The mercury militia parties like it’s 2005

Although he appears to have shut up, at least for now, on this particular issue, Upper Class Twit of the Decade RFK Jr. has paid little reputational price, it seems, for perpetrating this fraud. He still shows up on teevee touting one environmental cause or another, endorses political candidates, and generally puts a shine of glamor on whatever he touches.

Execrable. This guy is famous only for having his father’s name, and he traded on that unearned celebrity to smear public servants who were doing their best to protect the public, with visions of class action sugar plums dancing in his head. What a schtickdreck.

The Great Autism Gene Hunt has come up empty– but continues to drain off millions of dollars and thousands of hours that should go to more promising environmental research.

Uh… Let me fix that for them…

The Great Autism Gene Hunt Mercury Link dream has come up empty– but continues to drain off millions of dollars and thousands of hours that should go to more promising environmental research.

There. My work is done for the day.

Lawrence,

The AoA readers are coming up with other mercury exposures even if Blaxill and Olmsted are still stuck on vaccines. I came across this site courtesy of one of the comments left on their facebook page: http://globalskywatch.com/stories/my-chemtrail-story/chemtrail-information/why-chemtrails.html.

They confuse the first published reports of a condition with the appearance of a new disease. I was reading a short story by George Elliot (“Brother Jacob”) in which she very accurately describes Prader-Willi Syndrome, which was not reported in the medical literature until 1956.

In the 1970’s, when methyl mercury was used on seed grains to prevent mold, there were many cases of accidental consumption of mercury laced food, the largest being in Iraq. There should have been an explosion of autism in the mostly poor countries where poisoning occurred.

Science Mom,

Bleuler only defined autismus as a form of schizophrenia. His definition is completely different that the modern interpretation defined by Asperger in 1938 and Kanner in 1943

@ Nepenthe,

Bleuler only defined autismus as a form of schizophrenia. His definition is completely different that the modern interpretation defined by Asperger in 1938 and Kanner in 1943

True, however, Kanner and Asperger recognised Bleuler’s autismus description in their patients and refined the set of observed behaviours. My point being that the idea that autism spontaneously arose with the Kanner description is ludicrous.

Autism is the single most devastating childhood disorder any of us have faced in our lifetime…

Not polio, diphtheria or whooping cough?

It’s not just a problem, but the “most devastating childhood disorder than any of us have faced in our lifetime” and a “national health emergency.”

Please excuse my crassness: What a bunch of fuckwits. They devalue these children so much.

‘Anything but autism!’. Why does autism have to be a “national health emergency” (BTW, does this mean autism elsewhere doesn’t matter?)?

I know my son will never be “normal” but he has potential to be successful as a human and live a very productive life. If a parent doesn’t believe this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
/soapbox rant

Did JohnW just compare whooping cough to autism?

Did JohnW just compare whooping cough to autism?

Sid – well, I suppose in a sense he did in terms of which is the “most devastating childhood disorder any of us have faced in our lifetime”, whatever that means. Presumably not in the sense of “autism is just like whooping cough” or “I prefer autism to whooping cough” or some such.

I personally don’t know what is the “most devastating childhood disorder any of us have faced in our lifetime.” I’d heard it was starvation or possibly AIDS, but don’t really know how you create a single devastation scale. Presumably you’d need to factor in both the number of people affected and the impact of each case, though “impact” is also pretty imprecisely defined. So it sounds like it’s subject to some interpretation and difference of opinion.

Really not a fair comparison – since a disease that can be “FATAL” is much worse.

A quick aside, am I the only person having trouble getting to the web site of the colleague of the friend of Orac, Dr. Novella?

/facepalm

@22

Tony Bateson:

I’m sure that it’s been pointed out to you that there are, in fact, “autistic Amish.” Here’s a link, again:

http://imfar.confex.com/imfar/2010/webprogram/Paper7336.html

You repeatedly post your nonsense despite it having been repeatedly proven false.

What did AoA’s Kim Stagliano say when you offered her $1,000 if her youngest, unvaccinated, child with ASD was actually an unvaccinated child with ASD?

Look for the elephant in the room – there aren’t any unvaccinated autistic kids!

Oh, come off it, Tony Bateson the liar — you know very well because people have told you over and over, even Generation Rescue’s rigged phone study found unvaccinated autistic kids. Don’t you get tired of lying through your teeth?

Here’s a link to a discussion that includes a recent example of Tony Bateson’s nonsense:

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/09/thimerosal-in-vaccines-did-not-cause-an-autism-epidemic/

Note that Bateson’s offer of $1,000 (at nonsense-friendly AoA) or only $100 (outside of his echo chamber) is for PROOF that a child with ASD AND the child’s mother have never come into contact with “vaccine materials”, which of course include aluminum (the third most-common element in the earth’s crust), viral or bacterial proteins, and water–and the prize will only be awarded if the claimant presents impartial third-party testimony to the truth of the claims.

Of course, I’m still interested in whether AoA’s associate editor Kim Stagliano has contacted Bateson in an attempt to claim her prize. Since her first two (vaccinated) children have ASD and her third (unvaccinated) child also has ASD, Stagliano’s family history may somehow prove that ASD cannot have a genetic component but is instead caused by toxic plumes of mercury from the dental amalgams in Chinese cremations, or something.

It’s appropriate to avoid perjoratives such as “idiot” when discussing a subject that is frequently associated with intellectual impairment, but in Bateson’s case “bufoon” may be applicable.

Chris,
So things only exist if they contact Tony? What kind of overinflated ego could make someone think that people would even want to contact him? Why does he think he anyone would care to do that?

Tony Bateson: narcissistic solipsist?

Hey, Orac, cerebral palsy is not as bad as you’re making it out to be, and certainly most people with CP don’t need “round the clock care”; somewhere between 60 and 75% of people with CP wind up living independently as adults, and some of us even occasionally do such stereotypically able-bodied things as hold jobs, pay taxes, and (*gasp*) have sex lives. (If the unemployment rate for handicapped people overall were not so chronically dismal, more of us I’m sure would have jobs.)

I know I’m pretty high-functioning for a person with CP, but a lot of people who meet me don’t even notice I’m handicapped at first. I do get a lot of “Did you hurt your leg?”, though. I actually think CP is comparable to autism — with a lot of early remediation and a lot of maintenance work, people who have it even fairly badly* can wind up fairly close to “normal.”

Having had arthritis since age 30 is kind of a bitch, and the whole handicapped experience isn’t exactly the most fun thing in the world, but overall, it’s not a fate worse than death. I’d much rather have CP than, say, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, or hydrocephalus…

________
* The initial prognosis on me was that I would never walk, and I not only walk, I exercise regularly and lift weights. My doctor has forbidden me to run, though — see “arthritis at age 30.” 🙁

I apologize for the typo: I’ve never called anyone a “buffoon” before, and I mistyped it as “bufoon” when I might instead have termed Tony Bateson a fool and have been done with it.

Nonetheless, I’m still interested in learning from Bateson if AoA’s Kim Stagliano will be unable to claim the Bateson Prize because the youngest of her three daughters with ASD (that’s the unvaccinated daughter) once ate a tuna sandwich—or because her mother did.

And Adelaide has had a whooping cough death this month. A 5 week old boy.

With over 5000 cases last year and more expected this year, these people have a lot to answer for.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/south-australian-doctors-call-to-make-whooping-cough-vaccines-free-after-babys-death/story-e6frea83-1225925099008

“I would have thought that was fairly serious but neither ours nor your mainstream media think it’s worthy of comment.”

It certainly attracted comment.

People commented that:

it was unlikely that he ever had access to the funds personally

and

he produced papers and had kept two registered addresses after he ‘disappeared’.

In other words, he apparently only took all the money and ‘disappeared’ if you redefine ‘all’ to mean ‘none’ and ‘disappeared’ to mean ‘still working where he said he did’.

It’s possible to follow the parties and signings for the Age of Autism book on Facebook. There is a signing coming up:

Friday, September 24 · 6:00pm – 8:00pm
Location Brown University Book Store
244 Thayer Street
Providence, RI

So far 9 people are attending, including Mark Blaxill.

There was also a book release party last Saturday. Andrew Wakefield was in attendance, as well as Richard Deth, Wendy Fournier and Erik Nanstiel.

Oh, joy. Tony Bateson the liar has reappeared on this side of the pond internet-wise. What’s the matter, Tony? Tired of getting called out on LBRB? You forget, most of us read many blogs, recognize your ramblings and can call you out no matter where you go (except maybe AOA…I won’t go there. I can’t drink enough alcohol to handle their screeds).

@Dedj: nice work about Tony.

Colleges often (should) see themselves as equal access. If they disallow one speaker because of his POV, it raises serious questions about who else is allowed.

The Time Cube guy spoke at MIT, although there was a level of irony there that probably isn’t present here.

I just finished reading an excerpt of “Age of Autism”…what a tragic waste of time.

I can’t help seeing Blaxill and Olmsted (B&O – and just as out-of-date as the ex-railroad of that name) as terribly behind the times, even within their own uniquely retrograde sect. It’s like coming out today with a new book on computers that touts the simplicity and flexibility of MS-DOS. The world has moved on and left them floundering in the dust.

OK, so Olmsted is a washed-up has-been (or, more precisely, a “never-was”), but Mark Blaxill is an acknowledged expert in intellectual property and should be more “with the times” than this.

There is nothing more pathetic than being the last guy to figure out that the party is over and everyone else has left and gone home. It’s like being the last person in your class to figure out that Santa Claus lives among us under a secret identity (don’t want to burst the bubble for any young kids reading this ‘blog – the rest of you know what I mean).

Frankly, I wonder how this book will impact the future careers of the authors. As mentioned above, Dan Olmsted’s career is in the terminal ballistic phase, but Mark Blaxill might have a few clients who read this book and ask themselves “This is the guy I’m paying for advice?” I’m not saying this as some sort of veiled threat, but in a real sense of concern for someone who clearly isn’t getting it.

Here is the reality of mercury and autism:

[1] The amount of mercury that kids get by age 3 years in childhood vaccines – even if you include annual flu shots – since 2002 (hint: eight years ago) is less than 10% of the dose children received before the “autism epidemic” started.

[2] Environmental mercury levels are dropping and have been since at least the early 1980’s and probably since the mid-1960’s.

[3] Despite [1] and [2], autism prevalence has continued to rise in the US, UK, Canada, EU, etc. in a nearly monotonic fashion with nary a deflection.

It is still possible that a minority of autism cases are caused by mercury, but that number – at most – is going to be very, very small. It may be – and probably is – ZERO.

It is time for Messrs. Blaxill and Olmsted to go through the grieving process for their dead hypothesis. It is sad to see a promising young hypothesis cut down in its prime, but life goes on. Have a good cry and move on.

The alternative is to become yet another pathetic figure moaning about conspiracies and cover-ups and how “I coulda been a contender!”.

Requiescat in pace, “mercury-causes-autism”, we hardly knew you.

Prometheus

Calli Arcale,
You and I must be 2 of the handful of users of BeOS worldwide. I installed that thing many years ago and found it interesting but in no way compelling. Ah, well.

Bill gates speaks on the useage of vaccines for depopulation.

@Unpronounceable dude:

If you’d listened to the full context of what Mr. Gates said, you’d know that vaccines reduce infant mortality. There’s a tendency that when infant mortality drops, people have fewer children. This leads to reduced overpopulation.

@Martin (50)

Good novelist are careful observers, and many Victorian novels have characters that would today have a DSM-IV label.

When a true biochemical link is discovered, the number of actual cases of a disorder can decline dramatically. With iodine supplements, we rarely see cretinism today in the west. Most people probably only know it as an insult, and not as a medical condition. Testing for PKU and following the proper diet reduces the number of kids with retardation. If ethyl mercury affected autism, we would see the results by now.

Can I put $5 on infant diarrhea, please? HIV and malaria are worthy candidates, but good, old-fashioned runs are still the biggest killer of young children I can think of. (Oh, sorry. I forgot these arseholes don’t count poor kids.)

http://www.kpho.com/valleynews/25118264/detail.html

October is Autism Vaccine Injury Awareness Month, who knew?

