Andrew Wakefield wins an award just as he jumps on the anti-psychiatry bandwagon

Wakefield's having been honored with the "Golden Duck" award raises the question of whether there might be a runner-up. My nomination is Dr. Oz whose high (and rising) profile has made his name a household word - at least in the United States, where he has achieved a highly undeserved degree of respect in the media. For a guy who has zero bona fides in the medical mainstream to have gained such a large following among the scientifically uneducated masses boggles the mind. We have Oprah Winfrey to thank for her gift of Mehmet Oz and others of his ilk to the public. During her reign as undisputed queen of pop culture Winfrey became infamous for disseminating bad medical advice. The list of moronic health gurus she foisted on us includes myriad candidates for the "Golden Duck" award but, for me, Oz is at the top of the list because of the tremendous (but misguided) influence he exerts.

Although I'm an atheist, I feel rather festive since the anti-psychiatry advocates have given me so much material to contemplate in the past week. And now Andy joins their rank:. who could ask for more?

An underlying concept uniting them is the worship of Nature and devaluation of human interference**- -which results in disease, chaos and slaughter. In their view, cancer, hiv/aids, schizophrenia, depression, ASDs, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer's and every other serious illness humans suffer is un-natural and the result of a modern lifestyle and/ or iatrogenic manipulation, especially the prescription of pharmaceuticals.

I suppose these partisans envision an eden or arcadia or land of youth where human beings lived in harmony with Nature, never sickening or dying before an advanced age in which they kept all of their faculties physica and mental until the last gasp- this transpired before the industrial revolution and the rise of science. And now we've gone ahead and spoilt it all for them!

I conceive of this as mythologic advertising copy: they create an attractive never-never land to sell to followers, who aren't exactly pleased with real life and substitute a fantasy region wherein they might play-act and costume-play their way 'Back to Nature' as they consume various products to assist tem on their way

So much of the material I survey ( PRN, Natural News, Mercola, AoA, TMR ) relies upon the idea that "things were better in the past". Woo-meisters and thinking moms rail against modern medicine and psychology which have created all the ills that befall us. If olt they could go back in TIme! I wish they would.

** which is rich coming from AJW.

pardonnez les typos

I'm really worried that this rant by Andy will make at least one person or parent think twice about seeking medical or psychiatric advice for their condition or that of someone under their care. He already had the power to keep people from vaccinating. What if he has the power, or referent authority, to keep people from seeking mental health assistance?

Aside from the problems we have in the mental health infrastructure, the last thing we need is for people to be discouraged from seeking professional help for any of their ailments.

@DW - Firefox and Google Chrome have integrated spell-check for forms and comment boxes.

Andrew Wakefield stands by, tacitly lending support to faux therapies like forcing disabled children to ingest bleach, but chimes in here.

At least he is honest that his idea is not new nor his alone. The same can be said for most of his efforts. He took the ideas of a group of parents and packaged it with fake science to create the groundwork for litigation.

The man is a mediocrity in all but irresponsibility.

@Denice - About your last comment, Precisely.

AW may be a golden duck with the other quackers, but he's got one unique feature: he dove into the pond from the heights. Who else among the web-footed were faculty at major academic centers and published in The Lancet? The sheer magnitude of the vertical plummet is impressive in itself.

How could then new name be anything other than Goneril or Regan? See - they bark at me.

Congratulations.

oops. meant that post for Ethan.

(@ Ren: spelling isn't the problem- more like trying to do several things at the same time whilst proofreading.. which I really shouldn't do.. but. it's Saturnalia- it gets busy around here)

You know, we already have some anti-vax advocates being very sceptical about any pharmaceutical intervention for their children on the spectrum: it certainly goes along with the pharma-poison vaccine meme.

AJW is trying to keep himself relevant and being Mr Natural will attract some followers- perhaps beyond the anti-vax crowd, Alt med is rife with so-called naturalism ( not to be confused with natural science). People are frightened of serious illness- including SMI- and are suspicious about meds - whose actions they often don't comprehend- so it might be a natural arena for him- didn't he correctly surmise that parents feared vaccines and then ran with it?

This guy will never stop- and he's only 55. I expect he'll be around for some time. Lucky us.

An underlying concept uniting them is the worship of Nature and devaluation of human interference**- -which results in disease, chaos and slaughter. In their view, cancer, hiv/aids, schizophrenia, depression, ASDs, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer’s and every other serious illness humans suffer is un-natural and the result of a modern lifestyle and/ or iatrogenic manipulation, especially the prescription of pharmaceuticals.

And industrial bleach (their prefered remedy for several things) is all natural?
I think something is wrong with them.
Besides, nature isn't all good. There are a lot of natural things out there that are able to kill us.

It certainly is an early Christmas present for us.

Poor Andy, he sought fame and fortune. He got his fortune and now his fame. (Not quite the type of fame he was looking for, but the infamy he so richly deserves).

@ Denice Walter...Wakey is so predictable; it's the opening shot for his new career as a supplement dealer in lieu of vaccines and other medicines that "real" doctors prescribe for their patients.

@ S:

Mercy bowcoo.

@ Renate:

But you see, it's *all-natural, earth-friendly*, industrial-strength bleach! Just like those Gaia-inspired, mega-dose supplements, fresh straight off the farm**.
You are expecting consistency from woo? 'Fraid not.

@ lilady:

Yes, Old Andy is polishing up his new image ( see updated hair style and relaxed fashion vibe in recent photos) - shall he sell himself on the internet, dream up a line of curative ASD supplements, report medical fraud***as an investigative journalist at Infowars, do legal research for ANH or write how-to natural health guides in order to flood bookshops- both brick-and-mortar and virtual?
Decisions, decisions.The world is indeed your oyster and opportunity is un-limited for well-rehearsed frauds with claptrap and nonsense to sell.

** pharm, actually
*** right..

@Denice:

I suppose these partisans envision an eden or arcadia or land of youth where human beings lived in harmony with Nature, never sickening or dying before an advanced age in which they kept all of their faculties physica and mental until the last gasp- this transpired before the industrial revolution and the rise of science. And now we’ve gone ahead and spoilt it all for them!

My thoughts exactly. I call it the Myth of the Golden Past. It's total BS. They recently dug up someone who died almost 1000 years before Christ was born. His body was riddled with cancer.
So much for a Golden Past.

And the madness continues:
"Psychiatry Has No Answer to Gun Massacres"
by Peter Breggin ( @ progressiveradionetwork.com)

@ Julian:

Perhaps they all want to sail into the West and hang out with the Elves. ( notice AJW references JRR above)

@ Renate:

But you see, it’s *all-natural, earth-friendly*, industrial-strength bleach! Just like those Gaia-inspired, mega-dose supplements, fresh straight off the farm**.
You are expecting consistency from woo? ‘Fraid not.

All the reading I did, learned me at least one thing: "woo pedlars and logic exclude eachother".

There is a fairly obvious connection between a subset of the truly paranoid and the targeting of psychiatry as the enemy. Most of us don't think about psychiatry or psychiatrists very much, unless we have a relative who needs care. But those who have had episodes of psychosis, who are more than a little paranoid, or who have other mental disorders get referred to the mental health system at some point in their lives, often when they are fairly young. The experience is not a lot of fun, and it sometimes involves loss of personal liberty for a time, as well as the requirement to take drugs that can have uncomfortable side effects. Nowadays, these sorts of interventions often come about as part of the criminal justice system, so insult is piled upon injury.

Of course psychiatric treatment for severe mental illness is largely palliative. The doctors can prescribe drugs that reduce some of the symptoms, or reduce the anxiety associated with those symptoms, but the underlying developmental disorder in neuronal organization doesn't go away. (Aside: We should get beyond the old trope of "chemical imbalance" for true schizophrenia, because there is evidence for disorganization of some of the cortex, compared to normals.)

In this sense, a paranoid response to the very existence of psychiatry is part of a larger syndrome which includes the more entertaining fears of black helicopters, mind control, and fluoridation. Or to put it bluntly, the people who complain the loudest about the existence of psychiatry are usually the ones most in need of it.

The problem of course is that psychiatry is still in the stage that surgery was in the 1880s -- there is developing knowledge about what the problems are, but the technology to treat, much less to cure, is not quite there yet. In this sense, the critics have a point, but it is a little off target: The fact that psychiatric treatment is palliative and not curative is a legitimate complaint, but it is really a complaint about reality, not about the motives of those who are trying to help people who are legitimately troubled.

The whole argument reminds me of what some heroine addicts complained about when methadone treatment became popular. They were annoyed that methadone is itself an addictive substance and did not make their problems magically go away. All of this was true, but beside the point: A person with a serious addiction to opiates is not going to find a magical cure-all, because no such thing exists. The point about methadone was that it replaces the craving for heroine because it binds to the same cellular receptors and essentially does many of the same things, but it does so with marginally less side effect, in the sense that the methadone patient can stay awake and hold a job. Still, we got to read the whiney complaints of addicts who were not willing to accept that the problem was not in their pill bottles, but in themselves.

I see some of this latest shtick about psychiatric medication as part and parcel of the initial response to the murders, namely to try to push the discussion away from gun control (ie: confiscation of high power, semiautomatic guns) toward something, anything, else. Playing to paranoia about psychiatric medications seems to be a particularly low form of this tactic, but that's what it is. In the case of the Wakefields and his ilk, I suspect that we are looking at opportunism taken to a truly ugly level -- they get their digs in at all things pharmaceutical because the tragic reality has served them up the chance, and in so doing, they get to appeal to the real nut cases who are part of the naturalistic movement.

Is he kidding me?

Pharma lobbyists scaling Capitol Hill like an army of Orcs closing on Helm’s Deep. It’s a hideous sight.

And another hideous sight is Wakefield attempting to appropriate Tolkien.
I wonder if he’s actually read the Lord of the Rings, or did he just watch the movies?

I’m also not sure if Wakefield imagines his article as expert investigative reporting or an eloquent opinion piece. And apparently, he’s missed the irony of adding a bolded header to one to his quotations describing Pharma misdeeds reading Inducements and Fraud.

Denise – wouldn’t the West>/i> be the wrong direction for the woo-meisters?

OOops. Checking for continuing accidental italics. Adding a closing bracket just in case

And apologies for mis-spelling Denice.

"Pharma lobbyists scaling Capitol Hill like an army of Orcs closing on Helm’s Deep. It’s a hideous sight."

It's no different than SaneVax and AoA lobbyists/operatives such as Andrew Wakefield, wining and dining Congressmen and their wives for months prior to the public announcement that Darell Issa and Dan Burton would be conducting a sham autism hearing:

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/12/brian-hookers-testimony-autism.html

Congrats to Andy Fakefield! It couldn't happen to a more deserving quack. And now he's thrown his lot in with the last refuge of altie scoundrels, the anti-psych brigade. Hope he likes his new friends.

I was originally just stopping in to wish Happy Holidays to Orac and all the RI shills and minions before the fun starts chez Prickly. I hope Lord Draconis is generous to you all this year, you've done stellar work! Must get back to the kitchen now, I'm in the middle of making a Christmas Eve tourtiere (French-Canadian meat pie - Alain will know what I'm talkin' 'bout!) Enjoy the season all.

I think this just goes to show that woo-sters (sorry, Bertie), truly have never met a woo they didn't like.

Due to my passion for military history I spend a fair amount of my free time in the 19th century. These knuckleheads haven't a clue what "natural" means; I'd give them a copy of "Bleed, Blister and Purge," but they'd probably refuse to read it.

@Edith,

Enjoy your tourtière :)

Alain

Speaking of vaccinations. What do you think of this study idea found here - http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/official-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-st…

Seriously, people? You are that proud/happy/surprised over the fact that basically "Science"blogs gave out an award to Dr. Wakefield? Of course they did. This is the same "Science"blogs that many have abandoned and one defector characterized the originator (Adam Bly) as "'nothing more than a smooth- talking con artist- the sole function for Sb is to be the cash cow for his pricey fantasy lifestyle as a hotshot magazine publisher in lower Manhattan." She called "Science"blogs Zombieblogs and also said it was "heartless, soulless, unethical- something about a Bhopal article with Dow chemical connections- she goes on, " Seed Media Group is a blatant money whore run by an abusive, self-important sycophant." You pharma- dependent zombies defend an industry that has no good or proper safety/efficacy studies of their product (vaccines) so of course Scienceblogs will continue to malign anyone like Dr. Wakefield- it's what you do.

Jen,

Wakefield is not a doctor. Please stop calling him a doctor. He is MR. Wakefield.

Sandman,

Really, we're supposed to care what Suzanne Humphies says? Do you have any idea who and what she is?

@ Sandman (Which BTW, I'm listening to Enter Sandman from Metallica).

I would have to look behind the quote that the study was approved by the ethical comity. Also, is it a clinical trial or a phone survey study? I recall Orac having posted about it recently.

Alain

Alain,

It's parents self-reporting a questionnaire on a website.

@ MSII,

Yeah I knew that ring a bell. I'd love to be paid 900 000$ for designing a website and running R through the data collection.

Alain

Alain,

Orac discussed the survey one month ago:

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/29/fundraising-for-antivaccin…

Last month when Orac covered this, they only needed $500,000. Now, according to Hymphries, they're looking for a million.

It all sounds rather innocuous, but looking deeper, I find that this “study” is not much of a study at all. In fact, it’s just an Internet survey, and not even a particularly informative survey. Why it will cost $500,000 to complete, I have no idea. It sures seems like a lot of green for a relatively easy study. It’s not as though a bunch of people to interview hundreds or thousands of subjects are needed. You can even look at it yourself, as one can find the survey here and here. Its principal investigator is Anthony R. Mawson, M.A., Dr.P.H.. That name sounded familiar to me, and it didn’t take much Googling before it came to me.

That quote I just used was from Orac's coverage, not Humphries, BTW.

Jen,
Try reading for comprehension: the award was given by a British group: http://goodthinkingsociety.org/about/
It has nothing to do with Scienceblogs.
Wakefield is now reaping what he sowed.
Seriously, Jen – why do you continue to throw your support behind a man who’s shown again and again that he’s only about spin?

Sandman, have you read what Orac wrote about it? See link posted by "Marc Stephens Is Insane."

You might also use the handy dandy search box at the top right of this page to read what he thinks about Suzanne Humphries.

Jen:

You are that proud/happy/surprised over the fact that basically “Science”blogs gave out an award to Dr. Wakefield?

The society that gave Wakers that award is not affiliated with this blog group. You might trying clicking on their link. And no, we are not surprised that Fraudytrousers Wakefield was given a "Golden Duck" because is a first class quack.

Now one way you can defend Wakers is by providing the evidence that he used to hypothesize that the MMR caused autism. And since the vaccine had been used for a couple of decades outside of the UK he should have had plenty of data. What was that data and where is it? Just tell provide it as proof that he had something else than an offer of cold hard cash from the UK taxpayers to create that data requested by the lawyer/homeopathy Richard Barr.

Marc Stephens Is Insane:

Please stop calling him a doctor. He is MR. Wakefield.

I disagree: his degree, and the title of “doctor,” was earned. It can’t be un-earned. It’s his right to practice that was revoked. There’s a difference.

I'm confused: I thought once you are struck off (stricken off?) you lose the right to call yourself as doctor. That's what I've been led to believe here. If I'm wrong I apologize (words you'll never hear from the alties...)

Getting back to the survey: How do we know that a bad parent, who has already abused his/her child by not vaccinating, would not lie on a survey to bolster their anti-vax stance?

Seriously, people? You are that proud/happy/surprised over the fact that basically “Science”blogs gave out an award to Dr. Wakefield?

You might want to lay off the eggnog Jen; Waker's award was bestowed upon him by the Good Thinking Society, a British group. I guess that has to frost your arse that Brian Deer is given British Press Awards while Wakers is languishing about writing lame blog posts and receiving awards for his world-renowned fraud.

Seriously, Jen – why do you continue to throw your support behind a man who’s shown again and again that he’s only about spin?

Medicine shows do tend to need low-budget side talent.

Alain,

Check out Adam Bly, maligned by Jen in her rambling screed. He was born in Montreal and was doing research at the NRC (one of the most respected research facilities in the world) in Ottawa at the age of 16!!

