Autism One: As quacky as it ever was

That last passage from the quantum guy is pretty much a self-parody.

It reminds me of this hilarious incident in the world of mathematics:

http://thatsmathematics.com/blog/archives/102

I still have trouble believing that people could possibly think any treatment involving bleach is a good idea. I can only imagine they disengage their brains first.
Tesla woo, on the other hand, well it's usually a good sign to suggest that someone has no background whatsoever in either physics or electronic engineering...

I did not see an attribution for the picture. Is that Orac's lovely tile and rubber ducky family?

Did you really say, "the International Quantum University for Integrative Medicine in Honolulu". If they're hiring, I promise to believe in quantum integrative medicine

I see that Stephenie Seneff will be there as well, talking about how mercury aluminum glyphosate some INTERACTION between glyphosate and aluminum or something causes every disease EVAH, but especially autism.

Like JP above, I'm glad to see Seneff there. The more she associates with the nutcases the sooner MIT might actually make a statement about her pseudoscience.

It's truly depressing that all of these quacks still hold influence on the beliefs of such a large number of people. My own mom is included... she'd rather believe in all of this garbage rather than her scientifically literate son.

I work with chlorine dioxide for a living as part of water treatment systems. It is definitely not safe for kids or parents or any environment where living things exist.

I see that Stephenie Seneff will be there as well, talking about how some INTERACTION between glyphosate and aluminum or something causes every disease EVAH, but especially autism.

You mean how semiotic entropy causes autism?

You mean how semiotic entropy causes autism?

Ha, this is indeed perhaps my favorite Seneff moment, but it doesn't seem to show up in the blurb about her talk. (Or the "panel" she's later on.)

I got a giggle out of how she decided to put ALL THE LETTERS after her name: Dr. Stephanie Seneff, BS, MS, EE, PhD.

And although there is sadly no mention of semiotic entropy, I have to wonder if she isn't getting into sun-gazing:

I will propose simple lifestyle changes that can protect your children from autism, including an organic whole-foods diet, abundant sun exposure to the skin and eyes, and an altered vaccine schedule.

Real ducks are protesting their association with AutismOne, saying it's just as unfair as the notorious Peeps lineup.

http://truenewsusa.blogspot.com/2013/04/true-news-usa-photo-of-day-chic…

A dispassionate assessment [...] Sayer Ji

From what I have read of Mr Ji, I doubt the "dispassionate" part.

[Kerri Rivera] is the author of “Healing the Symptoms Known as Autism.”

An homeopath worrying about treating "Symptoms"? Isn't something only nasty mainstream physicians do?

“How can this be bad if people are healing and nobody’s dying?”

We have a similar argument for vaccines. The alt-med crowd don't find it sufficient.

It should also be mentioned that media attention is leading to a criminal investigation of MMS suppliers and MMS-using parents in Ireland. This article was posted on Vice the same say as NBC's story: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/parents-bleaching-their-kids-in-ireland-…

Completely OT, but since mebbe last Frida, pretty much every time I leave an Insolent page open to click on another open tab (Chrome, XP Pro), the page self-navigates to this. Just me?

The comments on the NBC bleach article seem to be about what we'd have expected, with lonely skeptics addressing loud and "proud" proponents of child abuse.

I so do miss lilady's fierce advocacy for special needs children and empathetic, yet factual, smackdowns of woo-besotted parents who've been suckered in to demeaning, depersonalising, and abusing their children rather than getting on with it.

Hmmph. That would be "Friday" with a "y."

A few other presenters/ presentations caught my eye..

- Seneff isn't the only ex-scientist to stoop to this level- Mikovits and Tomljenovic will appear as well.
- David Lewis will continue perseverating about poo
- Raphael Kellman will probably carry on about the gut/brain
- John Gray will discuss Venus and Mars or something
- keynotes will be Fearless Parent as Orac mentioned and FOCUS For Health ( ne Focus Autism) Barry Segal's project
-TMR will appear and host a LOUNGE ( with, alas, no lounge acts but perhaps a lizard or two) with alcohol. TMs will talk about avoiding dying and give writing instruction.
- there will be a marijuana discussion
- VaxTruth presents 4 of their dissemblers
- there are book signings galore and two films: BOUGHT and Trace Amounts and the perpetrators responsible for their initiation and distribution
- there will be a red carpet for photo ops prior to the Saturday night gala ( you read that correctly)
-INTERESTINGLY a few people will not be selling their swill- I don't see any AoA creatures but for Heckenlively- who wrote a book with Mikovits . Jake will not appear.
I wonder why

Unfortunately I cannot be a spy in the house of woo ( too distant, I use my real name, I have to work Thursday and am already booked for Saturday) but I really and truly hope that a devoted minion with a 'nym who lives nearby will go and report for us. We can all use the hilarity. PLEASE....

Oh Jes-s! I wrote about instruction from bad writers, looked at AoA and lo and behold Gamondes has a new entry about sceptics with photoshopped images and and and.
I swear I did not conjure that fiasco. I did ask for hilarity and the universe responded.( not really, it's always loony there)

AND she 'hints' at a cockamamie conspiracy about who backs these terrible people.
And yes, we know many of them.

Being a responsible person, I should issue a warning to any who might intrepidly wade into Gamondes' miasmic biofilm of free floating imagery and barking ideation: it proceeds from ridiculous to horrendous.
Not suitable for work or sensitive individuals unless they are trained professionals in the healing arts

Being a responsible person, I should issue a warning to any who might intrepidly wade into Gamondes’ miasmic biofilm of free floating imagery and barking ideation: it proceeds from ridiculous to horrendous.
Not suitable for work or sensitive individuals unless they are trained professionals in the healing arts

I have to run along to a rehearsal shortly and prob'ly won't be able to read the whole screed this morning, but man, this new one from Gamondes: wow. Just wow.

abundant sun exposure to the skin and eyes

It's not bleach enemas, but it sure ain't healthy...

So it's "biofilms" now, is it? It's kind of funny, in a sad way, how antivaxers are always trying to look "cutting edge" by appropriating the latest trends in biology (epigenetics, Th1/Th2 T cells, etc.) about 5 - 10 years after they've stopped being the latest trend. It's kind of (vicariously) embarrassing to watch them crowing about the latest paradigm shift that's going to rock the foundations of science years after the hype in the scientific community has already settled down to boring, mundane research (which, needless to say, will never be allowed to influence their original wild speculations in any way.) I'm trying not to think about what's going to happen when they get their hands on systems biology - it should be any decade now.

Mike says (#3),

Is that Orac’s lovely tile and rubber ducky family?

MjD's response,

Possibly, the black mold growing on the bottom edge of the wall further indicates that it's Orac's place.

Seriously, in my opinion, Autism One is a fine organization.

In reading Rivera-Dugenio's topic, one item was new to me - geopathic stress. So off to the great Google I go, to get a degree in geopathic stress. The first link that comes up http://www.safespaceprotection.com/electromagnetic-fields-geopathic-str… warns me that -

Studies have shown that over 85% of patients who die from cancer have experienced regular exposure to geopathic stress.

Well, that don't sound good. We should all stay away from that. I wondered where I would find geopathic stress, and the same page tells me that -

Geopathic stress lines or zones emanate EMF radiation naturally from the earth due to geological features such as underground streams, mineral concentrations, fault lines and underground cavities.

Man-made alterations of the landscape, anything from underground cables to road construction projects, can create or intensify geopathic stress

Anybody know where I can move to to get away from this scourge? Because that sure does sound like everywhere I've been, and I have traveled a bit.

I also read on the same page -

Electrical ground current is can be a factor that causes Geopathic stress. Electrical current returning to the substation through the earth can act as “stray voltage.” Electrical ground currents occur when the utility's wire is overloaded and returns back to the substation “off the wire,” traveling through the earth conducted by soil, water, plumbing lines.

Overloaded wires? I know that's a bad thing. I thought that it was good that there are circuit breakers to protect us from overloaded wires, but then I read (bolding mine)-

Electro-pathological energy created by modern technology can also contribute to geopathic stress in the form of high and low frequency energy from telecommunication towers, electricity pylons, transformers, radar and radio towers. As well as electromagnetic fields that emanate from such structures as high tension, or satellite towers, electrical street poles, or circuit breakers.

But, hey, all is not lost. They have a $150 hologram to protect us.
http://www.safespaceprotection.com/products/radiant-room.aspx

@Michael J. Dochniak

Seriously, in my opinion, Autism One is a fine organization.

And why do you think that?

Seriously, in my opinion, Autism One is a fine organization.

No doubt. You fit right in with that bunch of loons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2WPJQPo0kI

Electrical ground currents occur when the utility’s wire is overloaded and returns back to the substation “off the wire,” traveling through the earth conducted by soil, water, plumbing lines.

In many situations, 100% of current "returns" in earth ground, by design. It's been that way since people started shoving electrons through wires to houses. Has he never been in a rural area where much of the power distribution is on a single overhead conductor? The bulk of the current flows more or less directly under the overhead wire, due to those pesky laws of nature regarding current flow and magnetic fields.

Cathodic protection systems would send this dolt in hysterics.

Remember the AoA endorsement of the bleach enemas a few months ago with the theory that they were cleaning out intestinal worms? Well, guess what else is being peddled at A1 this year -- helminth therapy... AKA, intestinal worms. Not to mention several versions of magic water, from homeopathy to "structured water clusters." Someone should get a group shot of Wakefield with all of these hucksters and annotate it. Not exactly the Royal College of Surgeons, is it? It would make a great meme.

Just had a look at the site capital Johnny linked to.

EMF stands for Electromagnetic fields

Um, no. It stands for electromotive force.

If I had a bunch of money to burn, I'd buy one of the blatantly fraudulent hologram things from www.safespaceprotection.com (to use Narad's method in the manner of promotion of P'Hills) and whisk it off to the EMI/RFI test chamber at the local testing lab, just to prove it does nothing.

People who are this ignorant are delivering health advice?! Low johnny and Theo have some serious competition.

I have to run along to a rehearsal shortly and prob'ly won't be able to read the whole screed this morning, but man, this new one from Gamondes: wow. Just wow.

I must admit that I'm impressed by the Photoshop job inserting people like Michael Shermer, Bill Gates, Paul Offit, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Phil Plait, and other skeptics/atheists into such a creepy picture. Truly Gamondes is reaching David Dees territory. (He's the guy who's produces some of the creepiest antivax illustrations out there.)

http://www.deesillustration.com/artwork.asp?cat=satire

Electrical ground currents occur when the utility’s wire is overloaded and returns back to the substation “off the wire,” traveling through the earth conducted by soil, water, plumbing lines.

It must have quite an, um, powerful instinct to return upstream to its spawning grounds.

I noticed Jake Crosby is missing from the speaker list. Does he think Autism One is too mainstream nowadays?

@kfunk937 #14 - I am glad you asked that. It is happening to me constantly and I am using a Kindle, so it is Amazon's tweaked version of an Android OS. I have been considering looking for an antivirus for this thing in case some weird bug got downloaded.

I got a giggle out of how she decided to put ALL THE LETTERS after her name: Dr. Stephanie Seneff, BS, MS, EE, PhD

In fairness to Seneff, I've noticed that a lot at public health/hospital conferences. Every single degree or certification you ever got in your life goes on your nametag.

Although I must agree with Orac that the photoshop job is actually decent I can't say the same for the design qualities of her Meisterwerken ( is that the correct plural?) which are abysmally atrocious.( and I did work in advertising)

I am vacillating between two hypotheses regarding her production of these epics;
- she is angling for a book deal with Skyhorse: an illustrated volume fit for thinking coffeetables everywhere
- she has blown a head gasket in her PFC

Considering how much time she must have put into creating these pictorial monstrosities and assembling her scavenger hunt style of conspiracy-a-minute essays,
leads me to go with the latter.

This thing is in Chicago and no one remembered to invite Joe Mercola?!? Whoa... burn!

Seriously, he really needs to hear the geopathic stress talk so he can update/re-calibrate his earthing mats.

Ooooh -btw- JP's in a play: probably in Russian or Polish but a play nevertheless.

I noticed Jake Crosby is missing from the speaker list. Does he think Autism One is too mainstream nowadays?

I would suspect that he has pissed off or is pissed at everyone associated with "Quack One".

@ Johnny:

I doubt he was asked to participate.
I observe that some of his BFFs are there- Geiers,*pere et fils*, Hooker, the Segals *et compagnie*

"Electrosmog" is the name of my new thrash metal band.

Remember the AoA endorsement of the bleach enemas a few months ago with the theory that they were cleaning out intestinal worms?

As (IIRC) Roger Kulp recently noted, even the biomeddlers at ARI have nudged MMS toward the curb.

I understand it's banned in some countries. It's mind boggling that it hasn't been banned in the US.

It's even more mind-boggling that anyone could watch a relative or a neighbor do that to a child and not notify the authorities.

All they need is a variable phase-inverter to complete the treatment

Any pretense that Tomljenovic and Shaw had of being reputable scientists has evaporated now that they're rubbing shoulders with the chemical castrators and the bowel bleachers and the rest of this gang of idiots. Yet they stay on at my alma mater. I know how Columbia U grads feel, with Dr Oz polluting their faculty. Hooray for tenure.

Regarding these 170 children removed from the autism spectrum, a look at Rivera's strict criteria for her case series :
http://saulniercamaut.tumblr.com
https://nomorebleach.wordpress.com/2015/01/13/163-children-healed-from-…
https://nomorebleach.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/kerri-riveras-response-to…

Ooooh -btw- JP’s in a play: probably in Russian or Polish but a play nevertheless.

Yiddish, English and Polish, with linguistic prominence in pretty much that order. There are supertitles.

It manages to be both kitschy and highly offensive on pretty much every level. Srsly, it's avant-garde.

I swear, though, my patience with the director is about a millimeter thick at this point, although that is partially just me being in a surly mood. I may possibly have flipped her the bird about an hour ago.

What in the hell is it with pseudo science connoisseurs and creating childish, immature p-shops of things they don't like? It comes across as a debate tactic my 3 year old might use.

The great irony is that these people hold a position that is clearly fallacious, and seem oblivious to the self-parody that such graphics communicate.

To me, they scream that they know they can't win on logic and reason and must go for the over the top emotionalism.

Just unreal to me that a functioning adult would look at those and think they make some sort of cogent argument.

Ok, rant over...

abundant sun exposure to the skin and eyes
It’s not bleach enemas, but it sure ain’t healthy…

What worries me is the need to specify "skin and eyes" as the recipient organs of the solar exposure, as if the alternative is to expose the kidneys and spleen.

Starting prednisone tomorrow and I must thank all those anti-vaxxers out there. There's nothing like hearing, "Be especially careful to avoid people with measles or chicken pox as either of those can have very serious consequences while on prednisone." Thanks loads for making me a hand-sanitizing hermit for however long I'm on this crap.

Of course this is Stephanie Seneff, and if she just advised "abundant sun exposure" without further qualification, many of her readers would assume that it had to be directed at their children's lower-intestinal lining.

It’s mind boggling that it hasn’t been banned in the US.

Sure it is. That's why they all come as a kit you mix together with instructions on how to use it to purify water (wink, wink). And if you find out about someone misusing it, you can report it and CPS might get around to investigating after they're done with the reports of kids being allowed to play outside.

"acute, standard, and chronic health conditions"?
WTF are "standard health conditions"?
And why are people with no standards trying to treat them?

Johnny quotes: "Electro-pathological energy created by modern technology can also contribute to geopathic stress in the form of high and low frequency energy..."
No standard frequency energy?

Biofilms. Are those the movies they made us watch in junior high (Yes, I am that old.) showing horrific lesions from STDs?

What's this I hear about a cute health condition?

I went to Catholic school. Only the boys got to watch those films.

What’s this I hear about a cute health condition?

"I was in bed for a week with acute hepatitis."

"You lucky dog! They're both cute, those Hepatitis girls!"

I went to Catholic school. Only the boys got to watch those films.

In public school we only had slides.

How sad. We had slides and swingsets

@Doug, #28:
EMF is the abbreviation for lots of things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMF
My guess is that the Electronic Music Foundation is probably the greatest cause of EMF-induced stress, although for many people, trying to understand the Eclipse Modeling Framework is probably a close second.

How sad. We had slides and swingsets

We had monkey bars.
Watching pissed monkeys falling off their barstools was the highlight of the day.

Mein Herr Doktor,
A cute health condition is one defined as such by the National Bureau of Standards, not to be confused with the National Bureau of STDs.

"How sad. We had slides and swingsets."
"We had monkey bars."
We not only had seesaws, we also had circular saws. And a school nurse who doubled as a hand surgeon.

By the sixth grade we ignored all the slides, swingsets, monkey bars and seesaws to play a game of keep away with the kick ball in which the only rule is you could only sexually molest um grope um make that tackle the person who was holding the ball.

@ EBMOD:

Rant away.

They do go for emotional reactions
but I sincerely wonder if they can self-evaluate to the extent necessary to see how truly bizarre their material is.. she probably thinks that it's so absolutely brilliant and perceptive that her readers will be overtaken by her profound erudition and knowledge of the world and its nefarious ways.

Jake also pretends to have abilities beyond his fellows/ sisters to see into the hidden meanings of events.

I hear the same crap at PRN.

They drop names of philosophers, literary icons, obscure artists and historical anomalies. They're trying to prove that they are impossibly intelligent and DESERVE to lead others.

HOWEVER how likely is it that anyone can, without the appropriate education, in this day and age, attempt to criticise entire fieldS like medicine, psychology, education and politics? Even a well-educated, extremely intelligent doctor cannot easily criticise the whole field of medicine. A physicist studies one area of his or her field to be expert. Psychologists are described by their area of study- although all of these professionals do have a general background of their entire fields and the scientific method.

No, I think that this is tarted up gossip and free wheeling speculation masquerading as Something Important by a Smart Person. They depend upon conspiracies to cover their lack of evidence and their own ars-: Gamondes admits that these miscreants' secrecy erects an impermeable barrier for journalists who seek out the Truth.

Besides the obvious lack of self-criticism and self-regulation illustrated by writers like Gamondes ( or the Prof at TMR), how about the editors who allow their websites to be awash in such drivel on a regular basis?

Back in the day, it was said that President G. W. Bush was deeply puzzled at the morning meeting when he was told that Vice President Cheney had angina.

"Men do not have anginas!", he protested.

He became even more puzzled when he was told that the Vice President had "acute angina."

I thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Be sure to tip your server.

[By rhw way, back when it was current, this joke made the rounds of the mostly femaie OB/GYN staff at the local medical center.]

“Be especially careful to avoid people with measles or chicken pox as either of those can have very serious consequences while on prednisone.”

Stay away from southern California?

I'll try not to post too many links and end up in moderation again,but I do have a couple.

You forgot to mention Stable Water Clusters,one of the newest forms of woo to be taken up by the AutismOne/AoA crowd.

From the AutismOne page

This will be a groundbreaking update of the use of Stable Water Clusters with autistic children and those on the spectrum who have underdeveloped gastrointestinal tracts and other symptoms with varying levels of severity. Stable Water Clusters have been found to support reduction of inflammation in the gut, and enhance brain and cell function. Using all-natural elevated protocols of Stable Water Clusters, the autistic children and others on the spectrum have shown major physiological and behavioral improvements. Michelle Wong, LAc, will share results of the study and discuss the latest scientific research on the biological properties of this fourth phase of water. She will be accompanied by Lauren Hunt, mother of an autistic son and a practicing homeopath, who will share her personal and astounding experiences with the use of Stable Water Clusters in both a professional setting and private life for the past 2 ½ years.

Join Michelle Wong and Lauren Hunt also at 3 PM Friday, May 22 in the Pollack Room for a roundtable discussion.

A homeopath and a acupuncturist/TCM practitioner.How fitting,because Stable Water Clusters,AKA "Double Helix Water",is basically homeopathic water.Water so powerful it needs to be diluted,and sells for $62.95 for what looks like a tiny bottle.

As this web site explains.
http://doublehelixwater.us/
Our extensive research venture to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the molecular structure of water has resulted in what we have termed Double Helix Water®. I encourage you to read our book, Double-Helix Water®: Has the 200-Year-Old Mystery of Homeopathy Been Solved?It is the precise summation of our discovery of an unknown “phase” of water.

Now what is meant by phase?

We are all familiar with the liquid phase and ice, the solid phase, and steam, which is generated when one boils water. But we have discovered—due greatly to significant improvements in analytical laboratory equipment, such as the Atomic Force Microscope, and fifteen years of very persistent diligence—that a solid particle exists in pure water, and that particle is itself made of pure water.

Without going into great detail, which is thoroughly covered in the above book, I want to give here a brief description and explanation of this newly discovered phase we call Double-Helix Water®.

...Nonetheless, a valid question arises: How, then, could it do something? What could be the difference between Double-Helix Water and so-called normal water or, say, distilled water?

Again, we believe that another phase of water exists; and we believe (and this has been the subject of our fifteen years of study) that there exists a state or phase that contains water molecules which have gone solid at room temperature; that the liquid phase under a particular set of circumstances can condense into tiny solid particles, and that these particles are in some way responsible for triggering the self-healing process. It is our belief that this phase of water is a central agent in the arsenal of the body’s immune response. And because of their structure and polar charge, we theorize that these particles are the molecular basis for what Chinese Medicine has suggested for over two thousand years: that an electrical matrix surrounds the body and this electrical matrix is the senior dominating factor in all health issues. This is evidenced by Electron and Atomic Force Microscope photographs, which demonstrate that these particles line up end to end to form circuit-like structures. Therefore it is very feasible that we have found a material basis for the Chinese meridians.

Yes this site is pure gold.Here is one of the pages on autism,pure BS.
http://doublehelixwater.us/autism-spectrum-disorder/

Subjects were first scanned with thermal imaging equipment prior to drinking an 8-oz. glass of Double Helix Water. Next, they drank the 8-oz. glass of Double Helix Water. New thermal images were taken 30 minutes after the ingestion of Double Helix Water to establish if any change had occurred. The results can be seen in the video above.

Thermal images should be read as follows: white is hottest, next in line is red, and graduating down to green. Green is generally interpreted as showing a “healthy” or optimum temperature for the human body. These images and the results they show are typical of the hundreds of experiments that Dr. Lo has conducted on stable water clusters and their effect on general health.

Our friend Steven Novella had an excellent post a while back deconstructing "Quantum Neurology"

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/quantum-neurology/

@kfunk937 #14 – Not just you. I keep running into it on my iPad's Safari browser.

I follow a couple of blogs from mainstream autism researchers,where I am also a regular commenter.One such blog is Manuel Casanova's Cortical Chauvinism.Dr. Casanova has made a number of blog posts that more or less mirror my own opinion about autism.Pro vaccine,anti neurodiversity.A little over a month ago,Dr.Casanova ran a blog post about his presentation at AutismOne.

In the comments,I asked Dr. Casanova why he,or any serious researcher,would speak at AutismOne,given that they are all about vaccines and pseudoscience.Dr. Casanova replied that he hoped he could influence individuals by presenting them with good science.You can read the exchange here.

http://corticalchauvinism.com/2015/04/10/we-already-know-what-is-happen…

Many of you are also familiar with the AVWOS Facebook group,where I frequently lurk,and occasionally post.The other day the infamous Antivax Troll List was leaked.I posed the same question at the AVWOS.Why post at antivax sites?I received a very similar reply.I'm sorry,but I politely disagree.I don't believe it is worth the time and effort to post on these sites,which is why I gave up.I had also hoped I could convince the hard cores like the Anne Dachels,that autism with serious medical problems was nothing new so I gave up.Maybe it's because my health is such,mitochondrial and metabolic disease,that I don't want to waste any more energy trying to deprogram antivaxers.I leave that to others,but I don't believe most A-V parents will come around,unless their kid,or some kid they know,gets a vaccine preventable disease.They are too deeply programmed.

You forgot to mention Stable Water Clusters,one of the newest forms of woo to be taken up by the AutismOne/AoA crowd.

And, I suspect, at least one hydroponic dope grower. How on earth he got from the PNAS paper to solenoids is anyone's guess.

Stable Water Clusters?

Vonnegut thought of it first. (Ice9 in Cat's Cradle)

One day, by the way, I had the honor of meeting Kurt V. and sitting next to him at a talk given by his brother, Bernard Vonnegut, who was a fine scientist and one of the pioneers in the field of atmospheric electricity. Wonderful men, both.

One day, by the way, I had the honor of meeting Kurt V. and sitting next to him at a talk given by his brother, Bernard Vonnegut, who was a fine scientist and one of the pioneers in the field of atmospheric electricity. Wonderful men, both.

Lucky! I have been a big Vonnegut fan since I was 13 or so. I haven't read him in a while - I think the last time was when I reread a novel or two of his while living in Krakow a couple years ago - but I have recently had the experience of "coming unstuck in time," so to speak.

