On Thursday and Friday, the Chicago Tribune ran a two part series (part 1 and part 2) about what is arguably one of the worst atrocities (I agree with Steve Novella on this one) committed against autistic children in the name of antivaccine lunacy. Specifically, these articles discussed Mark and David Geier's Lupron protocol, which I blogged about three years ago, and Dr. Mayer Eisenstein, the founder of the woo-friendly Homefirst medical practice in suburban Chicago, whom I've also blogged about in the past.
Surprisingly, the reaction from the antivaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism has been very muted to nearly nonexistent. You'd expect that the antivaccine machers over at AoA would be very upset that the father-son team of heros of Generation Rescue (whose "studies" have been hosted and cited widely there) have had the harsh light of day shined upon their nefarious activities. Indeed, I speculated that perhaps the Geiers have gone so far down the rabbit hole of woo that even Generation Rescue feels the need to throw them under the bus, leading AoA editors to post an article by Dr. Lorene E.A. Amet critical of the "testosterone hypothesis" of autism, while not actually naming the Geiers.
Leave it to Dan "Sgt. Schultz" Olmsted to start the whine:
And then it hit me -- the huge headline, "'Miracle Drug' Called Junk Science -- Powerful castration drug pushed for autistic children, but medical experts denounce unproven claims." There was a picture of Dr. Geier and Mayer Eisenstein and a mother with her child who has autism. The story was about the debate over Lupron and whether it was helping the hundreds of children taking it.Of course, this weekend's Autism One Conference -- at which the Geiers and Eisenstein are speaking -- was mentioned. This kind of story is what, when I worked at the paper in Danville, we called a "precede." The Shriners are going to meet, let's say, so you figure out a story to write the day the convention starts. Maybe the latest on a child treated at the hospital for burn victims -- that sort of thing.
Well, this "precede" tells you what The Trib thinks about Autism One and the people like you and me who will be attending -- we're either quacks, or the desperate victims of quacks. The article lumps Lupron -- about which I know nothing, and have no opinion -- in with alternative approaches like diet, about which I do know something, and do have an opinion. Restrictive diets do work for many, many -- though not every -- child with autism. They are safe, they work best with the very youngest children, and it's almost a dereliction for a parent of an autistic child not to give it a try.
The reason that the Trib lumped the Geiers' Lupron quackery together with all the "biomedical" woo being featured at Autism One is because Autism One is, by and large, a quackfest for the antivaccine movement. It is, in essence, the quackapalooza of the autism quackery movement. While it is possible, albeit unlikely based on currently understood science, that a small fraction of the "biomedical" woo being featured at Autism One might have some mild benefit (perhaps diet, for example), the very fact that Autism One would feature talks by the Geiers shows that there is no filter. Scientifically mildly plausible, implausible, wildly implausible, rank pseudoscience, pure quackery, at Autism One it's all good. There's no filter. So, yes, Dan, it is perfectly appropriate to lump it all together, because, quite frankly, so much of what is presented at Autism One is such pure autism and antivaccine pseudoscience that a real, science-based autism researcher would be committing career suicide to present there and be associated with the taint of the pseudoscience that pervades the conference.
But Dan has a very short memory about the Geiers, too, dismissing Lupron as something he "knows nothing about" and about which he "has no opinion." About a year ago, Dan's partner in antivaccine woo, Kent Heckenlively, wrote a post for AoA entitled MERCURY, TESTOSTERONE AND AUTISM - A REALLY BIG IDEA! (Kent is a very excitable fellow.) In the comments, here is what Dan Olmsted wrote:
Anyway, I was at the Geier's home -- you know, the one with the fake paneling or whatever the NYT decided to ridicule it for -- to discuss lots of things with them. I had never heard of Lupron, but while I was there a child, a boy of somewhere in the 7-9 range i would guess, came for a Lupron shot. He was bouncing around the house in his own world while they got set up. I was just killing time and not paying much attention except to watch the child behave in what seemed to me like a very autistic way -- no eye-contact, no interaction, no concentration.
He got the shot, and within a VERY few minutes he seemed like a different child to me. He came up to me, interacted, made eye contact. Most of all he was so much calmer.
Again, I'm not offering this as an endorsement. You could probably shoot someone up with valium or some of the psychotropic drugs we DON'T want used on children with autism and manage to calm them down, or zone them out, or shut them up for some period of time.
This kid, however, was not zoned out, he was back from the zoned-out zone, however temporarily or coincidentally. Just had to put this on the record.
Personally, I think that the revelations of just how bad the Geiers are have gotten to the point where AoA and Generation Rescue are trying to distance themselves from this father-son team of woo. I view this as being for two reasons. First, Generation Rescue is finally being forced to accept that the evidence is not supporting the idea that mercury in vaccines is causing an "autism epidemic," as grudgingly as they do it. That's why they've been moving the goalposts for a couple of years now. Indeed, they've gone from saying that autism is a "misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning" from vaccines and other sources to saying about vaccines "too many too soon." Because the Geiers have never left the mercury militia, their quackery now seems less attractive. Second, they are (correctly) sensing that, after nearly four years of plying their Lupron quackery on autistic children, the press is starting to ask the hard questions of the Geiers and to shine a light on them. If there is any justice in the world, next will come interest from the insurance companies being induced to pay for Lupron to treat dubious diagnoses of "precocious puberty" in autistic children and from the medical boards of the states in which they have set up clinics.
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Well said.
You could give him the benefit of the doubt, he knows nothing about drug actions, so naturally he knows nothing about Lupron. And he's not forming an opinion based on the effectiveness of a treatment from a single anecdote.
Now get up from the floor and stop laughing, that's not polite.
This anecdote pretty clearly shows that in this case Lupron is only acting as a placebo.
What is important is the timing. Lupron is a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist. It blocks testosterone formation âup streamâ by first stimulating the Grh receptor (causing transient increase in gonadatropin releasing hormone) followed by a compensatory reduction in Grh receptor concentration which then reduces the production of follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone which then has the effect of reducing testosterone production.
The reduction in testosterone levels is not prompt and acute, any prompt and acute effect is most likely due to placebo. Very likely to the childâs relief that the anticipated treatment and injections by Geier was over.
I've seen that with my own kids and with countless other autistic children many, many times. Believe it or not, autistic children have variable behaviors and can be quite calm and interactive at times. Olmsted exhibits such powerful observational skills, he should really consider a career as a journalist.
"He got the shot, and within a VERY few minutes he seemed like a different child to me. He came up to me, interacted, made eye contact. Most of all he was so much calmer."
