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Christopher Exley: Using bad science to demonize aluminum adjuvants in vaccines

Move over, Christopher Shaw, there’s a new antivaccine scientist dedicated to demonizing aluminum adjuvants in town. His name is Christopher Exley. He’s got a fluorescence microscope, and he’s not afraid to use it.

If there’s one thing about antivaccine activists, it’s that they rely on bad science (and the shameless misinterpretation of valid science) to give the impression that there is solid scientific evidence behind their pseudoscientific claims. I’ve discussed examples—and deconstructed them, explaining why they didn’t show what the investigators claim they showed—more times than I can remember, most recently when Christopher Shaw and Lucija Tomljenovic tortured yet more mice in the name of autism pseudoscience to produce a paper that was ultimately retracted because of readers on PubPeer who found images that reeked of manipulation. Of course, most antivaccine “research” is never revealed to have suffered from scientific fraud, but it’s basically all bad. I long ago lost track of the number of truly atrocious studies I’ve evaluated over the years published by antivaccine “scientists” dating all the way back to Andrew Wakefield and the father-son duo of pseudoscientists, Mark and David Geier.

Speaking of Mark and David Geier and bad antivaccine autism science, I encountered yet another example yesterday when I came across an article written by our old friend J.B. Handley for Medium entitled New study: Massive Aluminum levels in Autism brains, is this the smoking gun for vaccines? Spoilers: The answer is no. However, in this case, the voyage to that answer is important; so I had to look through the study. First, however, let’s take a look at how JB does what JB does best: Gloat prematurely whenever he thinks he’s found “smoking gun” evidence supporting his belief in the discredited idea that vaccines cause autism and win friends and influence people. Of course, J.B. Handley and his wife founded Generation Rescue, a group originally devoted to the belief that mercury due to the thimerosal preservative in vaccines is the primary cause of the “autism epidemic.” However, moving with the times and the shifting milieu in the antivaccine movement in which aluminum (atomic symbol: Al) is the new mercury, a milieu that shifted because of how, 15 years after mercury was removed from childhood vaccines, autism prevalence hasn’t fallen, Handley has now latched on to aluminum in vaccines as the cause of autism. It’s hip, it’s happening, and, above all, to Handley it’s always about the vaccines, as it is for all antivaccine zealots.

After citing the usual litany of bad antivaccine science about aluminum, Handley gloats:

The one thing missing from all the work done to date about aluminum and its possible role in autism? Actual brain tissue of people with autism. All the studies published that appeared to be demonstrating strong biological certainty of how the aluminum in vaccines could trigger autism were done with MICE, and Professor Exley and his colleagues’ new research studied the actual brains of people with autism. The conclusions should make you gasp.

The aluminium content of brain tissues from donors with a diagnosis of ASD [Autism] was extremely high…the mean aluminium content for each lobe across all 5 individuals was towards the higher end of all previous (historical) measurements of brain aluminium content, including iatrogenic disorders such as dialysis encephalopathy …We recorded some of the highest values for brain aluminium content ever measured in healthy or diseased tissues in these male ASD donors…Why, for example would a 15 year old boy have such a high content of aluminium in their brain tissues?

Actually, the only thing that makes me gasp is the unjustified conclusions being made from this paper, Aluminium in brain tissue in autism, coauthored by Matthew Mold, Dorcas Umar, Andrew King, and Christopher Exley and published in the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology. We’ve met Exley before on this blog twice, and his track record is not—shall we say?—encouraging. The first time I dealt with Exley, he had published a truly execrable paper in which he measured aluminum content in mastectomy specimens taken from 17 women with breast cancer in which he tried to link aluminum from antiperspirants to breast cancer. He also wrote a review article trying to make the same argument. In both cases, he failed to make anything resembling a compelling scientific case for aluminum from antiperspirants as a cause of breast cancer. The second time, I noted that he’s one of a group of scientists funded by the Child Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI), which is a group funded by Claire and Al Dwoskin, who are as rabidly antivaccine as anyone I’ve seen, including even Mike Adams. Among that group of antivaccine “scientists” funded by CMSRI? Anthony Mawson, Christopher Shaw, Lucija Tomljenovic, and Yehuda Shoenfeld, antivaccine crank “scientists” all. And guess what? This study was funded by CMSRI, too. Fair’s fair. If antivaxers can go wild when a study is funded by a pharmaceutical company and reject it out of hand, I can point out that a study funded by an antivaccine “foundation” is deserving of more scrutiny and skepticism.

A study must rise or fall on its own, however, regardless of who funded it or what obnoxious antivaxer is promoting it. So let’s dig in. One thing that stood out to me reading the manuscript is just how fast it was accepted for publication. It was submitted on October 26, resubmitted in revised form on November 21, and accepted on November 23. It was then published online on November 26. That’s amazingly fast for a paper to be reviewed, revised, accepted, and published. This sends up a number of red flags, implying either that the review was rushed (and thus suboptimal, to put it kindly). The journal is not known to be a predatory one or a “pay to play one.” It has a halfway decent impact factor (3.225). So what’s going on here? Well, Exley is on the editorial board of the journal. Whenever I see a paper by someone on the editorial board of a journal published in that journal I tend to raise an eyebrow and wonder about how objective the peer review was.

The introduction also gives away the game:

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a group of neurodevelopmental conditions of unknown cause. It is highly likely that both genetic [1] and environmental [2] factors are associated with the onset and progress of ASD while the mechanisms underlying its aetiology are expected to be multifactorial [3-6]. Human exposure to aluminium has been implicated in ASD with conclusions being equivocal [7-10]. To-date the majority of studies have used hair as their indicator of human exposure to aluminium while aluminium in blood and urine have also been used to a much more limited extent. Paediatric vaccines that include an aluminium adjuvant are an indirect measure of infant exposure to aluminium and their burgeoning use has been directly correlated with increasing prevalence of ASD [11]. Animal models of ASD continue to support a connection with aluminium and to aluminium adjuvants used in human vaccinations in particular [12]. Hitherto there are no previous reports of aluminium in brain tissue from donors who died with a diagnosis of ASD. We have measured aluminium in brain tissue in autism and identified the location of aluminium in these tissues.

First off, no, aluminum has only been “linked” with ASD by antivaccine cranks. There is really no good evidence that aluminum in vaccines causes ASDs, try as as antivaxers might to try to “prove” that there is. Particularly telling is that Exley cites papers by Tomljenovic and Shaw, who are well known for their proclivity to publish papers chock full of bad (and fraudulent) science purporting to link aluminum adjuvants to autism and other conditions. Any citation of one of their papers is a good indication of bad science. Heck, I even deconstructed one of the papers cited.

So, right off the bat, the scientific justification for this study is highly dubious, but it was done anyway; so we have to deal with the results. What did Exley’s team do? They obtained brain tissue samples from autistic people from the Oxford Brain Bank, which is hosted in the Department of Neuropathology of the Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and the Academic Unit of Neuropathology of the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences of Oxford University. The bank stores sample and clinical data relevant for research into neurological diseases. From this bank, it appears that Exley received five specimens of frozen brain tissue (4 males, 1 female, age range 15-50), consisting of samples from tissue from temporal, frontal, parietal and occipital lobes and hippocampus of each individual. Aluminum levels were measured using transversely heated atomic absorption spectroscopy.

Also, the authors received frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal and hippocampal tissue from 10 donors ( 3 females and 7 males) with a diagnosis of ASD was supplied by the Oxford Brain Bank as three 5 μm thick serial paraffin-embedded brain tissue sections per lobe for each donor. These were subjected to staining with the fluorescent probe lumogallion, which is purported to be a selective stain for aluminum in cells and was first used to localize aluminum in plant roots. It’s sold, however, by Santa Cruz Biotechnology as a stain for aluminum, gallium, and other metals. The stained sections were then subjected to fluorescence microscopy to visualize where the lumogallion binds to aluminum in the tissue.

I could see a number of problems with the methods used. First, there are no controls. Certainly, if Exley were accessing the Oxford Brain Bank to obtain tissue from autistic people, then why couldn’t he have also obtained brain tissue from age-matched normal controls? If the bank doesn’t have such tissue, then it should have been justified. Either way, the relevance of these measurements are suspect, given that we have nothing to compare them to. There’s also an extreme paucity of clinical information about the samples used. There are no dietary histories, no medical histories, and all with a very small sample size. While dietary history might be hard to come by in a typical database associated with a tissue bank, there’s no excuse for not including medical histories, given that the Oxford Brain Bank definitely includes clinical information about the patient from which each sample came from.

There’s another thing. The raw aluminum levels measured by atomic absorption spectroscopy are reported as ranging from 0.01 (the limit of quantitation) to 22.11 μg/g dry wt. Now here’s an interesting thing. The authors go further to report that the aluminium content of all tissues ranged from 0.01 (the limit of quantitation) to 22.11μg/g dry wt. and that the aluminium content for whole brains (n=4 or 5 depending upon the availability of hippocampus tissue) ranged from 1.20±1.06) μg/g dry wt.to 4.77±4.79 μg/g dry wt. Exley then cites a previous study of his, which he refers to as “our 60 brain study,” that has “allowed us to define loose categories of brain aluminium content beginning with ≤1.00 μg/g dry wt. as pathologically benign (as opposed to ‘normal’).” I looked up the study, reference 15, and was puzzled. In it Exley reported measuring aluminum levels in the brain of one man, a 69-year-old who had died of Alzheimer’s disease. Either Exley screwed up the reference, or he hoped that no one noticed that he had referred to a reference that doesn’t describe what he claims it described. The first would just be sloppy. The second would be dishonest. Fortunately for Exley, in this case, it looks as though he was just sloppy.

I suspect that Exley meant this study, although I’m not sure. In that study, he found that the median aluminum content in 713 samples was 1 µg/g dry tissue and that 75% of the measurements were less than 2 µg/g dry tissue. Some things to note. First, these were all brains from elderly people. Second, Exley basically says that 75% of all values were less than 2 µg/g dry tissue. Looking at Table 1 of the present paper, I note that the vast majority of aluminum concentrations were below 2 μg/g dry weight, too. I also notice some rather extreme variability in measurements. For instance, the sample replicates for one specimen were 1.71, 1,64, and 17.10 μg/g dry weight. For those not familiar with scientific terminology, “replicate” means repeated measurements performed on the same sample, although in this case the replicates the samples were divided into three, and each portion subjected to the same procedure to measure aluminum. The replicates were then averaged and a standard deviation calculated. There were other replicates as questionable. For example, for another sample the replicates measured 2.44, 1.66, and 22.11 μg/g dry weight. For still another sample, replicates were 0.01, 0.64, and 18.57 μg/g dry weight. Remember, again, these are replicate measurements of the same samples. True, there could be “clustering” of aluminum in different parts of the sample, but even allowing for that possibility, these values do not give me a lot of confidence in the reproducibility of Exley’s methodology. So what does Exley do with such widely variable results? He reports the average of the three values for these specimens, which is—surprise! surprise!—hugely dominated by the spuriously high value in each case, thus falsely inflating the value for each of those specimens. Of course, even in Exley’s “60 brain study,” he shows no evidence that aluminum content greater than 2.0 or 2.0 μg/g dry weight is even pathological! He even notes “how difficult it might be to use statistical measures of brain Al content as reliable indicators of potential neurotoxicity.”

Also, if only we had an idea of the aluminum concentration in normal brain tissue. If only…

Oh, wait, we do. It’s between 1.4 to 2.5 µg/g dry tissue, as measured in a study that compared aluminum concentration in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. Oops! That’s not very different from the values that Exley found, and if you take into account the huge variability in some of his sample replicates, I have a hard time thinking there’s anything particularly alarming in these values. Heck, even compared to Exley’s “60 brain paper” I have a hard time being alarmed by the numbers in this new study.

When it comes to fluorescent staining of tissue samples, I must admit that I’m not an expert, although I have done some fluorescence microscopy work in the past, including some confocal microscopy. So I’m not completely without knowledge here. I know some of the pitfalls, and I know that certain controls are very, very important. I also know that counterstains are usually necessary if you’re going to make assertions about which cells whatever it is that you’re looking for is localizing in. In this paper, Exley makes a number of conclusions, such as that aluminum located in inflammatory cells associated with the vasculature, in round and amoeboid glial cell bodies, neurones and glia-like cells, and other areas. I looked at the figures for which these claims were made, and my reaction was: WTF? Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t tell. Here’s the thing, though. There are specific stains for such cells and structures. If you really want to know where the aluminum is localized, you stain with both the stain for aluminum and a different stain with a different colored fluorescent molecule attached, and then you can tell. Yes, I know it’s more complex than that, and that there are a lot more pitfalls of dual fluorescence staining with different probes, but, seriously. Scientists are getting good at this. It should be doable.

Fortunately, when it comes to the fluorescence microscopy, The Blood-Brain Barrier Scientist knows a lot more than I do, and blogged about this study. This analysis is a lot more technical than mine, particularly for the fluorescence microcopy. The discussion gets into such minutiae as how different sections are superimposed, and a lot of it overlaps what I found troubling as well, but it’s certainly worth reading if you’re more technically inclined. Bottom line: The fluorescence microscopy is dodgy, and it is vastly overinterpreted. That doesn’t even take into account the nonexistent to weak statistics in the paper.

Nowhere is this overinterpretation more evident than in the discussion:

This implies that aluminium somehow had crossed the blood-brain barrier and was taken up by a native cell namely the microglial cell. Interestingly, the presence of occasional aluminum-laden inflammatory cells in the vasculature and the leptomeninges opens the possibility of a separate mode of entry of aluminium into the brain i.e. intracellularly. However, to allow this second scenario to be of significance one would expect some type of intracerebral insult to occur to allow egress of lymphocytes and monocytes from the vasculature. The identification herein of non-neuronal cells including inflammatory cells, glial cells and microglia loaded with aluminium is a standout observation for ASD. For example, the majority of aluminium deposits identified in brain tissue in fAD were extracellular and nearly always associated with grey matter [19]. Aluminium is cytotoxic [21] and its association herein with inflammatory cells in the vasculature, meninges and central nervous system is unlikely to be benign. Microglia heavily loaded with aluminium while potentially remaining viable, at least for some time, will inevitably be compromised and dysfunctional microglia are thought to be involved in the aetiology of ASD [22], for example in disrupting synaptic pruning [23]. In addition the suggestion from the data herein that aluminium entry into the brain via immune cells circulating in the blood and lymph is expedited in ASD might begin to explain the earlier posed question of why there was so much aluminium in the brain of a 15 year old boy with an ASD.

This is speculation on steroids. More important, though, is the subtext. Where, I wonder, does Exley think this evil aluminum is coming from? He specifically mentions immune cells bringing aluminum into the brain as an explanation for “so much aluminum” in the brain of a 15 year old boy. Hmmm. He couldn’t mean…vaccines…could he? Oh, let’s cut the crap. Of course he means vaccines. Exley thinks aluminum adjuvants cause autism, and this study was looking for a way to “prove” that they do. This is, like most studies funded and carried out by antivaxers, horrible science. No wonder J.B. Handley is so impressed by it.

Finally, there’s aspect of this study that angers me greatly. Brain tissue is a precious resource. Tissue from autistic brains is an even more precious resource. This poorly designed, poorly executed, poorly analyzed study squandered some of that precious resource in the service of a study that tells us nothing scientifically useful about autism that could lead to a deeper understanding of the abnormalities of the autistic brain and the pathogenesis of this neurodevelopmental disorder. Such a waste of precious tissue borders on the criminal.

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]

329 replies on “Christopher Exley: Using bad science to demonize aluminum adjuvants in vaccines”

Aluminum is repeatedly misspelled in this paper (aluminium). That, by itself, says something about both the quality of the paper and the quality of the editorial review.

How did that journal ever get an impact factor that high?

That’s how the element is spelled in the UK, where the study authors are based. It’s not wrong, just different.

Thank you for providing a perfect microcosm of what is wrong with the “pseudo-skeptic” society. Yes, lets ignore this preliminary though significant finding that alumin[i]um levels in autistic brains is very high, just because we’re silly enough to believe they misspelled something. Great justification. Nothing to see here.

Note that several people have addressed this critically.

As the post explains, and others too, the problem with the paper is that the methods are so problematic, and the result a mean of such radically different results with no explanation, that it cannot be seen as a reliable finding.

Doesn’t it just make you want to set your hair on fire and run down the street!!! Oh my I can’t take it!
This world is for crap, the sheep are asleep and all is well. Hand them the tv remote when they awake and it’s all good.

You know, I’m getting tired of the whole discussion on the difference between the British and American spelling of the word “aluminum.” Anybody with me?

Yes. It is just another spelling flame which is against your comment policy. Also, it shows someone has no depth in their reading history. I say this as someone spent a summer of my youth trying to figure why Scotland Yard sent people to a “gaol” (how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle spelled “jail”).

mdfinfer – “aluminium” is the preferred spelling outside North America and Exley is based in the UK. The “i” is a distractor here.

Is there a typo here: “It’s between 1.4 to 2.5µg/g dry tissue”? That appears to be a far lower concentration than he found. I do not mean to be pedantic but I find that confusing.

It’s not, though, if you take into account the spurious values and huge error ranges. Remember, Exley reported that the values ranged from 1.20 ± 1.06) μg/g dry wt.to 4.77 ± 4.79 μg/g dry wt. Each spuriously high value included in calculating the mean for three of those samples is amplified, because the that mean is used to calculate the whole brain mean.

Actually, the typos were elsewhere. Look at Table 1. The article is open access. The correct measure is 1.4 to 2.5µg/g dry tissue, and all measurements are in µg/g tissue dry weight. I fixed the typos.

You can’t assume that the high values were spurious and disregard them. These were destructive tests, so the large variability is a combination of both the reproducibility of the test method and the variance between samples from the same brain lobe. If the AL distribution was clumpy, (which seems to be indicated by the stained samples) that could result in large variability as only one of the samples had a clump of AL. It would have been helpful if they had included some measure or reference to the reproducibility of their test method to get an idea of how much of the variability reported was due to test method. . .

I didn’t assume they should be disregarded. There are, after all, statistical tests to use to determine if an outlier can legitimately be disregarded. I merely pointed out that the existence of such outliers suggests that there could be an issue with the assay and that more validation and controls are needed. If they are spurious, then the mean values would fall to be much more in line with what’s been found in normal brain tissue. The fact that Exley never even addressed these issues in the Results or Discussion section is not acceptable.

Interesting point Beth Clarkson, regarding AL distribution being potentially clumpy. I wouldn’t expect uniform distribution of AL.
Orac, “statistical tests to use to determine if an outlier can legitimately be disregarded”, wouldn’t that depend on the method being used on normal brain tissue to determine variance? Since we didn’t get that in this study, I think it’s undetermined whether the issue is involving a problem with their assay method, or whether the variance found in the replicants is a reasonable finding, since we don’t know whether AL distributes uniformly or not.

Orac, “statistical tests to use to determine if an outlier can legitimately be disregarded”, wouldn’t that depend on the method being used on normal brain tissue to determine variance?

No it is dependent entirely on the data set.

Chris Preston, that’s making the assumption that aluminum distribution is uniform. Is it?

No Dan. Statistical methods to identify outliers only care what the numbers are. Not where they came from or how they were measured.