Except that Gates was talking about how improved health leads to smaller family size because people don’t need to make huge families just so some of them survive.

That’s just what the shapeshifting reptilian aliens WANT you to think!

Todd – do you have something like Prometheus’s comment on your antiantivax website?

Man, this is as clearcut as it can get. Shoot, you could even do it better justice by tabulating it and whatnot.

@Pablo

Not yet, but I will add one now. Prometheus, do you have links for those figures?

Jake, assuming they exist, they’d be in the minority. (I have not read of any, but am wiling to accept a few may have been able to procure expired vaccine lots and perhaps even persuade a nurse or physician to use them on their child.) If only a very small few have received thimerosal compared to the masses who were before, why is the autism rate either stable or increasing (depending on which figures you use)? Either thimerosal has no connection, or all those parents of autistic children who did not use any thimerosal-treated vaccines are, in your opinion, lying.

Jake can’t explain much of anything about science, medicine, or autism, actually. A shame.

Oh, I’m aware that Jake has written such a post. It was as…amusing as most of his other posts.

Re: Jake Crosby

It’s not productive to discuss a topic with someone who lies.

Towards the end of the long thread linked below, Crosby quote-mined a paper to find a one-line nugget in an attempt to support his argument by profoundly distorting the beliefs of the authors. In his guise as a Master of the Biological and Medical Literature, Crosby wrote: “It is apparent that you have not read beyond the abstract of the paper you cite to deny vaccine damage with genetic mutations, because if you did, you’d have read: ‘In the presence of SCN1A mutations, vaccination can still be argued to be a trigger for the encephalopathy, perhaps via fever or an immune mechanism.’ …Your vaccine damage denial argument is over.”

Crosby receive a rather restrained reply: “It could be argued that yours is a rather insightful post from someone who has only recently completed an introductory survey course in modern biology and thus has precious little knowledge of medicine, genetics, or molecular biology, but the problem is that you seem to have quite intentionally misrepresented the authors’ beliefs by omitting the lines that immediately follow the line that you quoted . . .” [My emphasis.] The response included the rest of the paragraph from the cited paper, which starts here with the single line that Jake quoted and includes (in italics) the material that Jake intentionally omitted—that is, the material that directly counters his argument:

In the presence of SCN1A mutations, vaccination can still be argued to be a trigger for the encephalopathy, perhaps via fever or an immune mechanism. Our experimental design does not address this issue, but the role of vaccination as a significant trigger for the encephalopathy is unlikely for several reasons. First, although vaccination might trigger seizures as shown by the increased risk of febrile seizures on the day of triple antigen or MMR vaccination, there is no evidence of long-term adverse outcomes. Second, less than half our patients had documented fever with their first seizure, which indicates that fever is not essential. Third, our neuroimaging data showed no evidence of an inflammatory or destructive process. Finally, truncation and missense mutations reported in conserved parts of SCN1A have not been found in many hundreds of healthy patients. Thus, individuals with such mutations seem to develop SMEI or SMEB whether or not they are immunised in the first year of life. We do not think that avoiding vaccination, as a potential trigger, would prevent onset of this devastating disorder in patients who already harbour the SCN1A mutation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/political-science/2010/aug/31/1?showallcomments=true#end-of-comments

It’s best to ignore Jake.

Orac,

Perhaps you ought to refrain from calling people clueless or can’t explain much of anything without addressing their comments.

Your drug industry along with the CDC was found to have been dishonest about thimerosal content in their vaccines, that’s probably why no one responded to Sallie’s thread, because parents were led to believe that vaccines with thimerosal were free of the junk.

“Jake, assuming they exist, they’d be in the minority.”

lol, what makes you so sure? Just because a parent didn’t report getting a vaccine with thimerosal doesn’t mean the vaccine had no thimerosal.

“If a doctor did, indeed, administer expired vaccines”

No, not necessarily expired…

“Jake will be fully capable of alledging autism rates have gone down, whilst at the same time, standing right back whilst his supporters and associates claim autism rates are skyrocketing.”

How interesting, such a statement like this is made and yet no one’s addressed my second question: what current database do you use to make this claim about thimerosal? The HRSA survey data? IDEA? The CDC’s? An entirely new one I have never heard of before? Which?

“The response included the rest of the paragraph from the cited paper, which starts here with the single line that Jake quoted and includes (in italics) the material that Jake intentionally omitted”

I intentionally omitted it because it didn’t matter, the person “AbelW” was using it to “prove” that DTP didn’t cause epilepsy which if he read the paper, he’d know is not the case, as the authors make clear in their discussion.

” a true Ferrous Cranus who chants “tobacco science, tobacco science!” as his new standard retort to any study that does not support his belief in mercury-autism and vaccine-autism pseudoscience:”

I’m sorry, but that is exactly what you are doing right now, only with the word “pseudoscience.” As long as you keep citing the same old studies to support your position without going into any detail as to their strengths and weaknesses while remaining impervious to any criticism they deserve, they will be aptly termed tobacco science.

“Although you do appear to be developing a bit of the Artful Dodger with your latest attempts to dodge criticism:”

That’s quite a serious charge you’re making – in my last post I believe I pretty-well ensured that I addressed all the counterpoint arguments. If there is something I “dodged” I’d love to here what it is.

“Lame, even by your standards. You’re speculating, nothing more.”

The point I’m trying to make is that given the CDC and pharma (namely Merck), really were dishonest, that therefore just because no one responded doesn’t mean that “proves” thimerosal was gone from vaccines since people were being misled.

Your drug industry along with the CDC was found to have been dishonest about thimerosal content in their vaccines, that’s probably why no one responded to Sallie’s thread, because parents were led to believe that vaccines with thimerosal were free of the junk.

You are either being completely disingenuous with these statements or just an idiot. http://www.bloomingtonalternative.com/f/weldon_FDA_thimerosal.pdf
Now the onus is upon you to prove that TCVs were still being used beyond 2002 and ‘parents say so’ doesn’t cut it. And the pharma shill gambit is so old and lazy Jake, give it up.

@Science Mom

I was just going to post a link to that letter, showing that the last TCVs produced would have expired in 2002. The funny thing is, that letter has been shown to Jake before (well, it would have been if the AoA moderators hadn’t censored the commenter who posted it).

“Relying on this letter to say that all vaccines given beyond 2002 were free of thimerosal is already a complete stretch”

Not really, it’s from a reliable authourity using the expected methods to extract the relevant information from the entities that would – by the nature of being the producers of the product – be most expected to hold the most comprehensive data.

If you can give reasons why its ‘a complete strecth’ then do so.

The letter also revealed that Merck lied:
http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/07/business/fi-merck7

@Jake

You appear to have missed this line:

The thimerosal-containing supplies had expiration dates in 2002.

So, evidence that TCVs were still around after 2002?

Todd said:
“Considering the fact that FDA routinely samples lots of drug products”

Except that it didn’t in the case of thimerosal and instead appealed to ignorance as calls to remove it from vaccines were only a recommendation.

“Not really, it’s from a reliable authourity…”

Right, whose next commissioner would wind up serving jail time.

“…to extract the relevant information from the entities that would – by the nature of being the producers…”

Like Merck, that was shown to have lied.

@Jake

Quick lesson in logic. “They lied, therefore I’m right” is not a sound argument, regardless of whether or not the former premise is true or not.

In order to show that you are right (i.e., your claim that TCVs were still in use after 2002), you need to show actual evidence that such was the case. Saying that FDA was simply ignorant or that one company supposedly lied is not evidence in support of your argument. I do, sincerely, hope that you apply much more rigorous effort to your studies than you do in your anti-vaccine ranting.

“If any group thought that there was no thimerosal left, it was not them!”

Really? You asked them?

“Quick lesson in logic. “They lied, therefore I’m right” is not a sound argument, regardless of whether or not the former premise is true or not.”

No, but it does make them not credible as a source, which is required for making such hard and fast statements about when thimerosal was in as opposed to not in vaccines.

“you need to show actual evidence that such was the case.”

I did in a previous comment, but it went into moderation.

Jake, you’re the only one here who is dishonest.

*”The only rigorous data that purports to say this”

*That thimerosal does not cause autism, according to the CDC of course.

“The point is that they should have fallen, dramatically.”

Well, thimerosal exposure did not exactly fall dramatically either, and no reliable autism database supports your claim.

“I was getting nasty grams from A/M groupies in 2004 that there was still mercury in vaccines.”

Right, from parents still finding it in their kids’ vaccines well-after the CDC and the drug companies said they “removed” thimerosal.

“Yet, current estimates of the rate of autism are about 1 in 100”

Sure, in children born no later than 1998.

You say that you provided evidence that thimerosal was still in use in vaccines after 2002 but that the comment is in moderation. Let us know when it pops up so we can all take a look.

It’s been approved. It consists of nothing but unconfirmed reports written in response to David Kirby’s appearance on Meet the Press to debate Harvey Fineberg. I’m not impressed. Just like I’m not impressed by anything Jake says.

“I’m not impressed.”

No one asked for anything impressive, just for evidence of people saying they’ve found thimerosal in vaccines after it was said to have been taken out of vaccines.

Right, from parents still finding it in their kids’ vaccines well-after the CDC and the drug companies said they “removed” thimerosal.

You have posted nothing that indicates usage of expired vaccines beyond 2002. So Merck spun (lied even) about concurrent circulation of thimerosal-free and TCVs, well within the expiration date. Yeah so? It’s a different argument altogether and doesn’t change the fact that a.)TCVs expired in 2002 and b.)physicians could easily exchange those prior to expiration. Not to mention how few TCV’s were even around in 2002.

Please also support your claim that, “Well, thimerosal exposure did not exactly fall dramatically either,” I see maths aren’t your strong suit either. But give it a whirl, it’s simple subtraction.

@Jake

No one asked for anything impressive, just for evidence of people saying they’ve found thimerosal in vaccines after it was said to have been taken out of vaccines.

No, we did not ask for evidence of people saying that they found thimerosal in vaccines. We asked for evidence that there in fact was thimerosal in vaccines after 2002. Not hearsay.

One other thing to note. If a vaccine contains trace amounts of thimerosal (e.g., <0.3 mcg Hg/0.5 mL dose), then the label will state that the vaccine contains thimerosal. If it did not list it, then it would be considered misbranded, which is in violation of the regulations.

And, Chris, good point about Haley. He has a very, very strong financial interest in promoting the “mercury causes autism” story.

“which is in violation of the regulations.”

Technically, thimerosal’s continued use is in violation of the regulations.

@Jake

The letter stated that the last TCVs expired in 2002 (with references to actual data). The article you posted from the LA Times also stated that the vaccines expired in 2002.

You have produced stories from parents (without references to verifiable data) and the opinions of someone who would stand to lose LOTS of business if mercury were not responsible (and who also did not provide references to support claims that vaccines still contained full amounts of thimerosal).

It isn’t a matter of belief, so much as a matter of the quality of evidence. The two links you provided are not very strong.

As to the FDA’s letter itself, you have not shown that their analysis is incompetent. You are being a bit too literal in your reading if you think they are seriously asking other people to do their job. The impression that I got was that they were being rather sarcastic; that they were suggesting that the idea that doctors are still buying TCVs was rather extraordinary and, therefore, required some evidence to substantiate the claim.

We’ll keep waiting for your evidence that TCVs were still in use after 2002.

From Jake’s AoA blogpost:

Expiration dates on many of the vaccines that contained thimerosal were well after 2003. Furthermore, unpublished statistics show that there were sharp increases in thimerosal exposure from flu shots given to infants and pregnant women, while other sources of mercury exposure further confound the study’s conclusions.

Complicating this further is the fact that there seems to be no consensus on when the first year routinely recommended vaccines truly contained no thimerosal preservative. Schechter and Grether said the preservative was all gone from vaccines in the middle of 2002, citing the IOM Report. However, all the IOM said was that the ACIP gave an “expressed preference” that all thimerosal be removed by 2002, hardly reflective of actual thimerosal content in vaccines. The FDA said the last lots preserved in thimerosal expired at the beginning of 2003, but the Council of State Governments said it was early 2004, while parents have found vaccines on the shelves of doctor’s offices with expiration dates that surpass all these years. So no one really knows.

