Skeptico

RFK Jr: Government Scientists are Lying

Some people simply can't accept reality. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is apparently writing a book that will prove, prove I tell you, that Thimerosal in vaccines causes autism. This is despite all the scientific studies that failed to show a connection, and despite Thimerosal being removed from childhood vaccines in 2001 while autism continues to rise. How does he explain this contradictory evidence? Simple. All the scientists involved are lying. Seriously. Oh yes and one more thing, he’s not going to publish the book. (Huh?)

Let’s back up a bit. Two weeks ago, Phil Plait wrote a Slate article, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Anti-Vaxxer. Apparently Kennedy wasn’t happy and telephoned Slate’s health and science editor Laura Helmuth, to complain. Her article about this call, So Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Called Us to Complain … is worth a read in its entirety. I especially liked the way Helmuth asked Kennedy’s representative to email her with details of the supposed error’s in Phil Plait’s article, and he wouldn’t, preferring instead a phone call. Of course, when you don’t have facts evidence or logic on your side, it is better to avoid responses in writing where those shortfalls can be easily exposed.

Anyway, the short version of what Kennedy told her is:

..thimerosal causes autism when injected into children. Government epidemiologists and other scientists, conspiring with the vaccine industry, have covered up data and lied about vaccine ingredients to hide this fact. Journalists are dupes of this powerful cabal that is intentionally poisoning children.

See? Government scientists are all lying. Scientists in numerous countries, presumably. And they are intentionally poisoning children. Intentionally - they mean to do it! Simple really. That’s that then.

Although Kennedy apparently found one scientist who was honest when talking to him:

[Kennedy] spoke to one scientist (he named her but I won’t spread the defamation) who, he said, “was actually very honest. She said it’s not safe. She said we know it destroys their brains.”

I asked the scientist about their conversation. She said there is in fact no evidence that thimerosal destroys children’s brains, and that she never said that it did.

Maybe Kennedy is the one who is lying.

Anyway, just standard conspiracy mongering so far. But there was one bit that did make me sit up and that was Kennedy bringing up the Simpsonwood conference again. That is, the disgraceful piece of dishonest quote mining that I wrote about eight years ago that was pulled by Salon when they realized they’d been duped. Here is how Kennedy explained that inconvenient fact:

“They [the scientists at the conference] panicked. They had a 3.5-hour discussion about how to hide this from the public, which I published in Rolling Stone and Salon. Salon later pulled it, said it was taken out of context. Read those quotes in [Seth] Mnookin’s book [The Panic Virus : The True Story Behind the Vaccine-Autism Controversy], not even in my article, better yet read the transcripts. [My bold]

There you go. RFK says we should read the transcripts and then we’d understand. Thing is, Bobby, I did read the transcript. All 286 pages of it. And the meeting did not conclude that Thimerosal was responsible for an increase in autism and did not discuss any cover up.

I explained all this in my 2005 article about Simpsonwood: Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s completely dishonest thimerosal article. Here’s the short version. There was a day of presentations of data with much questioning and discussion of the meaning of the results. Then the participants were asked to rate the possibility of a causal link (Thimerosal to autism) on a scale of one to six: one being a weak causal link, six strong. From page 189 to 222 of the transcript (remember, RFK says “better yet read the transcripts”) you can read of one attendee after another (with just one exception) grading the likelihood of a causal relationship as being either a one or a two. There was only one exception (Dr. Weil) who gave it a four. Guess which one Kennedy quoted.

Please do read the transcript as Kennedy urges. I did. There was no discussion about how to hide anything. If Kennedy really did read the transcript, then he is lying when he says it shows a cover up.

Kennedy also called Keith Kloor for another hour long monologue. (Apparently Kennedy likes to talk and not listen. Read Kloor’s description - it sounds like a nightmare.) As I wrote at the top, Kennedy told Kloor he has written a book that shows Thimerosal really does cause autism, and the book contains very strong evidence to support this position. Except Kennedy isn’t going to publish it because it would cause mass panic. Read Kloor’s report of his telephone call with Kennedy: It’s the Best of Times to Scare Yourself to Death:

[Kennedy] told me that the book he commissioned has a chapter “we were going to leave out, because it’s so controversial, but the evidence is so strong that thimerosal causes autism,” that he’s keeping it in.

Why would you consider leaving something out if the evidence supporting your position was strong? Wouldn’t that end the controversy? It makes no sense.

But read what followed:

Yet in the next breath he said he wasn’t going to publish the book (even though it has a publisher and is going through edits right now) because it is so explosive that he doesn’t want it to prompt a mass panic:

So Kennedy has the proof, really he has, and if you saw it you’d agree, except he’s not going show you. But read the Simpsonwood transcript and that’ll show the cover up. Except it doesn’t.

Incidentally Kennedy phoned Kloor in response to an article he had written recently, Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Anti-Science? (Duh - clearly yes.) See the unhinged anti-vax comments to that post. I debated briefly with one excitable person posting as Joe Harris - read the veritable Gish Gallop of anti-vax fallacies and talking points. For example, Poul Thorsen means that dozens of scientific studies are wrong. Just Poul Thorsen’s name, all by itself. Except all it actually shows is that RFK was as clueless in 2010 as he was in 2005, and as he is now. Nothing changes.

