:
speaking of really long threads precipitated by egregious commentary, wasn’t there another ‘greg’- a/k/a Peg and/or Emily- who was a chiropractor/ natural health enthusiast from AUS? Greg Fitzgerald IIRC.

I might drop back in to read stuff, but I ask that you refrain from any targeted comments that may tempt a response from me

Too bad.

I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone. So, when the admission that vaccines do cause autism is made, and with the expected ensuing tsunami of claims what do you propose for obtaining additional funds?

What was your response to this, again?

Greg, what is the balance in the relevant account as of the end of the first calendar quarter of this year?

Oh, right.

“‎Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” – John Stuart Mill

Fancy posting on the wrong thread, Greg.

I’m still on my first cup of coffee, but I’m not seeing it on another thread.

Fancy posting on the wrong thread, Greg.

It also shows his grasp of numbers. Back at #834, Greg notes

Well, if that’s the case, why did this thread reach over 800 comments.

Yet, he failed to notice that the other thread (Veterinary Acupuncture) only had 68 of them when he posted.

For the lurkers. Greg at 623 claimed,

I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone.

This is from the website of the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html.

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund provides funding for the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program to compensate vaccine-related injury or death claims for covered vaccines administered on or after October 1, 1988.

Funded by a $0.75 excise tax on vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for routine administration to children. The excise tax is imposed on each dose (disease that is prevented) of a vaccine. Trivalent influenza vaccine for example, is taxed $0.75 because it prevents one disease; measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which prevents three diseases, is taxed $2.25.

The Department of Treasury collects the excise taxes and manages the Fund’s investments.

The link to the reports is: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/tfmp/vaccomp/vaccomp.htm

The total amount paid out to date is $2,704,762,675.55. The total assets to date, as of June 30, is $3,397,803,125.95. That’s a long way from “almost out of money”.

Let’s do a rough estimate of how much money flows into the NVICP Trust fund each year. There are about 4 million babies born each year. Let’s set the vaccine uptake rate at 90%. Let’s say the baby gets an annual flu shot, and gets the remaining preschool boosters in his 4th year. In months 0-12, the child will receive 24 taxable immunizations (remember DTaP counts as 3); in months 13-24 12 taxable immunizations; in months 25-36 1 taxable immunization; in months 37-48 1 taxable immunization; and finally in months 49-60 8 taxable immunizations. So each immunized child contributes $34.50 to the NVICP fund from birth to age 5.

So in any one year, the current and previous birth cohorts ALONE (forget later childhood vaccinations and adult vaccinations) are contributing about $124,000,000 to the Fund. Historically, there has been an excess if income over expenses, so the Fund also benefits from substantial investment income. For example for this fiscal year to date, the income is reported as $89,463,223.61.

Greg went on to write,

So, when the admission that vaccines do cause autism is made, and with the expected ensuing tsunami of claims what do you propose for obtaining additional funds?

One: the Autism Omnibus hearing considered the propositions that the Measles Mumps Rubella vaccine, or the MMR plus thimerosal, could cause autism. Neither proposition was found to be legally or scientifcally plausible.

Two: there is no reason in science to think that something else about vaccines could be causal in autism. So there’s no reason to think that the NVICP would need to fund claims.

There is currently a case before the vaccine court, alleging that somehow, vaccines produced using human cell lines can trigger autism. The court finds the claim based on faulty research and evidence. See http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CAMPBELL-SMITH.MOSTOVOY061213.pdf.

“Asked another way, why do you guys feel so compelled to engage a ‘madman’?”

As we used to say in the 12th Marines, target-rich environment.

Historically, there has been an excess if income over expenses, so the Fund also benefits from substantial investment income. For example for this fiscal year to date, the income is reported as $89,463,223.61.

Lest anyone misread this, more specifically that’s net revenue of $56,053,497 from the excise tax and $30,923,204 in investment interest.

Greetings VCADOD Group,

You fine purveyors of poisons — ahem vaccines- for kids! Congrats Orac on stepping up your game –slightly– with your ‘provaxxer world domination’ shtick on another thread. Your ‘quacks, cranks are bad tagline’ was starting to get a little worn.