Even if the distribution of the item you are measuring is clumped, it is possible with sufficient data points to determine statistically values that are outliers.

Before you pontificate about methodology, it might help if you did a course in statistical methods.

I guess I’m confused by this: “Second, Exley basically says that 75% of all values were less than 2 mg/g dry weight, which is the same as 2 μg/mg dry weight. “

In discussion with the BBB scientist he mentioned that three replicated is an absolute minimum and that when one of them is far out, as here, that’s a reason for more investigation to see if the issue is the experiment or there really is something there, for example, getting another sample.

He also mentioned that many scientists would be initially using more than three, exactly because of that.

Can any of the scientists here speak to whether the size of samples described here could be used for more than three replicates, if it was planned that way? (And yes, that’s hind sight and may be unfair).

And thank you for tracking down the baseline numbers, Orac (and the rest). That came up yesterday and people were using the other Exley studies you addressed here.

“Such a waste of precious tissue borders on the criminal.”
I would surely spend a couple of days to make my own opinion about this study, but I am too busy working on cancer.

Congratulations. This study was posted on the Facebook group”Vaccine Talk: A Forum for Both Pro and Anti Vaxxers” of which I am a member. I just posted a link to this blogpost of yours.
How serendipitous.

Well, Exley is on the editorial board of the journal. Whenever I see a paper by someone on the editorial board of a journal published in that journal I tend to raise an eyebrow and wonder about how objective the peer review was.

Your skepticism is well-founded in view of the Mohammed El Naschie case. He published more than 300 papers in the journal he founded and edited, Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals (which is an Elsevier title). He failed, in his libel lawsuit against Nature over a report about his journal’s publication practices, to prove that these articles were peer reviewed.

A quick Google search tells me that the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology is also an Elsevier title. Hmmm.

The journals I am most familiar with (which are not Elsevier titles) take steps to avoid any similar appearance of conflict of interest. People on the editorial board are not allowed to serve as editors in charge of not just their own papers, but papers by any author from the same institution. That was their standard practice even before news broke of the El Naschie case.

Does anybody who knows more about the Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology than I wish to comment on what their practices are regarding papers by members of the editorial board?

an Elsevier title. Hmmm.

Writing as a layman, I second the “Hmmm”. There seem to be a number of Elsevier journals with a bit of a high rate of accepting dodgy papers.

On the other hand peer review is obviously overrated or so thought Albert Einstein. In the one reported case where one of his papers recieved a peer review he replied to the editor of the journal:

We (Mr. Rosen and I) had sent you our manuscript for publication and had not authorised you to show it to specialists before it is printed. I see no reason to address the – in any case erroneous – comments of your anonymous expert. On the basis of this incident I prefer to publish the paper elsewhere.
http://theconversation.com/hate-the-peer-review-process-einstein-did-too-27405 . So there!

Elsevier is basically just a publishing platform. I don’t know that there are any inferences to be drawn about quality.

@Narad: Once (Medical Hypotheses) is happenstance. Twice (Chaos, Solitons, and Fractals) is a coincidence. The third time (Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology), suspect enemy action.

Reputable journals take steps, such as what I have outlined above, to prevent the appearance of conflict of interest when members of their editorial board publish in that journal. Show me that the journal in question has such a policy and I’ll shut up. The evidence is that no such policy is being set at the corporate level at Elsevier. Given their history, they definitely should have a policy in place.

Like Orac, I am negatively impressed by this study’s lack of controls, ignored medical histories of the brain tissue donors and spurious averaging of aluminum concentrations based on poorly reproducible assay results.

I have only begun to plow through the following paper’s exhaustive treatment of potential human aluminum exposures, but clearly there are myriad environmental, food and medical sources (and limited evidence of pathologic correlates) to consider before one jumps on the adjuvant antivax bandwagon to point fingers at supposed levels in autistic individuals.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782734/

The Exley papers reeks of garbage science.

I thought this was supposed to be a case series study, in which all subjects were diagnosed with autism. There is no “control” in this case, and therefore, why should one be unimpressed by a lack of one? Obviously, since there are no control groups to compare outcomes, there’s no statistic validity to the results. But that’s not to say that case studies don’t have their place, because they may contribute potentially valuable knowledge about etiology. This is just a stepping stone to hopefully better and larger controlled studies that can either support or refute the findings found in Exley’s study.

Your mentions of different environmental aluminum exposures don’t explain why a majority of the aluminum in the brain tissue was found intracellularly in immune cells. Most aluminum exposures are not absorbed (99.7% passes through our gut), and those that do make it through, are “dissolved” and bound to transferrin/citrate to be eliminated by the kidneys (though I have read also that binding to these also allows aluminum to bypass the blood brain barrier as well, ex: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15603924). The only way that I know that aluminum is immune cell-captured is via vaccination, unless there’s another mechanism that hasn’t been mentioned.

Isn’t it funny how these people choose to pretend that an adjuvant would not have the properties of…well…an adjuvant?

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blockquote>I thought this was supposed to be a case series study, in which all subjects were diagnosed with autism. There is no “control” in this case, and therefore, why should one be unimpressed by a lack of one?

This is an analysis of brains from autistic patients, and Exley found aluminium it them.
Now, before concluding that aluminium levels were high, and that aluminium causes autism, wouldn’t it be a good idea to measure aluminium in some brains from people who were not autistic?
Exley didn’t, but others have, and have found values not too different to Exley’s, as Orac points out.

Like Orac, I am negatively impressed by this study’s lack of controls, ignored medical histories of the brain tissue donors and spurious averaging of aluminum concentrations based on poorly reproducible assay results.

There are numerous problems here. It is almost as if Mold et al. didn’t really care about whether there methodology was problematic or not. They blithely claim that they used a method that was established and fully validated; however, it seems this method is only used by Exley and in the original paper turned up spurious high concentrations (have a look at Table 3). Fully validated, my backside.

Then there is this quote “We recorded some of the highest values for brain aluminium content ever measured in healthy or diseased tissues”. If you managed this in an analysis of 5 brains, wouldn’t it make you stop and think there might be something unusual going on that would require a few more measurements, just to be sure you were not measuring some contaminant? Not in Exley’s case, because everything is about aluminium.

Then there is this quote “We recorded some of the highest values for brain aluminium content ever measured in healthy or diseased tissues”. If you managed this in an analysis of 5 brains, wouldn’t it make you stop and think there might be something unusual going on that would require a few more measurements, just to be sure you were not measuring some contaminant? Not in Exley’s case, because everything is about aluminium.

Chris, they didn’t even use blanks in this study to normalise the samples and used means instead of medians. They did in their previous paper describing their quantification method in this one except they didn’t even follow their own protocol.

If you look at data on Al in the previous paper, you find that the blanks didn’t help that much. Their measurement data was all over the place. Indeed the previous world record measurement for Al in the brain using this method was in their previous paper and was not that far behind their highest measurement here. Mold et al. don’t mention that.

Needless to say, anti-vaxxers are applauding this study:
AoA features it today whilst commenters carry on as usual.
Even Jake’s commenter, Hans, brings it up- I’m sure JC will write a convoluted, unreadable essay about this mixed up, unreadable study.

One commenter remarks that this finding is why the brains at the Harvard bank were destroyed accidentally.

I heard a little about it on prn.fm already. Natural News will be next when they run out of end-of-society-as-we-know-it stories.

-btw- Exley is on the editorial board?

Here’s some good news:
when I searched for Christopher Exley, Orac’s post came up in the middle of the first page.

Even BETTER news…

I couldn’t find Orac’s article earlier in the first 10 pages of G–gle
BUT now it is …………..

ON PAGE 2- near the top yet.

In other news.
Greg quotes Bacon** on AoA.

** the Dangerous One

Orac, you are a fucking uneducated, brainwashed idiot! You have not got a single idea about vaccines. The minute you said mercury has been taken out of them I just wanted to rip your fucking head off!! Do your fucking research!

Comparing fundings from vaccine companies, the people who make the vaccines, and have a huge multi billion £ vested interest in the sale of vaccines to a funder that has ZERO conflicts of interest whatsoever, is just fucking childish!

Indirectly you are maiming and murdering our children.

You can try to manipulate findings all you like, but the dangers of aluminum in the human body are undeniably true. It only takes a fuckwit like you to not see it.

Indoctrinated, fucking idiot, keep your opinions to yourself before you continue to push people into poisoning their children in the hope of immunity.

A quick reading of the posts by our hosts would show you he understands vaccines very, very well. And abundant evidence that vaccines save children’s lives rather than hurt them. And the conflicts of interests are on the part of the researchers – why do you think a researcher paid by an anti-vaccine organization is not susceptible to wanting to please his funder, while those funded by Pharma (or by organizations that are not Pharma that anti-vaccine activists dislike) are susceptible?

I notice you were unable to counter any of his points – or address the question whether the adjuvants in vaccines, in amounts and form that they are, are dangerous. A diatribe is not a good substitute to substance.

Mr. Heanan: “Comparing fundings from vaccine companies, the people who make the vaccines, and have a huge multi billion £ vested interest in the sale of vaccines to a funder that has ZERO conflicts of interest whatsoever,”

I find this an interesting argument. How exactly does letting kids get sick with measles, mumps, pertussis, etc and then treating them, often with hospital care, cheaper than a few vaccines per year? Could you please provide us an economic schedule showing the NHS would save money by stopping their vaccination program. Make sure it is a verifiable document, something comparable to this:
Economic Evaluation of the Routine Childhood Immunization Program in the United States, 2009

Also, why should we not question the funding from the Dwoskin folks? They have an agenda which is decidedly anti-vaccine.

Well, it wasn’t g—gle. It was Bong.
Also I wondered if Exley’s lack of fame – compared to well-known woo-meisters like Adams or Null- was a factor.
At any rate, it’s a start.

Pardon my ignorance of physiology and atrophied math skills, but isn’t Exley claiming about 4.8 micrograms of aluminum per gram of brain? If the FDA says that the total load of aluminum adjuvants for the vaccine schedule is 4.25 milligrams and the childhood brain is less than 1,000 grams, doesn’t that imply that every last bit of aluminum preferentially ends up there? On the face of it that would seem to be very unlikely. Is there some recognized mechanism for this or has he proposed one?

And in light of recent exchanges on another thread, let me quote a proverb:” It’s better to ask a question than remain ignorant.”

If I weighed myself three times, and got readings of 180, 180, 182, I’d say “My scale isn’t as accurate as it might be, but I probably weigh around 181.”

If I weighed my cat three times, and got readings of 10, 12, and 150, I’d say “My scale must be broken.” I wouldn’t say “My cat weighs around 50 pounds.”

Taking the median of three measurements, supposedly of the same value, that aren’t even within an oder of magnitude of each other, sounds more like a joke than like credible research.

Accuracy and repeatability are different things.

If you weigh yourself (on an old bathroom scale) and had readings of 170, 162, and 178, you could reasonably expect that the scale is broken (or at least the spring is worn out).

If you upgrade to a modern electronic bathroom scale and get readings of 180.0, 180.0 and 180.0, you have good repeatibility.

However, if the new electronic scale is miscalibrated, and your actual weight was indeed 170 all along, neither scale is particularly worth a darn.

But your larger point, that if you get measurements that vary by an order of magnitude, the results don’t inspire confidence in your process and procedures, is very much valid.

I believe the proper technical term for such things is ‘GIGO’.

That’s a ridiculous analogy and I hope you understand why. When you weigh yourself you are weighing the same sample. In this study, the 3 “replicates” were in fact three different sub-samples taken from the same larger sample. So as Beth has already stated, if there is clumping of Al then you might see considerable variation.

So it’s weighing three different cats and getting readings of 10, 12 and 150.

Regardless of what I was measuring, if I got values varying by more than an order of magnitude for different measurements for the “same” sample, I’d probably get all panicky and expect to spend hours and hours and hours at the bench until I figured out why. It could be bad sample handling (i.e. don’t wrap the brains in aluminum foil or weigh them on foil pan liners), a instrument on the verge of failure, or conducted or radiated electrical noise corrupting signals in an instrument (often a colossally difficult problem to pin down). Allowing such discrepancies without extraordinary effort to account for them is extraordinarily sloppy and a firing offence. If you can’t say “this is why they varied” with good evidence, you have no bloody business whatsoever publishing.

It’s not the ‘same sample’ in the same sense of weighing something. It’s a destructive test, so each sample was divided into three smaller samples that were tested separately. Each represents a different portion of the original material. If the AL clumps, then it’s possible to get the kind of results seen. It doesn’t imply the measurement instrument can’t be trusted.

With enough speculation, you can come up with an explanation for just about any weirdness but it would be the author’s responsibility to actually look into that. Ideally before publication.

Aluminum is found in clumps in the brain because way way back in our evolutionary history a mechanism arose, and was selected for, that moves aluminum in the brain to areas where it is sequestered and rendered harmless. See – I can make up things too.

No, no, no and no again.
What implies that the measurements can’t be trusted is the lack of evidence that they can be.
Exley did not suggest what you do as an explanation, so either he lacks your perspicacity (or imagination) or it is not plausible. He tossed out the numbers with a shrug and a “meh” and moved on. Any way you look at it, it is necessary to be able to reasonably account for the gross differences in the values. It must be demonstrated and documented that what you suggest is true, otherwise it is evidence not in the record – i.e. hand waving. It could take a great deal of work and a large supply of samples, but it has to be done. Once the work has been done, then either the 2 or 3 papers resulting directly from that work can be cited or the methods and discussion sections of a paper such as that in question can actually provide something beyond “we did some stuff and thunked up some stuff.” Exley’s work is on par with the Italian group that got raked over the coals a while back.

This sort of thing frequently reminds me of the “assay” scene in Eraserhead.

Wrong. It is ridiculous to the extreme to get that kind of intra-sample variation. They also didn’t use blanks to correct for contamination and their standard deviations were higher than the means for three of the four lobes tested. It is absolutely a problem with their test method and given the authors, operator as well.

doug, Your criticism is only valid if you’re making the assumption that aluminum distribution in brain tissue MUST be uniform. Since no one really knows whether this is true or not, I think the attack on the method used to measure aluminum content is a bit presumptuous. If someone were to analyze the amount of tar in lung tissues of a smoker, would we expect uniform distribution of tar? If someone were to analyze intestinal tissue to determine inflammatory bowel disease, would we expect all tissue samples to show signs of inflammation? Or do we automatically assume that if there was significant levels of tar in only some tissues, or that there was only a few tissue samples showed lymphoid nodular hyperplasia, that we question the method of how it was determined?
If someone can show me that aluminum distribution in the brain is supposed to be uniform, then I will concede that your criticisms of the method is a valid concern.

dislogic, please follow the little pointer as it travels word by word

The criticism is that wildly disparate values were obtained without, apparently, the slightest attempt at explanation. Beth waved an excuse into existence. It may indeed be the case that the distribution is non-uniform, but the point is that unless that can be demonstrated by actual confirmed findings it is conjecture and without doing the confirmation the numbers must be suspect. There does not even appear to be anything to confirm that consistent numbers would be produced by the methods and equipment using manufactured samples. It is sloppy work, and there is no excuse for it. Exely did not address the variation. It is sloppy work, and there is no excuse for it.

If you are seeing that much variance in measurements, even if they are accurate, you need to show that the instrument is working correctly. Positive and negative instrument controls (as well as some experimental controls would be nice) are essential to preempt these kinds of questions. That they did not run these controls, or chose not to show them, is very suspect. And the frustrating thing is, what if the measurements are accurate? The world will never be able to use this data because of the shoddy way it was collected, which is a huge waste of this precious resource.

When I run a study I always mistrust my instruments before I believe an unlikely outcome. And I take more than 3 measurements! In fact, on the stuff that matters we have written rules about how much variance is acceptable in a measurement and when we have to take another measurement.

“If someone were to analyze the amount of tar in lung tissues of a smoker, would we expect uniform distribution of tar?”

I would, but I may be wrong.

doug, Your criticism is only valid if you’re making the assumption that aluminum distribution in brain tissue MUST be uniform.

Oh Dan the Vaccine Papers man, this is a post hoc explanation for the variation. No one has yet shown that aluminium in the brain has a clumped distribution. Even if we were to suspend the usual rules of evidence and accept that aluminium in the brain of people with ASD is clumped, how do we reconcile this with Mold and Exley’s previous junk science that showed aluminium contents of control people varied almost as widely?

To get to your conclusion, we would need to suspend reality at least twice. At this point, I am going for the mind-altering drug explanation of your theory.

Chris Preston: “.. how do we reconcile this with Mold and Exley’s previous junk science that showed aluminium contents of control people varied almost as widely”

I don’t remember seeing control brains having aluminum measurements as high as 22mcg/g

doug: “the point is that unless that can be demonstrated by actual confirmed findings it is conjecture and without doing the confirmation the numbers must be suspect. There does not even appear to be anything to confirm that consistent numbers would be produced by the methods and equipment using manufactured samples”

The ATSDR actually specifies which methodology to use to measure aluminum content in tissues/plasma:
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp22-c7.pdf

For the brain, the analytical method to be used is GFAAS, and has been used since at least 1992 (which cites a reference study that used it). Seems that Exley used a similar method. GFAAS can detect sample limits as little as 0.3mcg/g, and it seems to have been used in various studies (not done by Exley) for at least 25 years. Why is it only now that the methodology is suspect? Did the CDC recommend an incorrect analytical method?

Great post. I woke up this morning, did my usual skimming of antivaccinationist website, found the reference to Exley’s article, got the article, and then found you had already done a bang-up job. Do you ever sleep?

One thing, you wrote: “If there’s one thing about antivaccine activists, it’s that they rely on bad science (and the shameless misinterpretation of valid science) to give the impression that there is solid scientific evidence behind their pseudoscientific claims.”

I totally agree and one of the ways they misinterpret valid science is finding a well-done study that actually did find an association between some aspect of vaccines and ASD and jumping on it. Even well done studies get it wrong. Quite simply, for instance, a p-value of 0.05 is a decision point where the researchers, based on known random variable distributions, conclude that the results would only have occurred from uncontrolled random variables 5% of the time, so their variable(s) of interest more than likely. BUT IT COULD HAVE BEEN THE UNCONTROLLED RANDOM VARIABLE(S)! This is a major reason for replicating studies. Since vaccine studies that have found NO association have been conducted in several different nations with different study populations, different study designs, etc. finding one study, regardless of how well done that goes against the grain, means zilch, except to an antivaccinationist. So if previous and/or later studies find no association, they ignore them. Basically, it isn’t the methodology, it isn’t the science, their litmus test is simply does it find what they choose to believe.

Which is why fields that have enough data to use a more stringent threshold than p < 0.05 do so. Most famously, particle physicists insist on a 5-sigma threshold (p < 0.05 is about 2 sigma) to consider a phenomenon significant, because they have been burned too many times by 3 sigma significances that disappeared as more data were collected.

There is a famous XKCD cartoon on the subject.

Furthermore, even if the correlation turns out to be robust, it does not uniquely determine the direction of causation. It could be that aluminum in the brain causes autism, or that one of the effects of autism is to promote accumulation of aluminum in the brain. Or it could even be that the genes that cause autism and the genes that promote aluminum accumulation are distinct but tend to occur together. This last would be like the association between hail and lightning: there is no direct causal relationship between those two phenomena, but they are correlated because both phenomena occur during thunderstorms. The association suggests where to look for a causal relationship, but the relationship has to be plausible, and you need other data to confirm that relationship.