The Very Confused JB Handley

I haven’t posted for a while, I know – taking a bit of a break. But I had to make one quick post on Handley’s January 5 interview with CNN’s Parker / Spitzer. Click on the video to see the interview (it’s short) or click here for a transcript.

Before I start with what Handley said, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and quite impressed by how Parker and especially Spitzer went about the interview. None of the usual false equivalence, “telling both sides”, they allowed Handley his say but pointedly challenged him on the facts. Get a load of this exchange:

Spitzer: I say this with overwhelming sympathy for you and for your son, but just listening to you I’ve got to ask the question: there isn’t a single study, and we’ve looked at all the science, that says there’s any causal link between these vaccines and autism. And I know you are saying there is

JBH: But that’s not true

Spitzer: there isn’t a study that disproves it, but there’s no affirmative causal link there. And so don’t don’t you think it would make more sense to look at other potential potential causative factors?

Wow – I’ve never seen this Parker/Spitzer show but perhaps I’ll start to watch now.

But on to Handley. You’ll remember I wrote last Ferbuary in The Two J.B. Handleys, how Handley had changed his story about how quickly after the vaccine shots, the kids regressed into autism. On Handley’s own Age of Autism blog he wrote:

It is exceptionally rare that I hear the story, “my son was 100% fine, and at 2 years old after one vaccine appointment he lost everything.” I have heard that story, but very rarely.

But in the January 5, 2011 interview he says:

I have personally talked to about a thousand parents who all report that their children where that regression took place immediately following a vaccine appointment.

So it’s exceptionally rare but he has personally talked to about a thousand parents who report it true. Hum. I guess when your claims get trashed so many times that you forgot where you moved the goalposts to, you occasionally get confused and contradict yourself.

Frontline - Jenny McCarthy Changes her Story Again

I watched PBS’s Frontline on vaccines last week, and thought it overall pretty good.  Not perfect (what is?) but the numerous howls of protest from the crank Age of Autism blog (I lost count of the number of their posts) and on the Huff Post, should be enough to tell you it hit the right marks.  Orac has a detailed review, The Vaccine War: Telling it (mostly) like it is about the anti-vaccine movement, so I really don’t need to review it in detail.

There is just one thing I want to highlight, though.  It wasn’t on the actual TV program, but on PBS’s full online Jenny McCarthy interview.  It was this:

[Questioner:] How long after the MMR was that first seizure?

[Jenny McCarthy:] You know, a lot of people think, and probably from me saying in some interviews, that it was after the MMR I noticed changes.

I don't think it was just the MMR shot that caused any kind of trigger with autism. I think it was a compilation of so many shots to a kid that obviously had some autoimmune disorders. So I would say maybe a couple of months, a month or so after the MMR, I started to notice some physical ailments such as constipation, rashes, eczema. That was like the first little sign. And then the train just kind of descended from there.  [My bold.]

Jenny is saying that her son’s autism didn’t start immediately after just one shot (the MMR), but that “some physical ailments” of autism appeared over “a couple of months.”  This was just “the first little sign.”  (Note, just a “little” sign at that point.)  But, here’s the thing, as I wrote in The Two J.B. Handleys, Jenny had, only three years ago, stated quite clearly and unambiguously something very different:

"Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, 'I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn't it?' And he said, 'No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother's desperate attempt to blame something,' and he swore at me, and then the nurse gave [Evan] the shot," she says. "And I remember going, 'Oh, God, I hope he's right.' And soon thereafter -- boom -- the soul's gone from his eyes.  [My bold.] 

Note, not “some physical ailments” or just a “little sign” – back then it was “the soul's gone from his eyes” which, I think you’ll agree, is completely different.  Also not over “a couple of months,” but “boom.”  Different story.

Why does this matter?  Well, Jenny, Handley and the rest have been telling us for years that the reason they know vaccines cause autism is that their kids got autism “boom” right after the vaccine was given.  (With Handley it was after a shot containing Thimerosal, while with Jenny it was MMR which never had Thimerosal, but we’ll gloss over that for now.)  Now that Wakefield’s MMR hypothesis has been discredited, and numerous epidemiological studies have failed to find a link with Thimerosal, the only way to keep their vaccines-cause-autism  claims alive is to move the goalposts.  And you see that in the Frontline program – Jenny says it’s not MMR, or Thimerosal, or too many vaccines at once – it’s “all of the above.”  She actually says she doesn’t know what it is that’s causing autism, but she knows it’s the vaccines, somehow.  But the thing is, if they’re now saying the signs of autism appeared gradually over several months, on what basis are they saying vaccines cause autism?  If autism appeared gradually, and not “boom” after one shot, then they don’t even have the correlation (vaccine immediately followed by autism) to rely on. 