I've never heard of him unitl now but I really like him!

I found no connectiuon between him and Science Blogs, by the way. Maybe he started a primitive version of SB early on that morphed into the site we are all enjoying today.

Jen,

I looked up the person who called ScienceBlogs "ZombieBlogs" (http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2010/07/20/scienceblogs-zombieblo…). She's now writing pro-vaccine pieces for The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2011/oct/11/1

Marc Stephens Is Insane,
While we’re debating the issue of what title should be used to address a person, consider how we define the word “entitled.”

The title “doctor” is not restricted to those currently practicing medicine. If it were, it needs to be removed from all references to any retired medical practitioners, and every single person who has ever completed a PhD (as opposed to the combined MD/PhD degree).

It is a muddy area of semantics, and here’s my own disclaimer: I don’t insist anyone refer to me as “Dr” just because I defended a thesis in a subject most folks despise (see my nym then convince me you don’t). But my point is the title was awarded based on a demonstration of knowledge – not one’s current application (or misapplication) of said knowledge.

More simply put: the title goes with the degree, not the act of practice. A title is not a license.

@ MSII,

I wish I could do research at 16 but then, many years sooner, a teacher of science slapped me the ears, throwing me out of his classroom and be level 2 of secondary school, I was thrown out of school because I couldn't bear taking up to 5 hours to write down the homeworks (which I understood perfectly well) while I was having 80's and 90's on the exams. I still have a muscular disability and can't bear to write anything except on a computer which is much less painful.

I was about 14 when I was thrown out of school (in december) so I decided to go to the local library to learn english, physics, and a few other matters like computer science to a good enough degree that I was successful in having scores of 99% in every english tests thereafter (as a second language) and after that, I finished my high school in english at adult school.

University came later and that's a whole 'nother story.

Alain

"Good thinking" seems to have a healthy and robust relationship to "science"blogs. They're listed on their website - giving prizes etc. It's all the same industry driven- self- interested bilge. $$$$$$$$

Thomas, just because she still is 'pro-vaccine' doesn't mean some of her criticisms of "Science"blogs aren't valid. I would remind you that she still obviously makes her living off of science writing and obviously has to operate within those constraints.

She called “Science”blogs Zombieblogs

That, "hive mind", and "echo chamber" are common insults when you run into a bunch of people who happen to share an opinion contrary to your own.

Since any club, organization or community is by definition about regrouping people sharing a common interest, it's a bit of a tautology. Like blaming the sea for being wet.

Of course, these words may be sometimes an apt description. By example if the organizers are censuring dissenting voices.

“Good thinking” seems to have a healthy and robust relationship to “science”blogs. They’re listed on their website – giving prizes etc. It’s all the same industry driven- self- interested bilge. $$$$$$$$

Jen, you put your foot in your mouth. Deal with it.

“Good thinking” seems to have a healthy and robust relationship to “science”blogs. They’re listed on their website – giving prizes etc. It’s all the same industry driven- self- interested bilge. $$$$$$$$

What does any of that have to with the fact that Wakefield is a lying, corrupt discredited fraud?

Neither Good Thinking nor SB forced him to fake everything just to give him this prize.

Jen:

hey’re listed on their website – giving prizes etc.

Yes, they have a "science blog" prize. That means any blog that writes about science, not this just particular site. It is using "science" as an adjective.

It’s all the same industry driven- self- interested bilge. $$$$$$$$

Prove it.

Myself:

That means any blog that writes about science,

I made an error. Only UK based blogs are eligible for their prize: "Nominees must be UK-based bloggers and featured blog entries must have been published in 2012."

So, yet again, nothing to do with this particular site, since I don't believe there are any bloggers on Scienceblogs who are in the UK (one is in Sweden). But I could be mistaken.

Sorry, Chris et al. obviously I struck a nerve. Sad to say but it's the community to which you all belong. Funny, Marc, even Ben Goldacre vascillates on what Dr. wakefield's study was. Off to celebrate Christmas now - maybe even have some egg nog. Peace.

"Thomas, just because she still is ‘pro-vaccine’ doesn’t mean some of her criticisms of “Science”blogs aren’t valid. "

You dishonestly implied that because she criticized Scienceblogs she must agree with you about vaccines When I checked her writings, I found out that that was not the case.

"I would remind you that she still obviously makes her living off of science writing and obviously has to operate within those constraints."

Yes; there is a constraint to be truthful when writing about science.

"Sorry, Chris et al. obviously I struck a nerve. "

By which you mean "I told an obvious lie and got caught"

@jen

Still spreading your lies and mouthing off when caught with your pants down, I see.

I guess you still support children suffering and dying due to vaccine-preventable diseases.

You are, in short, a liar and a monster, and your posts prove it.

Jen,
Do you see massive conspiracies everywhere you go?

Keep in mind that with the new year, only a week away, Mr. Wakefield will likely be awarded the "Galileo squared, totally brave Maverick who big pharma tried to intimidate but still tells the truth" award by a blog.

He will then get a standing ovation at Autism One and give essentially the same, "I'd do it all again, its all about the children" speech he always gives.

Yes, my "name" is an anagram.

Jen,

you didn't strike a nerve. You were wrong and we corrected you.

Andf no matter what you say, Wakefield is a lying, corrupt discredited fraud who faked the entire paper and endangered hundreds upon thousands of children and their neighbours by propagating a false link between MMR and development disorders for his own greed and ego.

Sandman

December 24, 2012
Speaking of vaccinations. What do you think of this study idea found here – http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/official-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-st…

I think that Suzanne Humphries' write-up is dishonest, because this isn't the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study that anti-vaxxers have been clamoring for.

There are two kinds of studies: there are prospective studies, and retrospective studies. Each has advantages and drawbacks.

Retrospective studies have the advantage that they are easier to arrange in terms of ethics - if you can ethically get data on what people already did, of their own volition, and what the results were, you can do the study. The problem is that it's harder to figure out what the data really means, because there are so many variables involved.

Prospective studies are much easier to interpret; you select your study population and you control what's happening to them so that, if you see a statistically significant difference between what's happening to one group and what's happening to another, the only plausible explanation is that the intervention being tested is having an effect. The problem with prospective studies is that when you have that power to affect what happens to people, you are constrained in what you can do with that power ethically.

The study that antivaxxers keep proposing is a prospective study, where some children are deprived of vaccines in order to study what happens. Let's compare that with perhaps the archetypical example of an unethical study, the Tuskegee syphilis study. When the Tuskegee study started, there was no treatment known to be effective against syphilis. Then, during the course of the study, scientific evidence showed penicillin to be an effective treatment against syphilis. The experimenters declined to provide this treatment to the subjects, even though they were aware that it would prevent agony and death to their subjects. That decision made them rightfully go down in the history of science as monsters.

Yet that was an intervention the experimenters became aware was effective only during the course of the study. What antivaxxers are proposing is that their experimental subjects - children, to be precise - should be deprived of a treatment we have known to be effective in preventing misery, maiming, and loss of life of for over a hundred years, and that the children should pay this cost so that the antivaxxers can get scientific data that the antivaxxers hope supports a hypothesis so vague it's nearly unfalsifiable. It takes a lot to rival the Tuskegee study for monstrousness, but the study the antivaxxers clamor for achieves it.

This study, the one for which Suzanne Humphries is shilling, is not that study. The study they describe is a retrospective study; there's nothing new about retrospective studies on vaccines. There are two possibilities: either Humphries knows that she's pulling a bait and switch, telling her antivax audience "this is it! Send your money our way, because this is that study we all want to see done which would settle things once and for all!" while knowing that this is NOT that study, or she's so incompetent that she doesn't understand the difference between a prospective and a retrospective study, in which case she's not exactly the best person to direct your dollars to.

Jen, deer, you have actually struck a funny bone.

Yes, Ben Goldacre said is was just a case series that should not have gathered so much media attention. Of course it was Wakers telling parents to not get the MMR but single shots without any real evidence.

There is an entire chapter in Ben Goldacre's book, Bad Science where Wakers is not treated nicely. The chapter is called "The Media's MMR Hoax."

Another obvious point: Seed doesn't own science blogs any more. National Geographic does.

"“Sorry, Chris et al. obviously I struck a nerve. ”

By which you mean “I told an obvious lie and got caught”"

It's also the classic passive-aggressive "you are obviously getting irrationally emotional while I am cool and logical" dismissive statement. For some reason tells seem to feel like this isn't transparent.

@Chemmomo:

Yes, the woos treasure the mysterious East but I am, of course, speaking metaphorically: sailing into the west - into the sunset- has intimations of immortality- beyond the sunset of this life forever dawns another life- more perfected- of eternal return. Tolkien's realm of the immortals was west . The land of youth spoken of by the Irish is also west.
However if you travel far enough west, you'll be in the East..

Since the woo-meisters don't seem to trouble themselves much about plausibility and feasible mechanisms of action I hardly think that they'll trifle over directions.

Denice,
Yes: and even Samwise gets to go the Grey Havens eventually.

I do get the metaphors. Part of me was also wondering if there was a connection to certain Wizard of Oz editions where Munchkinland is on the left hand side of the map. As someone who moved from one coast of the US to the other, I can relate to that particular confusion (where's the ocean?).

And then there's C. S. Lewis, on the other hand, who does chase East.

It's quite possible I have less sympathy for those who screw up science than those who abuse the literature I grew up with.

Quoting myself

It’s quite possible I have less sympathy for those who screw up science than those who abuse the literature I grew up with.

Wakefield did both.

enjoying Parma’s inducements

Ham-based bribery? THE HORROR.

“Psychiatry Has No Answer to Gun Massacres”

Fair enough. Does anyone think it *should* have an answer?
If you have a gun massacre problem, medical specialists are not the people you should ask to deal with it..

Does anyone think it *should* have an answer?

Do you really want to do this?

What could possibly go wrong?

Sorry Jen, but repeatedly referring to dear old Andy as "Dr. Wakefield" won't do anything to reinstate his medical license.

'If we keep saying it, that means it's true!'
I think I found I new slogan for the antivaxxers.

I see Jen remains true to form, dropping in to tell some lies, then disappearing when she is called out on it. Give it a month or two and she will be back telling the same lies, having learned nothing.

Jen tells lies because if she told the truth, Wakers would disappear from his pinnacle of her worship. He would fall into the pit as he deserves.

For all off today, have fun! For those working, thanks.

@Bob G- I think that another problem is that psychiatry really is subject to abuse in a way that other specialties aren't. If a doctor diagnoses a healthy person he has a grudge against with syphilis, the diagnosis can be easily corrected. If a doctor declares a sane person insane, (and that has happened in certain countries for political reasons), it's more difficult to contest.

Free hint for you, Jen: Guilt by association isn't a particularly convincing tactic even when your "association" isn't laughably vague.

MayOrac and all the regular Respectful Insolents have a wonderful holiday season and an even better 2013!

The trolls and woo-peddlers, OTOH, can partake of Popehat's admonition to Marc Stephens (the real one, not the RI pseudonym).

:-)

Merry Christmas to all, and happy holidays. Hope everything goes well this season.

(going off to volunteer at hospital today)

Merry Christmas everyone :)

Alain

Micheal: If a doctor declares a sane person insane, (and that has happened in certain countries for political reasons), it’s more difficult to contest.

Has happened for personal reasons too. My great aunt was married to a doctor, and he declared her insane so he could divorce her. Thankfully, a sympathetic doctor rectified it, but that was a pretty common tactic for getting rid of inconvenient wives and wayward daughters. And many of them weren't so lucky.

@AdamG
The title goes with the degree, not with the medical license, so while he can't practice medicine, we should still call him Dr Wakefield. Sad, but true.

Anyway, it won't take long before he has been responsible for more deaths than those at Sandy Hook; from measles, mumps and rubella.

I hope that my sister and fellow sceptics are having a happy Christmas or Saturnalia or generic dark day in late December - whatever the case may be. At any rate, many of us in the northern hemisphere experience coldness and increased darkness so it makes perfect sense to eat, drink and attempt to make merry until conditions improve a bit. Ah, tradition!

The usual suspects- woo-meisters, natural health fanatics and pseudo-scientists of all stripes- have worked hard all year long to insure that we receive loads of 'gifts' for our deconstruction and amusement. I'm very glad about that.

Happy Festivus, fellow SciBlog zombies! Remember to leave treats* for the Pharma Reptile Overlords who faithfully drop off our shill checks each month.

*the still-beating heart of a Vaccine Truther is always appreciated, but in a pinch, a quart of mealworms will suffice.

If a doctor declares a sane person insane, (and that has happened in certain countries for political reasons), it’s more difficult to contest.

I'm not aware of any place in the U.S. where a physician can "declare" anyone "insane." Involuntary commitment, by and large, is avoided like the plague, as it immediately sets into motion legal proceedings.

The title goes with the degree, not with the medical license, so while he can’t practice medicine, we should still call him Dr Wakefield. Sad, but true.

No, this varies by state. Even appending "M.D." to one's name without a license to practice is illegal in some states.

(E.g., Maine.)

One can call anyone doctor, or call any doctor "Mr., Mrs., or Ms.". Nothing forces one to use or not use a title.

I generally reserve "Dr." For treating physicians as there are many people, including myself, assume that especially when discussing fields of treatment, "Dr." Means exactly that: a treating physician.

I make an exception in one specific case of someone with Ph.D. level credentials who has expressed an preference for "Dr." in professional settings.

I have the right to more letters after my name than does Andrew Wakefield, including Ph.D. and I am actively employed in my profession, with a better publication record than Andrew Wakefield, and I actively request people not use "Dr." In referencing me.

Michael and others:

Yes, you reminded me of the time when the old Soviet Union was infamous for locking people away on the grounds of some kind of mental disability. Apparently it was just as easy to do that as to hold a political trial. I don't think that's what the current anti-psychiatry groups are talking about, but I confess that I haven't read Tom Cruise's collected works, so I could be wrong on this.

I think that Suzanne Humphries’ write-up is dishonest, because this isn’t the vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study that anti-vaxxers have been clamoring for.

It's also patently evasive, as the solicitation comes first, then the supposed-to-be-impressive credentials, then the solicitation again. She doesn't even name Anthony Mawson.

This survey is great. And lamely password-protected. This is good, though:

Documents and Settings\AMS MPH DrPH Student\Desktop\... 8/23/2012

Perhaps this will be revisited, as one might wonder about a certain coincidence here. Anyway, this really says professionalism:

Section 2. Data on Child

${lm://Field/2}

That should be intuitive to fill in. High-school psychology subgroups, anyone?

My child has not received all recommended vaccinations for his/her age because (check all that apply):

☐ Can't afford the cost
☐ Child has no health insurance
☐ Child reacted badly to initial or earlier vaccines
☐ Doctor recommended against this child receiving one or more vaccinations
☐ No doctor or clinic available where we live
☐ Older child/children had bad reactions
☐ Religious/philosophical reasons
☐ We are concerned about vaccine safety
☐ We got behind but plan to complete all required shots
☐ Other

@ Bob G:

I am familiar with Mike Adams and Gary Null who are both vocally- and wildly- anti-psychiatry and who use any and all objections to meds, replacing them with nutrition.

There were quite a few articles at Gary Null.com but they seem to have gone missing ( the site is renovated as a purely commercial supplement/ book, film outlet). Peter Breggin also has a show at Null's Progressive Radio Network ( see website) . Many of Null's archived shows ( Gary Null Show; Talkback; Progressive Commentary Hour)reveal his slant ( as well as his film,"The Drugging of Our Children") and present anti-psychiatry guests like Rima Laibow. His books include do-it-yourself fix-ups for depression, anxiety, anger, etc ( see Gary Null.com) and his own theoretical opinings on personality formation ( cough).

Adams' Natural News has his own articles, videos and so-called musical offerings ( see "SSRIs, SSR Lies") as well as presenting Mike Bundrant ( sp) who regularly writes alt psych material and offers services.

In short, both disparage meds and most standard forms of SB therapy like CBT. Often, Null discusses Orthomolecular Psychiatry- basically megadoses of niacin- for SMI; other therapies include prayer, meditation, 'spirituality', exercise, a healthy diet, life coaching et al.