As a layperson with an autistic child currently washing through the swamp of left/right vaccine skullfuckery, this is possibly the sanest and most progressive thing I’ve read so far, Eric.

What I do want to know is what are the benefits to keeping aluminium as a vaccine ingredient if there is this ongoing debate and an alternative is available but undesirable (for pharmaceutical companies). Do we continue to take the risk and consider ASD kids the necessary collateral damage in the protecting of the collective? Are scientists continually researching to improve the ingredients in vaccinations so they can be as harmless and chemical-free as possible? I mean, I know how big pharma works and I understand there’s always a bottom line, but I trusted in good faith that scientists would put people over profits despite the whims of capitalism and some of the things I’ve read have left me seriously doubting where their allegiance lies.

To wit, old Orac here is the most arrogant, condescending, elitist sounding “expert” I’ve read. I could barely see through the insults and snark to get a grasp of the scientific jargon he was providing. Or is that the idea? Is the science community also growing mushrooms here by covering the general public in shit and keeping them in the dark? Why can’t we know what the scientists are discovering and educated in easy-to-understand terms as to why there is no risk to our children? I can only assume there’s something to hide or you just think we’re idiots.

I’d like to invite you to spend a month with myself and my son and decide through personal experience whether or not you think the loony ASD parents have the right to ask questions or not. If not, I’d like you to spend as much time finding the cause and an affordable cure for autism as you do denigrating the parents of children with uncertain futures, for seeking answers.

@Question Everything:

What I do want to know is what are the benefits to keeping aluminium as a vaccine ingredient if there is this ongoing debate…

That “ongoing debate” is a pseudodebate. Antivaxxers insist that vaccine ingredients cause harm and constantly change the goalposts. Whenever an ingredient is confirmed as not causing harm, they just move on to the next one. Aluminium is just the latest.

…and an alternative is available but undesirable (for pharmaceutical companies).

Leaving aside your poisoning of the well, it’s because that alternative has been investigated but found inferior to the adjuvants we currently use.

Do we continue to take the risk and consider ASD kids the necessary collateral damage in the protecting of the collective?

Vaccines do not cause autism. This has been confirmed by a huge meta-analysis that had literally millions of subjects. Your question is just JAQing off.

I’d like to invite you to spend a month with myself and my son and decide through personal experience whether or not you think the loony ASD parents have the right to ask questions or not.

You have the right to ask questions, but when questions that have been answered are asked again and again, the askers can expect to be treated with hostility.
Finally, I couldn’t help noticing you commented on a thread that is over a month old.

I’m having trouble keeping track of the recent influx of calcium phosphate commenter.

I decided to answer honestly, just in case. Also, it shows that I do not react badly to such chides, and it was for the lurkers.

It is a way to show that there are better ways to deal with having a disabled child than to blame everyone with conspiracy theories like the denizens of Age of Autism and friends. As such, I had also been dealing another nasty piece of anti-vaccine fool on another website. He started claimed I had no kids and was a meth head because I asked him questions, and actually honestly answered his. He also really did not like my measles morbidity census question after his claim that vaccines were worthless.

So, yeah, there are Travis clones out there.

So let me get this straight. Exley not only claims that a very significant proportion of the total amount of aluminum administered via vaccines ends up in the brain — which is already very unlikely given the fact that those adjuvants are virtually insoluble(*), and that the blood-brain barrier is exceedingly difficult to cross for most substances — but also that it subsequently remains there indefinitely, as most tissue samples were from adults. If this were correct, aluminum would have to be one most biologically persistent substances known to man, something for which there is no proof whatsoever.

*: One of the most common side effects of vaccination with Al-adjuvants such as Al(OH)3 is a persistent ‘knot’ at the injection site, as the adjuvant isn’t dissolved or absorbed easily. It dissipates only very slowly from the site (up to 14 days), causing an almost unnoticeable rise in background Al concentrations in the body. So by what dynamics do these insoluble aluminum salts travel to the brain in high concentrations and cross the blood-brain barrier?

Richard,This was the point I made here yesterday,when I posted the original link.Vaccines are delivered in the muscles,not via the blood stream,and as you say,it’s gone from the body in two weeks or less,not 15 years or more I was not aware of what normal Al levels were in the brain,but if there were high Al concentrations in the brain,it would have to come from elsewhere,perhaps living near a power plant,or consuming large quantities of certain processed foods.

Do you just make this stuff up as you go along?

Slow CCL2-dependent translocation of biopersistent particles from muscle to brain
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/99

“Intramuscular injection of alum-containing vaccine was associated with the appearance of aluminum deposits in distant organs, such as spleen and brain where they were still detected one year after injection.”

Citing an article where Exley is a co-author and was partially funded by the Dwoskins is hilarious.

Mr. Foster, did you read the above article? If you did, you might have noticed that anything co-authored by Exley and partially funded by the Dwoskins would not be taken seriously.

Richard, you can perhaps combine what has been recently revealed by the recent mouse study (“Non-linear dose-response of aluminium hydroxide adjuvant particles: Selective low dose neurotoxicity”), in which it was found that the aluminum-antigen complexes do not need to be dissolved in interstitial tissues to be transported past the BBB. The mechanism in which it is proposed that aluminum may travel to the brain is via immune-cell capture. Since aluminum-antigen complexes are captured by immune cells, they need to travel throughout the lymphatic system in order to perform “antigen presentation” to lymphocytes. The lymphatic vessels were found to be also present in the brain, something that wasn’t known until recently.

The mouse study found that low dose aluminum had higher levels of aluminum found in the brain, because the “knots” that you speak of, the granulomas, or the depot effect of aluminum, didn’t form when the inflammatory response wasn’t strong enough. Rather, the aluminum-antigen complexes were immune cell-captured and was able to travel throughout the lymphatic vessels.

Take a look at Exley’s paper to see how the aluminum was found in the autistic brains. “The identification herein of non-neruonal cells including inflammatory cells, glial cells and microglia loaded with aluminum is a standout observation for ASD”. Now how does the aluminum end up intracellularly when most of the people in the comments here talk about aluminum dissolving in interstitial fluids?

Richard, you can perhaps combine what has been recently revealed by the recent mouse study (“Non-linear dose-response of aluminium hydroxide adjuvant particles: Selective low dose neurotoxicity”), in which it was found that the aluminum-antigen complexes do not need to be dissolved in interstitial tissues to be transported past the BBB.

Ah yes a paper by Christopher Shaw – he of the dog stole my homework paper – and colleagues that shows more aluminium is better for mouse behaviour. I wonder if Christopher Shaw remembers being involved at all in this work? He tends to forget a lot.

What a wonderful story. It’s almost as credible as the one about a boy climbing up a beanstalk to end up in a giant’s realm in the clouds. Yeah, beanstalks grow upwards, and yeah, clouds can hide anything, so who knows, it could be true, now couldn’t it?

The mechanism in which it is proposed that aluminum may travel to the brain is via immune-cell capture.

Ah, yes, just like the lymphatic system continuously dumps myriads of other harmful substances, waste products and pathogens into the brain this way. Or at least into the brains of people who believe this, by the looks of it…
These dumb conjectures look eerily similar to those of creationists who desperately try to shoehorn all kinds of inconvenient facts into their 6000 year-old world view, only raising vastly more problems in the process.
And, as others already pointed out, the very person you quote to support this notion has managed to gather negative credibility in scientific circles. So sorry, but all this goes under the heading of clutching at beanstal straws. Which science is happy to set on fire.

Which antigen-presenting cells? Why? Why on earth would an immune cell engulf a bit of Al and then go dump it in the brain? If macrophages and such were uptaking the Al shouldn’t it show up in the spleen and lymph nodes long before getting to the brain?

And why would these cells be presenting a non-organic molecule?

None of this makes the slightest bit of sense based on the immunology. Have immune cells even been shown to transport Al? In vitro? In vivo? In any model?

There’s just no logic to it.

This reference is for JustaTech below. Seriously Orac, why don’t you use a real commenting system like Disqus? (This current one is better than the almost useless system you used to have).

https://www.nature.com/articles/srep31578

“Through in vitro cellular modelling, our results further shed light on the capacity of ABA to deposit at sites distant to the injection site as has been suggested in macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), whereby aluminium is proposed to translocate through draining lymph nodes to distant organs24,41.”

“Through in vitro cellular modelling, our results further shed light on the capacity of ABA to deposit at sites distant to the injection site as has been suggested in macrophagic myofasciitis (MMF), whereby aluminium is proposed to translocate through draining lymph nodes to distant organs24,41.”

Another paper by Christopher Shaw, he of the dog ate my homework paper, I wonder if Shaw remembers being involved in this work?

Your toe bone connected to your foot bone,
Your foot bone connected to your ankle bone,
Your ankle bone connected to your leg bone,
Your leg bone connected to your knee bone,
Your knee bone connected to your thigh bone,
Your thigh bone connected to your hip bone,
Your hip bone connected to your back bone,
Your back bone connected to your shoulder bone,
Your shoulder bone connected to your neck bone,
Your neck bone connected to your head bone,
I hear the word of the Lord!

Now tell us about the lymph node version of this song?

David Foster, I sometimes wonder why you bother commenting as you do. You consistently get your arse handed to you when you try to do sciencing.

Thanks for the paper David Foster, but it doesn’t answer any of my questions about movement of those cells preferentially into the brain. In fact the cells aren’t measured to have moved anywhere. And the 1997 paper on rabbits said clearly that Al moves to the kidneys, not the brain.

So thanks for addressing half my question and leaving the more important half to flutter in the breeze.

You seriously need to brush up on the recent research involving aluminum uptake and translocation in the body.

So by what dynamics do these insoluble aluminum salts travel to the brain in high concentrations and cross the blood-brain barrier?

Quantum nanomagic, allegedly.

The mouse study found that low dose aluminum had higher levels of aluminum found in the brain, because the “knots” that you speak of, the granulomas, or the depot effect of aluminum, didn’t form when the inflammatory response wasn’t strong enough. Rather, the aluminum-antigen complexes were immune cell-captured and was able to travel throughout the lymphatic vessels.

Oh please do go on.

Good grief, I don’t know how Orac does this on a near-daily basis. I just posted my critique of the Exley paper over at my joint (along with the lovely Catherina). So many problems with this study. I really enjoy reading others’ critiques given our different areas of interest and expertise. Makes for a well-rounded and richly-deserved bash of crap anti-vaxx “research”.

Actually, when you see that there is no control group, you don’t need to go further.

True if you are speaking to a peer group. But I think that a “journal club” approach to these dodgy studies highlights the sloppy science to a wider audience. And it never hurts to deflate the pompous arse JB Handley who has zero critical-thinking skills.

This one took a while, which is the reason why there’s no post today. I also discovered that about seven of my old posts, including two about Burzynski, didn’t make it over to the new blog. So, obsessive that I am, I started rebuilding them from Archive.org versions. Unfortunately, that means the comments from those posts are lost. Crap. Oh, well. It also meant that I didn’t have the juice left to write a post last night.

Science Mom, what is your page name or link? I really enjoyed this blog and would like to share it with an anti-vaxxer, but she won’t read it if there is a whiff of bad language, so I’m looking for other sources 😀
Orac, love your work, thank you

In other news…

this article is on PAGE 2 of g–gle.com

G–gle juice bubbles up.

@ AoA- stupid percolates as commenters respond to a critic.

Since no one really knows whether this is true or not, I think the attack on the method used to measure aluminum content is a bit presumptuous.

Well Dan the Vaccine Papers man, it is unlikely that distribution is perfectly uniform. While you are defending this rubbish, where are the controls? Where did they use blanks to account for contamination? Carping about the majikal clumping aluminium when the detection methods are pure crap is like tears in the rain.

Jake ( Autism Investigated) reports on the study, using an image of tin foil, but no hat. UNFORTUNATELY.
He quotes the Daily Fail.. er .. Mail.

I guess he’ll get 7or 8 posts off of this,

I wonder why Jake posted about it now. Hans mentioned the study in a comment, and Jake responded to the comment, 2 or 3 days ago.

Maybe it’s because Hans’ comment referenced J.B. Handley. I think Jake is PO’d at J.B. these days, and Jake needed a reference that didn’t include him (the AoA Post also mentions J.B.).

Maybe he needed time to come up with a conspiracy theory. Jake seems to think Al was put in vaccines to cover up the fact that almost all Hg has been removed, yet autism rates are just as high or higher.

He quotes the Daily Fail.. er .. Mail.

You have got to be kidding me. I would have thought that an MPH would be embarrassed to quote the Fail. Then again this is Jake we’re talking about.

Let me see if I understand your criticisms correctly…

1) This study was published way too quickly, and besides one of the authors is on the Editorial Board of the journal.
2) Aluminum has not been linked to autism.
3) There were no controls.
4) No medical histories or other clinically relevant histories are included.
5. The “vast majority” of samples were less than 2 ug/g, and high variability in repeated (replicate) measures.

My responses:

1) Really? With all of the glaring conflicts of interest inherent to most of the vaccine “safety trials” and other pro-vaccine studies which you and others of your ilk ignore with such alacrity, this is your first criticism?

2) I actually agree with you that the authors are asserting a much stronger link than has actually been demonstrated by research to date. Many of us are frustrated by some of the research being done in silly ways, like animal studies involving levels of Al much higher than typical exposure through vaccines, or routes of administration which are quite different.

HOWEVER…there is indeed a growing body of research which is showing that we should be taking the toxicological effects of Al in the body, and especially in the brain, very seriously. Regardless of its source, we should be very concerned about finding Al in significant quantities in the brains of children, especially within the cells of the immune system and microglia. Would you disagree with that?

These studies should give us all pause:

Chronic exposure to aluminum in drinking water increases inflammatory parameters selectively in the brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14743440

Autoimmune/autoinflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA syndrome) in commercial sheep.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23579772

Insight into the cellular fate and toxicity of aluminium adjuvants used in clinically approved human vaccinations
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep31578

Slow CCL2-dependent translocation of biopersistent particles from muscle to brain
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1741-7015/11/99

3) I agree with you. Controls would have been helpful, not for comparison since there were so few subjects, but to validate their methods.

4) The purpose of this study was simply to quantify how much aluminum was present in the brain tissue of autistic individuals. Of course it would be interesting to include medical histories, dietary histories, SES, etc., perhaps in future studies? You do understand that this is the very first study of its kind, right?

5) By “vast majority”, I’m assuming you mean about 2/3 right? That does not meet my definition for “vast majority”. But I do agree that it is disconcerting that there are some measures of replicates which are wildly different, and it does seem problematic to simply average those values and call it a day. One needs to take into account the variability of the samples, and their statistics do appear to be overly simplistic.

HOWEVER…it looks to me like there are only 3 examples of this extreme variability, so even if you remove those measurements (and all replicates) and consider them outliers, this study still finds a surprisingly high level of Al in the brain tissues of autistic people, some of them quite young.

Instead of recognizing this research as the significant finding that it is, and suggest that we do more research to see if we can replicate this finding and better characterize what it means, you instead choose to dismiss the findings entirely.

Why is that?

I assert that it is because you are more interested in being right, than you are in protecting the health of our children.

I agree with your points. I would add for #4 that with so few samples there is insufficient data to analyze additional factors even if the data were available. This study shows only that there is a surprising large amount of AL in the brains of Austistic individuals and further study would be appropriate to validate this conclusion and if it is correct, try to understand why it happened. It could be a side effect of whatever it is that causes autism and unrelated to AL in vaccines.

It is NOT appropriate to assume these are spurious results and due to measurement issues. It is legitimate flaw of the paper that it did not discuss the large variability and how much the variability of the test methodology might have contributed to that.

I’m not sure how you can say that a study with suspect, unexplained results shows anything.

It’s on the authors to explain the problems with the variance. It’s also on them to show deviation from the baseline with actually valid data. They didn’t do either. Yes, that means the results cannot be taken to suggest anything.

Reading anything in except “this was a very sloppy, poorly done study that cannot be used to draw any conclusions, and certainly not the far reaching conclusions the authors drew” is unsupported.

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blockquote>This study shows only that there is a surprising large amount of AL in the brains of Austistic individuals

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blockquote>

Compared with what? Oh, wait.

It is NOT appropriate to assume these are spurious results and due to measurement issues.

It is absolutely appropriate when they deviated from their own protocol and didn’t use blanks to normalise the samples.

Why, so they could try to draw statistical inferences based on an N of 5 or 10? That’s ridiculous.

But I whole-heartedly echo your implicit support for further research on this!

If they are going, as they did, to make claims about vaccines, then yes, they do need to address other factors. If you are saying “they were completely wrong to try and say anything about vaccines because they didn’t have anything that could let them say anything related to that topic”, that’s a start.

As to more research, if scientists think there are areas where more research is needed – and there always are – they can make a case for it.
This study – with no controls, findings that have large variations that are not explained, and as Orac pointed out findings that do not deviate from baselines from other sources and very sloppy work at establishing a baseline – does not create that. All we can say about this study is that it does not add to the discussion, as is, because it’s too flawed.

Given the age range of people whose brains were tested it would be essential to have their medical histories because the person that was 50 years old is sure to have received different vaccines than the person who was 15. Why didn’t the researchers include this information, since blaming vaccines is the whole point of the paper.

1) Really? With all of the glaring conflicts of interest inherent to most of the vaccine “safety trials” and other pro-vaccine studies which you and others of your ilk ignore with such alacrity, this is your first criticism?

Since you dismiss any pro-vaxx study as compromised and done by pharma shills why shouldn’t this be held to the same standard? You can’t have it both ways; either a study stands on it’s own merits regardless of the investigator or funding source or it doesn’t. Pick one and consistently apply it.

HOWEVER…there is indeed a growing body of research which is showing that we should be taking the toxicological effects of Al in the body, and especially in the brain, very seriously. Regardless of its source, we should be very concerned about finding Al in significant quantities in the brains of children, especially within the cells of the immune system and microglia. Would you disagree with that?

Yes, disagree because this is crap science which doesn’t show anything regarding clinical relevance. Why? Because the methods were so poor and no controls. Do you agree that it’s a waste of money and resources, especially ones as limited as brain tissue to conduct easily debunked studies? It would have been easier to conduct a rigorous study and then we would be interested.

HOWEVER…it looks to me like there are only 3 examples of this extreme variability, so even if you remove those measurements (and all replicates) and consider them outliers, this study still finds a surprisingly high level of Al in the brain tissues of autistic people, some of them quite young.

As compared to what? Where?

Instead of recognizing this research as the significant finding that it is, and suggest that we do more research to see if we can replicate this finding and better characterize what it means, you instead choose to dismiss the findings entirely.

This is not a significant finding. Why would you say that when the tests were conducted incorrectly, no controls and no histology? Why keep adding crap to a pile of crap by doing the same thing again?

These studies should give us all pause:

Maybe.
But consider that the first of these used aluminium concentrations in excess of anything delivered by vaccination, and was unable to demonstrate [alzheimer’s type] beta amyloid plaques, the second is just another “We have found a new syndrome, aren’t we marvellous/are we now famous?” publications, and the last two are from Exley, then maybe we shouldn’t pause for too long, David.

“…the first of these used aluminum concentrations in excess of anything delivered by vaccination”.

