Orac is the nom de blog of a humble pseudonymous surgeon/scientist with an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his miscellaneous verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few will. (Continued 
It figures.
I'm deprived of full Internet access for a few days, and--wouldn't you know it?--the merry band of antivaccinationists over at Generation Rescue have to go and provide yet more evidence to back up what I've been saying all along about the mercury militia, namely that, once again, J. B. Handley's protestations otherwise, it really, truly is all about the vaccines, not the mercury. It always was. This new bit of confirmation of what I've said time and time again comes in the form of a full page ad taken out in USA Today on February 12 that I found about thanks to the credulous mention of it by Ginger over at Adventures in Autism, where she pointed out the line at the end of the ad stating that the ad was published with the "generous support" of Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey.
It just goes to show that what I had thought to be impossible is actually possible: J. B. Handley's burning stupid can escalate to malignant stupidity custom-designed to endanger children's lives, thanks to the contribution of University of Google idiot Jenny McCarthy. This is the same woman who parroted the most egregious lies of the antivaccination movement with the confidence of the utterly credulous, even on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She's merely another symptom of what we know to be happening in the movement created by people who blamed mercury in vaccines for their children's autism. Remember last May, when I wrote about Generation Rescue's makeover? Gone were the confident claims that "childhood neurological disorders such as autism, Asperger's, ADHD/ADD, speech delay, sensory integration disorder, and many other developmental delays are all misdiagnoses for mercury poisoning." In their place were softer, less easily testable hypotheses that autism is an "environmental illnesses caused by an overload of heavy metals, live viruses, and bacteria."
It never really was about anything other than the vaccines. Mercury was simply a convenient bogeyman. Now that so many studies have failed to find even an inkling that mercury in vaccines is associated with increased rates of autism, the most recent of which was published just last month, even the most dedicated of the diehard Don Quixotes tilting at windmills made of mercury are starting to realize that maybe Sancho Panza was right when he told him that maybe--just maybe--it wasn't the mercury.
Unfortunately, like any good Don Quixote, the mercury militia now sees windmills shaped like syringes, and this ad reproduced below drives that point home:
I suppose I should thank J.B. and Jenny for providing me with blog fodder to welcome me back to the medical blogosphere. After all, this ad is nothing but pure antivaccination rhetoric. In fact, the very core of it is the typical antivaccinationist fallacy of confusing correlation with causation. Note the two syringes, one labeled "1983" listing an autism rate of 1 in 10,000 and only 10 mandatory vaccinations. Then note the "2008" syringe, with 36 vaccinations (although Generation Rescue cheats by including the prenatal flu vaccine recommended for pregnant women and several non-mandatory flu vaccines to pump up the 20089 number). The text then drives home one of the most blatantly obvious and moronic examples of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that I've ever seen:
The statistics speak for themselves. Since 1983, the number of vaccines the CDC recommends we give to our kids has gone from 10 to 36, a whopping increase of 260%. And, with it, the prevalence of neurological disorders like autism and ADHD has grown exponentially as well.Just a coincidence? We don't think so. Thousands of parents believe their child's regression into autism was triggered, if not caused, by over-immunization with toxic ingredients and live viruses found in vaccines. The Centers for Disease Control and the American Academy of Pediatrics dispute this but independent research and the first-hand accounts of parents tell a different story.
A lot of other things have happened since 1983 as well. For example, in the early 1990s, the diagnostic criteria for autism were broadened, and campaigns for greater awareness were begun. Diagnoses of autism in 1983 were made using the DSM-III, where the criteria for an autism diagnosis were much more restrictive than those in the DSM-IV, released in the early 1990s. Moreover, in 1983, categories of Asperger's and pervasive developmental disorder-not otherwise specified, both of which are lumped into the 1 in 150 figure for 2008, weren't recognized in the DSM-III. Of course, if I wanted to be snarky (and perish forbid that I would ever be snarky), I could point out that 1981 was the year that the IBM PC was released, followed by the Apple Macintosh in 1984, both of which led to the exponential growth of households owning and using personal computers. That's it! It must be computer use that led to the increase in autism in the 25 years since 1983! Wait, what about the compact disc? It just so happens that 1983 is the year that the CD was first released in the American market. Ergo, it must be CDs that cause autism.
I could go on, but you get my point. A lot of other things have happened since 1983, but to Jenny McCarthy, J. B. Handley, and their assorted antivax fanatics it has to be those evil vaccines. It just has to be. And, as predicted, if mercury in vaccines is exonerated scientifically (which it basically has been, the contortions of Generation Rescue and its ilk otherwise), mercury mavens were more than ready to move on to something else, and this ad shows it:
Mercury. Aluminum. Formaldehyde. Ether. Antifreeze. Not exactly what you'd expect--or want--to find in your child's vaccinations. Vaccines that are supposed to safeguard their health yet, according to our studies, can also do harm to some children.
Somebody please show Jenny McCarthy my rant about this breathtakingly, burningly, malignantly stupid antivaccination canard, because this ad boils down the antivaccination wingnuttery to a couple of concentrated sentences in which Generation Rescue conclusively moves on from its previous "it's the mercury, stupid" stance to blaming all sorts of scary-sounding "toxins" in vaccines, even ones that aren't there, like ether. (As I explained, as far as I could tell, McCarthy's "ether" appears to be polyethylene glycol pisooctylphenyl ether (Triton X-100), a common detergent agent used to make cell membranes permeable. In the past, a compound called Tween-Ether was sometimes used instead of Triton X-100; it's the same sort of thing, a fairly large organic molecule with an ether chemical group hooked on. Basically, this "ether" is a form of soap.
Really, and there's no antifreeze that I could find listed in vaccines either.
I don't want to belabor just how dumb and fallacious this rhetorical tactic is. On the other hand, it's hard to belabor it because it is so inconceivably dumb and fallacious (at least to people with some understanding of science and medicine) that it beggars the imagination to understand how anyone could say something like it in all seriousness, much less waste tens of thousands of dollars to run a full page ad in a national newspaper.
However, if you want to see where J.B. and Jenny are really coming from, just take a gander at the conclusion of the ad:
Why do we only test vaccines individually and never consider the combination risk of vaccines administered together? Given the dramatic rise of autism to epidemic levels, isn't it time for the scientific community to seriously consider the anecdotal evidence of so many parents? We urge the CDC and AAP to help us find the answers to these questions and learn why the increase in the number and composition of so many vaccinations has led to a surge in neurodevelopmental disorders. Our children deserve no less.
Note the moving of the goalposts and the unfalsifiable hypothesis, which insists that it is some unspecified "combination" of vaccines that causes autism. Of course, Generation Rescue would love nothing better than to have scientists test the many, many different combinations of vaccines. Never mind that it would be not only logistically virtually impossible, but it would be unethical, given that it would require some children not to receive protective vaccines as a control. Note the lovely conspiracy-mongering. Note the repetition of the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Note how antivaccinations are like the Energizer Bunny. No matter how many times their "theories" are shot down by scientific studies, they never give up. They keep going and going and going and going...
Medicine & Health
Comments
It staggers me that fringe groups can actually buy out pages of newspapers to soapbox like that. Is it commonplace?
Posted by: Alex Whiteside | February 14, 2008 6:18 AM
There has been some good news whilst you've been virtually challenged. We now have icons to use for posts like these. Even polite ones for wimps like me.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | February 14, 2008 6:26 AM
i hadn't even heard about this crap until about october or so of last year. It's maddening, honestly. Why do people hold such strong beliefs? I really want to know. I want to cull that gene out of the pool, because it disgusts me. badly.
:-(
Posted by: genewitch | February 14, 2008 7:23 AM
I'm guessing antifreeze also comes from "polyethylene glycol pisooctylphenyl ether" since once kind of antifreeze is ethylene glycol. I think the anti-vax mavens are incapable of understanding chemical names. They seem to mistake them for an ingredients list like you'd find on a box of cereal.
Posted by: Kevin S | February 14, 2008 8:08 AM
Just out of curiosity, how are vaccines tested? If it is unethical to withhold the recommended vaccines from a child, this must mean that the only way to test a new vaccine is to administer it along with all the already accepted and recommended vaccines. Is this true? If so, than the statement from the ad that vaccines are only tested individually is patently false.
Also, I find it hard to believe that nobody has ever checked whether the concentrations of ingredients from all vaccines combined ever get above their maximum dosages, or at the very least of all vaccines that are administered at the same time. Does anyone have any information on that?
Posted by: Beowulff | February 14, 2008 8:27 AM
Beowulff: Well, vaccines for something not currently covered are reasonably easy to ethically test - give to people of the right age, follow a control group that doesn't get it, etc.
Vaccines that are designed to replace another vaccine are trickier, and I'm curious as to how those can be ethically tested as well.
Posted by: Michael Ralston | February 14, 2008 8:43 AM
Michael Ralston: yeah, but my point is: aren't both groups also given all the other vaccinations that are already recommended or required? If so, than new vaccines are in fact always tested in combination with the already accepted vaccines, instead of always tested individually, as the ad claims.
Posted by: Beowulff | February 14, 2008 8:50 AM
Wait, isn't there mercury and heavy metal in computers (or am I making this up because you're not supposed to throw them in landfills)?
You're onto something here! We should demand that these organizations follow up on the mercury thing by investigating the infiltration of consumer electronics into our unsuspecting households over the past couple of decades.
Posted by: A'Llyn | February 14, 2008 8:52 AM
Aye, giving a new vaccine to a test group is quite easy. What's hard is testing an already used vaccine by giving it to a test group, but then not giving it to a control group that would otherwise recieve it: they're being deprived of it's protection. Then there's the herd immunity to factor in.
What Generation Rescue doesn't understand/refuses to accept is that the study they're demanding happens all the time: we are already constantly exposed to hundreds of thousands of foreign agents at any one time from the moment of birth. I seriously doubt the paltry single thousands in vaccines are going to make much difference unless there is a genuinely controversial thing in them.
Posted by: Lucas McCarty | February 14, 2008 8:54 AM
I'm sorry I really have to react to the tone of this post, which quite frankly is vicious.
(Full disclosure - I'm fully pro-science, I agree completely with your concerns re. the anti-vacinnation movement, and both of my children have been fully vaccinnated including the UK triple antigen that seems to have set this "moral panic" off)
But. You are being far too snarky. And extremely inconsiderate to the parents and families of autistic children.
The fact is there has been a large rise in autism over the last few decades, it has caused enourmous pain - and we don't know what's caused it.
It's not just diagnosis. The increase is seen across nations and does not follow discontinuous jumps as diagnositic criteria are revised. DSM-IV applies in the US, other standards - although similar - are used elsewhere and their introduction wasn't simultaneous.