Gripes include:
-psychiatry/ psychology is not science
-"mental illness" doesn't really exist**
-psychotropic meds CAUSE mental illness and violence
-there are no 'chemical imbalances" and/ or physiological differences in so-called mentally ill people
-pharmaceutical companies "invent" new mental conditions ( see DSM-5) in order to sell products for them
- professionals in mental health are in league with pharma
- they "pathologise everyday life" calling 'sadness' 'depression' and nervousness "anxiety", children's fidgetting "ADHD"- everyone has these conditions- no big deal.

Occasionally one will present atrocities from the past ( former Soviet Union or N-zi Germany) as well as ancient treatments from the west ( old style ECT and institutions, even those based in films) as if to say that because psychiatrists were involved, those alive today are somehow implicated.

Recently anti-vax sites like AoA and TMR also increasingly invoke meds as creating symptoms- which matches their anti- pharma- based anti-vaccinationism well. ( vaccines cause autism). Mercola advocates EFT instead of meds.

** I know, I know, we've heard this before, haven't we?

Happy & merry day/night/week to the shills & minions. Orac, too. An enlightening year for me. I hope Overlords will accept my humble offering of moss & fungi. Out for a couple of days, quick trip around grandkids; ran into Unexpected Woo - infant amber teething necklace. Special thanks to Autismum who has a scathing critique of that stuff. (In the circumstances I was forced to bite my tongue; what could I do but toss a bit of salt over my left shoulder? But we'll deal with to.) Again, my best to all - we have New Year's coming soon. Cozy here with a lot of rain this month.
Oh, what? Doctor Wakefield is on an anti-psychiatry binge? Surprise.

There is a complication with British doctors. In the UK, a doctor qualifies with a regular graduate degree ( generally MB BS - bachelor of medicine, bachelor of surgery). They do not qualify MD, and thus do not have a doctorate (although it's possible to go on and get an MD). In the US, doctors qualify with a higher degree, after graduating in another subject (usually a science).

In British medicine, the term "doctor" is an honorary title. But is it an honorary title arising from graduating, or is it an honorary title from being a medical practititioner? I don't really know.

Wakefield is not a medical practitioner any longer. He also lacks other qualifications which he has used in recent years. He claims to be a FRCpath - of which he was stripped, and he also claims to be an FRCP, which he lost in 1996. I think most people know what to make of someone in a medical field who falsely puts letters after their name.

Regards the use of the title, Dr.:

Most scientists don't use the title, with the exception of formal circumstances. (Basically put - every scientist has one, so what's the point?! Science tends to be on credentials of work done, skills you have, etc., anyway.) In the case of MDs, I'm generally reserve 'Dr' for those that are actively practising. As an example I would introduce those who have retired, etc., as having been a doctor.

@Ren

I’m really worried that this rant by Andy will make at least one person or parent think twice about seeking medical or psychiatric advice for their condition or that of someone under their care. He already had the power to keep people from vaccinating. What if he has the power, or referent authority, to keep people from seeking mental health assistance?

I doubt it. Before he had the cloak of a scientific paper; now he has been struck off. Parents are more likely to listen to someone who is doing research than someone who lost their medical licence. I think his influence will disappear, except for his most ardent fans. So long as, of course, we keep pointing out that he has no leg to stand on, produced fraudulent science, and was run off by his medical board.

As for his ardent fans, it wouldn't surprise me that they would also buy into anti-psychiatry stuff, given their attitude to autism.

Denise: Thanks for the explanations. I've heard one of those guys briefly on KPFK Pacifica Radio (Null?) and he was blathering in that same way that the infomercials selling colloidal silver used to do. It's a completely different way of thinking than that of scientists (or other rational people).

I've known several psychiatrists due to family connections over the years, and they don't seem weird or power hungry or manipulative -- in short, completely different from the stereotypical villains portrayed by the antipsychiatry cults. One cousin of mine went into psychiatry because he decided after 3 years of med school that he really didn't like treating hospitalized sick people, and he did have an interest in getting into peoples' heads, as he put it.

I suspect that psychiatrists of the present day wrestle with exactly the same general problem as other specialists do -- oncologists, rheumatologists, and now even neurologists -- namely how to balance out effective dosage vs side effects.

Arrayed against this group of people who passed the filtering process just to get into medical school and have spent a lifetime of continuing education, you have the alties who get one bright idea (let's try vitamins!) and then beat it to death for the next 40 years. I don't have a good explanation (or much sympathy) for MDs who go the altie path, but I think they are rare.

OT -- but interesting (to me). Richard Stephenson of the for-profit integrative-oncology scam "Cancer Treatment Centers of America" (described a while ago by Orac in terms such as "really detest") is apparently the new owner of the FreedomWorks group for buying US politics.

Today AoA is rerunning Jake Crosby's slime blog about Brian Deer's second press award...with an explanation it is response to Andy's Golden Duck Award.

John Stone is the first to comment...it's classic Stone.

http://www.ageofautism.com/2012/12/best-of-aofa-brian-deers-second-awar…

@lilady - yes, the whole "conspiracy" will unravel......lol - they've been saying the same thing for a decade, yet the evidence only continues to mount against them.....

@ Visitor:

Here's what I'm trying to ascertain:
is it correct that AJW was not ever a medical practitioner- treating patients- AND he did not finish his training as a (tranplantation?) surgeon in Canada? So I suppose he didn't work in that field either.

His only work was purely** as a researcher. I'm not sure if he ever taught students in any capacity or did any other type of work related to his degrees. I don't think that he completed any other training or related practica in medical arts either- he would have been broadcasting that loudly over the years..

In other words, he didn't do much and what he did was contaminated by his mercenary interests and legal advisors to parents' groups.

** 'purely' is merely a figure of speech: nothing 'pure' about his research.

@ Bob G:

You see, alt med folk NEED to prevaricate about SBM- it is their competition and interferes with their own profit-making enterprise.

They need to trick potential clients into believing that SBM ( including psychology) has nothing to offer patients- that it's corrupt, dangerous, outdated and totally ineffective. And yes, this is coming from people who sell niacin tablets to people suffering from SMI. And dried vegetable/ fruit powders to people suffring from other serious illnesses. And magnets to people with severe arthritis. I could go on but won't.

The websites I survey are commercials against reality- because reality wrecks their business model.

Belated well-wishes to all in this festive* season. Off the internets to cook** and to spoil grandchildren excessively, which was greatly enjoyed by all parties.

I might take up referring to Matt Carey as "My Lord Sullivan", just for giggles.

St. Andy's award gave me a great deal of pleasure, and frankly, so did Jen's spittle-flecked but accuracy-free rant and subsequent flounce.
----
*insert appropriate festival here.
**The maple-brined, slow-roasted turkey was awesome, as was the Bacon AND Sausage Breakfast Bread Pudding

Belated wishes for a happy holiday season to all!
Although I rarely comment, I am always looking forwards to Orac's posts and the regulars that do comment. I have learned so much from all of you :)
Please be safe and enjoy the festive season with your loved ones.
Liz, that maple brined turkey sounds yum! We had the traditional Aussie Chrismas feast of prawns and oysters :)

- Wendy

Thomas, I in no way said Grrl scientist was anti-vaccine. I mentioned a cancelled Bhopal article. Re-read it or take some lessons in comprehension. "Good Thinking Society" and "Science"blogs = same shit, different pile. Of course the Grrl can still be pro-vaccine and think "Science"blogs is heartless, soulless and unethical.

@Marc Stephens II, that Adam Bly guy that you say you've never heard of until now and has no connection to Science blogs actually started "Science"blogs. You can see what one of his former writers thinks of him and the board and her concern that she had to run any articles for "Science"blogs past the advertising department for approval. This is the Bhopal article that wasn't published by "Science"blogs because they wanted Dow as a supporter $$$$
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2010/jul/09/seed-editorial-indep…
Stuck in moderation but I will post elsewhere if it isn't printed here.

@Jen - since Science Blogs is now owned by National Geographic & has been for a while now - and also since Science Blogs isn't associated with the group giving Andrew Wakefield this "award," what is your point again?

Jen, If you had been paying attention, you would realize that Adam Bly currently has no connection to Science Blogs and had no connection to Science Blogs MSII first showed up. Also, if you had read the article you would linked to you would have realized that the article that was spiked so as not to offend was written for Seed Magazine not science blogs. You would also have realized that when there was a conflict between Adam Bly's commercial interests and the SciBlogs community in 2010, Adam Bly backed down.

Given the censorship of contrary opinion at anti-vax blogs like AOA your accusation of censorship at sci-blogs is a case of the cast iron pot calling the stainless steel kettle black.

Hey, Jen, any luck coming up that data about autism in kids in the USA starting when the MMR vaccine was introduced in 1971. There is at least twenty years of information for Wakefield to base his hypothesis on. Or, he could of just thunk it up when Richard Barr flashed lots of the case from the UK taxpayers.

"Thomas, I in no way said Grrl scientist was anti-vaccine. I mentioned a cancelled Bhopal article. Re-read it or take some lessons in comprehension."

I'm sorry - I assumed that your tantrum about Scienceblogs had something to do with the subject of this article. Since you didn't mention the name of the person you were talking about, or provide a link in your original post, I think I can be forgiven for assuming that you were claiming that the unnamed person you were citing had an opinion about Wakefield that accorded with yours.

" Of course the Grrl can still be pro-vaccine and think “Science”blogs is heartless, soulless and unethical."

Of course. Has your respect for Grrlscientist's integrity regarding Scienceblogs led you to reconsider your opinions about vaccines?

Denise Walter: they “pathologise everyday life” calling ‘sadness’ ‘depression’ and nervousness “anxiety”, children’s fidgetting “ADHD”- everyone has these conditions- no big deal.

I've actually heard these on the internet. It's a good thing I've never met them in real life- I'd probably be in jail for assault. I've spent a lot of adulthood trying to convince myself that ADD is something that can be grown out of.

Denice -- polygamy laws be damned... marry me.

That is all.

@Stu:

Although I truly appreciate your kind offer I am unable to comply with your wishes. Unfortunately I am currently occupied with the care and maintainence ( emotional, not financial) of TWO rather intelligent but somewhat lost gentlemen who are also spectacularly good-looking for their age ( 50+) and who like to spend money. On me.

Thus, they are tolerated MOST of the time. One is dark and morose and the other a little too perfectionistic for his own good. Actually they are quite a trial- although each in his own way. Come to think of it, they are truly pains in the arse.

On second thought, I'm not sure you would like me in person because I am vain, sarcastic and haughty. I have no idea why people seem to like me. I venture that it must be the lingo since you can't seewhat I look like.

Vain, no clue what it is. Sarcastic, I like that. Haughty, fair enough...I like you Denice and could get along real fine with you in real life (I'm also nasty on occasion) but for marriage, I prefer'em young like 21-26 years old (I'm 36) like the one I spoke with tonight.

Alain

[i] “Good Thinking Society” and “Science”blogs = same shit, different pile. [/i]

Two different piles on two different continents, in fact. Still, never let the facts change your mind, hey Jen?

(Must get very embarrassing for you.)

Haha, didn't know about the Golden Duck! Great! I'd like to present a candidature for Lynn Margulis. After her great Endosymbiontic theory she went all-in defending that the whole evolution is based on endosymbiosis and that genetic modificications have just minimun spare effects. I attended her seminars on the issue and trust me, she very well deserves the prize!

For funding, research and peer finding please refer to the non-profit Aging Portfolio.

Cookie please...I've been offline for a few days so now I have to catch up on all the comments I missed.

Reading through this blog's comments on anything that is remotely critical of conservative scientific standpoints reminds me of a bunch of priests protecting their religious assets. Science is, or should be, a field where ideas are discussed openly and without deceit. The comment about Wakefield bringing back measles to the UK is preposterous as it is disingenuous. After reading the conclusions to a paper addressing the recent mumps outbreak in US- where 97% of people who had mumps had been vaccinated twice- I realise the 'scientific standpoint' is often self serving, unreflective. Who the hell ever said medicine was scientific anyway?

Science is, or should be, a field where ideas are discussed openly and without deceit.

Kind of an odd criticism to make of a public blog...

Ideas are discussed openly and considered on their merit. Wakefield is a proven fraud whose ideas have been refuted many times over.

Do you disagree? Let's discuss it openly and without deceit then ;)

@ Pat: How about the recent measles outbreak in Minnepolis among Somali American kids?

Don't you think that the fact that Wakefield met with Somali parents twice before the outbreak and once during the outbreak, to scare the sh!t out of them with his latest "theory" linking MMR vaccine with increased risk of autism...is proof enough that Andy is a public health menace?

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/health/118547569.html?refer=y

Too bad Pat is a fly-by troll - I'm sure he could add "tons" the conversation here......lol

a bunch of priests protecting their religious assets
Now I'm wondering what a 'religious asset' is and how one goes about protecting it. Haven't seen any copyright claims on the concept of monotheism.

Pat,

After reading the conclusions to a paper addressing the recent mumps outbreak in US- where 97% of people who had mumps had been vaccinated twice- I realise the ‘scientific standpoint’ is often self serving, unreflective.

That's not a very useful way to look at it. If you look at car accidents, you will find that most people who were seriously injured were wearing seat-belts. That doesn't mean that seat-belts don't help prevent injury, clearly they do.

It is more useful looking at the proportion of people who were wearing seat-belts who were seriously injured, and compare that to the proportion of people not wearing seat-belts who were seriously injured.

Similarly, if you look at the population exposed in the recent mumps outbreak you will find that only 10-20% of people who had been vaccinated twice caught mumps, but this is enough to maintain small outbreaks in close communities. The vaccine was on average 88% effective. A far higher proportion of unvaccinated people succumbed.

I think a medical intervention that is very safe, and is 88% effective at preventing a nasty and debilitating illness that can sometimes have very unpleasant complications is pretty good. Don't you?

Incidentally, the Urabe strain of mumps was used in MMR a few years ago, and it was more effective than the current mumps vaccine but because it caused too many side effects, it was replaced with a safer but less effective strain. A few years have passed and now people like you are complaining that it isn't effective enough. You can't win in the arena of public health.

Pat:

After reading the conclusions to a paper addressing the recent mumps outbreak in US- where 97% of people who had mumps had been vaccinated twice-

Pat, that proves you did not read the study:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1202865

And yes, that is the one that Natural News was talking about, and they even provided a link. But the link is to a preview and you cannot see the graphs, so there is no where it says how many had two mumps vaccine. But it does have the number "97%":

Orthodox Jewish persons accounted for 97% of case patients.

Oh, deer. Do you mean that if you are Orthodox Jewish that you are automatically considered vaccinated twice with the MMR, even at birth?

Or is it rather weird math going on with the following sentence:

Adolescents 13 to 17 years of age (27% of all patients) and males (78% of patients in that age group) were disproportionately affected. Among case patients 13 to 17 years of age with documented vaccination status, 89% had previously received two doses of a mumps-containing vaccine, and 8% had received one dose.

Someone must have added up the 89% and 8% to get the 97%, but did not realize they were less than a third of the total numbers of those that got mumps ("13 to 17 years of age (27% of all patients)"). That person is trying to create numbers with lots of missing data.

Also here is another interesting quote from that paper preview:

Orchitis was the most common complication (120 cases, 7% of male patients ≥12 years of age), with rates significantly higher among unvaccinated persons than among persons who had received two doses of vaccine

By the way, Krebiozen, the Urabe strain of measles was never used in any American MMR vaccine. The American strain came from Maurice Hillemann's daughter.

After reading the conclusions to a paper addressing the recent mumps outbreak in US- where 97% of people who had mumps had been vaccinated twice

So Pat is lying? I am SHOCKED.

Now I’m wondering what a ‘religious asset’ is and how one goes about protecting it.

What do you think all those halberds are for in the Holy See?

Does Pat mean this mumps outbreak...where the "index" case traveled to the U.K...where he got infected?