You do realize that this study looked at exposure to Al through drinking water, right? The absorption rate for ingested Al has been calculated to be about .3% of the absorption rate for injected Al. Try again.

You dismiss the second paper because it introduces and names a new syndrome. I can see what you mean, there is nothing to be concerned about there:

“The chronic phase begins with an excitatory phase, followed by weakness, extreme cachexia, tetraplegia and death. Gross lesions are related to a cachectic process with muscular atrophy, and microscopic lesions are mostly linked to a neurodegenerative process in both dorsal and ventral column of the gray matter of the spinal cord.”

And then you dismiss the last two papers simply because they include one of the same authors as the paper being analyzed here? I can see what you mean, nothing to be concerned about there:

“Although generally well tolerated, alum is occasionally detected within monocyte-lineage cells long after immunization in presumably susceptible individuals with systemic/neurologic manifestations or autoimmune (inflammatory) syndrome induced by adjuvants (ASIA).”
“Intramuscular injection of alum-containing vaccine was associated with the appearance of aluminum deposits in distant organs, such as spleen and brain where they were still detected one year after injection.”
“Nanomaterials can be transported by monocyte-lineage cells to DLNs, blood and spleen, and, similarly to HIV, may use CCL2-dependent mechanisms to penetrate the brain. This occurs at a very low rate in normal conditions explaining good overall tolerance of alum despite its strong neurotoxic potential. However, continuously escalating doses of this poorly biodegradable adjuvant in the population may become insidiously unsafe, especially in the case of overimmunization or immature/altered blood brain barrier or high constitutive CCL-2 production.”

If there were in fact any genuine health concerns related to any of this, we can rest assured that you and most others commenting herein would ever notice.

You do realize that this study looked at exposure to Al through drinking water, right? The absorption rate for ingested Al has been calculated to be about .3% of the absorption rate for injected Al. Try again.

Given how much water we drink in just 6 months compared to how much aluminium there is in even a full series, it is you who needs to try again.

You dismiss the second paper because it introduces and names a new syndrome. I can see what you mean, there is nothing to be concerned about there

A new syndrome that hasn’t been verified by any researcher outside Exley’s circle. If you can’t grasp why this might be problematic, I can’t help you.

And then you dismiss the last two papers simply because they include one of the same authors as the paper being analyzed here?

The key point, as for your previous comment, is “Independent Replication”. If nobody other than Exley is getting these results, then serious questions need to be asked about how he and his team are doing their research and if his results can be trusted.

At last a bit of sense. I am not a scientist, and get lost in some of the minutiae. However I am a mother and grandmother, I speak to mothers, my sister runs a very large nursery. We can see the accelerating damage in our young so clearly, and stories relating to dramatic deterioration shortly after vaccines are so multiple they cannot be dismissed. This didn’t happen when I was young. Aluminium is a well-researched and understood neurotoxin, and until you show me a better candidate for the neurological damage to our children, I will adopt the precautionary principle. If you scientists really cared about children you would be pursuing this puzzle with all your resources, not carping when someone else decides to investigate and comes up with results you don’t like. What is happening now is a demographic disaster, it has the potential to destroy our civilization as we have to pour multiple resources into caring for these poor damaged individuals. And remember, diagnosed autism is just the tip of the iceberg. If the cause of the current epidemic (and it truly is an epidemic) is not aluminium toxicity, PLEASE FIND OUT WHAT IS, stop wasting your time on less worthy pursuits.

When there is no good evidence that aluminum is associated with autism, it is a waste of money and scientific resources to do the same sorts of studies over and over again.

“This didn’t happen when I was young.”

How do you know? Did you spend your school days taking surveys of your elementary school, and expand it past to all the schools in your town? Childhood memories are not data.

“…. until you show me a better candidate for the neurological damage to our children, ”

What neurological damage? Please provide the PubMed indexed surveys of the incidence of that “damage.” Then provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that they are associated with the present American pediatric vaccine schedule.

Because you really cannot look for a “cause of neurological damage” in a vaccine ingredient, until you figure out that vaccines actually cause harm. That has not been done. Instead several large epidemiological studies done over the last two decades in several countries show no correlation between vaccines and autism.

Though this research does show viable causes for autism, you should read up about it:
http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf

Do you just make this stuff up as you go along?

Slow CCL2-dependent translocation of biopersistent particles from muscle to brain

David Foster, you may want to actually read the study instead of barfing up soundbites.

My comments are going into the WordPress ether. I don’t recall doing anything against the policy, plus I did not even post a link.

Granted my comments were entered in a short period of time, but 8 of 81 comments does not seem “excessive”, but this is Gorski’s blog so he makes the rules. Just not sure what those rules are…his “policy” basically says action will be taken if you irritate him too much.

I will moderate my impulse to argue going forward. But I would very much like someone to address my concerns from my main post.

Thank you for releasing my comments from the WordPress ether. It sometimes works in mysterious ways.

Read the “Slow CCL2-…” study, or this Exley study? I’ve read them both, so I’m not sure what I’ve said that you consider to be “soundbites”. This CCL2 study results have some possibly alarming implications.

Excellent article of Orac! It’s not only bad science it’s not science at all as it doesn’t follow the scientific methods. We don’t know what is high and what is low because we don’t have controls, simply as that.

The controls are in previous experiments. This is a sort of ‘case series’ – you know, the kind of thing that generates questions and more studies . . .

You can’t possibly be that obtuse.

Why is it obtuse to ask for who these “alarming implications” are for? If you read the study and understand it, you should be able to answer the question easily.

I’m so glad this blog has a new home!

I encountered this same nonsense in a different arena (the far right of science fiction publishing) the other day, where the execrable Daily Mail was quoted as the source. The Mail article was just a cut and paste of a piece by Exley on another blog.

How much diatary aluminum would one have to ingest yearly over a period of 15 years to reach these values of accumulation in the brain 22.11μg/g dry wt, considering bioavailability and rate of extraction of dietary aluminum.

David Foster: “Really? With all of the glaring conflicts of interest inherent to most of the vaccine “safety trials” and other pro-vaccine studies which you and others of your ilk ignore with such alacrity, this is your first criticism?”

It wasn’t his “first criticism”. And Orac provides a great deal of analysis of why this is such a poorly done, flawed paper in addition to noting its funding source.

On the other hand, David, you claim “glaring conflicts of interest” supposedly afflicting “most” pro-vaccine studies (without providing evidence of such conflicts), while ignoring the evidence they provide. A convincing approach would require simultaneously documenting poor methodology/sloppiness and “glaring” conflicts in studies validating vaccine safety and efficacy. But you don’t/can’t do that.

Bad job, David.

Just for old time’s sake…

One of Orac’s most persistent trolls, Greg, explains why he became an anti-vaxxer and how he blames younger parents for accepting vaccines and not doing their prerequisite g–gle searches on vaccine dangers as he did.
( 2 comments, AoA ” 1 in 36″ post).

If he’s being honest, it might explain how much.

” 1 in 36″ post

I must say that the “Autism has long been known to be a condition of ELEVATED SEROTONIN” entry from Ms. Drugawareness-dot-org is a new one to me.

Gerg, however, has simply made a fool of himself. One may recall that this cretin, who actively tried to pretend that he wasn’t Canadian for no discernible reason, has no children on the spectrum. And now this:

If they do have kids of their own that happen to escape vaccine injury, they don’t consider such things as why their child is now being cheated out of an education because ‘provisions’ must be made for a disruptive autistic child in the classroom.

Right. Vaccines are “cheating” him. Fantastic.

Chris Exley is not only in the editorial board of the Journal mmentioned above, but he is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the CMSRI the “research institute ” of the Dwoskin Foundation

Engaged in Vaccinology I looked in same paper of Exley.
He was in the media with the claim that Aluminium causes breast cancer due to Al-Antitranspirants.

Exley C, Charles LM,Barr L, Martin C, Polwart A, Darbre PD . Aluminium in human breast tissue. J Inorganic Biochem 2007;101:1344-6
Also in this paper a wide range of Aluminium range 0,11 -11,8 µg/g tissue dry wt, Here he used a defatted procedure and wrote “The aluminium content of breast tissue in the outer regions (axilla and lateral) was significantly higher (P=0.033) than the inner regions” This claim went to the media and many woman were scared.

But the same group (Exley) had a second paper
House E, Polwart A, Darbre P, ….Exley C.
The aluminium content of breast tissue taken from women with breast cancer. J Trace Elements in Med and Biol 2013;27:257-266
With a microwave digestion method he found a mean Al content 0,39 µg/g tissue dry wt but no significant regionally differences in breast of woman with cance. First thing would be for Exley to validate his analytical assays.
But this study was not in the media.-why?

In the so called http://www.vaccinesafetyconference.com/presentation.html (highly sponsered from the Dwoskin Family Foundation Exley had a presentation- where he claimed that Al3+ is an Antigen ( see the youtube video from him at about 20 min).

And regulary in his publications the group declares ” to have no conflict of interest” but the authors thank the Dwoskin Family Foundation or the CMSRI for financial support. In addition until now I found no international Al3+ standards as controls in Exley`s publications, although available.

David Hawkes addressed some issues in a letter to the editor
Questions about methodological and ethical quality of a vaccine adjuvant critical paper. Toxicology. 2017 Aug 15;389:53-54. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28669868

about another obviously anti-vax- paper- with Exley as co-author.
G. Crepeaux, H. Eidi, M.O. David, Y. Baba-Amer, E. Tzavara, B. Giros, F.J. Authier, C. Exley, C.A. Shaw, J. Cadusseau, R.K. Gherardi
Non-linear dose-response of aluminium hydroxide adjuvant particles: selective low dose neurotoxicity Toxicology, 375 (2017), pp. 48-57

Someone suggested that the wide variations in aluminium content in different areas of the brain suggested their equipment was faulty??!! The argument went . . .”well, if I got on a pair of scales and it read 80kg, then 10kg, then 50kg, I’d say there was something wrong with the scales”. Who in the world could possibly write such fatuous tripe without his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaping straight up through his neck and throttling his brain?

Who in the world could possibly write such fatuous tripe without his own major intestine, in a desperate attempt to save life and civilization, leaping straight up through his neck and throttling his brain?

Kudos for the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” reference, but how is the comment fatuous? Can you think of a more likely explanation for taking three measurements and getting one that is an order of magnitude larger than the other two? If I had that happen, I would be very concerned that I had done something very wrong.

You don’t read very well do you? Their equipment calibration is only one of many critiques of this study. There were no controls, none. There were improper staining techniques, misuse of statistics and over-reaching conclusions about the data.

Response from Prof Dave Hoole (head of Prof Exley’s faculty at Keele):

“I am, of course, aware of Professor’s Exley’s research work and his extensive investigations of the possible effects of aluminium on tissues. The goal of any scientific study is to propose ideas that either support or reject hypotheses that are open to test and trial by ones peers and society in general. Only by such debate and testing are advances made. Inevitability this can lead to controversy. Professor Exley has received funding from a wide range of funding bodies and applications are peer-reviewed. In addition, most publications in science which appear in learned journal are peer reviewed before being published. This has happened with many of Prof Exley’s publications.

“All Universities stimulate debate in their search for truth. By such a mechanism significant advances are made. Like you, as is the case with all scientific study, I await to see if eventually Professor’s Exley’s hypotheses are accepted or rejected.”

Weasel words. Yes academic freedom is a cornerstone of scientific inquiry but repeated crap science from faculty that is funded by dodgy sources should be seriously questioned. Exley et al.’s hypotheses have been rejected. What else does Prof. Hoole need?

@ Science Mom:

It may be somewhat OT but..

you should be congratulated for responding to Jake and his droog at Autism Investigated.
I personally don’t know how you do it: I would give up after one or two clueless replies.

I think your work there would be instructive for Orac’s minions to observe.

Hilariously, whatever we say about JC at RI will never be discussed there because he doesn’t want to give away any of his vast numbers of hits to RI.. Interesting that he didn’t anticipate that.

What’s your bet on how much of Jake’s traffic comes from RI and other sceptics?

And pharmaceutical companies aren’t “dodgy sources”? With their mega wealth and financial interest in promoting vaccines, I would consider them far more dodgy than the limited resources of the anti-vaxxers — who gain nothing, and who are only concerned for the well being of a generation that is patently obviously becoming increasingly unhealthy in spite of vastly increased levels of vaccination.

Ms Temple, please list the pharmaceutical companies that paid for the following studies, remember to directly quote the verbiage on each paper on the funding bit:

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.

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. 2009 Jun;123(6):1446-51.
Parental refusal of pertussis vaccination is associated with an increased risk of pertussis infection in children.

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

Am J Epidemiol. 2008 Dec 15;168(12):1389-96. Epub 2008 Oct 15.
Geographic clustering of nonmedical exemptions to school immunization requirements and associations with geographic clustering of pertussis.

PLoS ONE 2008; 3(9): e3140 doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003140
Lack of Association between Measles Virus Vaccine and Autism with Enteropathy: A Case-Control Study.

Pediatrics. 2007 Nov;120(5):e1269-77.
Is childhood vaccination associated with asthma? A meta-analysis of observational studies.

Vaccine. 2007 Jun 21;25(26):4875-9. Epub 2007 Mar 16.
Do immunisations reduce the risk for SIDS? A meta-analysis.

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
Encephalopathy after whole-cell pertussis or measles vaccination: lack of evidence for a causal association in a retrospective case-control study.

J Infect Dis. 2005 Nov 15;192(10):1686-93.
Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis: more cases of this fatal disease are prevented by measles immunization than was previously recognized.

Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005;159:1136-1144.
Economic Evaluation of the 7-Vaccine Routine Childhood Immunization Schedule in the United States, 2001

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2002 Jun;21(6):498-504.
Childhood vaccinations and risk of asthma.

Another point (made on twitter) related to the use anti vaccine activists are trying to make of this study: there is nothing in this study that tells us any of the patients were vaccinated.

Nothing about whether they were, which vaccines they got.

Trying to use it to say anything about vaccines is conjecture.

“…most publications in science which appear in learned journal are peer reviewed before being published. This has happened with many of Prof Exley’s publications.”

“Many”? How many?

@ Denice, as you can see, brave Jake wouldn’t let through my latest comments because he put himself in an untenable position. I.e. either embrace a ridiculous position of switching thiomersal with aluminium and look like a fool or denounce it and anger his two readers. For all his bashing of SJWs, he sure is a special snowflake.

@Science Mom,

Honestly, in the years since Jake proved (as discussed on this blog) that he willfully and knowingly mispresented information to support his position, it seems that he has further deteriorated. We’ve been watching a train wreck in slow motion, but since he was dismissed from his Ph.D. program Jake has really gone off the rails.

As you know, Jacob Crosby, MPH, not only seems to doxx and to encourage his few readers to harass the family of an autistic person, he is OK with the nonsencical meme that:

1) thimerosal-containing vaccines were responsible for an epidemic of autism
2) when public health authorities dramatically reduced exposure to thimerosal, they worried that the precipitous decline in ASD that would result from that removal would implicate them, and since
3) they also knew that–magically–exposure to aluminum-containing vaccines would mimic the effects of thimerosal-containing vaccines
4) they knowingly exposed children to autism-inducing aluminum-containing vaccines to continue an epidemic of autism in an effort to cover their tracks
5) because vaccines.

BTW, it’s cool that one of Jake’s few readers implied, again, in the comments that you are Bonnie Offit by suggesting that you could inquire about Paul Offit’s thoughts over breakfast. (I hope that you enjoy the Toyota Camry that your husband bought with his filthy lucre.)

Is there any hope of this study being retracted? Del Bigtree interviewed Handley and now that video is going viral. I am sick to death of these people and would love for another one of their darling studies to be retracted.

I would actually expect it to be retracted. It’s definitely not a perfect study and as I’ve stated earlier in these comments I actually agree with some of the criticisms mentioned here and elsewhere, however I beg to differ with the universally adopted conclusion you all have reached…namely that there is no useful information in this study. Oh yeah and aluminum in vaccines is perfectly safe, and certainly does not cause autism. This study will be retracted because of political pressure, because as Dr. Marie McCormick stated rather bluntly years ago:

“What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine — because we are not ever going to come down that it [autism] is a true side effect — is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?”

See? The it’s a forgone conclusion. No need for more science.

This is for Chris below… So you think that a list of genetic mutations which are possibly implicated in autism is “better science”? The two are not at all mutually exclusive, in fact most of us who believe that vaccines cause autism believe strongly that there must be some genetic components. But if you believe that there could ever be a purely genetic epidemic then you are more obtuse than I already think you are. And if you argue that there is no autism epidemic…well that’s just dumb.

And if you argue that there is no autism epidemic…well that’s just dumb.

Just because the number of diagnoses of autism has increased, it doesn’t automatically follow that the rate of autism has suddenly jumped. Smart people have investigated the question. They have found that previous underdiagnosis, increased awareness, diagnostic substitution and broadened diagnostic criteria adequately explain the increase in rates of diagnosis.

Mr. Foster, you seem to be afraid of real science. Plus you are ignoring history, especially when it comes to the DSM.

Also, Mr. Foster, before you can show some random ingredient in a vaccine is the “cause” of autism, you first need to prove autism is caused by vaccinating.

That step has not been done. In fact, several large studies have shown vaccines are not associated with autism:
Vaccines are not associated with autism: An evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies (a pdf of the uncorrected proof)

What real research has discovered are the genetic sequences that cause about half of the cases of autism. There are even similarities between those with the same sequences, which has spawned online support groups for some of them.

Plus! There have been actual factual scientifically valid therapies for a few.

Still thinking vaccines cause autism is lame, a waste of time and costly. Both by causing unnecessary illness in children, and by parents spending money on dubious “treatments.”

Chris, for us stupid parents trying to get the best care for our ASD children with little explanation from the science community, (who seem to be more interested in online circle-jerks amongst themselves and demonizing those TRYING to find links than helping find a genuine reason, treatment or cure), can you please, in your superior wisdom, tell us what we should do beyond trying any and every so-called “dubious” fucking hope out there? What is wrong with you people?

“Question Everything”, whose sock puppet are you? Well, deary, you can start with clicking on the SPARK for Autism pages I posted. Then you can get a referral to a actual clinic for autism, like this one, except closer to you:
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/clinics-programs/autism-center/resources/

Then you can check to see if there is an ARC near you:
http://www.seattlechildrens.org/clinics-programs/autism-center/resources/

And finally go to your local school district’s Child Find office. That is the program required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to evaluate and find services for disabled kids.

Re comment below, that autism is just being better diagnosed — you are obviously living in some kind of nether world. Talk to any teacher in any school and they will tell you that something bad is happening to our children.

Teachers are not qualified in diagnosing autism in children. They can suggest a referral to someone who is qualified, and to ChildFind (the school district agency required by the federal Individual with Disabilities Education Act).

This information is from someone who has dealt with school district special ed. personnel, a couple of neurologists, several cardiologists and this state’s developmental disabilities administration. They all have standards.

I forgot to mention the fabulous psychologist at the university’s autism center that wrote a diagnosis that had all the bits and pieces required by the state’s developmental disabilities administration, then provided clear information on who and where to get services. Plus she explained our son’s issues clearly to his dad, who just thought the young man was malingering.

Unlike the other not-so-competent psychologist who took forever to deliver his report, which in the end was missing very important information required to get services.