And what’s more, they know they’ve changed their story and they know they’ve moved the goalposts.  Why do I say that?  Well, when I wrote The Two J.B. Handleys less than ten weeks ago, I included a link to the interview with the Jenny “boom” quote on Jenny’s own Generation Rescue site, Jenny: Evan's Story.  Check that link now.  Search Generation Rescue for any part of that interview.  It’s gone.  Disappeared.  Never happened.  Not part of the official anti-vaccine history any more.  (And I know Handley read that post and saw the link because he appeared in the comments four days after I wrote it in an attempt to defend himself.)  If you needed any more proof of the dishonesty and intellectual bankruptcy of Generation Rescue and the anti-vaccine kooks, there it is.  Fortunately for us, there is one thing that George Orwell didn’t imagine when he wrote his famous 1984 novel, and that’s the Wayback Machine – the cache that never lets anyone completely disappear inconvenient facts they want you to forget.  Courtesy of the internet, here again is what Jenny said in 2007, Jenny: Evan's Story – “and soon thereafter -- boom -- the soul's gone from his eyes.”  

The hallmark of the pseudo-scientist and the kook, is they they won’t change their beliefs no matter what the evidence, instead they devise ad hoc explanations and move goalposts to accommodate contradictory evidence.  Jenny and Handley have been caught, again, doing just that.  Rather than re-evaluate their beliefs, they just change their previous story so that it fits the currently known facts.  And they try to cover their tracks by deleting the now embarrassing things they said before.  Rather strangely, they fail to notice that, with their new story, there is no longer any reason to link vaccines to autism.  Either autism occurred “boom” just after the shot (and so they can point to correlation), or it didn’t.  Which is it?  They want it both ways.

Funnily enough, there was one thing in that PBS interview with Jenny, that I though she got right.  It was this:

…that night went on Google and typed in "autism." And on the corner of the screen, in the sponsored links, it said, "Generation Rescue." And I decided to click on it, because right underneath it, it said, "Autism is reversible." And I thought to myself, well, this must be a load of crap, because if it was true, why didn't the best neurologist in the world tell me there's something I could do to reverse autism?

Precisely.  And if she’s only stopped right there she could have avoided making a complete fool of herself.

Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of H1N1?

Mike Adams thinks it does.  In fact, he’s sure of it.  And boy, is he excited.  Check out his recent column, and compare that with what the actual study says.  First, Adams, with Seasonal flu vaccines increase risk of pandemic H1N1 flu, stunned scientists discover:

The CDC and health authorities were pushing a double-barreled vaccine strategy that demanded people get both a seasonal flu shot as well as an H1N1 pandemic flu shot. Those who questioned the sensibility of vaccines for fighting the flu were attacked as "baby killers" for not kow-towing to the vaccine mythology that drives Big Pharma's profits to record profits nearly every flu season.

[…]

Care to guess what the study found? In short, it found that people who received the seasonal flu vaccine shot in 2008 were up to 274% more likely to be infected by H1N1 swine flu than those who skipped the season flu shots.

[Bold in original.]

Note that the CDC recommended getting both the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines.  Also note that 274% figure that Adams quotes.

What did this study do, and what does it say?  The study is titled Does Seasonal Influenza Vaccination Increase the Risk of Illness with the 2009 A/H1N1 Pandemic Virus?  First, you’ll note it starts “Does..” and ends with a question mark.  Compare that with Adams’s “…vaccines increase risk…” and no question about it.  Adams seems to be a lot more sure than the people who published the actual study.  What did they do in this study?  Well, they took patients who presented with influenza-like illness at  a network of Canadian doctors, and tested them for H1N1 and seasonal influenza.  They also determined if the patients had been vaccinated against the seasonal flu.  They used this information to compare vaccination status among influenza-positive (both seasonal and H1N1) patients with influenza-negative controls.  What did they find?

… receipt of [the seasonal flu vaccine] in the previous season (autumn 2008) appeared to increase the risk of pH1N1 illness by 1.03- to 2.74-fold, even after adjustment for comorbidities, age, and geography [4]. The investigators were prudent and conducted multiple sensitivity analyses to attempt to explain their perplexing findings. Importantly, [the seasonal flu vaccine] remained protective against seasonal influenza viruses circulating in April through May 2009, with an effectiveness estimated at 56% (41%–67%)  [My bold.]

Note, they reported that the increased risk was 1.03 to 2.74 fold. Now, I suppose Adams is technically correct in saying the increased risk was “up to 274%” as high, since the phrase “up to” includes the figure zero.  Technically correct, but intellectually dishonest.  (I guess "more than 1.03 times the risk" wouldn't have sounded so scary.)  Also, note that the seasonal vaccine was 56% effective against the seasonal flu – a tidbit that Adams somehow managed to overlook.  More importantly, note that the study did not show the merits of getting both a seasonal flu shot as well as an H1N1 pandemic flu shot (compared with no vaccine at all) as Adams himself admits was the CDC’s recommendation.  (Presumably they didn’t do this because the H1N1 vaccine wasn’t widely available at the time.)