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5905a1.htm

"State and local health departments, in collaboration with CDC, continue to investigate a mumps outbreak that began in New York in June 2009 (1). The index case occurred in a boy aged 11 years who had returned on June 17 from a trip to the United Kingdom, where approximately 7,400 reports of laboratory-confirmed mumps were received by the Health Protection Agency in 2009.* He then attended a New York summer camp for tradition-observant Jewish boys, where he became symptomatic on June 28. Subsequently, other camp attendees and a staff member were reported to have mumps, and transmission continued in multiple locations when the camp attendees returned home. As of January 29, 2010, a total of 1,521 cases had been reported, with onset dates from June 28, 2009, through January 29, 2010, a substantial increase from the 179 cases reported as of October 30, 2009 (1). The outbreak has remained confined primarily to the tradition-observant Jewish community, with <3% of cases occurring among persons outside the community. The largest percentage of cases (61%) has occurred among persons aged 7--18 years, and 76% of the patients are male. Among the patients for whom vaccination status was reported, 88% had received at least 1 dose of mumps-containing vaccine, and 75% had received 2 doses. This is the largest mumps outbreak that has occurred in the United States since 2006 (2). Although mumps vaccination alone was not sufficient to prevent this outbreak, maintaining high measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination coverage remains the most effective way to prevent outbreaks and limit their size when they occur....."

Does Pat realize that low uptake of the Measles-Mumps-Rubella vaccine in the U.K. caused the mumps outbreak there? Does she realized the percentage of kids in the Orthodox community who were infected had a less than optimum immunization rate against mumps? (75 % had the two dose recommended MMR vaccine).

Wow. Such emotion. Whole lot of energy from you people. I can feel you guys from here- only thing is, I don't feel it is for the benefit of 'science', never have. Medicine is not science. When you have found yourself at the mercy of the medical system, you quickly see how political and social it is- ie people looking after each other.

The methodology of the paper, and or papers you guys critique, is there a meta analysis? I read a paper saying that long term studies of vax versus un vax. I critiqued the unvax position on methodological grounds.

Then, I thought why isn't there any long term studies of vax versus unvax for long term disease. Or is there?

Who are you people? Are you researchers? Are you Physicians? Who are you and where does your 'science' come from? What does your scientific view depend on? What do you mean by science? Do you have any links to the pharmaceutical industry?

Pat,

Would it matter if we were scientist or physician (or both)? you appear to have a problem with basic arithmetics.

By the way Pat, is it you who project emotions into our post (let's see if you can project some emotions into mine...)

Alain

I'm sorry, you said a paper said something it did not. At least Natural News was kind enough to provide the link. All you have to do is read the preview yourself before repeating the what you read. I did not accuse of anything other than not reading the source of the information yourself.

At no point did it say what you claimed it did. Plus, the part that you and NN did not realize is that a third MMR vaccine stopped the outbreak: Impact of a Third Dose of Measles-Mumps-Rubella Vaccine on a Mumps Outbreak.

I should remind you that the Pharma Shill Gambit is old and boring, and you should actually try using real evidence. And you are reminded that if you claim a paper says something, you should actually read it first.

As for this: "Who are you and where does your ‘science’ come from? What does your scientific view depend on? "

What my views come from is that what you said about the paper and what was actually written in the paper did not match. That is not a "scientific view" but on observation that you did not read the paper's preview.

The methodology of the paper, and or papers you guys critique, is there a meta analysis?

Can you tell us, in your own words, what 'meta-analysis' means?

"The methodology of the paper, and or papers you guys critique, is there a meta analysis?"

No Pat, the links that I and Chris provided are not meta-analyses. Do you even know what a "meta analysis paper" is?

"I read a paper saying that long term studies of vax versus un vax. I critiqued the unvax position on methodological grounds."

Is there are hidden meaning in that word salad? Would you like to rephrase it?

"Then, I thought why isn’t there any long term studies of vax versus unvax for long term disease. Or is there?"

Why don't you tell us why there are no long term studies of vaccinated-versus-unvaccinated kids? (hint) You might want to check out medical ethics and how institutional review boards would not approve such a study.

"Who are you people?" Are you researchers? Are you Physicians? Who are you and where does your ‘science’ come from?"

I am a retired public heath nurse/clinician-epidemiologist and I worked for a large County health department investigating individual cases and outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases. Many of the posters here are doctors, nurses, biologists, chemists and research scientists. The "civilians" who post here are well-versed in immunology, bacteriology, virology and all the Recommended Childhood Vaccines.

"What does your scientific view depend on? What do you mean by science?"

That would be years of education and years of working in health care, in research and ancillary fields of science.

More importantly Pat, what does your *scientific* view depend on and what does *science means to you*. BTW, what is your science background, your educational background and your work experience in any science field?

"Do you have any links to the pharmaceutical industry?"

No....and neither does anyone else who posts here. What are your links to any pharmaceutical company? What conflicts of interest do you have?

Here Pat, here's the link to the epidemiology study for the measles outbreak in Hennepin County Minneapolis, that your pal Andrew Wakefield precipitated...

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6013a6.htm

Notes from the Field: Measles Outbreak --- Hennepin County, Minnesota, February--March 2011
Weekly
April 8, 2011 / 60(13);421

".....On March 2, 2011, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) confirmed measles in a Hennepin County resident aged 9 months. As of April 1, investigation of contacts and heightened surveillance had revealed a total of 13 epidemiologically linked cases in Hennepin County residents. Of those cases, 11 were laboratory confirmed, and two were in household contacts of confirmed cases and met the clinical case definition for measles.

The patients included children aged 4 months--4 years and one adult aged 51 years; seven of the 13 were of Somali decent. Eight patients were hospitalized. Vaccination status was known for 11 patients: five were too young to have been vaccinated, and six (all of Somali descent) had not been vaccinated because of parental concerns about the safety of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The most recent rash onset was March 28. An additional, unrelated case of measles was confirmed in a Hennepin County resident aged 34 years who was exposed in Orlando, Florida, sometime during March 1--10.

The investigation determined that the index patient was a U.S.-born child of Somali descent, aged 30 months, who developed a rash February 15, 14 days after returning from a trip to Kenya. The patient attended a drop-in child care center 1 day before rash onset; measles developed in three contacts at the center and in one household contact. Secondary and tertiary exposures occurred in two congregate living facilities for homeless persons (four patients), an emergency department (two patients), and households (two patients). A virus isolate from the index patient was genotyped at CDC as B3, which is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa....."

@pat

Yawn, trying for the old "pharma shill gambit" again?

Guess that means that you tacitly admit that your argument has no merit.

Pat,

The methodology of the paper, and or papers you guys critique, is there a meta analysis?

Do you even know what a meta analysis is? Let me give you a hint: it's supposed to include more than one paper.

What does your scientific view depend on?

Observations generating hypotheses, and experiments to test them. Often performed by other people, and written up in peer-reviewed journals.

If you want more information about the author of this blog, click on his name in blue on the header - that's a link to the "About" page. As for the commenters - there's all kinds of folks here. Please note: including you.

@Pat: "Medicine is not science. When you have found yourself at the mercy of the medical system, you quickly see how political and social it is- ie people looking after each other. "

I should introduce myself here - I am a data analyst working in the Australian Health system. You made an important, if subconscious, point in your post - medicine and the health care industry are 2 different things. Medicine is the study of making sick people healthy again. As you say, the health care industry is a whole different beast, one that is highly politicised, especially here in Australia, where we have universal healthcare.

Sometimes decisions about healthcare get made for practical reasons. It would be lovely if people in less populated areas had local cancer treatment facilities so it didn't disrupt their lives having to seek treatment so far from where they live. But it's not practical because cancer treatment is expensive and having chemo and radiation therapy available in towns with small populations would result in those services being underutilised.

And then other times decisions are made for ridiculous reasons. There's a hospital about 2 hours from me that has a full, and underused, maternity unit. Another hospital about 15 minutes away also has a maternity unit, but the locals won't allow the first one to get closed down. The second one, see, is in a less socially desirable area and if their kids were born there, the less socially desirable hospital would be listed on the birth certificate.

(Apologies for rants everyone, currently I'm doing a lot of work on staffing figures, that will either be used to justify staff cuts in critical areas, or be used by managers to try and hold onto staff (probably unsuccessfully but we have to try.)

A wee bit O/T. J. B. Handley has a hilarious post up about the home-schooled Vaccinated-Vs-Unvaccinated Study that Orac blogged about.

Generation Rescue/AoA is now relying on the notable respected researcher/epidemiologist Suzanne Humphries to address the *issues* surrounding the study. Jesus H. Cripes!!!

http://www.ageofautism.com/2013/01/unvax-study-we-still-need-your-help…

@lilady - I just saw that. If that isn't Orac material, I don't know what is....

@lillady - Just curious: have concerns about the source of funding been raised with Jackson State University?

I critiqued the unvax position on methodological grounds.

No, Pat, you have not 'critiqued' anything. To do that you have to read the source material yourself.

Darn...my comment got lost in moderation. Orac blogged about that Vax-vs-Unvax study 6 weeks ago...

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/29/fundraising-for-antivaccin…

Where's "Pat"?

Who are you people? Are you researchers? Are you Physicians? Who are you and where does your ‘science’ come from?

If only there were some way of reading back through the archives, upon encountering an unfamiliar on-line discussion forum, and finding out the individual discussants' areas of knowledge.
Ben apparently wants answers NOW, without any delays or deferment of gratification. Kids today!

Do you know what a meta-analysis is? Cmon guys, cut me some lee way here- but you know what, that is exactly the kind of answer I expect from people either on the defence, or just being ideological or just started University.

Ok, let me answer.

First, most important as far as I am concerned. Why has there not been any long term studies done on vax v unvax in relation to chronic disease?

One answer given above was that it was ethically unsound.

Why?

Have you read any of the 'ethics' contained in the responses of government in relation to the possibility of harm caused by vaccines? The majority response was to neglect individual cases of harm in preference for Vaccination 'policy'.

The Wakefield attack mentioned? I don't see the science.

Did you take time to read the paper where 97% of people who contracted measles had had 2 shots? A third shot stopped the outbreak? Are you being fucking serious?

the pharma shill gambit.

adhominem attacks.

Big Pharma and its influence on 'science' as it applies to human beings is not adhom. It is a legitimate stance to take in particular circumstances.

In response, there a numerous adhominem attacks on people who are trying to develop new ideas of what science might mean despite rigorous studies showing otherwise- homeopathy, non-local effects, self-healing WITHOUT the need for forms of medical input. Much of this is not engaged with in the scientific community. I think a lot of responses are based in ignorance or fear.

Wow. Just wow.

Okay, Pat, you now need to explain how homeopathy could save this little girl: And another SSPE case: Angelina is dying.

By the way, you are the one that used the "Pharma Shill Gambit." Insults are not a valid form of discussion, and does not excuse for not reading the paper before you made claims it said something that it did not.

despite rigorous studies showing otherwise- homeopathy,

Let's start with this, then. Can you show us these rigorous studies?

@pat

Trying to defend your use of the "pharma shill gambit"?

For shame, you admit that you are here just to troll. have no legitimate argument at all, and that you are a shill for homeopathy, a quack treatment.

...and does not excuse for not reading the paper before you made claims it said something that it did not.

C'mon Chris, of course it does. Chapter 6, Section XI, Paragraph 4 of the Anti-Vaxx/Big pHARMa Manual (2nd ed.) explicitly states that one need not read any scientific studies themselves as that has been tasked to designated persons in charge of disseminating appropriate propaganda. Minions may only regurgitate (with utmost authority of course) said propaganda on any internetz media which appears in their feeds.

You would not believe what I had to do to an anti-vaxx minion to obtain that manual. Contrary to popular belief, oxidising agents DO NOT remove most stains. I have repeatedly requested sanitise and concealment teams from our Lord Draconis but keep getting "budget" excuses. Hrmph.

ignorance or fear?

Donne moi une break.

Homeopathy is laughably ridiculous once you truly understand it.

So Pat is back again.

So what is your educational background Pat?

What is your professional work experience in any health care or science field?

Why haven't you linked to any websites that back up your comments?

It's put up or shut up time...otherwise we might assume that you are just making things up and that you are full of it.

non-local effects

Pat, please explain Bell's theorem in your own words.

One answer given above was that it was ethically unsound. Why?

Three words: Tuskegee Syphilis Study.

It's unethical to NOT provide treatment or prevention when it exists.
Controls that do so would be unethical.

people who are trying to develop new ideas of what science might mean despite rigorous studies showing otherwise- homeopathy, non-local effects, self-healing WITHOUT the need for forms of medical input. Much of this is not engaged with in the scientific community. I think a lot of responses are based in ignorance or fear.

No, the responses are based in frustration that those promoting these alternatives cannot provide any remotely plausible mechanisms by which their alternatives might have an effect. "New ideas of what science might mean" - on appearances to date this seems to translate to "making stuff up".

Pat,

Did you take time to read the paper where 97% of people who contracted measles had had 2 shots? A third shot stopped the outbreak? Are you being fucking serious?

This is the second time you've brought up this paper, even after it has already been debunked and explained to you by several people on this thread. Did you bother to read anyone's explanations why this "97%" is complete nonsense and has been distorted and exploited by antivax quacks like Mike Adams at Natural News?

And it was mumps, not measles.

alison,

I wouldn't have said frustration so much as exasperation! (Much of a sameness, perhaps, but...)

"Did you take time to read the paper where 97% of people who contracted measles had had 2 shots? A third shot stopped the outbreak? Are you being fucking serious?"

Hello Pat. It was a mumps outbreak epidemiology study that I linked to...which you obviously did not read...and the groups that were involved in those multiple small outbreaks were not fully immunized with 2 doses of MMR vaccine.

Still awaiting your links...or any links, for that matter, to back up your brain droppings comments. Are you effin' kidding me?

@herr doktor bimler: yes indeedy, if only there were some way of accessing and reading archives and discussion threads. It might turn out there's some sort of science-based medicine cabal with real medical scientist puppet masters with thoughtful, educated minions.
My only issue is when I've contributed something and find it's been worked over a few years ago. I learn a lot here.

Pat:

Did you take time to read the paper where 97% of people who contracted measles had had 2 shots? A third shot stopped the outbreak? Are you being fucking serious?

So even after I pointed out that the paper preview did not say that, you are still claiming it did? They got mumps, not measles.

Are you insane?

My comment is in moderation. I only pointed out that the paper presented by Pat was about mumps, not measles. What?

I've got a comment in moderation too...stuck there because I repeated "Pat's" comment "are you f*cking kidding me".

@ Denise Walter's never-ending nonsense:

"Although I’m an atheist, I feel rather festive since the anti-psychiatry advocates have given me so much material to contemplate in the past week. And now Andy joins their rank:. who could ask for more?
"An underlying concept uniting them is the worship of Nature and devaluation of human interference**-"

Bad generalization. I mean, you could start with the godfather of antipsychiatry, Szasz, who like you was an atheist (yes, he co-founded CCHR with L. Ron Hubbard, but that was done only to advance his political agenda against psychiatry). Your tired dismissal of anyone who might dare question the pathetic pseudoscience of psychiatry as some kind of live-off-the-land esoteric hippie or space cultist quickly falls apart when it's found that even leading experts in the field like Allen Frances (Duke professor emeritus of psychiatry and DSM-IV lead editor) have admitted that it's, in Frances' own words, "bullshit". Yes, Al Frances - the guy who wrote the book used to diagnose "mental illness" literally said "There is no definition of a mental disorder. It's bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it” and “these concepts are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries” in a 2010 Wired magazine interview. You can read it here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

Frances has more recently been quoted saying that "mental disorders most certainly are not diseases" but are "constructs" that may justify treating people against their will as "a last resort." Here's the source: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

" -which results in disease, chaos and slaughter. In their view, cancer, hiv/aids, schizophrenia, depression, ASDs, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer’s and every other serious illness humans suffer is un-natural and the result of a modern lifestyle and/ or iatrogenic manipulation, especially the prescription of pharmaceuticals."

First of all, lumping in bona fide, physical diseases (cancer, hiv/aids) with hypothetical constructs like "schizophrenia" that are postulated using circular reasoning and that have broad and ambiguous symptom profiles and no objective validating criteria is ridiculous. Criticism of anti-pharma advocates aside, the fact that you nor your "science" championing cohorts on this blog can't see the difference between actual biological pathology and constructs which merely attempt to explain behavioral and psychological phenomena is astounding.