There different levels of experience and competence, even in those who get the proper training. Unfortunately your average elementary school teacher does not have the training, but usually do know what resources are available in the district.

Also, there have been vast changes in what is known about autism in the past thirty years. My son was a non-verbal three year old when I was assured by the neurologist in 1991 that he was not autistic because he smiled and laughed.

He did start out that year in a public school special ed. for nonverbal children a few years before autism was even a category for under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. He got a total of ten years of speech therapy, he does speak somewhat. He also had special services through high school graduation and even in a community college. I kept being told he as going to all right, but I knew that he needed something else.

So over his father’s objections I took him to be diagnosed at two clinics when he was twenty six years old, and as you can see one was competent, the other was not. It turns out he was autistic under new rules.

So what happened between 1991 and 2014? What could cause the same person with the same disabilities to be denied development disability services at age 18 (which happened), and get them a few years later?

It was the change of diagnostic criteria. It was not just the change from DSM III-R (used in 1991) to both DSM IV and DSM V (which he qualified to). Plus there were changes in the school having an actual autism program that did not start until the late 1990s.

And finally the requirements for services from the state’s developmental disabilities administration. They only added autism criteria less than ten years ago. Yeah, I was flummoxed when they rejected him during his senior year of high school (the school helped with the application). They claimed that he was not disabled prior to age eighteen. Funny I don’t remember him talking before he was five years old.

Some reading for you:

DSM criteria: http://www.unstrange.com/dsm1.html

Also Dr. Grinker’s book: Unstrange Minds

Neurotribes by Steve Silberman

I talk most Friday nights to the new-entrant teacher in Clyde Quay School (we are drinking buddies from way back). She does not “tell me that something bad is happening to our children”. Thus Rachel Temple is refuted.

Amazing how things change in schools when they learn more about children. I remember in class I had in elementary school in the early 1960s a teacher actually taped a “wiggle worm” sign on the back of one kid. I guess she was trying to shame him in some way.

Hopefully the teachers Ms. Temple knows are still not doing that!

yes, you are right.. anyone who works with children and is honest at all knows that children’s health has plummeted and the problems with emotional processing, learning and focus, among many other issues is exploding..

CR: “… . anyone who works with children and is honest at all knows that children’s health has plummeted …”

Prove it. Show the actual scientific testing that the Flynn Effect is going backwards.

“anyone who works with children and is honest at all”

Anyone who works with True Scotsmen and is honest at all knows that Chris Robison is another bullshit artist.

could it be “just a coincidence” :
that extremely high levels of aluminum were found in the brain tissue of autistic people?
that autism has skyrocketed everywhere in the world that has seen a large increse in the number of vaccines given to children?
that thousands upon thousands of normal children have regressed into autism within a short time of receiving vaccines?
that Somali and African-American children exhibit significantly higher immune response to the MMR vaccine AND they have significantly higher rates of autism?
that CDC Data showed statistically significant evidence that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism?
that millions have been paid out by NVICP to children brain damaged by vaccines, but scores of such children who were also diagnosed with autism?
that a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina examined 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease – and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus … the team’s leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: ‘Of the handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles?
that Dr. Singh found ” ELISA analysis showed a significant increase in the level of MMR antibodies in autistic children”?
that MRI’s of infant monkeys showed “These results suggest that maturational changes in amygdala volume and the binding capacity of [11C]DPN in the amygdala was significantly altered in infant macaques receiving the vaccine schedule.” ?

only corporate propagandists, paid liars, people who are deeply in denial, etc.. can still try to pretend that all of these connections (and the many others not mentioned here) are ALL JUST COINCIDENTAL.. please look at the evidence that is being hidden, please talk to someone who saw their normal child regress into autism or other brain injury after vaccines, please talk to a doctor or scientists who has found evidence of the autism and vaccine link. please do NOT remain in the dark..

We have been measuring aluminium in complex biological samples including brain for about 45 years using electrothermal atomic absorption analysis (most recently the Perkin Elmer PinAAcle 900-series Instruments with microwave digestion)

or in collaboration with US researchers using a novel X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry consisting of a 7-GeV third-generation synchrotron-radiation light source, storage ring and full-energy positron injector at the Advanced Photon Source (APS) located at the Argonne National Laboratory and operated by the US Department of Energy at the University of Chicago

We don’t use transversely heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry because it is too primitive and too inaccurate

The raw aluminium levels measured using graphite furnace atomic absorption spectroscopy in the Mold-Exley paper are reported as ranging from 0.01 (the limit of quantitation) to 22.11 μg/g, that is, over a 2200-fold difference in the same sample (!).

Most credible scientists would discard these values as grave experimental error or at least check their analytical devices or hat size

Lumogallion-reactive aluminium microscopy is not the correct method to measure aluminium in brain tissues as there are too many factors including other trace metals which significantly confound the results

Now let’s add:

No controls in the study (the brain autism samples were from Oxford University and should have been supplied with age-and gender-matched controls in any credible study),

Not bothering to name the type or model of their graphite furnace atomic absorption device (significant variations in analytical power here),

Not including any clinical data (samples from Oxford and no controls – this is an insult to Oxford University);

Publishing a paper in a journal on which you are an editor (how handy to review your own work!),

Receiving anti-vaccine support from an agency (the ‘Child Medical Safety Research Institute (CMSRI)’ well known for their anti-vaccine activities,

The use of serial paraffin-embedded brain tissue sections known to contain large amounts of aluminium,

Collaboration with and quoting ‘research’ groups (Tomljenovic/Shaw) who have already admitted to scientific fraud in their aluminium work,

This collectively means the aluminium reports by Mold and Exley are not worth the paper they are written on.

These data are cherry picked garbage at the best

Calling press conferences to expound or sensationalize garbage research does a phenomenally huge disservice to real aluminium research and credible aluminium researchers.

This is fascinating! Have you used these techniques to measure aluminum content in the brains of patients of any particular disorders like Alzheimer’s, Autism, etc?

Since you say you’ve been doing this research for some 45 years, then if the answer to my question is “no” then my next question would be why the hell not?

It’s one thing to criticize analytical methods of a study. It’s quite another to try to justify the CDC’s complete lack of interest in doing real vaccine safety science.

…real vaccine safety science.

Lovely example of weasel words there. And what, to you, constitutes “real vaccine safety science”? From your comments I’d guess it means test everything for every possible side effect, regardless of prior plausibility or how many times it’s been tested before.

could it be “just a coincidence” :
that extremely high levels of aluminum were found in the brain tissue of autistic people?
that autism has skyrocketed everywhere in the world that has seen a large increse in the number of vaccines given to children?
that thousands upon thousands of normal children have regressed into autism within a short time of receiving vaccines?
that Somali and African-American children exhibit significantly higher immune response to the MMR vaccine AND they have significantly higher rates of autism?
that CDC Data showed statistically significant evidence that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism?
that millions have been paid out by NVICP to children brain damaged by vaccines, but scores of such children who were also diagnosed with autism?
that a team from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina examined 275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease – and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus … the team’s leader, Dr Stephen Walker, said: ‘Of the handful of results we have in so far, all are vaccine strain and none are wild measles?
that Dr. Singh found ” ELISA analysis showed a significant increase in the level of MMR antibodies in autistic children”?
that MRI’s of infant monkeys showed “These results suggest that maturational changes in amygdala volume and the binding capacity of [11C]DPN in the amygdala was significantly altered in infant macaques receiving the vaccine schedule.” ?

only corporate propagandists, paid liars, people who are deeply in denial, etc.. can still try to pretend that all of these connections (and the many others not mentioned here) are ALL JUST COINCIDENTAL.. please look at the evidence that is being hidden, please talk to someone who saw their normal child regress into autism or other brain injury after vaccines, please talk to a doctor or scientists who has found evidence of the autism and vaccine link. please do NOT remain in the dark..

“could it be “just a coincidence” :
that extremely high levels of aluminum were found in the brain tissue of autistic people?”

Well, you can’t tell from Exley paper because they did not have any controls, plus did not list the medical history of the brain donors. Did you actually read the above article?

“that autism has skyrocketed everywhere in the world”

Under what version of the DSM?

“hat CDC Data showed statistically significant evidence that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism”

No it did not. In fact all of those less than a dozen children received the MMR vaccine after the recommended time.. In fact, they were diagnosed with autism first and then vaccinated to get into special ed. preschool. That was in the original paper published years before. Use the search feature at the top of the page to see discussions on Brian Hooker mangling statistics.

As for the rest of your grammar-free diatribe of silly notions and conspiracy theories that have been discussed as nonsense many times before: the answer is still no.

please talk to someone who saw their normal child regress into autism or other brain injury after vaccines,

I have dealt with enough halfwits and numpties and delusory bumblefucks, thank you; I don’t feel obliged to seek out any more,

What gets me about these numpties is that are surprised when I ask them after this “brain injury”, “encephalitis” or very high fever what did the doctors at the emergency department say to them. Total silence.

As someone who has had her newborn transported to another hospital after neonatal seizures and again when he had more seizures from a now vaccine preventable disease, this totally angers me. They are going to assume we will believe the diagnosis they made, and not an actual medical professional.

I am also not fond of denying anyone real medical care. There was the year when there were three 911 calls to our house for that now adult child. It did include two trips to an emergency department, and culminated in open heart surgery. Fun times when I got to compare four different hospitals, one in another state.

The one thing I don’t get is why we use aluminium: the metal has no use in our body and we do not have a clue about its long term toxicity: at least proving without any doubt whether or not it could in some cases have a toxic effect would take a lot of time and money. Yet some 30 years ago the Pasteur Institute used alternative adjuvant like calcium phosphate: it was working and the molecule was far less subject to controversy. It leaves me with the bad impression people have been playing dice with others lives just for the sake of their year-end bonuses.

Yet some 30 years ago the Pasteur Institute used alternative adjuvant like calcium phosphate: it was working and the molecule was far less subject to controversy.

There was a controversy over aluminum adjuvants 30 years ago? Oh, wait.

In France it was the case. Back in the 50s, the Pasteur Institute (a French non-profit private organization) decided to create vaccines using adjuvants that were not using aluminum: the calcium phosphate was introduced in the early 60s as an adjuvant. It looks like all the other vaccine producers were using aluminum at that time. In 1984 the vaccine production entity was sold to Biomérieux that was already using aluminum as adjuvant. Because of economic reasons Biomérieux decided to “kill” the Pasteur Institute innovation as the use of two different types of adjuvants in the production of vaccines was not considered “efficient” and too complex to manage. It looks like the Pasteur scientists fought against the decision: according to retired Pasteur scientists and the proofs they kept in their records, at least one letter was written in 1987 to the French Health minister expressing concerns about using an adjuvant based on aluminum (that is of no use in the human body and as such could have negative effects) and encouraging to keep in use calcium phosphate as a safe alternative.

Oh, what a surprise! There are none so deaf as those who will not listen… especially when financial profits are at risk.

btw Narad, considering the track of record of the Pasteur Institute, founded by Louis Pasteur whose breakthrough work established the principles of vaccination, and also considering it is one of the rare non-profit organization in the industry, I tend to pay attention to the opinion of its scientists. Even if they did not have any irrefutable proof, they were smart and logical in their cautiousness.

Hi CiD what you write below this comment, in response to Narad, is fascinating. Would you happen to know any references for this, I would like to learn more about the original decision to use aluminum adjuvants over alternatives.

As a first step you can visit the following video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knT1fffyQu8. It is in French but you can use the real time translated subtitles. The second interview shows how cynical and condescending the industry and its c-level managers can be. The tone makes me believe it was made by French investigation journalists but unfortunately the original source of the video is not stated.

We use it because it makes the vaccines work better.
We’ve been using aluminum adjuvants for over 70 years and have yet to identify a detectable side effect that is specific to aluminum adjuvants.

Most people have between 50 and 150 milligrams of aluminum in their bodies because it’s so common. It’s in the food you eat, the water you drink, and dust in the air you breathe.

It’s good to have alternate adjuvants available, but why fix it if it’s not broken?

True, aluminum adjuvants make the vaccines “work better”, they stimulate the immune system. When you say we “have yet to identify a detectable side effect that is specific to aluminum adjuvants”, you document your ignorance. I would suggest that you read up on the more recent research.

Your remaining words about ingested aluminum are just babble, and demonstrate your inability or unwillingness to understand that there is a very significant difference between ingested and injected aluminum, in route of administration but also in solubility vs. insolubility, rate of absorption, and persistence in target tissues like the brain.

The relevant question is not “why fix it if it’s not broken”, the question is how on earth could you ever determine if anything was broken given the level of ignorance shown here?

When you say we “have yet to identify a detectable side effect that is specific to aluminum adjuvants”, you document your ignorance. I would suggest that you read up on the more recent research.

Excellent way to document your own colossal failure, BTW.

Mr. Foster: “I would suggest that you read up on the more recent research.”

Do list the PMIDs of that recent research. Make sure it is not by either Christopher Exley nor Christopher Shaw… or anyone else on the Dwoskin payroll.

I looked through the various side effects mentioned in Taylor et al, as well as the CDC site and couldn’t find any side effects that were unique to vaccines with aluminum adjuvants, so i look forward to your link to the research that positively identified one.

And of course it should be something more serious than a sore arm or a short term minor fever to justify the research expense and duplicate production costs.

“275 children with regressive autism and bowel disease – and of the 82 tested so far, 70 prove positive for the measles virus”

Imagine my shock to discover that Chris Robison is just another copy-pasting plagiaristic waste of skin, in this case regurging shite from a 2006 Daily Heil.

an article written by our old friend J.B. Handley

While looking up old Respectful Insolence earlier, I was reminded of the time when J. B Handley was all in with Jim Humble and Kerri Rivera and their blatant unadulterated scam of curing autistic children of autism-causing worms by forcing bleach enemas up their butts.
http://www.ageofautism.com/2015/01/whos-afraid-of-autism-recovery.html

(h/t Dangerous Bacon)

Which is to say that J. B. Handley is not only a worthless waste of perfectly good organs, he is also too stupid to be allowed to eat with a fork.

Question Everything (do you really?), I forgot one very important thing:

Contact your state’s agency that provides support for disabled children. They vary quite a bit between states (our is is called the Developmental Disabilities Administration and is part of the Dept. of Social and Health Services).

Depending on the level of your child’s disability you can get things like someone who is trained to work with you and your son’s behavior. There are even programs to get you time away for by providing respite care.

It takes time and effort to sign up, and there are rules. And, of course, it depends on your child’s needs. My son just needs a job coach a few hours a month. But I know someone whose child with cerebral palsy requires a large wheel chair, tube feeding and respirator support. Their is no father in the picture, and the child needs 24 hour care by someone who can lift her out of the chair. So the DDA and other programs provide aides.

So, yes, there is help out there, Real help, not just the scammers who prey on desperate parents (looking at you, Age of Autism).

From the conclusion:

“We have made the first measurements of aluminium in brain tissue in ASD and we have shown that the brain aluminium content is extraordinarily high. We have identified aluminium in brain tissue as both extracellular and intracellular with the latter involving both neurones and non-neuronal cells. The presence of aluminium in inflammatory cells in the meninges, vasculature, grey and white matter is a standout observation and could implicate aluminium in the aetiology of ASD.”

So the paper does discuss a possible link which is supported by their findings. So at this point you are just arguing semantics.

It’s interesting that you’re more interested in arguing semantics than addressing direct criticism of your article.

“So the paper does discuss a possible link which is supported by their findings. So at this point you are just arguing semantics.”

With whom are you arguing? Steve Cooke suggested that criticism of the paper was misplaced because it did not attempt to link autism and aluminium. Orac responded that yes, the paper did make that attempt. Now you are agreeing with Orac, while accusing him of using semantics to avoid admitting his errors.

Hi Orac. Type in haste – repent at leisure (me that is). I meant to say that the study does not link Autism and vaccines – although the introduction (only) does mention that a previous study has found a correlation (not to be confused with causation). The study does however find a strong link between aluminium and autism so it is incumbent on us now to find out what the source of that aluminium might be and keeping an open mind it is conceivable that the adjuvant in vaccines play a role. It would be interesting to factor into the study the frequency that other sources of aluminium young children are exposed to (water, foods, cans, utensils etc) and consider that the outcome may possibly be a cumulative effect. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

No, this study does NOT “find a strong link between aluminum and autism.” It just doesn’t. The authors want you to think it does, but for the reasons I spent so many words explaining, it just does not.

Hummm… your reasons are to throw the bay out with the bathwater and to use spurious justifications to attempt to discredit the study as lack of controls when there is (by your own later admission) plenty of available control data already. Combined with pejorative language (antivaccine cranks, antivaccine zealots) and by your own admitted limitations (I must admit that I’m not an expert, Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t tell) it is your position that looks weak. That is not to say that your points are without merit to an interested layman like myself and it has been good food for thought.

Again, this study does NOT show a correlation between aluminum and autism. It just doesn’t. It’s such a poorly designed and executed study that it really doesn’t show much of anything. The pejorative language to describe this study is well deserved. It’s just that bad. Indeed, it’s a criminal waste of a precious scientific resource, brain tissue from autistic people.

As for referring to antivaxers, this study was funded by a foundation run by people with a long track record of funding dubious studies whose purpose is to “prove” that vaccines cause autism.

In related news…
Exley complains that his research has been met with silence.**
see Age of Autism today

** which in my opinion is probably better than the derision it deserves

Denice Walter — where are you coming from? At least Chris Exley is trying to examine a very potent problem, which is the obviously damaged brains of so many of our young. Even if it means incurring the wrath of people like you. Surely that is not a matter of derision but of honour. What are you doing to find the answers we so desperately need?

“… examine a very potent problem, which is the obviously damaged brains of so many of our young.”

How can he by using the brains of the elderly, which obviously grew up with a different vaccine schedule. Also where is the medical history of the donors.

Again, I am going to ask you to provide that verifiable statistics on the how many children have “damaged brains.” Then please tell us why this research is less relevant:
http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf

Vaccines are not the only source of aluminium, but do make a large contribution in this current generation. In my generation it was aluminium cookware. I have a friend with six grandchildren, two are on the spectrum (and that is not just quirky behaviour), another friend has one grandchild out of four, unable to cope with going to school at all. Another friend has a severely autistic daughter, another has twins that are 12 and non-verbal. Even taking into account better diagnosis this was not happening twenty years ago. I do not need verifiable statistics, I just have to use my eyes and ears and it truly frightens me. This problem is getting too big to fob off with science speak. It is real, and it is NOT NORMAL.

I come from a place where you were required to study statistical analysis and research design. Plus I follow writers like Orac who are even better equipped than I am to tear Exley’s studies apart, saving me time and effort.
Exley’s work isn’t exactly lauded by the experts in the field: there’s a reason he isn’t written up of the front page of the Times.

Anyone can set up a site like Age of Autism and blather on about vaccines and attract disgruntled parents and, without a shred of evidence or honesty, criticise science at large. In short, their contributors don’t know what they’re talking about and have an axe to grind. I’ve spent the last- too many years to state- observing how alt med prevaricators dupe their public in order to sell products- in the case of anti-vaxxers, their work is more aimed at selling their theories or themselves in lieu of vitamins.

Ms. Temple: “Another friend has a severely autistic daughter, another has twins that are 12 and non-verbal.”