Still, this did seem (as far as I can tell) to be a decent study, and its results certainly warrant further investigation into this phenomenon.  Does this study prove that the seasonal flu vaccine increases the risk of getting H1N1, as Adams thinks?  Well, not really.  From the report, again:

Given the uncertainty associated with observational studies, we believe it would be premature to conclude that TIV increased the risk of 2009 pandemic illness, especially in light of six other contemporaneous observational studies in civilian populations that have produced highly conflicting results (see Table 1 for details on study design, population sampled, and results) [10]–[15]. We note the large spread of vaccine effectiveness estimates in those studies; indeed, four of the studies set in the US and Australia did not show any association [12]–[15], whereas two Mexican studies suggested a protective effect of 35%–73% [10],[11]. The most recent Canadian study in this issue of PLoS Medicine [4] is clearly at odds with these results, with an estimated average negative effectiveness of −68% based on their Sentinel system. Only one study, set in the US military population, potentially corroborated the findings of the Canadian study [16].

[My bold.]

So there are numerous other studies, many of which show no difference, and two that actually show the seasonal vaccine reduces the risk of getting H1N1. Nothing wrong with that – real world studies are not always as clear cut as we would like, which is why science requires replication, especially where the results are hard to explain or surprising, based on current knowledge.  Strange that Adams didn’t notice that bit, though.  Well, it did come nearer the end of the paper - perhaps Adams got so excited by the first part that he didn’t finish reading.

To summarize Adam’s technique, he:

1. Cherry picks a study that has results he likes, and ignores at least six other studies (that were even reported in the actual paper he cited) that report different results
2. Exaggerates the risk - “1.03 to to 2.74” increased risk becomes “up to 274%”
3. Ignores the fact that the seasonal vaccine is 56% effective against seasonal flu anyway
4. Ignores the fact that the CDC recommendation is to get both the seasonal and the H1N1 vaccine – something that was not covered by this study.  (And presumably the H1N1 will be included in next season’s seasonal fu vaccine.)
5. Jumps from all of this to state that therefore “vaccines are a medical scam, folks! A Big Pharma hoax,” and that the real solution to protect you against the flu is vitamin D.  Seriously.

Adams will quote a scientific study if it supports his point of view (even if it doesn’t, really), but then he rails against the rest of science that doesn’t.  That’s what makes him a crank.  The truth is, this is an interesting but inconclusive study that should probably be investigated further.  Possibly there is some reason that the seasonal vaccine could make people more susceptible to the H1N1 virus.  If so, real scientists would like to find out what it is - although it is almost certainly not that the flu vaccine "weakens the immune system" as Adams claims, but some other reason.  More likely (given the numerous confounding studies), there is no real effect here.  Either way, it will be real scientists doing real science, not cranks like Mike Adams, who will come up with the actual answer.  And you are almost certainly going to be better off getting both seasonal and H1N1 vaccines, than getting neither.

Update

Effect Measure has a good post on this subject this morning, Did getting vaccinated for seasonal flu up the risk of pandemic flu infection?  They conclude, like me, maybe, but you’re still better off getting the flu vaccine especially as H1N1 will be a component of the next seasonal vaccine strain.

RFK Jr. - Still Clueless

Robert F. Kennedy Junior has learned nothing in the last five years.  Back in June 2005, Kennedy wrote a scare piece linking Thimerosal to autism, stating that scientists at a CDC meeting had spent days covering up this supposed link. I blogged then about how Kennedy’s article was totally dishonest, and followed up with a post about how Kennedy had quote mined the minutes of an Institute of Medicine meeting to make it appear that scientists were trying to cover up this same supposed link, although as I proved at the time, they were doing the opposite.  (If you don’t want to read that whole post, just scroll down to the “Walt wants” section – the sleaziest piece of all of Kennedy’s sleazy quote mining, and worth a re-read in my totally unbiased opinion.)

Well, he’s back, and as nuts as ever.  Last week he wrote Central Figure in CDC Vaccine Cover-Up Absconds With $2M – a headline that just by itself contains two falsehoods and an unproven assertion.  Here’s what Kennedy is saying, in summary:

1. Danish scientist Poul Thorsen was the central scientist behind studies showing that autism is not linked to Thimerosal or MMR
2. These studies (by Thorsen) are the key studies the CDC relies on to disprove a link between vaccines and autism
3. Thorsen has stolen a large amount of money
4. Point 3 above means that the studies referred to in 1 and 2 above, are no longer valid.

Unfortunately for Kennedy, points 1, 2 and 4 above are demonstrably false:

• Thorsen was not a leading figure, but a junior author on the papers in question
• There are numerous other studies, apart from the Danish ones, that support there being no link between vaccines and autism.  (In addition, Thimerosal was removed from vaccines in the US in 2002 and yet reported autism continues to rise.)
• The alleged fraud has no bearing on the studies anyway. Even if Thorsen stole money, and even if he were the lead author on the studies (which he wasn’t, but even if he were) this would not suddenly alter the studies so they now point to a different conclusion.  (It’s a basic ad hominem fallacy.)

Also, point 3 is just an allegation.  It may be true, but right now we really can’t say.  Kennedy is talking nonsense.