What is available, however, is the immunization data for the rate of postnatal flu shots among children ages 6-23 months of age, as reflected among clients enrolled in the Northern California Kaiser HMO, which jumped from 5% during the 2001-2002 influenza season, to 45%, in the following season. By winter of 2004-2005, 57% of 6-23 month olds were getting flu shots, practically all of which were preserved with thimerosal. Data for pregnant women are not available, but they were also a target group for flu vaccines in the same period.

So let me get this straight, you can’t seem to locate any stats for flu vaccine uptake for pregnant women and don’t have a clue of when thimerosal was actually removed yet you draw the conclusions that you do? Citations? Hello? Got any? This kind of drek may be well-received by the brain-addled on AoA, but you’re not in Kansas any more.

What does, however, are the results obtained by Dr. Mark Geier, a fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, and his son David Geier, when they analyzed both the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System of autism-related adverse events and the California Department of Developmental Services data of total new autism cases and found a decrease in both, according to a study entitled “Early Downward Trends in Neurodevelopmental Disorders Following Removal of Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines,” published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

You made a point of mentioning the American College of Epidemiology yet any epidemiologist would know that you can’t use VAERS to do what they did. Actually, it doesn’t even take an epi to know that you can’t do what they did. Incidentally, the same Mark Geier that has been described by various Special Masters in Vaccine Court as,”areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience.” “intellectually dishonest,” “not reliable” and “wholly unqualified.”?

There is so much more, in fact, every single paragraph of what you wrote that is so very wrong. You really shouldn’t have linked to that as an authoritative source. It just shows how sloppy, disingenuous and delusional you really are.

“That the FDA can’t prove a negative, therefore all vaccines that used to have thimerosal still do, and all of the manufacturers are lying for no readily apparent reason?”

Nope, that the FDA never gave us any stats for thimerosal content in vaccines, it would be hasty to draw any solid conclusions on thimerosal’s content in vaccines because we simply do not know.

“You completely missed my point earlier — even if some children are somehow receiving the full vaccination schedule with thimerosal levels circa 2000, the majority are clearly not.”

Oh really? Let’s see the numbers?

@Jake

You claimed that using thimerosal in vaccines is against the regulations. It is not. There is no regulation that bans the use of thimerosal in vaccines. Your claim is wrong, and instead of attempting to support your claim with a reference (or admitting that you were mistaken), you engage in non sequitur with the meningitis bit.

As to sarcasm, use of sarcasm does not bear on an individual’s credibility. And thanks for ignoring my explanation of why I thought that. You know, the bit about it being an extraordinary claim that requires some evidence to support it?

Finally, regarding hearsay. On the one hand, we have an agency that has no vested interest in whether or not thimerosal is used in vaccines contacting manufacturers to find out the thimerosal content of their vaccines. The manufacturers, who also have no demonstrated vested interest in using thimerosal (indeed, it could be argued that it is against their interests), provide the information, which can be verified by examining the vaccines in question. On the other hand, we have parents who are recalling, from mutable memory, stories that cannot be verified. Their stories are based upon their fears and, very likely, reading stuff like the tripe at AoA which twists and misrepresents the truth on a regular basis. They understandably want something to blame, some explanation. Thimerosal is an easy target.

The big thing, though, is the quality of the evidence. Claims that can be verified (FDA’s findings) vs. claims that cannot be verified (parents’ stories). You should have learned, I hope, that the latter is not reliable evidence.

Now, stop whining and provide some actual evidence that thimerosal was still in use after 2002. No more excuses. Show us the evidence to back up your claim. Here’s a hint: a study that showed full thimerosal content in a vaccine after 2002 would be good.

“you engage in non sequitur with the meningitis bit.”

Well no, it’s the sole bit of safety evidence the FDA uses to show it’s safe and therefore fit to be in vaccines. Do you believe this is adequate scientific evidence for its safety?

“As to sarcasm, use of sarcasm does not bear on an individual’s credibility.”

It would for a public health authority that expects to be taken seriously and maintain a standard of professionalism.

“The manufacturers, who also have no demonstrated vested interest in using thimerosal (indeed, it could be argued that it is against their interests), provide the information,”

Well, apparently not, since one of them lied.

“which can be verified by examining the vaccines in question.”

Not any more than the claims of the parents.

“On the other hand, we have parents”

Who unlike drug companies have not lied.

“who are recalling, from mutable memory,”

No, from actually looking up the lot numbers of the vaccines their kids received.

“reading stuff like the tripe at AoA which twists and misrepresents the truth on a regular basis.”

So your answer in response to what you call a “conspiracy theory” is a conspiracy theory.

“Thimerosal is an easy target.”

I know, such hardship that little neurotoxin faces.

“Now, stop whining and provide some actual evidence that thimerosal was still in use after 2002. No more excuses.”

You want me to disprove a claim for which there is no proof or even evidence beyond the drug companies, one of which lied.

@Jake Crosby:

If there continued to be thimerosal in vaccines past 2002, yet it’s not because of the vaccine manufacturers doing it on purpose and then lying about it, then why would there continue to be thimerosal in vaccines? The manufacturers doing it by accident, year after year, on a massive scale?

@Jake

“you engage in non sequitur with the meningitis bit.”

Well no, it’s the sole bit of safety evidence the FDA uses to show it’s safe and therefore fit to be in vaccines. Do you believe this is adequate scientific evidence for its safety?

You said that it was against the regulations to use thimerosal. There is no regulation stating that thimerosal cannot be used. Instead of admitting this, you bring in a subject that is wholly unrelated to whether or not there is a regulation banning thimerosal. That is a non sequitur, Jake. If there really were such a regulation, you would be able to point to it by providing the section number. The format would be something like this: 21 CFR 500.21 (just for clarity, I am not making a reference to any particular regulation – just providing a sample of the format).

Who unlike drug companies have not lied.

Jake, I suggest you stop before you make a bigger fool of yourself. We do not know whether or not they have lied. Also, I am not saying that they lied because, well, I don’t know. What I am saying is that they could very well be mistaken.

Furthermore, those reports are second-hand. We have no way of verifying whether or not Ms. Taylor was accurately reporting those stories. We have no way of verifying the validity of those stories if they were accurately reported. We have assertions without any actual references that can be double-checked.

No, from actually looking up the lot numbers of the vaccines their kids received.

Hey! That is something that can be checked! Let’s have those lot numbers. (Funny how information from a manufacturer is reliable [which lots contained thimerosal] when it supports your belief but is unreliable [reports to an agency that has the power to fine or remove approval of their products] when it doesn’t support your belief).

You want me to disprove a claim for which there is no proof or even evidence beyond the drug companies, one of which lied.

You claimed that thimerosal was still in use after 2002. The onus is on you to provide reliable evidence that such was the case. You have yet to do so. If you cannot provide evidence to support your claim, then do not make the claim to begin with. Or, more succinctly, “put up or shut up.”

@Jake

To write such reports off as “unverifiable” for no good reason and that the FDA was just being sarcastic when it admitted in its letter to Congressman Weldon that its own claims are unverifiable is dishonest spin.

Where did the FDA admit that their own claims were unverifiable? You mean the bit where they tell Weldon to provide evidence to support his assertion that thimerosal was still in use?

“There is no regulation stating that thimerosal cannot be used.”

I said “technically,” not that such a regulation stated that.

“you bring in a subject that is wholly unrelated”

it has every relation to why thimerosal is considered safe for use.

“Also, I am not saying that they lied because, well, I don’t know. What I am saying is that they could very well be mistaken.”

More likely lied if they said their whole infant vaccine line was thimerosal-free in 1999 yet continued to supply vaccines with the preservative well beyond that year. Either way, it doesn’t speak well for their credibility.

“No, from actually looking up the lot numbers of the vaccines their kids received.

…or by checking the package insert.

“Hey! That is something that can be checked! Let’s have those lot numbers.”

Can you tell me where they can be checked first?

“You claimed that thimerosal was still in use after 2002.”

No, but rather that the claim that thimerosal was not in use after 2002 is not substantiated.

Actually, Jake, what the FDA is saying in that last paragraph of the letter is the exact same thing we’re all saying to you:

If, after reviewing all of the data just presented indicating current thimersol content of vaccines, you (or Rep. Weldon) has evidence for your claim that thimersol is still in use, please present it.

Jake, Sallie Bernard’s whole purpose in life is to prove that thimerosal causes autism. It is what drives her. This is why SafeMinds paid Burbacher to do his silly study on monkeys, the one where he had to add thimerosal to the vaccines because there was none available.

Now, Ms. Bernard did try finding the stuff, and in June of 2001 she asked a group whose sole purpose was to show that thimerosal caused autism and failed. Now, the fact that Burbacher had to actually add the thimerosal to the vaccines given to the monkeys means one of two things:

1) That the stock of DTaP with thimerosal was depleted.

or

2) Ms. Bernard is either incompetent or a liar.

Which is it?

Well, thimerosal exposure did not exactly fall dramatically either, and no reliable autism database supports your claim.

Does anyone buy Jake’s misinformation? Thimerosal exposure did indeed fall dramatically. The CDC conducted random surveys of pediatrician practices. (I don’t have the document handy, but I’ve read it.) The drop was something like 50% to 2% of pediatricians having TCVs, in a couple years.

The peak of cumulative thimerosal exposure by 6 months was about 180 micrograms in the mid 1990s. Now the CDC estimates it’s at most 3 micrograms. 98% of thimerosal was removed from pediatric vaccines. Don’t let Jake spin this as “not exactly a dramatic fall.”

“yet you draw the conclusions that you do?”

You clearly ignored what I wrote in the quoted text, so I will repeat it for you: “no one really knows.”

I read what you wrote just fine and the fact that you DID say, ‘no one really knows’ does not allow you to draw the conclusions that you did. Furthermore, don’t mistake something you don’t know or refuse to acknowledge as something that the rest of us don’t know.

“yet any epidemiologist would know that you can’t use VAERS to do what they did.”

So the Geiers’ studies are wrong but the CDC study released earlier this month is right? Sounds like a double standard. And btw, the CDC has used VAERS to claim vaccines are safe, according to David Kirby’s book.

Another pathetic appeal to authority, who is not. The Geier study is wrong, on its very premise and the Price et al. study was done with the correct dataset and parameters. You have some severe limitations of your knowledge, stop being so arrogant and take the time to learn.

“Incidentally, the same Mark Geier that has been described by various Special Masters in Vaccine Court as,”areas for which he has no training, expertise and experience.” “intellectually dishonest,” “not reliable” and “wholly unqualified.”?”

Like the Special Master who said regressive autism both does and does not exist?

Another non sequitur and reading comprehension fail. The Geiers are sleazebags and are not recognised by anyone, save the AoA zombies, as experts on any aspect of vaccines. You are also defending scum who chemically-castrate children, which goes to their credibility and ethics.

You cannot defend your statement that thimerosal was still in paediatric vaccines past 2002. Put up or shut up, your dancing around makes you look weak and foolish.

“Ms. Bernard is either incompetent or a liar.”

He’s implying that pediatricians never checked or kept quiet about the vast stockpiles of thimerosal containing vaccines in their offices.

Of course, he is also claiming that all of SafeMinds, NVIC and any and all of the other “vaccine safety” groups were either complicit or incompetent.

Let us not forget Robert Kennedy, David Kirby, Dan Olmsted. I guess anyone who can go to Amish country looking for disabled children and miss the cryptically named Clinic for Special Children could also investigate mercury in vaccines and never check if the vaccines in pediatricians’ offices had thimerosal. The guy who made so many mistakes in “Deadly Immunity”…ditto. Can someone point me to the page in “Evidence of Harm” where investigative Journalist David Kirby reveals this shocking secret? I guess he never checked?

Maybe if Generation Rescue hadn’t wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars on a phone survey to show that vaccines protect against autism (at least that’s what their data shows). Maybe if instead they had done a phone survey of pediatricians’ offices they could have something useful to their cause.

