...is Joseph at Autism Natural Variation.
It turns out that he can't find the correlation between precipitation levels and autism diagnoses that Waldman et al study; he too points out that urbanicity was not controlled for; and he even thinks a bit of cherry picking may have occurred.
Meanwhile, Steve Novella is a bit less harsh, but his analysis is pretty skeptical as well.
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I guess Barack Obama's mad hypnotic powers worked.
One non-political thing that this election has reminded me of is that when you've been blogging as long as I have (nearly four years now--almost as long as a Presidential term!--assuming you're good and have found a niche in the blogosphere, you…
Last week, the Journal of Pediatrics published a study that did a pretty good job of demolishing a favorite antivaccine trope used to frighten parents. In fact, it's one of the most effective of antivaccine tropes, as evidenced by a large number of parents who are generally pro-vaccine expressing…
One of the core beliefs of the antivaccine movement is that there is an "autism epidemic." The observation that autism prevalence has been climbing for the last two to three decades led some parents with autistic children to look for a cause, specifically an environmental cause, for autism. Because…
Here we go yet again.
I'm half tempted to use a YouTube clip of Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part 3, where he says, "Just when I thought I was out...they pull me back in." I'll restrain myself this time. Instead, I'll just tell you what I'm talking about, which is the…
Thanks for linking. I was surprised that I couldn't even find a state-level trend, and there was no need to control for urbanicity. I think the problem is that there are a few states that may be considered outliers. But it looks bleak.
Then you have to ask yourself why it is that they chose those 3 states.
Off topic, but Huffington Post was reporting today that JFK Jr. may be offered the post of EPA Administrator in the Obama administration. I got nowhere trying to explain to some people why I thought he would be a fairly bad choice, given that his association with the vaccine-autism woo crowd indicates that he may not recognize good science if it were to bite him on the backside.
I think this may call for a dose of Respectful Insolence, as only you can prescribe....
Well, shoot! It looks like you already have! Many thanks to you.
I would think that being dead would be a good reason not to consider him...unless you really meant Robert Kennedy, Jr., that is.
If Obama really makes Kennedy the head of the EPA will we be talking about the Democratic War on Science the way we have the Republican War on Science? This seems like one of the worst moves Obama could make. I was really hoping it wouldn't be same crap different name under Obama. I'm still giving him the benefit of doubt and just pray Kennedy is not in an Obama administration.
To add, putting someone as anti-science as Kennedy in a place that demands so much science like the EPA especially after years of Bush just boggles the mind...
Turned on my TV to see Fox News (my coverage of choice for the election, not a usual preference) enthusiastically covering this ridiculous study.
"What you must know about this devastating disease -- where you live may be the cause."
I can only assume it's being picked up as a human interest story by other networks as well. Made me sad.
I saw a study recently that linked a lot of TV viewing before the age of 3 with autism; this would make sense to me, since you're plopping children whose brains are churning out connections that tell them how to socially interact in front of boxes that have moving people inside of them that do not react to anything you say or do.
Wouldn't this rain study be a correlation of that? I mean, there's a pretty strong connection between the amount of rain and the amount of time people spend watching TV.
The TV study is from the same group. And Joseph also covered it here:
http://autismnaturalvariation.blogspot.com/2006/10/precipitation-rates-…