It says a lot about the anti-vaccine crowd that when a leading figure in the MMR causes autism world (Andrew Wakefield), whose study really was the only one (the original, and not replicated) that supposedly implicated MMR – when that person is actually found guilty of medical misconduct in the actual study they are associated with – in that case the response of the anti-vax nuts is of course to support the proven unethical Wakefield.  In that case, the guy clearly must be innocent and his studies must still be valid and good.  However, when a relatively insignificant junior author of one paper among many replicated studies around the world is accused (just accused mind you – not proven yet like Wakefield) of dishonesty in a matter totally unrelated to the study in question – in that case, this puts the conclusions of all such studies into doubt.  You have to wonder at the cognitive dissonance these people must suffer.  Although that would at least explain the hysterical tone of Kennedy’s latest piece.  While his 2005 article did at least give the impression it was written by an adult (albeit a dishonest one), Kennedy’s latest offering is astonishing in its lack of any attempt at a measured or even lawyerly tone.  The falsehoods start in Kennedy’s first sentence:

A central figure behind the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) claims disputing the link between vaccines and autism and other neurological disorders has disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of millions in taxpayer dollars. Danish police are investigating Dr. Poul Thorsen, who has vanished along with almost $2 million that he had supposedly spent on research.

This is, of course, pure hyperbole (to be polite).  The truth is that Aarhus University has recently detected a significant shortfall in their CDC grant money, and Thorsen is suspected of being to blame.  Apparently, authorities are investigating the shortfall, but it’s a little early to be calling it a “massive fraud.”  Right now, we just don’t know.  And Thorsen has “disappeared”?  Actually, no, he has just been unavailable for comment. (Hardly surprising.)  But Kennedy won’t let this lack of a real scandal prevent his lawyerly mind from making this a prosecution.  Watch how he runs with it:

Thorsen was a leading member of a Danish research group that wrote several key studies supporting CDC's claims that the MMR vaccine and mercury-laden vaccines were safe for children. Thorsen's 2003 Danish study reported a 20-fold increase in autism in Denmark after that country banned mercury based preservatives in its vaccines. His study concluded that mercury could therefore not be the culprit behind the autism epidemic.

Er, no, Thorsen was the sixth named author of one study relating to MMR and the fourth named author of a study on Thimerosal.  I’m not sure what your definition of “leading” would be, but for me it wouldn’t be sixth out of a team of eight.

Also note Kennedy’s hysterical “mercury-laden” wording.  No, they weren’t “mercury-laden,” they contained Thimerosal - a preservative that metabolizes to (amongst other things) ethyl mercury, an organic derivative of mercury.  Kennedy writes like a 12 year old.

His study has long been criticized as fraudulent since it failed to disclose that the increase was an artifact of new mandates requiring, for the first time, that autism cases be reported on the national registry. This new law and the opening of a clinic dedicated to autism treatment in Copenhagen accounted for the sudden rise in reported cases rather than, as Thorsen seemed to suggest, the removal of mercury from vaccines.

This is wrong on many levels. 

First, “Thorsen” didn’t suggest anything – he was a junior author of the paper, remember?  Funny how, according to Kennedy, “Thorsen” is now the author, the one suggesting things.  The others (including lead author Madsen) haven’t been accused of a crime, so they don’t count, I guess.

Second, the authors of the study did not fail to disclose the new way of counting.  What Kennedy is talking about is that in 1995, the Danish registry added "Outpatient Clinics" to their count of autism cases – and since outpatient cases are supposedly where 93% of Danish children are diagnosed with autism, that would inflate the reported number of cases after 1995.  But, the authors wrote in the “Results” section of their study (that I’ll link to, although Kennedy doesn’t):

In additional analyses we examined data using inpatients only. This was done to elucidate the contribution of the outpatient registration to the change in incidence.

So they didn’t fail to disclose this factor (as Kennedy claims), they actually specifically mentioned it.  They also attempted to allow for it by doing a separate analysis that excluded the increase due to the outpatients.  And even with this analysis, they still found an increase in autism.

As it happens, reported autism was increasing before 1995 anyway:

Kennedy just hopes you won’t read the study that he didn’t link to (and see that graph), so you won’t notice this.

(As an aside, I find it ironic and hypocritical that Kennedy says the Danish increases in autism don’t count because they’re the result of diagnostic changes and increased availability of services, and not a real increase in autism.  When skeptics give the same reasons (increased diagnosis) for reported autism rising in the US, Kennedy writes (in his 2005 article) that this is “a theory that seems questionable at best.”  Consistency was never one of Kennedy’s flaws.)

Third, the authors never suggested that the increase in autism was “accounted for” by the removal of Thimerosal, as Kennedy claimed.  What they actually concluded was:

Our ecological data do not support a correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines and the incidence of autism.

I guess that’s a bit too “sciencey” for Kennedy to understand.

Despite this obvious chicanery, CDC has long touted the study as the principal proof that mercury-laced vaccines are safe for infants and young children.

Again er, no.  The CDC has not “long touted” the study (or even short touted it, for that matter) as its “principal proof” as Kennedy puts it.  The Danish studies are just one of many.  For example, here are some more peer reviewed studies from around the world:

USA

USA

USA

Canada

UK

Australia

USA

And one more from Denmark.

Of course, none of these studies has Thorsen as an author so I suppose they don’t count either.