Second of all, Nancy Andreasen, one of the foremost authorities on "schizophrenia" has admitted that psychotropic drugs indeed cause iatrogenic brain injury (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/health/research/16conv.html) so the "woo meisters" are clearly on to something.

Third of all, anti-psychiatry advocates are a diverse bunch and many (really most) would agree that childhood trauma, abusive households and other problems in living do indeed foster psychological distress. The disagreement is whether such distress is itself indicative of an actual medical "illness" in the absence of objective evidence (individually/clinically, not pharma-funded junk science research). The problem with the meds is that they mask, and frequently contribute, to the problem.

"I suppose these partisans envision an eden or arcadia or land of youth where human beings lived in harmony with Nature, never sickening or dying before an advanced age in which they kept all of their faculties physica and mental until the last gasp- this transpired before the industrial revolution and the rise of science. And now we’ve gone ahead and spoilt it all for them!"

On the contrary, it's psychiatrists who pathologize people that don't live up to their grandiose expectations of "normal" functioning and adaptation. As David Kaiser pointed out years ago in his essay "Against Biologic psychiatry": ""There is a barely concealed strain of a specific form of Utopianism here which blithely announces that our psychic ills are primarily biologic and can be removed from our lives without difficulty, leaving us better adapted and more productive. What is left completely out, of course, are any notions that our psychic ills are a reflection of cultural pathology... psychic pain, because of its existential nature, may always elude the capture of modern medical discourse and practice." Citation: Against Biologic Psychiatry By David Kaiser, M.D. Psychiatric Times December 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12.

Of course anyone who knows about the history of psychiatry should be aware of the Nazi psychiatrists who exterminated hundreds of thousands of "mentally ill" people before and during the Holocaust based on a similar belief, that the "mentally ill" are abnormal and inferior.

"I conceive of this as mythologic advertising copy: they create an attractive never-never land to sell to followers""

Amazing how you don't see the irony here. This could easily be applied to a psychiatrist attempting to impose a "mental illness" framework on a merely distressed person who doesn't view himself that way, and labeling him with "anosognosia" when he rejects his unproven, and yes, mythological diagnosis. That's what happened to me.

", who aren’t exactly pleased with real life and substitute a fantasy region wherein they might play-act and costume-play their way ‘Back to Nature’ as they consume various products to assist tem on their way"

Tell this to Paula Caplan, Harvard psychologist who says the DSM "should be thrown out": http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/psychiatrys-bible-the-dsm-is-doi…

and Lucy Johnstone, British psychologist who says ""We have known for a long time that terms such as ‘schizophrenia’ are scientifically meaningless. " http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/time-to-abolish-psychiatric-diagnos… utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-to-abolish-psychiatric-diagnosis

and Dr. Peter Stasny, asst. professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine here in the Bronx, who says : "the problem with the schizophrenia diagnosis of lumping everybody together is that you are basically unable to find out what different subgroups actually may be exhibiting, for instance, a neurological or a brain disturbance if there was one. So you would never be able to say that schizophrenia is a brain disease. There may be some people that are under this label that actually have a neurological condition, but it's probably a small minority." Citation: http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophrenia/living-under-the-umbrella-d…

and Loren Mosher MD, former Chief of Schizophrenia Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), who resigned from the American Psychiatric Association in the late 90s, writing in his resignation letter "Why must the APA pretend to know more than it does? DSM IV is a fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than a scientific document. The issue is what do the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent the person with a problem? They don’t, and can’t, because there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder." Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ALoren_Mosher

And Al Frances, too...while you're at it. Your tired strawman arguments and hubristic ramblings about "woo meisters" as if they're the only ones who think the status quo and fundamental assumptions of psychiatry are fraudulent is analogous to a kid who refuses to stop believing in santa claus and covers his ears when anyone tells him the truth.

"So much of the material I survey ( PRN, Natural News, Mercola, AoA, TMR ) relies upon the idea that “things were better in the past”. Woo-meisters and thinking moms rail against modern medicine and psychology which have created all the ills that befall us. If olt they could go back in TIme! I wish they would.
AJW is trying to keep himself relevant and being Mr Natural will attract some followers- perhaps beyond the anti-vax crowd, Alt med is rife with so-called naturalism ( not to be confused with natural science). People are frightened of serious illness- including SMI- and are suspicious about meds – whose actions they often don’t comprehend- so it might be a natural arena for him- didn’t he correctly surmise that parents feared vaccines and then ran with it?"
But you see, it’s *all-natural, earth-friendly*, industrial-strength bleach! Just like those Gaia-inspired, mega-dose supplements, fresh straight off the farm**.
You are expecting consistency from woo? ‘Fraid not."

Disingenuous and hyperbolic strawman arguments aside - no one, including doctors, comprehends the actions of meds for "SMI". Their efficacy can't be tested for. And I wouldn't be so quick to ridicule MMS when you advocate a profession that not only pseudoscientifically reifies theoretical abstractions like "ADHD" (that are literally *voted* into existence) but markets and assertively prescribes cocaine-like schedule 2 stimulants and even neuroleptics to kids (and you've recently admitted that neuroleptics cause brain damage). Here's an article about 10 cases of kids, all boys, who grew breasts as large as D-size cups after taking Risperdal without adequate informed consent: http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/risperdal-lawsuits-over-breast-growth-boys…

So much for "PATIENT DEMAND"

"Yes, the woos treasure the mysterious East but I am, of course, speaking metaphorically: sailing into the west – into the sunset- has intimations of immortality- beyond the sunset of this life forever dawns another life- more perfected- of eternal return. Tolkien’s realm of the immortals was west . The land of youth spoken of by the Irish is also west.
However if you travel far enough west, you’ll be in the East..
Since the woo-meisters don’t seem to trouble themselves much about plausibility and feasible mechanisms of action I hardly think that they’ll trifle over directions."

Psychopharmacology = Western TCM.

"The usual suspects- woo-meisters, natural health fanatics and pseudo-scientists of all stripes- have worked hard all year long to insure that we receive loads of ‘gifts’ for our deconstruction and amusement. I’m very glad about that."

Try deconstructing these:

-"Schizophrenia" has been well-documented as having a heterogenous symptom profile that is inclusive of disparate behaviors that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Beck et al (2009) write: "...heterogeneity is built into the definition of schizophrenia; at most two of the five symptom types need to be present to qualify for diagnosis, and under specified conditions of severity (e.g.,two voices commenting on behavior), just one symptom needs to be present. The end result is that two patients who share the diagnosis of schizophrenia may not share any common symptoms" (pg. 8). They state this heterogeneity was done "by design" following German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin's assembly of dementia preacox (characterized by diverse symptomotology) and that this inherit heterogeneity complicates research efforts, as it naturally leads to conflicting findings. Keller et al (2011) echo this by stating "The failure to establish schizophrenia as a single disorder or disease entity has profound implications" and "Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous illness with a heterogeneous outcome." They further lament that "The current definition in DSM IV TR is clearly implausible and not understandable and not derived from ordinary life experiences...Subtypes attempt to address the heterogeneity of the illness, but subtypes are based upon the combination of several clinical features none of which is unique to the subtype (e.g., disorganization can be observed within the catatonic subtype). Defining symptoms of subtypes are also not unique to schizophrenia (e.g., catatonia may be more common in mood disorders and in certain medical conditions). In other words, "schizophrenia" is little more than an ill-defined catch-all assigned in a pretentious and arbitrary way. Citations: Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapy By Aaron T. Beck, Neil A. Rector, Neal Stolar, Paul Grant 2009 The Guilford Press
W.R. Keller, B.A. Fischer & W.T. Carpenter, Jr. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics 17 (2011) 83-88.

-It is a known fact within psychiatric practice that patients are frequently given more than one diagnosis at once (or their diagnosis changes over time), casting doubt over the specificity of diagnostic categories. Anckarsater (2010) states that "widespread co-morbitity, which is presumably done to emcompass all of a patients problems, indicates deficiencies in our understanding of the natural boundaries of even the most severe conditions we are diagnosing in psychiatry." McGorry et al. (1995) note that problems with reliability and validity exist not only in routine clinical practice but even in ideal and controlled circumstances. Criteria in the principal diagnostic manuals, the DSM and ICD, are inconsistent and some psychiatrists who criticize their own profession say that co-morbidity is the rule rather than the exception. There is also much overlap and vaguely defined or changeable boundaries between what psychiatrists claim are distinct illness states (van Os et al, 1999). Citations: Anckarsater (2010) Beyond categorical diagnostics in psychiatry: Scientific and mediolegal implications. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 33, 59-65.
PD McGorry; C Mihalopoulos, L Henry, J Dakis, HJ Jackson, M Flaum, S Harrigan, D McKenzie, J Kulkarni and R Karoly (1995). "Spurious precision: procedural validity of diagnostic assessment in psychotic disorders". Am J Psychiatry 152 (2): 220–223. Retrieved 2006-07-02.
van Os, J.; et al. (1999). "A comparison of the utility of dimensional and categorical representations of psychosis". Psychological Medicine 29 (3): 595–606. PMID 10405080.

-In "Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion", clinical psychology professor Mary Boyle shows biopsychiatry's, DSM's and pharmaceutical companies claims about "schizophrenia" to be self-contradictory, incoherent and unsupported by these parties own "evidence" - the picture of an "illness" that just makes no sense: ‘The crucial difference between medicine and psychiatry can perhaps be summarised by saying that whereas medical scientists study bodily functioning and describe patterns in it, psychiatrists behave as if they were studying bodily functioning and as if they had described patterns there, when in fact they are studying behaviour and have assumed – but not proved – that certain types of pattern will be found there.’ (pg. 236) She makes a similar criticism as Lucy Johnstone, that "psychiatrists are engaged in a parody of legitimate medical practice - they use the same words and rituals but are actually doing something fundamentally different." Boyle explores "schizophrenia" and its assumptions as truths or knowledges which are socially produced and managed. Her conclusion is that "schizophrenia" as a concept is of doubtful validity at best. Boyle writes that the impression of a brain disorder is created in several ways: by assertion ("One of the most popular and direct ways of making "schizophrenia" seem like a brain disease is simply to assert that it is, leaving us in the awkward position of questioning the judgement of apparent experts" pg. 9), by creating apparently meaningful associations ("a spurious impression of meaningful associations may be created by the preferential publication of positive results as well as by the inevitable finding of chance associations...But it is uncomfortable to rely on the mere existence of correlations between schizophrenia diagnoses and biological variables...because critics can quickly point out that the association may not be specific to "schizophrenia" or attributable to other factors" pg. 11) by the misrepresentation of research data, and by managing non-biological factors: "Falloon (2000) has remarked that "paradoxically, the evidence for specific pathophysiological factors in major mental disorders is rather weak, whereas the research findings on stress factors such as family stress and life events, are extremely robust" . Of course, there is a paradox here only if we believe in schizophrenia as a brain disorder; otherwise, the paradox lies only in the large imbalance in attention paid to the two kinds of factors. Nevertheless, Falloon's remark suggests that if "schizophrenia" is to be convincingly presented as a biological disorder, then the "robust" research findings on its association with non-biological factors must somehow be managed in such a way as to maintain the primacy of biology" which she says in done in several ways, chiefly the presentation of social factors as antecedant or consequential rather than causative as well as the vulnerability-stress hypothesis (which Boyle writes is "now so popular as to have assumed the status of truth"): Of course the assumption is plausible and partly valid - hence its credibility. But it discourages us from asking in any systematic way whether some of these factors could have caused the "mental disorder" or whether, for example, substance abuse and psychosis might not both be ways of reacting to or trying to deal with very aversive life circumstances (pg. 14). Citation: Mary Boyle (2002). Schizophrenia: a scientific delusion?. Psychology Press.

"I am familiar with Mike Adams and Gary Null who are both vocally- and wildly- anti-psychiatry and who use any and all objections to meds, replacing them with nutrition."

...which, with specific foods, interacts with the same neurotransmitters implicated in "mental disorders".

"There were quite a few articles at Gary Null.com but they seem to have gone missing ( the site is renovated as a purely commercial supplement/ book, film outlet). Peter Breggin also has a show at Null’s Progressive Radio Network ( see website) . Many of Null’s archived shows ( Gary Null Show; Talkback; Progressive Commentary Hour)reveal his slant ( as well as his film,”The Drugging of Our Children”) and present anti-psychiatry guests like Rima Laibow. His books include do-it-yourself fix-ups for depression, anxiety, anger, etc ( see Gary Null.com) and his own theoretical opinings on personality formation ( cough)."

Only a field as twisted as social science could portray the idea of encouraging people to work at improving their own psychological well-being (rather than rely on a practice that produces stigmatizing labels and iatrogenic injury more than optimal prognosis) as bad.

"Adams’ Natural News has his own articles, videos and so-called musical offerings ( see “SSRIs, SSR Lies”) as well as presenting Mike Bundrant ( sp) who regularly writes alt psych material and offers services.
In short, both disparage meds and most standard forms of SB therapy like CBT. Often, Null discusses Orthomolecular Psychiatry- basically megadoses of niacin- for SMI; other therapies include prayer, meditation, ‘spirituality’, exercise, a healthy diet, life coaching et al.

Gripes include:
-psychiatry/ psychology is not science"

No falsifiability, no objective evidence, circular reasoning, value-laden diagnostic criteria. It most definetly isn't science.

”mental illness” doesn’t really exist**

Well, they don't in a definitive sense. The constructs in the DSM have major conceptual flaws and are unprovable. They're nothing but abstract theories.

"-psychotropic meds CAUSE mental illness and violence"

-Neuroleptic "antipsychotic" drugs can infact induce the "negative" schizophrenic symptoms they are intended to treat in healthy, "non-psychotic" controls: Negative Signs and Symptoms Secondary to Antipsychotics: A Double-Blind, Randomized Trial of a Single Dose of Placebo, Haloperidol, and Risperidone in Healthy Volunteers (2006). Ajp.psychiatryonline.org.

-Neuroleptic "antipsychotic" drugs have been proven to cause the biochemical and behavioral changes associated with "schizophrenia", the very "disorder" they're designed to treat (Chouinard, 1991, Miller & Chouinard, 1993, Still et al, 1996, Seeman et al, 2005). Neuroplasticity in dopamine systems can apparently induce a rebound psychosis effect when the brain reacts with its own adaptation process to compensate for the drugs. This is known as supersensitivity psychosis, a adverse reaction which creates the potential for increased "psychotic symptoms" and life-long drug dependancy. Moncrieff (2006) suggests that the withdrawl process from "antipsychotic" drugs is itself schizomimetic, producing schziophrenic-like symptoms even in previously healthy patients, indicating a pharmacological origin of "mental illness" in a yet unknown percentage of patients currently and previously treated with "antipsychotics". Miller (2004) also states that sedation, a common side effect of both first and second-generation "antipsychotic" medication, is often mistaken for the "negative" symptoms of "schizophrenia" such as avolition, amotivation, withdrawal, anhedonia and cognitive impairement, rendering the effects of "treatment" indistinguishable from the initial "disorder." Citations: Chouinard G. Severe cases of neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis. Diagnostic criteria for the disorder and its treatment. Schizophr Res 1991 Jul-Aug;5(1):21-33 Psychiatric Research Center, Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Moncrieff, J. (2006). "Why is it so difficult to stop psychiatric drug treatment? It may be nothing to do with the original problem". Med Hypotheses 67 (3): 517–23. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.03.009. PMID 16632226.Miller, R.; Chouinard, G. (Nov 1993). "Loss of striatal cholinergic neurons as a basis for tardive and L-dopa-induced dyskinesias, neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis and refractory schizophrenia". Biol Psychiatry 34 (10): 713–38. PMID 7904833. http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/0006-3223(93)90044-E…. Still DJ, Dorson PG, Crismon ML, Pousson C Effects of switching inpatients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia from clozapine to risperidone. Psychiatr Serv 1996 Dec;47(12):1382-4. Department of Psychiatry, Community Hospitals Indianapolis, IN 46219, USASeeman, P.; Weinshenker, D.; Quiron, R.; Srivastava, LK.; Bhardwaj, SK.; Grandy, DK.; Premont, RT.; Sotnikova, TD. et al. (Mar 2005). "Dopamine supersensitivity correlates with D2High states, implying many paths to psychosis". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102 (9): 3513–8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0409766102. PMC 548961. PMID 15716360. http://www.pnas.org/content/102/9/3513.full.pdf+html.
Del D. Miller, Pharm.D., M.D. Atypical Antipsychotics: Sleep, Sedation, and Efficacy Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 2004; 6(suppl 2): 3–7.

