autism
oracknows | March 6, 2008I should have seen this one coming a mile away in light of the concession of vaccine injury in the case of one child that led to the incredibly shrinking causation claim when it comes to vaccines and autism. Having had it conclusively demonstrated through several large studies in multiple countries that mercury in vaccines does not cause autism (nor do vaccines themselves), the mercury militia are rapidly changing course. No longer is autism a "misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning."
Now it's a "misdiagnosis for mitochondrial diseases."
Or it soon will be. Just wait. The new propaganda from the…
purepedantry | March 3, 2008I nearly aerosolized Diet Pepsi all over my computer screen when I read this:
It a town hall meeting Friday in Texas, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., declared that "there's strong evidence" that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that was once in many childhood vaccines, is responsible for the increased diagnoses of autism in the U.S. -- a position in stark contrast with the view of the medical establishment.
McCain was responding to a question from the mother of a boy with autism, who asked about a recent story that the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and the National Vaccine Injury…
oracknows | March 3, 2008In case you had any doubt that it's about vaccines and the concept of vaccination itself, here's video of the protest held outside of the American Academy of Pediatrics a couple of weeks ago:
I'm not sure it was such a great idea to release video of this protest, given how tiny the demonstration looks and how obviously antivaccine their signs and rhetoric are. Either way, Dr. Eisenstein (whose "research" skills are legendary) makes me wonder how he earned his M.D. if he doesn't understand that the whole "toxins in vaccines" is a canard, and Dr. Ayoub is a conspiracy-monger. However, it's…
oracknows | March 1, 2008A couple of days ago, I wrote about a particularly deceptive and idiotic article by David Kirby about the settling of a case of vaccine injury by the U.S. government. Fellow skeptical physician Steve Novella couldn't resist taking a shot at Kirby as well and in doing so came up with one of the best lines about Kirby that I've ever heard in reference to Kirby's attempt to bring AZT into the discussion:
Among stiff competition, this is perhaps the most absurd and scientifically ignorant thing Kirby has every written.
Damn. I wish I had thought of that line. However, I would say to Steve that he…
oracknows | February 29, 2008Well, now I'm really in a pickle as far as the 2008 Presidential election goes. I really don't like Hillary Clinton and consider Barack Obama not ready for prime time; i.e., he's too inexperienced and too liberal for my liking. On the other hand, I used to like John McCain--at least until he started pandering to the religious right and became a cheerleader for the Iraq war. Now I have another reason not to vote for John McCain, which leaves me with not a single Presidential candidate that I can see myself voting for right now.
John McCain has credulously fallen for the blandishments of…
oracknows | February 28, 2008I didn't want to blog about this. I really didn't.
No, the reason why I didn't want to blog about this latest screed by mercury militia enabler David Kirby is not because it is about any sort of slam-dunk proof that vaccines do after all cause autism, a mistaken impression that you might get if you just looked at the crowing throughout the antivaccination blogosphere. Rather, it's because I've been forced once again to wade through Kirby's smug, self-congratulatory, and intentionally obfuscatory prose to try to figure out just what the hell he was talking about and then try to make sense of…
oracknows | February 27, 2008In case you haven't heard it enough on this blog and elsewhere: Antivaccination lunacy has consquences. In the UK, measles cases have jumped to a record high:
The number of measles cases in England and Wales jumped more than 30% last year to the highest level since records began in 1995.
The Health Protection Agency (HPA) recorded 971 cases during the year - up from 740 in 2006.
The agency issued a warning last summer urging parents to get their children immunised with the MMR jab.
Experts have repeatedly stressed that public concerns about the safety of the jab have no foundation.
As I've…
oracknows | February 21, 2008I've written a few posts now pointing out how, its claims that it is not "antivaccine" notwithstanding, for the mercury militia and those who think mercury in vaccines or vaccines themselves cause autism, it really is all about the vaccines, not any single ingredient, even mercury. I first noticed this nearly three years ago, and, if anything, recent events have made my observation even more obviously true. As multiple studies have exonerated the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal that was formerly found in most childhood vaccines and now only remains in trace amounts in flu vaccines…
oracknows | February 19, 2008In response to my post yesterday castigating J. B. Handley of Generation Rescue for hypocritically accusing the American Academy of Pediatrics of "manipulating the media" when manipulating the media is Generation Rescue's raison d'être, Mike the Mad Biologist turned me on to a rather fascinating article in the New York Times by its Public Editor Clark Hoyt entitled The Doctors Are In. The Jury Is Out. It discusses a topic very near and dear to my heart, namely how newspapers report scientific or medical controversies, specifically, how the NYT covers controversies in which one side is the…
mikethemadbiologist | February 18, 2008...and it's pretty damn good. So I got an email from ScienceBlogling Orac about an autism 'hub' he's putting together, so, having belatedly checked my email, I'm moving this post up.