Mainstream media, particularly the New York Times, has relied on this study

This is a good one.  Kennedy must hope that his readers won’t click that link because it takes you to a New York Times page that does not discuss Thorsen, Denmark, or anything related to that story at all.  The link is actually to a story about Andrew Wakefield and the Lancet’s retraction of his terrible paper.  Go figure.

as the basis for its public assurances that it is safe to inject young children with mercury -- a potent neurotoxin -- at concentrations hundreds of times over the U.S. safety limits.

Clearly not, or it wouldn’t be allowed now would it? 

Thorsen, who was a psychiatrist and not a research scientist or toxicologist,

Unlike Kennedy, who is a fully qualified medical doctor and toxicologist.  Oh wait, no he’s not.

parlayed that study into a long-term relationship with CDC. He built a research empire called the North Atlantic Epidemiology Alliances (NANEA) that advertised its close association with the CDC autism team, a relationship that had the agency paying Thorsen and his research staff millions of dollars to churn out research papers, many of them assuring the public on the issue of vaccine safety.

Wow, the CDC paid them to do some work for them.  What a scandal.

Of course, we all know that lawyers work for free.  As did Andrew Wakefield.

The discovery of Thorsen's fraud

Correction: alleged fraud.  Come on Bobby – I know the science is a bit complicated for you to grasp, but you should know the lawyerey bits at least. 

And even if the fraud accusation were true, it would still bare no relation to the study Kennedy is talking about.

[Repetitive accusations snipped]

Thorsen's partner Kreesten Madsen recently came under fierce criticism after damning e-mails surfaced showing Madsen in cahoots with CDC officials intent on fraudulently cherry picking facts to prove vaccine safety.

Kennedy gets even more sleazy here.  Note that the lead author on the papers where Thorsen was a junior author, is now “Thorsen's partner.”  From this very thin connection, Kennedy seeks to connect this story to some supposedly damning emails from Madsen.  But even here, Kennedy can’t be transparent.  The link Kennedy provides is to an article describing numerous things, the Madsen emails being only one.  You have to read the whole article to find the link to the actual email within the article (strangely, linked twice, as though there were two sets of emails, not just one).  To save you the time, I’ll link direct to the email in question.  I’ll also save a copy on this blog too, just in case.  Now, if you read the actual email (as I encourage you to do), you’ll be hard pressed to find what’s “damning” about them.  As I read it, it’s just a CDC researcher asking Madsen for data on autism rates in Denmark (“did the rates increase dramatically from the late 1980’s into the 1990s”), and Madsen replying that no, they did not increase in the 1980s.  Madsen goes on to say that they did increase after 1993 but that the aforementioned change in registration procedures could account for it.  To repeat, this was something they reported on and attempted to control for in their paper anyway so it’s not at all “damning” except in Kennedy’s fevered imagination.

Leading independent scientists have accused CDC of concealing the clear link between the dramatic increases in mercury-laced child vaccinations beginning in 1989 and the epidemic of autism, neurological disorders and other illnesses affecting every generation of American children since.

Which leading independent scientists and what clear link?  Surprise - Kennedy doesn’t say.

Also, note the pejorative “mercury-laced” wording.  This is one of Kennedy’s favorite phrases.  Of course the word “laced” has connotations of adulteration – secretly adding something improper. I guess it would be too much for Kennedy just to say “vaccines containing Thimerosal.”

Questions about Thorsens's [sic] scientific integrity may finally force CDC to rethink the vaccine protocols since most of the other key pro vaccine studies cited by CDC rely on the findings of Thorsen's research group.

As I showed above, no they don’t.

These include oft referenced research articles published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the New England Journal of Medicine and others. The validity of all these studies is now in question.

Nonsense.  The validity of  these studies is not in question.

There have been numerous other posts from the anti vax world (eg this post at the crank Age of Autism blog) crowing about this, but Kennedy’s piece is the most absurd (and that’s saying something) of them all.  Of course, Orac wrote an excellent post on this yesterday - Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Poul Thorsen: The fine art of distraction from inconvenient facts, that you should read.  Journalist Brian Deer left a comment that is better than anything I could write to summarize Kennedy’s juvenile style, so I’ll just finish with it:

What struck me about the Kennedy article was the poor calibre of the person who wrote it. I'd naturally assume that someone with those family connections would have some sense of measure in their language, and a general demeanour of intelligence and professionalism. I believe he may have been to law school, also, and have some sense of the difference between, say, a falsehood and a lie, or between "missing" and "couldn't be contacted". Little things, which you find, for example, in the Philadelphia Inquirer report, which was, plainly, the work of an intelligent professional.

But there was none of that. It was like it was written by a college sophomore. Oozing malice and prejudicial, unsupported assertions, it was just of such poor quality. Like you, I've no idea about this Thorsen guy, who is plainly not a major player in the relevant research, but I was shocked by the hysterical tone of this man Kennedy's contribution. It's plain that neither Olmsted nor Kirby are professional journalists, but I'm just left wondering why the heroes of vaccine-autism believers are all of such meagre talent. It's kind of sad really.