"there are no ‘chemical imbalances” and/ or physiological differences in so-called mentally ill people"

Obviously there's no proven ones (individually/clinically), hence the lack of objective diagnostic tests. The supposed evidence the disorders exist doesn't validate diagnosing people with paper questionnaires and arbitrary checklists. Are people diagnosed with cancer using a paper checklist alone?

"-pharmaceutical companies “invent” new mental conditions ( see DSM-5) in order to sell products for them"
"- professionals in mental health are in league with pharma"

I put these in another thread already (under the name "Sh*tznoexplania"), but here ya go:

-According to the New York Times, more than half the psychiatrists who took part in developing the current edition of the DSM (DSM-IV) have financial links to drug companies, including every single contributor to the section on "schizophrenia." A study discussed in the piece said "the connections are especially strong in those diagnostic areas where drugs are the first line of treatment for mental disorders." The financial links included ownership of drug company stock, travel expenses, research funding, consulting fees and payment for gifts. Lisa Cosgrove, a psychologist who authored the study discussed in the paper, says there is also no disclosure policy in the DSM regarding this blatant conflict of interest and refers to it as an "outrage." Regarding the forthcoming DSM-5, Dr. Crosgrove says "70% of the task force members have reported direct industry ties—an increase of 14% over the percentage of DSM-IV task force members who had industry ties" and that “pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in the structure and content of DSM, and in how the symptomology is revised.” Citations: www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/health/20psych.html
A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ inancial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists
Lisa Cosgrove, Sheldon Krimsky, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Counseling Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, and Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America. Plos Medicine March 2012 Volume 9 Issue 3 e1001190

-According to a New York Review of Books essay written by Dr. Marcia Angell, a Harvard lecturer and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (the most prestigious medical journal in the world), drug companies eager to sell pharmaceuticals have a strong influence over key opinion leaders in psychiatry. These leaders, according to Dr. Angell, "influence how mental illness will be diagnosed and treated. They also publish much of the clinical research on drugs and, most importantly, largely determine the content of the DSM. In a sense, they are the best sales force the industry could have, and are worth every cent spent on them." Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat, quoted in the essay, says psychiatry leads the pack in accepting money from drug companies because "our diagnoses are subjective and expandable, and we have few rational reasons for choosing one treatment over another." Citation: http://www.minyanville.com/mvpremium/2011/07/25/harvard-expert-links-ou…

"- they “pathologise everyday life” calling ‘sadness’ ‘depression’ and nervousness “anxiety”, children’s fidgetting “ADHD”- everyone has these conditions- no big deal."

If I were you I'd google "Robert Spitzer Al Frances attentuated psychosis syndrome" and quickly silence myself. Numerous industry leaders agree with the "woo meisters".

"Occasionally one will present atrocities from the past ( former Soviet Union or N-zi Germany) as well as ancient treatments from the west ( old style ECT and institutions, even those based in films) as if to say that because psychiatrists were involved, those alive today are somehow implicated."

Occasionally? There's reports of widespread abuse all over the world throughout the 19th & 20th centuries, including in America. Benjamin Rush's face is still on the APA seal despite the fact that he was involved in horrible acts against blacks. And you are aware that gay people were psychopathologized in the DSM until the late 80s, right? And the forced sterilization programs of the 50s and 60s? Here's an article about that travesty: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/19/3607618/sterilization-panel…

I mean, every despotic regime from Mussolini to Apartheid South Africa to Red China has used "mental illness"to justify silencing people. And as Szasz once pointed out, this political power is *built in* to the profession. And yes, not only was American psychiatry influenced by the Nazis post-WW2, but the Nazis were earlier on influenced by American eugenics before the Holocaust: Kühl, Stefan. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. p. 86.

Also, ECT is still very much used today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/electro_convulsi…
http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/news/379-oprah-shocked-that-electroconvu…

"Recently anti-vax sites like AoA and TMR also increasingly invoke meds as creating symptoms- which matches their anti- pharma- based anti-vaccinationism well. ( vaccines cause autism). Mercola advocates EFT instead of meds."

Psychotropics do cause "psychotic" symptoms. It's a proven fact. Deal with it.

"** I know, I know, we’ve heard this before, haven’t we?"

Yup, and you're gonna keep hearing it (**including from some everyday clinicians as well as prominent psychiatrists/psychologists) until it's curtailed.

"They need to trick potential clients into believing that SBM ( including psychology) has nothing to offer patients- that it’s corrupt, dangerous, outdated and totally ineffective."

It is. But the supposed trickey is no different than psychiatrists needing to trick "patients" into believing that they have "incurable mental disoders" that can be diagnosed without MRIs but can't be reliably diagnosed with them.

" And yes, this is coming from people who sell niacin tablets to people suffering from SMI. And dried vegetable/ fruit powders to people suffring from other serious illnesses. And magnets to people with severe arthritis. I could go on but won’t."

It's also coming from people within the field, including some at the top. Paula Caplan served on two DSM-IV research committees and resigned because when she realized it's a bunch of corrupt junk science (see the Washington Post link above). There's several that resigned from DSM-5 work groups for the same reason.

"The websites I survey are commercials against reality- because reality wrecks their business model."

LOL, keep living in that pharma-bought, hollowed-out dream world. DSM-5 this May might be the beginning of the end.

@ Denise Walter's never-ending nonsense comments:

"Although I’m an atheist, I feel rather festive since the anti-psychiatry advocates have given me so much material to contemplate in the past week. And now Andy joins their rank:. who could ask for more?
"An underlying concept uniting them is the worship of Nature and devaluation of human interference**-"

Bad generalization. I mean, you could start with the godfather of antipsychiatry, Szasz, who like you was an atheist (yes, he co-founded CCHR with L. Ron Hubbard, but that was done only to advance his political agenda against psychiatry). Your tired dismissal of anyone who might dare question the pathetic pseudoscience of psychiatry as some kind of live-off-the-land esoteric hippie or space cultist quickly falls apart when it's found that even leading experts in the field like Allen Frances (Duke professor emeritus of psychiatry and DSM-IV lead editor) have admitted that it's, in Frances' own words, "bullshit". Yes, Al Frances - the guy who wrote the book used to diagnose "mental illness" literally said "There is no definition of a mental disorder. It's bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it” and “these concepts are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries” in a 2010 Wired magazine interview. You can read it here: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

Frances has more recently been quoted saying that "mental disorders most certainly are not diseases" but are "constructs" that may justify treating people against their will as "a last resort." Here's the source: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/

" -which results in disease, chaos and slaughter. In their view, cancer, hiv/aids, schizophrenia, depression, ASDs, arthritis, MS, Alzheimer’s and every other serious illness humans suffer is un-natural and the result of a modern lifestyle and/ or iatrogenic manipulation, especially the prescription of pharmaceuticals."

First of all, lumping in bona fide, physical diseases (cancer, hiv/aids) with hypothetical constructs like "schizophrenia" that are postulated using circular reasoning and that have broad and ambiguous symptom profiles and no objective validating criteria is ridiculous. Criticism of anti-pharma advocates aside, the fact that you nor your "science" championing cohorts on this blog can't see the difference between actual biological pathology and constructs which merely attempt to explain behavioral and psychological phenomena is astounding.

Second of all, Nancy Andreasen, one of the foremost authorities on "schizophrenia" has admitted that psychotropic drugs indeed cause iatrogenic brain injury (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/health/research/16conv.html) so the "woo meisters" are clearly on to something.

Third of all, anti-psychiatry advocates are a diverse bunch and many (really most) would agree that childhood trauma, abusive households and other problems in living do indeed foster psychological distress. The disagreement is whether such distress is itself indicative of an actual medical "illness" in the absence of objective evidence (individually/clinically, not pharma-funded junk science research). The problem with the meds is that they mask, and frequently contribute, to the problem.

"I suppose these partisans envision an eden or arcadia or land of youth where human beings lived in harmony with Nature, never sickening or dying before an advanced age in which they kept all of their faculties physica and mental until the last gasp- this transpired before the industrial revolution and the rise of science. And now we’ve gone ahead and spoilt it all for them!"

On the contrary, it's psychiatrists who pathologize people that don't live up to their grandiose expectations of "normal" functioning and adaptation. As David Kaiser pointed out years ago in his essay "Against Biologic psychiatry": ""There is a barely concealed strain of a specific form of Utopianism here which blithely announces that our psychic ills are primarily biologic and can be removed from our lives without difficulty, leaving us better adapted and more productive. What is left completely out, of course, are any notions that our psychic ills are a reflection of cultural pathology... psychic pain, because of its existential nature, may always elude the capture of modern medical discourse and practice." Citation: Against Biologic Psychiatry By David Kaiser, M.D. Psychiatric Times December 1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12.

Of course anyone who knows about the history of psychiatry should be aware of the Nazi psychiatrists who exterminated hundreds of thousands of "mentally ill" people before and during the Holocaust based on a similar belief, that the "mentally ill" are abnormal and inferior.

"I conceive of this as mythologic advertising copy: they create an attractive never-never land to sell to followers""

Amazing how you don't see the irony here. This could easily be applied to a psychiatrist attempting to impose a "mental illness" framework on a merely distressed person who doesn't view himself that way, and labeling him with "anosognosia" when he rejects his unproven, and yes, mythological diagnosis. That's what happened to me.

", who aren’t exactly pleased with real life and substitute a fantasy region wherein they might play-act and costume-play their way ‘Back to Nature’ as they consume various products to assist tem on their way"

Tell this to Paula Caplan, Harvard psychologist who says the DSM "should be thrown out": http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/psychiatrys-bible-the-dsm-is-doi…

and Lucy Johnstone, British psychologist who says ""We have known for a long time that terms such as ‘schizophrenia’ are scientifically meaningless. " http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/01/time-to-abolish-psychiatric-diagnos… utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=time-to-abolish-psychiatric-diagnosis

and Dr. Peter Stasny, asst. professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine here in the Bronx, who says : "the problem with the schizophrenia diagnosis of lumping everybody together is that you are basically unable to find out what different subgroups actually may be exhibiting, for instance, a neurological or a brain disturbance if there was one. So you would never be able to say that schizophrenia is a brain disease. There may be some people that are under this label that actually have a neurological condition, but it's probably a small minority." Citation: http://www.everydayhealth.com/schizophrenia/living-under-the-umbrella-d…

and Loren Mosher MD, former Chief of Schizophrenia Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), who resigned from the American Psychiatric Association in the late 90s, writing in his resignation letter "Why must the APA pretend to know more than it does? DSM IV is a fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than a scientific document. The issue is what do the categories tell us? Do they in fact accurately represent the person with a problem? They don’t, and can’t, because there are no external validating criteria for psychiatric diagnoses. There is neither a blood test nor specific anatomic lesions for any major psychiatric disorder." Citation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ALoren_Mosher

And Al Frances, too...while you're at it. Your tired strawman arguments and hubristic ramblings about "woo meisters" as if they're the only ones who think the status quo and fundamental assumptions of psychiatry are fraudulent is analogous to a kid who refuses to stop believing in santa claus and covers his ears when anyone tells him the truth.

"So much of the material I survey ( PRN, Natural News, Mercola, AoA, TMR ) relies upon the idea that “things were better in the past”. Woo-meisters and thinking moms rail against modern medicine and psychology which have created all the ills that befall us. If olt they could go back in TIme! I wish they would.
AJW is trying to keep himself relevant and being Mr Natural will attract some followers- perhaps beyond the anti-vax crowd, Alt med is rife with so-called naturalism ( not to be confused with natural science). People are frightened of serious illness- including SMI- and are suspicious about meds – whose actions they often don’t comprehend- so it might be a natural arena for him- didn’t he correctly surmise that parents feared vaccines and then ran with it?"
But you see, it’s *all-natural, earth-friendly*, industrial-strength bleach! Just like those Gaia-inspired, mega-dose supplements, fresh straight off the farm**.
You are expecting consistency from woo? ‘Fraid not."

Disingenuous and hyperbolic strawman arguments aside - no one, including doctors, comprehends the actions of meds for "SMI". Their efficacy can't be tested for. And I wouldn't be so quick to ridicule MMS when you advocate a profession that not only pseudoscientifically reifies theoretical abstractions like "ADHD" (that are literally *voted* into existence) but markets and assertively prescribes cocaine-like schedule 2 stimulants and even neuroleptics to kids (and you've recently admitted that neuroleptics cause brain damage). Here's an article about 10 cases of kids, all boys, who grew breasts as large as D-size cups after taking Risperdal without adequate informed consent: http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/risperdal-lawsuits-over-breast-growth-boys…

So much for "PATIENT DEMAND"

"Yes, the woos treasure the mysterious East but I am, of course, speaking metaphorically: sailing into the west – into the sunset- has intimations of immortality- beyond the sunset of this life forever dawns another life- more perfected- of eternal return. Tolkien’s realm of the immortals was west . The land of youth spoken of by the Irish is also west.
However if you travel far enough west, you’ll be in the East..
Since the woo-meisters don’t seem to trouble themselves much about plausibility and feasible mechanisms of action I hardly think that they’ll trifle over directions."

Psychopharmacology = Western TCM.

"The usual suspects- woo-meisters, natural health fanatics and pseudo-scientists of all stripes- have worked hard all year long to insure that we receive loads of ‘gifts’ for our deconstruction and amusement. I’m very glad about that."

Try deconstructing these:

-"Schizophrenia" has been well-documented as having a heterogenous symptom profile that is inclusive of disparate behaviors that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Beck et al (2009) write: "...heterogeneity is built into the definition of schizophrenia; at most two of the five symptom types need to be present to qualify for diagnosis, and under specified conditions of severity (e.g.,two voices commenting on behavior), just one symptom needs to be present. The end result is that two patients who share the diagnosis of schizophrenia may not share any common symptoms" (pg. 8). They state this heterogeneity was done "by design" following German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin's assembly of dementia preacox (characterized by diverse symptomotology) and that this inherit heterogeneity complicates research efforts, as it naturally leads to conflicting findings. Keller et al (2011) echo this by stating "The failure to establish schizophrenia as a single disorder or disease entity has profound implications" and "Schizophrenia is a heterogeneous illness with a heterogeneous outcome." They further lament that "The current definition in DSM IV TR is clearly implausible and not understandable and not derived from ordinary life experiences...Subtypes attempt to address the heterogeneity of the illness, but subtypes are based upon the combination of several clinical features none of which is unique to the subtype (e.g., disorganization can be observed within the catatonic subtype). Defining symptoms of subtypes are also not unique to schizophrenia (e.g., catatonia may be more common in mood disorders and in certain medical conditions). In other words, "schizophrenia" is little more than an ill-defined catch-all assigned in a pretentious and arbitrary way. Citations: Schizophrenia: Cognitive Theory, Research, and Therapy By Aaron T. Beck, Neil A. Rector, Neal Stolar, Paul Grant 2009 The Guilford Press
W.R. Keller, B.A. Fischer & W.T. Carpenter, Jr. CNS Neuroscience & Therapeutics 17 (2011) 83-88.