Then tell them about this study, based on it there are now support groups for certain variations and real treatments (this time actually click on the link):
http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf

“Even taking into account better diagnosis this was not happening twenty years ago.”

So my almost thirty year old autistic son who was nonverbal as a three year old does not exist? Get over yourself and actually read some real research. If you can’t be bothered with that at least read Neurotribes by Steve Silberman.

“I do not need verifiable statistics, I just have to use my eyes and ears and it truly frightens me.”

Yes, you do need verifiable statistics. Especially when your eyes missed kids like my oldest and his entire special ed. preschool. Nor all of the kids whose parents were part of the listserv I was on before twenty years ago (with a phone modem).

When you make a claim, you better come up with some verifiable data, because the plural of anecdote is not data. Do not use random websites, nor videos… stick to actual surveys done by public health or education departments. Or something like this:
https://digital.nhs.uk/catalogue/PUB05061

Ms. Temple, here is a format that you should understand… a video. It is a story by a mother of a young lady with autism. She recounts how difficult is was twenty years ago, which was probably exasperated by the fact it has always been harder to diagnose girls. Enjoy:

You know, I clicked on this article to hear your scientific criticisms, and almost decided against continuing reading because so much of the article is just Ad Hominem invective. Just give me the science of your criticisms, so I can determine whether it’s worth my while to pull the original research papers myself.

Whenever I see someone tone trolling the way that you are, it’s almost always an indication that they are unlikely to be any more receptive to a dispassionate discussion of the science than they are be to my more…Insolent…take on the science. At least nine times out of ten they are obviously just using their complaint about tone as an excuse to dismiss my arguments.

See how Orac simply goes right into further ad hominem attacks, and dismisses your comment instead of addressing it? Good luck getting him to simply explain the science of his criticisms.

He never addressed the points I brought up earlier:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christopher-exley-using-bad-science-to-demonize-aluminum-adjuvants-in-vaccines/#comment-384885

Most of his criticisms are directly addressed in the paper itself, the authors are all very well aware of its limitations. The pseudo-skeptics you see here don’t seem to understand what it means to be a “pilot study”. They will never recognize research which demonstrates true harm from vaccination, in any form, because for them the science is settled.

Dear Mr. Foster,

Pot, meet kettle. You have yet to give a clear answer to my question on why it must be vaccines and not actual research like this:
http://spark-sf.s3.amazonaws.com/SPARK_gene_list.pdf

Again, I need to remind you that one cannot claim some random ingredient in vaccines causes a specific harm if there is no real evidence the vaccines cause harm. I offered you this meta study:
Vaccine. 2014 Jun 17;32(29):3623-9. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2014.04.085.
Vaccines are not associated with autism: an evidence-based meta-analysis of case-control and cohort studies.

You dismissed for some random reason and countered with studies that were of very poor quality. Just like the Exley study listed above.

Reply to Chris. Looking for autism genes is a joke. The increase in incidence over the last 30 years makes it an epidemic, and genetic flaws don’t cause epidemics. Of course the genes may be damaged by some environmental factor, but until we find that environmental trigger we are chasing the wind. So far aluminium, with it’s known neurological toxicity, is a prime environmental candidate. When you come up with better on let us know.

Ah, yes… I just had to go upstream and note your previous answer to my question:

This is for Chris below… So you think that a list of genetic mutations which are possibly implicated in autism is “better science”? The two are not at all mutually exclusive, in fact most of us who believe that vaccines cause autism believe strongly that there must be some genetic components. But if you believe that there could ever be a purely genetic epidemic then you are more obtuse than I already think you are. And if you argue that there is no autism epidemic…well that’s just dumb.

I love how you cogently answered by calling me both obtuse and dumb. An answer you also gave to others. You are definitely not a person to whine about Orac using “ad hominem” attacks, especially since you do not understand what the term means.

The increase in incidence over the last 30 years makes it an epidemic, and genetic flaws don’t cause epidemics.

An increase in diagnoses is not the same as an increase in actual cases. The diagnostic criteria have changed from DSM I to DSM V. People who would be diagnosed with other things are now diagnosed as autistic. Increased awareness means that people are more likely to seek out a diagnosis. And finally, a lot of autistics are only diagnosed as adults, pointing to previous underdiagnosis.

…aluminium, with it’s known neurological toxicity…

There is more aluminium in a banana than there is in the entire vaccine schedule. If aluminium was genuinely that neurotoxic, anyone who ate bananas would now be dead.

To Anti-Vaxxers:

You are now complicit in one of the greatest crimes of BIG PHARMA against humanity. It is only a matter of time until Autism is found to be caused by the aluminum nanoparticles (NPs) in the vaccine that migrate to the brain. But BIG FOOD corporations producing GM foods containing NPs also contribute to Autism as well as other health problems like Alzheimer’s and cancer are similarly complicit in crimes against humanity. Central to the crimes is the USG that has not banned NPs form pharmaceuticals and food and refusal to recognize that NPs produce UV radiation that damages the DNA leading to the health problems. Until you are personally sued for the complicity in the crimes of BIG PHARMA and FOOD, your arguments are meaningless. See https://www.prlog.org/12688350-neuro-degenerative-diseases-by-uv-radiation-from-nanoparticles.html

“Finally, there’s aspect of this study that angers me greatly. Brain tissue is a precious resource. Tissue from autistic brains is an even more precious resource. This poorly designed, poorly executed, poorly analyzed study squandered some of that precious resource in the service of a study that tells us nothing scientifically useful about autism that could lead to a deeper understanding of the abnormalities of the autistic brain and the pathogenesis of this neurodevelopmental disorder. Such a waste of precious tissue borders on the criminal.”

So when can we expect your study? I just see a lot of time spent on critiquing anothers study but I would love to see a follow-up and those results as well.

Hi all just a quick bit of research. Have any of you had measeles? I have, i got it when I was 10, i did not die, I was ill for a couple of weeks, the first week was bad but the second week I felt okay just my mum didn’t want to pass it onto anyone. I ask this question because everyone is so keen to tell my wife and I that people die from measeles whenever I say I’m not giving my son the MMR at 13 months. Well yes people do die from it but looking at statistics in the uk they usually have an auto immune deficiency or are very young under 1. Which if very young would not have had the vaccine anyway so the stats are skewed a bit in that sense. I will take that risk with my son as I have had this virus and I have felt worse with some bad flus. I am clearly no scientific expert but I have experience of this virus and know its impact, what I don’t know is who to trust with regards to the MMR vaccine. With that in mind I asked my GP and the nurses to sign a contract I had written by my solicitors that said in layman’s terms that any major neurological side effects resulting directly from the MMR vaccine (this was a two week time period and there was a full list of major atypical neurological disorders for children of that age ) was their doing, none would sign and he hadn’t receive the vaccination. The lack of confidence in the product gave me my answer. He has had all other vaccines, all apart from brexsero (men b) which the label said was not suitable for anyone aged 12 and under, he was 8 weeks old at the time, which no one on here can seriously argue against, the vaccine company is telling you not to give it to them at that age. He has shown no side effects, my point is there is always a huge amount of horse shit thrown at people like myself but I am not anti vaccine I am just trying to do what’s best for my child and my choice was to not get MMR until I believe the risk of the virus outways the risk of the vaccine. My question to all medical professionals on this site is would you sign the contract.

They did not sign because nothing is 100%. But measles causes encephalitis in 1:1000; if MMR causes it at all, it’s much less than one per million. When the doctors wanted your child to get mmr they were acting to protect your child from neurological problems, pneumonia, deafness, death, and other provlems. Not wanting to sign an unrealistic guarantee is not a sign the product is unsafe. It’s a sign of not wanting to offer an absolute, unrealistic guarantee.

But if you’re in the signing such contracts business, would you sign a contract that if your child infects another child with measles because you decided to reject medical advice and not protect him from it and that child suffers harm, it’s your responsibility? That’s. A lot more likely from your choice than the chances that your child would suffer neurological effects from mmr.

Dorit you made two significant claims here and as usual you do not substantiate either of them…because they are pure speculation on your part. Do you have any citations for your claim that MMR causes encephalitis in “much less than one per million”? I ask because as you should know encephalitis is listed as an acknowledged vaccine reaction in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) “Vaccine Injury Table”:

https://www.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/vaccinecompensation/vaccineinjurytable.pdf

Vaccine
III. Vaccines containing measles, mumps,
and rubella virus or any of its components
(e.g., MMR, MM, MMRV)

Illness, disability, injury or condition covered
A. Anaphylaxis
B. Encephalopathy or
encephalitis

Time period for first symptom or manifestation of onset or of significant aggravation after vaccine administration
≤4 hours.
5-15 days (not less than 5 days
and not more than 15 days).

Then you assert without evidence that an unvaccinated child is more likely to infect another child than is a fully vaccinated child to suffer an adverse reaction to one of the 69 vaccines they would receive by the time they are 18 years old. If you want to limit your comparison to just MMR vaccine I’m down with that, given how ineffective the vaccine has been found to be.

The Re-Emergence of Measles in Developed Countries: Time to Develop the Next-Generation Measles Vaccines?
Journal Vaccine, 2012. Poland.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905323/
“Thus, measles outbreaks also occur even among highly vaccinated populations because of primary and secondary vaccine failure, which results in gradually larger pools of susceptible persons and outbreaks once measles is introduced [8]. This leads to a paradoxical situation whereby measles in highly immunized societies occurs primarily among those previously immunized [8].”

The future of measles in highly immunized populations. A modeling approach.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6741921
“long-range projections demonstrate that the proportion of susceptibles in the year 2050 may be greater than in the prevaccine era.”

Laboratory characterization of measles virus infection in previously vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21666212#
“As global elimination proceeds, additional methods for confirming modified measles cases may be needed to understand whether SVF [secondary vaccine failure] cases contribute to continued measles virus (MeV) transmission.”

A. I note that you’re citing an administrative table designed to compensate in cases of doubt as your source of causation. That’s, well, weak. And it certainly doesn’t counter my point.

Initially, the FDA said, though this link no longer works:
http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/QuestionsaboutVaccines/ucm070425.htm

“Previously, this adverse reaction was listed under adverse events seen after MMR or varicella vaccination. Encephalitis has been reported approximately once for every 3 million doses of MMR vaccine. Post-marketing surveillance of more than 400 million doses distributed worldwide (1978 to 2003) indicates that encephalitis is rarely reported after MMR vaccination. In no case has it been shown conclusively that encephalitis was caused by a vaccine virus infection of the central nervous system.”

More recent studies found no link.

Rowhani-Rahbar A et al., Lack of Association Between Childhood Immunizations and Encephalitis in California 1998-2008, NCBI (Nov. 2012), ; Nicola P. Klein et al., Safety of Measles-Containing Vaccines in 1-Year-Old Children, AAP NEWS & JOURNALS (Jan. 2015),

B. Children don’t get 69 vaccines. Sadly, we don’t have the ability to protect them from 69 diseases. But the chances of serious harm from the schedule are, indeed, extremely low. However, I was talking of the risks of MMR, which is the relevant vaccine under discussion, and an extremely safe vaccine.

C. None of your sources show MMR is ineffective. Your middle one is a model from 1984 based on uncertainty about waning immunity, and neither of the others suggest MMR is ineffective – though both acknowledge it’s imperfect. In fact, Poland in an interview directly addressed the kind of misuse you and other anti-vaccine activists make of his article – saying, among other things:
“On the one hand, we have the most transmissible disease known in humans, and on the other hand we have an excellent vaccine – which is not a perfect vaccine – and we don’t induce immunity in somewhere between 2 to 5 percent of the people who receive it. When everybody is vaccinated, the only cases you’ll see are those in cases who are immunized, though you’ll see very few cases compared to a population that doesn’t have high levels of herd immunity.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tarahaelle/2015/02/05/on-measles-and-the-mmr-vaccine-a-conversation-with-vaccine-researcher-gregory-poland/

you should know encephalitis is listed as an acknowledged vaccine reaction in the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) “Vaccine Injury Table”

You’re really as dumb as a rock, aren’t you? Won’t you think a little bit harder? Won’t you think just a little bit more?

With that in mind I asked my GP and the nurses to sign a contract I had written by my solicitors that said in layman’s terms that any major neurological side effects resulting directly from the MMR vaccine (this was a two week time period and there was a full list of major atypical neurological disorders for children of that age ) was their doing, none would sign and he hadn’t receive the vaccination.

Great, you’re a run-of-the-mill crank. Clap, clap, clappity clap. You do realize that measles could be completely eradicated, right? Perhaps not. FOADIAF.

Orac why do you bother to moderate your blog if you are going to allow someone to repeatedly use bad language, insults and innuendos? I’m pretty sure that if I were to say things like this you would likely ban me from this site.

He generally doesn’t “moderate” the comments, you insipidly whining dipshit. I’ve had a time-out before, but the yobbo that you’ve suddenly started allogrooming was so full of tired crap and evasion and flounces and posturing, etc., that he picked the wrong place and especially the wrong time.

Hey Davey! Why does it also have to be vaccines causing autism? Even though genetics has been discovered to cause over half of the spectrum have been discovered, and more are being found as you whinge over vaccines.

Seriously, why does it have to be vaccines? Why not just a bad roll of the genetic dice combined with a redefinition due to actual scientific research? The latter I say as a parent of a non-verbal kid who did not get an autism diagnosis in 1990 under DSM III… but did twenty four years later under both DSM IV and DSM V.

Seriously, can you even keep up with the history?

So you rock up to GPs and nurses with a document, demanding that they sign it before you will consider receiving treatment, and they tell you to sod off and stop wasting their time, there are other patients waiting.

Do you get this a lot?

Well yes people do die from it but looking at statistics in the uk they usually have an auto immune deficiency or are very young under 1.

Yeah, and every one of them deserve to die, don’t they? Hey, if your kid gets the measles and passes it on to someone’s baby and it dies, well, that’s just their bad luck, right? Or is God’s will? Seriously, I’d like to know, so that we can know what kind of loon you are.

Either way, it’s idiots like you that help keep M,M, and R from being extinct in the wild. Pity you weren’t around to help save smallpox, eh? With more people like you, it could have been saved.

And of course anyone who answered you didn’t die from the measles, did they? Only survivors can tell stories.

“I have, i got it when I was 10, i did not die, ”

Of course, I am sure Olivia Dahl would have loved to say that. Try to get a copy of the book The BFG written by her dad, Roald Dahl. Remember when you read the book to your kid that you explain exactly why it is dedicated to the memory of his oldest child.

Spoiler: it is because she died from measles! She seemed to be on the mend one day, but was dead on the next.

Speaking of horseshit, would you care to posr this “contract” “written by your solicitors” for everyone to behold?

Mr Groves:

…I am not anti vaccine…

If you are downplaying the harms of diseases and exaggerating the risks of vaccination, then yes, you most definitely ARE anti
vaccine.
@Narad, that would be good for a laugh or two.

Have any of you had measeles? I have, i got it when I was 10, i did not die

I had measles when I was 2 and ended up in hospital.

I ask this question because everyone is so keen to tell my wife and I that people die from measeles whenever I say I’m not giving my son the MMR at 13 months.

I made sure my children were vaccinated against measles as soon as their doctor recommended, so they didn’t have the problems I had. But then I am a responsible parent.

Well yes people do die from it but looking at statistics in the uk they usually have an auto immune deficiency or are very young under 1.

Absolutely. That is because these people cannot be vaccinated against measles. But clearly you are the sort of sociopath that doesn’t care what happens to anyone else, so long as you can do whatever you like.

I am clearly no scientific expert

It shows. You can chalk that one up with all the other things that you are not.

With that in mind I asked my GP and the nurses to sign a contract I had written by my solicitors that said in layman’s terms that any major neurological side effects resulting directly from the MMR vaccine (this was a two week time period and there was a full list of major atypical neurological disorders for children of that age ) was their doing, none would sign and he hadn’t receive the vaccination.

Seriously you did this? You are a nutcase as well. Actually, my guess is that no self-respecting lawyer would create such a document.

Hey guys come on now there is no need for the personal attack, it was simply a question that I wanted answering. Thank you for your time, but please if you are going to answer be scientific about it, dont quote world wide measeles statistics rather than locally geographic results. In the uk encephalitis in all measeles cases reported in the last 5 years shows no encephalitis in approx 6000 cases. In that 6000 who contracted measeles 58% were fully vaccinated, 36% were unvaccinated and 6% were unable to receive vacination (ie too young). You can view all the stats on the uk gov website it’s really useful in seeing actual statistics and it even breaks down cases per county and immunisation rates per county. Further to this the idea of vaccinating is still a sound argument that I agree with in most cases but to also argue that I am harming other people is ridiculous, if you are vaccinated surley you have nothing to worry about as you can’t contract measeles as you are immune or not?herd immunity is an ideology to try to eradicate a virus and if you know the history of the measles vaccination program the goal posts for herd immunity have changed massively since the 1970s it started as a figure of 50% of the population and has slowly been pushed upwards to where it now sits at 95% and in some countries 100% . Further to this in a recent telegraph article there was a small rise in the number of cases of measeles in Surrey recently and the NHS released a statement along with this article saying that if you had the MMR over 10 years ago to go and get another shot, but if you were born prior to 1970 more than likely you have caught measeles and do not require immunisation but to have your titers checked for antibody levels. So in all seriousness they are saying that the majority of the population in the uk is walking around with insufficient antibody levels to not catch measeles other than those who have actually caught it previously. The article tried to blame unvaccinated individuals of which there were only 2 people in the 153 cases but it was found that the small outbreak originated from a fully vaccinated individual who had been to China. You can google the telegraph article and again you can get the results/info of this small outbreak by contacting Surrey county council they are very helpful. Please go and get vaccinated everyone its of course your choice and in most cases your children will be fine but you can look at statistics yourself and make an informed decision rather than blindly following the opinions of the people on this forum/ blog who are heavily biased and not pragmatic enough to really trust and it always boils down to who you trust and what research evidence you trust when it comes to making any decision in life unless you are the person who has carried out the experiment and most people trust themselves!!!

First off: paragraphs. They make your comment easier to read.

In that 6000 who contracted measles 58% were fully vaccinated, 36% were unvaccinated and 6% were unable to receive vaccination (ie too young).

What is the percentage of people who are vaccinated? Typically it’s over 90%, so assuming your statistics are accurate, people who are vaccinated have only one quarter the risk of people who are not vaccinated.

…to also argue that I am harming other people is ridiculous…

No it isn’t. Deliberately unvaccinated people have passed the diseases on to those too young to be vaccinated. You yourself used statistics that showed that 6% of Measles sufferers weer too young to be vaccinated. By not vaccinating, you raise the risk that they will be infected.

The article tried to blame unvaccinated individuals of which there were only 2 people in the 153 cases but it was found that the small outbreak originated from a fully vaccinated individual who had been to China.

You make the claim, you supply the evidence. That’s how it works round here.
In fact, citation needed for ALL your claims.
Finally, you are once again using known, well-worn, already refuted antivaccine arguments. I hate to be a bromide, but if the item in question is perambulating like an anatidaeid and vocalising like an anatidaeid, consideration must be given to the possibility that the item in question IS an anatidaeid. If you don’t want to be labelled antivaccine, don’t act like one.

In the uk encephalitis in all measeles cases reported in the last 5 years shows no encephalitis in approx 6000 cases.