The Two J.B. Handleys

Seems there are several people with the same name all promoting the notion that vaccines cause autism.  A couple of weeks ago I wrote that there were at least two people with the name “David Kirby” – one from 2005 who thought that decreasing autism rates meant that autism was caused by vaccines, and another in 2010 who believes that increasing autism rates meant that autism was caused by vaccines.  Now it looks like there are two J.B. Handleys too.  For example, read what someone called J.B. Handley from last week, wrote about how autism is first noticed by parents:

It is exceptionally rare that I hear the story, “my son was 100% fine, and at 2 years old after one vaccine appointment he lost everything.” I have heard that story, but very rarely.

A rarely heard story.  Fair enough, but then I found this story from 2005, entitled A child's return from autism Couple eager to share their conviction that mercury poisoning was the culprit:

Jamie Handley was a happy, healthy baby who reached all his developmental milestones until he turned 18 months, his parents said. Then, he started spinning in circles and standing on his toes and no longer responded to his name. They were eventually told he was autistic

[My bold.]

Hum.  An autistic child called Jamie Handley?  Handley?  Surely not the son of J.B. Handley?  Nah – couldn’t be.  Until I clicked on the more images link and got this picture:

 

Caption: J.B. Handley plays with his son, Jamie, who is receiving chelation therapy to reduce mercury in his body and treat his autism.

J.B. Handley?  Oh I get it - this is a different J.B. Handley.  This J.B. Handley’s son met all his developmental milestones until he turned 18 months – then he started spinning in circles, etc.  Clearly, as with David Kirby 2005, this is a different J.B. Handley from 2005, who (unlike J.B. Handley from 2010) doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about.  You see, as J.B. Handley 2010 knows, children just don’t regress all at one time just after a vaccination like the parents of this Jamie Handley from 2005 said.  What douche bags they must be, this J.B. Handley from 2005 and his wife:

But the Handleys and other parents say they noticed symptoms in their children after they got booster shots

And it’s not just J.B. Handley from 2005 who’s got this wrong.  Jenny McCarthy didn’t get the script either.  For example, from Jenny: Evan's Story

[Note: Since writing this post, Generation Rescue have obviously realized that Jenny's previous story conflicts with the version they now want you to read, with the goalposts in their new location, and so they have removed the above link to the story.  Unfortunately for Generation Rescue's attempts to re-write history, you can still read it using the Wayback Machine to Jenny: Evan's Story.]

Jenny says even before Evan received his vaccines, she tried to talk to her pediatrician about it. "Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, 'I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn't it?' And he said, 'No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother's desperate attempt to blame something,' and he swore at me, and then the nurse gave [Evan] the shot," she says. "And I remember going, 'Oh, God, I hope he's right.' And soon thereafter -- boom -- the soul's gone from his eyes.

[My bold.]

So, right after the MMR shot (which to me sounds like “one vaccine appointment”) - “boom.”  I don’t know how you interpret that, but to me “boom” means something happening pretty quickly – all in one go.  And that quote was on the Generation Rescue web site.  Generation Rescue.  The organization founded by J.B. and Lisa Handley.  I guess that website must have been set up by the J.B. Handley from 2005, not the one from 2010.

So let’s recap.  J.B. Handley from 2005 thinks autism occurs quickly – you have a happy, healthy baby who reached all his developmental milestones right up until the point where he starts spinning in circles, etc.  You see, that’s how J.B. Handley 2005 knows the vaccines caused his son’s autism – the child was fine up until the point where he suddenly shows autistic tendencies after being vaccinated.  Also, that J.B. Handley (the one from 2005), reports on his organization’s website about someone called Jenny McCarthy who knows her son’s autism was caused by the MMR shot.  And she knows her son’s autism was caused by the MMR shot because “boom” he became autistic right after the MMR shot.  So J.B. Handley 2005 knows that autism is caused by vaccines because the autism starts right after the child gets the vaccine. 

Then we have the other J.B. Handley (the one from 2010), who knows that autism doesn’t suddenly appear “after one vaccine appointment” (or at least, very rarely does), but rather is a chronic slide over a period of time, and so he knows that vaccines cause autism because…  er wait a minute, if autism doesn’t occur just after the vaccinations are given, why exactly does J.B. Handley 2010 thinks vaccines cause autism? 

One more thing just occurred to me.  J.B. Handley 2005 thinks autism is a misdiagnosis for mercury poisoning, and is chelating his son to remove the mercury, while Jenny McCarthy thinks the live MMR vaccine, that never had any mercury in it, is what gave her son autism.  So which is it – is it mercury or is it MMR?  Because they’re different things.  Hey, you don’t suppose there are really three J.B. Handleys do you?  Because, you know, that would be weird.

Mike Adams Fails Again

Since signing up for Mike Adams’s newsletter the other week (to get this full post from him), I’ve been getting a daily load of “Health Ranger” woo in my mailbox.  I’ve been ignoring most of it, but I thought it worth deconstructing Wednesday’s rather dangerous piece of Adams misinformation (some redundancy there, admittedly).  Adams thinks he has found something that shows vaccination against the mumps means you are more likely to get the mumps than if you forego the vaccine.  He’s wrong,of course (as I will show below).  All it shows is that Adams doesn't understand his own numbers.