-It is a known fact within psychiatric practice that patients are frequently given more than one diagnosis at once (or their diagnosis changes over time), casting doubt over the specificity of diagnostic categories. Anckarsater (2010) states that "widespread co-morbitity, which is presumably done to emcompass all of a patients problems, indicates deficiencies in our understanding of the natural boundaries of even the most severe conditions we are diagnosing in psychiatry." McGorry et al. (1995) note that problems with reliability and validity exist not only in routine clinical practice but even in ideal and controlled circumstances. Criteria in the principal diagnostic manuals, the DSM and ICD, are inconsistent and some psychiatrists who criticize their own profession say that co-morbidity is the rule rather than the exception. There is also much overlap and vaguely defined or changeable boundaries between what psychiatrists claim are distinct illness states (van Os et al, 1999). Citations: Anckarsater (2010) Beyond categorical diagnostics in psychiatry: Scientific and mediolegal implications. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 33, 59-65.
PD McGorry; C Mihalopoulos, L Henry, J Dakis, HJ Jackson, M Flaum, S Harrigan, D McKenzie, J Kulkarni and R Karoly (1995). "Spurious precision: procedural validity of diagnostic assessment in psychotic disorders". Am J Psychiatry 152 (2): 220–223. Retrieved 2006-07-02.
van Os, J.; et al. (1999). "A comparison of the utility of dimensional and categorical representations of psychosis". Psychological Medicine 29 (3): 595–606. PMID 10405080.

-In "Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion", clinical psychology professor Mary Boyle shows biopsychiatry's, DSM's and pharmaceutical companies claims about "schizophrenia" to be self-contradictory, incoherent and unsupported by these parties own "evidence" - the picture of an "illness" that just makes no sense: ‘The crucial difference between medicine and psychiatry can perhaps be summarised by saying that whereas medical scientists study bodily functioning and describe patterns in it, psychiatrists behave as if they were studying bodily functioning and as if they had described patterns there, when in fact they are studying behaviour and have assumed – but not proved – that certain types of pattern will be found there.’ (pg. 236) She makes a similar criticism as Lucy Johnstone, that "psychiatrists are engaged in a parody of legitimate medical practice - they use the same words and rituals but are actually doing something fundamentally different." Boyle explores "schizophrenia" and its assumptions as truths or knowledges which are socially produced and managed. Her conclusion is that "schizophrenia" as a concept is of doubtful validity at best. Boyle writes that the impression of a brain disorder is created in several ways: by assertion ("One of the most popular and direct ways of making "schizophrenia" seem like a brain disease is simply to assert that it is, leaving us in the awkward position of questioning the judgement of apparent experts" pg. 9), by creating apparently meaningful associations ("a spurious impression of meaningful associations may be created by the preferential publication of positive results as well as by the inevitable finding of chance associations...But it is uncomfortable to rely on the mere existence of correlations between schizophrenia diagnoses and biological variables...because critics can quickly point out that the association may not be specific to "schizophrenia" or attributable to other factors" pg. 11) by the misrepresentation of research data, and by managing non-biological factors: "Falloon (2000) has remarked that "paradoxically, the evidence for specific pathophysiological factors in major mental disorders is rather weak, whereas the research findings on stress factors such as family stress and life events, are extremely robust" . Of course, there is a paradox here only if we believe in schizophrenia as a brain disorder; otherwise, the paradox lies only in the large imbalance in attention paid to the two kinds of factors. Nevertheless, Falloon's remark suggests that if "schizophrenia" is to be convincingly presented as a biological disorder, then the "robust" research findings on its association with non-biological factors must somehow be managed in such a way as to maintain the primacy of biology" which she says in done in several ways, chiefly the presentation of social factors as antecedant or consequential rather than causative as well as the vulnerability-stress hypothesis (which Boyle writes is "now so popular as to have assumed the status of truth"): Of course the assumption is plausible and partly valid - hence its credibility. But it discourages us from asking in any systematic way whether some of these factors could have caused the "mental disorder" or whether, for example, substance abuse and psychosis might not both be ways of reacting to or trying to deal with very aversive life circumstances (pg. 14). Citation: Mary Boyle (2002). Schizophrenia: a scientific delusion?. Psychology Press.

"I am familiar with Mike Adams and Gary Null who are both vocally- and wildly- anti-psychiatry and who use any and all objections to meds, replacing them with nutrition."

...which, with specific foods, interacts with the same neurotransmitters implicated in "mental disorders".

"There were quite a few articles at Gary Null.com but they seem to have gone missing ( the site is renovated as a purely commercial supplement/ book, film outlet). Peter Breggin also has a show at Null’s Progressive Radio Network ( see website) . Many of Null’s archived shows ( Gary Null Show; Talkback; Progressive Commentary Hour)reveal his slant ( as well as his film,”The Drugging of Our Children”) and present anti-psychiatry guests like Rima Laibow. His books include do-it-yourself fix-ups for depression, anxiety, anger, etc ( see Gary Null.com) and his own theoretical opinings on personality formation ( cough)."

Only a field as twisted as social science could portray the idea of encouraging people to work at improving their own psychological well-being (rather than rely on a practice that produces stigmatizing labels and iatrogenic injury more than optimal prognosis) as bad.

"Adams’ Natural News has his own articles, videos and so-called musical offerings ( see “SSRIs, SSR Lies”) as well as presenting Mike Bundrant ( sp) who regularly writes alt psych material and offers services.
In short, both disparage meds and most standard forms of SB therapy like CBT. Often, Null discusses Orthomolecular Psychiatry- basically megadoses of niacin- for SMI; other therapies include prayer, meditation, ‘spirituality’, exercise, a healthy diet, life coaching et al.

Gripes include:
-psychiatry/ psychology is not science"

No falsifiability, no objective evidence, circular reasoning, value-laden diagnostic criteria. It most definetly isn't science.

”mental illness” doesn’t really exist**

Well, they don't in a definitive sense. The constructs in the DSM have major conceptual flaws and are unprovable. They're nothing but abstract theories.

"-psychotropic meds CAUSE mental illness and violence"

-Neuroleptic "antipsychotic" drugs can infact induce the "negative" schizophrenic symptoms they are intended to treat in healthy, "non-psychotic" controls: Negative Signs and Symptoms Secondary to Antipsychotics: A Double-Blind, Randomized Trial of a Single Dose of Placebo, Haloperidol, and Risperidone in Healthy Volunteers (2006). Ajp.psychiatryonline.org.

-Neuroleptic "antipsychotic" drugs have been proven to cause the biochemical and behavioral changes associated with "schizophrenia", the very "disorder" they're designed to treat (Chouinard, 1991, Miller & Chouinard, 1993, Still et al, 1996, Seeman et al, 2005). Neuroplasticity in dopamine systems can apparently induce a rebound psychosis effect when the brain reacts with its own adaptation process to compensate for the drugs. This is known as supersensitivity psychosis, a adverse reaction which creates the potential for increased "psychotic symptoms" and life-long drug dependancy. Moncrieff (2006) suggests that the withdrawl process from "antipsychotic" drugs is itself schizomimetic, producing schziophrenic-like symptoms even in previously healthy patients, indicating a pharmacological origin of "mental illness" in a yet unknown percentage of patients currently and previously treated with "antipsychotics". Miller (2004) also states that sedation, a common side effect of both first and second-generation "antipsychotic" medication, is often mistaken for the "negative" symptoms of "schizophrenia" such as avolition, amotivation, withdrawal, anhedonia and cognitive impairement, rendering the effects of "treatment" indistinguishable from the initial "disorder." Citations: Chouinard G. Severe cases of neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis. Diagnostic criteria for the disorder and its treatment. Schizophr Res 1991 Jul-Aug;5(1):21-33 Psychiatric Research Center, Louis-H. Lafontaine Hospital, University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Moncrieff, J. (2006). "Why is it so difficult to stop psychiatric drug treatment? It may be nothing to do with the original problem". Med Hypotheses 67 (3): 517–23. doi:10.1016/j.mehy.2006.03.009. PMID 16632226.Miller, R.; Chouinard, G. (Nov 1993). "Loss of striatal cholinergic neurons as a basis for tardive and L-dopa-induced dyskinesias, neuroleptic-induced supersensitivity psychosis and refractory schizophrenia". Biol Psychiatry 34 (10): 713–38. PMID 7904833. http://www.biologicalpsychiatryjournal.com/article/0006-3223(93)90044-E…. Still DJ, Dorson PG, Crismon ML, Pousson C Effects of switching inpatients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia from clozapine to risperidone. Psychiatr Serv 1996 Dec;47(12):1382-4. Department of Psychiatry, Community Hospitals Indianapolis, IN 46219, USASeeman, P.; Weinshenker, D.; Quiron, R.; Srivastava, LK.; Bhardwaj, SK.; Grandy, DK.; Premont, RT.; Sotnikova, TD. et al. (Mar 2005). "Dopamine supersensitivity correlates with D2High states, implying many paths to psychosis". Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 102 (9): 3513–8. doi:10.1073/pnas.0409766102. PMC 548961. PMID 15716360. http://www.pnas.org/content/102/9/3513.full.pdf+html.
Del D. Miller, Pharm.D., M.D. Atypical Antipsychotics: Sleep, Sedation, and Efficacy Prim Care Companion J Clin Psychiatry. 2004; 6(suppl 2): 3–7.

"there are no ‘chemical imbalances” and/ or physiological differences in so-called mentally ill people"

Obviously there's no proven ones (individually/clinically), hence the lack of objective diagnostic tests. The supposed evidence the disorders exist doesn't validate diagnosing people with paper questionnaires and arbitrary checklists. Are people diagnosed with cancer using a paper checklist alone?

"-pharmaceutical companies “invent” new mental conditions ( see DSM-5) in order to sell products for them"
"- professionals in mental health are in league with pharma"

I put these in another thread already (under the name "Sh*tznoexplania"), but here ya go:

-According to the New York Times, more than half the psychiatrists who took part in developing the current edition of the DSM (DSM-IV) have financial links to drug companies, including every single contributor to the section on "schizophrenia." A study discussed in the piece said "the connections are especially strong in those diagnostic areas where drugs are the first line of treatment for mental disorders." The financial links included ownership of drug company stock, travel expenses, research funding, consulting fees and payment for gifts. Lisa Cosgrove, a psychologist who authored the study discussed in the paper, says there is also no disclosure policy in the DSM regarding this blatant conflict of interest and refers to it as an "outrage." Regarding the forthcoming DSM-5, Dr. Crosgrove says "70% of the task force members have reported direct industry ties—an increase of 14% over the percentage of DSM-IV task force members who had industry ties" and that “pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in the structure and content of DSM, and in how the symptomology is revised.” Citations: www.nytimes.com/2006/04/20/health/20psych.html
A Comparison of DSM-IV and DSM-5 Panel Members’ inancial Associations with Industry: A Pernicious Problem Persists
Lisa Cosgrove, Sheldon Krimsky, Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Counseling Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, and Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, United States of America. Plos Medicine March 2012 Volume 9 Issue 3 e1001190

-According to a New York Review of Books essay written by Dr. Marcia Angell, a Harvard lecturer and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine (the most prestigious medical journal in the world), drug companies eager to sell pharmaceuticals have a strong influence over key opinion leaders in psychiatry. These leaders, according to Dr. Angell, "influence how mental illness will be diagnosed and treated. They also publish much of the clinical research on drugs and, most importantly, largely determine the content of the DSM. In a sense, they are the best sales force the industry could have, and are worth every cent spent on them." Psychiatrist Daniel Carlat, quoted in the essay, says psychiatry leads the pack in accepting money from drug companies because "our diagnoses are subjective and expandable, and we have few rational reasons for choosing one treatment over another." Citation: http://www.minyanville.com/mvpremium/2011/07/25/harvard-expert-links-ou…

"- they “pathologise everyday life” calling ‘sadness’ ‘depression’ and nervousness “anxiety”, children’s fidgetting “ADHD”- everyone has these conditions- no big deal."

If I were you I'd google "Robert Spitzer Al Frances attentuated psychosis syndrome" and quickly silence myself. Numerous industry leaders agree with the "woo meisters".

"Occasionally one will present atrocities from the past ( former Soviet Union or N-zi Germany) as well as ancient treatments from the west ( old style ECT and institutions, even those based in films) as if to say that because psychiatrists were involved, those alive today are somehow implicated."

Occasionally? There's reports of widespread abuse all over the world throughout the 19th & 20th centuries, including in America. Benjamin Rush's face is still on the APA seal despite the fact that he was involved in horrible acts against blacks. And you are aware that gay people were psychopathologized in the DSM until the late 80s, right? And the forced sterilization programs of the 50s and 60s? Here's an article about that travesty: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/19/3607618/sterilization-panel…

I mean, every despotic regime from Mussolini to Apartheid South Africa to Red China has used "mental illness"to justify silencing people. And as Szasz once pointed out, this political power is *built in* to the profession. And yes, not only was American psychiatry influenced by the Nazis post-WW2, but the Nazis were earlier on influenced by American eugenics before the Holocaust: Kühl, Stefan. The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism. p. 86.

Also, ECT is still very much used today: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/physical_health/conditions/electro_convulsi…
http://www.mentalhealthy.co.uk/news/379-oprah-shocked-that-electroconvu…

"Recently anti-vax sites like AoA and TMR also increasingly invoke meds as creating symptoms- which matches their anti- pharma- based anti-vaccinationism well. ( vaccines cause autism). Mercola advocates EFT instead of meds."

Psychotropics do cause "psychotic" symptoms. It's a proven fact. Deal with it.

"** I know, I know, we’ve heard this before, haven’t we?"

Yup, and you're gonna keep hearing it (**including from some everyday clinicians as well as prominent psychiatrists/psychologists) until it's curtailed.

"They need to trick potential clients into believing that SBM ( including psychology) has nothing to offer patients- that it’s corrupt, dangerous, outdated and totally ineffective."

It is. But the supposed trickey is no different than psychiatrists needing to trick "patients" into believing that they have "incurable mental disoders" that can be diagnosed without MRIs but can't be reliably diagnosed with them.

" And yes, this is coming from people who sell niacin tablets to people suffering from SMI. And dried vegetable/ fruit powders to people suffring from other serious illnesses. And magnets to people with severe arthritis. I could go on but won’t."

It's also coming from people within the field, including some at the top. Paula Caplan served on two DSM-IV research committees and resigned because when she realized it's a bunch of corrupt junk science (see the Washington Post link above). There's several that resigned from DSM-5 work groups for the same reason.

"The websites I survey are commercials against reality- because reality wrecks their business model."

LOL, keep living in that pharma-bought, hollowed-out dream world. DSM-5 this May might be the beginning of the end.

Is FFF a fresh juvenile fantast, or has it been spotted in the wild before?

@ Narad - less personal attacking, more debating please. Unlike other critics, I cite sources so either come with a solid refutation or admit that you and your girl are wrong about psychiatry.

FFF said, "less personal attacking, more debating please. Unlike other critics, I cite sources so either come with a solid refutation or admit that you and your girl are wrong about psychiatry."

That, right after she wrote this: "LOL, keep living in that pharma-bought, hollowed-out dream world. DSM-5 this May might be the beginning of the end."

I do hope that FFF can produce sources that you live in a "pharma-bought, hollowed-out dream world". Otherwise, we'd have a situation of a pot calling a kettle black.

Unlike other critics, I cite sources so either come with a solid refutation or admit that you and your girl are wrong about psychiatry.

In order to assert that I "am wrong about psychiatry," you first need to be able to state my position.

Oh, and... Is that "Jay S"?

In any event, it is "Shıtznoexplainia." Pick one, already.

@Fear, Fraud & Force: blockquote is your friend. It would make the mixture of lengthy quotes and lengthy comments easier to decipher.

@ Fear, Fraud & Force:

Please, proceed.

More seriously, I am not here to argue with you - ride your hobby horse where you will.
I do not engage with people who I believe are minors or who I believe have a SMI. You admit a diagnosis. Therefore, you need to talk to others in the field, not to me.

My criticisms of various alt med ideas are neither extreme nor very far removed from the consensus. So, I do not need to provide data- just read general material or a text- I'm not very different from them. One who bucks the consensus does need to provide data- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I'm sorry that you do not like how mental illness is explained by the establishment- that has nothing to do with me: it is the work of thousands of people over decades. I am sorry that you have a diagnosis. SMI is not a walk in the park: there are no easy "cures" and often very little help or sympathy from others.

I have a serious question before I leave however- rhetorical , you need not answer- if you DO believe that SBM can't help people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia, do you believe that the solutions posited by others will?

Pick one, already.