The gov.uk site lists 6102 notified cases in 2013 alone, so I have to conclude that you’re a fabulating dumbarse.

if you know the history of the measles vaccination program the goal posts for herd immunity have changed massively since the 1970s it started as a figure of 50% of the population and has slowly been pushed upwards

I am familiar with early papers with their optimistic figures for herd-immunity vaccination levels… but “50%”? Please, dude. You’re making yourself look like a right barmpot.

The article tried to blame unvaccinated individuals of which there were only 2 people in the 153 cases

Google is unable to trace any Telegraph article about a recent outbreak in Surrey with 153 cases. Of course Google does not have access to your colon, which appears to be the source of most of your statistics.

Great, you can’t even fucking spell measles, and you’re babbling about being a big boy and having had your titers checked just for shits and giggles. Did your imaginary solicitors do it? Perhaps they could also check out your case of stercoraceous vomiting.

C’mon, Babycakes, please mention imaginary NICE guidelines.

You really are an angry bunch. Okay you are right, I am wrong we will leave it at that. Good work.

Translation: I came in here reciting stale antivaccine tropes as if they were fresh and new, only to get nailed by commentators who not only have heard them multiple times before, but who have each refuted them multiple times already. So now I’m crawling away with an epic case of butthurt.

That is hilarious coming from someone who ignored the data from the Simon Foundation and their SPARK for Autism. You posted something about it was not real because of reasons.

I’m still waiting for his response to why a wholesale rejection of ontology doesn’t affect a thing, but I doubt that he even read his own copy-paste job or my reply.

I clicked on your two links. Nowhere in either did I find proof for your claim that:

In that 6000 who contracted measles 58% were fully vaccinated

In fact, you understated the number of Measles cases.
It is a crank tactic to post information claiming it supports you when the opposite is true.

Julian Frost: Translation I gave you a semi as you sat panting over your keyboard waiting to write a load of insults in your mums living room.

Funny coming from someone who is whinging on about measles in the comments of an article about some bad research on aluminum adjuvants. No version of an MMR vaccine has ever contained an adjuvant (aluminum or otherwise), nor a preservative (like thimerosal).

Source: Office for National Statistics

Prior to 2006, the last death from acute measles was in 1992. In 2006, there was 1 measles death in a 13-year-old male who had an underlying lung condition and was taking immunosuppressive drugs. Another death in 2008 was also due to acute measles in an unvaccinated child with a congenital immunodeficiency, whose condition did not require treatment with immunoglobulin. In 2013, 1 death was reported in a 25-year-old man following acute pneumonia as a complication of measles. In 2016, one death was reported in a 10-month-old infant who suffered complications due to a secondary infection.

All other measles deaths since 1992 shown above are in older individuals and were caused by the late effects of measles. These infections were acquired during the 1980s or earlier, when epidemics of measles occurred.

In 2013 that one death is pretty much reflects the typical one death per a thousand cases of measles. Did you have a point? Other than showing vaccination does prevent measles death and disability. And that you like to blame the victim because they did not have “perfect health.”

Oh, and speaking of immune systems: measles pretty much wipes out a kid’s immune system for a few years, making them more susceptible to harm from other diseases:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823017/

Oooh look! Not a news article or old statistics from a small country.

@Chris Preston When was the last time you had your Titres checked and were immunised for measles. I’m guessing (but please correct me if I am wrong) you haven’t been immunised or checked for antibody levels in your blood in the last 10 years. I myself am immune for life, as is my wife as we both had measles in childhood, I have still gone ahead and had my anti body levels checked for measles as this is the responsible thing to do. As I have stated earlier the NHS in the UK advises people to get a booster now as the longevity of the immune response to the measles vaccine is not the same as actually catching the virus. Please also see this recently regarding the worlds most successful professional sports team.

https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/international-rugby/all-blacks-star-isolated-after-contracting-mumps-ahead-of-wales-clash-36341796.html

https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/99254880/fourth-case-of-mumps-for-all-blacks-with-lock-luke-romano-laid-low

Best quote from the NZ rugby coach
“Luke is in semi-quarantine because he’s got them as well,” said Hansen. “That’s four cases we’ve had, and all of them have been vaccinated.”

So you have no idea what happened to Olivia Dahl. Or that about one in twenty end up in the hospital, mostly because at least one in ten with measles get pneumonia. Or that the reason there are so few cases of measles, and deaths from measles is that most people are sensible so they vaccinate their families. Or that news articles are not scientific literature.

Here are a couple of publications for you to peruse:
The Clinical Significance of Measles: A Review
and:
Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan

In the second paper:

In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

Now if you wish to not stick the flounce, then come back with some actual PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that the present MMR vaccine used in the UK causes more harm than measles, mumps and rubella. Until then, please thank your responsible neighbors who vaccinate their families. They are increasing your community’s immunity to those diseases, making you a freeloader.

Out of curiosity, how do you know you are immune for life? Have you had your titres checked? Or do you assume that everyone who had measles once is immune for life?

@Chris Preston When was the last time you had your Titres checked and were immunised for measles. I’m guessing (but please correct me if I am wrong) you haven’t been immunised or checked for antibody levels in your blood in the last 10 years.

Have you always had trouble with reading comprehension? Or are you just an idiot?

I stated I had measles as a 2 year old. Recommendations are that I don’t need to be vaccinated. Getting my titres checked will be of limited value of someone of my age, sex and measles history.

I myself am immune for life, as is my wife as we both had measles in childhood, I have still gone ahead and had my anti body levels checked for measles as this is the responsible thing to do.

Unless there are indications that you may have limited immunity to measles, this is not responsible. It is wasting everyone’s time.

As I have stated earlier the NHS in the UK advises people to get a booster now as the longevity of the immune response to the measles vaccine is not the same as actually catching the virus.

The recommendation for adults is: “The MMR vaccine can also be given on the NHS to adults who may need it, including people born from 1970-79 who may have only been vaccinated against measles, as well as those born from 1980-90 who may not be protected against mumps.”

So you have definitively demonstrated a failure to comprehend what you read.

Please also see this recently regarding the worlds most successful professional sports team.

Why is this relevant?

Still no reply about Titre check. When you all have done this I will respect your point of view until then you are as bad as anyone not vaccinating their child fact.

I had my titers checked before my second pregnancy – child born 2015 – and I am immune to measles.

The CDC points out that immunity to measles and rubella from MMR is likely lifelong for most people.

Note that your sources did not support your numbers.

Maybe, in light of the information you were provided, you should reconsider the choice not to protect your child from this disease? Here is another risk to consider.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0068909

Thank you for the link I will look further into this study. The NHS are maintaining a stance of booster every 15 years as the rise case in fully vaccinated adults has risen. There are at present studies by 2 vaccine manufacturers in relation to these findings, everyone want to do what’s best for their children and I’m glad you had your titre check many people don’t and I hate to say it but if the manufacturers are not sure than how can you be. If all the people in here who have had the MMR or measles vaccine more than 15 years ago go and get their titres checked post the results on here and they all come back that they have immunity then I will take my child to get vaccinated for measles in the singular form not MMR, sounds fair. It’s worth seeing he results and a bonus it might make you less inclined if you aren’t immune to throw insults at people who are immune for life.

Post your fucking “contract,” you outhouse corncob. I had a fucking MMR booster last year.

And I had an MMR vaccine three years ago. The reason was that I was born in 1957, I have no idea if I had measles because the only the person who would know died fifty years ago. Also we were going to take a trip to California in an area near a measles outbreak, and I really did not want my vacation to get me sick.

That MMR vaccine did not make me autistic. My oldest is autistic, we know it was not from any vaccine. He also has a genetic heart disorder that required surgery. I sincerely doubt any vaccine caused that!

And I had an MMR vaccine three years ago. The reason was that I was born in 1957, I have no idea if I had measles because the only the person who would know died fifty years ago.

Yah, I was born in ’67, so I never had the booster dose.

This is one reported outbreak they are referencing. The link I previously gave has a spreadsheet you can download on vaccine uptake per county per age group it is a huge document and there is also another spreadsheet you can download in the same link with cases of measeles per county per age group. You the have to look at outbreak data on another large spreadsheet that you can ask your GP to help you source, my GP was really understanding and helped my source outbreak info for me it is with the office of national statistics and doctors ca request it for you more easily than general public. It breaks it down into fully immunised, partially, not known, unvaccinated by choice and not eligible for vacination and the virus strain found. It varies on virus strain for different outbreaks but on most occasions there is a considerable % of fully vaccinated who have caught the virus. Then match this to data in the specific county for cases of measeles that year and you can derive in that one case how many of the vaccinated people make up the total figure of cases of measeles in that county. It’s a arduous process but one of the stats that I was interested In when making a choice for my son. I am still undecided as to if I should get the vaccine or not, there is so much conflicting information on safety and I personally know a single father who says his son changed immediately after his MMR and has aspergers, and I have know him my whole life, so do I trust his opinion or the advice of faceless organisations. So I looked into it further and into the statistics along with knowing what measeles and German measeles is actually like first hand and I’m still torn. I will be entirely honest the reaction of certain people on here has definitely not helped the go get my so vaccinated cause but if people can help to make both sides of the argument less emotional then it is easier to see the wood from the trees.

“I am still undecided as to if I should get the vaccine or not, there is so much conflicting information on safety and I personally know a single father who says his son changed immediately after his MMR and has aspergers, and I have know him my whole life, so do I trust his opinion or the advice of faceless organisations.”

Unfortunately the plural of anecdote is not data. Much of the time it is just a coincidence in timing. There is actual research that has found the causes of over half of the autism spectrum syndromes:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/

Also, here is a wee bit of perspective. The USA approved its first MMR vaccine in 1971, and put out an improved (rubella bit) in 1978. That is the one that is still used today. Now the UK introduced its first MMR vaccines in 1988. There were three versions, but two were removed in 1992.

The USA has been using an MMR vaccine for seventeen years longer than the UK. The USA is also a much larger country than the UK, in fact the USA is the third largest country on this planet. It stands to reason that if the MMR vaccine was associated with a marked increase in autism it would have been noticed earlier in the the country that is both larger and had been using the vaccine longer.

Usually at this point I challenge those who are defending Wakefield to bring up the verifiable documentation dated before 1990 that autism rates were increasing in the USA during the 1970s and 1980s. That way they would be helping him by showing he had an actual reason for doing his small case series in 1998, instead of being paid by Richard Barr to support a lawsuit.

Nevertheless he is a friend and I have known him for over 30 years so it’s very hard to just ignore his anecdote no matter how irrelevant you may think it is. My worry now is if my son did have an adverse reaction to the vaccine I would never forgive myself, if he got measeles I would hope that he reacts to it the same way I did and fully recovered, it a risk assessment exercise but on behalf of another human being. I am someone throughout my life who has had most of the viruses/ infections that the MMR vaccines prevents but not mumps. I have also had chicken pox, scarlet fever and pneumonia so I may be a bit less scared than most who have never experienced the symptoms of the viruses first hand.

Please could someone help me understand a question I have in my head but you guys might give me a good answer and help me with it. If it is as you say only unvaccinated people who catch and spread measeles to each other and they mostly recover with full immunity in developed nations then why are vaccinated individuals so angry at the people who are not vaccinated it’s only unvaccinated individuals that are at risk. It is well documented that mothers breast milk will keep infants safe in the first 6 months to a year so no problem as not many people are dying from it, more infants die in playground accidents each year than from measeles so again why is it such a big deal in developed nations?

Do you know how to click on links? Sorry, it does not matter if you have known him for fifty years, it is just a story. It is not data. Nor is it science.

This a foundation that is doing real science (hint: click on the link and read the articles):
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/

“… so again why is it such a big deal in developed nations?”

Because measles comes back when you do not vaccinate. Again, do you know how to click on links? Here is a test of your reading ability:

What happened to Japan with measles? What happened at least 88 times?

What did the article that Dorit post say about Europe and measles?

I am going to post again a study on what happens after measles infection… go read it and tell us how the disease affected immune systems:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4823017/

Now you are really going to need to produce verifiable documentation dated before 1990 that autism rose in the USA during the 1970s and 1980s coincident to the use of MMR vaccines. Why do you think I am asking you that.

Your “question” is not even wrong. And FFS, it’s spelled “measles”.

If it is as you say only unvaccinated people who catch and spread measeles to each other…

Straw Man argument. Nobody has said that. We say that the unvaccinated are disproportionately likely to catch and spread measles.

…then why are vaccinated individuals so angry at the people who are not vaccinated it’s only unvaccinated individuals that are at risk.

And those people include those too young to be vaccinated.

It is well documented that mothers breast milk will keep infants safe in the first 6 months to a year…

For crying out loud. Breastmilk is not unicorn blood. And I challenge you to go through old cemeteries. I guarantee you there will be gravestones of children under a year old who died of measles.

…no problem as not many people are dying from it, more infants die in playground accidents each year than from measeles

And the reason so few people are dying from measles is because of vaccination and herd immunity. But if enough people stop vaccinating, measles WILL come back and people WILL start dying from it again.

What’s the over/under on a return of Philip Hills here? I’ve only got my phone at the moment, so I can’t really do the heavy lifting right now.

It was only a question seriously you are doing more harm with your arrogance. I think the anti vaccine movement must be employing you to stop people vaccinating using reverse psychology.

Julian Frost please remove the oversized chip off your shoulder and start being less of a plonker, I am not an expert like yourself. If you were to ask me questions how to architect ISP core networks and the mechanisms in place to control the global communication of data around the planet I would be happy to answer them in a non sarcastic manner, no matter how dumb I thought your questions or theories were. As that is where my expertise lies having designed and configured multiple tier 1 ISP networks and played a part in architecting MPLS a feature that all networks and ISPs utilise to this day, that ultimately makes communication on sites like this possible. So basically stop being such conseited a hole and just answer the question.

So you have not actually read any of the links provided. Good to know.

Why do you not care about the more than 88 kids who died because of Japan’s idiotic policy about measles vaccination? Is that you being a wee bit racist? Or just someone who just does not read.

Deer Eddy, read the links. In countries that do not keep up their community’s immunity to vaccination… children die. It has happened in France, Italy and Romania. You keep look at your own small island nation like it is the world… but seriously the reason so few died is because of both vaccines and that you live in a small country by population.

Obviously you are the one with arrogance… from ignorance.

“So basically stop being such conseited a hole and just answer the question.”

We have answered your questions multiple times. It is not our job to physically grab your hand to put the mouse (or your finger) over the several links provided and actually click on them. It is like you do not understand how to hover a mouse over a link even when we actually say “click on this link.” Here, let me try it again for a third time … a real science effort:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/

Look! It even has an “https” bit in front! Did you miss it? How about the one link about the Japanese experience with measles? Did you miss that too? Even though I cut and pasted a direct quote? What kind of fool are you? (obviously someone who has turned off spell check)

Oh, wait… you are one of these:

Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Rawhide!
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin’,
Rawhide!

Cherry pick!
(Head em’ up!)
Move goalposts!
(Move ’em on!)
More insults!
(Head em’ up!)
Rawhide!
Make stuff up!
(Paste ’em in!)
Change topics!
(Cut em’ out!)
Whine some more!
Paste ’em in,
Rawhide!
Keep trollin’, trollin’, trollin’
Though they’re disaprovin’
Keep them comments trollin”,
Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ’em
Just rope, laugh, and ignore ’em
Soon we’ll be discussin’ right without ’em

Now show some actual cognitive ability… answer my questions that prove you can actually read a linked web page!

“If you were to ask me questions how to architect ISP core networks and the mechanisms in place to control the global communication of data around the planet I would be happy to answer them in a non sarcastic manner,… ”

And yet you cannot click on a web link nor use spell check. Uh huh.

Peaches, sites like this got along just fine without MPLS. So stop being as asshole and post your “contract.”

I’ve clicked on your links boys, and read most of what has been said. I’m not asking for hand holding or for you to point me to more of the same thing. You did answer the questions but time and time again you can’t contain your anger. I am dyslexic so my written English is not particularly good. I am also typing on a phone and the spell check doesn’t correct words that have been used multiple times previously and selected incorrectly, so I apologise if this has annoyed anyone on here it’s a simple mistake that people with any sort of brain capacity can decipher and understand the sentiment behind the incorrect grammar and spelling. I am on the other hand very good with numbers hence my job requires me to only really interact with machines that don’t really care to much for written English and prefer binary and hexadecimal as their means to communicate.

On the subject of trolling, this seems to be something that a lot of the posters on here are very good at. You take quotes from sources that back up your argument but disregard other scientists views if they don’t fit your beliefs, if anyone says anything that you happen to disagree with you immediately try to humiliate rather than educate. You come across as a hungry pack of wolves with a pre conceived agenda and are incapable of even considering that you might have it wrong. An exercise for you is to find science that disproves your deep seated beliefs or use science to disprove your theories, this is what makes science great that it constantly questions what is considered scientifically acurate at the time and sets out to disprove them. I am if the opinion that vaccinations in theory are a good thing but may not be quite as safe as we are told and am sceptical of their effectiveness in all circumstances you seem to be of the opinion that they are infallible and entirely safe no matter what anyone says.

You have to admit that in every outbreak of measles there are a small percentage of people who do catch the virus who are fully vaccinated you can see this info at both the CDCs website and European equivalent. So let’s say in theory everyone is vaccinated and you have a 100% vacination rate across the globe do you then think measles would be eradicated and please remember that you would still according to your own quotes and links have infant hosts as they can’t have MMR untill after 1 year and you don’t believe breastmilk has any real value, your quote “breastmilk is not unicorn blood” couple this with the fact according to the ECDC in Europe 2016-2017 87% of cases of measles were in unvaccinated people but there was still 5% fully vaccinated and 8% partially that caught measles how would it be possible to eradicate it in its entirety. I think it could be possible but I do not believe it will happen due to ease of travel and the financial strain it would take for developing nations to implement the current defined strategy that is in place to succeed in its mission coupled with the small amount of waning immunity in fully vaccinated individuals.

Firstly, my comment “breastmilk is not unicorn blood” was a Harry Potter reference. I was referring to the fact that some people attribute almost magical powers to breastmilk.
Secondly, and going back to an earlier comment of yours, your question was just “if you and your children are vaccinated, why do you care if I and my children are not?” rephrased somewhat. As I pointed out, the unvaccinated are disproportionately likely to infect those who are too young to be vaccinated and those who are immunosuppressed (e.g. they are undergoing chemotherapy for cancer).
Now let’s dispose of your question: “how would it be possible to eradicate [measles] in its entirety?” You seem to think that even if everyone was vaccinated, that still wouldn’t be enough to eradicate measles. It would. Remember, Smallpox is now extinct in the wild.
Epidemiologists account for vaccine effectiveness when calculating the percentages necessary to achieve herd immunity levels. And it worked. Measles is no longer endemic to the Americas. In other words, it has died out in North America and South America. If herd immunity levels were reached in the other continents, Measles would no longer be endemic to them either. In other words, like smallpox, it would be extinct in the wild.
Like smallpox.

couple this with the fact according to the ECDC in Europe 2016-2017 87% of cases of measles were in unvaccinated people but there was still 5% fully vaccinated and 8% partially that caught measles how would it be possible to eradicate it in its entirety

There’s no nonhuman reservoir, self described human adding machine. Work out the fucking SIER PDEs yourself. When R_{textnormal{eff}} is sustained at a level below 1, it’s game over.