^ He had a great essay about Eugene Debs and the Sermon on the Mount, too, as I recall. And another one about being a Midwesterner down to his toes - something about how his capital is Chicago, and how he is a lake person, and swimming in saltwater feels to him like swimming in chicken soup.

I think about that essay, in a sort of consoling sense, when I am pining particularly badly for the PNW.

^ His capitol is Chicago.

Re: Gamondes: she does try to cite a lot of artists, philosophers, etc., in an effort to make herself seem like a Very Smart Person. I found it pretty funny that, while appropriating Bertolt Brecht for her purposes, she kept spelling his name "Berthold" for some reason. He did not spell it that way as an adult; Berthold Brecht was his father.

From Roger Kulp's extensive and excruciating quote on Stable Water Clusters.*

We are all familiar with the liquid phase and ice, the solid phase, and steam, which is generated when one boils water.

Apparently they consider the word vapour to be too obscure and technical. I quit reading shortly after as I felt my large intestine coiling in preparation to spring up my spinal column and throttle my brain. Although it may just have been an attack of the vapours (as defined by Susan Norfleet).

*this term would make a lot more sense if a blank space and 4 letters were added before the final s.

@ Shay #66 Good advice that will not be a hardship. I'm well north of there and pretty happy about it. Having had vaccinations as a child for measles/mumps/chicken pox/rubella/et al, I never had any of them. Ye gods and little fishes know what my current immunity is at age 55.

I think about that essay, in a sort of consoling sense, when I am pining particularly badly for the PNW.

I have a dear friend from Bainbridge who used to wear my woolen suit for Lake Michigan. (Nearly got her foot cut off that way, but so it goes. Not the suit, mind you – that's since been proved not to be cursed. But it had seen storage in a cedarish dresser when retested. I mean, at worst it caused a different friend to lose the key to his bike lock.)

@20 Roadstergal

abundant sun exposure to the skin and eyes

It’s not bleach enemas, but it sure ain’t healthy…

Well trust an anti to misunderstand. It's tha the time more time spent outside (presumably in day time I dnr), the less chance of myopia

Leone, J.F., Mitchell, P., Kifley, A. & Rose, K.A. 2014, 'Normative visual acuity in infants and preschool-aged children in Sydney', Acta Ophthalmologica. Leone, J.F., Mitchell, P., Kifley, A. & Rose, K.A. 2014, 'Normative visual acuity in infants and preschool-aged children in Sydney', Acta ophthalmologica, vol. 92, no. 7, pp. e521-e529.

#14 kfunk937

# 32 Mrs Woo

Ditto and I run Ubuntu on a laptop. No virus found when I ran a scan. However I am getting “Service not found” today, 2015-05-19. Did not and does not appear with Firefox.

Gee, I hope they deliver the hydraneas I ordered.

I have a dear friend from Bainbridge who used to wear my woolen suit for Lake Michigan.

Like Mr. Vonnegut, I am actually pretty much a "freshwater person" myself; rivers, streams, creeks and little lakes, though. I grew up in the mountains. Topography is one of the things I miss out here.

In fact, I have never truly swum in saltwater, though I have, of course, been to the ocean. The Pacific is a**-cold all year 'round, and so is the Puget Sound, as I found out one fine hot August day in college when I jumped in and jumped right back out again.

It’s tha the time more time spent outside (presumably in day time I dnr), the less chance of myopia

Perhaps, just as "The Drinking Man's Diet" was recycled as Atkins, etc., the Bates Method is no longer getting the citation respect that it deserves.

The Pacific is a**-cold all year ’round, and so is the Puget Sound, as I found out one fine hot August day in college when I jumped in and jumped right back out again.

Aw, c'mon now. The Sound gets up around 56F in August--warm as toast! (If you like British style toast.) Some of the best people watching is going to the beach and watching tourists stride forcefully into the water....and then watching them leap back to shore.

Some of the best people watching is going to the beach and watching tourists stride forcefully into the water….and then watching them leap back to shore.

Come to think of it, I was stubborn enough to actually swim around in Henderson Inlet for a good long while once - it was really hot out. I was also possibly being macho or something. Something something "I grew up swimming in glacial lakes" something.

@jkrideau #82

Fascinating that it glitches to the same place across various platforms. Suggests it isn't "us."

Overheard Mr Woo on the phone today asking a supplement salesman for medical advice. They must not have been affirming enough - he didn't buy whatever they were discussing.

I hate these people. They scare trusting people away from honest scientific data straight into their, "I can cure everything,". "all natural," "good for you," "no side effects" people. Mr Woo has had two strokes from unmanaged type II diabetes. Even still, he is chasing their cures and not sharing his test levels with his doctor to adjust the dose of medication.

They take parents devastated by a child's struggle and make millions selling false hope (not that there isn't hope; there just isn't hope that bleach enemas, miserable diets that are not medically necessary, or chelation therapy contributes to improvement). Part of me always hopes these people selling this junk are true believers. The other option requires a human being with no conscience.

Are morphogenetic fields really a thing? Wikipedia makes it sound like it is, but I don't want to trust anything I learned from the Zero Escape series of video games. I just find it hard to believe that scientific rigor could have been available from the same game that heavily implied that an unmeltable ice mummy thawed out and did mass murder.

So the modern medical approach of prescribing amphetamines, anti psychotics and worse is better than this?

Both approaches are fucked

So the modern medical approach of prescribing amphetamines, anti psychotics and worse is better than this?

Both approaches are fxxxxd

why, when I was a kid did I know hardly anyone who would fit into the diagnosis of being autistic? I mean there were not loads of special homes then either. There is a problem with the number of kids who are autistic and your site is not at the forefront of anything constructive, where is the science in the thread? We can all spot a dodgy cure - where is the discussion on why so many of these kids are with us?

JP: "In fact, I have never truly swum in saltwater, though I have, of course, been to the ocean. The Pacific is a**-cold all year ’round, and so is the Puget Sound"

I am married to a fellow from Vancouver Island. Just before he became a teenager he was dragged to east Lake Washington suburbia because his widowed mother married someone who lived there. As a young married couple we tried the beaches at Ocean Shores and Long Beach... brrrr and blowing sand gets everywhere!

Then we went up to Vancouver Island to the beaches of his youth: Parksville and Qualicum Beach. Due to being on the Straights of Georgia and protected by the mountains on Vancouver Island, in the summer they are warm and sandy. So this meant when our kids were little we drove north to go to summer beaches.

(by the way, I tried to swim in a pond fed by the Naches River just east of the forest ranger office on HiWay 410 in August/September ... brrr... it was pure glacier melt... but it was cool to watch the salmon spawn just a few yards downriver)

I can't believe that I'm not getting any street cred for actually having resorted to one of these* a full quarter-century ago in order to end a streak of nine failing grades on my transcript and graduate.**

* Probably closest to the second from left or second from right; it has a little skirt over the trunks proper.
** Despite the free association in the more recent media reports, this looks to have been post Hutchins. This does not necessarily mean that I approve of having dispensed with it. Hell, it led me to a vintage menswear store the likes of which the city will never see again.

I see that in classic charlatan behaviour Wakefield is presented as a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Notwithstanding that he is not.

In a similar vein, I have been in a room with both him and his lawyer of the time discussing the meaning of fraud. Wakefield has presented nothing whatsoever evidencing fraud in the CDC paper - no document, no allegation (indeed his source expressly states that reasonable people can disagree about the data presented), indeed nothing to substantiate his defamatory slur.

What a pitiful sight he's become. I can't believe that there won't be at least a handful of intelligent people at the conference who have serious worries about this man.

Wakefield has presented nothing whatsoever evidencing fraud in the CDC paper – no document, no allegation (indeed his source expressly states that reasonable people can disagree about the data presented), indeed nothing to substantiate his defamatory slur.

I would love to see someone with the time on his or her hands to FOIA the follow-up by the Office of Research Integrity on his two epistles complaint submissions.

I can’t believe that there won’t be at least a handful of intelligent people at the conference who have serious worries about this man.

I worry that there won't even be a handful of intelligent people at the conference.

^ And it cannot be repeated often enough that he chickened right the f*ck out on his threat against Emily Willingham.

^^ Then again, given that one posturing blowhard has predictably been radio-silent on the matter, perhaps the "fresh," "new" entrant on the front could take over his duties.

Pita #88: no they are not a "thing", merely some manure of the bovine made up by Rupert Sheldrake, who was once a biologist.

Dear Johnny (not the proper one),

If by amphetamines you mean methylphenidate, it isn't and never has been a treatment for ASD. Some bairns have co-morbid ADHD, for which they may be prescribed methylphenidate, if behavioural programmes and parenting advice is ineffective (the NICE guidelines are readily available)...

Anti-psychotics are next to never used with ASD, except on a very few occasions to help reduce a bairn's distress.

If you look at the history of ASD, diagnoses of the likes of Asperger's could not have been made before the early '80s as the term was not coined until then nor the condition defined. Asperger's work was not available in English until then, around 40 years after he began publishing.

I know first hand that there was much mis-diagnosis going on up until the late '80s at least, with many folk with ASD being mis-diagnosed as psychotic. I know one consultant psychiatrist who came out of seeing "A Beautiful Mind" complaining that John Nash was mis-diagnosed and was more likely to have Asperger's than to be psychotic.

Education of staff in MH services about ASD has improved greatly, so we became much better at assessing and diagnosing. Ditto the knowledge of parents and teachers and GPs and the like, so we got more referrals for assessment, which leads inevitably to a rise in diagnoses (I can recall in the mid-90s a senior educational psychologist in South West England denying the existence of ASD, even when confronted with a 16 year old with such obvious classic Kanner type autism that I recognised it within half an hour of being in the bairn's company).

But let's not allow some inconvenient facts to get in the way of a good rant, eh?

And how long before I get the usual ad hom response using some "tee hee, look how clever I am!" change to my 'nym?

(the NICE guidelines are readily available)…

Now, that's going to require some soft-tissue manipulation for Phildo to recover from.

@kfunk937 et al.:

This redirect seems to be a known problem, although I haven't offhand seen any cogent analyses of what's actually going on.*

The "Site Meter" Javascript is however sitting right at the bottom of page source. I wouldn't expect the SB "tech staff" to actually do be doing anything about though, especially after arduously updating the "Anti-Spam" plugin** from version 2.2/2.3 to 3.5 in a single bold stroke.

* This may be the best of the bunch: h[]tp://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=16345
** G—le 'current ye@r'.

If you look at the history of ASD, diagnoses of the likes of Asperger’s could not have been made before the early ’80s as the term was not coined until then nor the condition defined.

If memory serves, 1981 was when the late lamented Lorna Wing called attention to Asperger's research. But the UK Autistic Society was founded in 1962, and the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders goes back to 1971.

If Johnny doesn't remember any FLKs from childhood, three explanations come to mind:
1. He was blithely oblivious to anything outside the solipsistic bubble of his expectations.
2. His mummy knew that he was a special snowflake and kept him well away from anything unpleasant.
3. He's a lying liar. Recall Johnny's history of dreaming up multiple sockpuppet identities and having long mutually-supportive conversations among them in the manner of a dollies' tea-party.

@JP and CanonicalRabbit: I'll see you your Puget Sound and Pacific and raise you a Lake Superior. THAT'S a freaking COLD great lake. As a child of fresh water lakes (the MI does mean Michigan), I dislike salt water also. I have been known to run in and splash around long enough to cool off when at the beach with friends. But I sincerely think those who love salt water swimming have issues...

johnny must have been a speshul snowflake. *I* knew kids with undiagnosed ASD and autism -( and had family members with such - in the 1940's my mom's cousin whom I never knew as he died before I was born but the family talked about him and wrote letters) when I was in grade school in the 1960s. Just because they weren't the most severely afflicted doesn't mean they weren't around. And the severely afflicted, as johnny obviously doesn't recall, were hidden away, either at home or in institutions.

Even in the 1980s, I can recall "abandoned" children - dropped off at the hospital and the parents vanishing. They would end up in homes or foster care. But johnny wouldn't know about that.

What worries me is the need to specify “skin and eyes” as the recipient organs of the solar exposure, as if the alternative is to expose the kidneys and spleen.

DO NOT give the alties ideas.

@justthestats

It's a small step from shoving coffee and bleach up their kids' rears to shoving a fiber-optic cable up where the sun don't normally shine.

Narad, the photo alone gives you street cred.

-btw- I have actually walked into the water at Carmel in July without a wetsuit - I didn't last long.
BUT I have seen elderly individuals go swimming in SF Bay near the Hyde St ships and a few others of variable age north of there ( perhaps at Stinson and at Mendocino IIRC).

re Andrew Wakefield at Autism One

He is invited because, for some ungodly reason, ( some) ladies adore him. He brings in paying customers ( notice the price of the 'Saturday night gala' where there is a red carpet). He is the maverick genius who inspires them on their own quest for pseudo-scientific fame- he's the role model for loons intent on littering the internet with their nonsense.

Andy dresses up and swans around as his fans swarm around him. He validates their fantasy-based interpretation of events surrounding their children's diagnoses. They need him or someone like him. Like TMR, Autism One is group therapy gone wrong where participants lead each other deeper into denial and mal-adaption.

Better yet, alcohol is served.

Well, that explains why the not-so-Thinking Moms will be there.

I can’t believe that I’m not getting any street cred for actually having resorted to one of these* a full quarter-century ago in order to end a streak of nine failing grades on my transcript and graduate.**

I was actually imagining your friend swimming around Lake Michigan in a woolen suit of yours, like a Brooks Brothers suit or something. Are the vintage bathing suits a thing with the kdis these days or something? I gotta say, it's a pretty cute look.

I am actually sitting here still trying to work out how the swimsuit fixed your transcript.

@Johnny #91

You know, I didn't see many growing up, either. Of course, we have a school here where any child with "severe" autism (not knowing the proper term, I mean a child totally cut off from their surroundings and other people.) was sent there. There were/are both live-in and day programs available. Kids who are now diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum, but are able to function, more or less well in society, were just "that weird kid" in class. Kids in between--not totally in their own world, but with significant disabilities, were shuffled into "Special Ed" with their own classes and buses.

So, 50-odd years ago, it was a combination of seeing fewer acute cases--they were sent away, hearing about fewer acute cases--hey, let's all hear it for the shame of not having a "normal" kid (argh!) and other cases on the spectrum weren't labeled as autistic, just "weird" or "retarded". ("Weird" and "retarded" are not meant to be insulting in any way, just what such children were labeled here historically.)

(As a further aside, I'd never heard of hydrocephalus growing up. Ever. When my psych class took a tour at the school referenced above, there were three children there afflicted with it. Had you mentioned the disease before that tour, I would have said that it must be extremely rare since I'd never heard of nor seen anyone afflicted with it. Personal knowledge/experience will only take you but so far.)

autism one Sounds like one of those medical arthritis conferences where the only treatment on offer is NSAI's or immune suppressants. Or the rants from cancer charities about wanting your money for their researchers to stay in employment - despite the fact that most of what they produce is complete sheep shop.

" johnny must have been a speshul snowflake. *I* knew kids with undiagnosed ASD and autism -( and had family members with such – in the 1940’s my mom’s cousin whom I never knew as he died before I was born but the family talked about him and wrote letters) when I was in grade school in the 1960s." Mi Dawn

No one disputes that there were cases of messed up kids in the past you twit. It is the sheer number that are around now - it cannot just be about better diagnosis. Also the numbers of atopic kids around now is ridiculous. You can buy gluten and dairy free food everywhere now, atopy can't be deficiency in inhalers and creams.

" WebMD Archive

The number of children diagnosed with autism or related disorders has grown at what many call an alarming rate. In the 1970s and 1980s, about one out of every 2,000 children had autism.

Today, the CDC estimates that one in 150 8-year-olds in the U.S. has an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD. This expanded definition refers not only to autism but also to a collection of brain development disorders such as Asperger's syndrome and a condition known as pervasive developmental disorder -- not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). Though all the disorders share some symptoms, they are different in other ways, including the timeline of symptoms and the severity, according to the CDC. http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/searching-for-answers/autism-rise

Her Dockfuc, it is harder to spot 1 in 2000, much easier to spot 1 in 150. I god hope you are not a real doctor with math skills like that.

Ritalin is a sympathetamine, MOOMOO

@Chris:

(by the way, I tried to swim in a pond fed by the Naches River just east of the forest ranger office on HiWay 410 in August/September … brrr… it was pure glacier melt… but it was cool to watch the salmon spawn just a few yards downriver)

Yeah, the glacial-fed ponds and lakes are really only fit for swimming during the height of summer, when you can spend half the time lying in the sun before jumping back in. It is a pleasant endeavor nonetheless.

@johnny - yes, it probably is due to better diagnostics, as much as you hate to believe that and prefer to live in your own little bubble. The ability to better diagnose (and, in the case of children with gluten issues, the belief that there is really something *wrong* with the child rather than the child just acting like a brat) means more things are identified.

I knew several people who were gluten intolerant (2 were siblings, and their father opened his own bakery so they could have safe baked goods). There must have been 1960s to 1970s to keep him in business.

Asthma, allergies, diabetes, lactose intolerance - all were known. But I can tell you a lot of times when the diagnoses were long delayed.

So tell me, johnny - how *many* of the atopic are truly gluten or lactose intolerant, and how many are just special snowflakes in their parents (or own) eyes and don't really need special foods? How many autistic children are put on special diets because quacks like you say they will "be cured" if only they eat lactose-free/gluten-free/processed-free/whatever free so the DEMAND drives the popularity?

Yes, there are a lot more choices. Because people demand them. Demand feeds supply.

(gee..."twit"? Is that the best you can do?)

. It is the sheer number that are around now – it cannot just be about better diagnosis.

And it isn't: it's also about broadened diagnostic criteria, diagnostic substitution, improved surveillance and changes in reporting practices.

For example, a recent study in Denmark (JAMA Pediatr. 2015;169(1):56-62.) found "Changes in reporting practices can account for most (60%) of the increase in the observed prevalence of ASDs in children born from 1980 through 1991 in Denmark."

# 14 kfunk93
# 32 Mrs Woo
# 87 Mrs Woo
# 101 Narad

It's bAcK! The greem mmmonster.

Acually it's spreading. I just pulled it up on another site using Chrome. Rather pretty page :(

In my case it does not seem to be doing a complete redirect, just opening RI and gg together. So far no observable ill-effects.

In fact, I have never truly swum in saltwater, though I have, of course, been to the ocean.

I don't blame you. I've pulled no end of sting rays from near where people were swimming, several other critters that wouldn't care if they killed you, and seen still others that would in fact kill you and eat you, and even some that would do that the other way around.

But other than the sand and the saltwater, I do love fishing in the surf.

I can’t believe that I’m not getting any street cred for actually having resorted to one of these* a full quarter-century ago in order to end a streak of nine failing grades on my transcript and graduate.**

You probably had more support sewn into that suit than they did back in the day.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/8412

The women were likewise unsupported.
http://www.shorpy.com/node/5745

Are the vintage bathing suits a thing with the kdis these days or something? I gotta say, it’s a pretty cute look.

Well, it depends on how 'vintage' you want to get.
shorpy.com/node/9516

Click on the 'view full size' link to embiggen the images.

Proper Johnny
Accept no substitutes

You probably had more support sewn into that suit than they did back in the day.

That photo reminds me of Winston Churchill.

@ MI Dawn #104 I'll see your Lake Superior and raise you an Offutt Lake (the one I live near). Warm, toasty water in the summer, actually, but it's primarily spring-fed. Those who dare to dip into its (not very considerable) depths are lulled into a false sense of security and then bazinga! They suddenly hit a 40F or colder pocket of water. "Hahahaha! It's so warm...*sudden intake of breath*...eep...."

(And yes, Superior is chilly! I've only ever dipped a hand into it, but it's cold as it is beautiful.)

Ironically, i think the rubber ducks have more to say than the entire article...

A paradigm shift is not dispelled through mockery. On the macro level, this shift was most recently signaled by the climate-change debate, whereby growing numbers of people have been increasingly convinced that synthetically produced chemicals violated the biosphere. This has been complemented on the micro level by the vaccine-debate, whereby growing numbers increasingly believe that lab-induced chemicals violate human biology.

Remember Kurt Vonnegut's bird in Slaughterhouse Five that, in response to a massacre, says "poo-tee-weet?" Nowadays I think Vonnegut might have settled simply with "quack".

Johnny, when I was young, and Is suspect that that was before you were born, we didn't have many autistic children around. What we had were "retards". You didn't see them because their families either kept them home or shipped them off to people warehouses like the infamous Willowbrook; places where no one made any real effort to love them, try to reach them, or sometimes even to toilet train them, places where they languished without the least bit of attention or mental stimulation. The rate of hepatitis A and B infections will testify to that last. Without proper care they modeled their behaviours on each other, thereby confirming their diagnosis as "retards". What we thought we knew about autistic children was that they vegetated in those places when they weren't banging their heads against the walls.
As for the more functional ones, where do you think the word "nerd" and the stereotype that goes with it originated?

@Eddie Unwind - out of curiosity, what paradigm shift are you seeing at Autism One? What is you evidence of such a shift, and what makes you think it's a shift towards an improved paradigm (e.g. one that more closely matches observed fact)? Please be specific. Thanks.

On the macro level, this shift was most recently signaled by the climate-change debate, whereby growing numbers of people have been increasingly convinced that synthetically produced chemicals violated the biosphere.

Ah yes, there's nothing that says "synthetic chemicals" like burning fossil fuels and producing carbon dioxide.

An appropriately titled article for Eddie Unwind, our new Wakefield fan boi:
Anti-vaxx scientist whines about being ‘discredited’ as he pushes vaccine fears on Orange County moms

Are the vintage bathing suits a thing with the kdis these days or something? I gotta say, it’s a pretty cute look.
Edward Gorey deserves some of the credit for fostering it.

BUT I have seen elderly individuals go swimming in SF Bay near the Hyde St ships and a few others of variable age north of there ( perhaps at Stinson and at Mendocino IIRC).

There's a certain subset of folk who go swimming in just bathing suits in Aquatic Park to show off their toughness. I have no desire to prove anything there - give me a wetsuit! 8mil with a hood for diving in Monterey or the Channel Islands.

The Bay has microclimates, though. I've done triathlons out of Alameda, and the water was warm enough for a sleeveless wetsuit.

Ritalin is a sympathetamine, MOOMOO

That's a keeper.

Gentlemen...

Narad, regarding your elucidation on synthetic chemicals, I think you may have dropped a few cherries along the way...

Mephistopheles O'Brien, I'll never argue with anyone of Luciferian Irish descent...

Chris, I never quite know what you're on about...

But as always, with respect.

EU.

Not surprising for a Wakefield fan boi. The link is just to help folks comprehend your off kilter comments in light of your adoration of Wakefield.

Eddie Unwind, I think I have decoded what you are trying to say. First,your use of "paradigm shift" is in the popular, nonscientific sense. You also misuse a number of words to sound science-y too.
Second, you are conflating global warming with the depletion of the ozone layer. Ozone depletion is mostly due to the use of halocarbons, and is expected to reverse somewhat as they go out of use. There are some naturally occurring halocarbons which play a small role.
Third,you are making a leap from the fact that a class of mainly synthetic chemicals is being abandoned because they make changes in the atmosphere (and thus indirectly in the biosphere, although I'm not sure that you're comfortable with the word) somehow is related to the idea that "synthetic lab-induced" substances in vaccines is disturbing people.
You appear to think that because people are concerned with the substances in vaccines that this "paradigm shift" must reflect reality. Since most scientists in or close to the field of climate research support global warming, and the vast preponderance of experts in medical fields agree that vaccines are harmless with extremely rare exceptions, there is no paradigm shift in science. There is just paranoia and ignorance among the public.

Eddie @123: Can you please be more specific about which
" lab-induced chemicals violate human biology" , and what specific mechanisms are involved in "violat[ing] human biology"?

Secondly, you are aware that it is pathogen-derived antigen that makes a vaccine work? That is the whole point of the vaccine. How is a live, attenuated virus a "lab-induced chemical"?

^ Naturally, it turns out that this nonword is also a Phildo Hills specialty. His attempting to play chemist and immunologist is a thing to behold.

Thank-you Rockin' Dave...

(and thus indirectly in the biosphere, although I’m not sure that you’re comfortable with the word)

Hang on a sec, I'll check...'biosphere'...no, I still feel ok.

Narad: "His attempting to play chemist and immunologist is a thing to behold."

The Wakefield fan boi population often seem to be a few standard deviations below the norm in many categories.

'Secondly, you are aware that it is pathogen-derived antigen that makes a vaccine work? That is the whole point of the vaccine.'

Good point, JustaTech, so then take out all the garbage in them that doesn't work.

Like what? What specific "garbage" need to be taken out?