Lupron works that fast?
And a very frightening post: My son has autism and is 9 years old. He has always been a bit aggressive and has severe emotional meltdowns. He doesn't have pubic hair or body odor and has only had 2 small pimples on his face. He does get erections but does not masterbate. And his testicles have not desended yet. With all that said my son tested to have 2 times the amount of testosterone that he should have. I just picked up the shots today and am both scared and excited.
How much testosterone SHOULD a 9-year old boy have? What's the range here? And aren't the undescended testicles a cause for concern?
It sounds like they are going to be admi9nistering the injections themselves.
Undescended testes in an infant are a cause for concern, and IIRC possibly for surgical intervention. Also IIRC, in a 9yo they're very bad news instead -- undescended, they have a nasty habit of becoming cancerous.
Now, that assumes that "undescended" is the actual medical condition rather than a matter of the pubertal enlargement of the scrotum to allow temperature control by relaxation. I rather suspect that, since the mother in question has obviously been seeing a pediatrician who (one hopes!!!) would have long since flagged the dangerous condition.
I'm having flashbacks to a certain troll whose name, if I recall correctly, triggers comment moderation here. He'd probably chime in something like "Zero! Because he's not an adult, testosterone serves no purpose! Human biological functions are like toasters and light switches: They're either on or off!"
"He got the shot, and within a VERY few minutes he seemed like a different child to me. He came up to me, interacted, made eye contact. Most of all he was so much calmer."
Lupron works that fast?
And a very frightening post: My son has autism and is 9 years old. He has always been a bit aggressive and has severe emotional meltdowns. He doesn't have pubic hair or body odor and has only had 2 small pimples on his face. He does get erections but does not masterbate. And his testicles have not desended yet. With all that said my son tested to have 2 times the amount of testosterone that he should have. I just picked up the shots today and am both scared and excited.
How much testosterone SHOULD a 9-year old boy have? What's the range here? Aren't the undescended testicles a cause for concern?
It sounds like they are going to be administering the injections themselves.
Just so I can understand, does the correct medical term for undescended testicles be an inguinal hernia (which I am familiar) or I am confusing 2 separate conditions?
The "normal" range is about an order of magnitude. In males, the "normal" range increases by about 2 orders of magnitude during puberty.
Two different conditions.
It also is very revealing of the abysmal depth of scientific ignorance and professional incompetence of Kent Heckenlively. Any halfway competent journalist would at least have done a Google search on Lupron, or asked a biologist to explain how it works. There are many things in biology that are complicated, but this part is hardly rocket science, or even brain surgery. I do not consider myself an endocrinologist by any means, but I have enough basic knowledge to realize instantly that the notion that there would be an immediate response to Lupron is patently absurd, if indeed it is acting via testosterone.
As I said before, the Geiers should be shut down at the least, and preferably jailed. I'd accept Dr Geier losing his license to practice medicine.
You know "Orac," I see you have started to distance yourself from some of your garbage, just take a look at this quote of mine and your reaction to it:
""Amount" doesn't matter. A million "studies" claiming the Earth were flat wouldn't make it true. Likewise, pseudostudies claiming no association to autism consistent with overwhelming evidence of a CDC-cover up will only further convince me that vaccines cause autism.'
This is the mindset we're dealing with in Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, J.B. Handley, Barbara Loe Fisher, and the rest of the antivaccine movement. They all know that vaccines cause autism and are uninterested in anything that might challenge that belief."
So you admit it: Anything that challenges the belief that vaccines cause autism IS a pseudostudy.
You know "Orac," I see you have started to distance yourself from your "14" studies, just take a look at this quote of mine and your reaction to it:
""Amount" doesn't matter. A million "studies" claiming the Earth were flat wouldn't make it true. Likewise, pseudostudies claiming no association to autism consistent with overwhelming evidence of a CDC-cover up will only further convince me that vaccines cause autism.'
This is the mindset we're dealing with in Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, J.B. Handley, Barbara Loe Fisher, and the rest of the antivaccine movement. They all know that vaccines cause autism and are uninterested in anything that might challenge that belief."
So you admit it: Anything that challenges the belief that vaccines cause autism IS a pseudostudy.
Wow, the first time I tried submitting a comment it said an "error" had occurred, but the post uploaded anyway. The commenting gliches are worse here than at AoA.
Seriously, you guys are sponsored by chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies. Yet you can't work out the kinks in your own blog?
Jake, considering that you're bought and paid for by supplement companies you shouldn't complain about ads on someone site when they don't have any real control over them.
Jake - prove how Oracs comment is an admission.
No sidetracking.
No dodges.
No semantics.
No correct yet laughably irrelevant little 'factoids'
Just pure proof.
Let's see what you can come up with.
What is Lupron?
Lupron is a man-made form of a hormone that regulates many processes in the body. Lupron overstimulates the body's own production of certain hormones, which causes that production to shut down temporarily. It reduces the amount of testosterone in men or estrogen in women.
Lupron is used in men to treat the symptoms of prostate cancer. Lupron treats only the symptoms of prostate cancer and does not treat the cancer itself. Use any other medications your doctor has prescribed to best treat your condition.
Lupron is used in women to treat symptoms of endometriosis (overgrowth of uterine lining outside of the uterus) or uterine fibroids.
Lupron is also used to treat precocious (early-onset) puberty in both male and female children.
Vaccines cause autism. Period. Never ever ever will you change my mind. It is all a cover up by every health organization around the globe. They're all in on it from lab techs to scientists to CEOs to Orac himself. I don't care if every study ever done shows there is no link between autism and vaccines, I still know vaccines cause autism. I don't know how they do but I believe it, I believe it, I believe it, therefore it must be true. True true true true true.
Sorry Jake. Your beliefs and feelings don't change reality. Orac's beliefs and feelings don't change reality. Mine don't either. Best we can do is follow the evidence and none of it points the way you like it to. Thinking otherwise demonstrates a lack of knowledge of how research and science is done in addition to demonstrating you've probably been brainwashed if you're sincere in your beliefs and not just a troll.