I’m actually OK with Barbara Loe Fisher, David Kirby, Dan Olmsted, Robert Kennedy and many others being incompetent. I just think that (a) the idea makes no sense and (b) some doctor somewhere would have spoken out by now.

Merck didn’t lie in 1999 (emphasis added):

“Now, Merck’s infant vaccine line,” the company’s press release said, “is free of all preservatives.”

From 1999 on, Merck had a preservative-free version of its vaccine intended for infants. The non-infant line which still contained thimerosal expired in 2002.

The CDC guidelines made a clear distinction between infants and children/adults for this vaccine.

And why are we even going on about this? The uncertainty of mercury content in the vaccines after 2002 with all these parents finding the preservative in their kids’ vaccines is only the beginning of the problem, and even the CDC admits that no rigorous evidence refuting a correlation between thimerosal and autism rates exist. The only rigorous evidence according to the CDC refuting any link between autism and thimerosal came out earlier this month, after more than a decade of arguing. We should be discussing that, not revisiting old, defunct claims defending thimerosal that even the CDC has retracted.

The uncertainty of mercury content in the vaccines after 2002 with all these parents finding the preservative in their kids’ vaccines is only the beginning of the problem,

How come they did not tell Sallie Bernard where those stocks were so she could get some to Burbacher?

“Jake, you missed answering my question!”

Oh bloody murder, especially with 10 comments to respond to! There are things I’ve said on here that people missed and I’m not complaining about it, even though I’m not one of ten commenters.

“What study? When did this happen? Meningitis caused by what? What is “this stuff”?”

Nevermind! You obviously haven’t even read David Kirby’s book. Read it and get back to me.

“How come they did not tell Sallie Bernard where those stocks were so she could get some to Burbacher?”

Because at that time, pharmaceutical companies such as Merck led people to believe their vaccines were free of the preservative since 1999.

“You are dodging.”

Like how you just dodged my comment?

@Chris:

And btw, I responded to that tired, old argument from you before and you just didn’t like my answer.

Jake,

Enough with the sideshow. Provide us some kind of real, tangible evidence that thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. Please. Everything else you’re going on about is at best tangentially relevant to that critical question.

Nevermind! You obviously haven’t even read David Kirby’s book. Read it and get back to me.

Of course I will not read it. I looked at it and realized it was a waste of time (and it has now been removed from my local library because no one ever checked it out, I used to be able to walk in, pick it up and read the pertinent part — but it is gone). Obviously that was something that happened only in the fantasy of those who commissioned him to write that book when he was making a living doing freelance travel pieces.

You either give the PubMed ID of that study, or we will assume you are continuing to lie.

Because at that time, pharmaceutical companies such as Merck led people to believe their vaccines were free of the preservative since 1999.

What? So you are saying that parents found thimerosal containing vaccines did not tell Sallie Bernard because of Merck? Yet these were the same Autism/Mercury yahoo people yelling at us in 2004 that there were still mercury in vaccines. And you are saying they also believed Merck?

Are the fumes from the paint you used to get into that corner starting to make you dizzy?

“Of course I will not read it.”

Then there is absolutely no point talking to you! I now know why you are so ignorant.

“What? So you are saying that parents found thimerosal containing vaccines did not tell Sallie Bernard because of Merck? Yet these were the same Autism/Mercury yahoo people yelling at us in 2004 that there were still mercury in vaccines. And you are saying they also believed Merck?”

You have gotten the chronology in your story mixed up, which if you read David Kirby’s book, might clear up the events for you. In 2001, people were far more trusting of drug companies and the government then they are now. That was pre-Simpsonwood (before we knew about Simpsonwood, not before the meeting of course!), pre-Eli Lilly protection ryder, pre-early preliminary data was released showing that thimerosal causes autism and a host of other disorders, pre-botched IOM report. In terms of all this, 2001 was a year that was completely different from 2004.

Jake is immune to embarrassment. I love irony.

Well, if you actually read David Kirby’s book, you’d know his office actually put out a statement alleging that vaccines preserved in thimerosal continued to be used as late as early 2005

Yeah, no shit he did. Of course, he had to do something because he was the one who actually put his pecker on the block claiming that the autism rates had to drop, or the mercury/autism link was dead.

When it didn’t pan out for him, he went into denial instead of letting his pecker get chopped off. Big surprise…

Jake,

Orac responded to you last night at 9:47 pm.

Having read all your comments from yesterday and today, I don’t see anything that impresses me either. Instead of making a coherent argument for anything, you are back to your old tricks of rattling off strings of “is too … is not”.

The complete evidence for your claims consists of

1. Thimerosal is still in vaccines because you say so.

2. If we don’t accept your unsupported assertion, we should believe it anyway because someone told you some parents said it was still in there.

3. If that isn’t good enough, we should still believe it because David Kirby said so.

You have yet to provide references to credible scientific data that support your assertions.

When we attempt to point out your logical contradictions and get you to clarify and commit yourself to one choice or another, you only respond

I responded to that tired, old argument from you before and you just didn’t like my answer.

That is why I don’t tale you seriously.

By the way, Mr. Crosby, here is SafeMinds’ 2005 990 tax form, where it says on page 15 that as part of their outreach:

THE BOOK “EVIDENCE OF HARM, MERCURY IN VACCINES AND THE AUSTISM EPIDEMIC: A MEDICAL CONTROVERSY” WAS RELEASED IN 2004 AND SAFEMINDS PRESIDENT, LYN REDWOOD, WAS FEATURED ON THE MONTEL WILLIAMS SHOW ALONG WITH AUTHOR, DAVID KIRBY. THIS IMPORTANT BOOK EXAMINES BOTH THE PERSONAL STORIES OF FAMILIES AND THE UNFOLDING DRAMA IN THE COURTS AND HALLS OF CONGRESS.

Tell me why that does not look suspicious.

Having read all your comments from yesterday and today, I don’t see anything that impresses me either. Instead of making a coherent argument for anything, you are back to your old tricks of rattling off strings of “is too … is not”.

Or, as I put it, Jake is just continuing to be Ferrous Cranus:

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/ferouscranus.htm

No matter how many times his arguments are crushed, he keeps repeating them, with very little variation. He’s even lost the bit of Artful Dodger that he had been developing:

http://redwing.hutman.net/~mreed/warriorshtm/artfuldodger.htm

That’s what in essence he’s spent the last 16 hours or so doing since I last checked in, proving my sarcastic remark about his being Ferrous Cranus to be correct.

As for his crack about his supposedly “exposed” me, all I can say is that Jake has an unjustifiably high opinion of himself.

Just to pick two examples, he does not understand what a real conflict of interest is and he does not understand what is really meant by “against regulations”.

I think that’s what was most amusing in retrospect about Jake’s little hissy fit about me in June. Jake has no idea what is and is not a true COI, and clearly neither do AoA-colytes, either. (Big surprise there.) When people asked me what all these e-mails provoked by Jake’s ill-conceived and truly brain dead insinuations about me were, several of them either laughed, scoffed, or said highly unflattering things about Jake’s level of understanding when I explained to them what it was about. However, being Ferrous Cranus, Jake allows no explanation to interfere with his fantastical view of the world.

It’s sad really. I can only hope for Jake’s sake that he grows up a bit before he has to face the world and find a real job, particularly if the economy hasn’t recovered by then. Things you can get away with in high school and college are not looked kindly upon by employers. Oh, well, you can’t say I didn’t try to warn Jake in the most fatherly way possible, back before he burned the last bridge to me. He’ll learn. If he doesn’t, he’ll have a very hard time of it in his career.

Your pharmaceutical industry, even when it lies, is automatically right

You have shown how your reading comprehension has a bias filter, it makes you look very silly:
Threats to science-based medicine: Pharma ghostwriting (revisited)
and
The saga of Avastin and breast cancer

And yet you still have the nerve to insist you don’t have a conflict of interest, even though you are conducting a clinical trial of Riluzole sponsored by your university in partnership with the drug’s maker, Sanofi-Aventis.

God, you’re dense. It’s been explained to you time and time again that this clinical trial is not funded by Sanofi-Aventis; it is not funded by my university or any university-industry partnership; rather, it is funded by a grant from a private foundation that has nothing to do with either. There is no COI by any accepted definition of the term. You had to twist the definition and misrepresent the facts to try to write that defamatory post of yours. Not only that, but you had to bring in a completely unrelated clinical trial and try to relate it to mine somehow–ignorant at best, dishonest at worst, IMHO.

As I am sure you are aware, whether or not a COI exists has no bearing on whether the source in question (i.e. you) perceives having a COI, much less whether or not he denies having one.

Irrelevant, because, as I’m not so sure you’re aware, whether or not you perceive there to be a COI has no bearing on whether or not there is in fact a COI. The basic fact is, as has been explained to you time and time again, there is no undisclosed COI because there is no COI by any accepted definition of the term. At this point, I can only conclude that either my description of you as Ferrous Cranus was spot-on accurate or you’re simply being dishonest.

“Ferrous Cranus is utterly impervious to reason, persuasion and new ideas, and when engaged in battle he will not yield an inch in his position regardless of its hopelessness.”

That sounds just like you, “Orac,” and all your other supporters on this thread.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. You are too inept to make any such determination, particularly existing over in your hive of communal reinforcement. You salivate like Pavlov’s dog for the patronising pats on the head you get for your twaddle, completely oblivious to the level of ignorance that you are receiving them from.

By your double-standard: Your pharmaceutical industry, even when it lies, is automatically right and parents of autistic children, journalists, scientists, and politicians who disagree with you are automatically wrong.

Christ on a cracker, your reading is selective to maintain your idiocy. Check the archives here and SBM and there are numerous posts about dodgy pharma practises and criticisms thereof. Hint for you Jake, there are many, if not mostly, independent replications of vaccine science. Now take a look at your list of who you are holding out as authoritative sources and therein lies part of your problem.

And yet you still have the nerve to insist you don’t have a conflict of interest, even though you are conducting a clinical trial of Riluzole sponsored by your university in partnership with the drug’s maker, Sanofi-Aventis. As I am sure you are aware, whether or not a COI exists has no bearing on whether the source in question (i.e. you) perceives having a COI, much less whether or not he denies having one.

I honestly don’t know how someone can be that ignorant and still be able to tie his shoes, unless you are still using the velcro ones. You just don’t know what constitutes a conflict of interest do you? Just do what you are told and what you think will make you feel important.

I won’t go into this issue anymore here. If my article still bothers you that much – and I can tell it does – you are more than welcome to discuss it further in the comments section under my article:

Hear this Jake, you are irrelevant; your post on the subject is a joke and what people do when they have no argument of substance. You give your annoyance too much credit and furthermore, that silly blog you post on doesn’t allow any dissenting information. Surely you know that and like the tosser you are, will proclaim victory when no contrary posts go through.

Barbara Loe Fisher was more trusting of the government then? Please. Don’t stress credulity so much. Her battles with the government go back long before then.

Indeed, BLF was battling the government back in the early 1980s, nearly a decade before Jake was even born. To imply that she might have been more “trusting” of the government in the 1990s is ludicrous.

MadScientist:

“The most devastating childhood disorder”? Oh gee, “my childhood disorder is more devastating than yours”. I’ll see you two autisms and raise you a cystic fibrosis. I’ll see your cystic fibrosis and raise you ten palsies.

Have you seen these incredible Mompetitor videos?

By the way, the latest Skeptics’ Guide 5×5 is about chelation.

#96 Jake

And here is some of my evidence: From a parent:

From link provided @96

What some parents are finding is that vaccines with the full 25 micrograms of mercury are still being distributed in doctors offices, some with an expiration date of 2007.

I thought I’d take a look for a bit of background info as to the claims of parent, “Vera Smith”.
First up…

Claim 1. by “Vera Smith”

My daughter received between 39 and 50 micrograms of mercury in one visit. The expiration dates on the vaccines extended into 2006.
Full amount of thimerosal in the Connaught DTaP she received on 5/13/2003. Expiration date: 7/2004

Firstly on “Connaught” DtaP…
Sanofi Pasteur (formerly Aventis Pasteur, Pasteur Merieux Connaught; includes Connaught Laboratories and Pasteur Merieux)

The only Sanofi Pasteur DtaP vaccines listed on the FDA’s table are Daptacel and Tripedia.