In the Sunday NY Times, Public Editor Clark Hoyt describes the Times' policy for covering autism-vaccination studies (italics mine):
On Jan. 23, Edward Wyatt, a culture reporter in the Los Angeles bureau, reported on the cover of The Arts section that the first episode of "Eli Stone," a legal drama on ABC, was stepping into the debate over whether childhood vaccines cause autism -- "and seemingly coming down on…
oracknows | February 18, 2008Three weeks ago, I wrote about some truly irresponsible antivaccination propaganda masquerading as entertainment that aired in the form of a television show called Eli Stone. This show, which portrayed its hero taking on the case of an autistic boy whose mother blamed his autism on thimerosal (going under the fictional name "mercuritol") in vaccines and scoring a $5.2 million settlement in the process. One consequence of this show was that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was shaken out of its inaction enough to draft a letter protesting the show and urging its cancellation of the…
oracknows | February 14, 2008It figures.
I'm deprived of full Internet access for a few days, and--wouldn't you know it?--the merry band of antivaccinationists over at Generation Rescue have to go and provide yet more evidence to back up what I've been saying all along about the mercury militia, namely that, once again, J. B. Handley's protestations otherwise, it really, truly is all about the vaccines, not the mercury. It always was. This new bit of confirmation of what I've said time and time again comes in the form of a full page ad taken out in USA Today on February 12 that I found about thanks to the credulous…
oracknows | February 4, 2008I did not watch Eli Stone last Thursday.
I didn't really need to, given that prerelease descriptions made it clear that the show's pilot episode was nothing more than a load of antivaccination propaganda. Indeed, it was so bad that the American Academy of Pediatrics actually took the step of drafting a public letter to ABC asking it either to can the show or run a disclaimer stating that science does not support the contention in Eli Stone that mercury in vaccines is a major cause of autism. In response, David Kirby, the Energizer Bunny of the mercury militia, posted a predictable screed…
oracknows | February 2, 2008It's been a while since I've posted any fan mail, but I did get one a few days ago that amused me. It came from someone with a 'nym of "Baxtour". I post it because it represents a common flavor of antivaccinationist response to my blog:
You are a fucking moron, which I'm sure you already know, but if there is one thing you know absolutely nothing about it's thimerosal! You shouldn't even talk about it because you are so fucking clueless!!!
Sincerely,
Someone that actually has a brain
Truly, against such intellectual firepower, even Orac has a hard time standing. My first thought was that it…
oracknows | January 30, 2008Three and a half months after Kevin Leitch announced that he was shutting down his most excellent blog, Left Brain/Right Brain, it appears that, thankfully, he's changed his mind. Appearing yesterday on the archives of his blog, Kev announced that his blog is open for business again.
Join me in welcoming Kev back to the blogosphere. Head on over and leave a message. It's good to see that he decided not to let bastards like John Best silence him permanently.
oracknows | January 29, 2008Last week, I did one of my inimitable rants about an ABC television show set to air on Thursday called Eli Stone, in which a lawyer sues a pharmaceutical company for "mercuritol" (an obvious allusion to thimerosal) in vaccines and how it supposedly caused a child's autism. Basically, I called it an irresponsible bit of antivaccination propaganda, given that in the story the jury awards the child $5.2 million, while the lawyer (Eli Stone) is portrayed as a "prophet" crusading for the "little guy."
Now Steve Novella weighs in. In the process, he can't resist doing in his much less--shall we say…
oracknows | January 28, 2008Pity poor David Kirby.
Nearly three years ago now, he published his now-infamous Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic, A Medical Mystery. Hooking up with the most vocal of the mercury militia, his book blamed mercury in vaccines as the major cause of autism. Unfortunately for Kirby, time has not been kind to him. Although he still manages to retain his rock star status among the antivaccination glitterati, each successive study failing to find a link between thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism put another nail in the coffin of Kirby's relevance, to the…
oracknows | January 26, 2008I'll give Don Imus credit for one thing. He's predictable and consistent. He never fails to deliver the stupid when it comes to vaccines and autism. True, his wife may take the stupid to hysterically malignant levels when she decides to rant about her belief in the undead myth that mercury in vaccines was a major cause of autism, but he's the calm and reliable voice of vaccine stupidity, spitting out the same antivaccination lies over and over again in that sleep-inducing mumbling drone that he calls a voice. He's only been back on the air for a month and a half now, and it's become…
oracknows | January 23, 2008It's times like these that I wish the Hollywood writers' strike had really and truly shut down production of new dramas completely. A new series on ABC set to premiere on January 31 looks as though it's going to dish up a heapin' helpin' of the vilest antivaccination lies and propaganda that will potentially endanger children's lives by stoking fears about the safety of vaccines:
LOS ANGELES -- A new legal drama making its debut this month on ABC is stepping into a subject that is the source of heated debate among some parents -- the relationship between autism and childhood vaccines -- and…
oracknows | January 22, 2008...and ERV has the scoop, along with pictures.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about April Renée, the former President of The Autism Autoimmunity Project and a frequent speaker for Vaccine Injured Children, who was scheduled to speak in Oklahoma City on Saturday; so I'm not surprised at ERV's observation:
As for April Renée's presentation, I was shaking I was so angry. It was a hate speech against scientists that would make any Creationist proud. After ranting about how scientists and physicians get pleasure from killing children she said 'I dont mean to degrade any of the pediatricians in…