Anyway, I would like to get started with our program right away by having our ‘question of the day’:

I need not remind you guys that I am a layperson where immunology science is concerned. Still, it did seem logical to me that if vaccines are suspected in causing an inflammation response that may disturb infants’ brain development then we should examine kids post vaccination to see if there is indeed an increase in their inflammatory chemicals are cytokines. (Please also see the link below of, yet, another –peer reviewed!– studying tying vaccines to autism through the inflammation process). Around a month ago, I did discuss this idea with Krebiozen. Then ‘loh and behold’ we had Pd recently mentioning how despite having the technology to do such studies the research is quite scant. (BTW, despite your desperate efforts to show PD as lacking in knowledge, he sounds rather credible.) The ‘question of the day’ then is why are such studies, studying inflammatory chemicals post vaccines, so scant? Surely the ‘ethical’ excuse doesn’t apply here?

http://online.wsj.com/article/PR-CO-20130712-904463.html

Thx Liz Ditz (still didn’t see your comment where you told me off for discussing the unflattering, but true side of severe autism) for the info on NICTFs,

You mentioned……
“The total amount paid out to date is $2,704,762,675.55. The total assets to date, as of June 30, is $3,397,803,125.95. That’s a long way from “almost out of money”.”

I understand that the amount paid out to date was only a small fraction of the pending claims, and if such claims succeed there will be nothing left. Also, you and Narad, really didn’t answer my question. MOB stated that ‘if’ vaccines are ever shown to cause autism — I say ‘when’ — then families should be compensated from this fund. How would there ever be enough money to satisfy the expected ‘tsunami’ claims?

Greg:

‘if’ vaccines are ever shown to cause autism — I say ‘when’ — then families should be compensated from this fund. How would there ever be enough money to satisfy the expected ‘tsunami’ claims?

Given that the omnibus Autism Proceedings are being wound down with most petitioners seeking withdrawal, and that there has been no new theory of causation advanced, you may as well ask if it may help the environment to use dragons in steel making.

Here’s a link from the actual source, PR Newswire, which will basically print anything you ask in exchange for pay

If you look closer, you’ll find that the same goes for the journal.

Please also see the link below of, yet, another –peer reviewed!– studying tying vaccines to autism through the inflammation process

Thanks for the demonstration that you know nothing about journals publishing (and placing an exclamation point on it) and that you haven’t read the actual, ah, “paper.”

What evidence supports your claim that vaccines are cause autism?

Respond by the end of the day, or concede that you are unaware of any evidence supporting your often-repeated claim.

(And, as always, be aware that ‘anecdote’ and ‘evidence’ are different entities.)

The ‘question of the day’ then is why are such studies, studying inflammatory chemicals post vaccines, so scant? Surely the ‘ethical’ excuse doesn’t apply here?

This has been looked at over a period of at least 48 years – I linked to a 1965 study looking at interferon levels (interferon is a pro-inflammatory cytokine) after measles vaccination). Nothing of great interest has been found, and there is no doubt at all that infections cause a far greater release of pro-inflammatory cytokines than vaccination, over a far longer period. What else do you think scientists should have looked at?

“I understand that the amount paid out to date was only a small fraction of the pending claims, and if such claims succeed there will be nothing left.”

I am reminded of the incarcerated fellow who, having been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole and deprived of most entertainments other than the prison library, has forged a new form of amusement: filing absurd lawsuits for insane amounts of money. There isn’t a whole lot that can be done to stop him; all the cases get dismissed as soon as they see his name on them. If you were to add up the claims, you’d find that if all of his cases prevailed, there would not be enough money in all the world to pay out his claims. Some of his lawsuits request damages in the quadrillions. It would be a little silly to therefore claim that the global economy is bankrupt, since all the lawsuit claims in the world could not be paid. Obviously everybody filing a lawsuit is not going to prevail, and even if they do prevail, obviously they will not all receive the awards they were seeking. Indeed, it is common practice to file for a larger sum than desired, because the amount you file for is both the starting point for negotiations should the defendant offer to settle, and it is also a rhetorical device for your lawyer to use to illustrate how injured you are. Seldom do the final awards match the amount initially filed for, if it actually goes to trial.

I understand that the amount paid out to date was only a small fraction of the pending claims, and if such claims succeed there will be nothing left.

Since you repeatedly demonstrated that you had no freaking idea of the balance in the account to start with (“I understand that the money set aside for such compensation is already almost gone”) and are such a screaming bonehead that you didn’t even know where to look, I will be most amused to wait for you to cough up “the amount … of the pending claims,” as I’m sure will be anyone who has the slightest idea of how the process works.

@Narad “Yes, I’m quite sure. At this point, it would be like being “angry” at Philip Glass.”

I have previously read nothing in this thread but I glanced at it this morning. I have absolutely no idea what the context was for that statement, Narad, but it is the best thing I’ve read all morning, anywhere.

@Krebiozen,

I’m informed by a friend in Belgium that Brussels sprouts are called choux de Bruxelles if you’re Walloon or spruitjes if you’re Flemish.