So let me get this straight, Daniel J. Andrews, you believe: thousands of children regressing after vaccination is coincidence, huge increases in autism after Mumps quadrupling in MMR and thimerosal quadrupling in childhood vaccines is coincidence, poor baby hair excretion is coincidence, autistic children excreting 5x more mercury is coincidence after given a chelator is a coincidence, noticing autistic symptoms improve if not go away afterwards is a coincidence, inhibition of MB-12 by thimerosal is coincidence, improvement after MB-12 shots is a coincidence, children receiving DTaP vaccines with thimerosal being 6x more likely to be autistic than those without according to VAERS is coincidence, children receiving DTaP vaccines with thimerosal being 27x more likely to be autistic than those without according to VSD is coincidence, children receiving over 25 mcg in the first month of life being 7.26-11.35 times more likely to be autistic than those receiving none according to secret VSD data Verstraeten sent his colleagues to beg them to make "go away" is coincidence," children developing autism and GI problems after the MMR is coincidence, those children having vaccine-strain measles RNA in their white-blood cells is coincidence, those children having vaccine-strain measles viruses in their intestines is coincidence, evidence that vaccines with thimerosal are 10-100x more dangerous than vaccines without except the MMR is coincidence, thimerosal killing more cells exposed to testosterone than those without is coincidence when the ratio of boys to girls autistic is 4:1, thimerosal, the levels in vaccines exceeding EPA limits, effecting the parts of the brain associated with autism more so than methylmercury is coincidence, thimerosal causing mice to become autistic is coincidence, thimerosal causing monkeys to become autistic is coincidence, children living closer to mercury-emitting coal-burning plants being 61% more likely to be autistic for every half-ton of methylmercury excreted is coincidence, measles vaccination corresponding to autism rates in Japan is coincidence, thimerosal decrease corresponding to autism rates in Denmark is coincidence, thimerosal-containing vaccination rates corresponding to autism rates in California is coincidence, striking similarities between autism and mercury poisoning is a coincidence, that's an awful lot of things to call coincidence! I sure hope for your sake, Daniel J. Andrews, that you are right about all this.
But when a doctor receiving grant support from Wyeth does a study with one autistic participant who was exposed to 62.5mcg of thimerosal during his first month of life says there is no association between thimerosal and autism, that's evidence? When a sham journalist accuses a doctor of forging data by mischaracterizing a mother's fear of her son going deaf 10 weeks before his MMR as the first sign of autism when it was due to a serious ear infection, that's evidence, and when the overall quality of data against the vaccine-autism connection is no better than these two examples alone, you still call all that evidence.
I think you are the one for whom none of the evidence points the way he wants it to, David J. Andrews.
*Daniel J. Andrews, sorry I got your name wrong that last time. :P
[citation needed]
Nice one.
Unfortunately, because Jake views himself as being on the side of right he can't see that Generation Rescue and AoA are not pure; they take plenty of sponsorship from supplement makers. Most hilariously, AoA is sponsored by that über-quack Andrew Moulden:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/time_to_rub_age_of_autisms_fa…
Moulden is so bad that even John Best recognizes him as a quack.
On what grounds can Jake expect to be taken as anything other than a young history major who just happens to have an interest in autism?
It's hilarious that a member of the mercury militia is trying to slap "coincidence" hypotheses onto one of us. After all, when thimerosal was removed from the vast majority of vaccines (and was never in MMR), and autism continued to rise several years later, they started claiming that mercury emissions from China just coincidentally jumped up at exactly the same rate at which thimerosal was removed.
Try being less robotic Jake, and try simply asking us what we believe instead of idolizing what your Big Altie Supplement/Injury Lawyer overlords programmed into you.
Of course, you'll just cover your ears. Reminds me of all those times Best said that I believed autistic children could never improve despite our explanations being premised on autistic children often improving naturally by learning.
thimerosal decrease corresponding to autism rates in Denmark is coincidence,
This claim is exactly the opposite of what the data shows. The rates of autism in Denmark continued to climb after the removal of thimerosal from vaccines and rates were no different between children vaccinated with thimerosal containing and non-containing vaccines.
The mercury hypothesis is deader than Darth Vader. Forget it and pick another sinister conspiracy to blame. Or better yet, forget blaming anyone and just live your life.
Dedj,
In case you cannot remember, I HAVE autism.
Dianne,
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:y8LltCp5rQkJ:www.safeminds.org/rese…
and,
http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:RkOh-WMCE3gJ:www.safeminds.org/rese…
BD,
The California study is worthless, it looks at autism rates but not thimerosal exposure when there is no evidence thimerosal even decreased during the study period. Max Wiznitzer, expert witness in vaccine court for vaccine makers of all people, said the CDDS data should not be used for epidemiological study.
Jake...you need to supply evidence to back up your claims...and evidence consists of studies published in peer-reviewed journals. That is the gold standard. You need citations.
Otherwise, how can you know what is true and what is not true? Anyone can claim to have conducted studies that refute everything else published to date, and as you know, most of that stuff is absolute junk (think of the thousands of idiotic diet fads (or cremes you can spread on to lose weight) we've seen in the past 10 years...every one of them has people claiming this is THE diet/creme and it works better than any other).
If a study is not able to appear in a peer-reviewed journal chances are very good the study has flaws and is not reliable.
And I go by Dan (or DJ, Jack, Drew, Andy depending on who feels like calling me what)...I just use the whole Daniel J. Andrews thing to distinguish me from a hundred other Dans, Jacks, Drews, Andys on the net. :-)
Orac,
Vitamins do not constitute a conflict of interest, nor do they make much money at all, especially compared to multi-billion dollar corporations. The site where Andrew Moulden's interview is displayed also has an equally long interview of Paul Offit next to it, so you can just as easily say AoA is sponsoring him. I don't care who sponsors you as long as there is no conflict of interest in relation to what you blog, but that is not the case.
You are wrong. I receive no funding from pharmaceutical companies and haven't for around 14 years.
Daniel,
Almost all the data I've mentioned is based on studies in peer-reviewed journals or presented by researchers invited to present their data to high-ranking committees. The only ones that aren't are rebuttals of lousy studies claiming no link such as one studying the MMR and autism in Japan by Michael Rutter and thimerosal and autism in Denmark by Anders Hviid. There are also the data tables Verstraeten emailed his colleagues that were obtained in a FOIA request. Those are not in peer-reviewed journals because the CDC "lost" the raw data behind them, never intending the findings derived from them to go public, much less wind up in a medical journal. A private contractor later said he was ordered to destroy them.
There is evidence of children reacting adversely to vaccines and then getting better through chelation for example. However, the government has called it "anecdotal" while hypocritically refusing to study this. Even if it did, I doubt the government would be any less biased than the parents who report such improvements.
Orac,
All I can say is that you are one of three things:
Either good at dodging the real issue here
OR
Very good at your job....that is...making a hell of a lot of money on behalf of BIG PHARMA at the expense of your patients.