First, check out Adams’s post, Mumps outbreak spreads among people who got vaccinated against mumps:

To hear the vaccine pushers say it, all the recent outbreaks of mumps and measles are caused by too few people seeking out vaccinations. It's all those "non-vaccinated people" who are a danger to society, they say, because they can spread disease.

Reality tells a different story, however: It is the vaccinated people who are causing these outbreaks and spreading disease!

Just this week, an outbreak of mumps among more than 1,000 people in New Jersey and New York has raised alarm among infectious disease authorities. The outbreak itself is not unusual, though. What's unusual is that the health authorities slipped up and admitted that most of the people infected with mumps had already been vaccinated against mumps.

In Ocean County, New Jersey, county spokeswoman Leslie Terjesen told CNN that 77 percent of those who caught mumps had already been vaccinated against mumps.

[Bold in original.]

What he is saying is that more vaccinated kids (77%) than non vaccinated, got the mumps, therefore you are more likely to get the mumps if you are vaccinated.  He is wrong, because he is asking the wrong question.  He is asking, “did more vaccinated kids get the mumps than non-vaccinated?”  (Answer – yes.  77% v 23%.)  The question he should be asking is, “if you are vaccinated, are you more or less likely to get the mumps?”  A subtly different question.  The answer to that question is “less” – you are less likely to get the mumps if you are vaccinated.  In fact, if you are vaccinated you are one seventh as likely to get the disease, compared with the unvaccinated.  As I will now demonstrate.

Adams is quoting this CNN report as the source for his “77%” New Jersey figure, so that’s what I will go with.  From this CNN report, we know that:

The mumps outbreak also spread to Ocean County, New Jersey, where 159 confirmed cases have been diagnosed since September, county spokeswoman Leslie Terjesen told CNN.

[...]

Of the New Jersey cases, 77 percent were vaccinated, Terjesen said.

Now, if you look at this CDC table you will see that 96.1% of New Jersey kindergarten pupils are fully vaccinated against the mumps.  I’ll round this down to 96%.  That means, the number of vaccinated children is 24 times (96 divided by 4) the number of unvaccinated.  Remember that figure.

Now consider this: if in New Jersey, 159 children got the mumps, and 77% of those were vaccinated, then that means that 122 (159 x 77%) vaccinated children got the mumps, while 37 unvaccinated children got the mumps.  Hold those numbers too.

Suppose 1,270* children were exposed to the mumps.  We know that 96% of these (on average) were vaccinated – that’s 1219 vaccinated children.  51 children (4%) were unvaccinated. 

I’ll remind you again that 159 children in New Jersey were infected, and that 122 of these (the infamous 77%) were vaccinated.  So, what is the answer to my question, if you are vaccinated, are you more or less likely to get the mumps?  Some elementary arithmetic:

Vaccinated and got the mumps

122 / 1219 = 10%

Unvaccinated and got the mumps

37 / 51 = 73%

Answer – if your child is unvaccinated, he or she is seven times more likely to get the mumps.

So how do we explain the 77% figure?  Easy: more vaccinated children got the mumps because there were more vaccinated children to start with.  24 times more as many, to be precise.  If the vaccine were completely useless and offered zero protection against the mumps, we would expect 24 times the number of infected children to be vaccinated, compared with unvaccinated. (Since both groups would be infected equally, but the vaccinated group is 24 times larger.)  The fact that we only get about three times (77/23) the number of vaccinated children with the disease, demonstrates how effective the vaccine actually is.

Ironically, the higher the vaccination rates, the higher is the proportion of vaccinated children out of the total who will get the disease.  For example, suppose we have 100% vaccination rates.  Obviously this would never happen in reality, but just suppose for argument's sake that the vaccination rate is 100%.  Also suppose the vaccine is not 100% effective (which does reflect reality - the mumps vaccine is only about 90% effective).  What percentage of infected children will be vaccinated?  Obviously 100%, since there are zero unvaccinated children in our hypothetical.  Now imagine instead that 0% of children are vaccinated.  What percentage of infected children now will be vaccinated?  Obviously 0%.  So the higher the vaccination rates, the higher the proportion of vaccinated children out of the total who get the disease.  Which is, of course irrelevant.  The relevant fact is that with higher vaccination rates, fewer children overall will get the disease.

I’ve tried to show this in a table:

Group	Total	% of Total	Infected	Group % of Infected	Infected % of Group
Vaccinated	1,219	96%	122	77%	10%
Un-vaccinated	51	4%	37	23%	73%
Total	1,270	100%	159	100%

Adams is looking at the percentage of each group (vaccinated v. unvaccinated) that are infected.  This error is what causes him to write nonsense like this:

Vaccines may actually increase your risk of disease. Notice that far more vaccinated children were stricken with mumps than non-vaccinated children?

But, as I’ve shown, that’s irrelevant.  The relevant information is the percentage in each group that will become infected.  And seven times the number of unvaccinated children, compared with unvaccinated, get the mumps.  While I understand that this 77% figure can be confusing for people who aren't used to thinking about these things, