I have good news and bad news for you.
First, the good news. The devastating death crud that has kept me in its grip for nearly a week now appears to be receding. For the first time, "whining" or not, I start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Whether it's due to PalMD's kind offer of Pranic Healing or not, I don't know, but things are on the mend.
And now the bad news. There will be no Friday Dose of Woo this week. The reason is simple. My mucus-laden head continues to pound, and my hacking cough continues to put me into an ill mood. This makes it very difficult to attain and maintain the appropriately light-hearted and jovial tone towards which I strive when I bring each week's dose of amazing woo, and no one wants YFDoW to turn vicious. When that happens, it ceases to be fun.
On the other hand, my current not-quite-recovered state puts me in the perfect frame of mind to apply some richly deserved not-so-Respectful Insolence⢠to David Kirby's latest bit of antivaccination nonsense published the other day in that repository of antivaccination nonsense, The Huffington Post, entitled The Next Big Autism Bomb.
Suffice it to say that, as usual, the only "big bomb" here is the one that Kirby drops on science and logic. In fact, as per his usual M.O., Kirby carpet-bombs logic and science under a torrent of obfuscating verbiage designed to mask just how weak his arguments are. He probably thinks he's delivered a thermonuclear blast to scientists and skeptics who tell him he's full of crap, but in reality you'd be hard-pressed to hear a ladyfinger explosion there. In fact, I doubt it's the equivalent of a sparkler, even. A wet, sputtering sparkler just before it fizzles out. If anything, it's nothing more than part two of the incredibly shrinking causation claim and another desperate attempt to keep blaming autism on vaccines, despite all evidence failing to find a link.
Because Kirby, in his usual fashion, seeks to baffle with bullshit where he can't dazzle with brilliance, before addressing other points I'm going to zero in like the proverbial laser beam on one key admission that comes near the end of the article. It's an admission so buried in the mounds of Kirby's usual verbal prestidigitation that it's easy to let it slide by, even if you know that David Kirby is the author of Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic: A Medical Mystery, a book that three years ago contributed to massive fear-mongering about mercury in the thimerosal preservative in vaccines as a cause of autism. Since, then, as has been well documented by several studies, there has been no sign of a decrease in the incidence of autism now over six years since the last thimerosal-containing vaccines were taken off the shelf. Kirby's been trying to dodge and weave about that originally saying that if we didn't start to see a decline in autism rates by 2005 it would be a serious blow to the thimerosal hypothesis Of course, 2005 came and went without a decrease; so he shifted the goalpost back to 2007. Meanwhile, he started to strategically back away from blaming mercury in vaccines, going so far as to pull ridiculous excuses such as blaming mercury from the fillings of corpses cremated in California. 2007 came and went without a decrease. So most recently he shifted the goalposts back to 2011, declaring it a "tad premature" to vindicate thimerosal, while even still trying to speculate how he could revive the "thimerosal-causes-autism" gig that made him famous.
Now, here's his admission:
And it might help explain why autism rates are not plummeting now that thimerosal levels have been significantly reduced in most childhood vaccines.
Got that? David Kirby admits that autism rates are not decreasing six years after nearly all thimerosal has been removed from childhood vaccines. Even he knows that the evidence is against the mercury militia. I suspect also that even Kirby realized how ridiculous his hand-waving blaming mercury in pollution from China or mercury in the fillings of corpses being cremated in California as the reasons why autism rates were not falling sounded. He knew he needed a new story. Thanks to the Hannah Poling case, he (and the rest of the mercury militia) found one. I will come back to that later, but the Poling case was clearly manna from heaven to rescue Kirby from what must have looked like the rest of his career (whatever his career is) wandering through the desert of crankery, and like a starving man Kirby latched onto it and fed deeply. The only problem is that in doing so, he excreted the results as pseudoscientific claptrap, and this is what we see in his Huffington Post opuses. In the meantime, remember that all of Kirby's florid verbiage surrounding the above admission is nothing more than the desperate gasp of a man looking for a way to keep blaming vaccines for the autism "epidemic" in the face of increasingly incontrovertible science showing that they are not to blame.
Much of Kirby's article consists mainly of anonymous quotes from people who supposedly were part of or listening in to a teleconference held earlier this month by the CDC. Apparently, it was convened to discuss the Hannah Poling case and whether mitochondrial disorders are part of the pathogenesis of autism. (My take on the question can be found here; so I won't rehash it.) Kirby makes much hay of a number of sources who say lots of ominous things. Not surprisingly, these sources are all anonymous; not a single one is identified. Normally, I would not consider this that huge an issue, but this is David Kirby we're talking about. For me to trust a journalist's use of anonymous sources, I first have to trust that journalist. Kirby's history is so replete with spreading misinformation, goalpost-shifting, and dubious statements that I just plain don't trust him, and I think I'm quite justified in that mistrust. I have no way of knowing if this is the case, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if his "sources" are true believers, advocates who were included in the teleconference in the same way that antivaccinationists have been included on a major federal panel on autism. The point is that I have learned from bitter experience not to trust Kirby's word alone on anything. If he told me it was raining outside, I'd be sure to look out my window to verify it before grabbing my umbrella.
The other part of Kirby's article includes his rehashing two studies that he mentioned before and then going--shall we say?--a bit wild with speculations based on them. The first of these was a recently published study out of Portugal by Guiomar Oliveira et al. This study surveyed autism prevalence in mainland Portugal and the Azores, and children with a diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder (ASD) were screened for associated medical conditions. They found that 20% of autistic children had associated medical problems, with what was reportedly a higher than expected incidence of mitochondrial disorders at 4.2%. This report appears to be basically a rehash of data from a study from 2005 in a group of 120 children with autism. After children with identified associated medical disorders were excluded, out of the 102 children, only 56 underwent the full planned investigative protocol, and only 69 underwent any sort of screening for mitochondrial disorders (lactate levels), of which 14 were found to be abnormal. Eleven ultimately underwent muscle biopsy (the definitive test for mitochondrial disorders) of which five were reported to have definite mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders. None of the children had any of the deletions or mutations in mitochondrial DNA tested for. If this study is reproducible (and others have not as far as I know reported anywhere near as high a level of mitochondrial disorders, at least not in any reports in peer-reviewed literature), once again, as I pointed out before it still doesn't answer the question of whether such abnormalities are a cause of autism or an epiphenomenon. But that never stopped David Kirby from going off on wild speculations before.
Even worse is the second "study" that Kirby cites. Unlike the previous study, this study was not locatable on PubMed. In fact, the only link that I could find to it was here. It's nowhere else that I could find. That right away gave me little confidence. Perhaps it was an abstract presented at a meeting. Whatever the case, it clearly hasn't been published in the peer-reviewed medical literature indexed by PubMed, and its lead author doesn't list it on his webpage. Kirby makes a great deal of this study, which claims to show that as many as 20% of autistic children have mitochondrial disorders. Of course, even if the study had been confirmed and published in the peer-revieweed literature, one caveat that would have to be made would be that this is a skewed population. The population is that referred to the Kennedy-Krieger Institute, which is known for its expertise in mitochondrial disorders. It would not be surprising that investigators at the KKI would find a much higher rate of such disorders than in the general population. Not only do they have the expertise to find them, but children with suspected metabolic disorders would be more likely to be referred there. And, once again, even if such an observation were replicated in a more general population, it would not answer the question of whether we are observing an epiphenomenon or not. Also, don't forget that we don't know how good the study was because we have only an abstract to look at. There is no detailed methods section to evaluate and no way to determine if the study is sound or a piece of crap. Again, none of these sorts of concerns have ever stopped David Kirby from going off on wild speculations before.
But before his speculations, Kirby couldn't resist demonstrating his ignorance with this howler:
Another surprise came when one researcher announced an "inheritance pattern" that linked each case through the genetics of the father: In families where two cousins had autism, the genetic link was always through the father.
This unexpected discovery would clearly implicate nuclear DNA inheritance, and not mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only through the mother.
Kirby announces this as though it meant anything. Here's some news for Kirby: Not all mitochondrial proteins are coded for by mitochondrial DNA. Lots of them are coded by nuclear DNA, the same way every other non-mitochondrial protein in the body is. Finding a genetic mutation in the nuclear DNA involving a mitochondrial protein, defects in which can result in mitochondrial dysfunction, is entirely possible--even probable. Whether mutations implicated in individual types of mitochondrial disorders are in nuclear genes or mitochondrial genes says little about the mitochondrial dysfunction they cause, only about the mode of inheritance. Mentioning the possibility of paternal inheritance says nothing other than that whatever gene the KKI investigators claim to have implicated, it's not a mitochondrial gene, although it apparently somehow codes for a mitochondrial protein.
But, again, that doesn't stop Kirby from going off into the Twilight Zone of pure speculation gussied up with pretty prose to make it sound like something other than the B.S. that it is, starting thusly:
The mercury-containing vaccine preservative, thimerosal, for example, "can definitely kill cells in vitro through the mitochondria," one teleconference participant told me. "And some people are beginning to suspect that the dose of hepatitis B vaccine given at birth might be interfering with proper mitochondrial function in certain children."
It's irrelevant whether thimerosal can kill cells in cell culture at high doses through the mitochondria. Once again, the dose makes the poison, and there is no evidence that thimerosal in the dose given in vaccines kills neurons in vivo, through the mitochondria or otherwise. This is nothing more than another attempt by David Kirby to keep a dead hypothesis alive. Moreover, pretty much any process that induces apoptosis will result in death through the mitochondria; the mitochondria are intimately associated with programmed cell death. In other words, so what? Kirby then proposes a "three hit" idea:
STEP ONE: Child is conceived and born healthy, but with an underlying nuclear DNA genetic susceptibility to mitochondrial dysfunction, inherited from dad.
TRIGGER ONE: An early environmental "adversity" occurs in the womb or during the neonatal period, perhaps caused by prenatal exposure to heavy metals, pollutants, pesticides and medicines. Or, it occurs in early infancy, through environmental toxins, thimerosal exposure, or even the Hepatitis B vaccine "birth dose."
Note the convenient inclusion of an unspecified mix of "toxins" and "heavy metals," plus the dreaded thimerosal prenatally. Anything to keep the mercury idea alive, you know! Also note his emphasis on paternal inheritance. There's really no basis for that, given that the actual abstract he cites noted autosomal dominant inheritance, which, unless a sex-linked gene, does not imply that any susceptibility gene has to be inherited from the father. True, the abstract did mention transmission through male relatives, but I'm guessing that there was nowhere enough data in the family tree to conclude that this was a sex-linked gene. In any case, according to Kirby:
This trigger results in:
STEP TWO: Child develops mild, usually asymptomatic mitochondrial dysfunction (though I wonder if the ear infections and eczema so common in these cases might also be symptoms of mito problems).
TRIGGER TWO: Child, now with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, suffers over-stimulation of the immune system beyond the capacity of his or her metabolic reserves. This stress is either via a viral febrile infection, or from multiple vaccinations, as in the Poling case. This trigger results in:
STEP THREE: Acute illness, seizures, encephalopathy, developmental regression, autism.
Or, if someone with a rare genetic disorder gets a certain combination of vaccines when the moon is full, they might have a reaction that causes autism. Surely you can see the beauty of Kirby's new hypothesis. It's nowhere near as easy to falsify as the original mercury hypothesis. There are way more variables. Before, it was simply the mercury in vaccines, stupid. Or, as Generation Rescue used to put it, autism and ASD were all "misdiagnoses" for mercury poisoning. Very clear. Very concise. Of course, this concept had the inconvenient problem of making a clear cut and testable hypothesis: That autism rates should decline if thimerosal exposure is drastically decreased. Well, since late 2001, childhood exposure has been drastically decreased, and six-plus years later autism rates are not declining. That's why we're now treated to Kirby pulling calculations based on numbers from studies that have not been verified or replicated by other investigators, like this:
It remains to be seen how all this plays out. And many important questions still lie ahead.
For example, if mitochondrial dysfunction turns out to be as common as 200-per-10,000, and autism is now at 66 per 10,000, did anything bad happen to any of the other 134-per-10,000 children, apart from autism (i.e., ADD, ADHD, speech delay, etc.)?
Note that it's hard to resist asking why Kirby assumes that children with autism are a subset of children with mitochondrial disorders. He seems to be assuming here that 100% of children with autism have mitochondrial disorders. But, wait, there's more stupid to consider:
Moreover, if 10-20% of autism cases can actually be traced to an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, then what about the majority of autism cases where this did not come into play?
And, if 20% of autism cases are mito related, and 6% of those cases regressed because of vaccines, that would mean that at least 1% of all autism cases were vaccine related. Some estimates of autism go as high as a million Americans - that would mean 10,000 people with vaccine-triggered autism, and billions of dollars in the cost of lifetime care.
This is just speculation on figures pulled out of Kirby's nether regions and so loosely based on reality that Kirby should think of a career in science fiction. The figures are custom-designed to be as inflated as Kirby can possibly make them. Even taking that into consideration, think about just what this represents. This is nothing more than what Kirby's been doing all along since the Hannah Poling case was announced. It's nothing more than a full retreat from the claim that mercury in vaccines is a major cause of autism. The fallback has been amazingly far, all the way to "maybe somehow vaccines aggravate some rare underlying mitochondrial disorder to cause autism in some children." Once again, Kirby's pretty rhetorical flourishes and speculation are about nothing more than finding a way to seem relevant when he is not. They're there to distract you from the utter failure of science to support the original claims of the mercury militia, namely that mercury in vaccines was the cause for most cases of autism. They're there to distract you from the existence of multiple large and well-designed epidemiological studies that have utterly failed to find a link between mercury in vaccines or vaccines in general and autism.
It's worth repeating one more time that Kirby's behavior is there to hide the fact that the idea that vaccines cause autism, an idea he once championed but has now clearly recognized as a loser, is the incredible shrinking hypothesis. It's gone from confident claims that mercury or vaccines cause nearly all cases of autism to a lot of handwaving based on one case conceded by the government in which the plaintiff had a rare mitochondrial disease which may have been aggravated by vaccines. Now Kirby's dug up small studies, one published and one unpublished (and thus unevaluable), that claim that mitochondrial disorders may be more common in autistic children than in the general population and used them to come up with a tortured "three step" idea of autism causation that allows him to admit that thimerosal doesn't cause autism while continuing to blame vaccines for at least some autism. It also allows him to cite wildly inflated estimates of how many children might be affected and to make up evidence-free recommendations about "numbers of antigens" that children should receive at one time.
Here's the thing that, in all his verbiage, David Kirby hopes that you won't notice: This strategy is in essence an admission of utter defeat of the mercury militia. Think about it. They've gone from claiming that mercury in vaccines was the prime cause of the "autism epidemic." Now, even if you accept David Kirby's hypothesis and his figures, at the very most and by Kirby's own estimate only 1% of autism could possibly be vaccine-associated. That's the highest estimate Kirby could come up with, even by torturing what little data there is. If that's not defeat, I don't know what is. I reiterate again that it is certainly worth studying whether there is a definite role for mitochondrial dysfunction in the pathogenesis of autism and ASD. However, the twisted web of causation proposed by Kirby is so far ahead of the science that it's not just in another time zone, but I question whether it's even on the same planet.
Of course, in the real world, there isn't even any credible scientific evidence to support blaming even 1% of autism on vaccines. Science just doesn't support it. So the question becomes: Why does Kirby bother? The reason, of course, is that it's all about the vaccines. It always was all about the vaccines. It always will be all about the vaccines, no matter how often or how vociferously Kirby or any other antivaccinationist piously lectures you otherwise or tells you that they are really for "safe" vaccines. (As if scientists and physicians aren't for safe vaccines!)
What really worries me about this new attention to mitochondrial disorders is not that they might actually implicate vaccines as a factor related to autism. As far as I'm concerned, the science will be done and the chips will fall where they may. What worries me is what the autism quackery industry will do with this. After all, the discredited idea the mercury in vaccines causes autism resulted in a huge cottage industry of quackery, the most popular form of which was chelation therapy for "detoxification" of the mercury that supposedly caused autism, a therapy that puts children at risk and has resulted in at least one death. It doesn't take a psychic to predict that there will soon be all sorts of unvalidated "tests" for mitochondrial disorders marketed to parents with autistic children based on the idea that mitochondrial disorders plus vaccines somehow cause autism. Nor does one need to be a psychic to predict that autistic children will likely soon in large numbers be subjected to workups for mitochondrial disorders, up to and including muscle biopsies or even more invasive procedures or that all sorts of dubious "cures" for autism that claim to reverse mitochondrial dysfunction will be marketed to the parents of autistic children, just as chelation therapy and various other biomedical interventions have been in the past.
It also doesn't require a psychic to predict that, assuming, as is likely, that science fails to find the smoking gun link that Kirby postulates here, he will happily move on to another tortured version of science that somehow, some way, manages to blame vaccines for autism.
That's because, above all, it's still all about the vaccines.
My mucus-laden head continues to pound, and my hacking cough continues to put me into an ill mood.
There's this homeopathic remedy for colds I want to tell you about. It's the mucus of a cold sufferer distilled to 1 part in ten billion...
Yeah, but does the body-wracking sneezing, coughing and chills count as succussion?
We know a fetus exposed to Rubella in the 1st month has a 30% chance of some problems-deafness, autism, etc. If the anti-vaxers succeed, how many autism cases will be due to not getting the MMR? More than 1%?
Having your rear end handed to you on a platter like that must really hurt. Notice he won't even admit the thimerosal is out of the vaccines? He says "thimerosal levels have been significantly reduced in most childhood vaccines." The salient parts there are "significantly reduced" (which is not synonymous with "removed" on my planet) and "most childhood vaccines" (which is not synonymous with "all"). You're saying that the thimerosal has been been removed.
I don't think he'd make a good science fiction writer, speaking as a science fiction writer. Science fiction has to be plausible within its postulated universe (that is, based on actual or postulated physical laws and principles), and it has to be internally consistent. I think you've just demonstrated that Kirby wouldn't know consistency if it bit him on the leg...
Cottage industry for mitochondrial disorder testing and diagnosis is pretty much the same notion that I had bouncing around my head earlier this week (I think after making the mistake of reading the comments in the CDC's AJC op-ed rebuttal to Kirby's call-out). I'm sure that will be the next thing over the next year or two either by DAN! practitioners or by opportunistic clinicians of varying stripes. Lots of blood and muscle for a pretty minimal yield, not to mention freaked out parents.
Let's not forget that even though Kirby is slooooowly backing away from the direct causation of thimerosal to autism, he still likes to talk about good old environmental exposure to heavy metals as the cause of mitochondrial defects (aside, of course, from his newer bone, paternal inheritance).
Actually, there remain trace amounts in some vaccines, but only one vaccine (the flu vaccine) still uses the standard amount of thimerosal as an antibacterial agent, and even that is available in thimerosal-free forms. The bottom line, of course, is that mercury exposure due to vaccines is at the lowest level it's been since at least the 1980s, and there has been no sign of autism rates falling. That's about as strong epidemiological evidence as can be found that thimerosal in vaccines does not cause autism. On a purely technical level, of course, Kirby is correct to say that thimerosal levels have been "significantly reduced"; he just neglects to mention that the reduction is down to trace levels. Of course, some antivaxers claim that even those traces cause autism, but if that were the case then why wouldn't autism rates have been as high 20-30 years ago, the last time mercury exposure from vaccines was this low? Can't have it both ways.
Cottage industry for mitochondrial disorder testing and diagnosis is pretty much the same notion that I had bouncing around my head earlier this week (I think after making the mistake of reading the comments in the CDC's AJC op-ed rebuttal to Kirby's call-out). I'm sure that will be the next thing over the next year or two either by DAN! practitioners or by opportunistic clinicians of varying stripes. Lots of blood and muscle for a pretty minimal yield, not to mention freaked out parents.
Let's not forget that even though Kirby is slooooowly backing away from the direct causation of thimerosal to autism, he still likes to talk about good old environmental exposure to heavy metals as the cause of mitochondrial defects (aside, of course, from his newer bone, paternal inheritance).
Kirby: "TRIGGER ONE: An early environmental "adversity" occurs in the womb or during the neonatal period, perhaps caused by prenatal exposure to heavy metals, pollutants, pesticides and medicines. Or, it occurs in early infancy, through environmental toxins, thimerosal exposure, or even the Hepatitis B vaccine "birth dose."
This is so classically brain-dead antivax.
Is there a mitochondrial disorder of gray matter that prevents these people from grasping that AN INFECTION might be the mysterious "trigger"? Or that vaccines guard against some of these infections?
No Bacon, you don't understand. An infection might result in a natural fever and we all know that the body, even if you have a mito disorder, can handle natural fevers. But a fever induced by a vaccine is an artificial fever...very bad!
disclosure: No, I am not being serious.
Okay, I might have asked this before, but...
Is it at all possible that some cases of autism, a fever (even in the absence of underlying mitochondrial disorder) can cause worsening, where the child goes from behaving relatively normally (especially to a parent who is not suspecting autism) to clearly displaying autistic behaviors, and that in kids who are vaccinated, sometimes the vaccination is the triggering event, while in kids who are not vaccinated, it's some other trigger like a viral infection? In this case skipping vaccinations would not prevent autism unless you could also keep the kid in a bubble for life to ward off all viral infection, but it might explain some cases where the parent sees a link based on timing. To make it clear, I am NOT suggesting vaccines cause autism. It's clear they don't. I'm wondering if fevers sometimes cause a step-wise worsening of apparent symptoms and if anyone's looked at that in a controlled way.
Has anyone done a prospective study, looking at kids before and after their routine childhood vaccinations, to try to objectively clarify how many kids are "suddenly" autistic afterwards?
No, Elizabeth in fact it's the opposite. Recent research suggests that when autistic children have fevers, their autistic behaviors are reduced. And other research has suggested that when children are diagnosed with autism and then researchers retrospectively review videotape of those children taken BEFORE diagnosis (before any concern was brought up by the parents, pediatrician, etc), autistic behaviors are noticeably present. In other words, the children already were autistic, they just hadn't been diagnosed. Anecdotaly, that was always the case--parents would review old family movies and realize their babies were already not interacting, making eye contact, and so on, but the parents never realized that was abnormal until the children grew a little older and the developmental disabilities became more marked.
Elizabeth Reid said "Has anyone done a prospective study, looking at kids before and after their routine childhood vaccinations, to try to objectively clarify how many kids are "suddenly" autistic afterwards? "
Actually, as it turns out there are very few who turned out to be "suddenly" autistic afterwards. Looking at home movies, the kids showed symptoms before any vaccines.
Also, what other fevers are you going to rule out? Even fully vaxed kids get other viruses and bacterial infections that cause seizures (Yikes, I just had a 13 year old child wake up this morning with a stye!) How about other factors like the gastrointestinal bug that caused my year old baby to get dehydrated and then have seizures?
When do those goal posts get permanently installed and stop moving?
As I was working my way through Kirby's latest it occurred to me that, no wonder he tries to strike such a "serious" tone of supposed "objectivity"----he's really going on nothing, or is rather playing hard and fast with figures and small studies dredged out from databases, and carefully inserts just the right among of rhetoric to plant seeds of doubt in parents and readers.
Yes, it is all about the vaccines for Kirby and not about autism----not that it ever was.
OT: John Best's blog has made it onto Portal of Evil. Bout time.
http://friends.portalofevil.com/sfs.php?si=3&fi=000041699
As I was working my way through Kirby's latest it occurred to me that, no wonder he tries to strike such a "serious" tone of supposed "objectivity"----he's really going on nothing, or is rather playing hard and fast with figures and small studies dredged out from databases, and carefully inserts just the right among of rhetoric to plant seeds of doubt in parents and readers.
Yes, it is all about the vaccines for Kirby and not about autism----not that it ever was.
Haha, love the "Blogging on Pseudoscience" icon :)
There will be no Friday Dose of Woo this week.
I know it's not an adequate substitute, but in its place, perhaps we could all go point and laugh at Demi Moore. Just to keep in practice, as it were.
As I was working my way through Kirby's latest it occurred to me that, no wonder he tries to strike such a "serious" tone of supposed "objectivity"----he's really going on nothing, or is rather playing hard and fast with figures and small studies dredged out from databases, and carefully inserts just the right among of rhetoric to plant seeds of doubt in parents and readers.
Yes, it is all about the vaccines for Kirby and not about autism----not that it ever was.
As I was working my way through Kirby's latest it occurred to me that, no wonder he tries to strike such a "serious" tone of supposed "objectivity"----he's really going on nothing, or is rather playing hard and fast with figures and small studies dredged out from databases, and carefully inserts just the right among of rhetoric to plant seeds of doubt in parents and readers.
Yes, it is all about the vaccines for Kirby and not about autism----not that it ever was.
It's nowhere near as easy to falsify as the original mercury hypothesis.
You hit the nail in the head. Kirby started out with something that looked like science. Now that it failed, he'll latch on to stuff that is not very easy to test, where there can always be room for doubt.
It's funny how they talk about the "number of antigens" presented in the vaccine. A bacterial infection or a cold would typically result in the presentation of a number of antigens as well. If this type of immunological response causes autism then getting a cold or bacterial infection would do the same thing as a vaccine.
Dude, seriously, enough about your cold. It's not that I don't care, but, ... wait. No. It is that I don't care.
Actually, I don't care that you don't care.
To both people who told me that old home movies show signs of autism in children subsequently diagnosed with autism, yes, I've read that study. As I said, I fully understand that the condition predates vaccine age/typical age of diagnosis; comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated populations makes it clear that vaccination doesn't cause autism, and as you say, children who are subsequently diagnosed can be shown not to have been developing normally long before the diagnosis. I put "suddenly" in scare quotes up there to indicate that obviously the kids aren't suddenly autistic, but that certainly seems to be the parental perception some of the time.
What I'd like to know is, are vaccines are one possible (and highly salient) cause of an obvious worsening of symptoms to the point where a layperson can recognize the condition. Hmm, trying to think of a reasonable analogy. Okay, everybody's baby teeth fall out sooner or later, but maybe children who enjoy toffee tend to lose their loose baby teeth while eating it because it's sticky. A person who had only observed a few toffee-eating children lose baby teeth might think that toffee causes harmful tooth loss, whereas in fact it just precipitated it *at that particular moment* in those children. Those parents are observing a genuine relationship between eating a sticky food and losing a tooth, but they're wrong that sticky foods are causing the overall phenomenon.
The old thimerosal-causes-autism goalposts aren't mine, so I'm not moving 'em. I'm completely convinced that vaccines don't cause autism, both my kids are vaccinated, etc. I just think if someone could explain the normal kid + vaccinations = autistic kid stories in a more convincing way, or at least thoroughly prove this doesn't happen at rate higher than any other short period, it might finally help reconcile these parents with the mainstream.
A 3,500 word post whilst in the evil grip of the death crud...couldn't have been that bad. ;-)
Quite. I have been arguing over on the Spectator magazine blog in the UK about this very pertinent fact. Febrile reactions are far less common with a vaccine than with natural infection with most of these childhood illnesses such as pertussis, measles, rubella etc, so may actually be protective. I argued that mitochondrial disorders should be an indication for vaccination, possibly in a planned fashion with suitable antipyretic cover.
Gues who agrees with me? None other than David Kirby!
But then, because so much of what he says in utter BS, perhaps I will now have to rethink my hypothesis.....!
Quite. I have been arguing over on the Spectator magazine blog in the UK about this very pertinent fact. Febrile reactions are far less common with a vaccine than with natural infection with most of these childhood illnesses such as pertussis, measles, rubella etc, so may actually be protective. I argued that mitochondrial disorders should be an indication for vaccination, possibly in a planned fashion with suitable antipyretic cover.
Guess who agrees with me? None other than David Kirby!
But then, because so much of what he says in utter BS, perhaps I will now have to rethink my hypothesis.....!
I have a detailed analysis of the paper on fever acutely resolving the behavioral symptoms of autism.
http://daedalus2u.blogspot.com/2008/01/resolution-of-asd-symptoms-with-…
I am quite sure it is real and is exactly and completely consistent with my low NO hypothesis of ASDs.
It is an acute effect. An acute fever can acutely resolve ASD symptoms but the chronic effect of repeated fevers is to make the ASD symptoms worse. That occurs due to the non-linear regulation of physiology, hysteresis in regulation of lots of things, and the different time scales under which many of these different regulatory pathways work. I call this the "low NO ratchet". Each time the immune system is activated from a basal state of low NO, the acute activation is higher (due to reduced inhibition of NFkB from the low initial NO state) which results in higher levels of iNOS and NO, which then lowers NO in the basal state via feedback inhibition of expression of eNOS and nNOS.
Many people with ASDs do have symptoms of mitochondrial disorders, the major "symptom" being increased lactate. That "symptom" is the generic symptom that comes from not enough mitochondria. Not enough mitochondria from any mechanism will cause increased lactate. One can have 100% perfectly normal mitochondria, and if you don't have enough of them you will have increased lactate.
The most important regulator of mitochondria number is NO. NO is what triggers mitochondria biogenesis. If you don't have "enough" basal NO, you won't have enough
"basal mitochondria biogenesis". I have put that in quotes because it is "complicated" and regulated in each cell in each tissue compartment independently.
Any severe immune system activation can cause mitochondrial shutdown and results in not enough mitochondria. That is the immediate cause of death during septic shock. The mitochondria get shut down (by mechanisms I will discuss in a future blog), without enough mitochondria your cells can't generate enough ATP and you develop multiple organ failure and you die. Short of death, a large shut down of mitochondria can result in a state with not enough mitochondria long term. That is what chronic fatigue is, not enough mitochondria.
A 3,500 word post whilst in the evil grip of the death crud...couldn't have been that bad. ;-)
Elizabeth Reid wrote, "A person who had only observed a few toffee-eating children lose baby teeth might think that toffee causes harmful tooth loss, whereas in fact it just precipitated it *at that particular moment* in those children. Those parents are observing a genuine relationship between eating a sticky food and losing a tooth, but they're wrong that sticky foods are causing the overall phenomenon."
I'm simply an interested layman, but the answer to your question has been pointed out numerous times on this blog alone. Not to mention dozens of other places. As I understand it, the point where a child has matured enough to show obvious symptoms of autism is also close to the time when vaccines are administered. For this reason there is a correlation, but no causation.
To use your metaphor, it would be like we recommend not giving a child a haircut until they are six years old and then notice that their front baby teeth fall out within a couple years after their first haircut. A correlation would exist, but no causal path can be shown.
Your toffee suggestion is flawed because we can demonstrate a link between a sticky substance being chewed by teeth and mechanical stress put on the attachment point of the tooth to the jaw. There has been no demonstratable linkage between autism and vaccines, even though plenty of people have looked for one.
Yet, consider the possibility of a group in our hypothetical society which believes all haircuts are an evil tool of the devil. Such a group which maintains haircuts are evil may also claim that haircuts cause teeth to fall out. That's what the anti-vaccination group is looking for; any excuse to link something bad to vaccines so they can stop the administration of them.
Back to the autism and vaccine non-link. I've occasionally wondered if pediatricans may be noticing possible autistic traits when they administer a vaccine and ask for the child to be brought back in a couple of weeks for more extensive testing.
If I were a pediatrician who thought I saw something during a routine office visit, like a vaccination, I certainly would be careful about mentioning it to a parent until further testing was done. After all, my own intuitive judgement may be faulty and it would be causing needless worry for the parents if my judgement was wrong.
Of course, my reflections must be taken with a grain of salt, I'm an electrical engineer with no training or experiance in medicine. Cheers!
FWIW, double posting,
Interestingly enough, when I hit the 'post' button. The page was read, but not refreshed.
Upon opening a new browser window, I noticed that my message had been posted.
Then I got the server error on my first browser page. About a minute after I hit post, and after I verified that my post had been taken.
Actually, there remain trace amounts in some vaccines... On a purely technical level, of course, Kirby is correct to say that thimerosal levels have been "significantly reduced"; he just neglects to mention that the reduction is down to trace levels.
Well, how do the "trace levels" of thimerosal in these vaccines compare to the "trace levels" of normal mercury one would find in drinking water? (Google indicates the EPA allows about 1-2 ppb.)
These nutcases use the same approaches as creationists (e.g. raising questions that were answered years ago) but have even less evidence.
Yes it is taken out of most required childhood immunizations, however there is still mercury in flu shots and a host of others.
I thought the big news a few weeks ago was that California was supposed to remove all the thimerosal but FAILED TO DO SO.
Am I just mis-remembering this?
I thought the big news a few weeks ago was that California was supposed to remove all the thimerosal but FAILED TO DO SO.
Am I just mis-remembering this?
Elizabeth Reid said "To both people who told me that old home movies show signs of autism in children subsequently diagnosed with autism, yes, I've read that study."
Only one, which one was it? There have been several. Did you read the Italian, French, UK or the American studies?
Your point of suggesting yet another study, when in fact dozens have been made was a way of moving the goal post yet again. No matter how many studies done in many countries have shown no relationship between vaccines and autism, you went and proposed another one!
To show the complexity, today in the news was an article on the vast genetic factors in schizophrenia. From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/27/AR20080…
( or http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSN2728018520080327 ) there was this bit:
Begin Quote
"If the genetics tells us that schizophrenia is really 10 different disorders, then let's have 10 treatments that optimize the outcomes for everyone and not just use the same drugs for everybody," said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which helped fund and conduct the study.
The work also offers evidence that autism shares some genetic roots with schizophrenia.
"Take away schizophrenia's hallucinations and delusions," said Jon McClellan, a child psychiatrist at the University of Washington and a leader of the study, published in yesterday's online issue of the journal Science, "and the symptoms that remain, the lack of social interest and withdrawal, are what we call autism. There is clearly an intersection of the brain systems involved."
....
Yet environmental factors also contribute. Pregnant women who experience famine are at increased risk of giving birth to children who will get schizophrenia. Childhood infections may also add to the risk. Further muddying the picture, most schizophrenics have no family history of the disease. That suggests that, to the extent the disease is genetic, the mutations often arise spontaneously either at conception or during fetal development, perhaps after having inherited a general propensity to get such mutations.
End Quote
"Yes it is taken out of most required childhood immunizations, however there is still mercury in flu shots and a host of others"
NO, it has been taken out (reduced to trace levels) of ALL required childhood immunization.
The flu is not a required immunization.
Talking of mitochondrial woo: apart from "Dichloroacetate is the new chelation", I am waiting to see someone at DAN or a similar place start recommending "Mitochondrial energy enhancing" Coenzyme Q10 supplements for all children. You heard it here first.
Damn - on second thoughts should have patented the idea and got rich...
Orac,
In case some of your readers wanted to know, the mitochondrial DNA only encodes for 37 genes: the 12S and 16S ribosomal RNA, the NADH dehydrogenase subunits, 2 ATP synthase subunits, cytochrome b and cytochrome c oxidase subunits I-III. The rest of the mitochondrial genes have migrated to the nuclear DNA during the past billion years or so.
There are at least three mitochondrial genes that have been implicated in autism - two are on the mitochondrial DNA (TRNK and TRNL1 - tRNA genes) and one (SLC25A12) is on the nuclear DNA.
There are over 70 nuclear DNA genes that have been associated with autism, including CNTNAP2 (found in 4% of autistic subjects in a recent large study) and EN2 (which may account for as much as 40% of autism).
Given the large number of genes associated with autism, it is not surprising that a few of them would be mitochondrial genes. I have no doubt that when more studies have been completed, we will find that autistic people have more mitochondrial gene disruptions than the general population, but they will also have more non-mitochondrial gene disruptions.
I predict that there will soon be a rush by questionable practitioners and dubious laboratories to make "mitochondrial testing" available to concerned parents. The resulting flood of false-positive results will not only increase parental anxiety but will also lead to many unnecessary (and expensive) tests to run these false alarms to ground.
Prometheus
To emphasize some of what Prometheus said. All mitochondria in all animals have the same 13 mitochondrial proteins coded for by mitochondrial DNA (with only a very few exceptions). Plants have those same 13 proteins plus a few more (Arabidopsis thaliana has 57 mitochondrial genes total). The other 99+% (there are ~2000 total) are coded for in the nucleus. Presumably the migration of those genes to the nucleus occurred before eukaryotes diverged. It is complicated because the coding scheme is different for nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA. In other words mitochondrial DNA moved to the nucleus wouldn't express properly (and vice versa).
A lot of the tests that show "mitochondrial disorders" may only be showing mitochondrial depletion. The "disorder" may relate to the regulation of mitochondria biogenesis and not necessarily be associated with any protein that is actually contained within mitochondria. For example the transcription factors that regulate the expression of mitochondrial proteins from nuclear DNA are obviously important, but they never end up inside mitochondria.
If someone does have mitochondria depletion, DCA may be the last thing you want to give them. DCA blocks glycolysis. If you don't have enough mitochondria to make enough ATP, blocking glycolysis could be very bad.
Slightly off topic: why are people who market these "cures" and "treatments" allowed to do business in the United States? Why aren't supplements regulated as prescription drugs are? It makes no sense to me. I get that we all have the right to do what we will to ourselves and our children, (until actual harm to the child) but that is meaningless when considering the risks the people who practice these things are creating. I can cause all the harm I want to my body but it should be illegal for someone else to knowingly contribute to that harm. I don't understand it at all. Anyone?
ozzy - OB/GYNs often push as much (unnecessary) testing and interventions as possible - their behavior preys on the fears associated with the hormonal state of pregnancy. they also do tend to push the flu vaccine - "you wouldn't want to get the flu while you're pregnant." so while it may not be required, some (less informed?) women might feel that it is.
"Yes it is taken out of most required childhood immunizations, however there is still mercury in flu shots and a host of others. "
"For the 2007-08 season, there is one product licensed for 6-23 month old children (the product is thimerosal-free). Given the uptake of influenza vaccine among children [less than] 2 years of age to date and the anticipated increase in vaccine coverage this season, CDC projects that the vaccine supply for this agegroup will be adequate to meet demand."
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/thimerosal.htm
Liesl said "Slightly off topic: why are people who market these "cures" and "treatments" allowed to do business in the United States? Why aren't supplements regulated as prescription drugs are? It makes no sense to me."
Ah, why indeed! It seems that some lawmakers live in states that produce those supplements, and actually might be making money from them!
A good clue is in this book:
http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Causes-Politics-Americas-Supplement/dp/07…
Your writing is very unbecoming from a scientist's perspective. For details, see the following post:
http://blog.nawaz.org/2008/03/29/objectivity-in-the-scientific-communit…
Two words for you, "Dude":
Concern troll.
That's what you appear to be.
Your description of Kirby reminds me of an old joke:
Thanks for the link, HCN. I'd love to see what these practioners and practicers of "natural" medicine would do if they knew they would die without taking a doctor prescribed med. I think we'd all point and laugh at the idiots running to the pharmacy as fast their homeopathic supported legs would carry them. Gah! the whole thing is so essentially distasteful.
Are you really that stupid to keep saying after so much
science they have found nothing. gerberdine said the IOM
looked at this and found nothing. what is this: Dr. McCormick, for example, in speaking of the CDC, noted that the
agency
"wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a
population
basis." (See Exhibit 1 at page 33). " later on she says what walt wants walt generally gets"
And this
When byronchild asked CDC spokesperson Curtis Allen for a copy of the
contract that would detail the agreement between the IOM and the CDC,
Allen
stated that the contract would be available only in a heavily
"redacted" or
blacked-out format." note Leaked because people saw and heard things that scared them " not sheeple like you
The IOM stated "no comment" to byronchild about the leaked transcript or its
use in the pending civil court case.
This my friend is like saying let's play a hand of cards.
after I have stacked the deck
verstreaten last words after the CDC destroyed his earlier work. "I did not find a positive or a negitive I found a
netural" so you have nothing here. and why did the CDC
destroy his earlier work? Oh! I know so real scientist could not trace back the fraud.
Denmark study done buy the manufactures of thimerosal
no conflict of interest here, just out and out fraud.
You see Autism cannot go up at the same time it's apparently going down: But more importantly, a review of e-mails exchanged between the Danish researchers and the CDC reveals that the statement "From 1991 until 2000 the incidence increased and continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, including increases among children born after the discontinuation of thimerosal" may not have been true.
In an e-mail on 11/13/2002 at 09:24, "co-author" Marlene B. Lauritsen informed Drs. Madsen, Thorsen and Schendel of the CDC:
"But the incidence and prevalence are still decreasing in 2001".
The sentences, before and after that unequivocal statement, were blackened with a magic marker before they were released through the Freedom of Information Act. (Exhibit
II)
From what I hear the elizibeth miller study was so bad
she asked If she had to give the money back to the CDC
Burbacher had to comment on this absurd finding. and remember it was funded by the NIH
The latest study that the thimerosal clears the blood
quicker than we thought before: Just as fraudulent,
you see it appears to clear the blood but really it is
seeking out organs to attache it self to. Resource
Sigma Aldrich deposition of the corporate invironmental
compliance person. He was admitting that thimerosal
targets the brain, and the lining around the brain,
and the CNS, that kind of goes along with this : Burbachers findings " Inorganic mercury lingers in the brain for a year or more, potentially altering certain cells. A previous study has shown such damaged cells are also found in children with autism.
My thought
"Could this be the mutated cells they're finding?
When you research thimerosal you find it is mutagenic. It seems another study may have just found the damage done by the neurotoxin's effects."
Oh, goody. We've caught a live one. Love the "sheeple" bit, by the way. Using that term is one of the most reliable indicators of a crank and conspiracy theoriest that I know of.
Sadly, I was hoping for something more original and challenging, but really all you've done is rehash a bunch of standard antivax talking points and conspiracy-mongering. Disappointing.
You have the guts to comment, on the poison is in the
dose. Have you not heard of DR. Hillaman, Merks grand father of thier childrens vaccine program, how he warned
that a child would be getting 87 times on the next vaccine schedule of what the EPA deems safe. And that is on a dailey dose he said were not talking dailey were talking bolus doses at one time when veiwed in this manner it's rather a "what drum
roll please" LARGE DOSE. Here is a example for you arm chair toxicoligist:
The truth is
comming out, the jeanie is out of the bottle. There will be no
putting it back in. If you check the statement " for those who believe vaccines can cause autism " you see they are right. They
the vaccines don't cause autism. But a simple Google search will
net you a wealth of research, that heavy metals and toxins
as ingrediants in the vaccines for example: just ethyl-mercury
in Parts Per Billion comming in at 32,500 PPB. liquid toxic waste
is a wopping 200 PPB it would take a fool to defend 32,500 PPB
it can cause mitochondria dysfuntion, it would take a fool to dispute
this. You see they deplete the glutathion in the mitochondria.
we now know the mechanisim that caused the depletion of our childs glutathion it was as we thought."Vaccinations they contain at least four neuro-toxins: mercury, formaldehyde, MSG and aluminum hydroxide.All of which can and have
caused mitochondrial disorders
" my son, like thousands of others have Labs proving mercury toxicity"
"Metal toxicity" creates multisystem dysfunction,
which appears to be mediated primarily through
mitochondrial damage from glutathione depletion.
Accurate screening can increase the likelihood that patients
with potential metal toxicity are identified.
This was gleaned in seconds with a simple Google search.
Isn't it strange that most
children have glutathion depletion
that have vacc. induced Autism "AKA" Mitochondrial disorders,
Some children that have a DX. for autism also have high testosterone from depletion of glutathione. It's sort of like a car with the accelerator stuck open making testosterone and cannot stop. In New Haven, Conn. a Yale School of Medicine study shows for the first time that a high level of testosterone, such as that caused by the use of steroids to increase muscle mass or for replacement therapy, can lead to a catastrophic loss of brain cells. AKA apoptosis. these children are in a position as if you
were shooting them up with steroids and have roid rage this will help explain this statement:"Then his parents began to notice changes in his behavior. "this was from another article"
"That was the most difficult," she said. "The thing that was of huge concern was a lot of aggression and violence. That was, to us, unexplainable. He was constantly crying, unhappy, angry, lashing out. I sought several doctors in tears, wondering what I might be doing wrong. I would have thought this type of behavior only came from abused children." Dear Elsass family my son had three times the testarone as a normal child.
"It seems you don't know as much as you thought"
AND BY THE WAY IM JUST A DAD OF AN AUSTIC CHILD
DAD OF COLTON
There you go again peer reveiwed journals, may I remind you that verstreaten and Denmark studys were put in pediatrics
after joseph cordera begging them to. You see I think a paper should stand on it's own merits Don't you? I proved earlier that both studies were fraud seems your large body of evidence is shrinking by the day
AND BY THE WAY IM JUST A DAD OF AN AUSTIC CHILD
DAD OF COLTON
Joe, I'm just the mom of TWO autistic kids. Does that make anything I have to say about autism more or less valid?
he warned that a child would be getting 87 times on the next vaccine schedule of what the EPA deems safe... PPB, etc...
First of all, let me get out of the way that I am also the parent of an autistic child, just in case you consider that a prerequisite for having an opinion.
Now, for the last time (hopefully), you cannot take EPA guidelines for drinking water and apply them to vaccines!
With the 2ppb guideline of the EPA, one bucket of drinking water would contain the mercury equivalent of a thimerosal-containing vaccine (TCV). So you could have a bucket of completely clean drinking water at home, and every time you run out water, you could dump in the bucket the mercury equivalent of a TCV, for the rest of your life. The EPA would consider that completely safe.
NO absolutly not but science is science true science goes to were the the evidence leads. The CDC if they don't like a study they destroy the earlier findings and in their own words. Dr Rhodes: Page 107. "So you can push, I can pull. But there has been substantial movement from this very highly significant result down to a fairly marginal result." Dr. Rhodes recommends excluding the lowest exposure cases, claiming that the fact that their exposures were low suggested family behavior that made them unusual. The low rate of outcomes in this group, of course, added significance. He also suggests excluding some cases that had unusually high exposures and outcomes at the same time, as any high exposure, high outcome group would support the signal. This is a DR. with compassion: Dr. Weil: Page 207: " The number of dose related relationships are linear and statistically significant. You can play with this all you want. They are linear. They are statistically significant. The positive relationships are those that one might expect from the Faroe Islands studies. They are also related to those data we do have on experimental animal data and similar to the neurodevelopmental tox data on other substances, so that I think you can't accept that this is out of the ordinary. It isn't out of the ordinary. The Seychelles Island studies and somebody said the Faeroe Islands studies both, were chronic exposures. We are not talking necessarily about chronic exposure. We are talking about a series of acute exposures and at one point in time that exposure is much greater on one day than any of the Seychelles Islands. The increased incidence of neurobehavioral problems in children in the past few decades is probably real. I work in the school system where my effort is entirely in special education and I have to say that the number of kids getting help in special education is growing nationally and state by state at a rate we have not seen before. And if they need a study they buy it with tax dollars. And they buy the results they want
or they make statments like the agency speaking of the CDC wants us to declare these are pretty safe on a population
basis. WHAT! What about true science now samantha getting back to you. If I hurt feelings I truley am sorry, but you can't know what I know and let someone try to pretend the CDC has any real science especially when I have a child that was perfectly normal then regressed to that of an animal like state. Dr. Brent: Page 229: "The medical legal findings in this study, causal or not, are horrendous and therefore, it is important that the suggested epidemiological, pharmacokinetic, and animal studies be performed. If an allegation was made that a child's neurobehavioral findings were caused by Thimerosal containing vaccines, you could readily find a junk scientist who would support the claim with "a reasonable degree of certainty". But you will not find a scientist with any integrity who would say the reverse with the data that is available. And that is true. So we are in a bad position from the standpoint of defending any lawsuits if they were initiated and I am concerned." Seems he is saying that the available data on thimerosal would bury them.
These people have no conscience,
And this is how they keep things from the public.
Dr. Bernier: Page 113: "We have asked you to keep this information confidential. We do have a plan for discussing these data at the upcoming meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on June 21 and June 22. At that time CDC plans to make a public release of this information, so I think it would serve all of our interests best if we could continue to consider these data. The ACIP work group will be considering also. If we could consider these data in a certain protected environment. So we are asking people who have a great job protecting this information up until now, to continue to do that until the time of the ACIP meeting. So too basically consider this embargoed information. That would help all of us to use the machinery that we have in place for considering these data and for arriving at policy recommendations." "AKA" covering
up sh#t, CYA, Samantha are your children severely affected?
If you get nothing else out of this post get this, liquid hazardous waste is 200 PPB. and they have to burn the left over flu vacc. because they are hazardous doe's this not concern you? and please don't take thisthe wrong way "BUT WHAT PLANET ARE YOU FROM" that it's OK to put liquid hazardous waste in a new born and how about this, on the MSDS sheet of thimerosal it states that pregnant women should not be exposed to this product. For it can easily pass the placental barrier and it can cause mild to severe mental retardation
Here are the facts Ivar:
0.5 parts per billion (ppb) mercury = Kills human neuroblastoma cells (Parran et al., Toxicol Sci 2005; 86: 132-140).
2 ppb mercury = U.S. EPA limit for drinking water (http://www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/ind... ).
20 ppb mercury = Neurite membrane structure destroyed (Leong et al., Neuroreport 2001; 12: 733-37).
200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste ( http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/hazwaste/mercury/... )
600 ppb mercury = Level in a currently licensed Hepatitis B, multi-dose vaccine vial, labeled as trace. This is administered at birth.
2,000 ppb mercury = 0.50-mL injections of Thimerosal-containing vaccines (FDA CBER's definition of "trace").
25,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose, Hepatitis B vaccine vials, administered at birth from 1990-2000 in the U.S.
50,000 ppb mercury = Concentration of mercury in multi-dose, DTaP and Haemophilus B vaccine vials, administered 8 times in the 1990's to children at 2, 4, 6, 12 and 18 months of age. Current "preservative" level mercury in flu, meningococcal and tetanus (7 and older) vaccines.
Orac, If everything is as I have posted is true, this meets the defination for conspiacy. Do you not remember the abermoff scandel wouldn't you say that was a conspiracy against the american people or was it just bad behavior.
This is on the simpsonwood meeting notice what he writes
"Dear Committee members,
SAFE MIND's recently obtained the transcribed minutes to the Simpsonwood meeting held June 7-8, 2000 in Norcross, Georgia where the finding of the Vaccine Safety Datalink analysis of Thimerosal containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental outcomes were reviewed by a panel of experts. There were a number of additional findings not previously reported that were contained in this document that I would like to share with the committee" You see if safeminds had not obtained the minutes they would still be hiding the bad things that was said at the simpsonwood meeting you know the number of additional findings not previously reported that were contained in this document.
That my friend is a federal offence and fits the defination for conspiracy
I have given you total proof that people tried to hide from americans what they accidently let happen then turned around and decieded to poison children so that the numbers would taper down, that to me is just as bad as the Jewish
hollocaust that I assure you happened.
Two words for you, "Dude":
Concern troll.
That's what you appear to be.
What does that even mean?
now samantha getting back to you. If I hurt feelings I truley am sorry, but you can't know what I know and let someone try to pretend the CDC has any real science especially when I have a child that was perfectly normal then regressed to that of an animal like state.
My feelings are just fine. What is the relevance of your status as a parent of an autistic child to this discussion? Your status as a parent in general is questionable for describing your child as you did above. There is no call for any parent to speak thusly of their child.
Samantha are your children severely affected?
What so we can play the "my kid is more autistic than yours so my opinion is more valid than yours" game? No thank you.
Alternatively, schizophrenia could be mostly due to genetic alleles that individually have only a slight effect on schizophrenia risk, but where the risk is multiplied with a bad combination of a alleles from both parents.
Alternatively, schizophrenia could be mostly due to genetic alleles that individually have only a slight effect on schizophrenia risk, but where the risk is multiplied with a bad combination of a alleles from both parents.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=concern+troll
It's certainly possible, but unlikely. Keep in mind that there are plenty examples of unvaccinated children exhibiting autistic regression around the time they would normally receive their vaccination. And Rett syndrome, an autistic-like syndrome with a clear genetic cause, characteristically produces regression at about that age. So you are proposing that by pure coincidence, at least two different causes--vaccination and whatever causes developmental regression in unvaccinated children--just happen by coincidence to occur at about the same age. Occam's Razor cautions us not to postulate multiple causes unless it is clearly necessary.
Concern troll:
A person who posts on a blog thread, in the guise of "concern," to disrupt dialogue or undermine morale by pointing out that posters and/or the site may be getting themselves in trouble, usually with an authority or power. They point out problems that don't really exist. The intent is to derail, stifle, control, the dialogue. It is viewed as insincere and condescending.
I'll repeat my earlier claim on my blog post:
I won't discuss the controversy, thimerosal or autism. I couldn't care less for now.
I'm not trying to disrupt the dialogue. I'm merely pointing out that the dialogue is not done in a manner consistent with science. I am not casting any doubt on Orac's claims about thimerosal, and have not even addressed them.
If Orac wanted the dialogue to be about thimerosal, he should have stuck to it. However, it was he (male assumed here) who introduced ad hominem attacks, not I. That makes it perfectly valid to discuss. Or does Orac want some parts of his post to be off limits?
I'll also add that I would have had no issues had he merely posted this on a personal page. I just feel posting such rhetoric on a site called ScienceBlogs is disingenuous.
And frankly, he'd have been far more convincing had he simply just left out the ad hominem attacks. As I pointed out in my blog post, engaging in such behavior is a strong sign that he is simply willing to do whatever it takes to convince others of his viewpoint - science is just one tool of his to get his way. Ad hominem attacks is another.
That's not science - it is politics.
Joe: "If you get nothing else out of this post get this, liquid hazardous waste is 200 PPB. and they have to burn the left over flu vacc. because they are hazardous doe's this not concern you?" If waste is hazardous because of mercury content,you DO NOT burn it. Burning doesn't destroy mercury, it puts mercury vapor in the atmosphere where it can be absorbed directly through the lungs.
Dude, The scientific literature is written by scientists for scientists. Scientific writing is intended for an audience of scientists. You are pretty obviously not a scientist. Neither is Kirby.
The "debate" on whether thimerosal causes autism or not isn't a "scientific" debate any more. It doesn't. The issue has been looked at extremely carefully by real scientists. Those scientists have written up their results and submitted them to real scientific journals. Real scientific peers have looked at the papers and verified that they contain sound science and that the reported results follow from the reported data. There is no evidence what-so-ever that thimerosal is in any way connected to autism. There is now substantial evidence that thimerosal is not related to autism in any way, shape, or form.
The "thimerosal causes autism" "debate" is now simply a marketing ploy to try and scare and then defraud parents of children with autism into donating money to those that push the idea. Also to those who push fraudulent "treatments" such as chelation.
Your problem is that "you don't care". Orac's "problem" is that he does care. He cares about the children who are not getting the vaccinations they need to prevent them from getting diseases that will harm them. He and many of the other bloggers and commenters here care about the children and adults who are being and who will be injured by the consequences of the lies that Kirby is putting out. The lies that Kirby is putting out solely so that he can profit from the irrational hysteria he is stoking.
If I were religious, I would say there is a special place in Hell for those who cause misery so they can profit from the misery of others. I would put war profiteers in that category; I would put Kirby there too.
Definitely a concern troll. "Dude" has all the characteristics, his denial of another agenda notwithstanding. It's all there, the oh-so-self-righteous "concern" about how I choose to go about my business and how he thinks it doesn't live up to what "science blogging" should be.
I've discussed the science showing no link between thimerosal and autism ad nauseam in many, many posts over the course of the last nearly three years. The tone of the posts has run from sarcastic (like the one "Dude" is so unhappy about) to almost sober enough to be published as a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal and nearly everywhere in between. Yet "Dude," on the basis of one post that he doesn't like, presumes to tell me how to post. Well guess what?
I don't care what "Dude" thinks of me or how I operate. As Daedalus2u points out, I do, however, care about combatting malignant lies and misinformation that frighten parents from vaccination.
I've been at this for a long time, and I've been very effective, if I do say so myself. Not only do I have a healthy readership, but I've become one of the go-to bloggers whenever antivaccination nonsense pops up. (Believe it or not, Instapundit linked to this very post, which also got Reddit-ed to become one of my most read posts in a long time.) So, "Dude," you'll just have to excuse me if I don't go rushing to take your advice, which was neither asked for nor appreciated.
Why don't you go bug P.Z. Myers and tell him he's too nasty and uses too many ad hominems when he attacks creationism. I'd be very amused to see his reaction.
Joe, There are some other things that contain mercury that you forgot to mention.
Swordfish 946 ppb
Tile fish 1450 ppb
Canned albacore Tuna Fish 353 ppb
Shark 998 ppb
http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~frf/sea-mehg.html
These are averages, peak levels may be higher
In whale meat sold for consumption, the average levels can get a lot higher.
false killer whale 46,900 ppb
boiled cetacean liver 390,000 ppb
http://www.ehponline.org/docs/2003/111-14/forum.html#merc
Remember too, the mercury in these sea creatures is methyl mercury, which is absorbed better than injected thimerosal and results in higher blood and brain mercury levels.
So how much mercury does 2,000 ppb in 0.5 mL give you? One microgram. How much mercury does 3 ounces of canned tuna fish give you? About 30 micrograms.
Professing themselves to be wise they become fools
Job ch.38 ver.22-23
Then Yahweh answered Job out of the whirlwind,
Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail, "can you answer this?"
Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
"I've been at this for a long time, and I've been very effective, if I do say so myself".
Huh, sounds to me like there must be VERY few nitwits out there backing vaccinations containing mercury if YOU are considered very effective. Call me crazy but I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism as opposed to you. You have no more experience than I do or any other parent out there...
"(Believe it or not, Instapundit linked to this very post, which also got Reddit-ed to become one of my most read posts in a long time.)"
THIS is one of your most read posts in a long time (how do your Star Trek posts rank) Since this is one of your most read posts... Why don't we ask the readers what they think of injecting babies with mercury... That way we can weed out the intelligent readers (not a good idea to inject babies with cr*p) from the morons(it's all good... for the sake of the "herd").
Hi, Sue.
Predictable, as ever, I see.
Joe, you know what biblical passage often crosses my mind during discussions about vaccines and autism?
Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Want to guess as to what I consider good?
Sue's here. Let the fun begin!
What medical conditions are you blaming vaccines for this week?
"I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism..."
If my community paediatrician friend is anything to go by, they are keeping their heads down whilst gritting their teeth, cursing quietly, and wishing all the mercury-mad parents and Celebrity Loons would go away and shut the *!*! up. Oh, and musing on why such people are utterly immune to the overwhelmingly convincing body of published research validating vaccinations.
And the two or three family doctors I have discussed it with (here in the UK they are the ones who treat kids and dish out vaccines) feel the same way... And the hospital doctors I know too.... And all the scientists...
Could this be a pattern?
I suspect many of the doctors and scientists ARE, however, cheering on Orac, Ben Goldacre, and the few other bloggers prepared to put themselves up to be harangued by the AntiVax Conspiracy nuts and Mercury Crazies.
Talking of mercury, here at Casa Aust we had salmon penne pasta for supper tonight, so that's the weekly ration of good ol' Hg for Mrs Dr Aust, Jr Aust and myself right there. I will try not to lose too much sleep.
"That way we can weed out the intelligent readers (not a good idea to inject babies with cr*p) from the morons"
Cr*p like..... EGTA for chelation therapy, perhaps?
*sigh* Plus ca change....
Samantha the lord God made natural immunity man bastardized it, do you really believe god thinks it's OK to abort a gift of god, "you see that's what god said a baby was" then put dead fetus cells in a vaccine?
Remember what happens to a cow who eats another cows brains
in feeds they get mad cows disease, maybe these morons that
make vaccines created mad childs disease. something for you to think about.
you said how could call your child an animal I did not,
I said he regressed to an animal state. Chewing on every thing climbing on the frig sitting like a monkey, screaming
like an animal. Well maybe what you have, is bad genes that caused your childs problem. My child was normal until his last vaccine at the injection was a knott the size of a mans fist, the lump was so hot it would burn you to touch it.
The next day three mini siezures, before that vaccine he was a perfect child talking playing like a normal child
over night he changed. Gerberdines own words Looks like you are so wrong :So, Dr. Gerberding admits a link -- but then denies that it is a link to autism.
The only problem with this line of argument is that I know for a fact that Hannah, and ALL the kids in the new unpublished mito study were, as one doctor told me, "plucked right from the autism clinic. They all have autism, there is no question of that."
JULIE GERBERDING, DR., CDC DIRECTOR: "Well, you know, I don't have all the facts because I still haven't been able to review the case files myself. But my understanding is that the child has a -- what we think is a rare mitochondrial disorder. And children that have this disease, anything that stresses them creates a situation where their cells just can't make enough energy to keep their brains functioning normally. Now, we all know that vaccines can occasionally cause fevers in kids. So if a child was immunized, got a fever, had other complications from the vaccines. And if you're predisposed with the mitochondrial disorder, it can certainly set off some damage. Some of the symptoms can be symptoms that have characteristics of autism." My thought a Knott the size of a mans fist so hot it will burn you Hmmmmmm you mean a reaction to mercury and aluminum, funny thing when you
do a little research you find mercury and aluminum mixed
creates heat they react violently togather. you would question the intellagence of people who have been warned about this very thing mer.and alum. danger mixing in childrens vaccines they were warned over fifty yr's ago
So, complications from vaccines can set off damage that causes characteristics of autism (just not autism itself). I don't believe I have ever heard that from a CDC official before, though that doesn't mean they never said it. If anyone knows, I would be interested in the citation.
DK.
This quote of hers I agree with: "I don't have all the facts"
On Tuesday, March 11, a conference call was held between vaccine safety officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several leading experts in vaccine safety research, and executives from America's Health Insurance Plans, (the HMO trade association) to discuss childhood mitochondrial dysfunction and its potential link to autism and vaccines.
It was a sobering event for all concerned, and it could soon become known as the Conference Call heard 'round the world.
The teleconference was scheduled by a little known CDC agency called the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, a consortium of six research centers working on "immunization-associated health risks," in conjunction with the CDC's Immunization Safety Office and the health insurance lobby -- whose companies cover some 200 million Americans.
The hot topic of the day was mitochondria - the little powerhouses within each cell that convert food and oxygen into energy for use by the body. Recent news events have implicated mitochondria in at least one case of regressive autism, following normal development.
Some researchers on the call reported that mitochondrial dysfunction is probably much more common than the current estimate of 1-in-4,000 people. The potential implications for autism, then, are staggering !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joe,
After your latest ramble, I'll suggest your child was lucky to escape your "bad genes".
Gerberding said what pretty much everyone else has echoed - if a child has a latent mitochondrial disorder anything (even a common infection) could precipitate a crisis. So if it wasn't the vaccine, it was going to be the next cold the child got. Test autistic children for such disorders, and by and large you're not going to find them.
Professing them selves to wise they become fools
Joe, you know what biblical passage often crosses my mind during discussions about vaccines and autism?
Isaiah 5:20
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who put darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter!
Want to guess as to what I consider good?
Samantha answer this if you know the scriptures:
the lord God made natural immunity man bastardized it, do you really believe god thinks it's OK to abort a gift of god, "you see that's what god said a baby was" then put dead fetus cells in a vaccine?
Remember what happens to a cow who eats another cows brains
in feeds they get mad cows disease, maybe these morons that
make vaccines created mad childs disease. something for you to think about. Do you honestly think, he the God of all flesh is not angry with man over aborting a child and then useing it's cells in a Damn vaccine. You see greed is why this is going on and things like this will be why he shall come back to take back the earth and people like those that try to destroy people who have an honest heart to solve what is wrong with their child. You who mock sencere scientist with your arragance. Soon God may destroy you
and you, want even be a fleeting memory.
Back into the fray!
I've been wasting enough time reading comments on various other media outlet sites to recognize "ccdaddy57/joe"'s barely comprehensible conspiracy-theory ranting and just scroll past it (honestly, I know it sounds like an insult but read one of the comments and it's pretty clear that there is some psychopathology going on there...it's reminiscent of writings I would come across from psych patients).
And AnonymousSue, you'd like to see docs who actually see and/or treat people talking about the connection between vaccines and autism? Is that to mean that you want more DAN! docs to all nod their heads in unison and say "Vaccines cause autism"? Or do you mean the average experienced general pediatrician who provides vaccines for a large number of children, follows them developmentally from birth to adolescence and knows that vaccines do not cause autism?
Unfortunately any time a medical professional posts on a general media site, like Sanjay Gupta, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc, the vaccine safety/anti-vax groups immediately through out the pharma-shill accusation. Knowing my fellow private practitioners, they hate pharmaceutical companies for jacking up vaccine prices almost as much as they hate managed care.
"Comment troll"...interesting, I didn't even know there was a name for that concept when I dipped into the Atlanta Journal Constitution's latest comment wars...
Does Joe really expect us to take him seriously? Looks like the ravings of a madman, IMO...
"THE CLOCK IS TICKING" "Seems pretty serious to me"
we think this is from the HMO there finally figureing out your making more sick children than your helping and that they can pay for. Remember this, 200 to 400 Billion dollars
every year for this screw up. For the life of the children
THE IRAQ WAR FOR ALL THE TIME BEING THERE IS JUST NOW 406
Billion so within 6 Billion of an Iraq war every year. Vaccines sound like a bargain to me
One person on the call (those interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous) told me that, "the CDC people were informed, in no uncertain terms, that they need to look into this issue immediately, and do something about it." The clock is ticking, they were told, and if they don't respond, the information will be made public.
Still, the doctor said, he was enormously impressed by the "seriousness" with which CDC officials treated the possibility of a link between mitochondria, autism and possibly vaccines as well.
who's a psychopath someone poisoning children, for profit or someone trying to make them stop.
Surley you don't condone 32,500 PPG ethyl. and that's just one, theres Aluminum, Formaldahyde, MSG, Antifreeze,
what kind of fool put's this garbage? in a vaccine for children. Oh! I know a GREEDY one.
daedalus2u:
Scientific writing is intended for an audience of scientists.
Journal articles are for scientists. Scientific writing is merely writing while following the principles of science.
You are pretty obviously not a scientist.
Without addressing the veracity of your claim, are you suggesting that only scientists should have a say on any topic involving science?
The "debate" on whether thimerosal causes autism or not isn't a "scientific" debate any more.
Thank you for stating what I've been saying all along.
Orac:
I've discussed the science showing no link between thimerosal and autism ad nauseam in many, many posts over the course of the last nearly three years. The tone of the posts has run from sarcastic (like the one "Dude" is so unhappy about) to almost sober enough to be published as a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal and nearly everywhere in between. Yet "Dude," on the basis of one post that he doesn't like, presumes to tell me how to post.
I fail to see a point in this.
Yes, I have read only this post of yours. I got it off a link elsewhere. You may have written excellent articles elsewhere, but I did not address your general ability to write (if I did - point it out and I'll correct it). This article is the one I referred to.
Pete Sampras was one of the top tennis players. But even in his heyday, he played lousy matches and lost. No one suggested that his performance on those days was above criticism simply because he played brilliantly on most days.
So, "Dude," you'll just have to excuse me if I don't go rushing to take your advice, which was neither asked for nor appreciated.
Your blog - you can always turn comments off.
Why don't you go bug P.Z. Myers and tell him he's too nasty and uses too many ad hominems when he attacks creationism.
I'm not even sure how to respond to this. But let's see:
Are you saying that if I find an article that I feel is worthy of criticism, then I am obligated to criticize all such articles out there?
I mean, there are plenty of nutbags out there. Would it then make sense for me to ask you why you don't dedicate many posts to UFO's, creationism, perpetual motion machines, we-didn't-go-to-the-moon theories, and others?
"Surley you don't condone 32,500 PPG ethyl."
For starters, the correct spelling is "surely" and I have no idea what "Joe" means by either "PPG" or what he is referring to when he writes "ethyl".
Of course, the next sentence is a simple-minded parroting of the stardard anti-vaccination dogma:
"[sic] and that's just one, theres [sic] Aluminum, Formaldahyde [sic], MSG, Antifreeze,"
For the record, Joe, "antifreeze" is ethylene glycol - the compound used in some vaccines is polyethylene glycol. One (ethylene glycol) is a moderately toxic liquid, the other (polyethylene glycol) is a non-toxic waxy solid.
I'd also be interested if Joe could point me to where MSG is used in vaccines. I'm not saying that it isn't used, just that I can't seem to find it.
But, hey! I realize that nothing Joe is spouting is meant to be scientific or even real. It's all about feeling and emotion - don't let reality or fact intrude on a good conspiracy fantasy.
Prometheus
correction PARTS PER BILLION "AKA" PPB not PPG
sorry about the misspellings
Monosodium Glutamate: Normally used as a flavor enhancer in a variety of foods, however, due to concerns expressed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, MSG was removed from all products intended for use in infants under the age of one. Injections of glutamate into laboratory animals have resulted in damage to nerve cells in the brain.
so the damage is done anyway, and after one we don't need protection after all
Had I known what kind of idiot's work in vaccines my children would never ever had even one
As long as we're quoting scripture:
Yes, but how much was injected? Assuming that did happen, you need to cite the study, and make reference to how big a dose they got.
I've met some very silly people who say individual molecules of stuff we find in everyday life are dangerous.
Source: 1997 Physicians' Desk Reference
Monosodium Glutamate: Normally used as a flavor enhancer in a variety of foods, however, due to concerns expressed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, MSG was removed from all products intended for use in infants under the age of one. Injections of glutamate into laboratory animals have resulted in damage to nerve cells in the brain.
so the damage is done anyway, and after one we don't need protection after anymore
Also it MSG depletes glutathion almost all autistic children have little to to almost no glutathion
It's not such a mystery any more it's vaccine ingredients
they all can cause depleting glutathion which according to the big boys cause mitochondria disorders or dysfuction
sorry you guys the science is against you, Just like it always has been you just listened to the CDC for your
science and as usual they LIED to you
and any moron can look at burbachers study's and see that
ethyl is more damaging to the mitochondrial cell than methyl
and according to the big boys inorganic mercury is most damaging to the mito - cells and if you remember, thimerosal turns into inorganic at more than 3x that of methyl.
JUST A DAD OF A VACCINE DAMAGED CHILD
Orac you have not answered to any of the allagations
I wrote against the IOM CDC SSI "AKA" Denmark
It is easy to say you have answerd the questions on science before but I bet Just a dad knows more than you because of the concearn for my son. Not bragging at all I would delete all 40,000 articles and emails in a second if the people would do what is right, with all these vaccine damaged kids
after all that is what the NVICP is supposed to be for after all you don't have to worrie where your non verbal child will spend his life after his parents are gone.
If you canot see that a mistake has been made after all the science that I gave you. then this statement is for all of you. Professing your selves to be wise you have be come fools. Author GOD
Source: 1997 Physicians' Desk Reference
Monosodium Glutamate: Normally used as a flavor enhancer in a variety of foods, however, due to concerns expressed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, MSG was removed from all products intended for use in infants under the age of one. Injections of glutamate into laboratory animals have resulted in damage to nerve cells in the brain.
so the damage is done anyway, and after one we don't need protection after anymore
Also it MSG depletes glutathion almost all autistic children have little to to almost no glutathion
It's not such a mystery any more it's vaccine ingredients
they all can cause depleting glutathion which according to the big boys cause mitochondria disorders or dysfuction
sorry you guys the science is against you, Just like it always has been you just listened to the CDC for your
science and as usual they LIED to you
and any moron can look at burbachers study's and see that
ethyl is more damaging to the mitochondrial cell than methyl
and according to the big boys inorganic mercury is most damaging to the mito - cells and if you remember, thimerosal turns into inorganic at more than 3x that of methyl.
JUST A DAD OF A VACCINE DAMAGED CHILD
Orac you have not answered to any of the allagations
I wrote against the IOM CDC SSI "AKA" Denmark
It is easy to say you have answerd the questions on science before but I bet Just a dad knows more than you because of the concearn for my son. Not bragging at all I would delete all 40,000 articles and emails in a second if the people would do what is right, with all these vaccine damaged kids
after all that is what the NVICP is supposed to be for after all you don't have to worrie where your non verbal child will spend his life after his parents are gone.
If you cannot see that a mistake has been made after all the science that I gave you. then this statement is for all of you. Professing your selves to be wise you have be come fools. Author GOD
"If my community paediatrician friend is anything to go by, they are keeping their heads down whilst gritting their teeth, cursing quietly, and wishing all the mercury-mad parents and Celebrity Loons would go away and shut the *!*! up. Oh, and musing on why such people are utterly immune to the overwhelmingly convincing body of published research validating vaccinations".
Well then... they sound like idiots. There is no convincing body of published research validating vaccinations... Dopes...
I'm sure that you believe Dr. (Pr)Offit too when he claims that babies can "hypothetically" be injected with 100,000 vaccines, right... LOL!
I didn't go to medical school or anything but I guess I should be thankful for that... If they teach that sort of nonsense in school -- I'll take a PhD in 'Google' over an MD degree any day of the week. I'll major in Common Sense.
"Call me crazy but I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism"
OK, you're crazy.
I am a community pediatrician who actually sees and/or treats children with autism. And there is no connection with vaccines. I wouldn't have given my kids their vaccines if I thought otherwise.
Oh...I'm sorry...you don't want my opinion...you want the opinion of the "waterfowl pediatricians"--the ones that sound like QUACKS.
"I didn't go to medical school or anything but I guess I should be thankful for that... If they teach that sort of nonsense in school -- I'll take a PhD in 'Google' over an MD degree any day of the week. I'll major in Common Sense."
The person who serves as his own doctor has a fool for a patient. But beggars can't be choosers. If your kid were in my practice I'd kick your ass out the door; most of us pediatricians don't have patience for patients who call us dopes.
"if a child has a latent mitochondrial disorder anything (even a common infection) could precipitate a crisis. So if it wasn't the vaccine, it was going to be the next cold the child got".
Mousedroppings,
Do you realize how foolish you sound? Load up all the kids with tons of toxins, live viruses, etc. etc... because everyone knows that if the vaccine doesn't get them... the sniffles will trigger their disorder. Here's an idea: It is best to limit the toxic assaults on kids' immune systems to begin with so that they will be less likely to fail when hit with the inevitable cold or infection. Sigh.
"OK, you're crazy.
I am a community pediatrician who actually sees and/or treats children with autism. And there is no connection with vaccines. I wouldn't have given my kids their vaccines if I thought otherwise".
I'm glad that your kids did fine with vaccines. Many do not. I should have been more clear, however... The doctors that I am talking about would be those who actually look at the biomedical issues surrounding MANY (but not all) children with autism. For example, if you have any patients with autism who also had seizures, GI problems, food intolerances, low muscle tone, etc... would you look to the reasons behind those issues OR would you chalk it up to "oh, many kids with autism have those problems..."? Then ignore the problem. Forgive me, but you don't sound like the type of person who would proceed further than the casual ... "I don't know what's wrong with your kid... here's a referal to an allergist". That's why parents have to do their own research... Doctors don't care enough (or don't have the expertise or the time). You can decide for yourself which category that you fall under.
ps. Again, not ALL children with autism have these biomedical problems... MANY do.
Straw man argument. Nowhere did I say I was above criticism for this post or any other because of my brilliance (whether anyone considers it that or not) in the past. What I do say is that I find your "criticism" of this particular post self-righteous, vacuous, tiresome, and the very epitome of a concern troll, your protestations of not having an agenda notwithstanding. In other words, you have nothing interesting to say. Certainly your unhappiness with my heaping scorn on a man who, through a three year history of spreading misinformation about vaccines, richly deserves that scorn doesn't impress me--and that's about all your complaint boils down to, that I'm not nice enough or "science-y" enough for you in this post. Besides, science blogging is not what you define it to be, as much as you seem to want to define it to your liking.
In fact, you now officially bore me.
As for my reference to PZ, that wasn't because I thought you should criticize everything. Rather, it was to suggest that I've been very tolerant of your silliness thus far. PZ would not be nearly as patient with you as I have been, which is why I said that I would be amused to see his reaction were you to level a similar sort of criticism (too much ad hominem) against him.
DR. scott I dare you to go back and read my post about the large body of fraud I mean evidence if you can prove other wise please try answer any of this
gerberdine said the IOM
looked at this and found nothing. what is this: Dr. McCormick, for example, in speaking of the CDC, noted that the
agency
"wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a
population
basis." (See Exhibit 1 at page 33). " later on she says what walt wants walt generally gets"
And this
When byronchild asked CDC spokesperson Curtis Allen for a copy of the
contract that would detail the agreement between the IOM and the CDC,
Allen
stated that the contract would be available only in a heavily
"redacted" or
blacked-out format." note Leaked because people saw and heard things that scared them " not sheeple like you
The IOM stated "no comment" to byronchild about the leaked transcript or its
use in the pending civil court case.
This my friend is like saying let's play a hand of cards.
after I have stacked the deck
verstreaten last words after the CDC destroyed his earlier work. "I did not find a positive or a negitive I found a
netural" so you have nothing here. and why did the CDC
destroy his earlier work? Oh! I know so real scientist could not trace back the fraud.
Denmark study done buy the manufactures of thimerosal
no conflict of interest here, just out and out fraud.
You see Autism cannot go up at the same time it's apparently going down: But more importantly, a review of e-mails exchanged between the Danish researchers and the CDC reveals that the statement "From 1991 until 2000 the incidence increased and continued to rise after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, including increases among children born after the discontinuation of thimerosal" may not have been true.
In an e-mail on 11/13/2002 at 09:24, "co-author" Marlene B. Lauritsen informed Drs. Madsen, Thorsen and Schendel of the CDC:
"But the incidence and prevalence are still decreasing in 2001".
The sentences, before and after that unequivocal statement, were blackened with a magic marker before they were released through the Freedom of Information Act. (Exhibit
II)
From what I hear the elizibeth miller study was so bad
she asked If she had to give the money back to the CDC
Burbacher had to comment on this absurd finding. and remember it was funded by the NIH
The latest study that the thimerosal clears the blood
quicker than we thought before: Just as fraudulent,
you see it appears to clear the blood but really it is
seeking out organs to attache it self to. Resource
Sigma Aldrich deposition of the corporate invironmental
compliance person. He was admitting that thimerosal
targets the brain, and the lining around the brain,
and the CNS, that kind of goes along with this : Burbachers findings " Inorganic mercury lingers in the brain for a year or more, potentially altering certain cells. A previous study has shown such damaged cells are also found in children with autism.
DR.Scott either I am a bald face lier or these people have and are still commiting fraud or just on purpose mileading the public
DR. scott would you like to play a hand of cards were your child's future is being decided? Oh! I left out the best part, the deck has been stacked against you.
"Call me crazy but I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism"
OK, you're crazy.
I am a community pediatrician who actually sees and/or treats children with autism. And there is no connection with vaccines. I wouldn't have given my kids their vaccines if I thought otherwise.
Oh...I'm sorry...you don't want my opinion...you want the opinion of the "waterfowl pediatricians"--the ones that sound like QUACKS.
"I didn't go to medical school or anything but I guess I should be thankful for that... If they teach that sort of nonsense in school -- I'll take a PhD in 'Google' over an MD degree any day of the week. I'll major in Common Sense."
The person who serves as his own doctor has a fool for a patient. But beggars can't be choosers. If your kid were in my practice I'd kick your ass out the door; most of us pediatricians don't have patience for patients who call us dopes.
"Call me crazy but I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism"
OK, you're crazy.
I am a community pediatrician who actually sees and/or treats children with autism. And there is no connection with vaccines. I wouldn't have given my kids their vaccines if I thought otherwise.
Oh...I'm sorry...you don't want my opinion...you want the opinion of the "waterfowl pediatricians"--the ones that sound like QUACKS.
"I didn't go to medical school or anything but I guess I should be thankful for that... If they teach that sort of nonsense in school -- I'll take a PhD in 'Google' over an MD degree any day of the week. I'll major in Common Sense."
The person who serves as his own doctor has a fool for a patient. But beggars can't be choosers. If your kid were in my practice I'd kick your ass out the door; most of us pediatricians don't have patience for patients who call us dopes.
Dang computer...
"If you have any patients with autism who also had seizures, GI problems, food intolerances, low muscle tone, etc... would you look to the reasons behind those issues OR would you chalk it up to 'oh, many kids with autism have those problems...'?"
Not that anecdotes mean a whole lot, anonymous, but most of the kids with autism I see do NOT have seizures or hypotonia. If they did, that would not be typical of primary autism and I would look for an underlying etiology. As for GI problems and "food intolerances," please explain how you believe this relates to vaccines?
(Ixnay on referencing Wakefield.)
"so that they will be less likely to fail when hit with the inevitable cold or infection."
Hey Sue, a fever is not a failure of the immune system. It's one of the weapons the body uses to combat infection. So the point is that any infection can result in a fever, thereby precipitating a crisis.
"Oh...I'm sorry...you don't want my opinion...you want the opinion of the "waterfowl pediatricians"--the ones that sound like QUACKS".
Ah, no sir, Mr. MD... I'm interested in those pediatricians/doctors who take an interest and/or are concerned when children (either a child with autism or not) suffer from GI problems, seizures, food intolerances, etc. etc... If you don't do that... than YOU are the quack. It sounds as if you are saying that you wouldn't go looking for an underlying biomedical concern of your patients with autism. Sad ... but not surprising. You sound like one of those QUACKS who believes that babies could withstand 100,000 vaccines at one time (hypothetically, of course).
"If your kid were in my practice I'd kick your ass out the door; most of us pediatricians don't have patience for patients who call us dopes".
Trust me... with your attitude... I wouldn't set foot NEAR your practice. I actually pity any parent who would go near you... I'm sure your patients would love to see your comments here. Your bedside manner seems as if it needs some fine-tuning, my friend. However, for the record... I would never call an MD a DOPE to his/her face. Everyone knows that doctors' egos are hugely inflated (as you have proven here). Therefore, it is best to nod your head, listen and refrain from calling them names -- UNTIL you are safely out the door and then you simply laugh your ass off about their nonsense. (you know the 100,000 vaccines being safe, mercury is safe, hep B is necessary at birth, etc. etc.).
Trust me, I have many friends who know that you guys are full of crap when you give them the "all vaccinations are safe bullcrap". They nod and then call me for advice on where to get the real information... Don't worry though... I am pretty conservative when giving out information on the dangers of vaxx's ... I would rather people do their own research and make the decisions for themselves. Unlike you, I want educated parents NOT sheep. Your kind thrives on sheep.
As a pediatrician, I'll work with families, even vaccine-hesitant families, if we can keep a dialogue going. Most of the time they will listen to reason and evidence and come around. It's the parents like you, where no dialogue is really possible, who get shown the door.
"Trust me... with your attitude... I wouldn't set foot NEAR your practice."
You mean my attitude in favor of evidence-based medicine and rational thought? Seems to be working, like garlic warding off the vampires.
"As a pediatrician, I'll work with families, even vaccine-hesitant families, if we can keep a dialogue going. Most of the time they will listen to reason and evidence and come around. It's the parents like you, where no dialogue is really possible, who get shown the door".
With two vaccine injured children... why would I continue to listen to the nonsense of the medical establishment who want to tell me that injecting babies with toxins is a good idea? Been there, done that... Not interested in hearing anymore bullcrap. Again, however, I'd stroke your ego enough (as doctors seem to need) before laughing my ass off about your foolishness. I don't think that you would need to show me the door... I would be no where near your door to begin with. I can't stand ignorance.
Rational though? So tell me almighty Dr. Scott... Could an infant withstand 100,000 vaccines at one time? (Hypothetically of course).
Anonymous,
"Rational though? So tell me almighty Dr. Scott... Could an infant withstand 100,000 vaccines at one time?"
Assuming 0.25 cc for a dose, you're talking about 25 liters of fluid being put into your bloodstream. I daresay that would kill anyone, regardless of what the fluid is. If you can't do simple math, what makes you think you're qualified to decide the safety of vaccines?
100,000 different antigens? Absolutely! There's probably that many in that handful of dirt your kid stuck in their mouth or their bath water or on the outside of their sippy cup or on the handle of a shopping cart. Probably not the most effective way to vaccinate, so that's why we use fewer antigens in vaccines.
For DR.Scott
after reading this please don't go down with the ship these people know more about vaccines than you.
and they are all but admitting to it. You may have not known any of this, you see the AAP has been lieing to you. Back when they found that this mercury was acumlative in the body the AAP said that mercury in all of it's forms is
Toxic where for by we must remove it as soon as possible.
They also knew that the children had recieved past what the EPA deems safe. That is how they felt then. Then comes
simpsonwood meeting this was from Dr. Brent: Page 229: "The medical legal findings in this study, causal or not, are horrendous and therefore, it is important that the suggested epidemiological, pharmacokinetic, and animal studies be performed. If an allegation was made that a child's neurobehavioral findings were caused by Thimerosal containing vaccines, you could readily find a junk scientist who would support the claim with "a reasonable degree of certainty". But you will not find a scientist with any integrity who would say the reverse with the data that is available. And that is true. So we are in a bad position from the stand point of defending any lawsuits if they were initiated and I am concerned." after this information and warning of possible litagation. They who care so deeply for our children decided why hell If in
your state you are fighting a No mercury ban bill we will help you. Quite a switch from Get it out now! to We will help you keep it in. They were also saying we need to find
the best chealating agent and get busy. That was suddenly changed to that's not evidence based therapy and that's controversial and dangerous, we have been chealating kids since late 1800 in the US.
to present very few deaths except for when they used the wrong chealating agent that strips out calcium, that's what
happened to little adamma that died. But the CDC and the AAP seized on the little boys death and it was suddenly so dangerous. I dare you to go and look at history on Pinks
disease "AKA" mercury poisoning through teething powders
interestingly It effected 1 - 500 children mostly boys
seem familar care to guess what the drug of choice was
chealation therapy It worked so fast that they did not get a study togather to look at it's effectiveness before it had completly wiped it out. It's funny that what was the drug of choice then is now considered non evidence based therapy.
speaking of quacks the site quack watch one of the DR.'s was having a conversation with me his name was Stephen Barrett, M.D. when I asked about the Hep-B at birth,he stopped me and said now I now your crazy no one would give a vaccine at birth. Isn't it funny how he is out there mouthing about something he apparently knows very little about.
I did not get a chance to even ask why, if you cannot get
Hep-B but through intravenious drug use and unprotected
sex except in very rare cases where the mother has it
Why at birth? God has said we are fearfully and wonderfully made and he is so right but we can be poisoned
example: Surley you don't condone 32,500 PPG ethyl. and that's just one, theres Aluminum, Formaldahyde, MSG, Antifreeze,
what kind of fool put's this garbage? in a vaccine for children. Keep in mind 200 PPB is liquid toxic waste
DR.Scott
Do you believe children can't wait until the danger years
before attacking their imune system?if so that makes no sense at all.
On Tuesday, March 11, a conference call was held between vaccine safety officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several leading experts in vaccine safety research, and executives from America's Health Insurance Plans, (the HMO trade association) to discuss childhood mitochondrial dysfunction and its potential link to autism and vaccines.
It was a sobering event for all concerned, and it could soon become known as the Conference Call heard 'round the world.
The teleconference was scheduled by a little known CDC agency called the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, a consortium of six research centers working on "immunization-associated health risks," in conjunction with the CDC's Immunization Safety Office and the health insurance lobby -- whose companies cover some 200 million Americans.
One person on the call (those interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous) told me that, "the CDC people were informed, in no uncertain terms, that they need to look into this issue immediately, and do something about it." The clock is ticking, they were told, and if they don't respond, the information will be made public.
Still, the doctor said, he was enormously impressed by the "seriousness" with which CDC officials treated the possibility of a link between mitochondria, autism and possibly vaccines as well.
The hot topic of the day was mitochondria - the little powerhouses within each cell that convert food and oxygen into energy for use by the body. Recent news events have implicated mitochondria in at least one case of regressive autism, following normal development.
Some researchers on the call reported that mitochondrial dysfunction is probably much more common than the current estimate of 1-in-4,000 people. The potential implications for autism, then, are staggering.
"Vaccines, in some cases, can cause an unusually heightened immune reaction, fever, and even mild illness," one participant said. "A normal vaccine reaction in most kids would be very different in a kid with a metabolic disorder. We know it happened to at least two kids in this study, and I'm certain there are many more Hannahs out there."
One theory currently in circulation about what happened to Hannah and other children like her, is an apparent "triple domino effect." According to this hypothesis, it takes three steps and two triggers to get to some types of autism, and it goes like this:
STEP ONE: Child is conceived and born healthy, but with an underlying nuclear DNA genetic susceptibility to mitochondrial dysfunction, inherited from dad.
TRIGGER ONE: An early environmental "adversity" occurs in the womb or during the neonatal period, perhaps caused by prenatal exposure to heavy metals, pollutants, pesticides and medicines. Or, it occurs in early infancy, through environmental toxins, thimerosal exposure, or even the Hepatitis B vaccine "birth dose." This trigger results in:
STEP TWO: Child develops mild, usually asymptomatic mitochondrial dysfunction (though I wonder if the ear infections and eczema so common in these cases might also be symptoms of mito problems).
TRIGGER TWO: Child, now with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, suffers over-stimulation of the immune system beyond the capacity of his or her metabolic reserves. This stress is either via a viral febrile infection, or from multiple vaccinations, as in the Poling case. This trigger results in:
STEP THREE: Acute illness, seizures, encephalopathy, developmental regression, autism.
Such a scenario might help explain why autism has increased right along with the addition of more vaccines to the national schedule.
And it might help explain why autism rates are not plummeting now that thimerosal levels have been significantly reduced in most childhood vaccines.
It's possible that exposures from the flu shot, and residual mercury left over in other vaccines -- perhaps in synergistic effect with aluminum used as an "adjuvant" to boost the immune response - might "contribute to the toxic mix that causes childhood mitochondrial dysfunction in the first place," one of the doctors said.
Anonymous:
You "can't stand ignorance"? How on earth do you live with yourself, then?
Hey Joe, I think that's called plagiarism...
Joe said "Author GOD"
Could you tell us which one? It would really help to know if it is the right one.
Then he continues "That was suddenly changed to that's not evidence based therapy and that's controversial and dangerous, we have been chealating kids since late 1800 in the US."
That is an interesting little tidbit of information. Do you have any documentation on what the chelator was, and why they were doing it two centuries ago? (though I do like how you almost spelled it like it actually is: "cheatlating")
And he repeats "example: Surley you don't condone 32,500 PPG ethyl. and that's just one, theres Aluminum, Formaldahyde, MSG, Antifreeze,
what kind of fool put's this garbage? "
Even after being told how to spell "surely", and that there is no antifreeze in vaccines here:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/vaccines_and_autism_the_incre…
You are obviously not reading for comprehension this blog, or any of the comments that disagree with you. The only sensible thing is to just skim over and skip your incomprehensible and nonsensical rants.
You will be forgiven for such silliness once you tell us about the history of chelating kids 200 years ago, and tell which vaccine in the present pediatric schedule is more dangerous than the actual disease. If you say that the MMR (which never contained thimerosal) is more dangerous than measles, rubella or mumps: show us the actual documentation. If you say that DTaP is more dangerous than pertussis, diphtheria or tetanus, show us the actual journal articles.
Thank you.
Load up all the kids with tons of toxins, live viruses, etc. etc... because everyone knows that if the vaccine doesn't get them... the sniffles will trigger their disorder. Here's an idea: It is best to limit the toxic assaults on kids' immune systems to begin with so that they will be less likely to fail when hit with the inevitable cold or infection. Sigh.
Mito kids are apparently very sensitive to any stresses, but I'm willing to bet that the tiny amount of thimerosal that vaccines had in the 90s does not do anything to them. I realize that existing thimerosal epidemiology has not looked at this particular scenario, but it just doesn't appear plausible to me. It's not only unlikely, but there's no reason to even suspect it, other than the fact that it has to do with a once popular autism hypothesis. Has the number of children with mito disease increased as the thimerosal dose increased in the early 90s? Did it decrease once almost all thimerosal was removed? I've never heard of anything resembling that. Is mito disease just like mercury poisoning? So what is the reason to even suspect it?
The only hypothesis that appears plausible at the moment is that a fever can cause a metabolic crisis in children with mito dysfunction. Anything beyond that are simply the ramblings of those who are trying to revive a dead hypothesis.
somehow I don't think david kirby will mind
and If this is all you can think about after reading
something this bad you have had to many downers. where
is you since of anger for mass poisoning of the children
Oh! I know it was not you kid. it was someone elses.
Joe, all that tells me is that you can't think for yourself. (And you clearly didn't seem to read this blog post) Again, seems to me you're just raving and not really saying much. If vaccines are so poisonous, then why are the rates of autism so low? Why don't those other 149 out of 150 kids get poisoned?
If there were not so much potential to cause harm to other people, I could almost feel sorry for guys like this. He's clearly hitched his emotional wagon to the "thimerosal causes mercury" bandwagon, and now now that the failure of any change in autism despite massive decreases in thimerosal has even the promoters of that notion trying to sidle away from it, he is starting to sound a bit crazy and desperate.
The anti-VAXers are now flailing away desperately, pointing the finger at anything that anybody, no matter how nutty, has claimed to be present in vaccines at any level, no matter how small. Antifreeze? Give me a break!
But I can tell you for certain, you absolutely will find antifreeze in your drinking water. And all of that other stuff besides. It is a virtual certainty that every single industrial and pharmaceutical chemical used by man is present in water and/or food at some level. All it takes is a sensitive enough assay. And these days, the assays are good enough that all it really takes is somebody willing to take the trouble to go looking for something that almost certainly doesn't matter.
how about this the GREAT I AM that's his name
Im really going to screw this up but here goes sucsemer
was the cheatlating agent hows that? If I stick around here you guys will teach me how to spell, and I will teach you
why you should not put a toxin in yours or someone elses children.
SEEMS THIS COULD BE TODAYS HEADLINES
here a little History : Soc Hist Med. 1997 Aug;10(2):291-304. Related Articles, Links
The rise and fall of pink disease.
Dally A.
Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London.
This paper explores the social and medical history and context of pink disease (acrodynia), a serious disease of infants and young children that baffled the medical world during the first half of the twentieth century until it was shown to be caused by mercury poisoning. In the English-speaking world the commonest source of the mercury was teething powders, which were widely available and advertised with increasing sophistication. Efforts to control them (such as the BMJ's campaign against 'Secret Remedies') were as yet unsuccessful. The article discusses the social conditions that influenced the existence and recognition of pink disease, the delay in finding its cause, the way in which it was explained as a virus infection or nutritional deficiency and why it seldom occurred outside the teething period. It discusses both professional and lay attitudes to health and diseases during the early twentieth century and provides a model of how the disease developed in a specific social setting and how the medical profession attempted to deal with it within the limitations of contemporary professional thought. The resistance to the evidence of mercury poisoning is typical of resistance to new medical knowledge and declined only when the opponents and sceptics grew old and disappeared from the scene. Meanwhile, the cause having been identified and accepted, pink disease disappeared, but its consequences emerged much later, in an unexpected quarter, as a cause of male infertility.
Publication Types:
Historical Article
PMID: 11619497 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Got to go be back in 2 hours
Joe, did you read the article on pink disease? Did you read the part about how much mercury was in the teething powders the children were given?
It was about 50,000 micrograms of mercury per dose. Many millions of children were given teething powders containing 50,000 micrograms of mercury every year.
Over a thousand children died from pink disease, that is from actual mercury poisoning.
Some of those children with actual mercury poisoning excreted more mercury in their urine in one day than a modern child with autism has received in their entire life.
200 ppb mercury = level in liquid the EPA classifies as hazardous waste
I realize Joe is trolling, and won't listen to reason, but I thought I'd address this common talking point either way. Daedalus2u already addressed it by noting fish mercury concentrations, but I'll do it a different way.
If you drink 1 cubic centimeter of this "hazardous waste" water, nothing will happen to you, I can assure you. Let's do the math. 1 cubic centimeter of water weighs roughly 1 gram. If you multiple 1 gram by 200 and divide by 1 billion, you get 0.0000002 grams of mercury. That is the same as 0.0002 milligrams of mercury, or 0.2 micrograms of mercury. That is clearly nothing, if you consider that a tuna sandwich will have something like 20 micrograms of mercury.
So, you may ask, what is the EPA on about "hazardous waste" if drinking 1cc of this "hazardous waste" is perfectly safe? Are they nuts?
Let's assume you have a fairly small puddle of water containing, say, 100 liters of water and mercury at a concentration of 200ppb. Now, 100 liters of water will weigh about 100Kg. If you again do the math, you get 0.00002Kg of mercury, which is 0.02 grams of mercury, or 20 miligrams, or 20,000 micrograms of mercury. At 20,000 micrograms we're starting to talk about serious amounts of mercury.
If someone, by some sort of mistake, were to use this water as their drinking water, they could easily become sick, not after the first glass of water perhaps, but over time. Hence, it's hazardous.
I wonder how many in the antivax crowd that bellow about "toxins" in vaccines, themselves take nutritional supplements.
Folks, have you ever looked at the fine print on those vitamin pill bottles? There's scary stuff in there. For instance:
"Binders. Materials that promote cohesion, like dextrose or polyethylene glycol.
* Lubricants. Typically fatty acids, or stearates, which speed manufacturing.
* Disintegrators. Agents like cellulose or sodium lauryl sulfate that promote the breakup of the tablet in the body.
* Coloring and flavoring agents. Substances such as sugar, chlorophyll and the FD&C colors used to make the product more palatable.
* Diluents. Fillers, such as starch or sodium chloride (salt), which increase the bulk of a product.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n247/ai_20380038
Magnesium stearate! Disintegrators! Sodium lauryl sulfate! Diluents and lubricants! Polyethylene glycol!
Polyethylene glycol? Why, that's...that's...ANTIFREEZE!!!!! That's what the antivax websites say!!!!
Well no, it isn't really, any more than the trace amounts of polyethylene glycol that might be found in vaccines are truly antifreeze. It's chemically related to antifreeze, is all.
But isn't it remarkable that antivaxers are willingly consuming all these terrible toxins on a daily basis? (and that's probably just the tip of the iceberg, when you consider the lack of adequate FDA oversight of supplements).
Think, antivaxers, think. Is it possible that you've survived all those "toxins" all these years because they're NOT toxic in the tiny amounts to which you've been exposed? And that vaccines do not contain "toxins" either?
In other words, you have nothing interesting to say.
OK. I'll be explicit.
Writing such as you have in this article serves only to polarize. Those who were anti-thimerosal won't be able to get past the first few paragraphs. So no help done to them. Those who are fence sitters will do likewise. And those who are already tired of the anti-thimerosal crowd will love your post - but they already shared your sentiments.
In summary, your post is, "Hey everybody! Let's get together and take a few more jabs at Kirby."
If your goal is to educate others about the issue, posts like this one will simply not do the job.
Reverse the situation. If someone were to write an anti-thimerosal article, but starts off with ad hominem attacks on a bunch of the top researchers, would you even bother reading all of it for personal benefit (i.e. excluding the possibility that you're reading merely to post a rebuttal)?
Rather, it was to suggest that I've been very tolerant of your silliness thus far. PZ would not be nearly as patient with you as I have been, which is why I said that I would be amused to see his reaction were you to level a similar sort of criticism (too much ad hominem) against him.
I don't really have a clue who PZ is and have almost never gotten involved in creationism debates. If someone admits he engages in ad hominem attacks and doesn't like being criticized for it, all he need do is write a whole post defending his attacks (in general) and link to it everytime someone complains. It may do you good to do the same.
"You "can't stand ignorance"? How on earth do you live with yourself, then"?
Liesl,
Good one :)
I took a quick glance at your blog and I'll be easy on you because it is pretty obvious that you have zero knowledge on this topic. I save my nastiness for those who really should know ... You just seem ignorant to the reality of this particular topic.
Peace out!
daedalus2u You are talking ingestion not injection
remember according to the big boys at the CDC, ingestion
goes through the bodys filters. Injection brings devastation quickly no filters, now another thing you
over looked thimerosal is toxic down to 1 - 1 millionth of
a gram were not talking methyl were talking thimerosal
remember it not methyl. that matabolizes in to inorganic
and it is more devastating to the mitochondria glutathion
now that's according to the Big Boys. A japan study looked at methyl and ethyl which is in thimerosal and said it methyl should be considerd equal to ethyl but since it only
took half to do the same damage it could be considerd twice
as toxic. Now factor in that a subset group cannot excrete
for what ever reason don't you think since we had evidently
a subset group in the disease pinks at 1 in 500, we should
have learned a lesson about the canary in the mine the old
saying those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat history.
Anonymouse:
I'm curious: what was it on my blog that led you to that conclusion? The majority of my post on this issue is about social responsibility; so... was it my one statement that vaccines don't cause autism? Or, are you addressing my thoughts on social responsibility?
Wow, joe... You are really good at the cut and paste. Or are you?
Still waiting for an answer on what chelator they used, and why they used it on children in 1800. Have you got that?
Then Joe ends with "we should
have learned a lesson about the canary in the mine the old
saying those who do not learn from history are destined to repeat history."
Uh, yeah. Is it the canary in the mine, or the learn from history part you are pontificating about?
So my question on chelating children in 1800 is clearly about history. Can you answer it?
You are talking about Pinks Disease. Do you know why it is called that? Are autistic kids suffering from Pinks? Is their skin the color of the little girls in this article:
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/168/2/201
I know you are not going to read that article (it uses actual science, so it would not be part of your preferred reading list). So here is the paragraph that shows the limitation of chelation:
"Before admission the twins had regressed developmentally and were unable to feed orally, sit or walk. Over the 8 weeks in hospital they showed some minor neurocognitive improvements, but their long-term prognosis is uncertain."
Oh, by the way: Chelation for REAL heavy metal poisoning cannot fix or correct neurological damage.
But cheatlation for imagined poisoning can cause permanent damage (go to the search box at the upper right of this blog and search for the word "tariq").
Now about that history... Tell us what effect diphtheria, measles, smallpox, haemophilus influenza Type b, tetanus and pertussis had on families in 1900. Do we want to go back to those levels? Why is measles coming back to places like Japan, the UK and Switzerland? What caused four healthy young people to permanently lose their hearing (read the following):
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5520a4.htm
What vaccines in the present pediatric schedule are more dangerous than the actual diseases? Is the MMR more horrible than measles, mumps and rubella? If so, could you tell us what journal paper gives us the evidence? Does the DTaP cause more problems than diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis? If so, could you show us the actual evidence?
Liesl, it would be best if you ignore AnonySue (also known as CommonSue when she tried to call herself "Common Sense").
She never presents any real information or evidence, just a bunch of ad homs or just plain insults. She thinks it is amusing that my son suffered seizures while dehydrated from a gastrointestinal infection that might have been from a now preventable rotavirus infection.
By the way, her "vaccine-injured" children have celiac and diabetes. While they are both autoimmune conditions, they are usually considered genetic. She is great friends with John Best (a de-winged Generation Rescue "angel).
Im really going to screw this up but here goes succimmer was the cheatlating agent hows that? If I stick around here you guys will teach me how to spell, and I will teach you
why you should not put a toxin in yours or someone elses children.
The resistance to the evidence of mercury poisoning is typical of resistance to new medical knowledge and declined only when the opponents and sceptics grew old and disappeared from the scene. Meanwhile, the cause having been identified and accepted, pink disease disappeared, but its consequences emerged much later, in an unexpected quarter, as a cause of male infertility.
question #1Still waiting for an answer on what chelator they used, and why they used it on children in 1800. Have you got that? succimmer.
question #2 Do you know why it is called that? Are autistic kids suffering from Pinks? Is their skin the color of the little girls in this article:No and that could be the type of toxin, and in todays kids heavy metals mer. alum. "msg". now that we proved that point, and something that a CDC toxicolgist said there is no safe limits formaldahyde seems I guess he did not know it was in childrens vaccines, Just in katrina trailers. And the vaccine route of administration VS ingestion methyl not ethyl being less toxic. so you don't get the pink palms or feet but a lot of the other symptoms are the same. Are you really dumb enough to believe that children with labs proven mercury toxicity
are not going to show signs of such toxicity surely you ORAC being a DR.should understand this, and our labs came from LAB CORE not great plains so that, is not an issue.
HCN:
I know, you're right. I have a tendency to want to spread the gospel (ahem) of reason and will argue with a stone if necessary. It's a bad habit.
Amusement at your son's seizures? Despicable. What kind of a person finds amusement in a child's suffering?? People just kill me sometimes.
I wonder why she hasn't subjected her children to the "cures" available for AI diseases? eh, maybe she has. Odd how that genetic code just doesn't budge, isn't it?
joe said "Im really going to screw this up but here goes succimmer was the cheatlating agent hows that? If I stick around here you guys will teach me how to spell, and I will teach you
why you should not put a toxin in yours or someone elses children."
Well, at least you now seem to acknowledge that chelation equates to CHEATlation!
But Joe said: "question #1Still waiting for an answer on what chelator they used, and why they used it on children in 1800. Have you got that? succimmer."
I asked for documentation and evidence. I'm sorry, but I am not going to go by you just saying it is so... give me evidence. You are allowed to post two URLs in comments on this blog, use one to show us the evidence. I really want to see literature that chelation was used on kids two centuries ago.
I am now going to assume English is a second language for Joe (What is "joe" short for, Jose or Josef?). (don't worry, it is a second language for lots of folks who post here, but they get by)
Anyway, "joe" continued with "No and that could be the type of toxin, and in todays kids heavy metals mer. alum. "msg". now that we proved that point, "... Where is that proved? And on what planet is aluminum or aluminium a heavy metal?
Now more about AnonySue/CommonSue: Liesl, if you search for "Sue M" on these two blog postings, you will see what kind of entity we are dealing with:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=329
and
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=369
Just ignore her, along with ignoring "joe".
Liesl,
I posted my last missive before I saw your last... Thanks.
Ummm, not many people understand many of the rabid "true believers". We just try to post what rationality we can in hopes others who are on the fence will read them. Sometimes if you read the comments here (and on a listserv I used to be on), you will find those who are thankful that they were able to find rationality and did not get sucked into looking for a DAN! doctor or cranialsacral therapy (a light head massage, almost homeopathic in nature).
Sometimes these blogs and comments have a real effect!
HCN:
I admit, I started ignoring Joe when he refused to embrace sentence structure. In other words, immediately.
My eyes kind of glazed over when reading those comments. Stupid should hurt. But this made me laugh so hard I scared the dog: "I heard that if you sit under a specially constructed pyramid, it can cure autism."
Classic!
Oh, crud... I missed the pyramid bit!
I guess I should look at his goofy stuff a bit closer!
(gotta go... time to do other things, even though I am on the American West Coast, and am laughing very hard right now).
I was just in contact with a CDC agent and he said there is a program for chealating if the heavy metals are high enough in the child, There is a government program that
helps you to find Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units (PEHSUs)maybe if it had not been such a embarrassment
that the kids get better that are chealated we would have heard about this program when my kid was young enough to bennifit from it. After all I have been begging them for years. I ran across this department by accident he then told me about the program. The CDC is in shambles. They the CDC most have no conscience.
Called them at PEHSUs, he has all the symptoms of severe heavy metal toxicity. Great to know there is help this late in the game.
joe, he writes lots of stuff... but produces absolutely no evidence.
So what does http://www.aoec.org/PEHSU.htm have to do with vaccines? Checking that website, I see nothing on vaccines (or pyramids).
Where is the evidence that kids who are cheatlated (sic) get any better? Especially when the medical evidence shows that cheatlation (sic) does not repair neurological damage,
And I am still waiting for the actual evidence Succimer was used on children in 1800!
I did find this recent article:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedi… ... which is about Succimer, but it is not on humans, but on rats. But its last paragraph says:
"In addition, the finding that succimer produced lasting adverse effects when administered to non-Pb-exposed rats highlights the potential risks of administering succimer or other metal chelating agents to children who do not have elevated tissue Pb levels. It is of significant concern that this type of therapy is being widely advocated as safe and effective for treating autism."
In short (because English is joe's second language), it means that there are dangers to administering these chelating agents to children who really do not have significant heavy metal poisoning. Chelation, even with Succimer, is dangerous! So, kids and parents... do not advocate pushing these chemicals into little kids!
So kids! Do you understand? Chemicals are dangerous! Especially if some quack tells you do put them into your children for no good reason! Kids, chelation is dangerous!
Just out of curiosity, joe... what is your first language? It is pretty clear that it is not English (not a problem, there are lots of folks here who comment, and who are Scienceblog bloggers, where English is not their first language).
Liesl, you are a naughty person... I did a ctrl-f for pyramid and only found it on your comment.
You made me search! And now I know it was not poor besotted "joe" who posted that but something you found here:
http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=369 (a website I posted!)
Sorry, joe... but really, what is your first language?
severely poisoned patient, and chelation with dimercaprol or succimer (2,3- .... shortly after its initial discovery in the late 1800s. ...
www.kcimi.com/labor/board/download.asp?board_
They killed the other web site
when you click on it, it says the page you are looking for has been removed
It is listed under treatments
"I'm curious: what was it on my blog that led you to that conclusion"?
It was pretty easy to figure out Liesl. You don't have kids. You have some sort of Philosophy degree and you started in with a personal attack as opposed to anything of substance. It was pretty easy to figure out that you don't have any experience with this topic.
If I were to guess... I would say that you wondered over here (perhaps from a blog/website dealing with disabilities) and decided to pop in.
If I am wrong then you should be able to answer these simple questions:
Who is Fombonne and what two cities did he screw up in his epidemiological study in Canada?
Who is Dr. Pr(Offit) and how many vaccinations did he say that an infant could receive (hypothetically) at one time?
Is mercury safe to be injected into babies?
Good luck!
"She thinks it is amusing that my son suffered seizures while dehydrated from a gastrointestinal infection that might have been from a now preventable rotavirus infection".
Really, amusing? I don't think so... I would wonder why your child's seizures from a GI bug would be more worthy of concern than the many children who suffer from seizures shorty following vaccinations? I never find it "amusing" when children suffer HCN. For you to say so... proves you are a liar :)
"While they are both autoimmune conditions, they are usually considered genetic".
Shows what you know, HCN. Type 1 Diabetes is not considered a "genetic only" disease. Quite the contrary... it is considered to be genetics with a trigger (genetics and environmental). EVERYONE knows that... (other than you apparently).
Sounds sort of like AUTISM ... Genetics and environmental.
How's your best buddy, Phil (Timelord), HCN?
The resistance to the evidence of mercury poisoning is typical of resistance to new medical knowledge and declined only when the opponents and sceptics grew old and disappeared from the scene. Meanwhile, the cause having been identified and accepted, pink disease disappeared, but its consequences emerged much later, in an unexpected quarter, as a cause of male infertility.
That is practically copy-pasted from somewhere else. I'd even call it plagiarism.
And no, autism almost certainly won't disappear, regardless of any measures taken. And that's the thing. In pink disease, the mercury poisoning hypothesis produced results. In autism, it has not produced results after 8 years, because false hypotheses don't produce tangible results.
Dr Paul Offit has written an editorial piece for the NYTimes on the Hannah Poling case.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/opinion/31offit.html
Predictably, David Kirby and his accolytes have responded in the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/lies-my-new-york-time_b_94286…
The comments sections are a good way to while away your time.
Sue:
So, let me get this straight: I have to actually have children to understand the "autism is caused by mercury" debate? Hmmmm... that's a criteria I've never encountered before. Can I just borrow one? Do these children need to be autistic, too? Or, will any old child do? Can I claim my dogs and cats as substitutes? It's weird! I always thought that you debated things based on the evidence, not on your anecdotal experience. Silly me! must be that philosophy degree you mentioned.
As for your other questions: not entirely my concern. It has been shown to be scientifically false that vaccines do not cause autism. That is all I really need to concern myself with if I am going to discuss anything relating to MY field of expertise. My post was all about the social responsibility we possess as citizens in society. Now, if you want to talk about that? I am all over it. And really, you won't get far questioning my credentials there.
Ah, poor AnonySue/CommonSue... she gets upset, but has yet to offer any real evidence other than her statements that we are to expect to believe.
Sorry, Sue, it does not work that way. Try producing real evidence.
Oh, and Joe, do better at finding actual documentation on chelation in 1800. Something that can actually be read in English, or perhaps even a link that is indexed on www.pubmed.gov . Sorry, I still don't believe you.
Liesl-
Sue doesn't believe people like me who have ASD kids and can actually draw a dose-response curve. If Hg=autism, autism should be highest in Japan and Iraq. Sue-do you still think drinking methaol is the same as ethanol?
Joe-if you can manage Pubmed, look at the chelation given after the Iraq mercury poisoning in the 1970's. Mercury caused classic mercurism, not autism. Chelation prevented further damage, but did not reverse previous injury.
Sue, that's awesome news (that one needs to have autistic kids to understand the so-called autism-mercury link). And according to Joe, the more autistic kids, the more authority.
I have 15 autistic children, myself. More than you have, right? I can therefore state with "authority" that autism and mercury are not related.
Case closed, according to your logic.
Prove me wrong!
Actually, if there is any pressboard or plywood in your house, your kids are already ingesting far more formaldehyde than they could ever get from vaccinations, because these materials release formaldehyde into the air. What is more, your body makes formaldehyde! Normal levels of formaldehyde in blood are on the order of milligrams per liter. This is a huge concentration relative to the tiny traces that you guys are obsessing over in vaccines.
So whether or not "a CDC toxicologist" is aware of "safe limits" for formaldehyde, we can say with absolute confidence that the tiny trace amounts that might be present in a vaccine dose will be negligible in comparison to the much larger amount of formaldehyde already present in the body, and thus could have no conceivable impact on health.
"So, let me get this straight: I have to actually have children to understand the "autism is caused by mercury" debate"?
Ah no... You asked me what it was on your blog that led you to the conclusion that you have no clue what you are talking about. I simply answered your question. So, am I wrong? (I didn't think so).
I see that you aren't answering any of my questions... They should be your concern if you want to be educated on the topic at hand. It seems as if you are happier just poking in and making personal attacks... Cool.
"My post was all about the social responsibility we possess as citizens in society. Now, if you want to talk about that? I am all over it. And really, you won't get far questioning my credentials there".
I don't want to talk about that... that's why I'm not poking in pretending to be an expert on a topic which I know nothing about :) You should try it.
I will say this... Way back you wrote this in regards to supplements of some sort:
"I can cause all the harm I want to my body but it should be illegal for someone else to knowingly contribute to that harm. I don't understand it at all. Anyone"?
Let me just say this. You sound pretty reasonable. In fact, if you had some knowledge on this topic (which clearly you don't), you may actually understand that vaccines are knowingly harming children... You should be outraged. Sadly, you are listening to the quacks.
"Sue, that's awesome news (that one needs to have autistic kids to understand the so-called autism-mercury link)".
Interesting... I haven't read that in regards to anyone saying that you have to have autistic kids to understand the so-called autism-mercury link... Point out where that was said.
Not too smart... Autism Man
Joe, I was curious - how did "they" use Succimer (2,3 dimercaptosuccinic acid, DMSA) in the 1800's when it was first synthesized in 1949?
(see: Owen LN, Sultanbawa MUS. Olefinic acids. Part VII. The addition of thiols to propiolic and acetylenedicarboxylic acid. J. Chem. Soc., 1949, 3109-3113)
Is it possible that you're mistaken?
Prometheus
3/30, 7:45pm:
"Huh, sounds to me like there must be VERY few nitwits out there backing vaccinations containing mercury if YOU are considered very effective. Call me crazy but I'd rather have someone who actually sees and/or treats children with autism discussing the possible connection between vaccines and autism as opposed to you. You have no more experience than I do or any other parent out there..."
To me, that sounds like you're claiming that only people who see or treat (or assumedly, have) children with autism are competent to discuss the possible connection between vaccines and autism.
Sue: your "logic" simply astounds me. For your edification: http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html I think you should pay particular attention to the red herring fallacy. In any case, I am finished banging my head against this brick wall.
Joe, I thought you really like Burbacher's report. His data shows quite clearly that oral methyl mercury is absorbed much better than injected thimerosal. Oral methyl mercury (i.e. the kind you get by eating fish) produces 3-4 times higher blood levels and 2-3 times higher brain levels of mercury than you get by injecting the same dose of thimerosal.
I would be careful about those red herrings. That sounds like a herring with pink disease. It must take a lot of mercury to cause a fish to get pink disease. If it takes 50,000 or 150,000 micrograms of mercury for a child to get pink disease, how much does it take for a herring to get it?
When millions of children were exposed to thousands of times more mercury in teething powders than any child has ever been exposed to from vaccines, enough mercury that over a thousand died of mercury poisoning (i.e. pink disease), how is it that there were no cases of autism then?
Sue: your "logic" simply astounds me. For your edification: http://www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/fallacies.html I think you should pay particular attention to the red herring fallacy. In any case, I am finished banging my head against this brick wall.
Liesl,
It is clear that you are in over your head... I suggest that you really do some more research. Keep in mind... no matter what... it is never a good idea to inject babies with mercury. You also should definitely consider speaking up when nitwit doctors claim that injecting babies with 100,000 vaccines would be fine (hypothetically, of course)
Pretty sad that no one here can even agree with that point.
Sue, it would help us greatly if we knew what the hell you were talking about with the 100,000 thing.
Also, what amount of mercury are you talking about injecting? Does it matter that there is lots of mercury floating around in the air you (and these babies) breathe every day? That this breathed mercury ends up in your (and these babies') blood via the alveoli? That there are all kinds of other "toxins" as you call them present all over the place? That it is in fact the DOSE of those "toxins" that really matters? That trying to achieve zero ingestion of any substance is practically impossible?
Hypothetically, of course.
I'm sure that you believe Dr. (Pr)Offit too when he claims that babies can "hypothetically" be injected with 100,000 vaccines
I see that you have mischaracterized that claim just like David Kirby has. What does the actual quote say Sue?
"Is mercury safe to be injected into babies?"
Yes, if you wear gloves.
"Sue, it would help us greatly if we knew what the hell you were talking about with the 100,000 thing".
LOL! Autism Man... You just keep digging yourself deeper and deeper...
"I see that you have mischaracterized that claim just like David Kirby has. What does the actual quote say Sue"?
Nope. No mischaracterization there, Joseph. He said it. Own it. He's one of your "experts"... Nice.
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
Nope. No mischaracterization there, Joseph. He said it. Own it. He's one of your "experts"... Nice.
Yes, it's a mischaracterization. Offit is clearly talking about antigens, if you see the quote. You're talking about injections. Obviously, if you inject someone 10,000 times you will probably kill them (the sheer volume of water, if not being poked by 10,000 needles, is what likely kills you first incidentally). But if you managed to put as many antigens in a single injection, a typical person's immune system should be able to barely handle that load. And he supports that claim with data. What have you got?
"Yes, it's a mischaracterization. Offit is clearly talking about antigens, if you see the quote. You're talking about injections".
Ah, you may want to look at the title of the "study"/"article"/"pack of lies" from Offit. Let me point it out to you: The title states:
"Addressing Parents' Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant's Immune System"?
Got it? The only nitwit mischaracterizing anthing is
(Pr)Offit. All I see from this "study" is a blatant attempt to try to soothe the sheep. Nothing to see here...
"More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4"
LOL! Good one :)
Uh Oh...
http://aap.org/advocacy/releases/apr08autismday.htm
:)
Thanks for the Laugh! said "http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4"
LOL! Good one :)"
Wait... did Sue actually use a journal reference? Oh, my word... and it actually says "Therefore, the best available evidence does not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes."
Perhaps AnonySue/CommonSue is able to actually produce real evidence after all! Good for you, Sue! Try to keep that up and bring evidence instead of your norm to the debate.
The American Academy of Pediatrics to Work With Defeat Autism Now...
looks like you guys loose they will be a whole lot of chealating going on, and Biomedical treatments
and better yet the children getting better
Seems like the AAP is jumping ship ! before the SS CDC, goes down.
If David was not right they the AAP, would not be doing this
Joe, where does it say that the AAP is supporting cheatlating? Please be specific, much more specific when you claimed they were using something in 1800 that was not in existence until 1949 (see http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/vaccines_and_autism_the_incre… for clarification).
http://adventuresinautism.blogspot.com/2008/04/american-academy-of-pedi…
Again, where does the AAP say they are going to support cheatlating?
So like they said on the press release I went to the AAP website, and not finding anything on cheatlation in their frontpage autism blurbs, I put in the terms "chelation autism" in the search box.
I got a couple of pages of papers, but the ones that seemed most interesting were:
http://aappolicy.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics;120/5/… ... which said "Many popular interventions, such as chelation of heavy metals, antifungal agents to decrease presumed yeast overgrowth, and antiviral agents to modulate the immune system, have not yet been studied in people with ASDs; their popularity is based on unproven theories and anecdotes or case reports. None of these interventions can be endorsed as treatment for ASDs outside of well-designed and appropriately monitored clinical trials. Some treatments, such as intravenous chelation, may be particularly dangerous and should be discouraged. One child with autism died as a result of chelation with edetate disodium (Na2EDTA) despite the facts that a causal association between mercury and ASDs has not been demonstrated, there is no scientific evidence that chelation is an effective treatment for ASDs, and the effectiveness of chelation therapy to improve nervous system symptoms of chronic mercury toxicity has not been established.233 Unless there is clear evidence of current heavy metal toxicity, chelation by any method is not indicated outside of monitored clinical trials."
And the other one was:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/114/1/19 ... which said "Chelation therapy with succimer lowered average blood lead levels for 6 months but resulted in no benefit in cognitive, behavioral, and neuromotor endpoints."
Still waiting on that information about children being chelated in 1800 with a compound that did not exist until 1949! Though as you can see from above, chelation does not repair damage from real heavy metal poisoning, and in a previous note it can actually be bad for the kid (well, actually rodent, since it was an animal study).
Anyway, what kind of father are you joe? Why do you want to pump MORE chemicals into kids? Isn't that a bit sadistic?
how could you not ? after all the CDC on their web site states
If you get to much mercury it is necessary to chealate. You just don't understand my son is roid rageing three times the normal level of testosterone.
That is why these autistic kids when they get older they
get very violent please get out of your comfort zone
look at the facts he my son has the labs from lab core
showing extremly high mercury and testosterone
If we could sucessfully chealate him and get his own glutathion back enough, to stop making testosterone we
could stop the lupron. But with out it, he is crashing
through sheetrock walls. Screaming and graweling like
an animal. You see you have no idea what a mother or a dad of a severe autistic child is going through the hell that we go through you just think we want to blame anybody for our hard ship you could not be more wrong.
As far as the chealation late 1800 I sent you back what I could find. The other site is saying that the page has been removed. but they were talking about chealating pinks kids
and it was called the drug of choice but if I made a mistake about the date used I will be man enough to admit
it anyway they said that it worked so fast they could not get a study togather to check the efficiency before it was
already gone.
"Wait... did Sue actually use a journal reference? Oh, my word... and it actually says "Therefore, the best available evidence does not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause type 1 diabetes."
You probably don't even realize that you look like a big moron right now :)
I didn't go to medical school or anything but I guess I should be thankful for that... If they teach that sort of nonsense in school -- I'll take a PhD in 'Google' over an MD degree any day of the week. I'll major in Common Sense.
The admittedly uneducated and ignorant claims superiority over others. I'm not a psychologist but I'm fairly certain this is a textbook case of delusional supremacy.
Ah, Sue, the 'expert' who fails to support a single claim save to attack her detractors with childish insults. Have you ever wondered why no one respects or listens to you? Of course you haven't. In your own little world, far, far removed from reality you are the queen of all. So sad.
Sooner or later, you are going to have to face the fact that the mercury hypothesis of autism is dead as a doornail:
* Nobody has ever actually documented dangerously high mercury levels in autistic children
* Ethyl mercury from thimerosal is eliminated extremely rapidly, much *more* rapidly than methyl mercury
* Massive reduction in thimerosal use has resulted in *zero* effect on autism incidence, either in the US or in other countries.
* In historical cases of mercury intoxication (at much higher levels than anybody ever received from vaccines), the effects of mercury were quite different from autism.
Even the quacks who were previously making money by pitching the mercury notion are now flailing around trying to find something else about vaccines to blame--and mainly coming up with stupid stuff like formaldehyde (already normally present in the body) and antifreeze (never a component of vaccines).
Needless to say, if mercury is not the problem, then chelation makes no sense whatsoever, and is undoubtedly a danger to the child.
Sue, again, where is the mention of 100,000 vaccines? I see 10,000 vaccines (it's obvious he means 10,000 antigens). Lick your hand right now. ZOMFG!!!!1! YOU JUST INGESTED 10,000 ANTIGENS!!! CALL THE PARAMEDICS!!!!1! Even if you injected yourself with a dirty needle (though not infected with any particular virulent disease), chances are pretty good that you would see no harm. See, there's this thing in humans called the "immune system" which tends to work pretty well. That's kind of the point of these evil toxic vaccines, they stimulate the immune system to respond to a particular antigen.
Joe, you state:
"If you get to much mercury it is necessary to chealate."
So, please tell me how much is "to much mercury"?
Is too much mercury "anything greater than zero"? If that is the case, then why aren't you chelating yourself right now? There is mercury in every breath you take! Please tell us the minimum threshold dose of mercury that causes problems, keeping in mind the amount of mercury present in every breath you take and every tuna sandwich you eat.
And what does the fact that your son "is roid rageing three times the normal level of testosterone" and that "look at the facts he my son has the labs from lab core showing extremly high mercury and testosterone" have to do with anything? Does he also have extremely high levels of anything else? Or maybe extremely low levels of something? What makes you think that the mercury is related to the testosterone? Is it because "everyone knows that mercury is teh 3vil"?
Sue, "Addressing Parents' Concerns: Do Multiple Vaccines Overwhelm or Weaken the Infant's Immune System" So what does the title of the article have to do with your inability to understand what "100,000 vaccines" would do hypothetically? Do you understand what "hypothetically" means and the purpose of defining upper and lower bounds of a variable as a sanity check? And explain why exactly that (hypothetically) 100,000 antigens presented at once would necessarily cause a problem, that is not clear to me.
Here we go:
the latest from the "experts" on treating mitochondrial disorders in children with autism...
http://www.scipub.org/fulltext/ajbb/ajbb42208-217.pdf
how long did it take for them to start promoting mitochondrial treatments?
after all the CDC on their web site states
If you get to much mercury it is necessary to chealate. You just don't understand my son is roid rageing three times the normal level of testosterone.
And what in the world does testosterone have to do with chelation? If you're going to base your claims on nonsense spouted by the Geiers (through their ass no doubt) it is clearly a humongous waste of time to even read your comments.
Should have known we'd be hearing from Jenny McCarthy today:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/02/mccarthy.autsimtreatment/index.html
Yeah, I don't know if I can stand to write about McCarthy again. The vacuous yet malignant stupidity of the woman, I'm sure, has already been responsible for the premature apoptosis of far too many of my neurons already.
It's probably that mercury in the vaccines you received that's making your neurons die, Orac. ;)
Jenny's article is getting lots of skeptical comments (mine included), as well as 'my kid is vaccine poisoned, too'. There may be hope.
"Sue, again, where is the mention of 100,000 vaccines? I see 10,000 vaccines (it's obvious he means 10,000 antigens)".
I have an email from Pr(Offit) in which he talks about how 100,000 vaccines would be ok... Face it... He's a moron.
10, 000=10E+4, NOT 100,000=10E+5
But even better, here is the full quotation that is drawn from,
"... "Our analysis shows that infants have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10,000 vaccines at once. Currently, the most vaccines that children receive at one time is five," says Dr. Offit. "Using this estimate, we could predict that even if all 11 of the routinely recommended vaccinations were given to infants at one time, only about .01 percent of the immune system would be used."
Infants today actually receive fewer substances in vaccines that stimulate an immune response than they did 40 or 100 years ago. While there has been a substantial increase in the number of routine childhood vaccines over the past several decades, "Parents who are concerned about the growing number of vaccinations recommended for their children may take comfort in knowing that children are actually exposed to fewer antigens -- proteins that stimulate an immune response -- in the vaccines they receive today than in the past," says Dr. Offit. "Vaccine formulations have been refined and simplified over the years. Although we currently give children more vaccines than in the past, the actual number of antigens they receive has declined significantly. Whereas previously one vaccine, smallpox, contained about 200 antigens, now the 11 routinely recommended childhood vaccines contain fewer than 130 antigens combined."...
From article:
Infant Immune System Is Stronger Than Many Parents Think
ScienceDaily Jan 10, 2002.
It appears that Kathleen Seidel of neurodiversity.com has been attached by the lawyers pushing the "mercury causes autism" idea.
http://neurodiversity.com/weblog/article/150/
Along the lines of the "I am Spartacus" meme I have begun to sign my messages as "I am Kathleen" So they know that when they attack one of us they attack all of us.
Why is it that biomed people and ABA people supposedly have the monopoly on severely autistic children?
Oddly enough, Jeff Apple's parents (Spinning Straw) don't fall into either of those groups, but their son had the most severe self-injury I've ever heard of in an autistic child. He eventually died from headbanging. His parents aren't on any vendetta, saying their child was poisoned, nor did they claim some miracle treatment. They just say that their son was a beautiful, wonderful boy with a terrible problem for which there are no easy answers to prevention or cure.
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4
What Offit really said from:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/109/1/124#SEC6
"Current data suggest that the theoretical capacity determined by diversity of antibody variable gene regions would allow for as many as 10^9 to 10^11 different antibody specificities........ then each infant would have the theoretical capacity to respond to about 10 000 vaccines at any one time (obtained by dividing 10^7 B cells per mL by 10^3 epitopes per vaccine)."
(for those who are not math-freaks, the 10^3 is 1000, and 10^7 is 10000000, basically a "1" with a zeros following that equal what comes after the "^" mark --- if you switch your computer calculator to "scientific" in the View menu, you will find an "x^y" button, you can check the numbers by putting in "10", press the "x^y" button and putting in the number that follows the "^", and then "=", the equal sign)
More reading (just happened to find this looking for the previous Offit quote, that was misquoted by David "I'm for sale for any cause" Kirby):
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/111/3/653#SEC4