First off, sorry I take so long to respond. I just have a number of obligations and things going on, so it is difficult to keep up with the barrage of responses that come at me.

… the science-based camp is stating “we have simply not been presented with anything like a convincing case that vaccines cause autism, and it would be irrational to jump to the conclusion that they do or probably do in the absence of a convincing case.” If you’re asserting that that’s an unreasonable position…

I am not asserting that that is unreasonable, it is perfectly reasonable.

then you’re asserting that either you think a solid case that vaccines cause autism does exist (in which case, you’re not between the two camps at all, you’re in one of the very camps you called unreasonable) or you’re asserting that the science-based camp should be taking seriously the speculation that vaccines cause autism just because someone came up with such a speculation.

Actually, I am just pointing out that I think it is reasonable to want to explore the various immune etiology hypotheses of autism, which would likely include vaccines at some point.

Seeing that various cytokines are integral to normal brain development and memory, and disruptions in these signaling patterns during critical timeframes can lead to later life behavioral and cognitive outcomes consistent with autism, coupled with the fact that vaccines harness these pleiotropic molecules to direct a long term immune response during early life, I think it would be interesting and worthwhile to look into. To me this does not seem unreasonable even in light of the epidemiological studies that I have seen.

Incidentally, this was also the position of Kimberly McAllister and Judy Van de Water at the time of writing their manuscript “Breaking Boundaries in Neural-Immune Interactions” for Dec. 2009 Neuron: ( I am not aware if their position has changed… Alain, want to email one of them?)

Finally, neural-immune crosstalk also has profound implications for public health policy. Growing evidence that maternal immune activation could increase the incidence of autism or schizophrenia in offspring suggests that healthcare providers should revisit the pros and cons of using anti-inflammatory drugs in pregnancy with the goal of developing drugs that prevent a proinflammatory response in the CNS without damaging the fetus. Another issue for society right now is whether, and when, pregnant mothers should be given the seasonal flu and H1N1 vaccines. While the flu can be extremely harmful to pregnant women, the effects of stimulating the immune response with two flu vaccines during pregnancy are unknown. Absent the luxury of waiting for large-scale study results, recommendations that pregnant women receive both vaccines are valid based on current knowledge of the dangers of natural flu infection during gestation. However, since the negative effects of immune stimulation during pregnancy are likely determined by susceptibility factors, our understanding of factors that cause aberrant baseline immune responses in some pregnant women must be improved and better methods for susceptibility screening developed soon.

It is also important to note that neural-immune crosstalk could be affected by the current schedule of childhood immunizations. Although there is some epidemiological evidence that immunizations are not likely to have a direct role in the ontogeny of autism (Immunization Safety Review Committee, 2004), it is still possible that responses to the number and combinations of vaccinations given at some visits could contribute to cognitive changes in children who may already have altered immune responses. Natural infections in an individual with a dysfunctional immune system might have an equally deleterious effect. Thus, a better understanding of the effects of immune activation during gestation and early post-natal development, especially in the context of increased disease susceptibility, will be critical to either validate our current health policies or modify them for specific populations of individuals.

In what way are you more qualified than either of these fine researchers? Do you have a strong background in the scientific disciplines we are accessing in our discussion? Im curious.

I am not saying stop vaccinating until we do these studies,(in fact the only way we can do the studies is if we keep vaccinating) just that we should consider looking more closely at the immune response post vaccination and how that may shape the developing neonate beyond the long-term protective antibody response that is hopefully generated.

That’s a very important part of the science-based position, so to leave out “burden of proof” and discuss the various vaccines-cause-or-exacerbate-autism hypotheses as if testability was the only meaningful criteria, and therefore any hypothesis that was deemed “testable” was therefore automatically one that deserved testing, would badly distort reality.

You know what Antaeus, I agree with you. Which is why I think it is badly distorting reality when commenters suggest “the internet must’ve caused it, or pink unicorns, or broccoli” (obviously suggesting these in a facetious way)or whatever other cockamamie ideas people come up with.

However, it may be that the point about burden of proof was not clear to you, so let’s look at it again, approaching it from a slightly different angle. Let’s talk about “Occam’s Razor”. This very famous principle has been stated many ways over the years; one of the most precise formulations is “Avoid multiplying entities needlessly”, but the modern version, easier to understand, is “when there are multiple explanations for the evidence, the simplest is the most likely to be true.

Yes, Antaeus, I am aware of Occam’s Razor, the problem with applying it to autism science in the way you are trying to is that “when there are multiple explanations for the evidence, there is NOT just one simple explanation that is the truth” did it occur to you that there could just be multiple explanations for the evidence, which actually fits what is known about the heterogeneity of autism.

“Some cases of autism are caused by vaccines” sounds simple enough; it sounds so simple, we might be tempted to think there couldn’t be a simpler explanation. Except it only sounds that way because we’re leaving out part of it; when you state it fully, you find out it’s a hypothesis that “multiplies entities needlessly.” It’s an established fact that some children who were never vaccinated nevertheless developed autism. Therefore the VCA (vaccines cause autism) hypothesis, spelled out in full, has to be “There is something which isn’t vaccines that causes autism (entity 1); in addition, there are some cases of autism that are caused by vaccines (entity 2).” You know what’s a simpler explanation than that, which involves only known fact and not speculation like the VCA hypothesis? “There is something which isn’t vaccines that causes autism.”

Now the situation would be different if the evidence was different. Some VCA believers, as I mentioned before, still claim that vaccines have in fact caused an “autism epidemic”. If such a claim was true, then unvaccinated children would still develop autism, due to entity 1, at a rate we’ll call A%; vaccinated children would develop autism at the higher rage A+X%, where X% are the children who wouldn’t have developed autism due to entity 1, but did due to vaccines, entity 2. The elephant in the room here, Skeptiquette, which you seem unwilling to acknowledge, is that every attempt to measure X% comes up with a figure indistinguishable from zero.

To be honest that was a little confusing, it seems like your underlying assumptions are flawed. My underlying assumptions about autistics and the rest of the human population is that we all follow a basic equation which ultimately envelopes who we are. In it’s most simplified form it is Genes x Environment x Development. This means that the genome that you are dealt interacts with the environment it is exposed to during critical periods of development, which shape how our brains and emotions and everything else that is outward (appearance, sexual preference, speaking ability, etc) come to be.

To me, Autism is the outcome of a response of a relatively stable genome to a relatively rapidly changing environment, it is basically evolution at work, with the immune system being situated in a central position to mediate this evolution. Just like any species that is exposed to a more chaotic environment, you get a much more varied phenotypic outcome, but sometimes that outcome may not be well suited for the environment. I think an evolutionary framework is important when considering what causes autism.

When you look at it like this, there are a million different ways that someone could become autistic, it isn’t just entity one and entity two. Think of it this way each of the three components are weighted in any one individual’s autism, a certain percentage is Genetics, a certain percentage is environment and a certain percentage are attributed to critical junctures during development. In one case autism may be the result of an overwhelming number of small genetic contributions that equal, let’s say, 80%, while the environment and development part contribute about 20%. In another case it could be the other way around, the environment contributes 80%, while the particular genome is only partially (20%) responsible.

The research keeps pointing us in the direction of genetic networks related to central immune signaling (cytokines), synapse formation (cytokines are integral for this), neuronal migration and critical periods of brain development. It is likely that the G xE xD equation can affect the same final common pathways that seem to be disrupted, but have very different origins depending on the case.

Now, can those who are absolutely wedded to the vaccines-cause-autism hypothesis find a way to alter it, so that it no longer predicts things which the data already shows to be false? Yes, sure, of course they can, but that proves nothing. We could hypothesize that vaccines don’t actually cause autism, they just exacerbate it; we could hypothesize that vaccines cause autism only in children with certain particular preconditions; we could concoct any number of hypotheses that aren’t totally torpedoed by the data the way “there’s an autism epidemic caused by vaccines” is. But what’s wrong with every one of those hypotheses?

Two things. First of all, each one is not an attempt to do actual science, but simply to co-opt the authority of science. Real science is about seeing where the data leads you; asking “how can we make the data point to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?” means you’re not doing real science.

Really? So if a hypothesis is devised that stratifies subjects with certain immunological preconditions and it shows that vaccination is associated with a higher incidence of autism that proves nothing?

No, actually those are both perfectly legitimate attempts at doing “real science.” Sometimes when doing research it takes a more thorough understanding of the fundamental aspects to design appropriate testable hypotheses. This is what I was trying to explain earlier with the whole witchcraft, medevial, discussion.

So the fact that the data is leading us to a more gene x environment centered understanding of autism implicating the immune system and specifically pro inflammatory cytokine networks during development, precludes considering vaccines??

Even though vaccines excite these pro inflammatory networks during development while performing their intended function of building immunity. And this preclusion is all based on epidemiological research that didn’t include stratified cohorts?!

When you have the tools and knowledge to better interrogate something as important as vaccination, you do it. This is the quintessence of the precautionary principle and science in general.

And this is where pD was right in suggesting that we should be monitoring the in vivo status of pro inflammatory cytokines after vaccination and trying to see if there is a correlation between certain patterns of cytokines and future cognitive, behavioral and other health outcomes.

The way I see it, there is much more to be learned about vaccination, and to stifle this effort seems to be contrary to good science.

“The research keeps pointing us in the direction of genetic networks related to central immune signaling (cytokines), synapse formation (cytokines are integral for this), neuronal migration and critical periods of brain development. It is likely that the G xE xD equation can affect the same final common pathways that seem to be disrupted, but have very different origins depending on the case.”

I am just a dumb engineer, but I still don’t see how vaccines impact the immune system more than diseases?

“So the fact that the data is leading us to a more gene x environment centered understanding of autism implicating the immune system and specifically pro inflammatory cytokine networks during development, precludes considering vaccines??”

But shouldn’t you also consider the microbes in the environment, and also compare to the actual diseases? Still, vaccines only cover a teeny tiny itsy bit of the pathogens that are in the normal environment. Granted that teeny tiny bit are some very nasty pathogens.

Seriously, how does the DTaP and MMR cause so much immune assault compared to other things we encounter just by living?

And a word of advise: don’t read Spillover if you fear cytokines.

“

@skeptiquette:

am just pointing out that I think it is reasonable to want to explore the various immune etiology hypotheses of autism, which would likely include vaccines at some point.

Not any more. We have scrutinised the supposed vaccine autism link in great depth. We have been unable to find it, despite using investigative techniques with mind-blowing sensitivity. It is time to close this book. In fact, it was time to close the book years ago.

The way I see it, there is much more to be learned about vaccination, and to stifle this effort seems to be contrary to good science.

Way to miss the point, skeptiquette. What we are saying is that vaccines have been looked at as a possible cause of autism. Thoroughly. They have been exonerated. Re-looking them as a cause of autism (as you want to do) is a total WOMBAT.

There’s a corollary of Occam’s Razor that has the virtue of always being applicable, rather than just most of the time:

Don’t waste any effort finding explanations for phenomena that don’t actually happen.

Since we know for a fact that there is absolutely no correlation between vaccination and autism, there is no point in writing page after page of meaningless bafflegab, like Skeptiquette just did, desperately trying to explain that nonexistent correlation.

Skeptiquette,

Which is why I think it is badly distorting reality when commenters suggest “the internet must’ve caused it, or pink unicorns, or broccoli” (obviously suggesting these in a facetious way)or whatever other cockamamie ideas people come up with.

My suggestion that broccoli may cause autism is indeed facetious, but contains a serious message. Broccoli contains 3,3′-Diindolylmethane which is a potent modulator of the innate immune response system. Specifically it stimulates interferon-γ sensitivity and also stimulates interferon-γ, interleukin-6 and interleukin-12 production.

Please explain to me why the broccoli-autism hypothesis is any less plausible than the vaccine-autism hypothesis?

To me, Autism is the outcome of a response of a relatively stable genome to a relatively rapidly changing environment, it is basically evolution at work, with the immune system being situated in a central position to mediate this evolution. Just like any species that is exposed to a more chaotic environment, you get a much more varied phenotypic outcome, but sometimes that outcome may not be well suited for the environment. I think an evolutionary framework is important when considering what causes autism.

This whole paragraph, as well as your repeated claim that the literature is suggesting a connection to immune genes, COMPLETELY ignores most of the autism genetics literature that’s around today. There’s no good evidence that autism has anything to do with phenotypic robustness as you claim. What could you mean by ‘the response of a stable genome?’ How does the genome respond? When we sequence ASD individuals, we find rare inherited or de novo mutations in genes primarily involved with neuronal development. Many of these mutations are large deletions or inversions, caused randomly by the unstable nature of the human genome. This is what causes autism. Heterogeneity in autism type and severity is due to a heterogeneity in the affected genes and mutation types. Here’s a great recent example of this.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23849776

then you’re asserting that either you think a solid case that vaccines cause autism does exist (in which case, you’re not between the two camps at all, you’re in one of the very camps you called unreasonable) or you’re asserting that the science-based camp should be taking seriously the speculation that vaccines cause autism just because someone came up with such a speculation.

Actually, I am just pointing out that I think it is reasonable to want to explore the various immune etiology hypotheses of autism, which would likely include vaccines at some point.

There may be some “immune etiology hypotheses of autism” that are worth exploring. However, “worth exploring” inherently implies “has not already been explored exhaustively without turning up anything to suggest that this is the right track to be pursuing”. So, no, wanting to pour more resources into pursuing an old already-tested hypothesis instead of coming up with a new one isn’t reasonable.

In what way are you more qualified than either of these fine researchers? Do you have a strong background in the scientific disciplines we are accessing in our discussion? I’m curious.

Shameful, skeptiquette. I really expected better from you than this blatant argument from authority. Describing someone as a “fine researcher” doesn’t make them automatically right, and it doesn’t artificially restrict the pool of who’s allowed to point out flaws in their arguments.

That’s a very important part of the science-based position, so to leave out “burden of proof” and discuss the various vaccines-cause-or-exacerbate-autism hypotheses as if testability was the only meaningful criteria, and therefore any hypothesis that was deemed “testable” was therefore automatically one that deserved testing, would badly distort reality.

You know what Antaeus, I agree with you. Which is why I think it is badly distorting reality when commenters suggest “the internet must’ve caused it, or pink unicorns, or broccoli” (obviously suggesting these in a facetious way)or whatever other cockamamie ideas people come up with.

It’s almost as if you’re trying to call attention to the way you’re still not dealing with the burden of proof.

The burden of proof still lies on the anti-vaxxers to produce evidence that vaccines are causing autism before it makes any sense to start discussing possible mechanisms for how it could do so.

And yes, I’m sure you will protest “Anti-vaccine? That just shows how badly you misunderstand me! I’m not anti-vaccine at all!” Sorry, but yes, you are antivaccine. If someone says “Why no, I’m not anti-Semitic! I just think that we should keep Jewish bankers under constant scrutiny, constantly looking for any sort of evidence that they could be in a conspiracy to manipulate the economy, and even when we have no evidence that Jewish bankers are in a conspiracy to manipulate the economy, we should be discussing all sorts of possible ways in which they could be doing so!” then that person is anti-Semitic, despite protests that they’re not.

As for your complaints that

it is badly distorting reality when commenters suggest “the internet must’ve caused it, or pink unicorns, or broccoli” (obviously suggesting these in a facetious way)or whatever other cockamamie ideas people come up with.

once again, the answer is “Sorry, no.” The reductio ad absurdum is a wholly legitimate debating technique. It’s a close relative of the analogy, so if you want to counter it, you have to find some legitimate point of disanalogy – some way that “believing that vaccines cause autism despite no evidence that they do and a lot of evidence that they don’t” is different from “believing that broccoli causes autism despite no evidence that it does”, specifically some difference that makes the former reasonable and the latter unreasonable. I may as well tell you: your feeling that vaccines-causes-autism is reasonable and broccoli-causes-autism is “cockamamie” is of no help to you here.

By the way, were you aware that at least one of the three ideas you accused commenters here of “distorting reality” with by suggesting them in a facetious manner, at least one has people who propose it in dead seriousness as their explanation for what causes so much autism? That’s why you cannot just moan and pout when others present you with a reductio ad absurdum; if you cannot identify what it is that differentiates your idea from a “cockamamie” idea, perhaps it’s because your idea is actually just as cockamamie.

However, it may be that the point about burden of proof was not clear to you, so let’s look at it again, approaching it from a slightly different angle. Let’s talk about “Occam’s Razor”. This very famous principle has been stated many ways over the years; one of the most precise formulations is “Avoid multiplying entities needlessly”, but the modern version, easier to understand, is “when there are multiple explanations for the evidence, the simplest is the most likely to be true.”

Yes, Antaeus, I am aware of Occam’s Razor, the problem with applying it to autism science in the way you are trying to is that “when there are multiple explanations for the evidence, there is NOT just one simple explanation that is the truth” did it occur to you that there could just be multiple explanations for the evidence, which actually fits what is known about the heterogeneity of autism.

You’re looking at this from an incorrect perspective. What you’re saying is that “For case of autism A, the correct explanation is that it was caused by maternal rubella infection. For case B, however, the correct explanation is that it was caused by de novo genetic mutations. Therefore, there’s no such thing as a single explanation that’s correct for each case.”

Except we are not looking for an explanation for individual cases of autism. We are looking for the correct explanation for the totality of the evidence, including all cases of autism. (And, for that matter, of some individuals who are not autistic.) Do you understand the difference?

Suppose that at the very dawn of autism research, the only cases of autism that we knew of were children from mothers that had been infected with rubella during pregnancy. We would ask ourselves, “What is the simplest explanation for every single case of autism we know of coming from a mother infected with rubella?” The answer would be, “The simplest explanation is ‘Maternal rubella infection is the cause of autism.'”

But then sooner or later, as autism awareness grew, we’d discover cases of autism where the mother had not had any rubella infection; there would still be a clear correlation between maternal rubella infection and autism, but we’d have other cases to explain. When those cases were verified, it would change the state of the evidence, and our explanation that “maternal rubella infection is the cause of autism” would clearly not match the evidence anymore. So we would look again, for the simplest explanation that matched the evidence. This time it would be “Maternal rubella infection is a cause of autism, but there is at least one other.” There may be multiple causes of autism, but that does not mean there are multiple equally true explanations for the evidence. There is only one true explanation for the evidence, and that explanation includes all things which cause autism.

If [the claim that vaccines have caused an ‘epidemic of autism’] was true, then unvaccinated children would still develop autism, due to entity 1, at a rate we’ll call A%; vaccinated children would develop autism at the higher rage A+X%, where X% are the children who wouldn’t have developed autism due to entity 1, but did due to vaccines, entity 2. The elephant in the room here, Skeptiquette, which you seem unwilling to acknowledge, is that every attempt to measure X% comes up with a figure indistinguishable from zero.

To be honest that was a little confusing, it seems like your underlying assumptions are flawed. My underlying assumptions about autistics and the rest of the human population is that we all follow a basic equation which ultimately envelopes who we are. In it’s most simplified form it is Genes x Environment x Development. [long speculations snipped]

If you found my attempt to explain the concept using only the simplest terms confusing, then I’ll try introducing a slightly more complex term to clarify things. The term is “delta”. In this context, a “delta” means a change in effect that results from a change in causes.

If the relay running team, for example, puts on new sneakers that are supposed to make them run faster, then the difference between their average finishing time with their old sneakers, and their average finishing time with the new sneakers, is the delta. If Ms. Johnson’s math class is being taught with new methods which are supposed to make the subject easier to grasp and understand, the delta is the difference between the grades of Ms. Johnson’s class, and the grades of similar classes being taught with the old methods.

So we’re clear on what a delta is now, right? If a particular factor causes an effect, the delta is the measure of how much of a change in effect it causes.

When the delta is zero, it means that factor isn’t causing a difference.

When the relay team’s average finishing time doesn’t improve, it means the sneakers are not making them faster. When Ms. Johnson’s class doesn’t get grades that are any better than classes being taught with the old methods, it means the new teaching methods are not making math easier for the students to grasp and remember.

When you measure how high the rate of autism is in vaccinated children and how high the rate is in unvaccinated children and there isn’t a difference, it means vaccines are not causing autism.

It doesn’t matter if autism comes from a complex interaction of Genes x Environment x Development. We had a germ theory denialist, the infamous Dr. Greg/Emily/Pegasus, who used to come here and similarly claim that disease development was affected by so many different factors in the individual, was so “multi-factorial”, that it somehow exempted the phenomenon from basic math. It doesn’t. If vaccines do anything to cause autism in individuals who would not otherwise develop it, it would cause a delta between the rate of autism in vaccinated and unvaccinated populations. If there is no such delta, then vaccines are not causing autism.

Now, can those who are absolutely wedded to the vaccines-cause-autism hypothesis find a way to alter it, so that it no longer predicts things which the data already shows to be false? Yes, sure, of course they can, but that proves nothing. We could hypothesize that vaccines don’t actually cause autism, they just exacerbate it; we could hypothesize that vaccines cause autism only in children with certain particular preconditions; we could concoct any number of hypotheses that aren’t totally torpedoed by the data the way “there’s an autism epidemic caused by vaccines” is. But what’s wrong with every one of those hypotheses?

Two things. First of all, each one is not an attempt to do actual science, but simply to co-opt the authority of science. Real science is about seeing where the data leads you; asking “how can we make the data point to the conclusion that vaccines cause autism?” means you’re not doing real science.

Really? So if a hypothesis is devised that stratifies subjects with certain immunological preconditions and it shows that vaccination is associated with a higher incidence of autism that proves nothing?

No, actually those are both perfectly legitimate attempts at doing “real science.” Sometimes when doing research it takes a more thorough understanding of the fundamental aspects to design appropriate testable hypotheses. This is what I was trying to explain earlier with the whole witchcraft, medevial, discussion.

No. They may be good faith attempts at doing “real science”; that is, the person doing them may be fully deluding themselves “I’m approaching this just as a real professional scientist would!” But it is not real science.

Remember Ms. Johnson’s math class, from our discussion of delta? Suppose that the people who had sold the school system the materials for those new advanced teaching methods were embarrassed, as they should be, by the fact that the students didn’t do any better with those new methods. So they get hold of the student records, and they look at any individual students in the class who did better than the average, and they look at factors those students had in common. “Aha!” they say. “Out of the five students who did better, all five had an ‘A’ somewhere in their last names, and four out of five list pizza as their favorite food! Obviously when we stratify students according to the appropriate preconditions, we discover that our teaching methods do improve student grades!”

I know what you will say to that. You’ll say “that’s ridiculous, that’s nothing like what I’m doing! ‘An A in the last name’ and ‘pizza is the favorite food’ obviously couldn’t have a real effect on understanding of math; the idea that an immunological precondition could affect the development of autism isn’t utterly implausible like that!”

But that is missing the point. The point is that deciding on an idea that you want to be true, and then trying to figure a different way to slice up the data so that the data appears to support that idea, is not science. It doesn’t matter whether the idea is “certain students with particular preconditions do better with the teaching methods we sell” or “certain children with particular preconditions develop autism because they got vaccinated”. It’s not an attempt to reach “a more thorough understanding of the fundamental aspects” at all.

Science is only for people who can accept it, and learn from it, when their ideas turn out to be wrong. The process of embroidering ever-more-intricate “preconditions” and special exceptions onto a failed hypothesis is only practiced by those who can’t bear being wrong.

So the fact that the data is leading us to a more gene x environment centered understanding of autism implicating the immune system and specifically pro inflammatory cytokine networks during development, precludes considering vaccines??

No, the fact that there is no delta between vaccinated and unvaccinated autism rates, as there would be if vaccines were causing autism even in a “stratified cohort”, is what tells us not to waste resources pursuing vaccines as a culprit.

Even though vaccines excite these pro inflammatory networks during development while performing their intended function of building immunity. And this preclusion is all based on epidemiological research that didn’t include stratified cohorts?!

Yeah, it is. And you wanna know why (besides the already-explained-countless-times part about “no delta”)?

Because when that epidemiological research was done, no antivaxxers were talking about “Well, maybe if we looked at cohorts stratified by immunological preconditions…” They were saying “You vaccine-pushing fools, the streets are teeming with children who developed full-blown autism immediately after vaccination, so of course vaccination must be causing autism! You just see; when you compare the ultra-high rates of autism among vaccinated kids to the ultra-low rates among unvaccinated kids, you’ll see the huge difference that proves vaccines must be to blame!”

It was only when the data came back and didn’t show what the antivaxxers wanted it to that they started talking about how maybe vaccines were still causing autism, but only in children with rare preconditions (completely forgetting everything they claimed about how these cases of vaccine-caused-autism were all over the place) and started talking about how the research should have been done with “stratified cohorts”. “Stupid vaccine-pushing fools! If you had just done the research with stratified cohorts, stratified according to ahemmumblemumblecytokinesomething – anyways, the only reason the data didn’t come out the way we were sure it was going to is that you didn’t do it the right way!”

If the research had been done with stratified cohorts, and failed to produce the results the antivaxxers wanted to see, there is no doubt what their response would be. “You vaccine-pushing fools! You and your pharma masters think you’re clever, doing research with stratified cohorts stratified by the wrong criteria and pretending it means vaccines don’t cause autism! It’s utterly clear that our preconceptions would have been confirmed, if you’d only done the research the right way!”

The fact is that no matter how many times the antivaxxers shift the goalposts, to pretend the right research to disprove the vaccines-cause-autism meme hasn’t been done, the science-based community does not bear the responsibility of disproving whatever new variant of the hypothesis the antivaxxers come up with. The burden of proof is on the antivaxxers to show evidence for whatever claim they’re pushing, not on everyone else to pre-emptively anticipate and debunk it.

When you have the tools and knowledge to better interrogate something as important as vaccination, you do it.

To what end? If I thought you meant “to answer the unanswered questions,” I’d agree with you, but I know what you actually mean is “to try and get a different answer to the questions that have already been answered, where the answer was something I didn’t like.”

For what it’s worth, the Internet-autism-causation concept isn’t entirely cockamamie, and in my opinion, quite a bit more plausible than vaccines. The Internet has opened up a great deal more awareness of autism than was ever available before, and this alone should be expected to increase the rate of autism diagnosis.

I still believe that the broccoli causes autism hypothesis is perfectly reasonable and far more likely than the vaccine hypothesis, as you get many, many times the possible chemicals in one dose of broccoli than in one dose of vaccines. Plus there’s the emotional trauma of broccoli.

However, I am not wedded to that and would easily be swayed towards consumption of certain other vegetables as the trigger instead.

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