Aside from studies, anecdotally I can see the change. I see a number of children amongst my childrens school friends who are austistic and I am quite sure that the incidence exceeds that I experienced when I went to school. My son plays with a midly autistic boy who is our neighbour. When I went to school, that little boy would have been regarded as retarded.
It is good to dispell bad arguments, but it is cruel to compare those arguments to bogus correllations with the introduction of CD's and PC's.
This is not the creation/ID debate. We are not dealing with deluded bigots who willfully inflict cruelty and ignorance on your children and mine.
We are dealing with heartbroken parents who are trying to care for their own children and however misguidely trying to protect others.
You have a good blog here which I read often, but this particular post is not a good look. Unlike PV's funny and savage demolitions of evil and stupid monsters who wish only ill on their victims, you're coming across as a jerk.
What is the cause of the rise in autism? We don't know. And saying that because we don't know, that our opponents must be wrong is _exactly_ the same argument that the ID denialists are using.
I'm sure you can see the irony.
Posted by: JM | February 14, 2008 9:38 AM
JM, you are missing the point of the post. This post isn't about the parents, it is about the proliferation of pseudoscience, which to me has the same effect as pushing ID or creationism. The suffering of parents of children who have autism is not the point, the point is people making misrepresentations about what causes autism. Orac isn't making the claim that science has the answer for the cause of autism, but he is pointing out that the anti-vaxers know a lot less than the researchers. Additionally, the anti-vaxers are practicing scare mongering techniques to promote pet theories that have no science behind them. I am much more worried about the ramifications of NOT vaccinating my child than I am about the the possible side effects of vaccination. That is an informed decision, not a blind one.
Posted by: BGT | February 14, 2008 9:57 AM
Give me a break, JM. I was exactly as snarky as this ad, Generation Rescue, and Jenny McCarthy deserved. Dangerous fools like them anger me--and quite rightly so, I would argue! Your complaint strikes me as nothing but the common doggerel of accusing skeptics of meanness or arrogance.
In fact, if anything, I held my fire at this ad. Moreover, the fact is that, while there has been a huge increase in autism diagnoses over the last 25 years, it's highly questionable whether this represents any sort of increase in the true prevalence of autism, as this study strongly suggests. In other words, conditions that used to be called something else now fall under the autism/ASD/PDD-NOS rubric, the latter two of which were generally diagnosed until the 1990s, while all the while diagnoses of mental retardation fell. Couple that with increased awareness, and it explains much of the alleged "autism epidemic."
I've said time and time again that I'm very much sympathetic with parents and their difficulties raising autistic children. That's another reason that Handley and McCarthy (and their ilk) annoy me so.. It's they who perpetuate such misinformation and lies. It's they who waste scientists' time investigating, re-investigating, and reinvestigating yet again the vaccine hypothesis, when large study after large study keep failing to find a link.
As for your experience, realize that human experience one of the most deceptive ways of determining causation. It's prone to all sorts of biases, such as confirmation bias, confusing correlation with causation, etc. These are all very well discussed in Snake Oil Science by R. Barker Bausell. Scientists are different only in that they recognize these biases (at least most of the time) and use a special method to minimize them: the scientific method. These are the same biases and cognitive quirks that lead parents to think that vaccines caused their child's autism. After all, the first symptoms of autism often appear around vaccination time just by coincidence.
Finally, your last paragraph is a big fat straw man. You accuse me of an argument from ignorance, which any objective reading would clearly fail to find in my post. First off, you proceed from a false premise, namely that there is an "autism epidemic" to begin with. That is questionable at best. Second, all I said was that vaccines do not cause autism. I said nothing about what might or might not be the cause of autism. Whatever that is, we now have good epidemiological and scientific evidence that it is almost certainly not vaccines.
Oh, and the comparison to creationists was just silly.
Posted by: Orac | February 14, 2008 10:02 AM
JM-
I am mother to 2 kids on the spectrum, and many who comment here are ASD or parents to ASD kids. Please consider how much time and resources are wasted on GR's nonsense-money and researchers time that could help my kids. I also hate the 'my kids are toxic waste dumps' bleatings. My daughters are beautiful children who view the world differently because they are wired differently.
Why is there more ASD diagnosed? Orac has blogged extensively on changing diagnostic criteria. By todays criterea, my father, brother and I would be on the spectrum. As a kid, I was just called weird. My brother lived with face-blindness for 45 years before it was given a name (no wonder he chose to work alone in a lab).
Orac, please continue being snarky. I am teaching my Aspie kid to grow up to be a skeptic, too.
Somewhat off topic, but years ago I saw a series of photos of common foods, with their chemical ingredients listed. If you are chemophobic, do you give up eating oranges and strawberries because they have esters in them? You could take the woo supplements Handley force-feeds his kid and find 'toxins' worse than vaccines, if you looked deeply enough.
Posted by: Ruth | February 14, 2008 10:24 AM
Does the USA have anything like the UK's Advertising Standards Authority, to whom complaints about the accuracy of advertising can be referred for adjudication e.g. http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=41436
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/adjudications/non_broadcast/Adjudication+Details.htm?Adjudication_id=40618
Posted by: Paul | February 14, 2008 10:25 AM
I don't know if there is such a thing as too much snark for people who deliberately misread, misinterpret and mispresent the facts in order to promote their particular bugbear, especially when, in the process, they are putting other people's children in danger.
I was almost tempted to use the word "lie" in addition there but I genuinely don't think that very many anti-vaxxers actually lie. They are simply so convinced that they are right that they refuse to listen to all the evidence against their beliefs.
As a result they insist on resurrecting a discredited scare story in the International Press at every available oppportunity and with no evidence to back themselves up. What they are doing, whatever their motivations for doing it, is essentially yelling "Fire" in the crowded Cinema and they should be treated accordingly.
Posted by: Lilly de Lure | February 14, 2008 10:33 AM
Coturnix has a link to a story about a possible connection between maternal antibodies and autism. I thought you might want to take a look.
Posted by: Inquisitive Raven | February 14, 2008 10:46 AM
It's the personal computer. Apple, IBM, Commodore, Atari, etc., all had personal computers out by 1983, and they have only become more pervasive in schools and in homes. Children even carry them around with them, in their backpacks! Clearly, computers cause autism.
Posted by: wheatdogg | February 14, 2008 11:14 AM
Thanks for this post Orac, and all the work you do in exposing the rubbish of the anti-vaccine/autism-as-poison groups.
JM, you said, "We are dealing with heartbroken parents who are trying to care for their own children and however misguidely trying to protect others."
I have an autistic son, and like Ruth, I'm am mightily pissed off at the depiction of him and people like him as 'damaged' and 'poisoned' and in need of detoxification. He's not toxic, he's just different.
The people behind this ad do real harm to autistic people, with their demonisation and lies. The deserve to have knowledgeable people like Orac tear into their nonsense.
And I don't want my children picking up infectious diseases just because there aren't enough people responsible enough to vaccinate their children.
Posted by: Sharon | February 14, 2008 11:39 AM
JM, as a parent of a disabled child (not autistic, but affected by resources sucked away for other causes), I feel that we can defend ourselves. Thank you very much.
Personally, the GR folks need all the snark available aimed towards them. They are actually endangering other health imparied children by effectively degrading herd immunity, like what happened to these boys:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1055533.ece
Posted by: HCN | February 14, 2008 11:46 AM
I had to laugh at JM's comment, because he proved Orac's point with his little anecdote.
"My son plays with a midly autistic boy who is our neighbour. When I went to school, that little boy would have been regarded as retarded."
And when you went to school, that little boy would have been put in an institution and you would not have ever known of his existence.
I attended school with a child who probably now would have been diagnosed at least at PDD-NOS. Mike was violent, stimmed, had little language, and had sensory issues. As kids, we were afraid of his anger. The teachers dealt with him the best they could. I can still recall the times the principal (male, ex-football player) and janitor (also male, weight lifter) would have to come and wrestle Mike out of the classroom because he had lost all control. Today, the poor kid would have had some help. Then, he had nothing.
(Oh...and BTW...his family were "survivalists" and never had any of their kids vaccinated because of their beliefs. I can still recall hearing my mother, who was friends with the school nurse, talk about the battles re: exemptions for him regarding the vaccines).
In my family, there were members who today would be diagnosed as autistic, PDD-NOS, or Ausperger's. We have family letters going back to the 20's and 30's where traits are discussed that today would get the child diagnosed as on the spectrum. Today, the kids HAVE the official diagnosis and are getting the help they need. Then, the kids were just considered "a little strange" or "naughty" or "maybe a bit retarded".
Posted by: Dawn | February 14, 2008 12:18 PM
...three siblings - two of whom attend a charter school in San Diego - were diagnosed with the potentially fatal viral infection.
None of the youngsters had been inoculated against the disease.
Two of the siblings go to the San Diego Cooperative Charter School in Linda Vista, which has the highest percentage of students not vaccinated for measles among any campus in the city, said officials from the San Diego Unified School District.
Ten percent of Cooperative's 380 students were not vaccinated. The figure for most schools in San Diego County is 1 percent to 2 percent.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080204-1858-bn04measles.html
My son was hospitalized at two weeks of age because of a friend and her children who dropped by to see the new baby. She failed to mention she had kept her three sick kids out of school that week.
With these siblings going to after school activities, b-day parties, etc., how many other young kids have been exposed? The ignorance and irresponsibility of these folk is frightening.
Posted by: Fisher | February 14, 2008 12:33 PM
What bothers me the most about Generation Rescue and the like isn't the fact that they are against vaccines (though that does infuriate me). If that were all, I'd write them off as yet another bunch of pseudoscientific woo-mongers. What bothers me the most is that they are totally uninterested in finding the real cause(s) of autism and instead are taking out their frustrations on the world. There is a real retaliatory tone to a lot of their work, and this disgusting ad is a prime example. To them, this is war. And that's why they are willing to take any weapon at all -- poorly designed studies, pseudoscientific gibberish, and even outright falsehoods -- and use them. Because to them, the ends justify the means. And the end is not to cure their children. They claim it is, and hide behind cries of "don't you care about my children?", but what they're really out to do is find someone to blame for their childrens' condition.
They have a lot in common with protest groups such as PETA. While I think it is very important to treat animals ethically, I think PETA is so far off the deep end that it isn't even remotely funny. Like Generation Rescue, they are so focused on vilifying the opposition that they don't even notice that their stated goal is slipping further and further away.
I can tolerate PETA more easily, because they're worried about animals. Generation Rescue is dealing with children, and that makes their misinformation orders of magnitude more harmful. That bothers me far more than the fact that they oppose vaccination. Vaccination is just a bogeyman, as evidenced by the fact they're already laying groundwork for other bogeymen. Thimerosal has been exonerated; once the rest of the vaccine components are exonerated, they will simply latch on to something else. This seems insane, but only if one is interested in seeking the truth. They're not. They just want vengeance, and vaccines are currently a convenient proxy target for that.
Posted by: Calli Arcale | February 14, 2008 12:38 PM
It's actually pretty crazy right on the face of it to compare the state of the art in medicine 25 years ago to now (as it will be to compare 2008's state of the art to 2033's). For example, I know when I was a kid, if you were physically handicapped, they tested you to see if you weren't also mentally handicapped, because that was sort of the default assumption, even among medical people. That has definitely changed since I was little, just a smidge over 25 years ago.
So yeah, they deserve all the vitriol they're getting, on numerous grounds. Besides which, if you dislike the tone in which something gets said, it's a big internet; go get your own blog and write your own impeccably polite post on why the anti-vaccination crowd is full of, uh, the organic substance emitted from the north end of a southbound male bovine.
Posted by: Interrobang | February 14, 2008 1:16 PM
Some parents resist the "poisoned" "damaged" tags applied to kids on the autism spectrum; some don't. Not all parents feel as desperate as JM suggests, but some do, and it's worth bearing in mind the tremendous social pressures that exist -- on kids to excel, for parents to do anything, everything they can to help their kids etc. etc. -- that are in part responsible for these kinds of feelings. Despite a greater willingness in the culture today to acknowledge the biological or genetic components of disease, appearance, or personality, there remains a stubborn insistence on tracing a child's quirks and idiosyncracies to some fault on the parent's part. If it isn't said out loud, it's implied in dirty looks, anonymous complaints and so on and so forth. My friend with an autistic son has said that she's got to the point that she only socializes with other parents of autistic, ADHD, TS kids because everyone else is so haughty and critical,and frankly, she has enough to deal with as it is. Would some magical connection between vaccines and autism makes things better? If it could be said that bad things happened as a result of doing what you, as a dutiful, dedicated parent, thought was good, it might ease the pressure up a little. In other words, the vaccines-autism fantasy is very seductive not just because it suggests a simple cause for a complex problem, but it speaks to important cultural concerns by diverting some of the blame that can otherwise fall on parents.
Posted by: Clare | February 14, 2008 1:23 PM
Hi, Orac,
To piggyback on Bob O'Hara's comment, we'd be delighted to have you as a member of BPSDB.org - I'm going to be making icons for Blogging on Pseudo-Historical matters, too.
Posted by: Mister DNA | February 14, 2008 1:25 PM
JM stated: "My son plays with a midly autistic boy who is our neighbour. When I went to school, that little boy would have been regarded as retarded."
That statement is a fine example of the point we are trying to make. One of the main reasons that autism is increasing is that children who previously would have been labelled "retarded" are now being labelled as having autism.
Posted by: ozzy | February 14, 2008 2:42 PM
Clare-You do make some valid points. My problem is friends and family who then assume I'm a bad mom for not chelating out the Hg so my kids will be like everyone else and not mess up their neat little world.
Posted by: Ruth | February 14, 2008 4:08 PM
Ruth, once upon a time I had an email correspondent through a disability listserv. It seems that someone she met had decided to drop all the conventional OT/PT, speech therapy and special ed. preschool because the chelation was going to fix her kid.
Who is the bad mom then? The mom shlepping her kid to therapy appointment two to four times a week, and then spending quality time with the school team during IEP meetings... or the mom who thinks dumping more chemicals into the kid will remove the evil (but teeny tiny bit) of some other chemical? (okay, just today I read that aluminum is a heavy metal... on what planet?!)
Posted by: HCN | February 14, 2008 4:53 PM
Last year the Observer did a reckless story about a new non-existent MMR scare using data leaked from Simon Baron-Cohen's Cambridge research team. The article not only compromised the study integrity but misrepresented the data and outright lied about things Professor Baron-Cohen supposedly said.
I don't know if the study has been published yet, but the whole purpose of it was to see how using different methods of measuring recorded incidence affects the numbers that come out. From what info that was released to correct the Observer's idiotic fear-mongering(which had to be withdrawn from their website for 'legal reasons'), it appeared that different methods of recording the incidence did have a drastic effect on the numbers detected.
Why is this important to what JM has said here? Because to say that Autism actually has surged with nothing but ancedotal evidence to support it, ancedotes which are reasonably addressed by rational thinking which the Cambridge group's study appears to completely support, it throws caution away. It's what constantly motivates me to point out that as an Autistic I daily live the consequences of the sum of all things said about Autism. My well-being and future is tied up in what the majority of people and people in responsible positions think about Autism. It's all jeoposed when what their heads contain on the issue is nonsense.
If we believe absurdities, we will commit atrocities.
Posted by: Lucas McCarty | February 14, 2008 5:46 PM
HCN-Once upon a time I was an organic chemist (before I became an OT/PT/speech therapist/mom). I have a real respect for what nasty chemicals can do, but traces of aluminum don't alarm me. The only cases of Al poisoning I found in Pubmed were for chronic exposure in dialysis patients, where traces of Al can build up. But I'm sure someone will be treating this 'heavy metal' poisoning with cinnabar(HgS) as part of ancient Indian/Chinese medicine.
Posted by: Ruth | February 14, 2008 5:52 PM
Ruth - also a chemist here, and yes, we should make groceries list all the chemical components in fruits and veggies, shouldn't we? After all, stupidity should be painful, though I am saddened that the state of science education is so poor in this country that kids aren't at least getting a little basic chemistry in junior high or high school (not even in biology class, apparently, where they could introduce kids to the main chemical moieties and give an overview of a Krebs diagram).
It makes you wonder how badly the chemophobic would freak over common sugars (double-moiety! both an ether and an alcohol!) and amino acids (both an acid and an amine! oh noes!!!). Then there are the really unpronounceable natural products of plants, like the pigments. And then we can really get them with the supplements too! Instead of Omega-3 supplements with DHA, they have to call it docosahexaenoic acid.
Cinnabar? Mmm! That sounds an awful lot like cinnamon!
Posted by: Tlazolteotl | February 14, 2008 6:34 PM
Clare -
Like me, my six year old has severe ADHD (to give some grasp of the severity, click my name, I've blogged about it). I too find it very refreshing to spend time with the parents of and kids who are autistic, ADHD or bipolar. My son certainly has his behavior problems, the worse being that he has the impulse control of a shark in bloody water. But as we have been working on strategies for dealing with it, and accepted that this will always be an ongoing process, we are getting through it.
I think the thing that really just set me off the worse, was a friend who's daughter is rather devious and underhanded about her misbehavior. She is just as badly behaved as my child, if not worse, but because she tries to and often does, get away with it, her parents just don't see it. Whereas my son is completely overt about his behavior and defiance. What you see is what you get. Not once, has he ever tried to hide anything from us. But the fact that he says "no, I'm going to do (insert negative behavior)," he's just a badly behaved kid.
One of his very closest friends is an aspie. It's a riot when they hang out, because both of them are very empathetic. So my son is quick to kindly point out his social feaux pas, and he in turn, is regularly coaching my son to just do as he was asked, so they can play some more.
Things are a little more interesting when he plays with a little girl we know who also has severe ADHD. They both get pretty defiant with each other, with her usually winning in the end, because he is becoming increasingly convinced that it is just easier when you do as the girls ask.
I definitely get more than a little pissed off at the anti-vaxers, anti-autism sentiment. I have befriended a "low" functioning autistic teen, who really enjoyed my music and wanted to spend time with me, learning music theory. He has his problems, but his perspective on the world and on music, has been exciting and even influenced my songwriting. Too, he picked up the nuts and bolts of music theory, like you wouldn't believe. He still can't play an instrument, but he can "hear" the music, as he reads it. He has started writing his own music and is more than a little competent at it. He also loves to sit in the library for hours on end, reading sheet music. He would be the first to agree with me on this, I am very glad that he wasn't "cured" of his autism. His folks, as difficult as raising him has been and continues to be, agree as well.
Posted by: DuWayne | February 14, 2008 7:46 PM
Orac: Re: Snarkyness: More Snarkyness is better, when it comes to these blithering idiots.
As I said the last time this one came up, the anti-vax crowd should find a lab with a GCMS and test a sample of ordinary tap water. Aside from a large quantity of Dihydrogren monoxide, they'll find all sorts of "dangerous" chemicals, including but not limited to Iron, aluminum, lead, mercury, phosphors, sulfurs, florine, chlorine and formeldehyde. Apparently it's fine to pour a half gallon to a gallon a day of that "deadly chemical soup" down thier throats, but somehow a few micrograms of neomycin are right out.
Posted by: DLC | February 15, 2008 5:50 AM
Ignoring the obvious stupidity, has the creator of that ad ever seen a syringe in their life? Both of them are horribly deformed - the one on the left would be very hard to push down the plunger of, because someone made the plunger far, far too long. But at least you could push down the plunger on that one - the one on the right has a plunger so short that it's hard to see how the contents got in there in the first place, and they ain't comin' out through that needle....
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | February 15, 2008 7:13 AM
I am shocked(!) that Generation Rescue is suddenly being outed as anti-vaccine.
I've always known that.
As to the question of testing - since kids who are getting these shots are ostensibly getting their other shots (since minimum standards of care would dictate that these kids are getting vaccinated) we ARE testing these vaccines with other vaccines. That has been, and continues to be, the most pathologically stupid anti-vaccine argument ever.
Look, let's get real. At some point Generation Rescue is going to run out of credulous celebrities to fleece, or wealthy marks to sucker. Then it's going to be J.B. Handley and his band of merry puppets shouting on streetcorners about how the apocalypse is coming thanks to Gardasil and FluMist.
Posted by: anonimouse | February 15, 2008 11:35 AM
While I do not believe that vaccines cause autism, I have to disagree with the idea that vaccines are tested against all of the other US vaccines, and therefore safe... Rotateq is one of the newest vaccines to be added to the US schedule and the majority of the safety and efficacy testing was done in other countries. Yes, other vaccines were allowed to be administered cocomitantly - but every country has their own vaccination schedules, and most do not contain nearly as many vaccines and doses as the US schedule. So the true US safety testing for Rotateq is taking place this year (aka "post marketing surveillance"). If you read the clinical testing sections any vaccine package insert, it is relatively shocking how little they are tested before they are mandated.
Posted by: Anne | February 15, 2008 1:49 PM
What I think is funny is that Jenny's career has totally tanked. And it appears that Jim Carrey's has also. Then he's aligning himself with the Scientologists (both Jenny and Jim attended Tom Cruise's wedding and there weren't that many people invited to that wedding). So how much of the antivax ad was about Scientologists trying to show that there is no autism that it's all about toxins and thetans? Interestingly, thought Jenny started out with a "crystal" child, he morphed into an "autistic" child and now he's morphed again into a "normal" child. Since you can't have an autistic kid and be a Scientologist, that looks a little suspicious to me.
And now Jenny's pregnant, with Jim's kid presumably. Will Jenny be giving birth in silence? Their kid has a good chance of being both unvaccinated AND autistic, given who and what his parents are. Will this kid be a 'crystal', like his older half-brother or will he just be like the Travolta boy.
One can only hope that people in Hollywood will start to treat these two idiots like they carry a plague, because they do.
Posted by: rilly rilly ticked | February 15, 2008 1:53 PM
If you read the clinical testing sections any vaccine package insert, it is relatively shocking how little they are tested before they are mandated.
If by this you mean "tested in thousands of subjects in long-term Phase III trials before being marketed to the public" (government mandates normally come some time AFTER the product is licensed) then yes, it's shocking.
Posted by: anonimouse | February 15, 2008 1:58 PM
This was a good start with regards to detecting how ethyl mercury is eliminated from the body. Most, if not all, toxins are removed in the same manner. Funny thing about mercury; it crosses the blood brain barrier and deposits into brain tissue. The study did not take this into account, nor measure hair samples which would have been critical in truly determining if ethyl mercury is linked to ASD's. In research that has measured hair samples the findings reveal that autistic children have a much lower rate of elimination with respect to hair samples. Children who are not autistic had much greater levels of ethyl mercury elimination from their respective hair samples. Read the actual study before you report your agenda.
Posted by: mick | February 15, 2008 3:13 PM
Ah, the myth of the "poor excretor" strikes again!
Sorry, but that's one that's just not well supported at all, DeSoto and Hitlan notwithstanding.
Posted by: Orac | February 15, 2008 3:25 PM
So you think this is the only study that refutes the relationship? How about autopsies of vaccine injured children with deposits of hg and al in concentrations 2 times greater than what the epa allows per year?
Posted by: Mick | February 15, 2008 5:10 PM
"How about autopsies of vaccine injured children with deposits of hg and al in concentrations 2 times greater than what the epa allows per year?"
Linky linky, pretty please?
Posted by: notmercury | February 15, 2008 5:57 PM
Comparison of Blood and Brain Mercury Levels in Infant Monkeys Exposed to Methylmercury or Vaccines Containing Thimerosal
Thomas M. Burbacher,1,2,3 Danny D. Shen,4 Noelle Liberato,1,2,3 Kimberly S. Grant,1,2,3 Elsa Cernichiari,5 and Thomas Clarkson5
The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.
The large difference in the blood Hg half-life compared with the brain half-life for the thimerosal-exposed monkeys (6.9 days vs. 24 days) indicates that blood Hg may not be a good indicator of risk of adverse effects on the brain, particularly under conditions of rapidly changing blood levels such as those observed after vaccinations. The blood concentrations of the thimerosal-exposed monkeys in the present study are within the range of those reported for human infants after vaccination (Stajich et al. 2000). Data from the present study support the prediction that, although little accumulation of Hg in the blood occurs over time with repeated vaccinations, accumulation of Hg in the brain of infants will occur. Thus, conclusion regarding the safety of thimerosal drawn from blood Hg clearance data in human infants receiving vaccines may not be valid, given the significantly slower half-life of Hg in the brain as observed in the infant macaques.
Would you like more non-refutable evidence? Or is this study a farce as well?
Posted by: Mick | February 15, 2008 6:18 PM
Mick said "Would you like more non-refutable evidence? Or is this study a farce as well?"
Well, since you asked:
http://bartholomewcubbins.blogspot.com/2007/01/bc-on-autism-revisiting-burbacher-2005.html
Posted by: HCN | February 15, 2008 6:54 PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you said "...autopsies of vaccine injured children with deposits of hg and al..."
so I was sort of expecting something to do with autopsies, humans, and autism.
So where is the evidence I missed in the Burbacher study?
Posted by: notmercury | February 15, 2008 9:57 PM
can someone please provide the study where about 2000 or so people with no thimerosol intake are compared to about 2000 people who took the 1991 levels, and looked for differences in autism etc.
Also can you guys please give me the original toxicology studies from the 30's that proved mercury was safe to put in vaccines in the first place. I can find them for Splenda (animal models etc) but not for thimerosol. Thanks! waiting.
Posted by: cooler | February 15, 2008 11:13 PM
cooler knows that not only does no such study exist, such a study would be impossible to do for any number of ethical reasons. Nice try, though. Got any other pathetic anti-vax canards?
Posted by: anonimouse | February 16, 2008 12:42 AM
cooler -
No. Addressing you is pointless. You move the goalposts, you obfuscate and get very circular with your arguments. You refuse to address reasonable and legitimate responses to your arguments. You talk about your boner and seem to think that personal attacks are a reasonable rhetorical tool, unless of course they are addressed to you.
Most importantly, you are completely and utterly divorced from reality. Absolutely nothing I have ever seen from you, is willing even to consider the general, evidence based consensus on anything. Everything is a conspiracy to you. Everyone from scientists to the government are involved in some amorphous conspiracy or another, possibly one giant one.
I do not say this as a rhetorical tool. I do not say this to be insulting either. I will not try to debate you, because I am nearly certain that you are extremely mentally ill.
Posted by: DuWayne | February 16, 2008 1:15 AM
hahahahahah. So funny, you guys don't have one properly designed study! LOL what a joke. You cant find 2000 people somewhere in the world that would never have take vaccines anyways, hell what about 1000, and make a comparasin with vaccinated kids from the early 90's! I love it! Classic!
You've made your hypothesis unfalsifiable, for you make convoluted excuses why the most scientifically revealing study can't be conducted, therefore your hypothesis is unscientific!
And you've just admitted there were also no original safety studies done in the 30's like there was for Splenda etc, and then you call us Woo's!
Posted by: cooler | February 16, 2008 1:30 AM
Remember, cooler still believes in the Tooth Fairy and pixies. It is best to ignore s/he/it.
Posted by: HCN | February 16, 2008 1:46 AM
HCN - and as I mentioned elsewhere, Cooler is unable to use Ockham's Razor because s/he/it is not allowed to have sharp objects.
Posted by: Freddy the Pig | February 16, 2008 2:10 AM
Children who have been cured +/or improved by chelation prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that mercury caused the autism epidemic.
Babies did not receive much mercury in 1931 when Eli Lilly invented autism because there were not very many vacines. They also were not injected with mercury on the day they were born.
Now, they are poisoned in the womb by the mother's flu shot which contains mercury. This is even more effective than the HepB shot on day one at causing autism since the tiny fetus receives a much higher dose per pound.
It's time you medical jerks stopped harming babies and admit that you screwed up.
It's also time you morally bankrupt idiots took the thimerosal out of vaccines that are shipped to the third world. Do you know that exorcism is being widely used in Africa to deal with autism? Do you money grubbing scoundrels get a good laugh out of that?
Posted by: John Best | February 16, 2008 8:05 AM
Also did you morally bankrupt idiots got me sacked from being a Generation Rescue Rescue Angel?
It was nothing to do with me writing fantasies about being sodomised on my blog! It was you!! Its always someone else's fault!!
Posted by: John Beast | February 16, 2008 8:29 AM
Children who have been cured +/or improved by chelation prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that mercury caused the autism epidemic.
Let's see the case reports.
Do you know that exorcism is being widely used in Africa to deal with autism?
Do you know that exorcism is about as effective as chelation? Why do you think people keep practicing it?
Posted by: Joseph | February 16, 2008 8:55 AM
John is scripting again.
Posted by: notmercury | February 16, 2008 11:56 AM
"Personally, the GR folks need all the snark available aimed towards them. They are actually endangering other health imparied children by effectively degrading herd immunity, like what happened to these boys:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1055533.ece"
Thanks HCN for reminding us that you have to go back to 2004 to come up with anything to scaremonger about. Of course, it's clear that the article was used to smear Wakefield and to scare the people of Great Britain.
Also, thanks to the article... it is obvious that the doctors screwed up:
"This was something I'd never seen before. We had to think much harder about what it could be and decided to test for measles, even though measles-associated encephalitis hasn't been seen in the UK for many years.
The tests came back positive. Matthew and Joe were fighting for their lives against an affliction that British doctors thought had been consigned to the history books".
Again proving the point that doctors make mistakes. It happens all too often. I hope that the doctors learned a lesson from their mistake.
Posted by: Anonymous | February 16, 2008 12:43 PM
"Of course, it's clear that the article was used to smear Wakefield and to scare the people of Great Britain."
The only thing that smears Wakefield is Wakefield himself and his actions. The real question is whether the man is just amazingly stupid or whether he's a chronic liar.
Wait, I guess there really is no question there.
Posted by: Hey Zeus is my homeboy | February 16, 2008 1:26 PM
Did you know that chelators are toxins? Did you know that you can make a kid sick with them? Did you know that they can move lead from the body into the brain with a chelator? Did you know that people have been killed by chelation, no, make that did you know that people have been killed by chelationists?
The amount of thimerosal in vaccines has never harmed any baby in born or unborn, first world or third world, but John Best has harmed autistic people with his extremely abusive descriptions of them? Did you know he tells lies?
I'd like to know which John would rather have, 2 million dollars or a cured son. If he got his 2 million dollars would he happily put his son in an institution and go off and party?
Posted by: amomimous | February 16, 2008 2:57 PM
Anonny said "Thanks HCN for reminding us that you have to go back to 2004 to come up with anything to scaremonger about."
Oh, sorry... it is just so terrible to bring up a well written story. Do you need something more recent?
How about 200 dead children earlier this month:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802041067.html ... Or are unimportant children because they are African?
Oh, wait... look what happened this week in sparkly white Southern California:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/health/20080216-9999-1m16measles.html
Just a reminder the MMR never ever contained thimerosal, and it was introduced in the USA in 1971.
Posted by: HCN | February 16, 2008 3:04 PM
"How about 200 dead children earlier this month:
http://allafrica.com/stories/200802041067.html ... Or are unimportant children because they are African"?
Wow... unimportant because they are African? Lame strawman argument HCN. Let's get back to reality.
Are you suggesting that our medical care and/or our sanitation is on the same level as Africa? We are talking about a country where thousands of children die from STARVATION and DIARRHEA each year. Let's put it in perspective.
Also, who's doing the counting on the numbers of deaths there? Are they better at counting than those who count the US's flu deaths each year... Supposedly 36,000 people die here from the flu each year... The only problem? It's not true. But by all means don't let the facts get in the way of your scaremongering.
As for your second article from California... How are the kids now? Did everyone recover nicely? Am I supposed to be terrified that 12 kids got the measles? It almost seems as if you want me to be... I'm not.