OR
All of the above
Which is it? You sure do have a lot of time on your hands. Not very typical of a "real" quack. I mean doctor.
Whoops, Dawn has evaded her ban once more. Wonder if she's going to hit the cooking sherry and grace us with some fine wharrgabl tonight?
Jake, you're really just not very good at this whole 'rhetoric' thing.
Let's face the facts...these moron scientists studied all of what....2 vacccines on the population instead of the entire schedule that our children are given? AND they call these legitimate studies?? Are they for real or what? They are IDIOTS!! Yeah, vaccines don't cause autism my a$$. They don't know - because the science has yet to be done. I hardly call the Italian Study legit because they don't eat what we do, they don't have the vaccinated schedule that we do, and they certainly DO NOT have the vaccinated GENES that we do either!!
Vaccinated genes.
I think I hurt something laughing, guys.
... and the descent into madness begins!
I wasn't expecting the Jack D. Ripper hypothesis so early however.
What Coyote, did your thong come loose?
Oh, by the way...medical community I have you to thank for giving my grandmother dementia what with her 10 medications that she is on now. AND her congestive heart failure no doubt to her yearly flu vaxes...which I will stop now that I know of them. Thank you AMA, FDA, CDC, and whatever else quackshop is involved in her care. You pathetic no good, lying, money racketeering SOBS.
I notice Dawn goes straight for ad hominem and well poisoning instead of challenging any of the logic.
Also funny that she accuses Orac of dodging the real issue when she immediately jumps to changing the subject.
The line about food's quite funny, because it adds one more layer of proof her camp would have to provide in its ever-changing maelstrom of hypotheses. Wasn't it Children's Tylenol + Vaccines last time?
And, of course, I laugh at the "vaccinated genes" line.
Are we sure this is the same Dawn, because she seems even further behind basic knowledge than I remember.
Funny also that she mentions strictly American institutions as the "racket" as if the world ends in an eternal waterfall shortly after the coastline.
Of course, if she acknowledged the rest of the world, she'd have to increase the size and administrative costs of the conspiracy by absurd amounts in order to maintain the belief in the god-like infallibility of her perceptions of an anecdote.
hehe...I hate it when someone says something so strange or wrong, and with such intensity, that my brain tries to explode and can't react for a minute or two.
It's like my brain is laughing independently because I'm so stunned by the incorrectness.
I always have this little voice in the back of my head that wants to ask people like Jake for sample sizes and standard deviations when it comes to uncited calculations like these.
Challenging what logic Bronze Dog? There really is none at all. You just have a bunch of hooligans following this cult forum that's all really.
How did I change the subject? Please tell me? It is the same old he said/she said. The only problem is that your side relies on studies conducted by the vaccine manufacturers. My side relies on unbiased, unadultered studies..What is wrong with this picture? Google Bernadine Healy...last I heard the studies have NOT been done on the children who regressed after their vaccines. After that, the CDC performed a study on something like 30 kids and then there was the Italian study....hardly facts I would say.
Toxins damage your DNA moron. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that one. Damaged DNA is inherited too. DUH....vaccines are loaded with toxins. Problem is they have never been studied long-term. Again, doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that one out does it?
As far as my logic, I think I surpassed you a long time ago dumb a$$.
OH.....WE HAVE ANOTHER WANNA BE.... Please tell us AZ what your area of "expertise is"....since you know everything.
Please everyone, if you care to. Show me how stupid you really are by proving your child's vax records. I really don't care if you black out their names and personal info, just show me proof that you did it and that you are that stupid. Hey, maybe we could make a TV show out of it! After all, you have access to all of this knowledge in the medical field and if you vaccinated your child regardless you are just plain dumb...no excuses, just stupid.
Yes, you changed the subject to Orac's motives. The ever popular and still robotic Pharma Shill Gambit.
1. We're relying on scientific consensus based off of multiple studies performed by multiple groups in multiple nations. You might want to try actually reading some of the more in depth entries and looking at the studies they link to.
2. Your side has yet to produce any decent study establishing a link. When we complain about sources of bias, you typically go into a rant about how science is inherently biased against the magical power of individuals to perceive anecdotes without a trace of possible error.
Try defying my expectations and produce a study that hasn't had its methodological flaws torn open and exposed.
LOL! And I'm not one to LOL liberally. "Toxins". Real specific. I suppose next you're going to go on about "chemicals." Here's a hint: EVERYTHING is a toxin (and a chemical). It's a matter of dose. Which toxins in which vaccines are at dangerous dose levels?
And funnier: How do these magical toxins specifically target human DNA in a manner that specifically causes autism? All genes are made of the same basic building blocks. Tell me how your unspecified toxins, which are probably comparatively simple molecules target specific types of genes?
And the fundamental joke: Autism isn't increasing to epidemic levels. We're just getting better at and more motivated to look for it.
Orac, so what exactly does cause autism... please tell.
Orac, so what exactly does cause autism... please tell.
It's pretty clear that it's baleful spirits, swapping a child for a changeling when humans fail to leave saucers of whiskey at the bottom of the garden.
TEACH THE CONTROVERSY
Since he's not probably not around at this hour, I'll just say what the consensus was last time I checked: The data so far suggests a genetic cause.
Of course, the "mercury, no wait, tylenol, no wait, trace amounts of formaldehyde less than the amounts found naturally in the human body, no wait, unspecified generic toxins, no wait, a very small number of antigens" crowd can't seem to keep their story straight for more than a couple weeks.
Ding...ding...ding...you are a total idiot Bronze Dog and I just realized it with your last sentence. Autism isn't increasing at epidemic levels? Are you THAT STUPID? 17% each YEAR isn't an epidemic? IN 30 years it is estimated that 1 in every 2 children will be on the spectrum you fool!! I take it that you have no children just yet. I do hope that you wake up in time to realize what is going on. No, it is NOT due to better diagnosis.... a recent study on the west coast has DISPROVEN this "THEORY". You really need to do your homework before you speak about topics that you know nothing about obviously.
And the wind whispered, 'diagnostic substitution due to the updated definitions in the DSM' ...
Nah, that's a silly idea. it's the atheist illuminati reptoids sapping and impurifying the bodily fluids of Patriots.
"A recent study on the west coast."
Wow. I should really trust this unspecific citation from a person who doesn't even understand basic principle of toxicology and seems to think that popping out a baby grants a person supernatural insight while rendering them immune to the failings and biases of us mere mortals who have to rely on the scientific method to filter them out. How's the weather up there in the ivory tower, by the way?