And you didn't answer either of my questions:
How is a live, attenuated virus a "lab-induced chemical"?
what specific mechanisms are involved in “violat[ing] human biology”?

Narad, regarding your elucidation on synthetic chemicals, I think you may have dropped a few cherries along the way…

No, I was quite aware of your conflation with ozone depletion from the get-go, but I thought I'd leave that puncturing of your gasbaggery for others. Do get right on with the relative forcings, though.

JustaTech (and the 'gang'),

As we both know, there's no point in going any further. It is terribly easy to sound informed and supplant one's own arguments in the lion's den. And it's equally simple for the other party to contradict every single point and sound convincing. Indeed, almost everyone sounds an expert on the subject. I've now decided it's an utter waste of time. I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for. Good luck ol 'Orac - the man with the wit of a three-legged chair.

Bye.

EU.

Naturally, it turns out that this nonword is also a Phildo Hills specialty

"Stuff And Nonsense" gets all the best commenters.

@ improper johnny:

In the early 80s, I worked in one of the group homes for mentally handicapped. We had forty and fifty year old patients with an autistic label. Two of which were hand-waving, rocking, self-injuring, sometimes biting clients (I worked two houses, actually; one had less disabled clients that went to adult care, one of which worked in a sheltered workshop).

I am easily convinced that people with those diagnoses were around. I also volunteered after school in the school "resource" room where children unable to keep up in regular classes were taught. I can easily believe diagnostic substitution, better awareness, etc., contribute to the number.

Further, ASD spectrum, when including issues like Aspergers, include the kids who needed no assistance with keeping up in class. They would have been the kids who were "different." I test on that spectrum on any test I tried. Most of my life people didn't make sense to me. I tended to be withdrawn from peers, sometimes hyperactive, and usually better off with older or younger people. My ex-stepmother loved to suggest I was "emotionally or maybe socially retarded."

I believe that adding all of that together, or worse, adding in all other issues (ADD/ADHD, dyslexia, etc., etc.) and announcing that learning disabled kids now equals x percent is done to purposely create fear when things are not changing much, if at all.

"“Stuff And Nonsense” gets all the best commenters."

Thanks, hdb, I was trying to remember where I had read that particular critter's comment. Though that was him showing him being a Suzanne Humphries fan boi while making absolutely no sense.

135

His attempting to play chemist and immunologist is a thing to behold.

Clearly we get a much higher calibre of intellect from him here.

“Stuff And Nonsense” gets all the best commenters.

Odd how he shares the necromancing habit with Phildo.

As we both know, there’s no point in going any further

Translation: I can't answer the questions you're asking so I'm going to tap-dance.

(off topic; I will get back, I promise):

I have actually walked into the water at Carmel in July without a wetsuit – I didn’t last long.

Get off my lawn. In the late 50s and all the 1960s, spending weeks at a time on a beach in Monterey Bay; spent hours in the water, even on foggy days. Frolic in the water until hypothermic: lie on the sand (or go back up to the house for a hot outdoor shower), eat food, repeat.

Now, I wear a wetsuit or skins if going to be in or on the Monterey bay waters for more than say 10 minutes.

Translation: I can’t answer the questions you’re asking so I’m going to tap-dance.

Tut, tut. It's noblesse oblige.

As part of my job I read about a lot of sh!tty things that have befallen children and sometimes I think I've become sadly inured to how rotten life can be. And then I came across a subset of folks who believe in putting bleach in their children's rectums in order to "cure" them of something that isn't, and I was oddly relieved to find that I can still feel appropriate rage/shock/sadness.

As a mother I am not without fault. I am not the patient, beneficent parent I once tried to be. But -- but -- to do that to a child -- to any child -- no more words, other than, Kerri Rivera, you're nothing but a pandering scumbag.

Seriously how the f&ck does she get away with it? How is this not child abuse?

My daughter used to have painful double ear infections, from around 16 months to 2.5 years. Her ped (whom we love) said, she'll outgrow them within a few more months, no tubes, and he was right. But what if instead I'd decided to put lye in her ears, and peddled it as a cure for, I don't know, grasshopper eggs that I surmised were caused/linked to bouts of otitis media? What if I said that it did no harm, since it wasn't "regular Drano" and blah blah blah? Would that be okay? So why does Rivera get away with this?

Johnny @91
Murmur@100

I was diagnosed as autistic 44 years ago. Had it not been for my mother,I would have ended up in an institution.My diagnosis was severe enough to be found.Comments like Johnny's was just the sort of stuff I was trying to disprove by commenting at places like AoA.When I was rediagnosed in 2008,my diagnosis was moderately severe autism,more severe than Asperger's,but not as severe as classic autism.I was verbal,but otherwise low functioning.Papers were presented for my mother to sign to put me in a group home,but my mother refused.It was only when my cerebral folate deficiency was found,and treated,that I was able to function normally.

I don't know where Johnny went to school,but every school had special education classrooms,what was often lovingly called the "retard room".Institutions were everywhere,and everyone knew what they were for.Life was hell.

Who knows how many of these 'hidden" autistics 40,50 years ago suffered,like I did, with undiagnosed mitochondrial,or autoimmune diseases we now know to be so common in autism.I have seen a couple of the top autism/metabolic disease specialists in the US,and it was kind of awkward to begin with.They were simply not prepared to see someone as old as I am,who has had all these serious metabolic diseases now found in autism, that the likes of Johnny and Anne Dachel say do not exist in adults.

Can someone tell me how to embed links in text here?

@improper johnny:

In those days the relevant quote was "out of mind, out of sight".

Psychiatric hospitals and residential facilities were located well outside of urban areas such as towns and cities.

I presume you lived in an urban area rather than in a residential facility?

Can someone tell me how to embed links in text here?

Do like this: <a href="[the link here]">[the text here]<a>

^ Except for the part where it ends with </a>, not <a>.

"Ritalin is a sympathetamine, MOOMOO"

*Sigh* I am very well aware what methylphenidate is...But you said "amphetamine", which is something else entirely...And it still isn't and wasn't used to treat ASD...

And what do I win for predicting the "Aren't I funny?" name change?

Murmur, this is Philip Hills of the Hope Osteopathic Clinic, a well known anti-vaccine liar, that you are responding to.

Why are you expecting any sense from him?

@johnny #89

So the modern medical approach of prescribing amphetamines, anti psychotics and worse is better than this?

Both approaches are fucked

See my answer to a similar question of yours regarding systematic drug treatments here.

@JGC #118
Another study from Sweden in the same field :
Autism phenotype versus registered diagnosis in Swedish children: prevalence trends over 10 years in general population samples

Delphine asks Rivera she gets away with it..

First of all, she's in Mexico,
Her website, CD Autism.org, invokes the Quack Miranda warning but charges 100 euros per hour/ 60 per half hour for Skype consultations
( via PayPal)
Those who SHOULD report her are those who support her methods- parents who are true believers in her swill.

She may use her new appellation, DHom, as a means of covering her ars-: she can talk about homeopathy but direct marks to her website and book.

I don't know the law about this:
she's coming to the US, possibly presenting a method that endangers children, in public. Wouldn't someone- either Rivera herself- or the promoters of the conference- be somehow liable? Then there's the website and the instruments it uses ( Skype, PayPal).

There has to be a way.

edit: Delphine asks how Rivera gets away with it.

@Roger Kulp #152- This site was helpful for me in that regard, as it permits me to preview *koff.*

I see from AoA that Wakefield is now peddling the "1 in 2 children to be autistic by 2025" nonsense.

What a tool.

@Rebecca Fisher- I wouldn't call Wakefield a tool. Tools, are at least, useful.

I certainly knew kids who would now have autism diagnoses (but didn't) 30+ years ago, since I have cerebral palsy and attended a lot of programmes and outpatient institutions for handicapped kids. My peers in those settings were a real mixed bag -- someone who'd had a stroke as a kid, a couple of people with spina bifida, someone with cystic fibrosis, a couple of other people with CP, some (as was said then) "mentally retarded" people who had what would probably be completely different diagnoses now, a Thalidomide casualty, and I forget who all else. Best thing about that is that I'm now basically totally blase about impairments, as well as a stickler for accessibility where it impacts my profession.

I live close enough to both Lake Huron and Lake Ontario to make day-tripping easy and practical, and I love swimming in salt water -- I really enjoy being so buoyant I don't have to work to keep my head above the water! I got to swim in a Caribbean island lagoon once and it was really great, and most recently, I swam in the Mediterranean, which, even in mid-April, was nice and warm! Can't say that for the Great Lakes!! Also, salt-water swimming areas often are graced with palm trees, particularly the ones in more southerly climes, and nothing at all can compare to a beach with palm trees. (Sorry, Great Lakes!)

“1 in 2 children to be autistic by 2025″

And if we do nothing it will get even worse: 3 out of every 2 children will be autistic by 2060!

@Interrobang: well, my main exposure to salt water has been the Atlantic along Long Island, NY and the Jersey Shore, with one trip to the Outer Banks. STILL too cold and salty for my liking. I'll take a chlorinated, heated pool any day. I enjoy the beach, but you can keep the water.

I don’t know the law about this:
she’s coming to the US, possibly presenting a method that endangers children, in public. Wouldn’t someone- either Rivera herself- or the promoters of the conference- be somehow liable? Then there’s the website and the instruments it uses ( Skype, PayPal).

There has to be a way.

I have a family member who knows the sort of guy who could take care of this....unfortunately all we can hope for is that karma some day catches up with her.

Eddie Breakwind has left us, but I still feel a need to comment on his later posts.
"It is terribly easy to sound informed and supplant one’s own arguments in the lion’s den."
Sounding informed was what he tried to do and failed miserably, misusing science words in an effort to sound knowledgeable. Even this quote proves it - he has no clue what "supplant" means.
The stupid goes on:
"Good luck ol ‘Orac – the man with the wit of a three-legged chair." Furniture of course can be witty, but that's not what he meant here. It is perfectly possible to have a three-legged chair - his experience of the world has apparently not included the sight of a milking stool, or even a tripod.
No matter what he says, he misused the word "biosphere". He clearly meant "atmosphere." I think his brain actually comes from the lithosphere.
As for his farewell comment, I suspect he will have more farewell appearances than a 19th Century diva.

And if we do nothing it will get even worse: 3 out of every 2 children will be autistic by 2060!

A growth rate of 30% every two years* gets you to 1 in 2 just before the end of 2041, but 3 in 2 then arrives around 2049.

* Prevalence per 1000 = 1/{0.088[1/√(1.3)]ˣ⁻2012}.

^ Um, 1/{0.088[1/√(1.3)]ˣ⁻²⁰¹²}.

^^ Freaking Unicode superscript minus.

I was working from the graph Stephanie Seneff's uused which yielded the '1 in every 2 children by 2025' prediction--the extrapolated line doesn't quite cross 3 in every children at 2050.

Of course, in her article Stephanie blamed the increase principally on glyphosate exposure from GMO produce, rather than childhood vaccines--wonder if Wakefield even noticed, or if he simply assmed that anyone screaming about an autism epidemic just naturally had to be blaming vaccines.

I was working from the graph Stephanie Seneff’s uused which yielded the ‘1 in every 2 children by 2025′ prediction

Wait, she's actually come up with a functional form, or do you mean the one where she just crudely drew an upward-pointing line and added a red question mark?

Certified homeopath? Rhymes with certified sociopath.... What courses do you take to become a certified homeopath? Pouring out water into a line of test tubes?

@ #162: Rebecca,

I also see that Wakefield is now telling parents that he was charged by the GMC with all the same things as Walker-Smith.

Is he lying to the parents of disabled children, or did he forget the four counts of dishonesty he was proven guilty of (including research and financial fraud), ordering tests without the requisite qualifications and contract, buying blood from children at a birthday party.

Did he also forget that his medical insurance was provided by the same Medical Protection Society as Walker-Smith's and that, on advice from Wakefield's own counsel, they declined to fund his appeal because they didn't think he'd win it?

I've observed this man for a long time, but to watch him sink into the gutter of so publicly deceiving such obviously vulnerable people is a slightly new twist. Of course, many of them applauded, laughed and cheered.

What a spectacle.

I also see that Wakefield is now telling parents that he was charged by the GMC with all the same things as Walker-Smith.

His game plan is obvious. He's trying to insinuate that because Walker-Smith had his conviction voided, he (Wakefield) is also not guilty. Even though we all know that Walker-Smith threw Wakefield under a bus in his appeal.

@Roger Kulp #67

I really loved those thermal images taken after drinking Double Helix woowoo Water. Could it possibly be, just maybe, that those children were moving around generating heat in their muscles, then sat down with a glass of water for 30 mins and the heat dissipated? But I'm not a quack, what would I know.

Perhaps Wakefield meant to add "...and a whole lot more as well!" right after "I was charged with the same things as Walker-Smith..." but it slipped his mind, in much the same way as all those conflicts of interest he forgot to mention.

William:
"What courses do you take to become a certified homeopath? Pouring out water into a line of test tubes?"
For the certification exam, they are asked to pour piss out of a boot with the instructions printed on the heel.
If they fail that test they win their certification.

Dave: if they flunk, will the makeup test require them to find their ass(es) with either hand while their pants are on fire?

#164 Interrobang
Woodenden?

I worked 3 summers at Northwood ( up north at Kirkland Lake)

I still think accessibility every day. Unfortunately, usuallly "that's a shitty design".

Another anecdote on "where were all the autistic people?" My husband (50s) almost certainly could qualify for an Asperger's diagnosis, his older brother (60) is probably a bit further along the spectrum (though as a math professor, it's somewhat expected of him). My mom once made an off-hand comment along those lines to my mother-in-law, who was HIGHLY offended ("I did NOT raise an autistic child!" - not sure what that says about me...). I suspect a lot of HFA cases would have met with similar denial back in the day

@174 JGC
Well by reasonably reliable report (Dad), Doc Kelly, King of the Medicine Men, had a boy draw water from the Rideau Canal and fill “medicine bottles”. Presumably an apprentice homoeopath could do something similar. Same cost , same result but perhaps a certification at the end?

I read the sessions and assumed it was a joke...but noooooooo! The claims that they have a cure are outrageous, they always get some PhD or MD that went off the deep-end and ditched evidence-based science? Stephanie Seneff from MIT, sounds like she is mentally ill when I see her talks. MIT needs to get one of the Dr. Oz letters to the MIT. She lies about her research in her labs claiming she has evidence that vaccine are bad. She is a very dangerous person.

Nice presentation here:
Dr Zac Bush - Gut/Brain Injury: How, why, and what you can do about it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea-VzpdKwrc

When will that coward, Orac the Sterile, come to the microbial table?

And now a word from our sponsor:
Roald Dahl and the Measles Factory
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roald-dahl-and-measles-factory

greenmedinfo? Stopped reading there.

As all good things... er,, all things, that is, must come to an end, AutismOne 2015 has now become history.
fortunately, remnants of its vast, opulent panorama of pseudoscience-based self-aggrandisement disguised as public service have been preserved for us in perpetuity.
Scanning TMR's facebook page,
I came across 2 videos of TMs- Jennifer Limekiller, aka Saint, a school psychologist, discusses IEPs and several TMs instruct fledgling TMs 'How not to die'. ( 57 minutes)

I viewed the latter only- it is extremely revelatory of the TMs' MO and basic mode of communication to their followers: friendly, sure of themselves, entertaining and utterly misguided.
The services they offer distraught parents are well-intentioned and sincere but ultimately, group therapy gone wrong.

The TMs made other appearances , offered a writing workshop ( Oh Joy) and hosted a lounge -with alcoholic beverages, true confessions and bad advice.

Nice presentation here:
Dr Zac Bush

"Dr. Zachary Bush is Relay Foods medical nutrition consultant, medical director of Revolution Health Center in Scottsville, VA, and founder of New Earth Dynamics."

Uh huh.

Gut/Brain Injury: How, why, and what you can do about it

BUY SUPPLEMENTS FROM RELAY FOODS.

@#186 --

It seems like kind of a contradiction that that was posted the same day (and cheek by jowl with) an article announcing that consuming 30 grams of sugar a day (in the form of blueberry powder) boosts immunity.

Are you and the author of the blueberry article going to have a flame war?

Denice, don't miss Andrew Wakefield's presentation where he likens vaccination to the Ice Age, gene mutation a matter of Punctuated Equilibrium. Are vaccine campaigns truly changing the face of humanity for the worse, dumbing-down the entire population? What a horror if that's true.
https://youtu.be/U78XWGbUj24

Are there any pro-vaccine conferences like this AutismOne conference? And if there were, who would speak about vaccine safety? Certainly not Orac the Sterile who, as previously established, was heavily spanked as a child. I'm sure Brian Deer received more than his share of the belt while Narad was simply not allowed to breastfeed, not even by the neighbor's wife which would have stabilized his flora and made him a far kinder person:
http://www.microbiomejournal.com/content/3/1/17
(Narad, you and I should go into business together consolidating the wet nurse industry; better late than never.)

I'd suggest RFK, Jr. for your conference since he's very pro-vaccine:
http://www.ora.tv/offthegrid/grid-robert--kennedy-jr-takes-big-pharma--…

The pitiful irony is it's largely the sick/imbalanced children suffering vaccine damage (along with some having natural flora balances high in Bacteroides such as Africans), but they're the ones who may really need the vaccines to raise immunity. But the healthy/balanced children seemingly escaping injury (hard to detect loss of a few IQ points) may not really need vaccines. Recall measles as mild childhood disease and the fact that 95% of all polio cases are asymptomatic.

@ Keith Bell:

Are vaccine campaigns truly changing the face of humanity for the worse, dumbing-down the entire population? What a horror if that’s true.

"If".
And given that your source is Andrew Wakefield, a man I wouldn't believe if he told me the sky was blue, citation needed.

I’d suggest RFK, Jr. for your conference since he’s very pro-vaccine.

RFK Jr. pro vaccine? I want some of whatever you're smoking.

The pitiful irony is it’s largely the sick/imbalanced children suffering vaccine damage...

Citation needed.

Recall measles as mild childhood disease and the fact that 95% of all polio cases are asymptomatic.

For all too many people, measles is not mild. It still kills thousands each year. It killed an unvaccinated child in Germany recently. The fact that you survived it doesn't mean that everyone had such an easy time of it.

@Julian Frost: But Keith Bell doesn't care about kids in Germany. They obviously weren't breastfed properly, ate sugar, and otherwise didn't deserve to live. He only cares if you live life the way HE demands you live your life. If you don't buy his products and use his supplements, you can go ahead and die. You're not worthy to live, according to him.

Keith Bell, you are one ignorant son of a bitch, or maybe you're just criminally thoughtless and insensitive, or maybe all of the above.
"95% of all polio cases are asymptomatic" How relevant to a discussion of polio vaccination!
I am a polio survivor. On behalf of my fellow five-percenters, too many of whom suffered miserably and/or died far too young, go f**k yourself, you moron.
(Orac, feel free to edit this.)

Dave, that really sucks that you were one of the 5%. But why lash out at me? I'm just trying to help make vaccines safer. That's more than Orac the Sterile can say for himself. Nobody's talking about vaccine safety here on this heinous blog.

Have you ever considered why you were one of the 5%? Perhaps it's because of the bacteria you harbor leading to increased polio infectivity, This is known to science:
"Enteric viruses evolved in the presence of bacteria and require their presence for efficient replication and transmission. Bacterial LPS and peptidoglycan stabilize the poliovirus virion and facilitate attachment to host cells"
http://www.cell.com/immunity/abstract/S1074-7613%2815%2900183-1?rss=yes

ATTENTION: ORAC THE STERILE
"Is the gut microbiome key to modulating vaccine efficacy?"
Read More: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/full/10.1586/14760584.2015.1040395

Though the vaccine industry has fully acknowledged their products require a healthy microbiome to be effective, they haven't come forward to ask if the microbiome may also be the source of vaccine injury. If the microbiome is the solution, then perhaps it's also the problem.

But scientists aren't asking. It's as if they aren't interested in vaccine safety. They only want to develop new vaccines and improve vaccine response. And that's pretty sad considering chronic childhood diseases on the rise and an apparent autism epidemic.

By the way, Dave, maybe it was another vaccine that made you vulnerable to polio. For example, the cholera vaccine significantly increases gram negative bacteria which are LPS-producers dramatically increasing polio infectivity.
"Dynamics of intestinal flora after oral vaccination with inactivated whole-cell/recombinant B subunit O139 cholera vaccine."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14965834

Hey, Keith Cracked Bell, I was an infant when I contracted poliomyelitis and had not yet been vaccinated against anything. Most of the vaccines that your "I'm not antivaccine, I'm just trying to improve vaccine safety" pals bitch about didn't even exist then. The announcement of successful trials of the Salk vaccine hadn't even been made. In fact, I hadn't even left the hospital. All your postulations are just vapor.
You say you are trying to make vaccines safer, but you know you aren't. Vaccine safety is pretty damn good, and what you call the "apparent autism epidemic" is just that: apparent, not real. The number of provable vaccine injuries is tiny, and while even one adverse event ideally is too many, the certainty that whatever you do in medicine is bound to harm someone somewhere sometime unintentionally is no reason to stand around with your hands in your pockets and do nothing when there are patients in need.
By the by, your citations are a long way away from getting off the page and into actual useful clinical information, and that's if they hold up. They don't even support your claims very well. The Informa abstract you link to contains the following: "A symbiotic relationship with gut microbes is critical for the normal function of human health. Vaccination, however, tips the symbiotic balance slightly in favor of human health." Also, since most vaccines are administered parenterally rather than orally, you really must explain to me how relevant gut flora is to any but a tiny handful of vaccines anyway.
You're still a f**king moron.
I suppose it was one of the vaccines I had that didn't exist back then that also put me on the autism spectrum.
Your stupidity disgusts me.
Why lash out at you? Because you dismiss the suffering of the 5%, who amounted to thousands and thousands of real live individual suffering human beings because of the putative 95% whom you say were asymptomatic. Because your time-blunted memory of your anecdotal mild case of measles leaves out the deaths, hospitalizations, ventilator-requiring cases, and late sequelae that affected many more thousands of real live human beings who contracted measles. Maybe you're right and vaccination is really harmful, and we'd all be better off in smallpox and polio were still around, but you'd still be a f**king jerk.

"Are there any pro-vaccine conferences like this AutismOne conference? And if there were, who would speak about vaccine safety?" I'm sure there are, but on the whole, vaccines would be part of conferences like IDSA/ICAAC and the Conference on Emerging Infectious Diseases.
"But the healthy/balanced children seemingly escaping injury (hard to detect loss of a few IQ points) may not really need vaccines." SEEMINGLY? Do you have one percent of a speck of a smidgen of an iota of an atom of proof for that assertion? Can you postulate a mechanism for this "loss of a few IQ points" that could satisfy Occam's Chainsaw?
And what's with citing Andrew Wakefield as an expert on anything but huckstering and malpractice? As John McEnroe might say, "You cannot be serious".
"Dave, that really sucks that you were one of the 5%." No. What sucks is the complete failure of your educators to give you any grounding in critical thinking.
The more I go back over your noxious brain-pukings, the more contempt I have for you.
Keep it up. I'll stop being polite; wait until I take the gloves off.

You're in severe denial, Dave. Do you not trust the CDC figures stating one in 42 boys are autistic? What were the figures when you were in the hospital with polio? One in 20,000?

And do you have even a clue about how many people suffer vaccine injuries when less than 5% are even reported? "pretty damn good" isn't good enough.

I've never dismissed the 5% of people who contracted polio and actually displayed symptoms like yourself. My heart goes to you, Dave. Hopefully, polio didn't wreak havoc for decades after as it does so many, i.e., seizure disorders as it did with Neil Young. And Joni's Mitchell's polio may have exposed her to problems such as Morgellons. And I've never told anyone not to receive a measles vaccine. In fact, I find recent news about eliminating measles important in lowering deaths by other diseases a compelling argument. But MMR is well known to cause injury. Why do you think Japan stopped using it?

70% of the body's immune system is in the gut, so it doesn't matter if vaccines are oral or parenteral, the gut is affected. Have you heard of the gut-brain connection? There's your mechanism for lowering IQ.

Also sorry to learn you're on the autistic spectrum. You don't have to vaccinated to be autistic. Since you contracted polio as an infant, that may be the reason. My guess would be you were born with imbalanced flora (or weren't breastfed) leaving you vulnerable to polio which then caused further imbalance leading to ASD. It could have been reversed and it still may be improved with the right kind of therapy. Judging by your temperament, you may be suffering tryptophan depletion based on flora imbalance.

@keith

Again, why should anyone believe a known liar like you? At least I can show other people how truly vile an anti-vaxxer really is, just by showing your comments to others.

Keith Bell:

You’re in severe denial, Dave. Do you not trust the CDC figures stating one in 42 boys are autistic? What were the figures when you were in the hospital with polio? One in 20,000?