Daptacel

–Thimerosal Concentration:0 Mercury: 0
–Approval Date for Thimerosal Free or Thimerosal / Preservative Free (Trace Thimerosal)Formulation: Never contained Thimerosal

Tripedia:
–Thimerosal Status Concentration ** (Mercury) – Trace -less than, or equal to 0.00012%
–Mercury: less than, or equal 0.3 µg/0.5 mL dose
–Approval Date for Thimerosal Free or Thimerosal / Preservative Free (Trace Thimerosal) Formulation – 03/07/01

Soooo Jake…again…about those lot numbers?

p.s. More to come on “Vera’s” second and third vaccination claims.

Testing post

If there had been large quantities of TCVs in doctors’ fridges by 2002, as Jake contends, doesn’t that imply a deliberate decision on the part of the doctors to stock up in 1999, before all that lovely, lovely mercury was taken out? It seems to me unlikely that doctors routinely purchase greater than a three-year supply of, well, anything, really. It also seems unlikely that the few companies still willing to produce vaccines despite the vilification heaped on them would produce more than could be used up in three years. In fact, the occasional shortages of vaccines that have occurred suggest that they don’t stockpile much at all.

If doctors all across the nation individually decided to invest in large stocks of TCVs, with which they filled their fridges for the express purpose of poisoning children for as long as possible, then I would suggest to Jake that rather fussing about lot numbers, he should be documenting the huge spike in demand for TCVs just before they were phased out. That should show up in financial statements for the manufacturers, surely.

The entry “Vaccine: Historical DTP/aP” for the ProHIBit vaccine in post #190 should have read Hib-PRP-D. (Historical DTP/aP was TriHIBit)

Jake Crosby (#70) had some questions for me in his comment:

“What about parents who’ve found thimerosal-preserved DTaP, Hep B and Hib vaccines after 2002? Are they liars?”

To begin with, there are many reasons that people might provide incorrect information; lying is only one. I do understand that Jake feels his argument – such as it is – is more powerful if he can present it as a false choice between believing what he says (he provides no sources) or calling other people liars. Other possible choices are that the people making such claims (if they exist) are mistaken or that Mr. Crosby is the liar.

If these parents that Mr. Crosby refers to have tangible proof that thimerosal-preserved vaccines (as opposed to those containing “trace” amounts) were given after 2002, I would accept that. The mere existence of thimerosal-preserved vaccines after 2002 doesn’t mean that they were administered, since the first thing every nurse I’ve seen does before administering a vaccine is to check its expiry date.

I have – in my lab regrigerator – a vial of thimerosal-preserved vaccine right now, in 2010. However, it has an expiry date of 1993, so it would be a gross violation of medical standard of care to administer it (even if I was licensed to give vaccines). Does its existence – in a research lab that doesn’t treat humans – constitute proof of Mr. Crosby’s claims? I think not.

What would be needed to support Jake’s extraordinary claim would be a thimerosal-preserved (again, as opposed to containing trace amounts of thimerosal) vaccine with an expiry date of later than 2002, which he appears to lack (apart from thrilling tales told on the Internet).

Show me the data, Jake, not more conspiracy theories.

Jake continues:

“From what set of autism data do you use to base your conclusions on autism rates?”

I make no conclusions about autism rates, Jake, only autism prevalence. For this, I use the IDEA annual reports to Congress. Yes, I know that it is suspect data (as are all data from administrative sources), but it has the benefit of being easily obtained and being comprehensive. It is also the data used to support the now-dead “thimerosal-causes-autism” hypothesis.

Again, if you believe in the “autism epidemic”, then you can’t believe – logically – that thimerosal causes autism. If you believe that thimerosal causes autism, then you can’t – logically – believe in the “autism epidemic”.

However, if you don’t believe in logic, then the sky’s the limit.

Isn’t is, Jake?

Prometheus

Fixed for formatting issues:

MERCK LAUNCHES PRESERVATIVE-FREE HEPATITIS-B VACCINE
9/9/99 0:1
/ADVANCE FOR AYEMS THURSDAY, SEPT. 9/
Company’s Infant Vaccine Series is Now Preservative Free
/ADVANCE/ WEST POINT, Pa., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ — Merck & Co., Inc.

(NYSE: MRK), will launch its thimerosal-free, preservative-free hepatitis B
vaccine (RECOMBIVAX HB(R)) in conjunction with guidelines published for its
use in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s September 9 Morbidity
and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). An approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for
the preservative-free RECOMBIVAX HB(R) came on August 27, following a submission of a Product
License Supplement by the Company. Now, Merck’s infant vaccine line — including its combination
vaccine against hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type b (COMVAX(R)) — is free of all
preservatives.

“Merck recognizes that public trust in the safety of vaccines is critical to our childhood immunization
program,” Adel Mahmoud, M.D., President of the Merck Vaccine Division, wrote in a September 8 letter to
U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher. “When government and industry collaborate in the interest of
public trust, as they’ve done with the thimerosal question, our nation’s children are the winners.”
According to Dr. Mahmoud, Merck is committed to working closely with the PHS and others to assure the
speedy adoption of preservative-free vaccines for infants from birth through six months of age. “Our
objective, as yours, is to keep immunization rates high and disease rates low,” Dr. Mahmoud said in his
letter.

The public health guidelines published in the September 9 issue of the MMWR, specifically state:

— Priority should be given to the use of preservative-free hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns.

— All infants up to six months of age should be vaccinated with a preservative-free vaccine, as available.
Infants six weeks of age or older can receive either a preservative free hepatitis B vaccine or a
preservative-free combination containing hepatitis B vaccine.

— Infants up to six months of age who are at high risk of perinatal or early childhood hepatitis B virus
transmission, should be vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine if preservative-free
vaccine is not available.
— Thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine should continue to be used for vaccination of children six
months of age and older, adolescents and adults.

Merck & Co., Inc., is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company with a commitment to preventive
health care through the discovery, development and distribution of highly effective vaccines with strong
safety profiles.

SOURCE Merck & Co., Inc.
-0- 09/09/1999
/CONTACT: Isabelle Claxton of Merck, 215-652-5558/
(MRK)

He’s probably just licking his wounds and planning another smear piece on AoA.

@Dedj

Age of Cherry Pickers and Generation Quote Mine. It’s what the anti-vaxers do best. Can’t win on evidence or logic, so, spin, spin, spin. They probably do quite a bit to keep Hasbro rollin’ in dough.

@Todd W:

It’s what the anti-vaxers do best. Can’t win on evidence or logic, so, spin, spin, spin.

Reminds me of the old lawyerly adage: “If the law is on your side, pound on the law. If the facts are on your side, pound on the facts. If neither is on your side, pound on the table.”

Took me a while to find. Ironically, I found it on an anti-vaccine site. I had a strong suspicion that the press release consisted of more than a single sentence…

@Chris #204
I know AoA still think the Wellcome Trust is linked with Glaxo-Wellcome, and that any funding from them implies a financial pharma CoI. Dribbling idiots.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/About-us/History/index.htm

Yep, if you don’t have any data, try to imagine some COIs: “[The] study was also supported by the Wellcome Trust. Wellcome Pharmaceuticals was purchased by Glaxo Smith Kline, the maker of the British MMR vaccine. [Age of Autism, August 24, 2009]”

@Jake

It does, but no where does it say the company would continue to distribute thimerosal-preserved doses.

You claimed that Merck lied about their vaccines being thimerosal-free. It has been shown they did not lie. The press release, in fact, says nothing about whether they will continue to produce or will stop producing thimerosal-containing vaccines, though it can be inferred that some will continue to be produced based on the recommendations:

The public health guidelines published in the September 9 issue of the MMWR, specifically state:

— Priority should be given to the use of preservative-free hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns.

— All infants up to six months of age should be vaccinated with a preservative-free vaccine, as available.
Infants six weeks of age or older can receive either a preservative free hepatitis B vaccine or a
preservative-free combination containing hepatitis B vaccine.

— Infants up to six months of age who are at high risk of perinatal or early childhood hepatitis B virus
transmission, should be vaccinated with a thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine if preservative-free
vaccine is not available.
— Thimerosal-containing hepatitis B vaccine should continue to be used for vaccination of children six
months of age and older, adolescents and adults.

In other words, for newborns, thimerosal-free vaccine should be used if at all possible. Same for infants up to 6 months. Only if infants up to 6 months are at high risk and preservative-free vaccines are not available should a TCV be used. Over 6 months, TCV should be used (presumably to ensure an adequate supply of thimerosal-free vaccines for newborns and pre-6-month infants, though this is not stated explicitly).

So, I believe the words you meant to type were, “I was wrong. They did not lie.”

I’m still not buying it, Jake. If you have an ad that says “Free Car Wash” with an asterisk that says “Gas Purchase Required,” do you call it lying because the car wash really isn’t free?

The press release has its spin (PR spin? No way!) but is still technically accurate. Their preservative-free version became the version for their infant line, and they detailed how it should be given preference over any available thimerosal-containing vaccines for that population. The infant line is clearly the series intended for infants, not necessarily any vaccine that can possibly be given to an infant.

It did not say their entire stock for all ages would be thimerosal free, nor did it say that available TCVs could not be given to infants, because of course they can. Because it is safe for infants, and there is no reputable evidence to the contrary.

Not that this all matters, because you still have zero evidence that non-expired thimerosal-containing vaccines were ever given after 2002.

Um, Jake, but, um, the first line says “Is now preservative free.”
That’s not the first line of the press release. It’s the subtitle.

You need to read more than just the titles. Try the next line (copied from W. Kevin Vicklund’s link in Post #198 above):

MERCK LAUNCHES PRESERVATIVE-FREE HEPATITIS-B VACCINE
9/9/99 0:1
/ADVANCE FOR AYEMS THURSDAY, SEPT. 9/
Company’s Infant Vaccine Series is Now Preservative Free
/ADVANCE/ WEST POINT, Pa., Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ — Merck & Co., Inc.
(NYSE: MRK), will launch its thimerosal-free, preservative-free hepatitis B
vaccine (RECOMBIVAX HB(R))

Do you understand what will launch means?

It’s future tense.

You cannot claim that your inability to read the beyond the subtitle of the press release to the actual first sentence of the press release means that “Merck lied.”

The actual first sentence clearly says “Merck will launch.” Not launched — will launch. As of the date of the press release, the thimerasol-free vaccine is not out there yet. It will be soon. Not yet.

Obviously, Jake is expecting that every doctor who cared for infants ran right out, pulled all their TCV and returned them to the manufacturer for exchange. Damn the time, cost and lack of necessity, since thimerosol STILL hasn’t been linked to autism.

Actually, my guess is that Jake’s only source for “Merck lied” was Myron Levin’s 2005 LA Times article which Jake links in Post 92. Levin quoted the subtitle of the press release too – and only the subtitle.

The only way I can understand Jake’s persistent interpretation of the press release as “Merck lied” is that he never actually read the text of the press release before W. Kevin Vicklund posted it here. If Jake had read it before, his reading comprehension and basic English language skills (i.e., the difference between past, present, and future tense) are in dire need of improvement.

@Pablo:

I still don’t understand. Even if Jake is right and there were TCVs still lingering around in 2002 or even 2003, that was 7 stinking years ago! Have autism rates dropped dramatically in the last couple of years? I don’t think so. So what’s the point?

As far as I can tell, his point is that if the vaccine manufacturers lied once about removing thimerosal, they might do so again. And again. And again. So they might still be lying, and there might still be non-trace thimerosal in pediatric vaccines.

I’m dying to know – if pharmaceutical companies have such a desire to lie and surreptitiously put thimerosal in vaccines, why would they print it on the inserts?

The minds of our Phrama Overlords are truly beyond mortal ken.

Jake,

Your continual attempts to twist and squirm to try to make Merck’s press release announcing the introduction of a thimerosal-free line of infant vaccines are starting to remind me of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony # 6, The Pathetique. You can choose to believe or disbelieve press releases as you choose. But, if you sincerely believe a vaccine manufacturer is including thimerosal in vaccines without properly labeling them, it’s not that hard to prove. It would cost a few dollars, but the evidence would speak a lot louder than your unsupported assertions.

Just ask some of your friends at AoA to buy a few samples and take them to a good independent lab for analysis (not Doctors Data). You might even talk a biochemistry professor at your college to having some grad students do it as practice learning how to use a mass spectrometer.

“It says one of their vaccine series is preservative-free. That’s all it says.”

It says their infant vaccine series is preservative-free, even though the company continued to distribute the thimerosal brands to infants at least until 2002. That is misleading, if not a flat-out lie. Coming from Merck which knew about the potential dangers of thimerosal since 1991, however, it’s probably a lie.

It’s only misleading for people like you that have become so wedded to a particular belief that they refuse to acknowledge anything to the contrary. TCV’s expired in 2002, they aren’t going to be distributing them then, particularly when they had been manufacturing thimerosal-free since 1999.

“As far as I can tell, his point is that if the vaccine manufacturers lied once about removing thimerosal, they might do so again.”

Maybe…maybe not. What I do know is that if you lie about one thing, it not only makes that particular claim of yours wrong, but discredits you on that topic completely.

Oh that is bloody rich coming from someone who routinely lies for that execrable bullshit mill you write for. Care to turn that litmus test on yourself and your confederates?

So if we want accurate data on thimerosal content, it shouldn’t be through the drug companies, especially when conscientious parents who’ve inquired about the thimerosal-content of their kids’ vaccines by checking the package inserts, lot numbers, calling and asking their pediatricians’ offices etc. tell a different story.

The parents say? Your calibre of evidence is pathetically wanting. Why didn’t they bring this so-called evidence to Rep. Weldon’s attention? Or Sen. Burton? Because it doesn’t exist and you get more mileage out of your little story by relying upon the emotional factor.

“if pharmaceutical companies have such a desire to lie and surreptitiously put thimerosal in vaccines, why would they print it on the inserts?”

You tell me. After all, in 1999 Merck put out a press release saying they’ll immediately distribute all thimerosal-free infant vaccines, then claimed to the FDA four years later that it actually didn’t start happening until 2002.

Why are you being so damned thick? They did distribute thimerosal-free and there was still stock of non-expired TCVs that had already been distributed and stocks were dwindling as thimerosal-free production ramped up and replaced them. They were both in circulation at the same time for ~3 years.

It says their infant vaccine series is preservative-free, even though the company continued to distribute the thimerosal brands to infants at least until 2002

No, they didn’t. First of all, they distributed them to doctors’ offices, not to infants. It was up to the offices to prioritize the T-free vaccinations to infants.

Second, do you have any evidence that Merck manufactured and distributed TCV’s after the press release? The last TCV’s expired in 2002, but that does not mean they were distributed in 2002. Perhaps that evidence is out there, but I haven’t seen you produce it.

What I do know is that if you lie about one thing, it not only makes that particular claim of yours wrong, but discredits you on that topic completely.

No, it doesn’t “discredit you on the topic completely.” Sorry. For example, we don’t dismiss Generation Rescue’s “studies” because of the lies repeated by Generation Rescue. We dismiss them because they are junk in and of themselves.

Even if it did discredit them completely, you cannot possibly make the argument that misinformation from the PR department means that they have been secretly producing large amount of TCVs for no logical reason at all.

You have not produced any verifiable evidence of any of this. You insinuated you had lot numbers, then retracted that claim. This is entirely hearsay.

Jake, re your post #226

You tell me. After all, in 1999 Merck put out a press release saying they’ll immediately distribute all thimerosal-free infant vaccines, then claimed to the FDA four years later that it actually didn’t start happening until 2002.

could you point out to us exactly what line of the press release includes the works “immediately distribute”?

Being the parent of a college sophomore impels me to ask this question late on a Sunday evening: Jake, have you finished your homework?

So, Jake, evidently no one that you know of believed Merck was including thimerosal in their thimerosal-free vaccines strongly enough to spend some money trying to prove it. If they had done so, I am confident that you in particular would be aware of it and have happily told us about it many times.

So, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we will take it as a given that Merck did eliminate thimerosal from their infant vaccines (except for flu) and that their vaccines were manufactured in accordance with their labeled ingredients.

Thus, your case against Merck comes down to complaining about their wording their press release the way you wish they had and quibbling about the exact dates the last thimerosal containing infant vaccines were distributed and administered.

Without a 4-D temporal scanner, we’ll probably never know that exact date, but whatever it was it was about 7 or 8 years ago. So, for the last 7 or 8 years, thimerosal in infant and child vaccines has been drastically reduced and diagnoses of ASD have continued to increase. Whatever is causing that increase (if there is any real increase aside from diagnostic substitution and heightened awareness, etc) is highly unlikely to be thimerosal. Which is entirely consistent with the results of Price et al.

Unfortunately, I have no talent for either memory charms or apportation, or I might be able to remove this idee fixe from your brain and allow you to take a fresh look at the question of what causes autism and other conditions in ASD.

But, alas, I fear that shall never be.

@Jake Crosby:

So, according to you, Merck should have explicitly said in it’s press release “we haven’t destroyed our existing stocks of TCV”, and not including that statement was a lie of omission which caused people to believe that they had destroyed their existing stocks of TCV?

@Matthew Cline.

Could it be possible that Jake has never been in a position to experience what a product switchover is like from the manufacturing side?

Could that be why he’s badly misunderstanding what product announcements are and what they mean?

@Matthew Cline – I respectfully disagree. Why would anyone assume existing stocks would be destroyed when the press release quotes the public health guidelines for prioritizing the thimerasol-free version? Those guidelines would be completely unnecessary if the world worked as Jake imagines it does and the fact that a press release for a new product magically converted all the existing product into the one that had not yet been launched.

In any case, it’s a press release, not a news article. The purpose of a press release is to make the company look as good as possible in a few words as possible. It’s not investigative journalism. It’s not any kind of journalism.

And even if they had explicitly stated that the existing stock would not be destroyed, the Jakes of the world would just find something else to misinterpret.

Ooops wrong again – that’s “look as good as possible in as few words as possible.” Can I retract the first sentence of Post#244?

Mr. Frost, I really really want to visit your webpage… but everytime I click on it I get this… and until that is changed, you are officially a stinker!:

The website declined to show this webpage
HTTP 403
Most likely causes:
This website requires you to log in.

What you can try:
Go back to the previous page.

More information

This error (HTTP 403 Forbidden) means that Internet Explorer was able to connect to the website, but it does not have permission to view the webpage.

For more information about HTTP errors, see Help.

Sorry Chris, I don’t know what on earth could be causing that. iBlog.co.za is a free blogging website. Literally anyone should be able to see what’s on it. It might be because it’s a South African site, as several people have told me that they can’t access the site. I assure you, I have not set up a login as I don’t know how, and I wouldn’t anyway.

Whether or not Merck “lied” about thimerosal-free vaccines (it is my position that they did not) and whether or not every last thimerosal-containing children’s vaccine vial was destroyed by 2002 or 2003, Jake still has a very large “inconvenient truth” to work around:

Autism prevalence has continued to rise.

Even if Merck “lied” and there were a few thimerosal-containing vaccines that might have been given to infants, the unalterable fact is that children’s thimerosal exposure dropped dramatically in 2002-2003 and has fallen below where it was before the “autism epidemic”.

Despite that, the rise in autism prevalence continues apace. Children born in 2003 – when the thimerosal exposure was known to be only a fraction of what it was in the preceding few years – are turning (or have turned) seven this year. When this year’s IDEA report is released, will it show a dramatic drop in autism prevalence for children seven and under? Probably not.

And why not? Because thimerosal doesn’t cause autism. If thimerosal did cause any significant proportion of the cases of autism, we would have already seen a drop in prevalence.

At any rate, Jake is making (another) vacuous argument. Merck didn’t “lie” about thimerosal in children’s vaccines – Jake simply didn’t read the press release; he relied on the interpretation of others to form his opinion.

There is a pattern in this that I’ve noticed in Jake’s other rantings on this ‘blog. He allows himself to become agitated by other people’s (fallacious) arguments and then launches into rambling diatribes unencumbered by data. When the errors in his argument – which is, in reality, someone else’s argument – are pointed out, Jake resorts to the electronic equivalent of putting his fingers in his ears and shouting “Lalalalala, I can’t hear you!”.

Jake, I must say, is not unique in this – as a teacher in a large university, I see this sort of thing every day. Jake has trusted other people to do his critical thinking for him, a form of mental out-sourcing. And, like other types of out-sourcing, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s not working, Jake. Try thinking for yourself – or at least find some more trustworthy people to think for you.

Prometheus

Of course, they could just pay for a test from a reputable analytical lab (mercury concentration is easily measured by using flame absorption and should be routine), but that would require actually putting up.

If they truly bought their own conspiracy-talk, they would’ve done this test in 2004. They would carry out random tests periodically. And, BTW, who’s to say they haven’t?

That is misleading, if not a flat-out lie. Coming from Merck which knew about the potential dangers of thimerosal since 1991, however, it’s probably a lie.

This strikes me as bizarre, minor detail though it is. A synecdoche, as it were, for Jake’s overall style of thought.
To spell it out: If a press release is misleading (but not technically incorrect), then it will remain technically correct, even if its source turns out to be a company you distrust.

Conversely, if the press statement is not compatible with the facts, then it’s wrong (rather than misleading), whatever the source. But we would like to see the incompatibility, and the facts, rather than rely on mistrust of a company.

“if the press statement is not compatible with the facts, then it’s wrong”

And therefore misleading.

“The scientific thing to do would be to look for more likely explanations.”

Or, we could continue to monitor the autism rate for changes, and then trace any possible changes we may end up seeing to prior changes in environmental exposures, including thimerosal.

“I see it as a fantasy of yours,”

No more a fantasy than saying that autism will remain the same or continue to increase in the next five years. All we can do to find out is wait.

Or, we could continue to monitor the autism rate for changes, and then trace any possible changes we may end up seeing to prior changes in environmental exposures, including thimerosal.

Even though you don’t like the numerous studies regarding thimerosal and ASD rates, that is your failing to accept the replication that has failed to correlate thimerosal with autism. Furthermore, you don’t even have a biological plausibility. That’s pretty important. You simply have the same handful of self-proclaimed experts (rife with COIs which you refuse to apply your own metric to) caterwauling ‘thimerosal causes autism’ in order to sell products and services.

But I would like to turn your attention to the fact that you have also failed to produce any evidence, whatsoever, that TCVs were still being used into and past 2003. Which is what you came screeding in here about.

‘thimerosal causes autism’

I’m confused.
What’s happened to Andrew Wakefield’s “MMR causes autism”?

@Orac:

So do you plan on coming back out of hiding again?

So the MMR’s use since 1971 was not enough to study it?

So do you plan on coming back out of hiding again?

I was never in hiding.

Do you plan on stopping being so obtuse?

“Even though you don’t like the numerous studies regarding thimerosal and ASD rates, that is your failing to accept the replication that has failed to correlate thimerosal with autism.”

Well, one of the central figures in producing those “numerous studies” you speak of has absconded with $2 million.

Central figures? Really Jake? Take a look at the studies and tell us what position his name appears. You do know that has relevance right Jake? You also seem rather sure that you know what actually happened with the funds in question. Since I don’t think for a second that you are privy to any real information on the subject that the rest of us aren’t, you’re talking out of your ass.

“Furthermore, you don’t even have a biological plausibility.”

Never mind the fact that the vast majority of published, peer-reviewed research supports a connection between autism and heavy metals like mercury in vaccines.

Emphasis mine. I’ll hold you to the ‘vast majority part when you deign to produce an actual list of citations. You can do that right?

“But I would like to turn your attention to the fact that you have also failed to produce any evidence, whatsoever, that TCVs were still being used into and past 2003.”

Yes, parents who’ve found the preservative in their kids’ shots in and past 2003. I think they would have a better idea than some dubious drug company press release.

Ah, back to ‘the parents say so’. On what planet is that even close to a minutiae of evidence? You are making a bloody fool of yourself by asserting this repeatedly, whilst simultaneously, holding everyone else to impossible standards. Do you see what you are doing? It’s preposterous.

“Central figures? Really Jake?”

Read the following

“Jose,
As we discussed on Friday, we have become aware through Poul Thorsen of an exciting opportunity to study the role of MMR vaccine and autism using several registries/existing studies and the repository of biologic specimens and laboratory capabilities in Denmark. Attached below is a proposal for such a study. Poul will be leaving on Thursday to travel to Denmark where he will be meeting with the PIs for the proposed study on June 6th. We would like to be able to have Poul say whether it is likely that CDC (NIP) can fund the study, if NIP is interested. The proposed budget is included; there may be additional sources of funding (in addition to NIP) but we are not certain at this time. Unfortunately, the DD Branch does not have much (if any) $$ to fund the study, but we do have the expertise that we have developed due to the autism surveillance in Atlanta and the MMR/autism case-control study. I will be out of the office tomorrow, but you may contact Diana or Poul if you have questions. Thank you so much for considering this proposal. Marshalyn.”

Then the CDC’s Frank DeStefano wrote two days later:

“I hadn’t seen it but it looks like a good opportunity. The availability of data
from pregnancy, as well as blood specimens, is particularly attractive. The blood
spot component would be very valuable just by itself to try to confirm the exciting
findings from the small NIH study. If these are true biomarkers for autism, it would
be great to see if they identify high risk groups of kids for a vaccine-autism
association. In addition to MMR, the study should include all infant and childhood
vaccines to look at issues of multiple antigens, VACCINE ADDITIVES, etc. Serologies for
measles and rubella in the maternal and cord blood might also be worth
considering.”(caps mine)

Then one month after the MMR-NEJM study was published in 2002, Jose Cordero, addressed in the first email, wrote to the editor of Pediatrics:

“Dear Dr. Lucey
I am writing in support of an expedited review and consideration of the enclosed
manuscript that examines the association between thimerosal, an ethyl mercury
containing preservative, and autism. As you may know, there has been considerable
interest by parents, clinicians, educators and policy makers for an explanation of the
marked increase in the rate of autism in recent years… One factor hypothesized to
have a causal role is childhood vaccinations. Specific aspects of vaccinations that
have been subject to inquiry include the MMR vaccine and thimerosal. There are
now numerous epidemiologic studies to suggest that the MMR vaccine is not
associated with the risk of autism; an Institute of Medicine review that was
published in 2000 concluded that the weight of the scientific evidence did not
support a link between MMR vaccine and autism.
For thimerosal, however, there are limited data to evaluate this factor.”
http://www.taap.info/DanishStudy2005.pdf

So we really have Poul Thorsen to thank for the Danish tobacco science.

“Emphasis mine. I’ll hold you to the ‘vast majority part when you deign to produce an actual list of citations. You can do that right?”

I take it you have not read this post that ran on AoA last month:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/theres-a-funny-thing-about-evidence-more-support-for-autism-mercury-link.html

“whilst simultaneously, holding everyone else to impossible standards.”

Nope, just that parents should be taken no less seriously about what was in their kids’ vaccines than drug companies, that’s all.

“Which MMR? The one used before or after 1992 in the UK?”

either/or

“I was never in hiding.”

Sure you weren’t…

“Do you plan on stopping being so obtuse?”

If your idea of not being so obtuse is using grammar as bad as “stopping being,” than no.

“Every single point Anne Dachel made was fallacious”

And yet neither you nor Arthur Caplan can tell us how.

“Art Caplan is a gentleman, unlike you.”

He may help little, old ladies cross the street and keep his elbows off the table at dinnertime, but that does not absolve him from giving a full response to Anne’s email.

“than no.”

*then no, I suppose I am “stopping being” so obtuse.

“Every single point Anne Dachel made was fallacious”

And yet neither you nor Arthur Caplan can tell us how.

You clearly didn’t stop being obtuse, because I just did tell you how. Here’s the link in case you didn’t bother to read it, which, I suspect, you didn’t:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/10/the_guatemala_syphilis_experiment_human.php

There you go. I just told you where Dachel is full of crap. Again.

BTW, grammar flames are about as lame as it gets. Pathetic, even. Seriously.

His obtuseness also makes me wonder how he does in classes. He is like those students you hear professors complain about who actually refuse to learn.

“Actually, trying to tell you anything is like having a conversation with a brick wall.”

I could have said the same about everyone else on here.

“Especially with the concept that the diseases are far worse than the vaccines”

Which would obviously depend on the disease and depend on the vaccine/what’s in the vaccine.

“herd immunity is needed”

With the current autism rates, lots of state and insurance money will have to be set aside to support this new population of young disabled people. This will inevitably raise medical costs and decrease the quality of care for everyone else. That is a much bigger threat to public health than any breach of herd immunity.

“Comparing the syphilis/penicillin tests to kids getting vaccines was stupid, abhorrent and a false analogy.”

Not to poorly and untested vaccines and/or vaccine ingredients.

“I see you are refusing to even touch my MMR comments.”

No, I responded to them.

“Did you think the vax versus unvaxed tests done at Willowbrook School were justified?”

Of course, it involved injecting disabled people with untested vaccines.

“And thimerosal is 40-90 times less toxic than mercury chloride.”

And organic mercury compounds are about 100X more toxic than elemental mercury. What’s your point?

Which would obviously depend on the disease and depend on the vaccine/what’s in the vaccine.

Oh, pray tell! So you are now okay with the DTaP because pertussis is killing real babies, and MMR since measles and mumps are disabling real people. Woot! Maybe there is actual hope for you.

No, I responded to them.

This is not an answer: “either/or”

And you are okay dokay with “injecting disabled people with untested vaccines.” Wow, you are a piece of work.

So tell us, which one of these stories is about you?

“Of course, it involved injecting disabled people with untested vaccines.”

*Of course NOT. Typo.

“You clearly didn’t stop being obtuse, because I just did.”

No, you just didn’t. You just called Anne’s email about Hannah Poling “fallacious” on the spot without any further consideration and it is not even mentioned anywhere in your linked-to post

The second post linked to in #264:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2010/10/the_guatemala_syphilis_experiment_human.php

Clearly you didn’t bother to notice just a couple of comments up where I compared Dachel’s attack on Caplan in relation to the Guatemala syphilis experiment to the fine art of distraction demonstrated when you brought up Thorsen again. There is a section of the post (“The CAMsters attack”) that deconstructs Dachel’s idiotic response to Caplan’s criticism of this unethical study, as well as Mike Adams’ criticism. Clearly you didn’t bother to read it; otherwise you would have certainly noticed that you are mentioned unfavorably in it.

“Clearly you didn’t bother to read it; otherwise you would have certainly noticed that you are mentioned unfavorably in it.”

Oh I read it, and I responded:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/10/valid-concern-for-60-year-old-medical-travesty-what-about-todays.html?cid=6a00d8357f3f2969e2013487f8c4e2970c#comment-6a00d8357f3f2969e2013487f8c4e2970c

MMR is disabling real people, you know.

It is known that measles will disable or kill at least one in a thousand. How does that compare with the MMR, and what data do you have? Remember anecdotes are not data, so links to AoA will not be accepted.

The MMR has no casual relationship to autism, especially since its introduction in 1971. There have been over twenty studies, several done in other countries spanning the globe and one attempt to replicate Wakefield by a researcher who tried to show thimerosal turned mice autistic… but in the end, Wakefield’s findings were worthless. Especially since the data were fraudulent.

Okay, show us the link to the story. You are not experiencing bigotry for being a student. You are getting criticized because you are being obtuse, illogical and close minded.

Being the parent of a college sophomore, I am obligated to worry that you are not doing well in college because of spending too much time online, not doing your homework and refusing to have a mind open to new information. This pales when compared to my younger son’s issue with having a roommate who has not paid his rent in three months… and my son’s job cannot handle another month of carrying the rent load (yes, he has to pay his own housing).

“Jake never noticed that I did indeed respond to SafeMinds “criticism” of the latest thimersosal article:”

I did, you just never addressed their criticisms and said the study was good for a whole lot of irrelevant reasons as I make clear here:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/09/safeminds-response-to-thimerosal-and-autism-pediatrics-study.html?cid=6a00d8357f3f2969e2013487740624970c#comment-6a00d8357f3f2969e2013487740624970c

“As for your accusation that I have “undisclosed pharma ties,” that’s just a bald-faced lie.”

You are more than welcome to post your concerns in the comments section, here:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/06/david-gorskis-financial-pharma-ties-what-he-didnt-tell-you.html#more

“In fact, it’s arguably libelous.”

There’s a ton of stuff on your blog that’s arguably libelous so I really wouldn’t be talking if I were you.

And btw, what’s the name of that private foundation that is funding your riluzole research?

Jake,
1) I suggest you get your hands on a copy of the book “Kluge” by Gary Marcus, and read it through cover to cover. That will explain to you why the people here are distrustful of “the parents say X, so X it must be”.
2) As has been pointed out to you, Poul Thorsen did not abscond. He was at his old address.
3) “Tobacco Science”. You keep using that phrase. I don’t think it means what you think it means. A certain researcher was asked by a lawyer to gather data on MMR to be used in a lawsuit. Said researcher used individuals referred to him by the lawyer, subjected them to invasive procedures without obtaining the proper permission to get his data, and finally, when the data did not support his hypothesis, “altered” it. That’s Tobacco Science.
4) Related to point 1: the Cedillos were adamant that Michelle was developing normally until her MMR jab. Videotape of Michelle before she received her jab was admitted by the Cedillos to Vaccine Court. An expert on autism then showed that Michelle was already showing signs of autism.

In terms of Net Warriors, I think of Jake more as a palooka.

@Chris,

Thanks for the link in 285.

My vote would be for one of the “18 out of 20” described by “Len from Las Cruces” (probably New Mexico State).

What good comes of it? What good comes for the 18 out of 20 students who sorrowfully spend 16 weeks with me each term? Those 18 kill my spirit, make me want to set myself (or them) on fire. And they fight me from day one to day last. They don’t want to be in college, and have 999 reasons for it that I can’t even begin to defeat or answer.

Those 18 come in dumb, go out dumb, too. And they’ve been sold a bill of goods by their parents, the culture, the media, their high school counselors, etc. The way college has devolved is into a sort of grade 13/14 mess of bullshit remediation, caretaking, and babysitting. We don’t challenge them because – my god – the customer in them won’t stand for it. And after 10 years of fighting this – modestly, I’m no hero – I have fallen into the groove dug for me by my colleagues.

Our “conversations” with Jake would provide good material for one of the videos from xtranormal.com.

I especially like this one on orthopedics vs anesthesia.

It even includes the brick wall!

Notice that Jake’s problem with the Willowbrook study was that the kids were injected with vaccines, not that they were intentionally infected with a pathogen.

And, on the grammar flame thing, yeah, it is pretty lame, especially when your target didn’t actually make mistakes in grammar. It’s even worse when your grammar flame contains several grammar mistakes of its own. Best to just stay away from them.

Just out of curiosity, Jake, which of the following vaccines do you think should be given on-schedule, which should be given on a delayed schedule, and which should not be given at all:

DTaP
MMR
HepA
HepB
Rotavirus
HiB
Pneumococcal
IPV
Influenza
Meningococcal
HPV
Varicella

Jake Crosby (#256) asks:

“So, does that mean then, that if for example a drop in prevalence came within the next five years or so, thimerosal would not be the cause because the drop would have come too late to be correlated according to you?”

Short answer – yes. Right now, we have an autism prevalence of about 1%. At some point – even if the cause of the “autism epidemic” is simply broadening diagnostic criteria and greater awareness – the increase will have to slow down. It is also reasonable to assume that, with time, the diagnostic criteria for autism will be “tightened up” when it becomes apparent (as it should be right now, with 1% of all children being classified as “autistic”) that the diagnosis has become meaningless.

Even leaving aside purely administrative and sociological impacts on autism prevalence, it is far too late for a drop in autism prevalence to be attributable to the removal of thimerosal from children’s vaccines. Five years from now will be even later still.

The “thimerosal-causes-autism” hypothesis is dead. Even Blaxill and Olmsted admit as much in their latest sci-fi fantasy book (Age of Autism). Even they have moved the goalposts to “mercury in general”.

At comment #262, Jake repeats his unsupported claim:

“Yes, parents who’ve found the preservative in their kids’ shots in and past 2003.”

Can Jake substantiate this claim? Apparently not, since he immediately launches into an unrelated diatribe about “corruption” in medicine. Let me make it a bit easier – I won’t ask for evidence, just that Jake provide a little more information:

[1] How do these un-named parents know that the vaccines their children received had thimerosal?

Did they read the package insert (from the actual vial their children received) or are they assuming the vaccine had thimerosal? Did they also check the expiry date of the vial? If the vaccine was expired, why did they let their child receive that vaccine and have they filed a complaint against the doctor?

[2] Which vaccine contained the thimerosal?

Was this vaccine a children’s vaccine or was it an adult vaccine that was given to their child? If this was an influenza vaccine, then it is hardly evidence that children’s vaccines still had thimerosal after 2002.

[3] How many parents have claimed that their children received thimerosal-containing children’s vaccines after 2002?

[4] What documentation do these parents have to support their claims?

This should be easy enough for Jake to provide – if he’s not making it all up. If, as I suspect, Jake is simply parroting others who have made this claim, he could admit that and refer us to his original source. Failing that, this is nothing more than another “Urban Legend”.

Your turn, Jake.

Prometheus

My apologies to Sauceress, who was the one who evaluated the TCV reports, not Science Mom. Lots of shared letters. See, I’m a parent and I make mistakes!

No worries Orange Lantern. While I spent almost my entire meal break looking up that info, hurried ad hoc formatting resulted in a rather messier presentation to what I would have preferred, so perhaps it’s actually Science Mum to whom you should be apologising. 🙂

@Jake
If the Olympic games had an event for cognitive dissonance I’m sure you could have been a serious contender. Your closest rivals would have been the cdesignproponentists, especially in Heat 11.

11) When an explanation shows you to be absolutely wrong, ignore the explanation and reassert the original claim.

I’m sure you would have been a shoo-in for heats #6,#7and #8 as well.
Face it Jake you could have become famous.

Also, I want to thank Jake for linking that AoA page @291
Interesting comment by Ginger Tayler there…
Ginger Taylor |October 03, 2010 at 11:44 AM

After my son regressed into autism following his 18 month shots, I was told it was not the shots. So I looked for research to back that up. I found MMR/autism research, but my son didn’t get MMR. I found thimerosal research, but he had not gotten thimerosal at that visit either.

But of course, as a following poster corrects, Ginger must be mistaken as to there being no thimerosal in her son’s shots.

Random thought: I haven’t heard much of the evils of MSG in recent years.
Is MSG out of flavour now?

“The clear implication here is that first, Todd tells you how to check them”

Except that he never did, although I think this misses the point completely.

The prevailing point is that everybody here is asking me for verification with information I clearly don’t have but other people have to disprove completely unverified claims made by some pharma press releases. You’re all demanding verification when you all have none, which is totally unfair not to mention a double-standard and therefore not worth wasting my time on.

Thanks for the Ginger Taylor posting, though, as it shows that thimerosal isn’t the only thing to worry about with vaccines given her son’s reaction to them. However, we are most certainly on the right track with thimerosal.

Anyway, I’m done here, you may discuss this under my article further if you want:
http://www.ageofautism.com/2010/08/do-reliable-thimerosal-estimates-exist.html

@Jake

“The clear implication here is that first, Todd tells you how to check them”

Except that he never did, although I think this misses the point completely.

I think you misunderstood Orange Lantern. He was saying that the implication is that you are demanding that I tell you where the lot numbers can be checked before you will tell us what the lot numbers are.

And Orange Lantern’s comment does not miss the point. You came in here stating that Merck was wrong and that they lied. You failed to substantiate that claim and have been shown, repeatedly, how you were wrong. You brought up “looking up the lot numbers” in support of your claim that thimerosal-containing vaccines were still being administered after 2002. The onus is on you to back up your claim. If you say that parents looked up the lot numbers, then prove it.

“The prevailing point is that everybody here is asking me for verification with information I clearly don’t have but other people have to disprove completely unverified claims made by some pharma press releases.”

If they have it, then you can tell us where. If you don’t know, then it’s ‘completely unverified’ under even your own idiosyncratic criteria as well as the rest of the worlds.

This process of providing your sources is called ‘referencing’. You should already be familiar with the concept.

“You’re all demanding verification when you all have none, which is totally unfair not to mention a double-standard and therefore not worth wasting my time on.”

It’s not really a double standard under your criteria. If you expect us to believe you due to the say-so of some parents, then the say-so of some pharma-companies is just as good. Thus, under your criteria, we have verification.

Of course, we also have “a reliable authourity using the expected methods to extract the relevant information from the entities that would – by the nature of being the producers of the product – be most expected to hold the most comprehensive data.” as a means of verification.

Your dismissal of this verification at approx #93 was based on the accusation that the sources had lied, an accusation that was clearly spelt out to you as originating from your own failure to properly and competantly understand a run-of-the-mill press release.

Your dismissal of the CDC and FDA verification is not only unsupported, highly contentious, but also perfectly circular in logic. You, in effect, failed to understand the situation despite repeated correction and guidance and reference to the original source.

Don’t pretend your failure is our fault.

“Anyway, I’m done here”

Yes, run away brave Sir Robin!

Again.

I did not say they did, I said they said they did.

I hope I’ve made myself clear, although I think I’ve made myself pretty clear already.

Priceless.

“Merck’s press release was not honest.”

They said that they had new product approval.
They said they would be making the new product.
They said that this means thier range will be preservative free.

They mentioned nothing about this announcement applying to existing stock.

It would also be illogical and against all normal processes for the announcement to be presumed to apply to existing stock.

This has been explained to you over and over.

“You can’t honestly say your vaccine line is free of all preservatives and then go about distributing vaccines preserved in thimerosal for the following years.”

It’s also not what they did. They announced a new product that would make thier range preservative free. No mention was made of existing stock. Indeed, the context of the announcement appears to imply that preservative containing stock was still available.

“It’s not logical.”

What is illogical is assuming the announcement applied to the old range, when the existing units of old range was not mentioned as being covered by this change, and the production-to-use time is sufficient enough for it to be reasonable to assume that preservative containing units of the old range would still be in existance.

That you thought they were saying what you thought they did is your fault, not Mercks.

Stop blaming other people for your own mistakes.

“If you want to find out the lot numbers for yourself, ask them.”

We can’t as you’ve failed to indicate who they are and how they may be contacted. If you have, you will quote it in your reply.

It’s unfair to expect people to know who your sources are if you don’t/won’t/can’t tell us.

“that FDA later changed their story to say it was the beginning of 2003 and not in 2002 at all,”

Source? An URL will do fine.

“the Council of State Governments says the last lots expired at the beginning of 2004”

Source?

Come on Jake, stop being lazy. Pony some decent stuff up or run away again.

That’s cute, but it’s the most recent comment that matters, like comment #146:

“No, but rather that the claim that thimerosal was not in use after 2002 is not substantiated.

Okay, fine. You did not make an overt claim. However, from your very first post you have been implying that thimerosal
was in use after 2002.”

So, we straightened that out already with Todd W.’s comment #146. I may have implied it by saying it was found in vaccines after 2002 – not by me – but by others whose findings you can consider valid or invalid, but I did not say it was actually in use after that year. Not that I don’t think it was…

“BTW, Jake, now you have definitely lied. Twice.”

No, I changed my mind, and there are plenty of critical comments under my articles.

“Why do you find parents who claim that their children received thimerosal containing vaccines after 2002 so credible?”

Perhaps the same reason why you find drug companies so credible.

And Jake,

That’s cute, but it’s the most recent comment that matters, like comment #146

Does this mean that you stand corrected by Todd’s comment #146?

If so, why would you follow that up with

but I did not say it was actually in use after that year. Not that I don’t think it was…

Which one is it? Or are you just trying to avoid saying what you really believe again?

Oh wait, that’s been answered. Since you told me “it’s the most recent comment that matters,” I guess we have to go with you don’t think it was not in use.
And to be more clear, avoiding the double negative: you think it was in use after 2002. Correct me if I’ve misinterpreted you.

“My goodness, you’re fluent in doublespeak.”

No, you and everybody else on here has said that just because people have found vaccines preserved in thimerosal after 2002 does not mean thimerosal was used as a preservative in vaccines after 2002 because those people are probably just mistaken.

I gather your response will be the whine “that’s not finding, that’s claiming!!!” And our pointless little argument will veer off from thimerosal altogether to one about dictionary definitions.

Indeed, as madder has indicated (which I think was said directly to Jake before), the discussion is about whether a particular range of updated vaccines were found to contain pre-announcement levels of preservative, or other non-neglible levels, equivilant to the content of the older range.

Jake has repeatedly received reminders and clarification of what the discussion is about, yet he gets it wrong at every turn and even shows confusion over what he has said and implied.

Pull yourself together Jake. Only you appear to show any difficulty with the distinction here – so what gives?

While I respect your opinion, I have to disagree with you considering that I have a lab document that shows elevated levels of metals that presented much like autism. So I would have to say metals do and will cause neuroinflammation that if allowed to continue without interruption can cause problems with neurotransmission and alterations in gene expression. Metals may not be the only factor that causes autism but they sure do contribute to it. Unfortunately, many females that are of child-bearing age have bioaccumulation from being exposed to lead paint and dust that may offload to their unborn child just like it does in animals that have high toxic loads from eating contaminated prey. As far as vaccines — an inflammatory response may develop that contributes to aggravation of autistic symptoms but I do not believe that they cause autism — but from what I see another study is being performed to see if this is the case. So I guess the jury is still out on that one too!

“I have a lab document that shows elevated levels of metals that presented much like autism.”

A lab document? One? Just one?

Hey, that’s one more piece of verifiable evidence than Jake has.

It’s time for the “mercury-causes-autism” rank and file to wake up and smell the data. They are on a sinking ship (in the sense that Titanic is a sinking ship) and it is time to move on to a more plausible hypothesis.

You’re being too kind. Their ship hasn’t just sunk, it’s been melted, blown up, vaporized, and the resulting atoms annihilated with antimatter. Then the resulting photons redshifted and dispersed until they disappeared in the CMB.

I don’t hold out any hope that the hard-core believers (e.g. Mark “I just want civil discourse” Blaxill) will ever change their minds – they can’t, not without admitting to their followers that they were wrong (something that business people never willingly do, apparently).

My only hope is that some of their hapless followers, wondering why they are ankle-deep in ice-water will finally start heading for the lifeboats (to continue the Titanic theme).

I see this as a matter of self-respect. It’s time for parents of autistic children to stop being satisfied with bulls**t answers and start asking for real answers – answers with data behind them. For too long, the rank and file have accepted simplistic, fairy-tale, sci-fi/fantasy explanations for complex medical problems. It’s time they stood up and asked “Show me the data that supports your claims!”

Prometheus

@madder:

“No, not dictionary definitions so much, but perhaps we can review the use of language in general. Note that the press release in question”

So a blog commenter who is just stating his opinion should be held to the same standard as your drug company which probably lied about the ingredients of its product.

“So a blog commenter who is just stating his opinion should be held to the same standard as your drug company which probably lied about the ingredients of its product.”

Is this supposed to be a question or a statement? As a question, it has no little relation to the content of post it was posted in response to. Indeed, a suspicious person could assert that you avoided dealing with the content as it indicates that your arguement is derived from a simple error that you have failed to correct despite having it repeatedly explained in quite painful detail by multiple people, including some who have experience in dealing with people with language and communication difficulties.

The standard that you are being held to is a basic one, that is: you should deal with what was actually said, not what you wish had been said.

The errors in your reading of the press release have been extensively pointed out. The errors you have made subsequently have been pointed out. Your only response so far has been to make further claims which rely – in part or in whole – on your misunderstanding of the press release and the subsequent discussion.

Kindly shape up or stop bothering people.