Nice bit of poisoning the well by changing the subject to my background, which you probably know nothing about, by the way. You sure showed the lurkers how epidemiology is relative to the background of some irrelevant guy who merely acts to point out fallacies and propaganda tactics when they're in use.
I wonder what you'd say to the other frequent commentators here who have their own autistic children if they said the same thing.
a recent study on the west coast has DISPROVEN this "THEORY".
[citation needed]
... west coast of what?
IIRC, HCN is one among us who has an autistic child, right?
Sometimes...it physically hurts me when I read these people. I have a lot of respect for those of you who fight against these loonies there, Orac and the other medical bloggers. We fight it here in Australia, nowhere near on the crazy level I see from...some other countries, and it gets the best of me sometimes, dealing with how deluded people can really be.
Meeting folks who truly believe that every one of us in the medical industry is part of a vast conspiracy makes me sad more than angry, these days. Most of the Doctors, Nurses, and Medical Researchers I work and associate with got into the game to help people, they are compassionate, honest, and exceptionally patient people. These people want nothing more than to destroy us.
I am afraid one day they -will- find out how a modern world without Doctors works...and it will be their turn to weep.
One thing that really annoys me about all the trolls is the conformist, jingoist, black-and-white streak they have. They can't see all the conflicting interests that we rely on to balance out. Insurance companies want patients to be healthy so that their customers can keep paying for them to do nothing. Some doctors join the profession because they want to help people, some do it for the money or prestige. The pharmaceutical companies want to make money, but they also don't want to have their reputation destroyed by failure to test their products. To the pure cynicism of the alties, they're all evil and monolithic in their sameness because they never bother to think that people can and do think for themselves.
They also never bother to think that there are other nations out there with different systems, beyond the reach of our national agencies.
And, of course, the whole black and white thing shows up between the lines with the "toxins" thing, as if there was some absolute border between "toxic" and "non-toxic", as if some random chemicals had no excess limit, or that human sensitivity to certain chemicals was uniform across the board.
And of course, with the parent gambit, she divides the world into another absolute: People who have magically infallible insight and mortals, as if their supernatural perception into causality trumped statistical data.
What frightens me about that last entry is that so many use it as an excuse to treat their child as if they were their private guinea pigs. Statistics be damned. Long live the Hollywood model of the isolationist mad scientist.
Bronze Dog:
There are lots of regulars who post here and on their own blogs (see The Autism Hub) who have autistic and disabled children, and who understand that vaccines had nothing to do with it!
And he continues:
And they starve if you don't feed them! This particular one shows up in the wee hours, often on holiday weekends. She does this because it takes Orac (who possibly has a real life) longer to block the new ISP she is using. She has no intention of learning anything, nor in answering basic questions (like HCN's perennial one about how the MMR or DTaP are worse than the actual diseases, or in the case of this particular troll, why her child's severe prematurity did not figure into the equation in regards to his disabilities).
Every single point that Bronze Dog and others has brought up is perfectly valid, but it is completely lost on the troll we call "Evil Dawn."
Every single point that Bronze Dog and others has brought up is perfectly valid, but it is completely lost on the troll we call "Evil Dawn."
Yep. Eventually she runs out of cooking sherry and falls asleep in her chair. Sadly, she did so this time before one of her entertaining rants about satanic homosexual jewish Democrats.
I couldn't even finish reading the article - it's just too painful. Am I just dreaming that we're in the 6th millenium BCE?
Hey Dawn of the BrainDead:
My aunt chose not to vaccinate her children because she didn't want to see them cry. My mother hauled us all off to get our shots. My aunt's children did not get their children vaccinated either. We all did.
Funnily enough, my aunt's side of the family has 3 ASD members out of 6, and my mother's side of of the family has 2 ASD members out of 30.
Being an epidemiologist, it is killing me to present anecdotal stuff to 'prove' something.
Duh, dawn, do ya think that ASD may run in families???
Geez. I leave the blog along for several hours to--you know--sleep, and Dawn somehow manages to evade the ban once more, make a comeback, and the crazy home like few can. I will give her credit for the "vaccinated genes" line. That would have been one of the funniest comments I've ever read on this blog, were it not for my realization that she actually believes such nonsense. The level of scientific ignorance this remark demonstrated is appalling--arguably even worse than that of Jenny McCarthy.
Say goodnight, Dawn. Except that it's morning now.
Snerd:
Saucer? Damn, no one told me it should be left in a saucer. Here I've been offering mead in a Viking drinking horn.
Maybe she's regressing.
There are also the data tables Verstraeten emailed his colleagues that were obtained in a FOIA request. Those are not in peer-reviewed journals because the CDC "lost" the raw data behind them, never intending the findings derived from them to go public, much less wind up in a medical journal. A private contractor later said he was ordered to destroy them.
Come on, Jake, a cite. ANY cite, even to an AOA website. Who is this contractor? Who is Verstaeten and what are those tables? If he emailed them to multiple colleagues they must still be around somewhere, even if the raw data is not.
And while you're at it, want to give a detailed critique of the studies you dismissed? Simply saying they're "lousy" is about as convincing as saying that the earth is flat because you think the moon landing was faked. Give some reasons why you don't believe the results. Are their statistical methods flawed? Have they ignored some important piece of information? Are they not looking at the right data? Did the Mercury Militia reprogram their computers when they weren't looking? At least come up with a reason why you don't believe a study instead of just saying, "La, la, la, I can't hear you."
they certainly DO NOT have the vaccinated GENES that we do either
No DNA vaccines are yet available for human use. Hmm...maybe Dawn is really a transgenic lab mouse. That would explain her bitterness about doctors as well as her near human level of intelligence.
For shame Jake.
Every time you post, I have a glimmer of hope that maybe you've started to use a synapse or two since I last saw a post.
Every time I'm disappointed.
For one: This entire tirade is a Gish Gallup.
Yes. It happens that vaccination occurs at approximately the same time that ASD begins to show signs and symptoms.
This isn't true. Citation? The huge increase occured after diagnostic criteria changed.
WTF is poor baby hair excretion?
Patently false. The mercury screens used in these situations are nortoriously inaccurate, and using 50 different labs like the Geiers do is guaranteed to give you a large number of false positives. Especially when there is no mercury there to begin with.
Ha, thats a funny once Jake. This is classic confirmation bias.
The only study to see if MB-12 worked showed no improvement vs placebo. Inhibition of MD-12 by thimerosal is nonexistant.
All of this is tinfoil ranting. No proof. Provide peer reviwe citations. If you ever want to be taken seriously don't waste our time with "secret data"
...Yes. Most children get GI problems.
No, it's not a coincidence. It's bad science - contamination that noone has ever been able to replicate.
I find it suprising that you don't find the inability to replicate damning evidence since on my blog you said that science is really about "independant verifiability".
Yes. That is a coincidence. What are the odds that some vaccines would be more dangerous than others? 100%. This is an incoherant statement.
Patently false. Citation needed. ratio of boys to girls completely irrelevant to what you're saying.
I believe the studies showed that thimerosal has a longer halflife than methyl mercury. I saw nothing about effecting parts of the brain at all. Citation needed.
Simply not true. Citation dude.
Argument by assertion is just wasting all of our time.
Yes. Oddly enough if you try to cherry pick 1 state and 1 country in the world, it is a coincidence. and the Japan comment is just untrue.
There is no similarity. Mercury poisoning is nothing like autism. Even most of the other people at AoA no longer pimp the mercury hypothesis.
For shame Jake, for shame.
Is Evil Dawn the one with numerous kids with ASD?
Is it impossible for her to think that maybe HER genes might have had something to do with it? Oh but yes, she would then blame it on her vaccinated genes - snort!!!
Her crazy is some of the best I have come across, I must say. And I pity her poor children.
Slight correction WT, thimerosal has an extremely short half life time, it gets converted to ethylmercury, which again is excreted faster than methylmercury. Otherwise you're spot on.
Pinky: What do you want to do tonight, Dawn?
Dawn: The same thing we do every night, Pinky -- try to prove that vaccines are TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD!
So can we expect a descent into incoherence?
"Dedj,
In case you cannot remember, I HAVE autism."
As do I. I believe I have already told you this.
This makes you a source for the subjective experience of having autism, but it in no way confers technical or scientific knowledge.
Whereas many amongst the ND movement have externally validated experience and qualifiactions in autism or related areas (such as Stanton, Murray, Arnold, Millar, Taylor, Turner etc) you don't.
Again, why should anyone take your poorly worded, badly referenced, poorly argued, shoodily thrown together discussion points anymore seriously than we would any other randomly selected history major?
Unlike the people you just love to bitch about, you have done nothing to get taken seriously.
Answer the question. Properly this time.
@Mu
*smacks forehead*
Rookie mistake, I'm not sure if I had a brain fart there or if the brain actually flipped all the way off while I was writing it. You are indeed correct, thanks for the correction.
@Mojo: Algernon was faaar more intelligent than Dawn was.
And Jake, as Dedj correctly points out, subjective experience is not scientific knowledge.
That would be like saying I'm a pulmonologist because of my subjective experience with asthma. Trust me, I'm not a pulmonologist.
"There are also the data tables Verstraeten emailed his colleagues that were obtained in a FOIA request. Those are not in peer-reviewed journals because the CDC "lost" the raw data behind them, never intending the findings derived from them to go public, much less wind up in a medical journal. A private contractor later said he was ordered to destroy them."
Aside from the issue (never addressed by Jake) that Verstraeten is far from the only person to find no correlation:
No, they are not in peer-reviewed journals because you DO NOT submit early stage data-sets as final copy. Never. It simply doesn't happen, because such a thing is irresponsible and sloppy. No researcher worth their salt would submit data without adjusting for confounders.
Any competant person who has actually read the original draft will instantly realise why it was not released as final copy. They basically identified huge potential factors that could massively bias the sample, and sought to adjust for them.
If you have evidence that the adjustments are wrong, then submit it. Prove it or move it.
As for the 'losing' of raw data. The CDC has not lost the VSD. It was still there last time I checked. As for the destruction of confidential data, you CANNOT - legally or contracually - hold onto confidential data for longer than you obtained the consent for. Once you have finished with it, it HAS to be destroyed or else you risk commiting a criminal act.
Without a doubt the contractor employed to shred the material would have been a confidential documents contractor, shredding those documents alongside hundreds of others.
Jake - or rather Robert Kennedy whom Jake stole his arguement from - presents it as a nerfarious underhanded plot, when there are actually rational, everyday explanations. Such a lack of understanding of what actually goes on in studies does not reflect very well on Jake.
Jake has already accused his betters (like DeStaffano) of lying, based on a shockingly bad misreading of this paper http://www.nomercury.org/science/documents/ThimerosalVSDstudy_2-29-00.p… , in which he failed to notice the words 'update' splashed across the front page.
The only safe conclusion to be drawn is that Jake actually doesn't know what he's talking about.
Wow.
@ Dawn: quick, take your meds!
I would be happy to provide my children's immunization records. But I can tell you: they were fully immunized as infants, have stayed up-to-date per the CDC schedule, PLUS they get a flu vaccine every year. If I lost their records and they needed a complete second set for school admission, I wouldn't hesitate to have them revaccinated. I believe it is one of the best things I have done to help protect my children from preventable diseases that could kill them.
I think someone already said this, but I feel sorry for your children/family/all humans with whom you come into contact.
There is a level of crazy and anger in your posts that I somehow doubt is only triggered by the mention of vaccines.
As I said at the beginning, just: wow.
DebinOz said "Is Evil Dawn the one with numerous kids with ASD?"
No, she is the woman who had pre-eclampsia, and her child was born prematurely by C-section. She tends to not seem to understand that the high blood pressure or other factors have a more complications than vaccines.
She lives on the American East coast, in the same time zone that is time stamped on the comments, so yes... she is posting her nonsense between midnight two in the morning. It is just an educated guess that she is being fueled by fermented grape juice. Here is comment thread that brought much of it out:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/the_dark_lord_of_vaccination_…
I'll have to remember when I grow weary of fighting the wackaloons over at Huff to come back here and realize that at least Huff doesn't allow the full batshit crazy to be seen. That would definitely hurt the cause. Orac, good for you; it makes it easier when that level of crazy is visible. No person on the fence and in their right mind would read that stream of idiocy and head in that direction.
Dawn beats out PlaceboStudman on this thread, but only because of language choice: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-lovinger/should-a-former-playboy-m_…
I'll have to remember when I grow weary of fighting the wackaloons over at Huff to come back here and realize that at least Huff doesn't allow the full batshit crazy to be seen. That would definitely hurt the cause. Orac, good for you; it makes it easier when that level of crazy is visible. No person on the fence and in their right mind would read that stream of idiocy and head in that direction.
Dawn beats out PlaceboStudman on this thread, but only because of language choice: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-lovinger/should-a-former-playboy-m_…
sorry for the double post. :-)
I do not consider myself an endocrinologist by any means, but I have enough basic knowledge to realize instantly that the notion that there would be an immediate response to Lupron is patently absurd, if indeed it is acting via testosterone.
@Jake: To summarize, it's not necessarily about coincidence. Those claims are simply not shown to be true.
Plus, there is such a thing as coincidence, e.g. decrease in pirates vs. increase in global temperatures. After the 1990s, you can probably find a million coincidences of upward trends that have to do with technological and economic advancement, e.g. cell phones vs. the internet.
Orac,
I did not say you get money from pharmaceutical companies. Don't accuse people of claiming to know more about yourself than they actually do if you are going to do the same to others.
Whitecoat,
"It's bad science - contamination that noone has ever been able to replicate."
Who is more likely to contaminate evidence: a doctor or a student?
"I find it suprising that you don't find the inability to replicate damning evidence since on my blog you said that science is really about "independant verifiability"."
Does this same rule apply to the researcher claiming laboratory contamination?
I already went over how bad those "clinical trials" were in a previous thread, they used low-quality rosters, lasted only a couple weeks, then switched placebos with MB-12 making pervious improvements children made on the vitamin go away looking like "behavioral fluctuation," which is the bias that the person doing the trial was prone to, especially since patented drugs make more money than vitamins.
"Even most of the other people at AoA no longer pimp the mercury hypothesis."
Do a custom search for "mercury" on AoA, you will come across 4,250 hits.
In case you haven't noticed, I only provide citations when others provide them, too. Otherwise, it's just a waste of my time.
Dejd,
Stop misreading what I write, the CDC did not lose the entire VSD, only the Verstraeten data, but then somehow it winds up in the hands private contractors ordered to shred them? If data is lost by the original keepers, and winds up with someone else, common sense would be to return it to its rightful place, not destroy it. Looks like another CDC fib.
"They basically identified huge potential factors that could massively bias the sample, and sought to adjust for them."
Amazing, not even the CDC is able to tell us what those were, but Dejd can! The email exchanges between Verstraeten and his colleagues in the meantime reveal just the opposite, that there are huge elevated risks and Verstraeten cannot make them go away, even after a previous email sent to Davis where Verstraeten says he is hoping there will be huge errors identified in the data! lol
Verstraeten even admits that the addition of Harvard Pilgrim, starting in the third phase, was a bad idea. THAT was the HMO where no elevated risks associated with any disorder was found, which was included to rig the results in the final published draft!
"based on a shockingly bad misreading of this paper" - Man, speak for yourself, the last pages clearly say: "DRAFT - CONFIDENTIAL."
It's amazing how much you claim to know but don't.
PS: You name all these NDs who supposedly have "externally validated experience and qualifiactions in autism or related areas," do you?
No Joseph, they were never shown not to be true, they weren't even critically studied. For autism to be neurodiversity, it would have to be caused entirely by genetic mutations that have occurred in nature only, there is no evidence that this is the case in spite of hundreds of genetic studies done. So as far as I am concerned, neurodiversity has been shown not to be true.
Jake said,
Completely incoherant, since I am not claiming I did this research myself. You are referring to a study done by Wakefield's group. No lab has been able to replicate this data, and the lab associated with Wakefield's group admitted to a variety of contamination problems.
The question is, "Who is more likely to contaminate, Wakefield's group, or all of the groups unable to replicate their data?"
Wakefield's associated lab admitted the contamination. It is not ONE lab that was unable to replicate their results, it was multiple labs.
This is intellectually dishonest. This clinical trial was far more rigorous than all of the Wakefield group trials that you cite, none of which used any sort of control. Be consistent.
At any rate, randomized crossover studies are excellent ways to study potential treatments. Your belief that they aren't is emblematic of your history background rather than science background, not of failures of the study itself.
Oh my! Really? Let's resolve ALL of our discussions by number of articles, lets just use googlefight!
If you read generation rescue and AoA's sites, they used to claim, more or less across the board, that autism was mercury poisoning. Now many pimp vaccine overload, and other even more crazy ideas. The Gen Rescue site itself no longer pimps mercury as the specific cause. So number of sites, completely irrelevant since that says nothing about their current position.
At least get your woo correct.
Simply untrue. You are creating a straw man definition of neurodiversity.
That good sir, is a load of crap, You never provide legitimate citations, you provide distractors that make no sense in context of the discussion, like happened in our previous "discussion", but to appease you,
Autism Spectrum Disorder: No causal relationship with vaccines DOI: 10.1111/j.1440-1754.2007.01239.x
Please note, this article cites multiple other authors, with lots of "independant verification." Please verify those sources before you whine about this particular author.
If you prefer I can post each and every article cited by this review article here, one at a time, and you can go through your normal routine, of trying to come up with a conflict of interest for every investigator involved.
@Vindaloo
It's even more crazily phrased since the way he wrote it implies that I was claiming to have done the research myself (me=the student in question the way he wrote it.)
What's most disappointing about Jake is that even when his inconsistancies and hypocrisies, and lack of knowledge is pointed out to him, he complains that it's really our fault. His heros are right, and we're all just part of the massive conspiracy to keep the "mercury poisoning" going
I did not say you get money from pharmaceutical companies. Don't accuse people of claiming to know more about yourself than they actually do if you are going to do the same to others.
Uh-huh.
Seriously, you guys are sponsored by chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies. Yet you can't work out the kinks in your own blog?
I can only assume that you're going to respond that somehow the set 'you guys' does not intersect with the set 'Orac'.
@Jake: You stated those claims are true. The burden of proof is on you and those who think like you. It's not very honest to categorically state something is true when all you got are hunches and feelings.
Second, you completely misunderstand and misrepresent both heritability and neurodiversity.
"Stop misreading what I write"
Jake, I've already given you one entirely reasonable scenario where the data could have been destroyed legitimately.
The fact that the scenario defies common sense should have indicated that maybe the story that the data was 'lost' wasn't actually the whole story.
I would advise you ro read up on policies on how to deal with confidential documents. It's entirely possible that the data was destroyed by a confidential data contractor according to policy.
However, I've managed to track down two sources that indicate that data may have been 'lost' because data "had not been archived in a standard manner". This is massively different to saying that they were 'lost'.
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11234&page=34
hhs.gov/ nvpo/ nvac/ documents/ 1004DrftMin.doc
So, how have we gone from "not been archived in a standard manner" to being 'lost'? Provide a primary source (i.e. the CDC itself) that indicates the data was 'lost'.
Funny, I don't see you referencing the Senate report (http://help.senate.gov/Min_press/autism.pdf) on all of this. Why is that Jake? I'm sure it's nothing to do with them finding that the CDC actually shared the data quite freely amongst competant and trusted parties.
"Amazing, not even the CDC is able to tell us what those were, but Dedj can!"
I don't need to. It was in the most suprising place of all:
In
the
original
paper.
You clearly have not read it, it's time to stop pretending that you have.
"Man, speak for yourself, the last pages clearly say: "DRAFT - CONFIDENTIAL." "
First, you initially treated the update as an actual study, accusing DeStaffano of 'covering it up', even though it's marked clearly as an update to a study. Secondly, the last pages are in reference to a conference call. It even states so right on those pages. You can't even get that bit right Jake.
This is yet another example of your source not saying what you think it does Jake. Quote-mining doesn't fly here Jake.
"You name all these NDs who supposedly have "externally validated experience and qualifications in autism or related areas," do you?"
Not 'supposedly' , most are findable through google, the organisations they work for, or through the professional literature. Some teach degree level courses on autism. One was involved in setting HM Governments' official technical definition of autism. People who have you beat flat out in terms of qualifications and experience in other words.
Anyway, I have clinical experience working as a health professional within a county-wide service which provided MDT services to people with LD and autism, in inpatient, community and residential home settings.
and
Experience as a staff member working within a adult autism education centre, providing education to mild and severely autistic adults. Experience working a a staff member providing 1-1 supervision to older autistic adults during vocational placements. The legally required qualifications required for the above.
So that's a yes then. Compared to Arnold or Murray (both involved nationally with autism services), Millar (published designer of an ADL intervention system) or Stanton (worked in special and LD education) it's minimal. Compared to yours? Well, we haven't established that you have ANY to be compared TO.
So, I ask again. This will be the third and last time, as I'm tired of your avoidance.
What, barring having autism, is the reason that anyone should take anything you say about autism more seriously than any randomly selected history major (who just happens to have rudely hijacked a thread on someones blog for his own personal agenda)?
Sorry, I was looking for more, the Dan Burton congressional hearing where the contractor purportedly was ordered to destroy the data. The nearest I can find is Waxman pointing out that even anonymised data available could be (and was) used to identify the entire medical history of individuals. It's no wonder Waxman opposed the Safeminds subpheona.
In short, Jake appears to be making shit up.
"For autism to be neurodiversity, it would have to be caused entirely by genetic mutations"
Sorry Jake, but ND conditions can also be acquired, developmental, progressive, degenerative or even the result of trauma.
It's what we do about them that counts, Jake, not where they come from.
"So as far as I am concerned, neurodiversity has been shown not to be true"
Well, Jake, when you use such a non-standard and rather bizarre definition of "neurodiversity", you're not going to find it are you?
Start by looking in the proper places Jake.
You have been informed of where these are enough times, Jake. You have no excuse.
Jake Crosby said: So as far as I am concerned, neurodiversity has been shown not to be true.
Jake, since you rub elbows over at AoA, clearly you can explain to us how if vaccines are the cause of autism and genetics have nothing to do with it how Kim Stagliano has three autistic children, yet only two have had any vaccines at all?
Can you explain how the scores of parents that happily take your advice, then are shocked later to find out their their avoiding vaccines did not protect their children from autism? A long thread over at Mothering.com is a fine example.
Now that Jenny is spreading the word, more and more parents are coming to the shocking conclusion that the only thing avoiding vaccines gives them is a chance to get measles/mumps/pertussis/etc in addition to the autism they didn't avoid. There is a reckoning coming, and a whole lot of pissed off parents that are going to be demanding answers.
Didn't you know the new things the woos are promoting is that it is still vaccines, but its the genetic changes in the parents caused by their vaccination that leads to autism in the next generation. According to the woos, that's why I have three on the spectrum. Huh, go figure.
And my god, tell them you think they're wooquacks on a comment on their blog and they get all sorts of pissy. http://www.ageofautism.com/2009/05/on-media-the-chicago-tribune-fails-c…
:-) Worth every crazy-ass comment coming my way,though, and going right on at sciencerocks.proboards.com and kwombles.blogspot.com.
Hey, Jake, make sure you point out my rebuttals over there are being censored, mkay?
As I have posted previously, my large family has become its own clinical trial. One branch with no vaccines for two generations, and the other with full vaccines. Lo and behold, the rate of ASD is way higher in the non-vaccine branch. We have three or four generations of ASD people (if you count the now-deceased aunt who never married, was exceptionally successful in her field and collected weird stuff). We have musicians, engineers and doctors. Many of us would be regarded as a little 'odd', but without a diagnosis. There are some with mild learning disorders, and a couple with borderline psychiatric problems.
We would be the poster family for neurodiversity.
Dawn,
Here's an anecdote for you.
My wife is a consultant paediatric intensivist, i.e the one who treats the most severe reactions to vaccines and the worst measles, Here in the UK, there is virtually no private practice in paediatrics, let alone paediatric intensive care (thank goodness for the NHS) and my wife has never received more than a branded Draeger lanyard by way of industrial funding. Meanwhile, I hated medical school, but liked the labs, and now have an MSc in toxicology. Just to bugger up your stereotyping completely, I am a Green Party activist.
And yet we will have no more qualms about giving our children the full vaccination schedule than we will about teaching them to ride a bicycle on the road, because the evidence of benefit (of both) is so strong.
So tell me: how do we fit into the conspiracy?
@RedGreenInBlue
To Jake that just means you're lieing - I'm a med student who gets paid nothing by anyone yet he still thinks I'm a big Pharma Shill.
Oh man I take a 4 day weekend and I get the best present I could hope for on my return to work, crazy dawn showing up in the comments!!!
Please Orac, can you make it so every week or so there's a thread she can comment in? You don't know how much it cheers my dreary existence to see a pro-disease "OMG ITS MERCURY NOT GENETICS" person say the following:
"...and they certainly DO NOT have the vaccinated GENES that we do either!!"
Olmsted whines:
Let's see....quacks - check; desperate victims of quacks - check....
It appears Mr. Omsted left one out: apologists and enablers of quacks.
Fixed that for you, Mr. Olmstead.
He previously asserted:
But he more recently admitted:
Clearly, Mr. Olmsted knows nothing about Lupron - or pharmacology or human physiology in general. If he did know even the tiniest bit about pharmacology and physiology, he would have known that Lupron takes days to suppress testosterone production.
So much for Mr. Olmsted's objective observation skills.
Prometheus
si thank admin