Picking a single thread to repeat one's attack on a particular commenter would also be nice.

In “Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion”, clinical psychology professor Mary Boyle shows biopsychiatry’s, DSM’s and pharmaceutical companies claims about “schizophrenia” to be self-contradictory, incoherent and unsupported by these parties own “evidence”

You left out the question mark at the end of the title, although I imagine it doesn't matter. This is a work of social constructionism, which makes juxtaposing the quote "psychiatrists are engaged in a parody of legitimate medical practice" a form of irony that I take it you do not understand.

Fear, Fraud & Force
I appreciate that you’ve linked sources for your commentary and used paragraphs, but can I suggest that if you have a point, you summarize it? Or perhaps start your own blog. You could use part of your first sentence as the title: “never-ending nonsense.”

@ Ren - Denise Walter is clearly intransigent even in the face of data that contradicts her point of view. I was more trying to highlight how wrongful her entrenched thinking is than trying to attack her personally.

<blockquote
"I do hope that FFF can produce sources that you live in a “pharma-bought, hollowed-out dream world”. Otherwise, we’d have a situation of a pot calling a kettle black."

I did, check the Marcia Angell quotes.

@ Narad - Obviously I do understand it since I clearly stated that Boyle is a psychologist (i.e. it's a conceptual critique). And is it safe to assume you don't share Denise Walter's silly opinions? Somehow I doubt this, but it's of no matter anyway if you have nothing of substance to say in response to my post.

@ LW - thank you.

@ Denise Walter :
<blockquote
"More seriously, I am not here to argue with you – ride your hobby horse where you will.
I do not engage with people who I believe are minors or who I believe have a SMI. You admit a diagnosis. Therefore, you need to talk to others in the field, not to me."

^^ And there you have it ladies and gentlemen - because I have a diagnosis this individual, who's posts seem to imply that she wants to help people with what she calls "SMI", won't even engage in a conversation with me. This is the stigma that you people in social science pretend comes from thin air, but the reality is that you are the direct cause of it.

...and for the record, I'm not a juvenile.

<blockquote
"My criticisms of various alt med ideas are neither extreme nor very far removed from the consensus. So, I do not need to provide data- just read general material or a text- I’m not very different from them. One who bucks the consensus does need to provide data- extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

I don't care about you criticizing "alt med" in and of itself. Everyone knows it's unproven, including the "alties" themselves. They obviously go by anecdotal stories alone because there doesn't seem to be much of any interest from the medical industry in studying natural substances that can't be patented. My problem is that your criticisms of "alt med" are hypocritical because psychopharmacology involves the same type of pseudoscientific guesswork and ideologically-driven magical thinking. And to somehow imply that "natural" supplements in general are more dangerous than pharmaceuticals is absurd.

<blockquote
"I’m sorry that you do not like how mental illness is explained by the establishment- that has nothing to do with me: it is the work of thousands of people over decades."

You still propagate psychiatric nonsense on a public forum and from your posts you seem to be a professional in the field so you're on the hook for defending the integrity of it. If you can't, then just say so. It's okay, just admit it...like Al Frances did.
<blockquote "I am sorry that you have a diagnosis. SMI is not a walk in the park: there are no easy “cures” and often very little help or sympathy from others."

There's nothing to be cured. The fake "treatment" of a fake "disease" is social fiction. I'm more concerned about the inherent stigma that you yourself just demonstrated is very real.

"I have a serious question before I leave however- rhetorical , you need not answer- if you DO believe that SBM can’t help people who are diagnosed with schizophrenia, do you believe that the solutions posited by others will?"

I don't know. There's certainly isn't a ready-to-go alternative system lined up but that doesn't justify retaining the status quo, because it's destructive. Experiments like Soteria House and yes, "natural" approaches to wellness have shown promise in individual cases. Psychiatry isn't interested though. It's dominant ideology of biologic determinism is its sole source of professional power. Niacin and all those kumbuya hippie potions *have* to be wrong. Don't you get that?

So much for blockquote, LOL.

@ Chemmomo - nice ad hominem. Any substantive critique of anything I said, or are you just mindlessly taking pot shots to "score one for the team".

@ Narad – Obviously I do understand it since I clearly stated that Boyle is a psychologist (i.e. it’s a conceptual critique).

No, the irony. It has nothing to do with Boyle's being a psychologist and everything to do with the construction of the argument.

And is it safe to assume you don’t share Denise Walter’s silly opinions?

No, this is not how it works. May I remind you of your own words? "Unlike other critics, I cite sources so either come with a solid refutation or admit that you and your girl are wrong about psychiatry." This is the part where, having already asserted that you foreknow what I think, you pony it up.

Somehow I doubt this, but it’s of no matter anyway if you have nothing of substance to say in response to my post.

It's only "nothing of substance" if you don't understand what you're trotting out in the first place. You want to play social constructionism? Fine. What is the theory of reference being deployed?

So much for blockquote, LOL.

Try using the closing delimiter, "lol."

Fear, Fraud & Force @ 175.
It’s not ad hominem. It’s a suggestion.

Breaking up your wall of text by using occasional paragraph spacing doesn’t change the fact you posted an almost endless wall of text. You need to learn how to write clearly and concisely if you wish to have discussions with people.

TL;DR version of @Fear, Fraud & Force

Victim blaming.

By the way @FFF, I am mentally ill and DW has no problems engaging with me. I suspect she doesn't want to engage with trolls. And if anyone is propagating stigma it's you.

FFF,

There’s nothing to be cured. The fake “treatment” of a fake “disease” is social fiction. I’m more concerned about the inherent stigma that you yourself just demonstrated is very real.

Twenty-something years ago when I was flirting with similar ideas, and arguing about them with a number of psychiatrists I worked with, the universe conspired to deliver me an object lesson. As I have related here before a close friend of mine developed an acute psychosis, which had extremely unfortunate consequences for him and his family.

I have had other experiences with people with psychoses since then, and I can only assume that anyone who claims that psychosis is a fake disease has not had much experience with these illnesses.

Just because something is sometimes hard to diagnose and often difficult to treat doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Okay, I'm about to give an example of a focused argument.

This is the Kickstarter page of a woman who thinks the U.S. Navy is putting up transmitters to harass her with "spiritual plasma attacks."

There are three possibilities:

1) This, and all other similar pages which one can find by searching "microwave mind control" and similar phrases, are all hoaxes and not a single one of them comes from someone who actually believes the government is oppressing them with spiritual plasma/microwaves/etc.

2) At least some of these people are completely serious in their belief that government agencies are employing technologies far beyond any publicly known science but not a single one came to this conclusion except from considering evidence that would lead any reasonable person to come to the same conclusions: you and I too would say "why yes, it *must be* spiritual plasma technology, and yes, it *must be* the U.S. Navy; there's no other logical way to explain the evidence."

3) At least some of these people are neither hoaxing nor revealing actual government mind control programs; they are in fact displaying the primary symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, which is not a "fake disease" but a very real one.

Which of the three does FFF believe to be the case?

1) In a 1994 article, Harvard Medical School researchers reported that outcomes for schizophrenics on psychiatric care had worsened during the past decades: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8092334
2) The World Health Organization has found twice that schizophrenic outcomes in the United States and developed countries were much worse than the poorer countries. Sufferers of a psychotic break in undeveloped countries had a chance of doing well, without psychiatric treatment in a few years time. But sufferers in the United States, or other "developed" countries, were likely to be chronically ill within that time: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1574549, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1565705 (the ladder study can be read here: http://www.madinamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/who2.pdf)

Also - From the following Frontline interview, we have the following: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/medicating/experts/exist…
PBS FRONTLINE INTERVIEWER:"Skeptics say that there's no biological marker--that it is the one condition out there where there is no blood test, and that no one knows what causes it."Dr. Russell Barkley, professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center: "That's tremendously naïve, and it shows a great deal of illiteracy about science and about the mental health professions. A disorder doesn't have to have a blood test to be valid. If that were the case, all mental disorders would be invalid--schizophrenia, manic depression, Tourette's Syndrome--all of these would be thrown out. ... There is no lab test for any mental disorder right now in our science. That doesn't make them invalid."

In an April 19, 1994, New York Times piece, “Scientist At Work,” Daniel Goleman called Dr. Allen Frances, the man who, in 1994, headed up the project to write the DSM IV, “Perhaps the most powerful psychiatrist in America at the moment…”: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/04/19/science/scientist-at-work-allen-j-fra…

In the wired article "Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness", he noted: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/
“There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.”
In the last page of the article, we find the following: http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/12/ff_dsmv/5/
"Diagnosis, he says, is “part of the magic,” part of the power to heal patients—and to convince them to endure the difficulties of treatment. The sun is up now, and Frances is working on his first Diet Coke of the day. “You know those medieval maps?” he says. “In the places where they didn’t know what was going on, they wrote ‘Dragons live here.’”
He went on: “We have a dragon’s world here. But you wouldn’t want to be without that map.”"

Ben, would you like to condense this into an actual point?

Ben,

1994 was 19 years ago. I have moved on, have you?

Wakefield did NOT say there was a definte link between MMR and autism; he suggested further research should be done.
Wakefield is NOT responsible for the return of measles which is the result of the Government's refusal to allow single shot vaccination (at the behest of big pharma).
The huge increase in autism in US/UK cannot be explained merely by "better diagnostics"...the increase is just too big.
Why do people still believe in wakefield despite the vilification by the medical establishment? Because that same establishment is the one which promised us that thalidomide was definitely safe!
If we'd allowed single shot vaccination we'd now have years of comparison between the two groups (MMR and single shot) which we've been denied. this is not Wakefield's fault.

MJF

@Michael - you haven't kept up with current events (or past events for that matter), Wakefield was quoted (and has been quoted down the line) stating that a link exists - also, he was given the opportunity to do further research to prove his conclusions, but he declined (hmmm...I wonder why?)

Single shot vaccines are actually more expensive & would have been more profitable - kind of blows that argument out of the water too.....

Thalidomide was never approved in the US - despite heavy industry pressure by the manufacturer, which is a perfect example of why the FDA works & is necessary (another argument fail).

Chris & Todd could also add a multitude of sources to show how wrong you are - another perfect example of why anti-vaccine individuals, who only regurgitate what lies they are told over and over again on anti-vaccine websites, don't really understand the Science they claim to spout.

The huge increase in autism in US/UK cannot be explained merely by “better diagnostics”…the increase is just too big.

OK, go through the maths. Convince people. How much of an increase do you think “better diagnostics” can account for? I want to be sure that you haven't missed anything out.

@ Michael Fisher: Here's a line listing from PubMed with a few (335) studies that disprove any link between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?linkname=pubmed_pubmed&from_uid=1995…

Your turn now, Michael. Come up with one study from a reliable first-tier medical or science journal that shows a link between the MMR vaccine and the onset of autism.

How about a quicky post from you comparing the Diagnostic Criteria for autism/ASDs from the DSM II, the DSM III and the DSM IV?

Mr. Fisher, the MMR vaccine was introduced in the USA in 1971. It was the vaccine promoted during the 1978 measles elimination program, so there was over a decade of use before three different versions of an MMR were introduced to the UK in 1988.

So, Mr. Fisher, there was at least two decades of use in the USA of the MMR before Wakefield came on to the scene. Could you please give us the title, journal and dates of the 1970s and/or 1980s PubMed indexed papers where Wakefield discovered that autism increased in the USA with the introduction of the MMR there? And could you please tell us what single mumps vaccine has been licensed in the UK?

@ lilady:

My other comment ( @ placebo) got hung up because of my e-mail error.

But it seems that the new 'rising' rate is now at 2% (( shudder)) via AoA. Even Jake is up in arms about 'epidemic denialism'.

What should be easy for our critics to comprehend is that ASD is a label that has transformed over the years even if the conditionS we call autism do not necessarily change.

Thus UK adults appear to have a similar rate to children if the same defining characterisitics are employed.

Test.

I am also so amused by the use of "medical establishment told us thalidomide was safe" gambit. It exposes the person as someone who really has no idea what really happened. It was the pharmaceutical company pushing the drug, and a regulatory agency on one particular government refused to be pushed into allowing it to be sold. And yet, these same clueless people want the government agencies that protect consumers to be stripped of any power to do their job.

It is too silly to be ironic.

My comments got held up because of my own e-mail error.

Right now, folks are rankling about a *new* autism rate of 2%.( AoA)
Right.

The rate changes advovates squawk about reflect changes in definition over the years. The conditionS ( plural) that people experience may be very similar:
a study of UK adults showed a rate that hovers around 1%.
The same of the chilkdren's rate.

Psychological conndiitons are based on definition not a physical measure so rates of schizophrenia might be 1% in one country and 1.5% in another because the condition is defined differently in those two places. The 0.5 % shows up in another related condition ( e.g. schizophreniform) that has larger numbers in that place in comparison to the other.

Also variable rate reflects the means of acquiring the diagnosis.

@ Denice Walter: The first of three articles on the CDC "telephone survey" was posted on AoA by Dachel, quickly followed by two additional articles written by their *journalists*

Emily Willingham on her Forbes blog has a great analysis of the CDC Report:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2013/03/20/autism-prevalenc…

Matt Carey has also blogged about the CDC Report:

http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2013/03/20/cdc-hrsa-report-changes-in-…

Some of the "RI Regulars" have posted on these two blogs.

P.S. to my post above. One of the posters "Julian" on Emily Willingham's blog, is "Jacob a.k.a the pothead troll" who posted under hundreds of sock puppets here on RI, a while back.

Mr. Fisher, do read this amusing take on Wakefield and friends.

Rats. The http://jabsloonies.blogspot.com/ link got put into moderation.

Reuben Gaines at the Poxes blog has a post up about the CDC Telephone Survey with a reported 1:50 prevalence of ASDs:

http://thepoxesblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/autism-it-is-not-disaster.html…

Recently, Reuben's blog accepts comments only through "disqus". I've had intermittent difficulty posting through "disqus"...only on The Poxes blog.

Could a few of you look at The Poxes and attempt to comment there?

If any of you have Reuben's private email, could you notify him about the "disqus" problem?

Wakefield did NOT say there was a definte link between MMR and autism; he suggested further research should be done.

Yawn. I seem to recall some more recent comments that are even more explicit, but I don't have time to go hunting at the moment.

lilady, I am having a problem at thepoxesblog. Not only cannot I no longer comment, I cannot even see the comments!

@ Chris: I managed to post twice on The Poxes...but the comments function keeps disappearing. I posted earlier today and "disqus" notified me via email of a reply. I cannot reply through my email account or on The Poxes blog.

I reached out via email to another science blogger, who, unfortunately does not have Reuben's private email to alert him to the "disqus" problem...sigh.

Oh, I just love how these anti-vax stories change. Over at shotofprevention someone now claims that the Danish bad guy, Thorsen, "authored 21 of the 24 government studies that the CDC says prove vaccines don’t cause autism."

In the real world he was a minor author of just two studies out at least two dozen!

Disqustink is terrible. Anyway, he posted three days ago regarding a "fix and upgrade". The behavior is very odd; the comments don't appear on my rather old Safari, unless I open the site in a Firefox 5 PPC port, at which point, on one occasion, they suddenly appeared in the Safari window. This was not replicable, and I don't care to clear everything out to try again.

I've dropped him a tweet.

Hello, everyone. Thanks for pointing out the concerns with disqus. Other people have pointed this out as well… It’s a pain. If you’ve ever been blocked on another disqus-moderated site, you get blacklisted from similar blogs. I’ve been messing with the settings, but you see how much help that is.

But, never fear, I’ll be moving to a wordpress platform. I started getting swamped with anonymous comments on blogger. Some were from thinger, others had IP addresses in California. Your friend Jake Crosby even tried to comment.

I had a tracking cookie for comments, but no way to block said comments.

Anyway, I’ll do the changeover to wordpress soon and will announce it there.

Narad, you should have something from me.

Alright. All the posts are over on the wordpress site at h_ttp://thepoxesblog.wordpress.com. I'll delete the blogger blog in a week. Thank you, my friends.

Narad, you should have something from me.

Thanks. I'm very nearly in the mood to take it sentence-by-sentence.