Oh for crying out loud. Yet another one who thinks that because the rate of diagnosis is increasing, the real rate must also be increasing.
Keith, the diagnostic criteria for autism have widened significantly, awareness of autism has increased, people who would previously have been diagnosed as retarded are now diagnosed as autistic. That doesn't mean that the rate of autism is increasing, just that we're better at detecting it.

And do you have even a clue about how many people suffer vaccine injuries when less than 5% are even reported? “pretty damn good” isn’t good enough.

Citation needed that less than 5% of vaccine injuries are reported. And citation needed that said injuries are severe.

I’ve never dismissed the 5% of people who contracted polio and actually displayed symptoms like yourself.

You said previously:

Recall measles as mild childhood disease and the fact that 95% of all polio cases are asymptomatic.

That comes across as dismissive, no matter HOW you cut it.

But MMR is well known to cause injury. Why do you think Japan stopped using it?

Firstly, citation needed for your claim that MMR is well known to cause injury. As for your claim that Japan stopped using the MMR, you are wrong. I pulled up the vaccination schedule for Japan, and the MMR is listed as compulsory.
Finally, if you're repeating falsities, half-truths and distortions about the risks of vaccination, you are not "pro safe vaccine", you are anti-vaccine.

Joni’s Mitchell’s polio may have exposed her to problems such as Morgellons.

Reading http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/post_polio/detail_post_polio.htm , I see nothing about delusions. You got a citation for your silly idea?

Proper Johnny
Accept no substitutes

Julian, Mr Bell (like false johnny) lies by omission. The Japanese vaccinate against measles, mumps and rubella, but they use a different vaccine combination.

"false johnny" and Mr Bell hope no one notices that the incidence of autism continued to rise in Japan even after use of the MMR was stopped.

The issue Japan had with their MMR was the use of the Urabe mumps component, which does cause some aseptic meningitis. It the reason that the UK removed two of the three MMR vaccines they were using in 1992.

In fact the UK never approved a single mumps vaccine, the three MMR vaccines they introduced in 1988 were the first time they vaccinated for mumps. Then in 1998 Wakefield announced in a news conference with any actual evidence that parents should opt with single jabs. So some enterprising private clinics offered them, but the only way they could get single mumps vaccines was to import then. The irony was that was both illegal and it was the same strain, Urabe, that caused problems years before. It prompted this warning: MEDICINES CONTROL AGENCY TO OBJECT TO IMPORTATION OF UNLICENSED SINGLE URABE STRAIN MUMPS VACCINE

And the Japanese bending backwards to satisfy their anti-vaccine population had serious consequences. See:
Measles vaccine coverage and factors related to uncompleted vaccination among 18-month-old and 36-month-old children in Kyoto, Japan

Emphasis added to this quote:

The Immunization Law in Japan has been providing children with measles vaccination since 1978. Since Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine was introduced into Japan in 1989, a number of cases of post-vaccination aseptic meningitis have been reported and these have been attributed to the use of Urabe Am9 mumps vaccine [8]. In 1993, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) withdrew the domestically produced MMR vaccine [9]. As of 1994, an amendment to the Immunization Law made vaccination voluntary and not mandatory. According to the present law, a single dose of measles vaccine is recommended for children over one year of age. Children are eligible to receive measles vaccination after 12 months following birth but not beyond 90 months. Until January 2004, adminisiration of measles vaccine was recommended between 12 and 24 months of age, instead of between 12 and 15 months when children have the greatest risk of contracting measles [10]. In Japan, measles vaccine coverage has remained low, and either small or moderate outbreaks have occurred repeatedly in communities. According to an infectious disease surveillance (2000), total measles cases were estimated to be from 180,000 to 210,000, and total deaths were estimated to be 88 [11,12]. Measles cases are most frequently observed among non-immunized children, particularly between 12 to 24 months.

So, Mr. Bell, you neglected to mention how Japan's ill advised move caused death. Not mentioned, but was broadcast much around the American west coast that several Japanese schools were closed to help reduce the measles outbreak, and that several American caught measles due to visitors from Japan. That included an entire family attending a religious conference and an outbreak at the 2008 Little League World Series.

Other links:

Japan boy baseball player caused U.S. measles cases

Measles: "I'll be back"

Pubmed paper:
J Travel Med. 2008 Mar-Apr;15(2):82-6. doi: 10.1111/j.1708-8305.2008.00183.x.
Measles exportation from Japan to the United States, 1994 to 2006.

The conclusion is very interesting (emphasis added): "CONCLUSIONS:

Trend of exported measles cases from Japan to the United States has corresponded with the measles activity trend in Japan. Most of the cases were unvaccinated. This international health problem should be solved by strong leadership of Japanese public health professionals."

Using Japan as an example of good vaccine policy is not the brightest move. As noted with this wee bit of history that the anti-vaccine contingent like to misconstrue:

Expert Rev Vaccines. 2005 Apr;4(2):173-84.
Acellular pertussis vaccines in Japan: past, present and future.

The abstract starts with: "An antivaccine movement developed in Japan as a consequence of increasing numbers of adverse reactions to whole-cell pertussis vaccines in the mid-1970s. After two infants died within 24 h of the vaccination from 1974 to 1975, the Japanese government temporarily suspended vaccinations. Subsequently, the public and the government witnessed the re-emergence of whooping cough, with 41 deaths in 1979. This series of unfortunate events revealed to the public that the vaccine had, in fact, been beneficial."

That incident is also featured in this paper (it is free online at the University of Georgia website as a reading to accompany a video on immunization policies:

Lancet. 1998 Jan 31;351(9099):356-61.
Impact of anti-vaccine movements on pertussis control: the untold story

"70% of the body’s immune system is in the gut, so it doesn’t matter if vaccines are oral or parenteral, the gut is affected. Have you heard of the gut-brain connection? There’s your mechanism for lowering IQ."
Is there a mechanism in there somewhere? Your foot has lymphoid tissue and mast cells, and it has nerves that connect to the brain.Athlete's foot or a stubbed toe must have lowered your IQ to the point where you think you're actually making sense.
I also don't need "your heart going out" to me. I do expect that my experience and perspective as patient and practitioner both give some weight to my comments.
As I've said elsewhere, around the time I was born, and for decades after, we didn't have many autistic people. The identification of autism, the word autism itself, was a brand new thing, dating to 1943 and few people were educated enough to recognize it. What we had were "retards". As for the less-disabling parts of the spectrum, Asperger's syndrome was first identified also in 1943 in wartime Austria and was unheard of in the English language until 1989. It is impossible to diagnose someone with a condition that no one has heard of, and difficult to make a diagnosis retroactively. Even after a new identification of a condition, it takes time to percolate down into first medical and then public consciousness. Having multiple stigmata attached to the diagnosis means acceptance is delayed even further (Bruno Bettelheim and "refrigerator mothers" for an example.). There's your "epidemic" right there.
"My guess would be you were born with imbalanced flora..." No one is born with intestinal flora, balanced, imbalanced, unbalanced,or able to walk a tightrope.
"Joni’s Mitchell’s polio may have exposed her to problems such as Morgellons" Much as I love and admire Ms Mitchell, exposure to ignorance like yours caused her supposed Morgellon's disease.
The plain truth is that autism spectrum conditions (I firmly reject the use of the word "disorder".) are caused by an alteration different from the typical in the way the brain develops, prunes, and reorganizes neurons from fetal development into early childhood. Poliomyelitis has nothing to do with it. There are certainly enough of us polio survivors to allow determination of whether it could and there has never been a whisper of a correlation or of any mechanism for it to significantly affect parts of the CNS other than motor neurons.
"But scientists aren’t asking. It’s as if they aren’t interested in vaccine safety. They only want to develop new vaccines and improve vaccine response." How many studies are we up to now into whether or not vaccines cause autism? (*Spoiler alert: They don't.*) The number of studies with a connection is zero since the retraction of the one from an ethics-deficient grifter who was stripped of his license. If it isn't obvious to you, improved vaccine safety is implicitly an improved vaccine response.
My heart goes out to you for your delusional thought disorder and to everyone who has to put up with it.

Julian, Mr Bell (like false johnny) lies by omission.

And stupidity. Indeed, I was just about to note that Bellend is nothing more than a long-winded version of Phildo Hills – he's attention-whoring, I presume because he has a new monument to his lack of reasoning skills up over at GMI that is predictably being ignored there.

More from the Land of Sterility, Oracland™. Dave said:
"No one is born with intestinal flora, balanced, imbalanced, unbalanced"
That's the dangerous mentality of dinosaur speaking. You're parroting what scientists have stated for decades without evidence, more akin to religion. Is Earth flat, Dave?

No wonder you condone vaccination within 12 hours of birth since you believe the fetal GI tract is sterile without evidence.

So, Dave, you would put yourself on a spectrum which includes mental retardation? I wouldn't. Autistic children are thought to have developed normally until vaccination, then regressed into autism. Your regression may have been tied to polio.

I suggest you research the gut-brain connection. It's far more powerful than the foot-brain connection.

Regarding psychological issues in post-polio syndrome:
"40% increased risk of being hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder"
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/165/3/319.full

Does post-polio syndrome include epilepsy as may be the case with Neil Young? Up to 40% of those with autism also suffer seizure disorders.

Autistic children are thought to have developed normally until vaccination, then regressed into autism.

You can put bullsh1t through the Voice Empassiviser in the hope that it becomes all authoritative and accepted, but it makes you look like a mendacious coward.

Up to 40% of those with autism also suffer seizure disorders
"Up to"? What a surprise, a mendacious coward backs away from making a falsifiable claim.

Mr. Bell: "Up to 40% of those with autism also suffer seizure disorders."

Wow. Like we did not know that. My son's seizures were when he was two days old. There was no infant HepB vaccine then, plus it was fifteen months before his MMR.

So tell us, why do you think Japan's policy is great when it killed at least 88 people with measles?

Regarding psychological issues in post-polio syndrome:
“40% increased risk of being hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder”

I am assuming this is in response to my statement that I saw no mention of delusions in general, or Morgellons in particular, as a result of polio. The associated link does nothing to change my mind.

Delusions or Morgellons are not mentioned in the article. A few quotes from the article (references removed) -

Chronic and life-threatening diseases are known to be accompanied by increased risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide.
…

Three to four decades after the acute infection, many polio patients experience new signs of neuromuscular dysfunction, the so-called post-polio syndrome defined by new muscle weakness, pain, atrophy, and fatigue. What remains uncertain is whether polio survivors are also at risk of psychiatric sequelae. Some studies have shown elevated depression and distress scores among polio patients, whereas other studies have shown normal levels.
…

Stressful life events are considered important in the etiology or triggering of psychiatric diseases. For those affected, contracting poliomyelitis was a very painful and fearful event. The stringent isolation of hospitalized polio patients meant separation from parents and friends for weeks or even months and total dependence on hospital staff. When reentering society, paralytic polio patients not only experienced all the physical problems and limitations associated with being disabled, but some of them were also exposed to social prejudice, isolation, and inappropriate parental rearing because of their disabilities. Interestingly, traumatic childhood events such as major illness, hospitalization, separation from parents, and physical handicaps have been suggested to be associated with an increased risk of personality disorders. Furthermore, to survive and succeed in a society full of barriers, it is believed that polio patients acquired the highly stressful type A behavior characterized by being hard-driving overachievers and perfectionists. Thus, the observed psychiatric morbidity among previous polio patients might be related to the traumatic experience of contracting polio, the following parental and social attitudes, and the struggle to achieve social normalcy.

So having a mentally and physically stressful, possibly physically disabling, disease, that can cause life long problems, can also cause mental anguish in some people. Imagine that.

But the total number of people that have had polio that also have Morgellons? I doubt there are more than 3 or 4, and fairly sure there are less than a dozen.

But in your mind, that is no doubt a rock solid link.

Keith Bell:

No wonder you condone vaccination within 12 hours of birth since you believe the fetal GI tract is sterile without evidence.

Were ignorance bliss, you'd be euphoric.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10232646

The gastrointestinal tract of a normal fetus is sterile. During the birth process and rapidly thereafter, microbes from the mother and surrounding environment colonize the gastrointestinal tract of the infant until a dense, complex microbiota develops.

As for:

Regarding psychological issues in post-polio syndrome:
“40% increased risk of being hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder”

Gee, a condition that can permanently disable someone can cause its victims to suffer psychiatric conditions. What a shocker.

Does post-polio syndrome include epilepsy as may be the case with Neil Young?

Why don't you fire up Google and research it? I looked, and epilepsy wasn't mentioned. Oh, and "as may be the case" is just more weaselling.

But the total number of people that have had polio that also have Morgellons?

Johnny, Morgellon's is delusional parisitosis or a psychosomatic disease. It's completely fictional and not a recognised diagnosis. Please don't give Bell even a whiff of benefit of the doubt.

Up to 40% of those with autism also suffer seizure disorders.

Sixty or so years ago, I learned in high-school algebra that 'up to' is exactly the same as 'no more than' or 'at most', mathematically. They all denote ≤; 'up to' connotes the = portion; 'not less than' is negative and connotes the < portion; 'at most' is positive, connoting ≤.
Since then, I have learned that the choice between them is usually based on just how the writer wants to mislead and manipulate his readers. 'At most' is honest and non-manipulative; the others manipulate by their connotations. Thus, you don't see 'at most' in advertising or in TV news reports.
Ding-dong's use of 'up to' shows his honesty is (at best) marginal.

Johnny, that link was not meant for you, but for Dave regarding his autism.

Chris, recall we discussed your suffering mumps twice before giving birth, possibly leading to your son having poor microbial predisposition and Infantile Spasm. In a world which actually cared about vaccine safely, he would have been tested pre-MMR to assess potential risk of injury (things like microbial DNA stool testing, organic acid urine testing and genetic testing including blood type and secretor status). Did he react poorly to MMR? As I recall, he was recently diagnosed autistic in his mid-20s. Regarding measles in Japan, even if everyone were safely vaccinated there would still be measles outbreaks. I'm not necessarily against measles vaccination if it can be done safely. China's vaccination rate is 99% and they still have many outbreaks.

Hi Mom!

Julian, dig a little deeper than that obsolete 1999 paper. I've had personal communication with the author, Gaskins, and he fully admits no evidence. Meanwhile, the placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid are not sterile. The Sterile Womb Paradigm is obsolete.

Johnny, Morgellon’s is delusional parisitosis or a psychosomatic disease. It’s completely fictional and not a recognised diagnosis.

We are in violent agreement on this, SM.

I was wondering how Mr. Bell justified the statement "Joni’s Mitchell’s polio may have exposed her to problems such as Morgellons". Well, I probably do know the answer. Because, microbiome.

Johnny, that link was not meant for you, but for Dave regarding his autism.

Goodness, that makes even less sense.

Jeepers Keith, are you a human being or a weasel?

Chris, recall we discussed your suffering mumps twice before giving birth, possibly leading to your son having poor microbial predisposition and Infantile Spasm.

Citation needed, and stop hiding behind "possibly".

In a world which actually cared about vaccine safely, he would have been tested pre-MMR to assess potential risk of injury (things like microbial DNA stool testing, organic acid urine testing and genetic testing including blood type and secretor status).

There is a cost benefit risk to everything. The tests you suggest, assuming they exist, would be expensive and I don't see how they would detect the potential for injury.

[E]ven if everyone were safely vaccinated there would still be measles outbreaks.

There is no non-human reservoir for measles. If everyone was vaccinated against measles, it would go the way of smallpox and rinderpest, both driven int extinction by vaccination.

I’m not necessarily against measles vaccination if it can be done safely.

Yet more weaselling. You assume that there are significant risks associated with measles vaccination.

China’s vaccination rate is 99% and they still have many outbreaks.

Citation needed for both your claims.

ulian, dig a little deeper than that obsolete 1999 paper. I’ve had personal communication with the author, Gaskins, and he fully admits no evidence.

Given the inaccuracies you've spouted before, I'd like too see your evidence. And no, your word is not good enough.

Meanwhile, the placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid are not sterile.

Citation needed.

things like microbial DNA stool testing, organic acid urine testing and genetic testing including blood type and secretor status

Ding ding ding, we have the Doctor's Data/ Great Plains/ Genovo trifecta of grifter blood tests for the interminably vapid and gullible. What a shock a tool like Keith Bell would actually recommend those with such devout authority.

Were ignorance bliss, you’d be euphoric

I take it that y'all have forgotten that this is one of Bellend's favorite opportunities for diversionary attention-seeking. His case is predictably grossly overstated, but you might as well be keeping food in your tent in bear country.

In a world which actually cared about vaccine safely, he would have been tested pre-MMR to assess potential risk of injury (things like microbial DNA stool testing, organic acid urine testing and genetic testing including blood type and secretor status).

And several hundred (or thousand?) dollars later, what are these tests supposed to tell us? What have they to do with MMR safety?

Meanwhile, the placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid are not sterile. The Sterile Womb Paradigm is obsolete.

You are full of crap. There is a reason why leakage of amniotic fluid is a serious complication. That's when the placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid become unsterile and intrauterine infection often follows, with disastrous consequences for mother and fetus.
Go be stupid someplace else.

Meanwhile, the placenta, umbilical cord and amniotic fluid are not sterile.

Citation needed.

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/40038/title/The-M…

A layperson citation but I think in the name of accuracy, Bell isn't completely daft on this point. However, his (mis)representations of studies regarding intestinal microflora and their application to the relative infancy of maternal-foetal GI microflora studies, his jazz hand-waving can't even cover that chasm.

Mr. Bell: "Chris, recall we discussed your suffering mumps twice before giving birth, possibly leading to your son having poor microbial predisposition and Infantile Spasm."

There was no discussion, just your delusional rants without evidence. Also, considering almost everyone in my generation suffered from mumps and possibly measles before giving birth shows how your delusions are also logically idiotic.

"Did he react poorly to MMR?"

Absolutely not. And there is no reason to blame a vaccine he was given fifteen months after the seizures, nor any case of mumps or measles suffered by his parents, grandparents and other ancestors for his seizures. Also we cannot blame his MMR vaccine on him suffering from another completely different viral disease later that year.

Because they are not related. They are not even correlated.

And they also have nothing to do with the at least 88 deaths from measles in Japan that happened later. It is idiotic thinking like yours that caused a measles outbreak in Japan, and subsequent infections of Americans who decided to not vaccinate because of the same idiocy.

You, Mr. Bell, deserve part of the blame for each and every measles infection that has occurred in North America during the last decade. Along with every other idiot who listened to a sociopath at a press conference stumping his fraudulent study of twelve kids.

Ding-dong’s use of ‘up to’ shows his honesty is (at best) marginal.

Were KB to write
I think autistic children developed normally until vaccination, then regressed into autism
-- then he'd be wrong... and he'd be stupid... but at least he would not be a gutless lying sh1tweasel.
Because he writes
Autistic children are thought to have developed normally until vaccination, then regressed into autism.
-- he does not even pass the gutless-lying-sh1tweasel test.

Chris, having mumps twice is exceedingly rare, no? Do you also happen to be diabetic or were gestational diabetic?

Maternal diabetes and gestational are studied in relation to meconium, found high in the types of flora which may be associated with Infantile Spasm and potential for vaccine injury.

Perhaps in the future we'll see routine PCR meconium testing to screen infants pre-vaccination for safety.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr5011857
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0078257

Bacteria found in healthy placentas, May 2014:
http://www.nature.com/news/bacteria-found-in-healthy-placentas-1.15274

Association of Maternal Diabetes With Autism in Offspring, April 2015:
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2247143

Mr. Idiot Bell: "Chris, having mumps twice is exceedingly rare, no?"

No, it was not. It was actually fairly common. This is why there was a myth going around that if you got on "one side", later you got it on the "other side." Immunity to mumps could weaken, and getting again during an epidemic would happen. I just happened to get it again during an epidemic. And if you have actually been a regular participant on this blog you will have learned I am not the only one, others have relayed the same experience.

This is where you being of an age after there was a vaccine comes into play by making you actually quite ignorant of both the severity of diseases and how they behave. Plus you are an idiot.

Oh, also Mr. Idiot Bell, I have never had any form of diabetes and both of my younger children are perfectly fine. In fact they have completely different phenotypes than their older brother.

My oldest son's issues are all due to bad roll of the genetic dice. From his seizures, heart issues and his autism. It has nothing to do with previous viral infections of any of his ancestors. For all we know a microscopic black hole flew through me and jumbled the DNA alphabet soup of some of my eggs. That is all.

Chris, you're so kind. If you believe it's genetic and not microbial predisposition, then perhaps he has Dravet Syndrome or something like it associated with autism and mental retardation.

Dravet is quite rare, explaining only 2.5% of seizures post vaccination. What about the other 97.5%?

Guess what, Idiot Bell, there are lots of causes of seizures. Many are unknown, some recently found to be genetic, and many caused by the actual diseases.

What about the other 97.5%?"

Try answering the question that I am sure I have asked you multiple times before: Provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that shows any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

How's your dog, Keith? Still seizing?

Your metagenomic nonsense has been thoroughly debunked here and elsewhere. Stick to waste management rather than spreading your waste here.

Here in Sterile Oracland™, there's no concern for vaccine safety. What a terrible shame.

Keith Bell: We ARE concerned about vaccine safety. However, we aren't concerned about your mythological vaccines lead to ...

We are concerned that vaccines can and do have adverse effects. But what you don't seem to understand is that in EVERY case, the ILLNESS causes adverse effect on a magnitude many times larger than any vaccine.

Vaccines do NOT cause autism, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, ADHD, SIDS or any other illness that you yo-yos try to link to them.

By the way, Keith: are you pleased about the little 6 year old boy with tetanus in Canada? After all, he was never exposed to the dangerous vaccines. Instead, he's at a very high risk of dying for a vaccine-preventable disease. You and yours, with your "vaccines are dangerous" yelling are responsible for this boy's illness and suffering. Jerk. (I'd call you worse, but I don't want to wind up in limbo until Orac could release my comment.)

We aren't concerned about the mythological THINGS you claim vaccines lead to.

Darn laptop. Still not used to this keyboard.

Here in Sterile Oracland, there’s no concern for vaccine safety exaggerations and lies about the dangers of vaccines.
FTFY. HTH. HAND.

"So, Dave, you would put yourself on a spectrum which includes mental retardation?" You should complain to your elementary school. It clearly failed to teach you reading for meaning. To clear up your painful confusion, many, maybe a majority, of poorly-functioning autistic people once were lumped in with the mentally retarded because there was little awareness of what autism was and how to diagnose and treat it. There, I've relieved your brain ache.

Keith Bell @ #228:

The amniotic sac in which a fetus grows is a sterile environment, but the placenta — an organ the fetus shares with the mother — is home to a bacterial community.

Quoted from the Nature article. Since the placenta is constantly infused with maternal blood, this is not surprising. Thank you for confirming that the amniotic sac is a sterile environment.

Cracked Bell, I concede that bacterial exposure can start well before birth, but that still doesn't provide any clear support to your contentions about gut flora and poliomyelitis.
Your repetition of your contention of the gut-brain connection somehow causing autism still doesn't provide a mechanism. Without postulating one, you are left with a post-hoc propter-hoc fallacy.
"Autistic children are thought to have developed normally until vaccination, then regressed into autism." You in turn should study some more. Actual researchers are homing in on evidence of autism in infancy, long before symptoms show. This makes sense. Structural changes in brain development continue well into the second year of life, so regression due to atypical development fits perfectly well with observed changes.
You say, "Regarding psychological issues in post-polio syndrome: “40% increased risk of being hospitalized for a psychiatric disorder”". Since autism spectrum conditions are not psychiatric disorders, and certainly not ones that people are even infrequently hospitalized for, this is irrelevant.
"Does post-polio syndrome include epilepsy...?" More irrelevance. Gish gallop at its lamest.
"I suggest you research the gut-brain connection. It’s far more powerful than the foot-brain connection." Take a look sometime at the cortical homunculus. The foot-brain connection is much more important in both sensory and motor areas than the gut.
"Your regression may have been tied to polio.Your regression may have been tied to polio." You should look up the stats on regression in autism spectrum conditions. It occurs in some percentage a little to one side or the other of half of all cases across the spectrum, but didn't for me.
Just so you don't think I've mellowed toward you, I still think you are a f**kwit.

Perhaps in the future we’ll see routine PCR meconium testing to screen infants pre-vaccination for safety.

Oh please do tell how exactly this works as in identification of what will prevent/cause what.

And several hundred (or thousand?) dollars later, what are these tests supposed to tell us? What have they to do with MMR safety?

I'd like to know the same but I see Mr. amateur hour isn't going to elaborate. And to think that some might be taken in by his swill.

OT but are ..
WAIT a minute! This is truly ON Topic!

I watched a video newly added at Autism One 2015 - TMR's Writing Workshop and that's 53 minutes totally wasted on frippery and puffery.