^^ “SEIR,” as well. I’m going to have break down and buy a cup of coffee.

So let’s say in theory everyone is vaccinated and you have a 100% vacination rate across the globe do you then think measles would be eradicated and please remember that you would still according to your own quotes and links have infant hosts

“Hosts”? You don’t get it. The word is “susceptibles.” This is a nontrivial difference. Typhoid Mary was a host. I have already pointed you to SEIR models. Try to cipher them out. Or figure out what it stands for in the first place rather than wildly flailing.

Despite these concerns, measles has not only been eradicated in the western hemisphere but also in Hong Kong, a city of millions adjacent to (or part of) China, which has the highest number of measles cases in the world and has people traveling back and forth to the city every day.

It sounds like vaccination and herd immunity are working pretty well there!

Edward please keep posting, folks need to hear from a variety of perspectives and Lord knows this blog could use some more diversity. Your observations are right on, except that in many measles outbreaks it actually isn’t a small number of vaccinated individuals who get measles. There are some outbreaks which involve populations which are not highly vaccinated, and these are the only ones these people will ever talk about. They won’t mention that the majority of the outbreaks in the US are in highly vaccinated populations, with many of cases being themselves vaccinated.

Believe me, I understand your frustration. Here is something that well explains what you have already noted about this population of folks:

http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/characteristics.php

Here are the specific characteristics noted:

Does not question anything from established non-religious institutions, but takes whatever they say on faith and demands that others do the same.
Does not ask questions to try to understand new things, but judges them by whether they fit into orthodoxy.
Applies “critical thinking” only to that which opposes orthodoxy or materialism, but never to the status quo itself.
Immediately judges as false and debunks anything that contradicts their paradigm.
Are not interested in truth, evidence or facts, only in defending their views.
Cannot think in terms of possibilities, but sees their paradigms as fixed and constant.
Are willing to lie and deceive to discredit their opponents.
Automatically dismisses and denies all data that contradicts materialism and orthodoxy.
Are judgmental and quick to draw conclusions about things they know little or nothing about.
Scoffs and ridicules what they oppose instead of using objective analysis and examination.
When faced with evidence or facts they can’t refute, uses semantics, word games and denial to try to obfuscate the issue.
Unable to adapt their paradigms to new evidence, and denies data which doesn’t fit into them.
When all conventional explanations for an unexplainable phenomenon are ruled out, are still not able to accept paranormal ones.
Dislikes mystery and uncertainty, and insist that all unknown phenomena must have a mundane explanation.
Views the scientific establishment as a religion and authority to be taken on faith and never questioned or challenged. Does not understand the difference between the scientific process/methodology and the scientific establishment institution.
Assumes that the scientific establishment is objective and unbiased, and free of politics, corruption, control, censorship and suppression for no other reason than blind faith in authority.

And here is my favorite:

Will never admit that they are wrong no matter what, regardless of evidence.

They won’t mention that the majority of the outbreaks in the US are in highly vaccinated populations, with many of cases being themselves vaccinated.

Citation needed.

Applies “critical thinking” only to that which opposes orthodoxy or materialism, but never to the status quo itself.

Jesus Christ, it’s Foster with a bowl of copypasta that he doesn’t even understand.

That’s quite a list of opinions, David. IMHO, several of them apply just as well, if not better, to those who argue against skeptics. But let me offer a few thoughts of mine own.

First, I’d like to see you show in a convincing way that one of them really applies to one of the regular commenters here, rather than just tossing off the list as if it proves anything.

First, the word paradigm always pops out at me because a key course in my college which recently celebrated their 50th anniversary was the study of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn. And so many commenters act as if a paradigm shift is somehow going to magically make all the data they disagree with go away and validate whatever their ideas are. A true paradigm shift is necessary when there is clear, independently replicated data that are not well explained by the current paradigm. What data about contagious diseases do you think is not well explained by the germ theory of disease?

Occasionally this blog touches on paranormal topics like energy healing. I’ve tried to approach these claims by asking reasonable scientific questions, but never seem to get answers that are even halfway useful in finding a way to verify what is actually happening. And the evidence in support of this healing is far less than Harry Potter quality.

Science as a religion often gets tossed out. But they are two different ways of trying to understand the world. Religions take certain principles as accepted on faith and then tries to reason out conclusions. Science is an iterative process, looking at the world, testing and measuring it, then proposing an explanation and then testing and measuring that explanation.

So for measles, scientists established that it was carried by a virus. They developed a vaccine that could stimulate immunity to the virus without making people suffer the actual disease and its complications like ear infections, diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis and long term effects like SSPE as well as the risk of death.
https://www.cdc.gov/measles/about/complications.html

It took a while to work out the details necessary for an effective vaccination campaign, but we succeeded in eliminating measles from the U.S. in 2000, and have eliminated rubella from the western hemisphere in 2015 and now measles in 2016.

So this real life experiment shows that vaccination works to eliminate the disease and save peoples’ lives. In 1980, 2.6 million people died of measles worldwide. In 2014 that number was reduced to 73,000.

And I have been wrong and am willing to admit it.

I used to think the numbers from the NVICP resolutions were the best available estimate for the death risk from vaccination. For instance, from 2006 to 2016, 94,815,650 doses of the MMR were administered and 116 claims were compensated. This is a risk of a serious long term side effect of about 1 in a million. And 61 claims of death were made. So if half of those were compensated that would be a death risk of about 1 in 3 million from the vaccine.

But, a recent study of detailed medical records of 60 deaths in patients less than 30 days after receiving a vaccine could not find a single death that could plausibly be attributed to a vaccine reaction. So the real risk of death from a vaccine is much less than the conservative NVICP estimate and much, much less than the disease itself.
https://www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/vaccination-mortality-risk-nothing-there/

Vaccines aren’t perfect, but they are as safe or safer than many things we do every day without thinking about the risk and they work to protect us and the people around us.

“That’s quite a list of opinions, David. IMHO, several of them apply just as well, if not better, to those who argue against skeptics.”

David has never been much of an original thinker. He likes to complain how we don’t know science, the problem is that his understanding of science is fractured he thinks psychics can read minds. That website is meant to defend paranormal beliefs. Check out its committee:
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/committee.php

The last two are hilarious: Indigo Child and Purple Scissor.

Did you read the whole thing, or just the headline?

If waning immunity is not a problem, this outbreak suggests that measles transmission can occur within the 2%-10% of expected vaccine failures (5,7). However, transmission was not sustained beyond 36 days in this outbreak, and community spread was principally among unvaccinated preschool children. The infrequent occurrence of measles among highly vaccinated persons suggests that this outbreak may have resulted from chance clustering of otherwise randomly distributed vaccine failures in the community. That measles transmission can occur among vaccine failures makes it even more important to ensure persons are adequately vaccinated. Had there been a substantial number of unvaccinated or inadequately vaccinated students in the high school and the community, transmission in Sangamon County probably would have been sustained.

Notice that this is a 1984 outbreak – before the move to two doses of MMR, which means all the kids involved were under-vaccinated by our standards – and still, the outbreak was 16 cases out of 411 students, one vaccinated college student and four unvaccinated toddlers.

Measles infects 90% of susceptible people exposed to it. That’s not exactly a story of dramatic vaccine failure.

There is a reason none of you ever provide evidence of high levels of vaccinated people with measles among people in outbreaks after the move to two doses of MMR: Measles is primarily a disease of the unvaccinated. In the U.S. and in Europe, pretty consistently.

For other diseases as well, the rates are higher in the unvaccinated (though the numbers won’t always be). Here is a collection of articles on that: http://www.immunize.org/catg.d/p2069.pdf

In Europe, too, most are unvaccinated or under vaccinated.

https://ecdc.europa.eu/en/news-events/measles-eueea-current-outbreaks-latest-data-and-trends-january-2018

A paper that is of interest is the CDCs study into the possibility of measles worldwide eradication. The conclusion of this study by the CDC Is that eradication of measeles is possible but highly unlikely. They even state that there would need to be above 95% worldwide vaccination due to the fact that there is at least 5% of the population where antibody response is not as expected and will wane overtime. They fully admit to the fact that it does wane overtime and have yet to formalize the exact percentage of the amount of vaccination waning that is occurring. This is understandable because not everyone has the same brand of vaccination worldwide and not every human has the same antibody response so it would be hard to give an exact figure.

I happen to not trust the 5% figure and if it is higher then in reality herd immunity really is never going to happen.

Please study this paper on herd immunity to really understand the complexity of it and the reality that it really is not an exact science or proven, it is still a theory based on mathematical models that inherintly are optimistic in relation to required percentages.

http://op12no2.me/stuff/herdhis.pdf

So you are continuing to be JAQing off. Your questions have been answered, and yet you come back to post more nonsense.

Now you are just trolling. Could you please just stick the flounce already, you (and Davey Foster) are just not worth the time.

Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Rawhide!
Trollin’ Trollin’ Trollin’
Though the threads are swollen
Keep them comments trollin’,
Rawhide!

Cherry pick!
(Head em’ up!)
Move goalposts!
(Move ’em on!)
More insults!
(Head em’ up!)
Rawhide!
Make stuff up!
(Paste ’em in!)
Change topics!
(Cut em’ out!)
Whine some more!
Paste ’em in,
Rawhide!
Keep trollin’, trollin’, trollin’
Though they’re disaprovin’
Keep them comments trollin”,
Rawhide!
Don’t try to understand ’em
Just rope, laugh, and ignore ’em
Soon we’ll be discussin’ right without ’em

it is still a theory based on mathematical models that inherintly are optimistic in relation to required percentages

“Inherintly” how?

Let’s pretend that you’re right – that we can’t eradicate measles.

Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t try? Should we just say to heck with it, and return to a time where this is common? Is that what you want?

BTW, your blaming your semiliteracy on your phone and “dyslexia” isn’t really ringing any more true than your claim of “configuring [whatever the fuck that’s supposed to mean] multiple tier 1 ISP networks” (of which the UK has exactly one) and “architecting.”

See also here; I haven’t read it yet, and I’m getting a redirect to academic-dot-oup-dot-com because of my location, but it should be open-access.

A paper that is of interest is the CDCs study into the possibility of measles worldwide eradication.

The one that you failed to identify? I mean, there’s plenty of information on the 2020 goal, Tier 0.

Just because it is harder than we first thought does not mean it is not going to happen. Since that paper was written 25 years ago, measles was eradicated in the U.S. and now the entire Western hemisphere.

I’ll note a few quotes:

It is evident that the incidence of measles in the United States has fallen by approximately 99 percent since the introduction of vaccination in 1963, even accepting the resurgence which began in 1989, despite the fact that a smaller percentage of individuals have been immunized.

Faced with this situation, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice to the US Public Health Service recommended in 1989 that all American children receive two doses of measles vaccine, at 15 months of age and at school entry.

Sporadic outbreaks of measles in highly vaccinated populations have raised another problem for herd immunity. Some authors have implied that such events challenge the concept of population protection by a high prevalence of immunes. This is too pessimistic an appraisal.

Current measles and polio programs are destined to enlarge greatly our understanding of herd immunity.

Ironically, we may learn more about herd immunity by observing what happens to mumps and rubella, as a consequence of the measles elimination effort, than by observing measles itself. If mumps or rubella do disappear, it will be attributable largely to the passive effects of indirect protection, to herd immunity alone.

Since rubella was eliminated in the western hemisphere a year before measles itself, it looks like herd immunity is working.

Narad not that I really have to justify my job title and where I work but if you must know. I have worked all over the world, primarily my roles were based in the US and Japan, I worked for level3 for many years and then NTT, i have also designed and built many tier two and three ISP networks in the UK, 14 Autonomous Systems to be precise. If you don’t know what they are please google “isp autonomous system”. I now am a director of two self started companies one Network design/ engineering consultancy and the other a training company that specializes in training of people for their Cisco CCIE exams. If you worked in the industry I work in configuring is a word that is often used that describes the building and deploying of configuration text via the CLI to routing or switching devices. Sometimes also configing is used in its place. It’s again not traditional English but it is fairly self explanatory when viewed in context.

I don’t understand why you are fixated on trying to say that is not my area of expertise and that I am not dyslexic, it was merely my honest answer to other other posters arrogant responses to my poor grammar and my lack of thorough knowledge of the subject at hand. It really is irrelevant to the argument/ opinion share that is taking place.

Now that is cleared up back to the subject at hand, no Johnny I don’t think giving up is the correct thing to do, but the question is do you really believe herd immunity actually will ever work based on evidence presented at this time. It is only a mathematical prediction and so far it has yet to be proven. I don’t think the vaccine companies or the CDC would ever let you know if it was not possible, there is far too much at stake to tell people what might be the case that measles as a virus is not possible to eradicate using vaccination. Again I say, it all comes down to who you trust.

i have also designed and built many tier two and three ISP networks in the UK, 14 Autonomous Systems to be precise. If you don’t know what they are please google

I know perfectly well what BGP is, asshole. Where’s the “contract”?

It is only a mathematical prediction and so far it has yet to be proven [sic].

What kind of fucking idiot are you? Do you think “measeles” arises spontaneously? I repeat: There is no nonhuman reservoir. Perhaps your reading skills are as poor as your writing ones, as you’ve been provided plenty of information.

Oh, right:

If you worked in the industry I work in configuring is a word that is often used that describes the building and deploying of configuration text via the CLI to routing or switching devices.

The pseudoverb you have used at least twice, and which I took note of, is “architect,” not “configure.” Perhaps you can’t be bothered with remembering your own stinking piles of words.

They are only words try not to get so get up about it, it really isn’t a big deal. Terms and phrases are thrown around all the time in an industry that has so many acronyms it wouldn’t matter if you said it one way or another people who work in this industry use these words in this way I have all the time. The fact that you are getting annoyed about it shows how little you know of the industry I work in, we don’t care! We are busy making sure networks are functioning correctly not how we express the function we are performing in a traditionally grammatically correct manner.

We are busy making sure networks are functioning correctly not how we express the function we are performing in a traditionally grammatically correct manner.

TINW. HTH. I am impressed that coding has progressed to the point where parsers don’t care about spelling or grammar. They were a lot more finicky back when I was a CS grad student.

BTW, this was your bright idea to demonstrate your smurtness, evasive jackass.

I was demonstrating my lack of knowledge of the subject at hand and where my expertise lies instead. Not trying to demonstrate my smartness. Coding is a developers tool, I have never claimed to be a developer and my coding skills are slim. I am a network engineer not a programmer, and with network engineering comes the ability to Tab complete most commands so you get pretty darn lazy at spelling. Ask me to build a BSD or Linux router or configure and cisco or Juniper device or any UNIX based device from the command line and I will be more than happy to do this. Also to add to this if you typo something on the command line it just doesnt work i.e the computer says no! At that point you go back and check your text and correct as and when. When typing on a phone with spell check you can get the odd word incorrectly spelt .Command line generally is not also traditional English, so how you phrase things in traditional, grammatically correct English is not really that important.

Try to stay calm you are making yourself look like a douche

Nara did yes I was incorrect it was a WHO document on oxford academic site but not the one you have shown but that did make some interesting reading. See the following taken from it.

“We do not have enough experience to say that measles vaccination confers lifelong immunity, but the vaccine offers “long-lasting” immunity.
The current window of opportunity to eradicate measles provided by the sizeable proportion of the population with natural immunity suggests that, with respect to eradication efforts, faster may be better. There is evidence that mothers with vaccine-induced immunity transfer less anti-measles virus antibodies through the placenta, and hence, their infants become susceptible at an earlier age, and uncertainty exists about the durability of measles vaccine–induced immunity, particularly among the elderly population. “

So this model is reliant on people with natural immunity not fabricated unknown immunity that the vaccine has to offer.

In reality it seems unfortunately looking totally unsympathetically at the facts at present, however hard it is for us humans to accept that the only way that this virus will be ultimately be beaten is by people catching it beating it and those who’s immune system can’t handle it will suffer. Or here’s another theory that is a little less morbid, let those who want to not take the vaccine expose them to measles on purpose thus creating a larger pool of people with lifelong immunity and then try to vaccinate with a larger timeline due to properly immune individuals lengthening it. Unfortunately for you guys however much you’d like to see me dead I’ve had measles and so I can only really be seen as an asset to your cause.

Bye bye all of you it’s been a pleasure and you have made my decision very easy, it’s the anger that did it, reign that in and you will convince people that are unsure of which way to go to vaccinate. You do have a lot of tools at your disposal which is kind of weird considering if you like most people who get vaccinated just do it blindly without researching the subject you seem to have such deep and extensive knowledge. I suspect some of you are vaccine company shills or work for a psyop but I’m the liar/deceiver because I said I worked in the IT industry and have dyslexia.

Have fun believing the powers that be they’ve got your back, looking out for you all the time, got to keep the slaves healthy and brain dead so they don’t question anything.

I suspect some of you are vaccine company shills or work for a psyop

Stick the fucking flounce this time, you evasive coward.

I suspect some of you are vaccine company shills or work for a psyop

Let the record show that my psyop activities are purely pro-bono, and I receive no remuneration.

Oh shit, the things that sprung up to my imagination with google and colon:

Google metabolomics, your prefered source for google enema…

Alain (<– who’s paging Eneman 😀 )

What a fascinating article and discussion!

I found it after reading a journalistic report of the Exley research and wanted to see if anyone had credibly refuted it. Thus I arrived here.
And the impression I am left with is similar to Edward Groves’.

Regardless of the conclusion, so much anger, arrogance and intolerance from the pro-vaccination side!! 😮

Orac, your blog starts off with two classic logical fallacies: ‘poisoning the well’ and ‘ad hominem’. Not good.

To the mum with the user name Chris, you came out of the discussion looking reasonable, respecful, and intelligent-honesty.

Chris is one of our most knowledgeable commenters and I always appreciate her responses.

My favorite was the one by Scott Ghetey on December 26, which pointed out that Exley is using outdated technology in his search for aluminum.

I don’t think noting bad research by the same researcher or the source of their research funding is fallacious.

And the explanation of the problems with the experiment stands on its own.

Aw, thank you! Even though I did use a wee bit of snark.

It can be frustrating. Especially since the Exley’s study was on aluminum adjuvants, which have never been used in any version of the MMR vaccine. Bringing that up is kind of off topic. But, then again, about fifteen years ago I would send emails to journalists who actually wrote “when they removed the thimerosal in the MMR…” I had to explain it never contained thimerosal.

People like DF and EG (I survived the measles so it’s nothing to worry about and why are we bothering trying to eradicate it?) deserve the snark sooner or later.

I wonder if MBW knows what is in Edward’s super liability disclaimer contract?

Le sigh.

The MMR bit really drives me crazy. When I was participating in a listserv email group for my son’s disability someone asked about the MMR vaccine. Then someone chimed in about thimerosal vaccine. So I just responded with “Clarification, no version of the MMR vaccine has ever contained thimerosal.”

So this other mom emailed the moderator requesting I be banned from the listserv for having the audacity to display such “bad science.” I just emailed the moderator the CDC link, and asked her to have the other person provide proof that a live vaccine had thimerosal. Of course I explained it came as a freeze dried powder that needed to be mixed with sterile water, with a link to that procedure. I was not evicted.

I tire of those who try to demonize vaccines yet know very little about them.

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