HOWEVER beside the unintentional hilarity they engendered whilst explicating the fine art of writing, it appears that the Prof ( who led the event because MacNeil bailed) reveals that these ladies have plans-
they want to increase their network and reach those 'on the fence' as well as teenagers, minorities and the ND community. If they can engage enough readers they will reach a 'tipping point' that will inaugurate "paradigm shift'
( channeling prn, perhaps?)

In addition, a TM narrates how writing helped her deal with her feelings and 'grow'. Yes, they not only help others- poor lost new parents- but they help themselves
Like group therapy

If you have ever done any writing or would like to embark upon that twisted, thorny pathway, watch this video. In fact, Orac and his minions may enjoy this offering immensely.

So, Dave, you would put yourself on a spectrum which includes mental retardation?

No, he wouldn't, and it takes an asshole like you to come to that conclusion.

Mr. Bell: "Here in Sterile Oracland™, there’s no concern for vaccine safety."

Where are the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the diseases?

While we are concerned with reasonable vaccine safety, you seem blithely willing to ignore the lack of safety with the actual diseases.

Never ceases to amaze me how many of my fellow parents attend this crap conference every year.

TBruce, #240, thanks for pointing out the Nature article is flawed. Amniotic fluid is not sterile. Colonization begins in the womb and affects fetal brain development, just as it does outside the womb.
http://www.ijponline.net/content/39/1/15#B7
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22137615?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000…

Chris, where have I ignored actual diseases? On the contrary, I've attempted to describe a mechanism for why they occur: susceptibility due to flora imbalance.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/roald-dahl-and-measles-factory
I realize you may be OCD due to having had mumps twice, but please try to stop painting me as anti-vaccine. Try to focus on vaccine safety for even a moment.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2967113/

Dave, what's considered a psychiatric disorder changes with understanding of root cause. For example, reactive hypoglycemia is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia. Psychiatric disorders are much more common in ASD than the general population.

Regarding gut-brain mechanism in ASD, at this point I subscribe to the glutamate hypothesis where gut flora regulate tryptophan and serotonin levels in the brain leading to excitotoxicity.
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v19/n12/full/mp201462a.html
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/vaccine-injury-first-gut-then-brain

Mom, do you have an imagination?

Adam, as I've told you before, she died nearly three years ago from a photosensitive seizure-related accident. Can you imagine the gut-eye connection? I doubt it since you're an insensitive ass as are most of you here in Sterile Oracland™.

So, Dave, you would put yourself on a spectrum which includes mental retardation?

Some would say that "Commenters on RI" comprise a spectrum which includes mental retardation, but I could not possibly comment.

Mr. Bell, where are those PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule cause more seizures than the diseases? Small obscure papers with under a hundred subjects do not count.

Mr Bell: what about the child in Canada? Shouldn't he have been vaccinated instead of having to suffer from tetanus? Or are you going to claim some silly diet would have helped THIS child?

Keith Bell @248:

Chris, where have I ignored actual diseases? On the contrary, I’ve attempted to describe a mechanism for why they occur: susceptibility due to flora imbalance.

And the cite you use to support it is that hateful lie about Roald Dahl from the quack website Green Med Info.

I realize you may be OCD due to having had mumps twice, but please try to stop painting me as anti-vaccine.

Oh, spare us. As we have shown in our responses to your previous comments, you downplay the effectiveness of vaccination, downplay the risks of not vaccinating, and exaggerate the risks significantly using arguments and sources that are frankly preposterous. When you do that, you are NOT "pro safe vaccine", you are antivaccine.

And once again
I'm ON topic- fancy that!

I had some time to waste so I perused the Autism One 2015 site, seeking videos- it looks like much or all of the conference is preserved for posterity-
I only watched 2 more

-TMR presented a 2 hour panel featuring 11 of them discussing their 'recovered' children that nicely illustrated exactly what I suspected- they get attention and applause by narrating their stories and giving advice.
They like being considered experts - and they are, as they know their woo spiels inside out- speaking *ex cathedra* as it were. Homeopathy, GFCF diets, Paleo, chelation, supplements, homotoxicology, enemas, B12 etc.

IMNSHO, it's all about the mothers rather than the children.

- Andy Wakefield presents more speculation concerning genes and environmental influences but I couldn't watch beyond 12 minutes.

Young Julian, I doubt you believe it's even possible to be "pro safe vaccine."

Moreover, I believe the contribution to SIDS, the leading cause of infant mortality 1-12 months of age, by vaccination is real and severely downplayed. But that doesn't make me anti-vaccination.

That's right, vaccines can cause SIDS.

Moreover, I believe the contribution to SIDS, the leading cause of infant mortality 1-12 months of age, by vaccination is real and severely downplayed.

From what evidence is this belief derived, Keith? Be specific.

Young Julian, I doubt you believe it’s even possible to be “pro safe vaccine.”

And you'd be wrong. And I'm not so young.

That’s right, vaccines can cause SIDS.

Horse droppings.
Horse. Freaking. Droppings.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030313/report-vaccines-not-linked-to-s…

The only link between sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and childhood vaccines is timing, according to a major new report. Researchers say that SIDS deaths may occur at a time that infants are given multiple vaccines, but there is no evidence to suggest that the vaccines themselves increase the risk of SIDS.

http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/detection/immunization_mis…

If you consider that most SIDS deaths occur during the age range when three shots of DTP are given, you would expect DTP shots to precede a fair number of SIDS deaths simply by chance. In fact, when a number of well-controlled studies were conducted during the 1980s, the investigators found, nearly unanimously, that the number of SIDS deaths temporally associated with DTP vaccination was within the range expected to occur by chance. In other words, the SIDS deaths would have occurred even if no vaccinations had been given.

In fact, in several of the studies, children who had recently received a DTP shot were less likely to get SIDS.

I said before that you are not "pro safe vaccine" you are antivaccine. Your repeating of the lie that vaccines cause SIDS confirms it.
You. Are. Antivaccine.

Cracked Bell, I went to the two links you posted in response to me. The first one is a long way form accepted science; it may point to some areas worth investigation.
Your second one is crap. The author is in the recycling business, and that's appropriate, since he has a penchant for recycling misinformation, absurd speculation, and outright lies.
While it's full of links, it's basically unsourced, and beneath peer review. I noticed that one of the links goes to Russell Blaylock, a notable crank who is known for his belief in chemtrails idiocy, among other things. It does not surprise me that you are that author. Pushing your pet delusions by linking to your own article is a joke. It's circular reasoning - "The proof of my assertions is that I asserted them at this link, and therefore when I make those assertions here it's because I have proof because I said it somewhere else." In the words of a great philosopher, "What a maroon!"
You say, "what’s considered a psychiatric disorder changes with understanding of root cause. For example, reactive hypoglycemia is often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia." More irrelevance. Hear those hoofbeats? It's the sound of a Gish gallop.

BTW, Keith, I’m especially curious about what evidence has led you to conclude that "vaccines cuase SIDS" since all the evidence I’m aware of suggest if anything vaccination reduces an infant’s risk of SIDS significantly.

See for example Vennemann et al, PMID:17400342, a meta-analysis which found

Immunisations are associated with a halving of the risk of SIDS. There are biological reasons why this association may be causal, but other factors, such as the healthy vaccinee effect, may be important. Immunisations should be part of the SIDS prevention campaigns.

Mr. Bell, where are the citations showing vaccines cause more seizures than the diseases?

Oh shocker, instead of answering questions posed to him to qualify his previous statements, Keith Bell just drops more drek. Hey Keith Jazz Hands won't cut it, answer the questions.

That’s right, vaccines can cause SIDS.

Except, of course, when they don't. Pony up the citations Chris asked for -- if you can.

He can't pony up citations. That would mean doing actual research rather than stuff he makes up and writes down. You notice he STILL hasn't commented on the child from Canada with tetanus? Guess he can't find a diet or reason for that one. I'm sure he'll come up with SOMETHING (sugar, gut flora, non-organic foods).

MI Dawn: " I’m sure he’ll come up with SOMETHING (sugar, gut flora, non-organic foods)."

Bell seems to be a bit obsessed with gut flora, etc. And he accused me of being OCD because I keep repeating a question he refuses to answer.

And once again
I’m ON topic- fancy that!

There's a report from the band of Kerri Rivera protesters here. (See also Liz's comment on the manifesto thread.)

Somebody might want to necromance update this BJ Handley item with the Louis Daniel Smith conviction:

h_tp://www.ageofautism.com/2015/01/whos-afraid-of-autism-recovery.html

New JAMA paper published today:
"Adverse Events After Routine Immunization of Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants"
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleID=2300376&utm_sour…

Yet the paper impudently concludes:
"Our findings provide no evidence to suggest that physicians should not use combination vaccines in ELBW infants."

Is it any wonder preterm infants are more prone to autism?
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/14/peds.201……
"Low birthweight infants five times more likely to have autism"
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-10/uop-lbi101311.php

Current, cruel protocol is to vaccinate newborns at least 2.2 lbs. when it's known they have a high amount of gammaproteobacteria and reduced or absent protective Bifidobacteria.
"Preemies’ gut bacteria may depend more on gestational age than environment"
http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/27198.aspx

Poor Keith, if only you would read your own citations more thoroughly and resist the temptation to interject your raison d'être without a.) having a clue of what you are even talking about and b.) your obsession is not even discussed.

Once again, what is this PCR to test for and what will the results prevent or cause?

Poor, poor ignorant Keith Bell. He simply does not understand that newborns that are that small used to not survive past a day or so, in many countries they are not even considered "live births" but just "stillborn"... and yet he is agonizing over more refinement to make sure they stay alive. Plus he does not know how to copy URL links (one of them is totally borked).

I say this as a sister of an a slightly older than fifty year old woman who was a three pound premie, and was in the lucky small percentage that actually lived. It turned out the reason she lived was that she had an iron clad constitution, her genetics made her immune system robust enough to deal with infections. The only downside was she did not develop the enzymes to digest milk (totally lactose intolerant). So I grew up in the 1960s with a sibling who could not drink milk.

So. Mr. Bell, what is the percentage of American babies born each year are that premature? Is it less than or more than half?

And what vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than than the diseases? Make sure the citations are from real researches.

Kerri Rivera has disabled all of her websites, her email, and her FB profile. She's a ghost. https://nomorebleach.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/where-in-the-world-is-ker…

And what vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than than the diseases? Make sure the citations are from real researches.

Funnily in one of Bell's links, which I'm sure he considers a smoking gun, found that post-immunisation preemies had fewer seizures than pre-immunisation. Then again, he doesn't seem to read or understand his own cites. And let's not hold our collective breath for his answers to our questions, he just posts more wank material for himself. He is a shit-stirrer by trade after all.

Keith Bell:

New JAMA paper published today:
“Adverse Events After Routine Immunization of Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants”...
Yet the paper impudently concludes:
“Our findings provide no evidence to suggest that physicians should not use combination vaccines in ELBW infants.”

Impudent? They looked at the evidence and concluded that the benefits of vaccinating Extremely Low Body Weight infants outweighed the risks. How is that impudent?

Is it any wonder preterm infants are more prone to autism?

That's because they're low birthweight, not because they're vaccinated. Are you really that fixated on vaccines as evil?
One last thing: you made a large number of claims earlier, and when pressed for citations, you either use rubbish that we have refuted already, or you make more unsupported claims about the supposed risks and harms of vaccination. You are Gish Galloping/Ham Hightailing.

Well Archbishop Jim Humble of the MMS Church still seems to be around and advertising the benefits of sticking bleach on the inside.

How awful a person do you have to be (speaking of Humble) to get excommunicated from the church of Scientology?

How awful a person do you have to be (speaking of Humble) to get excommunicated from the church of Scientology?

Publishing their secrets?

Thanks for the notice about the bum link, Chris, here it is:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/14/peds.201…

Would you choose to vaccinate a 2.2 lb. baby? How about an LGA baby (large for gestational age) which is caused by maternal and gestational diabetes in the rise?

This new JAMA paper links maternal diabetes with autism:
Association of Maternal Diabetes With Autism in Offspring
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2247143

The problem with that hypothesis, Mr. Bell, is that there is raises a more parsimonious explanation, one that does not involve vaccines: odd birth weights are a possible cause of autism.

Mr. Bell, you know absolutely nothing about premature babies. Guss what, they are born premies before they ever get vaccines. And yes, prematurity is a known reason for developmental disorders. Also another cause is the mother getting rubella and chicken pox while pregnant.

I suggest you stop digging your hole right now.

While Dave takes his foot out of his mouth believing the foot-brain connection is more important than the gut-brain connection, scientists are rewriting textbooks with this new discovery:
"Missing link found between brain, immune system; major disease implications"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/06/150601122445.htm

Would you choose to vaccinate a 2.2 lb. baby?

Unless you can provide credible evidence demonstrating the risks associated with vaccinating premature infants exceed the risks associated with its remaining vulnerable to infectious disease, yes.

So--got any?

Not only would vaccines be completely ineffective in a flora imbalanced 2.2 lb. baby, but they would lead to adverse events.

Put on your thinking cap JGC, there's tons of evidence. Current protocol is barbaric.

Not only would vaccines be completely ineffective in a flora imbalanced 2.2 lb. baby, but they would lead to adverse events.

Citation needed, Ding-Dong.

Put on your thinking cap JGC, there’s tons of evidence.

Then you won't mind posting it.

Not only would vaccines be completely ineffective in a flora imbalanced 2.2 lb. baby, but they would lead to adverse events.

And you would know this how? Hey Keith, how's that meconium PCR test coming along?

Keith, the article you link to is not the paper itself, and if you read the quotes you will see that while the potential significance is referred to a lot, there is no proof yet that there is clinical significance of any kind. The preview linked to says the same.
Nor is it as revolutionary as you seem to think. "Although it is now accepted that the central nervous system undergoes constant immune surveillance that takes place within the meningeal compartment, the mechanisms governing the entrance and exit of immune cells from the central nervous system remain poorly understood." In other words they have discovered a likely route through which a known phenomenon takes place and have only done so recently. I have only read the preview but I will bet the farm, the ranch, and my boots that they make no claim connecting it to your beloved gut flora. Moving beyond that, there is no evidence that anything that happens in the intestines whether in the walls or the lumen affects structural brain development in a fetus, an infant, or a toddler, and there is no mechanism known by which an injection into muscle will cause an immunologic response in the gut that will then affect that development. In fact there is little evidence that a normal immune reaction will change the development of the structure of the brain at all. There is no proven mechanism for the cause of the vast majority of autism spectrum conditions.There are tantalizing correlations and many hypotheses ranging from the ingenious and highly possible to the bizarre such as the well-debunked "It's teh evull vaccines" (SFX: the tolling of a cracked Bell). There is only your wishful thinking that by evoking ever more tenuous logic that you will come out vindicated in the end. Even if that somehow happened you would not earn an "I told you so" because of a lucky guess instead of having done any of the actual work of proving it.

Dave, there's a lot more where this came from:
"Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior"
http://www.pnas.org/content/108/7/3047.full

"Gut microbial communities modulating brain development and function"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463494/

I think you'd lose the farm, etc., since today's news links the brain and immune system, 70% of which resides in the intestines.

Thanks for your interest.

Mr. Bell, either come up with the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease, or just go away and take your microbiota obsession with you.

Chris, again, this discussion is about vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines. It's about making vaccines safer so they don't cause seizures and autism. But here's an interesting video about how vaccines are responsible for the majority of SIDS cases by way of tryptophan deficiency of gut origin leading to CO2 imbalances and brain serotonin deficiency and glutamate excitotoxicity causing cardiac vagal neurons to shut down the heart:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=871-3XMhtAk

I am sorry, Mr. Bell, but YouTube videos are not PubMed indexed studies. Where is the one by reputable qualified researchers that shows any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than than the diseases?

Are you not aware that the diseases cause seizures and even autism? Really, do tell us how the vaccines cause more.

I am sorry, Mr. Bell, but YouTube videos

Particularly ones that feature Judge Judy. Amusing for a certain value of amusing and the title may be apt for Keith Bell, but peer-reviewed science? I don't think so.

t’s about making vaccines safer so they don’t cause seizures and autism.

But Bell, your own citation found that preemies had fewer seizures after vaccination. Care to explain?

Great observation, Mom. There are inverse relationships with some maladies, such as schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis. Preterm infants appear to have a microbial predisposition toward sepsis. Maybe sepsis and seizure are inversely related due to how sepsis raises brain serotonin activity, thus lowering glutamate excitotoxicity:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006899399013967

Bell:

It’s about making vaccines safer so they don’t cause ...autism.

Vaccines do NOT cause autism, peabrain. The six best candidates were used as Test Cases before Vaccine Court. The plaintiffs didn't just lose, they were trounced. Earlier this year, a higher Court in Italy overturned a lower Court's verdict that the MMR vaccine was responsible for a child's autism.
You have now told a second lie about vaccines. It is time for you to admit that you are not "pro safe vaccine" but antivaccine.

Maybe sepsis and seizure are inversely related due to how sepsis raises brain serotonin activity, thus lowering glutamate excitotoxicity:

You are truly painful to watch in action. No, sepsis is actually association with seizures numbnuts.

^associated

Hey, Keith Bell: once again, please tell me what would have prevented tetanus in the little boy in Canada (besides vaccines)? You keep dodging this question.

Mom, we're talking about sepsis in preterm infants caused by vaccination raising serotonin levels likely low to begin with since Clostridia are known to raise serotonin and not yet developed in preterm infants. Clostridia are the last set to develop based on gestational age. It's the butyrate producing Clostridia raising serotonin levels; probably also tryptophan which converts to serotonin in the brain.

In OTHER people with sepsis, serotonin levels may already be high leading to still higher levels called Serotonin Syndrome, a cause of seizure.

Here's the new paper again so readers here don't have to search this thread for it:
"Adverse Events After Routine Immunization of Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants"
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2300376

Vaccines can cause autism in the susceptible based on flora balance.

Keith Bel:

Vaccines can cause autism in the susceptible based on flora balance.

False. Vaccines do not cause autism. This has been looked at and decided in both the scientific field and the courts of law.
Why do you repeat a proven lie after being shown it is a lie?

Incidentally, JAMA has an editorial in response to the article.
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2300374
Here's a good quote.

Although this retrospective study clearly reveals an increase in adverse events after immunization, an important consideration is that the postimmunization increase may not fully reflect the true incidence of postimmunization adverse events. Rather, because physicians often wait to vaccinate infants perceived to be at risk for a vaccine-related adverse event until infants are without any events for a specified period, the preimmunization rates of adverse events may have been artificially low because of the selective immunization of a healthier population. The rates therefore may not have been representative of the normal variation with which such events occur in this population...This phenomenon is well known in vaccine safety studies as the healthy vaccinee effect, whereby vaccination is associated with an apparent greater increase in postimmunization adverse events than would otherwise be expected because of the selective immunizations of a healthier population.

Also:

This study limited sepsis evaluation analyses to physician responses and did not contain detailed descriptions of the postimmunization fever response.

Finally:

This study also found that the most premature infants (GA, 23-24 weeks) had an increased incidence of sepsis evaluations and intubations. It should perhaps not be too surprising that these infants have more cardiorespiratory events because they are the infants who require the most support and have the youngest corrected GA when they receive their vaccines. Cardiorespiratory events in infants usually dissipate at a corrected GA of 34 to 35 weeks. Therefore, the infants with younger corrected GAs would have more cardiorespiratory events at baseline before immunization, which is already known to be associated with postimmunization cardiorespiratory events.

There appear to be a few methodological flaws with the way the data was gathered.

Mom, we’re talking about sepsis in preterm infants caused by vaccination raising serotonin levels likely low to begin with since Clostridia are known to raise serotonin and not yet developed in preterm infants. Clostridia are the last set to develop based on gestational age. It’s the butyrate producing Clostridia raising serotonin levels; probably also tryptophan which converts to serotonin in the brain.

You have raised rectally-sourcing your material to an art form. No Bell, completely and utterly off the mark and because your own citation doesn't support what you claim you just have to make it up.

This doesn't distract from the fact that you are refusing to follow up on questions asked of you to support or explain previous claims. Why is that Bell?

Mom, btw, why don't you and I start a meconium testing service? Narad and I are working toward consolidating the wet nurse industry. We're calling it the Wet Nurse Force.

Lack of breastfeeding may explain why African American babies die of SIDS at 2-3x the norm as with Native Americans. Maybe it's their flora naturally high in Bacteroides reacting with vaccines. Here's a new heartbreaking article about SIDS a few days after 7 vaccines:
http://vactruth.com/2015/06/03/infant-dies-after-7-vaccines/

Citing vactruth, Keith? Seriously?
Seriously?

Julian, have you seen this? 263 videos:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJpPObXpZncOfT0bG2ghgkVb2Nxjd_bNe

It's more convincing than any Pharma-backed paper claiming no association between vaccines and autism. Why not work toward making vaccines safer? Are they safe enough for you already?

YouTube videos =/= research.

In addition to what shay said above, lying about vaccines causing autism and SIDS != working towards making vaccines safer.

Keith, how do we know those videos can be trusted? For all we know, they could have been put out by people hoping to make more money treating diseases than preventing them.

Mom, btw, why don’t you and I start a meconium testing service? Narad and I are working toward consolidating the wet nurse industry. We’re calling it the Wet Nurse Force.

You really are daft to even joke anyone would collaborate with a numpty like you. I see you can't even string a complete thought together by explaining what you would test meconium for and what the results would prevent/be a risk for.

Meconium might be tested for reduced or absent protective Bifidobacteria and beneficial strains of Clostridia and also for microbial imbalances known to cause inflammation and poor vaccine response, possibly adverse events. Other inflammatory biomarkers can also be tested in urine and meconium/stool.

So you want testing for something you completely made up and are just guessing on? Unfortunately a cottage industry has cropped up based on junk like this. Perhaps Doctor's Data will collaborate with you; they're just as unethical and incompetent as you are.

Note use of "might be" and "possibly."

You can cite all the cherries you can pick, but they're still irrelevant. None of these papers or articles cite vaccines as a cause for autism, and none of them show anything like a link to vaccines causing autism.
"Saddle up boys. Someone's in trouble and only the Gish Gallopers can save him."

"[T]his discussion is about vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines. It’s about making vaccines safer so they don’t cause seizures and autism."
If that's your concern you can rest now. They don't.

"It’s more convincing than any Pharma-backed paper claiming no association between vaccines and autism. "
Ah yes, the old Pharma shill gambit.
Anytime now you'll go full-frontal Godwin on us.

ORD

Anytime now you’ll go full-frontal Godwin on us.

Eastern Font or Western Front?

Dave, didja miss #283? Time to enter the New World.

Anytime now you’ll go full-frontal Godwin on us.

I prefer full Monty myself just not that Bellend.

Dingdong Bell, did you read anything I said?
Like how do you make the leap from your beloved intestinal flora having some connection to the immune system to a mechanism through which vaccines cause autism? Take the clapper of your Bell out of your hand for a minute and address the question?
Or are you just going to keep throwing out irrelevancies until the cows come home (Autistic cows without rinderpest or cowpox, of course.)/

Even if vaccines did cause Autism (they don't), it really is NOT that big of a deal compared to....ooooh...I don't know...DEATH?

Dave, in #239 you state:
" . . . awareness of what autism was and how to diagnose and treat it."

Do you think autism can be reversed? And, if so, how is treated?

Plenty of people have reversed autism in their children via the gut-brain. The same can be said of seizure disorders.

As previously stated along with citations and articles, I currently subscribe to the glutamate hypothesis of autism, epilepsy, SIDS and SUDEP.

Being autistic yourself, Dave, have you paid much attention to your gut-brain? Perhaps tryptophan depletion of gut origin is at root of your aggressive demeanor leading to brain serotonin deficiency and glutamate excitotoxicity. I wouldn't be surprised to learn you've also suffered seizure. There's a lot you can do to balance . . .

Sia, since when is one in 42 boys autistic "NOT that big of a deal"? It's a very, very big deal.

"Do you think autism can be reversed? And, if so, how is treated?"

An example of Bell's profound misunderstanding of what autism is.

Perhaps tryptophan depletion of gut origin is at root of your aggressive demeanor leading to brain serotonin deficiency and glutamate excitotoxicity.

Does Bell ever bother to look up the definitions of the words he strings together?

shay, you appear constipated which predicts seizure activity. Why don't you tell us all what you believe autism is instead of making such simple, meaningless statements?

Gotta love someone who feels qualified to diagnose over the Internet. Dunning-Krueger rides again.

I'm not really diagnosing him, shay, merely illustrating concepts. Though it's fairly certain he's suffered gastrointestinal symptoms, most obviously diarrhea of the mouth.

Does Bell ever bother to look up the definitions of the words he strings together?

Bellend already had his ass handed to him during his previous appearance over the 5HT routine. His only rhetorical defense is hoping that if he changes the subject frequently enough, do-overs will spring eternal.

I've noticed the sallyrandification when anyone tries to pin him down.

Respectfully disagreed, Narad. I'm sure we both learned a few things about 5HT, though in #637 you misinterpreted the premise: inhibition of CVNs leading to shutdown of the heart in SIDS is the result of excitotoxicity, not the cause.

Regarding inner ear connection in SIDS, 80% of ear infections are viral and the vaccinated suffer far more ear infections (22x) than the unvaccinated. How interesting ears may be involved in SIDS, thanks for that research.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/02/26/poor-poor-pitiful-andy-wak…

From Palm Beach County With Love

Haven't stopped by this thread since the posts about Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.A lot has been going on.About the connection between between gestational diabetes and autism,Here is a little more detail.

According to the authors, the association between intrauterine hyperglycemia and ASD risk could have multiple pathways. These include lower-than-normal concentrations of oxygen in the blood of the fetus (hypoxia), oxidative stress in the placental tissue and cord blood, changes in gene expression and chronic inflammation. ..."However, our results suggest that early screening for ASD in offspring of women with GDM diagnosed by 26 weeks' gestation may be warranted," they argue. "Our results also suggest that screening for GDM and control of glucose levels early in pregnancy may be important in reducing ASD risk for offspring."

Again,a congenital condition that starts in the womb.Not related to vaccines or SIDS.My mother had gestational diabetes when pregnant with my sister,in 1969.My sister has both high functioning autism and bipolar disorder.

As for the autism-immune system link found at UVA,this may well explain why so many mothers with MS,lupus,and other autoimmune diseases have kids with autism and autoimmune disease.Especially MS.A lot of the mothers who post at places like AoA,,and the (non) Thinking Moms have MS .It probably has implications for PANDAS and PANS,which are probably more common in autistic children than thought.Both PANDAS and PANS are probably largely genetic or inherited,as they show up in families where there are histories of both autoimmune disorders and mental illness.

But wait,there's more,now we have antimitochondrial antibodies type 2 in autism as well.In autism and mental illness these may be maternally inherited in the mitochondrial DNA.This article also goes into a good bit of detail about autoimmune abnormalities in the mothers of children with autism.

@317

"Do you think autism can be reversed? And, if so, how is treated?"

Well,you seem to know your way around teh Googles.You can start by looking into cerebral folate deficiency.Where it comes from,and what treatment does for it.One clue it isn't from vaccines.

"Do you think autism can be reversed? And, if so, how is treated?"
No. Autism cannot be reversed. Cerebral structural changes are either the cause or result of autism spectrum conditions. There is no way to change that. Diet, bleach up the bum, chelation, gut flora manipulation - none of those will change that. You don't need to apply Occam's Razor to that idea - Occam's Chainsaw is precision enough. Treatment? That depends on the exact findings. Operant conditioning, pragmatic speech therapy, antidepressants, other psychoactive drugs, physical therapy, sports activities, socialization, any or all of these and more may be of use in a given patient.
"Plenty of people have reversed autism in their children via the gut-brain. The same can be said of seizure disorders."
Scientific studies, please? Double-blinded, case-controlled ones? Meta-analyses of studies? If there were a shred of evidence, medical scientists would glom onto it like limpets. Or are you talking about bleach enemas? And if you are you can go to hell right now.
"Perhaps tryptophan depletion of gut origin is at root of your aggressive demeanor leading to brain serotonin deficiency and glutamate excitotoxicity. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn you’ve also suffered seizure. There’s a lot you can do to balance . . ."
The root of my "aggressive demeanor" is your casual dismissal of all the deaths, disabilities, and suffering caused by measles and poliomyelitis. Your smug dismissal of actual science, not to mention common sense, and your University of Google science degree don't help your case with me much, either. I do not have a tryptophan deficiency. I would be very surprised to have had a seizure - I think I would probably have noticed it.
Balance? I am pretty good at controlling my emotions rather than letting them control me. I made a conscious choice to express the contempt you have earned in your comments here. Oh, and if you think I might be mellowing towards you, your brain is in the perfect position for a bleach enema.

Sia, since when is one in 42 boys autistic “NOT that big of a deal”? It’s a very, very big deal.

As I have told you before, the fact that the rate of diagnosis has increased does not mean that the real rate has increased.

Old Rockin' Dave: "No. Autism cannot be reversed. Cerebral structural changes are either the cause or result of autism spectrum conditions. There is no way to change that."

At least my autistic son is capable of learning, even with his severe short term memory issues. Even though we need to repeat certain things, he does learn new skills. Keith Bell has not demonstrated any capability in learning, even after repeated attempts, even more than we need for our son, to correct the facts he has wrong.

Julian, as more than one paper has pointed out, changes in diagnosis do not explain the epidemic, not by a long shot.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19316-autism-explosion-half-expla…

Roger, sorry to learn about your sister, that must be very stressful for everyone. But I fear you're missing my point entirely. I do believe autism can begin in the womb, but not in all cases as vaccines are also known to cause brain damage.

And in the rising cases where autism does begin in the womb, vaccines add insult to injury based on poor microbial predisposition, not a simple matter of genetics, but MICROBIAL PREDISPOSITION.

This microbial predisposition also explains why African Americans born perfectly healthy are damaged by vaccines as they have a microbial predisposition based on ancestral diet, high in Bacteroides known to dysregulate the immune system leading to brain damage. The phenomenon also exists in Sweden where Somali immigrants refer to their never before seen suffering as "Swedish disease."

Yet the CDC has the impudence to claim no possibility of brain damage by vaccination:
https://sharylattkisson.com/fact-check-anne-schuchats-claim-that-vaccin…

Dave, let's try to concentrate on vaccine safety. I've never once dismissed suffering caused by actual diseases. You're playing a public relations game by denying vaccine injuries exist.

What I'm doing is providing information about biological plausibility of vaccine injury. You heard it here first.
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/critical-role-microflora-vaccine-injury

And in the rising cases where autism does begin in the womb, vaccines add insult to injury based on poor microbial predisposition, not a simple matter of genetics, but MICROBIAL PREDISPOSITION.

Citation needed.

This microbial predisposition also explains why African Americans born perfectly healthy are damaged by vaccines as they have a microbial predisposition based on ancestral diet, high in Bacteroides known to dysregulate the immune system leading to brain damage. The phenomenon also exists in Sweden where Somali immigrants refer to their never before seen suffering as “Swedish disease.”

Fancy that. A group of immigrants from a failed state that lacks all but the most rudimentary healthcare now in a country with one of the world's best national healthcare systems now get diagnosed with things they were never diagnosed with before.

What I’m doing is providing information about biological plausibility of vaccine injury. You heard it here first.

Green Med Info is not a reliable source. Nor is Sharyl Atkisson. Your claims about vaccines causing harm are a P.R.A.T.T. (Point Refuted A Thousand Times).
Nobody here denies that vaccines can cause harm in very rare circumstances. We just think you vastly exaggerate the risks.

One last thing: I had a look at the "New Scientist" article you linked to. Here's a pertinent quote.

Childhood vaccines, which some parents blame for the increase, have been ruled out by epidemiological studies.

The fact that we don't know what caused the "rise in autism" doesn't mean that vaccines cause autism.

"Regarding inner ear connection in SIDS, 80% of ear infections are viral and the vaccinated suffer far more ear infections (22x) than the unvaccinated." - Do you have a citation for this? Oh wait, you do, and it's from Mercola and self-reported. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/11/01/more-pare…

80% of ear infections get better on their own within a few days. The exact percentage of viral vs. bacterial is unknown. More vaccinated kids get ear infections than unvaccinated kids BECAUSE MATH.

The Somali situation is not a simple matter of lack of diagnosis in their own country. There isn't even a word for autism in Somali such that immigrant parents have been taken completely off guard, baffled by their excruciating predicament:
http://www.interactingwithautism.com/section/living/noword

Julian, you actually believe autism exists in Somalia at 3-4x the rate of the countries where they're now living? Asinine.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8749.2008.03036.x/abs…

These children, born healthy, have a microbial predisposition toward adverse vaccine reaction.

These children, born healthy, have a microbial predisposition toward adverse vaccine reaction.

The article you linked to contains absolutely zero evidence that support your statement. Which microbes? Which vaccine?

In fact, the article seems to contradict what you say...the subpopulation under consideration had HIGHER autism prevalence despite LOWER vaccine uptake.

From the second link that Keith Bell posted in his response above.

We reviewed the records of 17 children (13 males, four females)

A sample size of 17. Seventeen. Are these people serious?
As for:

The Somali situation is not a simple matter of lack of diagnosis in their own country. There isn’t even a word for autism in Somali.

Until 1943, "autism" wasn't even a word. Why would it be surprising that there isn't a word for it in Somali?

Adam, that would mean autism prevalence would increase even further with higher vaccine uptake. Dolt.

Julian, that's just one paper. Many have confirmed higher rates of autism in the Somali immigrant population. The question is, why? Especially when they've never appeared to experience this phenomenon before . . . it's not about cold weather and lack of sunshine causing vitamin D deficiency, though those may be factors. These children have been brain damaged by vaccines based on natural microbial predisposition and immune systems responding with twice the antibodies, hyperactive immune response:
http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-discovers-afri…

Microbes regulate immune response and vice versa, a reciprocal relationship.

Keith Bell:

Many have confirmed higher rates of autism in the Somali immigrant population

Then you won't mind citing that. Oh wait, you've ignored previous requests for citations.

Adam, that would mean autism prevalence would increase even further with higher vaccine uptake. Dolt.

My but you're clueless. You assume that vaccines cause brain damage. I'll repeat AdamG's key point.

the subpopulation under consideration had HIGHER autism prevalence despite LOWER vaccine uptake.

In other words, they compared the subpopulation to a control group. The control group had a higher rate of vaccination AND lower autism rates. That would suggest that vaccination protects against autism.

These children have been brain damaged by vaccines based on natural microbial predisposition and immune systems responding with twice the antibodies, hyperactive immune response

Once again, your link does not support your argument. That african-americans respond better to rubella vaccination does not constitute proof of being "brain damaged by vaccines", not matter how you cut it.
Once again, you got nothin'.

You can't accept the fact that autism prevalence is higher in the Somali immigrant community? Google it yourself, I'm not your citation machine.

But please share even one citation stating vaccines protect against autism. Absolutely asinine. It's like debating with a wet paper towel.

You can’t accept the fact that autism prevalence is higher in the Somali immigrant community?

Good lord you're stupid. Your hypothesis is that autism is caused by a vaccine-induced reaction to the particular microbial environment of Somali individuals (which vaccine? which microbes?).

If your hypothesis is true, wouldn't the Somali population, which has a LOWER vaccine uptake than the surrounding areas of Stockholm, also have a LOWER autism prevalence?

Please do explain how the specific result you presented (.7% autism prevalence in Somalis, .19% in non-Somalis) supports your hypothesis whatsoever.

You can’t accept the fact that autism prevalence is higher in the Somali immigrant community? Google it yourself, I’m not your citation machine.

You make the claim, you provide the evidence. That's how it works.

But please share even one citation stating vaccines protect against autism.

Straw man. Where did I say that vaccines have a protective effect against autism?
I went to google scholar. Here are two links. More than that and I'm sent into automatic moderation.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/114/3/793.short
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1744-6155.2009.00194.x/abs…

There isn’t even a word for autism in Somali.

Given the state of healthcare in Somalia, there are probably a lot of words that are missing from that language. We will never know but I would ask Delphine (or anyone else who has experience of medical practice in developing countries) if autistic children in Somalia would have a high enough survival rate to break any kind of threshold.

The prevalence of boys named Omar is higher among Somali immigrants than non-Somalis. Therefore, I conclude that Somali boys come to be named Omar due to vaccine-induced reaction to a Somali-specific gut microbiome.

You do realize this is the extent of the argument you're making right?

Julian, I'm beginning to think you're suffering from early onset Alzheimer's.
#339: "That would suggest that vaccination protects against autism."

Adam, the whole point is Somalis are more sensitive to vaccines, so a lower vaccine uptake leading to an even higher autism rate makes sense (if your head isn't made of wood).

People are different, but vaccines are one-size-fits-all.

Adam, the whole point is Somalis are more sensitive to vaccines, so a lower vaccine uptake leading to an even higher autism rate makes sense

See my comment #344. Also, in that case, this study is completely irrelevant, because it does not discuss the vaccination status of the 17 cases found. How do you know any of these 17 children were vaccinated at all?

Are there words for "autism" in Somali? Google says Yes, there are.
Keith emitted exactly the same defensive cloud of lies last October but is obdurate in his determination to learn nothing.

I don't know enough about health care as it relates to autism specifically in Somalia.

In the DRC, children being accused of sorcery/witchcraft remains a long-standing problem. Many of the ones my parents saw accused of the same were likely autistic. There's now an NGO in the DRC that exists solely to assess/treat/advocate for children with autism and other similar disorders, I can't recall ATM what they're called.

This thread made me recall an email from a friend from a few years back, asking me if I thought a vacation in Mog was a good idea. It was accompanied by the attached article. "The beach scene is just like Europe!" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/9447077/Somalia-does-touri…

"What I’m doing is providing information about biological plausibility of vaccine injury. You heard it here first."
You are not suggesting anything plausible because you're not suggesting anything, or nothing that sounds like real biology. No matter - the age of the (not always so-)brilliant amateur in medicine and biology is long over. You have no credentials and don't seem to have any qualifications to even present a useable hypothesis. Any case, plausible hypotheses have come and gone by the millions. Hey, maybe autism is caused by evil spirits. Or bad stars. Imbalanced humors. Vaccines...

I exercised my curiosity about one of your links. Like most of what passes for science journalism, it is an almost verbatim repeat of a press release, this time from the University of Virginia. Naturally, press releases like this one are weighted with dramatic quotes; universities always want good PR and what better than having a Spock-like quote about having to "rewrite all the textbooks" (Spock declares "This is against all the laws of science!" at least once per episode.). Anyone who works in or around the sciences knows this. If I had a nickel for all the press releases that make declarations about rewriting textbooks, turning the field on its head, changing how we view the Universe, etc., I wouldn't be bandying words with you. I would be too busy buying yachts and auditioning callgirls.

Adam, thanks for pointing out the gross omission of the slanted Swedish study. Not surprising. One would think that since they were reviewing records of the 17 children they would report vaccination data, especially since they discuss vaccination rates. But they followed party line about the association between vaccines and autism having been "refuted". This 2012 Swedish paper does the same by completely disregarding vaccination as factor, heads purposely placed in the sand:
"Migration and autism-spectrum disorder: population-based study"
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/early/2012/02/11/bjp.bp.111.095125

bimler #347, have a link?

Dave, at this point you're all politics, no science. The discovery of a new part of the brain (lymphatics) doesn't excite you while you make ridiculous statements about the gut having nothing to do with the brain. And boldly stating how there was never a "whisper of a correlation" between polio and mental health. Are you living in a cave? Seriously, I've had better conversations at my local tavern.

First of all, Bellboy, I never said anything one way or another about the lymphatic connection to the CNS exciting me or not. But I also don't swallow press releases vomited up like food to baby birds as news. I am reserving judgment about whether or not it's as Earth-shaking as UVA PR says it is.
I don't believe I said that the gut has nothing to do with the brain. What I have said repeatedly, and what you have sloughed off repeatedly, is that you have provided nothing like a realistic hypothesis as to how vaccinations putatively affecting the portion of the immune system in the gut thereby causes autism. You keep ignoring that like the true crank that you are(You have also failed to discuss the contention that autism is caused by dephlogistication of the developing brain.).
" But they followed party line about the association between vaccines and autism having been “refuted”" Take your head out of enema hole, Bell's Palsy. It's been not only "refuted" but also refuted. Over and over. Study after study. The only study that ever claimed that there was one was done by a swindler and patient-abuser.
"I’ve had better conversations at my local tavern." I'm sure. You could only seem to make sense when you and everyone else is sloshed. Or you've had enough alcohol to cause Wernicke–Korsakoff Syndrome. Don't forget to save some of the bar peanuts for the pink elephants.

You also misquoted me when you said "And boldly stating how there was never a “whisper of a correlation” between polio and mental health."
Here is what I said: "There are certainly enough of us polio survivors to allow determination of whether it could and there has never been a whisper of a correlation or of any mechanism for it to significantly affect parts of the CNS other than motor neurons." This was a response to your saying "My guess would be you were born with imbalanced flora (or weren’t breastfed) leaving you vulnerable to polio which then caused further imbalance leading to ASD." Since you fail to understand your own words, I will break it down for you. You said that polio somehow magically caused me to have an autism spectrum condition because... gut flora. I said there was no good reason to believe that polio had anything to do with autism. You replied with another of your way off-topic responses by citing a paper about mental health problems in polio survivors, one of a number of papers that related to problems similar to PTSD, not to autism. If you don't understand the big words I will put it more simply.
You're a shitbeard and you're still a f***wit.

There are tons and tons of potential mechanisms for how the gut affects the brain leading to autism, beginning in the non-sterile womb where microbes in the fetal GI tract drive fetal brain development via manufacture and release of omega-3 fatty acids. Clostridial overgrowth has been studied where antibiotics relieve autistic symptoms. Microbial imbalance leads to sugar imbalances affecting the brain, i.e., hypoglycemia. Microbial toxins. Protozoal overgrowth. MIcrobial aldehydes amplifying insulin secretion. Glutamate excitotoxicity of gut origin, as previously discussed.

Regarding brain lymphatics, I felt the way you did until I actually thought about it from perspective of the gut with focus on pH. What might slow down flow in brain lymphatics? Alkaline pH would, of gut origin. Could flow even be reversed, a kind of brain reflux? Consider how acid reflux is cured by raising acid while doctors still prescribe PPIs, the opposite of what's needed.
"Effect of whole-body pH changes on thoracic duct lymph flow in anesthetized sheep."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2603912

"Diagnosis of Alzheimer patients from Brain pH - Prof.Pravat Mandal."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAMIlH_KTNM

"pCO2 and pH regulation of cerebral blood flow"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3442265/

There are probably no studies about how childhood vaccines affect pH, but seizures post vaccination are proof they cause pH imbalance, i.e., brain alkalosis. The brain halts seizure by raising acid.

There are also no studies about how any of the childhood vaccines affect gut flora balance which regulates body pH, compartmentalized with lots of inverse relationships.

The brainstem's chemosensors detect blood pH to regulate brain pH. Also the BBB is known to shear acid leading to brain alkalosis making systemic acidosis a concern with vaccines, especially when they cause sepsis associated with acidosis, i.e., flu shots.

New article in Scientific American:
"Gut Microbes May Help Determine Our Immune Response to Vaccines"
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-microbes-may-help-determi…

What scientists are still not asking is how gut microbes play a role in vaccine injury. They're only interested in improving vaccine response, not interested in vaccine safety.

"Whether the findings will eventually lead to microbiome screens or specially formulated probiotic supplements for ingestion prior to vaccination remains to be seen."

I seem to be the only person asking about gut microbiota leading to vaccine injury:
http://www.gutmicrobiotaforhealth.com/gut-microbiota-infant-vaccine-pro…

@Keith #345, saying “That would suggest that vaccination protects against autism” is not the same as saying that it does. It merely suggests it might. Try to learn the difference.

There are probably no studies about how childhood vaccines affect pH, but seizures post vaccination are proof they cause pH imbalance, i.e., brain alkalosis. The brain halts seizure by raising acid.

That proves nothing. You are once again begging the question. You are assuming that vaccines cause seizures. You are also hypothesising a mechanism without demonstrating that said mechanism exists. Time to put up or shut up, Bell.

I seem to be the only person asking about gut microbiota leading to vaccine injury

I wonder why.

Vaccines definitely cause seizures, I'm assuming nothing. You're a total ass, Julian. And I say that with respect.

Mr. Bell: "Vaccines definitely cause seizures, I’m assuming nothing."

Then provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

You’re a total ass, Julian. And I say that with respect.

With total respect, eh? Your hypocrisy and self-deception are duly noted. And citation needed that any vaccine on the current schedule causes seizures. And please use better sources than the ones you've used so far.

Julian Frost: " And please use better sources than the ones you’ve used so far."

This is why I am specific in requesting "PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers." It is not perfect but it filters out YouTube videos, websites by credulous authors and "research" done by lawyers and those who have lost their medical licenses.

Bellboy:
"There are tons and tons of potential mechanisms for how the gut affects the brain leading to autism, beginning in the non-sterile womb..."
Right there is the foot-brain connection; your brain made you shoot yourself in the foot. If it begins in the "non-sterile womb" then it isn't being caused by vaccines, unless the vaccines travel backwards in time to cause autism in utero. I give you free rein to follow up on that idea. You don't have to cite me when you publish.
Also, please tell me again how poliomyelitis causes autism by inducing symptoms of emotional stress in adolescent and adult survivors. There's another area of research for you: Do vaccines cause PTSD?
It does seem that few if any scientists are interested in finding exactly how intestinal flora cause autism because they don't know the science as well as you do. If they really want to learn the true cause they should stop learning from the work of other scientists and consult Google exclusively. Then they'll know almost as much as you do.
At least you use Google to cite expert sources like this one: " Gut microbiota and infant vaccine protocol
Written on January 7 2015 at 10:59 AM
By Keith Bell in Immune Function "
You say "There are probably no studies about how childhood vaccines affect pH, but seizures post vaccination are proof they cause pH imbalance, i.e., brain alkalosis. The brain halts seizure by raising acid." Give this man the No-Bell Prize in physiology. "Of equal interest, but less well understood, is the process by which seizures typically end, usually after seconds or minutes, and what underlies the failure of this spontaneous seizure termination in the life-threatening condition known as status epilepticus..." (An Introduction to Epilepsy [Internet]... : American Epilepsy Society; 2006. Chapter 1, Basic Mechanisms Underlying Seizures and Epilepsy.)
The SciAm article that you link to about gut flora affecting vaccine response is not a paper, but it shoots you in the other foot, with just about every other sentence with a "may", a "might", a "could" and very little that can be said to be settled science.
You are Lilian Gish on a runaway stallion.

bimler #347, have a link?

Those highlighted sections of text in #347, they are "links". You "click" on them.
Spoon-feeding people is one thing but a stomach tube and an IV drip seem to be required here.

Wishing Orac the Sterile and all the folks out in Sterile Oracland™ a happy, healthy Sunday.

Dave, I think you're starting to catch on.

Ignorance and Oblivion Quote of the Day from Old Autistic Dave #282:
"Moving beyond that, there is no evidence that anything that happens in the intestines whether in the walls or the lumen affects structural brain development in a fetus, an infant, or a toddler, and there is no mechanism known by which an injection into muscle will cause an immunologic response in the gut that will then affect that development. In fact there is little evidence that a normal immune reaction will change the development of the structure of the brain at all."

There is plenty of evidence gut flora affects brain development and behavior (#283). Science is rapidly proving how faulty immune response, dictated by flora, can damage the brain.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3750212/
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/welcome/features/20080305_mindmatters_immu…
http://dukeforward.duke.edu/news/things-we-didnt-know-about-the-brain-1…
http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2010/mothers-immune-response-alt…
http://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/11/1/153
http://www.dana.org/Publications/Brainwork/Details.aspx?id=43705
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140724134033.htm
http://jvi.asm.org/content/79/7/4369.full
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3484177/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2737431/
https://vimeo.com/99575578

Dave, it appears time for you to take your mind out of diapers, or at least put on a fresh one. I'd rather see you as New Rockin' Dave.

Keith Bell:

There is plenty of evidence gut flora affects brain development and behavior (#283).

I had a look at your first six links. No mention of the gut, intestine or digestive system.

Science is rapidly proving how faulty immune response, dictated by flora, can damage the brain.

'Dictated by flora". Citation needed.

One important area of research is butyrate, product of flora, largely the Clostridium clusters IV and XIVa:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/6/2058.full
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v504/n7480/full/nature12721.html
http://www.nature.com/cdd/journal/v22/n2/abs/cdd201456a.html
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/6/2247.full

Julian Frost, I checked out the remainder of his links except for the last one - I am temporarily unable to play streaming video.
Suffice it to say that my browser was unable to detect the terms "flora", "gut" (except for an author named Gutierrez), or "intestin" (e left off to cover both intestine and intestinal).
Would anyone care to do the same for the four in #367?

Mr. Keith Morecowbell:
Funny thing you should mention me in connection with diapers, given your well-documented obsession with colonic contents.
Rest assured that should I ever need to be in diapers, I will be happy to send them on to you so you can do PCR, stool cultures, spectrometry, fingerpainting, and taste tests to your heart's content.

...PCR, stool cultures, spectrometry, fingerpainting, and taste tests to your heart’s content.

I award you one Internet for that.

Thankee kindly, Johnny.
Meanwhile, I checked the links in#367: No hits on "brain" or "autis". I couldn't be bothered to look for any other terms. The third one has to do with the protective effect of intestinal microbes in cancer chemotherapy with several particular drugs.
Professor Bellbottoms strikes out again.
I think my next story will be a science fiction story along the lines of the Dragonriders series. I will call it "The Gallopers of Gish."

Blue Gallopers of the Purple Gish.

I couldn't resist this one; it's where our little friend should publish his treatises from now on:
http://www.gomerblog.com/2014/08/internal-medicine/

Old Dave is having difficulty synthesizing information while Young Julian discounts the fact that 70-80% of the entire immune system is in the gut which affects the brain.

Perhaps this newly published article will help them put the pieces together, easier to digest than my previous articles:
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/microbiome-and-vaccine-industry

Keith, I will turn 40 years old in under 18 months. I'm not that young. Stop being such a patronising tosser.
Second, Green Med Info is not an accepted source here. Come back when you have PubMed cites.

Oh, Keithieboy, there is no information to synthesize.
You are working with a faulty premise, to wit: Vaccines affect the immune system, much of the immune system is in the gut, and the immune system reaches to the brain, therefore vaccines cause autism because microbiota. Aside from the very demonstrable fact that vaccines are not a cause of autism, your logic doesn't scan. You have imagined a way that vaccines could do something that they don't, and that's a long way away from evidence, let alone proof.
It's like describing a method through which dogs can write haiku. You've had some fun thinking that you're clever, and now it's over. You are wrong now, you were wrong in the past, and most likely you will always be wrong.
Incidentally, not only is Green Med Info is not a valid source for anything, but citing an article you wrote to support what you write here shows circular reasoning, inability to argue your case, and is generally pathetic.
"Sheriff, ol' Keith is pinned down under a hail of logic and science. The Gish Galloper didn't help. We have to send in Dunning and Kruger!"

Wait...Tinker cited an article he himself wrote as corroboration for a post?

He's the gift that keeps on giving.

Second, Green Med Info is not an accepted source here.

The only reason he shows up is to try to promote his GMI entries. Apparently, nobody there is interested enough or something.

Narad: "Apparently, nobody there is interested enough or something."

We get enough of his spectacular brain dumps here. There is only so much inanity that one can take.

shay, that was the second time I know of that he cited himself in GMI.
I swear, it's like teaching patience to a terrier.

Nice summation here, Dave:
"Vaccines affect the immune system, much of the immune system is in the gut, and the immune system reaches to the brain, therefore vaccines cause autism because microbiota."

You might also include how autism can take place without vaccination "because microbiota."

And how vaccines fail "because microbiota." And they fail miserably while causing injury.

What's being done to make them safer? Nothing. You might thank me for pointing the industry in the right direction.

What's their incentive to make them safer?

By the way, have you seen this link yet?
http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/microbiome-and-vaccine-industry

Dave, did you catch this news late last year?
"Gut microbiota influences blood-brain barrier permeability"
http://ki.se/en/news/gut-microbiota-influences-blood-brain-barrier-perm…

So, not only does microbial predisposition regulate susceptibility to polio (and measles) along with infectivity, but also plays an important role in how polio crosses blood-brain barrier:
"What route(s) does poliovirus take to enter the central nervous system and how does it cross the blood-brain barrier?"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18585526
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1994131/

Keith Bell, #381:

By the way, have you seen this link yet?

Why yes, Keith, we have seen it; why do you ask? You posted it in (at least) #374. We've been discussing it: see ##375, 376, 377, 378, 379, and 380. I'm not going to look for more times you've spammed us with it, in other articles.

Mr. Bell, "By the way, have you seen this link yet?"

We see enough of you inanity here, no need to give you any click support.

That should not stop you from providing in this comment thread here the PubMed indexed studies by qualified reputable researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

Ding a ling bell @ 365
At least a couple of the articles you link to here involve damage to the brain and immune system of the unborn baby when a woman has a severe infection while pregnant.Here is a more recent and better study.

I don't know why antivaxers keep bringing up studies about what happens to a developing fetus in the womb exposed to infections to prove vaccines cause autism in a child roughly eighteen months old or so.These are two completely different scenarios.Doctors have known about maternal infection causing brain damage,intellectual disability and immune dysfunction ever since Sir Norman Gregg discovered Congenital Rubella Syndrome in the 1940s.In the 1970s,as diagnostic criteria evolved,children with Congenital Rubella Syndrome began to be diagnosed with autism.There are any number of things a child can be exposed to in the womb that can lead to autism.This is where autism happens.In the womb.Children are born autistic and disabled.Disabled children with birth defects,like autism,need as much protection from acute infection as they can get,This includes vaccines.

Chris, that's great of you to acknowledge that vaccines cause seizures, more than most here would be willing to admit. Do you understand the mechanism?

Mr. Bell, “By the way, have you seen this link yet?”

It must be pretty mortifying to be a never-ran when your only competition is Teresa Conrick.

Mr. Bell: "Do you understand the mechanism?"

Having had a child end up in the hospital due to seizures from an actual disease before its vaccine existed, I am still waiting for you to provide the actual scientific documentation that a vaccine causes more seizures. Where are those PubMed indexed studies from qualified reputable researchers?

Remember it is all about relative risk. Please provide actual evidence.

Chris, you never mentioned your child having a disease when he suffered seizures as a newborn. What disease was it? You did mention him suffering a viral disease over a year later after MMR.

As I've stated countless times, my thrust here is vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines. So your continued question is irrelevant.

Narad, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Again, I'd like to thank Chris for acknowledging vaccines cause seizures. Because people like Naive, No Longer Young Julian do not acknowledge this fact, even having the nerve to ask for citations as he did #360:
"And citation needed that any vaccine on the current schedule causes seizures."

Febrile seizures are caused by a lot of things, including the average fever from the average childhood illness....and caused more often by the higher fevers associated with vaccine-preventable diseases.

What a sick, sad little world Mr. Bell inhabits.

Again, I’d like to thank Chris for acknowledging vaccines cause seizures. Because people like Naive,

No one I'm aware of has denied there are risks, including risk of febrile seizure, associated with routine childhood vaccination. What you're failing to recognize is that the risks, again including siezures, associated with remaining vulnerable to the infectious diseases they protect against--are far, far greater--in some ases, by multiple orders of magnitude.

As I’ve stated countless times, my thrust here is vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines.

So answer her question already. Which vaccines are more dangerous than the disease? Pub-Med indexed studies, please.

ann, I detect grandiosity by which these woo-meisters- perhaps not so secretly- imagine themselves to be leaders of men** in political matters- as well as in (quasi) scientific ones- which is apparent whenever they pontificate on politics or economic matters. They often call for protests or lobbying efforts by their enraptured thralls as well as suggesting voting choices.

Despite what they say, they seem to have a thinly veiled reactionary stance on women's rights. Neither is so stupid to say it aloud and lose a significant portion of their product-purchasing clientele- they even call themselves feminists.. What they say about birth control, maternal issues, how women behave inappropriately... leads me to suspect that they support a return to more traditional sex roles as mandated by Nature or G-d. .I've had that impression for a long time but I cannot point to very clear references as it is disguised carefully. Listening or reading their material for a while should lead others to perhaps see what I see.
by Nature or G-d.,, a lot of what they say involves telling women what to do to live better lives. Of course they describe how wonderful traditional families USED to be: e.g.
the old timey Italian families sit around a table talking and being served fabulous dishes for hours while the children all respect their elders and the kitchen just hums with activity!

** and I deliberately use that word

As I’ve stated countless times, my thrust here is vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines. So your continued question is irrelevant.

If this is the case, then you should be able to answer a couple of questions:

1. Since all vaccines are not created equal, which vaccines do you consider adequately safe and effective to be recommended for general use in children and why? Be specific.

2. What evidence would it take to convince you that (a) any given vaccine is safe and effective and (b) that the current vaccine schedule recommended by the CDC is safe and effective? Be specific.

I'll wait.

Keith Bell @389:

As I’ve stated countless times, my thrust here is vaccine safety, not elimination of vaccines.

And as you've shown with your repetition of those lies about vaccines causing autism and SIDS, you are not about vaccine safety at all.

Gee, I wonder why Keith doesn't ever cite this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=22997101

Gotta make sure you only dump the links of studies you think support your pre-formed conclusion!

No one I’m aware of has denied there are risks, including risk of febrile seizure

I really need to tell Textarea Cache to have a longer memory, as I started on a reply to his asinine "gut-mediated whole-brain alkalosis" babbling last week, but it's gone now.

The short story is that you've said the magic word. Remember, the only vaccines that signal for seizures are MMR and the departed DPT. Bellend's very phrasing reveals that it's all just a blob to him; instead, he puts the cart before the horse.

Just because carbogen might be an effective treatment for febrile seizures (NCT01370044), that doesn't imply a cause. Indeed, the few defenders of the alkalosis routine try to proceed from fever-induced respiratory alkalosis. (Follow the link at the top to get to the TOC for the issue.)

As anyone who recalls The Andromeda Strain should realize, this idea has certain... problems.

Leaving aside the possible role of IL-1β, I'm happy to report that there are people other than desperately attention-seeking, failed recycling moguls on the job.

Orac the Sterile finally joins the conversation after hundreds of posts across a few of his insensitive, cruel blogs.

1) Since vaccine safety and response hinge on the microbiome of the recipient, none of the current vaccines can be considered safe for general use. They're one-size-fits-all in a world of individuals.

2) When vaccines become personalized, evidence of safety may accrue. For now, evidence is to the contrary, especially regarding the barbaric CDC protocol beginning within 12 hours of birth.

Narad, flu shots also cause seizure. I suppose that's OK with you.

Adam, that rogue study holds little weight when several papers reveal gut dysbiosis in autism, i.e., high clostridia.

Adam, that rogue study holds little weight when several papers reveal gut dysbiosis in autism, i.e., high clostridia.

You're still missing the point. There is evidence of altered gut microflora in ASD individuals. This is well established (see http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4425813/).

What evidence do you have that the specific shifts observed in ASD individuals are caused by vaccines, and what evidence you you have that ASD itself is caused by these specific shifts?

Again, here's your model:
A: There are differences in microflora between ASD individuals and controls.
B: Certain vaccines have been shown to subtly alter the gut microbiome.
Therefore, vaccines cause autism.
Where is your evidence connecting A with B and B with autism?

AND....Tinker admits that he doesn't consider any vaccine safe. Welcome to Tinker's world, where children (and adults) die of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Perhaps he should point out to the parents of this season's 142 pediatric flu victims that flu shots can cause seizures.

Since vaccine safety and response hinge on the microbiome of the recipient, none of the current vaccines can be considered safe for general use.

Citations needed, Keith: your evidence that the microbiomes of individuals differ enough across the general population to result in sufficient variability in children's responses to the vaccines on the recommended routine vaccination schedule those vaccines cannot be considered safe for use in the general population, would be...what, exactl?y Be specific.

I mean, you do have some...right?

Adam, that's not the whole of what I've said. More important than vaccines potentially shifting the microbiome (there are no studies for any of the childhood vaccines), is how microbial predisposition affects immune response to vaccination (also no studies).

Since vaccine response is known to hinge on the microbiome, how about the microbiome regulating susceptibility to vaccine injury? This is currently ignored by scientists because they're not interested in vaccine safety.

BTW, Keith, I can't help but notice that although you clearly noticed Orac's post @395 ("Orac the Sterile finally joins the conversation...} you ignored the direct questions you were asked you in that post.

Canwe expect you to address them anytime soon? I'm certainly interested in which vaccines on the recommended schedule you consider to be safe, which you consider to be instead unsafe, and --most critically--your basis for distinguishing a safe vaccine from an unsafe one.

Since vaccine response is known to hinge on the microbiome

This is a gross misrepresentation of the research. Can you provide a citation for a single vaccine whose response 'hinges' on the microbiome?

how microbial predisposition affects immune response to vaccination (also no studies).

OK, Keith. Let's say I'm about to fund such a study. Can you propose a specific experimental design? Which vaccine would you study first? Why?

Mr. Bell, please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

For example, if you claim the influenza vaccine causes seizures, the prove that it happens more often than those caused by influenza. It is about relative risk.

Orac the Sterile finally joins the conversation after hundreds of posts across a few of his insensitive, cruel blogs.

I ignore those "worthy" of being ignored (e.g., you), although sometimes I get in a weird mood and decide to respond.

1) Since vaccine safety and response hinge on the microbiome of the recipient, none of the current vaccines can be considered safe for general use. They’re one-size-fits-all in a world of individuals.

In other words, you are antivaccine and don't believe that any vaccine is safe and effective. You also have no idea what you're talking about with respect to the microbiome.

2) When vaccines become personalized, evidence of safety may accrue. For now, evidence is to the contrary, especially regarding the barbaric CDC protocol beginning within 12 hours of birth.

Define "personalized." Be specific. No handwaving.

I believe Keith has in his cloud-coocoo-land a vision where we have specific preparations of vaccines for every person on the planet. Here's Orac's personalized set of vaccines, and Chris', and Keith's, and palindrom's. Of course, Keith has no idea of the cost of such things, because he's trying to hide that he's really anti-vaccine entirely, NOT "pro-safe vaccine".

MI Dawn, you are giving Keith Bell to much credit. Keith has absolutely no idea what he is talking about. The gut microbiome is simply the latest bandwagon to do some handwaving on.

I'm pro-sanitation, not anti-vaccine. And, of course, I don't have all the answers, just shining a light on the problem.

Orac, here's a leader in the field, Greg Poland talking about personalized vaccines:
http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-discovers-afri…

I have a lot to learn about the microbiome, certainly no expert, but probably know far more than most doctors, especially the imupudent, sterile ones like you, Orac.

Adam, have you seen these recent general articles about the microbiome dictating immune response to vaccination?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gut-microbes-may-help-determi…
http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.1586/14760584.2015.1040395

Well, I see that old Bell-oney rides again, doing the ever-green Gish gallop.
I ask him to provide some even vaguely plausible link between vaccines and autism involving his pet hypothesis and he responds with more irrelevancies about polio.
Many commenters here ask him to provide the science or at least some scientifically valid evidence to support his claims about vaccines and seizures or autism; he puts his hands over his eyes and declares "I can't read you!"
Orac asks him at least twice to name one vaccine he considers safe - crickets.
While ignoring every question posed to him he has a fit of grandiosity and incontinently declares, "You might thank me for pointing the industry in the right direction." The only direction he's pointing anyone in is down the rabbit hole of idiocy. A multi-billion dollar industry reaching back over a century and a half and employing many of the most brilliant minds in the biological sciences should suddenly screech to a halt because of the unbaked ideas of a man without any scientific or medical credentials who learned it all from Google.
About the only fallacy he hasn't committed here is to tell us, "They laughed at Galileo." *Spoiler alert*: No they didn't.

The microbiome again?

Teresa Conrick ( AoA) posts her letter to Mr OBAMA today requesting research about he microbiome and autism, listing loads of studies she finds meaningful.

It includes this killer sentence:
"Autism is not a genetic, developmental disorder although decades of irrelevant research have tried to assemble that picture"

Now Keith goes overboard as well:
is he talking about helminthes and poo transplants yet?

Must be something in the water.

For example, if you claim the influenza vaccine causes seizures, the prove that it happens more often than those caused by influenza. It is about relative risk.

That was his response?*

This somewhat overstates the case, I think (but I'm going to let him "do his own homework"), but the point is that they're all febrile. His entire idiotic vaccine-gut-pH-brain routine collapses instantly, leaving him no option but to invent an even more stupid escape mechanism.

* Sorry, Bellend, you're in the killfile that doesn't turn off.

The gut microbiome is simply the latest bandwagon to do some handwaving on.

Maybe. But I think it just might turn out to be the keeper they've been looking for since they lost thimerosal. It has a lot of narrative potential. Kind of like body thetans, except more DIY-science-y

But I think it just might turn out to be the keeper they’ve been looking for since they lost thimerosal.

Keep in mind that Bellend is trying (and miserably failing) to carve out his own niche. From the point of view of the AoA types, the Wakefraud tie-in is obvious: not only was St. Andy right, he was prophetic.

I’m pro-sanitation, not anti-vaccine

In what universe does that even make sense?

Orac, here’s a leader in the field, Greg Poland talking about personalized vaccines:

Actually he is not. He is talking about research for one vaccine that showed differences in response between populations (races in this case). He then goes on to speculate that one of the interesting outcomes may be being able to change dose dependent on people's racial heritage.

I have a lot to learn about the microbiome

I can't think of a better way to put it Keith. Except to replace "a lot" with "shed-loads" .

but probably know far more than most doctors

Dunning-Kruger writ large.

Adam, have you seen these recent general articles about the microbiome dictating immune response to vaccination?

"Although the experimental conditions widely varied across studies, these differences indicate again that the impact of gut microbiota on vaccine immunogenicity is far from being universal."

Indeed.

I think this counts as an epic fail on your part Keith.

#391 Lawrence, I'm no febrile seizure expert, but believe their being blamed on fever may be a mistake. Blaming seizure on fever alone is highly simplistic.

Febrile seizures breakthrough even after fever is treated. And there's also afebrile seizure, basically the same thing without fever. Both are gut-related where both fever and seizure are symptoms of gut dysbiosis, neurotransmitter imbalances and hyperactive immune response to vaccination:
http://www.seizure-journal.com/article/S1059-1311(13)00106-4/fulltext#s…
http://www.courant.com/consumer/hc-ls-kids-doctor-0531-20150529-story.h…

I've read 2-10% of children with febrile seizures will go on to develop epilepsy, not very benign as normally considered.

Adam, have you seen these recent general articles about the microbiome dictating immune response to vaccination?

First Link: SciAm article describing preliminary work in associating microfloral shifts with vaccine effectiveness. Consistent with what I've already said, nothing to do with your autism model as described above.

Second Link: A review titled "Is the microbiome key to modulating vaccine efficacy?"
I dunno Keith, is it? the authors conclude

Such data will lead to an understanding of how and to what extent gut microbes can impact vaccine efficacy.

In what universe does that even make sense?

That would be the universe of "a 25 year veteran of the recycling industry with interest in sanitation and health."

ChrisP, you've totally misconstrued what Greg Poland clearly states as a "foundational finding" and then goes on to generally discuss personalized vaccines. He's not limiting his discussion to rubella vaccines and African Americans. I suggest you watch the video again, this time without your slanted, slimy views.

Febrile seizures breakthrough even after fever is treated. And there’s also afebrile seizure, basically the same thing without fever. Both are gut-related where both fever and seizure are symptoms of gut dysbiosis, neurotransmitter imbalances and hyperactive immune response to vaccination:
http://www.seizure-journal.com/article/S1059-1311(13)00106-4/fulltext#s…
http://www.courant.com/consumer/hc-ls-kids-doctor-0531-20150529-story.h…

Oddly neither of these have anything to do with vaccination and scarily, I think I have an insight into Bell's warped, scientifically-illiterate mind. Rotavirus infection is associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures ergo there's a vaccine for that so it must too. But by all means Bell, please connect the dots between these two citations and the preceding claim you made.

Science Mom: "Rotavirus infection is associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures ergo there’s a vaccine for that so it must too."

I believe it also causes seizures by dehydration. Kind of screws up the electrolytes.

Oddly neither of these have anything to do with vaccination and scarily, I think I have an insight into Bell’s warped, scientifically-illiterate mind. Rotavirus infection is associated with an increased risk of febrile seizures ergo there’s a vaccine for that so it must too.

His whole trip is mining word association in service of his idée fixe. It's great to watch him twist himself into knots when presented with something novel or go into his distinctive failure mode of "thanking" one for information that will surely assist him going forward. The usual outcome that I've observed is that this is prognostic for "pretend it never happened."

Further to Keith Bell's epic fail above, I should point out that I read the review by Nakaya and Bruna-Romero and more importantly a couple of the key studies they refer to. In none of that work, limited as it is, is there any suggestion that differences in the gut microbiome would make vaccines more harmful.

The preliminary and interesting results are that specific species missing from the gut microbiome can make some vaccines less effective at inducing immune responses.

#416 shay, in the real world where vaccines are known to fail due to gut dysbiosis caused by poor sanitation:
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/370/1671/20140143

Vaccine scientists know vaccines can't work when confronted with intestines containing an imbalanced microbiome. A stark example is the sanitation-challenged developing world where there are no toilets and people defecate in fields. This open defecation leads to imbalanced flora and a compromised immune system where vaccines fail. Vaccines don't stand a chance of working under such circumstances because microbes dictate our immune response.

Vaccine scientists know vaccines can’t work when confronted with intestines containing an imbalanced microbiome. A stark example is the sanitation-challenged developing world where there are no toilets and people defecate in fields. This open defecation leads to imbalanced flora and a compromised immune system where vaccines fail. Vaccines don’t stand a chance of working under such circumstances because microbes dictate our immune response.

And you not only know the exact species colonisation of inhabitants in third world countries but have missed hundreds if not thousands of studies which have demonstrated dramatic plunges in VPDs when vaccines are introduced. What vaccine scientists do you speak of and vaccines not working under "such circumstances" Belle?

Vaccine scientists know vaccines can’t work when confronted with intestines containing an imbalanced microbiome. A stark example is the sanitation-challenged developing world where there are no toilets and people defecate in fields. This open defecation leads to imbalanced flora and a compromised immune system where vaccines fail. Vaccines don’t stand a chance of working under such circumstances because microbes dictate our immune response.

Ha Ha Ha Ha.

Bloody hell you are an idiot, Keith.

That is [b]oral vaccine[/b] failure, Keith. They refer specifically to this meta analysis:

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/210/6/853?ijkey=c02c6a2d92ed7e2da…

"Concurrent NPEVs significantly reduced the odds of per-dose seroconversion for type 1 poliovirus (odds ratio [OR] 0.44, 95% confidence interval 0.23−0.84), but not type 2 (OR 0.53 [0.19−1.46]) or type 3 (OR 0.56 [0.27−1.12]). A similar reduction, significant for type 1 poliovirus (OR 0.50 [0.28−0.89]), was observed in the odds of vaccine virus shedding among NPEV-infected individuals. Concurrent diarrhea significantly inhibited per-dose seroconversion overall (OR 0.61 [0.38−0.87])."

No Sh!t Mr Bell.

If you have diarrhea or a non-polio entero-virus infection, oral vaccines work less well than otherwise. If you understood how oral vaccines did their thing, the reasons would be obvious.

shay, in the real world where vaccines are known to fail due to gut dysbiosis caused by poor sanitation

Let us know if you ever make it out into the real world, Tink.

Vaccines don’t stand a chance of working under such circumstances

Have you ever been to India or the Philippines?

This open defecation leads to imbalanced flora and a compromised immune system

Doesn't this make Bellend some sort of biological terrorist on his own terms?

@#415 --

Certainly. I meant that the buzzword had the right stuff, not that KB's use of it did.

Narad #398, here's more recent work about febrile seizure:
"The results show that FS are associated with a systemic respiratory alkalosis, irrespective of the severity of the underlying infection as indicated by the level of fever."
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2011.03259.x/abs…
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110912075652.htm

People like Simpleton Mom still believe the cause of febrile seizure is fever.

ChrisP, #427, the phenomenon also applies to parenteral vaccines:
"Stool Microbiota and Vaccine Responses of Infants"
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/134/2/e362.abstract

I guess Orac is still watching the video in #410, scratching his ugly, sterile chin.

People like Simpleton Mom still believe the cause of febrile seizure is fever.

Poor Belle if only you could learn to read and comprehend your own citations. Neither had anything to do with vaccination and one just a layperson description of febrile seizure in spite of your claim that:

Febrile seizures breakthrough even after fever is treated. And there’s also afebrile seizure, basically the same thing without fever. Both are gut-related where both fever and seizure are symptoms of gut dysbiosis, neurotransmitter imbalances and hyperactive immune response to vaccination:
http://www.seizure-journal.com/article/S1059-1311(13)00106-4/fulltext#s…
http://www.courant.com/consumer/hc-ls-kids-doctor-0531-20150529-story.h…

The fact is vaccines are a cause of febrile seizures which can and do lead to epilepsy.

If some of my citations don't include discussion of vaccination, it's irrelevant because they are provided for clarification. The citation in #431 does include post-vaccination febrile seizure.

Mom #426, there are several papers discussing vaccine failure due to poor sanitation/environmental enteropathy. This includes the polio vaccine. The question is, under such circumstances are vaccines also causing injury? It's never been studied because vaccine scientists are not interested in safety as reflected by this callous group. Lowering VPDs is irrelevant; it's not about relative risk. It's about lowering vaccine injuries.

The fact is vaccines are a cause of febrile seizures which can and do lead to epilepsy.

Less than 1% according to your own cite. You know what causes the vast majority Belle? Which is of course completely contrary to your claim.

If some of my citations don’t include discussion of vaccination, it’s irrelevant because they are provided for clarification. The citation in #431 does include post-vaccination febrile seizure.

What a load of bollocks. You don't provide irrelevant citations that have nothing to do with your claims for "clarification" you do that because you are a hand-waving, scientifically-illiterate tool.

Mom #426, there are several papers discussing vaccine failure due to poor sanitation/environmental enteropathy. This includes the polio vaccine. The question is, under such circumstances are vaccines also causing injury? It’s never been studied because vaccine scientists are not interested in safety as reflected by this callous group. Lowering VPDs is irrelevant; it’s not about relative risk. It’s about lowering vaccine injuries.

More bollocks. Your claim was complete vaccine failure and they can't possibly work under those conditions. Except none of your cites supported that claim. That's only your own over-active microbiome speaking. If it's never been studied then how do you justify drawing definitive conclusions?

Mr. Bell: "The fact is vaccines are a cause of febrile seizures which can and do lead to epilepsy."

Please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

I see you posted an article titled "Respiratory alkalosis in children with febrile seizures." It had a breakdown of the children had when they had the fevers and seizures: "In the FS group, the etiology of fever was respiratory tract infection (74.2%), otitis media (7%), GE (7%), tonsillitis (4.2%), scarlet fever (2.3%) chickenpox (1.4%), urinary tract infection (1.4%), postvaccination reaction (0.9%), or unidentified (1.4%). In all patients, capillary pH and blood Pco2 were measured immediately on admission to the hospital."

So post vaccine was less than one percent, and chicken pox was half again greater than that, and the vast majority were from a respiratory tract infection. So it looks like diseases cause much more febrile seizures than the vaccines.

Therefor it is much safer to get the vaccine than to get the disease. This is from a citation that you posted.

Chris and Mom, you're both wholly unqualified to read the citation, much less lick my boots (good thing I don't wear boots). The paper states febrile seizure post-vaccination took place in 0.9% of the population of 213 studied among other reasons for febrile seizure. It doesn't say febrile seizure post- vaccination takes place in under 1% of the population.

Febrile seizure is not uncommon. Vaccine-induced seizure including Infantile Spasm is probably far more common than we're led to believe by the vaccine industry where as few as 1% of adverse events are even reported.

It doesn’t say febrile seizure post- vaccination takes place in under 1% of the population.

Tinker is wholly unqualified to read other people's posts.

So if we just let all the kids who might get a seizure from a fever get them from free-range viruses how many kids would have problems?

Because not vaccinate people does not ensure they cannot get a fever. After all fevers seem to be caused by illnesses and usually are more severe and last longer.

Mr. Bell, I know how to read and have taken enough advanced engineering mathematics to know that 1.4% is more than 0.9%. And I only have an undergraduate degree in engineering. Science Mom has a PhD, so she is obviously more qualified than both of us.

Please provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the disease.

Chris and Mom, you’re both wholly unqualified to read the citation, much less lick my boots

Pot, meet Kettle.

Chris and Mom, you’re both wholly unqualified to read the citation, much less lick my boots (good thing I don’t wear boots).

That's rich coming from an uneducated hump in the "sanitation" field. No one said anything about population Belle, it was purely in reference to your own citation which does not support your claim.

Vaccine-induced seizure including Infantile Spasm is probably far more common than we’re led to believe

When you have decided that "X is the case", but there is no evidence to support X, just make stuff up.

"(good thing I don’t wear boots)" Yah, I bet walking barefoot through the garbage affects his gut flora causing it to do bizarre things to his brain.
Really, Bell-oney seems to have three themes running through his comments: arrogance; weak attempts at Freudian psychology, especially weak since no one believes in Freud anymore; and an addiction to the thinnest of circumstantial "evidence'. Oh, and lest we forget, the fourth, intestinal microbiota.
Since he likes to play Freud, let's take a little look at him. Says Sigmund, "He vorks mit der refuse, und he iss obsessed mit der behavior und contents of ze colon. He iss definitely schtuck in der anal stage und zat is fitting because he iss ein immens Arschloch."

Dave, my heart goes out to you.

bimler, #444, seizure post-vaccination is so common that it's been removed from the list of compensable injuries:
""Before residual seizure disorder caused by DTP was removed from the list of compensable injuries, 1,713 claims were filed listing that problem. Of those, 654 received compensation totaling $480.9 million, according to the Health Resources and Services Administration."
http://www.post-gazette.com/business/legal/2010/10/11/Vaccine-makers-ta…
http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/vaccinetable.html

Orac the Sterile Weasel (OSW) left this conversation as quickly as he arrived. I'd like to see OSW try his hand writing a blog discrediting the microbiome related to vaccine injury. He's not doing it because he's remarkably unqualified.

Uh, Keith. Have you done the research as to WHY the residual seizure disorder was removed? Like for instance, it was found most of the children compensated all had a syndrome that causes seizures (Dravets, IIRC). Also, DTP is NO LONGER GIVEN.

Now, go away, do some proper research on cause and effect before you come back.

And unlike you, Orac actually works hard for a living, between his surgery and his research. Why should he waste his time writing about your type of gut/brain fixation?

I'm wondering what qualifications Mr. Bell has to be speaking about immunology.....

Dawn, Dravet accounts for only 2.5% of post-vaccination seizures. What about the other 97.5%? The problem is not limited to DPT.

Lawrence, the vaccine industry completely disregards flora's crucial role in immune response leading to vaccine injury. I'm wondering if you may be a gnotobiotic human. It's obvious Orac is a gnotobiotic pig.

While I know what my own qualifications are to evaluate sound science, I have never seen you offer any credentials on your own level of expertise, Mr. Bell.

flora’s crucial role in immune response leading to vaccine injury

We've already established you have zero evidence that this is true. You have yet to produce a even single instance of a vaccine injury known to be caused by a gut microbiome-mediated predisposition. Remember your own citation concludes

Such data will lead to an understanding of how and to what extent gut microbes can impact vaccine efficacy.

He’s not doing it because he’s remarkably unqualified.

Are you qualified? You've never even attempted to answer my questions at #405: Can you propose a specific experimental design for the study you wish the 'vaccine industry' would stop ignoring? Which vaccine would you study first? Why?

Adam, it's about missing protective microbes, a condition allowing vaccine injury. This new gnotobiotic pig paper illustrates the point where a probiotic adjuvant regulated immune response to rotavirus vaccination and protected against diarrhea:
"Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG Dosage Affects the Adjuvanticity and Protection Against Rotavirus Diarrhea in Gnotobiotic Pigs."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25564808

Since the rotavirus vaccine is known to cause intussusception (recently added to the list of compensable vaccine injuries), might this new paper indicate the probiotic reduced risk of injury? There are no studies because vaccine scientists, including the authors of this new paper refuse to study it (I know because I asked them to last year), instead focusing on vaccine response and developing new vaccines.
http://www.livescience.com/42544-rotavirus-vaccine-side-effect-intussus…

And your qualifications for MAKING your assertions?

By the way: intussusception can happen spontaneously. The fact that the rotavirus *might* cause more cases than the baseline has not been established for the vaccines currently in use as far as I know.

Why don't you do the studies, since you are the person with bee in your bonnet?

Since the rotavirus vaccine is known to cause intussusception (recently added to the list of compensable vaccine injuries), might this new paper indicate the probiotic reduced risk of injury?:

No, keith, it does not. It didn't look at risk of vaccine injury at all.

It instead looked at the effect of immunostimulatory strains of bacteria on vaccine immunogenicity.

[Residual seizure disorder] post-vaccination is so common that it’s been removed from the list of compensable injuries:

The absence of post-vaccination Alien Abduction from the list of compensable injuries proves JUST HOW OFTEN vaccinations result in alien abductions.

Adam, it’s about missing protective microbes, a condition allowing vaccine injury.

What evidence do you have that missing protective microbes 'allows' vaccine injury? That's what I'm asking. The paper you cite has nothing to do with vaccine 'injury' but with vaccine efficacy. You do realize there's a difference right?
Earlier in this thread you stated

That’s right, vaccines can cause SIDS.

With that kind of certainty, why bother doing any studies at all then? You're certain that there is evidence that 'vaccine injury' can be caused by microbial predisposition, but you also claim that vaccine scientists "refuse to study" this idea. You can't have both. Is there sufficient evidence to conclude that metagenomic factors play a role in 'vaccine injury,' or, in the absence of such research, are we left with the null hypothesis that they simply don't?

I also note you complain a lot about scientists not doing research you find valuable, but you are unable to propose what they should instead investigate, and how they would go about doing it. You can continue ignoring my request to simply state which vaccine you would study first and why, but everyone here sees it's clearly because you have no qualifications, and no idea how research is conducted.

”Before residual seizure disorder caused by DTP was removed from the list of compensable injuries, 1,713 claims were filed listing that problem
I feel obliged to point out that Bell is deliberately confounding "residual seizure disorder" here, with any "post-vaccination seizures" in his #446 and #449.
I hope that I never become so obsessive in the cause of pimping blog-posts that I turn into a chickensh1t bullsh1tter.

My good herr doktor: I don't think you would ever so that. And I also strongly suspect if you ever started, the good frau doktorin would kick your behind and then toss you to the minions (or feed you to Lord Draconis' nestlings)

#455 The absence of post-vaccination Alien Abduction from the list of compensable injuries proves JUST HOW OFTEN vaccinations result in alien abductions

Herr Doktor Bimler -

I think you are onto something here as the two newest additions to the anti 277 bandwagon seem to have had such experiences...no doubt, the revolutionary breakthrough in the science paradigm AoA has been waiting for...

Bellboy, I have a suggestion for you. You obviously like to wade through tedious scientific papers and try to synthesize new hypotheses from what you've read. Go back to school, get a degree in one of the sciences and find a lab that does real science and will let you follow your intestinal floral dreams.
Thank you for your heart going out to me. My colon goes out to you.

Adam, thanks for your efforts to understand the hypothesis and acknowledging gaping holes in vaccine science:

1) How childhood vaccines may affect flora balance and colonization, and

2) How existing flora (microbial predisposition) may affect vaccine response leading to injury.

Vaccine scientists know how to test these theories. I've provided examples using gnotobiotic pigs.

Adam, thanks for your efforts to understand the hypothesis and acknowledging gaping holes in vaccine science

If you genuinely believe that, and are not trying to pull some type of lame "psyche!" game on Adam, you're even more of a fool than I first thought.
Just a general note to everyone: I'm taking an exam on the 20th July, so until then I'll be studying hard and you won't see me comment. This is just to let you know, so that you don't get worried that I've passed away like lilady. :)

...you’re even more of a fool than I first thought.

Given Tinker's track record in reading comprehension, it's possible.

Good luck, Julian! I'll be taking a big exam (prep permitting), in October.

What happens when gnotobiotic pigs are given MMS enemas by people wearing latex gloves?

Better to add life™, Bacon. As a sterile pig yourself, you might do well with a probiotic enema, the next best thing to fecal transplant to address colonic imbalance. The small intestine is another matter, perhaps best addressed orally (there's always the option of intranasal fecal transplant).

Mr. Bell, why do you think insults are a valid substitute for actual evidence?

Now where are those PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers that show any vaccine on the present American pediatric schedule causes more seizures than the diseases?

Some would advise us not to underestimate Bell-oney.
I agree. He's impossible to underestimate.

Keith Bell,

Suppose I were the parent of a young child getting set to travel internationally. What steps should I take to adjust my child's microbiota in order to prevent any harm from local diseases? How would that advice change between going to, say, Southeast Asia, Africa, or Northern Europe? How could I test my child to know whether his/her/its microbiome was properly tuned? Suppose the polio vaccine is a legal requirement for travel - what adjustments are required for my child's microbiome? Are those the same adjustments as those needed to be healthy in these different areas, or something different? How do you know?

Thanks.

I'm not worried about microbiota. I figure that my immune system and my digestive tract know their jobs better than I, or any other person, can, and I prefer to leave them get on with it as much as I safely can.

O'Brien, brilliant questions. If it's possible to "tune" a microbiome to protect against vaccine injury, wouldn't that be great? In the meantime, vaccines appear to be injuring not just children with poor microbial predisposition, but also children with natural flora balance based on ancestral diet, i.e. Africans with high Bacteroides.

We should know when NOT to vaccinate based on flora balance, i.e., preterm infants and newborns from maternal and gestational diabetic mothers associated with autism.

Dave prefers his head in the sand. Old Ostrich Dave. Orac prefers his head up his own sterile ass. How's that for insolence?

Since you have singularly failed to provide any corroboration to your delusions on this topic, it's clear that you're the one in rectal defilade, Tinker.

vaccines appear to be injuring not just children with poor microbial predisposition

You still have not presented a single example of this.
Which vaccine? What injury? Which microbes?

I've given plenty of examples, Adam. Please review this one again where MMR leads to amplified antibody response in African Americans due to naturally high levels of Bacteroides leading to autism:
http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/mayo-clinic-discovers-afri…
(this is also the link Orac refuses to respond to regarding personalized vaccines, coward that he is)

And, as discussed previously, it's also about reduced or absent protective microbes such as Bifidobacteria, Lactobacillus and protective strains of Clostridia. Proteobacteria are found high in maternal and gestational diabetes correlated with microbes in meconium, likely dysregulating immune response in any number of childhood vaccines, never before studied.

Mr. Bell: "high levels of Bacteroides leading to autism:"

Not mentioned in the linked article. You are still just making stuff up.

Keith appears to be smoking his own dope....because what he posted doesn't support his statement at all.

Good luck, Julian!

Take a seat, Keith.

I’m not worried about microbiota. I figure that my immune system and my digestive tract know their jobs better than I, or any other person, can, and I prefer to leave them get on with it as much as I safely can.

Old Rockin' Dave is not a REAL MURKIN:

“Americans have a special horror of giving up control, of letting things happen in their own way without interference. They would like to jump down into their own stomachs and digest the food and shovel the shit out.”

High Bacteroides tied to autism severity: http://www.bacteriaandautism.com/PDF/Pyrosequencingstudy.pdf

There are no studies about how microbes affect immune response for any of the childhood vaccines. Might this explain the mystery Dr. Poland of the Mayo Clinic describes where Somalis react with twice the antibodies to rubella vaccination? http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1271/bbb.80612?url_ver=Z39.88-200…

Keith, in your own words, how would you describe the difference between vaccine efficacy and vaccine injury?

You posted a press release that accompanied the release of this article: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24530932
(Ask yourself Keith, would you have been able to find this on your own?)
Remember, you claimed this press release showed

MMR leads to amplified antibody response in African Americans due to naturally high levels of Bacteroides leading to autism

How can this possibly be true when the actual journal article does not even contain the words 'autism' or 'Bacteroides'?

High Bacteroides tied to autism severity

Oh Keith, you're adorable. If you had actually bothered to read the articles you use as evidence for your fantasy you would have seen that the severe autism cases had lower Bacteroidetes (which you continue to misspell, hilariously) than the mild autism cases (51.248% vs. 51.591%).

The major problem with Feingold's work over the years has been that he has seemingly attempted to attribute developmental changes that clearly begin long before birth to changes in the microflora that occur long after birth. That approach made at least some sense before the evidence emerged that he was months or years too late.

The major problem with Feingold’s work over the years

For me, the major problem with Feingold's work is that every time he publishes a result, it contradicts all his previous results. The #1 person for refuting Feingold's claims is in fact Feingold.

brian, flora develops in the womb before birth, as well. Meconium isn't sterile. It's how vaccines interact with flora present that leads to injury.

Bacteroides are a genus in the phylum of Bacteroidetes. The paper states:
"Bacteroides vulgatus are present in
significantly higher numbers in stools of severely autistic children than in controls."

"The Bacteroides genus, in particular, is an obvious indication of the change that occurs from autistic to sibling and control children."

Adam, there are no papers addressing my hypothesis, so you won't find a single paper incorporating all the factors. But I have published 6 articles on the subject of microbial predisposition and vaccine injury.

there are no papers addressing my hypothesis

If you're absolutely convinced something is true, it's not a hypothesis anymore. Can you propose a study that would investigate this hypothesis? What would the results look like if your hypothesis is true? What would they look like if it wasn't?

I have published 6 articles

Are they peer reviewed? Nope. Why not submit one to Vaccine and see what happens?

Hey, old Bell-ybutton, the article you cite ( http://www.bacteriaandautism.com/PDF/Pyrosequencingstudy.pdf) is about a study done in children already diagnosed with autism spectrum conditions and appears to show correlation between the "severity" of their condition and the composition of gut flora.
1) As an autism expert that I know told me, trying to rank autistic people as more or less "severe" is largely subjective and criteria can be somewhat arbitrary. There are often concurrent conditions which may not be assessible (Is that a word?) due to poor communication skills.
2) Since the autists were diagnosed before entering the study, a post-hoc propter-hoc fallacy might be at work. In other words, did autism result from the status of their gut flora, or the other way around?
3) People with complex and disabling autism often have limited and skewed diets due to food aversions. This may be reflected in their gut flora.
4) Since you appear never to have gotten past the title, here is the last sentence in the abstract: "If the unique microbial flora is found to be a causative or consequent factor in this type of autism, it may have implications with regard to a specific diagnostic test, its epidemiology, and for treatment and prevention." In other words the authors make my second point for me, don't know the significance of their findings yet, and can't say for sure if their results will be replicated.
5) They take the increased prevalence of autism as a given, without sourcing that claim, while there are other factors in play other than an actual increase in cases for an increase in reported cases.
6) I think you need to have your gut flora studied. It should be easy; they only need to swab your mustache.

@484
Is there any evidence to suggest that the differences in postnatal gut microflora that Finegold describes long after birth influence neurodevelopment early in the second trimester of pregnancy? I might have missed that (it's been a few years since I slogged through Finegold's papers as I sought to explain to a colleague why I thought that, back in the days of Finegold's vancomyicin study, his premise was clearly wrong) but I doubt that, and I really (really) don't think that there's any there, there. Meanwhile, Sydney seems to have abandoned his apparently failed hypothesis.

brian, there's this 2012 paper detailing a natural shift in maternal flora toward a diabetic state in the third trimester which is when the fetal brain triples in weight:
http://www.nature.com/news/pregnancy-alters-resident-gut-microbes-1.111…
http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(12)00829-X?_returnURL=http…

Meconium studies reveal the maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract which likely drives fetal brain development with omega-3 fatty acids of microbial origin:
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0078257
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/pr5011857

Of course, Dave was born meconium-free. Love ya, Dave!

which likely drives fetal brain development

Which of the papers you posted has anything to do with fetal brain development? Not a single one. From what evidence are you concluding that maternal microbiome "likely drives fetal brain development?"

Keith,your first two cites yoo offer no evidence that gut microbiota affects immune response for any of the childhood vaccines--that is the hypothesis you;'re trying to defend, isn't it? The instead report that pregnancy affects expectant mothers' gut microbiota.

The third cite also ofers no evidence that gut microbiota affects immune response for any of the childhood vaccines, instead noting simply that the fetal meconium differs significantly from the maternal gut micorbiome (lower species diversity, higher sample-to-sample variation) but is enriched enriched for the same bacterial taxa reported in the fecal microbiome of adult DM patients.

Neither the third or fourth cite provided any evidence that "maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract" or "likely drives fetal brain development with omega-3 fatty acids of microbial origin".

Maybe next time read and understand the publications--what teh authors found and what cocnlusions they derive from their observation--before citing them?

Adam, the idea that the fetal gut drives fetal brain development is derived from the fact that:
"Normal gut microbiota modulates brain development and behavior"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3041077/

Jesus G. Christ, is your head made of wood? Try putting your asinine comments in context of the discussion. I was addressing brian's excellent question, obviously.

Moreover, gut microbiota affecting immune response in vaccination is already firmly established. Quite simply, vaccine response depends on microbes present. What's disregarded is how this response may lead to vaccine injury.

Also, the third citation does indeed provide evidence the maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract, stating:

"It also suggests that the meconium microbiome of infants born to mothers with DM is enriched for the same bacterial taxa as those reported in the fecal microbiome of adult DM patients."

This is something you quoted in your reply, JGC, without understanding the ramifications.

Uh..Keith...."suggests" is NOT the same as "providing evidence". It also does not prove the maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract; it basically is saying that the increased glucose in the mother's blood, that is available to the baby, makes it more possible for certain bacteria to grow over other bacteria, similar to what happens to the mother.

Have you ever studied embryology?

My apologies if I misidentified the hypothesis you were trying to defend: I'll amend my response as necessary:

Keith,your first two cites offer no evidence that [the fetal gut drives fetal brain development ]. They instead report that pregnancy affects expectant mothers’ gut microbiota.

The third cite also ofers no evidence that [the fetal gut drives fetal brain development] instead noting simply that the fetal meconium differs significantly from the maternal gut micorbiome (lower species diversity, higher sample-to-sample variation) but is enriched enriched for the same bacterial taxa reported in the fecal microbiome of adult DM patients.

Neither the third or fourth cite provided any evidence that “maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract” or “likely drives fetal brain development with omega-3 fatty acids of microbial origin”.

Maybe next time read and understand the publications–what the authors found and what conslusions they derive from their observations–before citing them?

That better, Keith?

Oh please. brian's question was

Is there any evidence to suggest that the differences in postnatal gut microflora that Finegold describes long after birth influence neurodevelopment early in the second trimester of pregnancy

The paper you cite compares development between normal mice and Germ Free mice. Again, you have no evidence that shifts in microbial content associated with pregnancy have anything whatsoever to do with 'vaccine injury'

Also, the third citation does indeed provide evidence the maternal microbiome finds its way to the fetal GI tract

No, it does not: it simply states "the meconium microbiome of infants born to mothers with DM is enriched for the same bacterial taxa as those reported in the fecal microbiome of adult DM patients".

Nowhere do the authors suggest or demonstrate the observed enrichment is due to maternal microbiome finding its way to the fetal GI tract.

Moreover, gut microbiota affecting immune response in vaccination is already firmly established. Quite simply, vaccine response depends on microbes present. What’s disregarded is how this response may lead to vaccine injury.

So, to review, here's your 'model':
A. Efficacy of certain vaccines may to some extent be determined by gut microbiome
B. Mice raised without any gut microflora at all have slightly different behaviors
Therefore, vaccines can cause SIDS.
Please feel free to fill in the blanks, but try to spare us the copious hand-waving and oblique references to the 'gut-brain connection'
You still haven't told us which vaccine the 'vaccine scientists' should be studying, by the way. You must have ideas about this! You wrote a whole 6 blog posts about it!

Moreover, gut microbiota affecting immune response in vaccination is already firmly established.

Hardly 'firmly' established keith, if you're basing this claim on your cite @355.

Dawn #493, it's not about glucose, but it may be about glycans regulated by genes. Have you ever studied glycobiology?

But it's a moot point you're making since the microbes in meconium are of maternal origin. That's microbial predisposition. The Sterile Womb Paradigm is obsolete. And we have the nerve to vaccinate within 12 hours of birth in complete disregard of microbial regulation of vaccine response.

Bell-icose's attempts to push his idea, which is too weak to even honor with the word "hypothesis", reminds me of the classic Sidney Harris cartoon. Two men stand in front of a blackboard. Equations cover the left and right sides of the board. In the center are the words "Then a miracle happens". One of the men is saying, "I think you need to be more specific in step two." The only validation he can give appears to be, "I want it to be that way, so it is." Hanging on to a pet idea long after it sputters to a halt and dies is not a good sign.

I don't know if anyone is still following the comments here, but this is interesting news. Nigeria, the last place in Africa has not had a known case of polio for months, after a massive government effort to vaccinate the children in the last pockets of the disease. If they can go another 12 months without any new cases, then all of Africa will be declared free of polio. This was accomplished with oral vaccine, which appears to have worked no matter what intestinal microbiota people across the continent had.

brian, #487, here's some hot-off-the-press news about the second trimester diet associated with preterm birth:
"Maternal Dietary Patterns during the Second Trimester Are Associated with Preterm Birth."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26084362

Of course, Dave doesn't believe diet plays a role in gut flora balance, mainly because he's gutless. But the fact is preterm birth is associated with high levels of Gammaproteobacteria because flora is tied to gestational age.

This new paper will hopefully reverse current barbaric vaccine protocol to vaccinate preterm infants weighing only 2.2 lbs. as if they were full term. Is there any wonder why preterm infants suffer high risk of autism?
"Adverse Events After Routine Immunization of Extremely Low-Birth-Weight Infants"
http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2300376&utm_sour…

"Prevalence and neonatal factors associated with autism spectrum disorders in preterm infants."
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24161222

Anyone here interested in vaccine safety? Certainly not Orac the Sterile™. He'd rather mock the injured.

Still following comments, Dave. Didn't the U.S. have a measles free year? So frustrating.

Comments in the LA Times about SB277 passage tend to run mostly from antivaxxersantivaxxers.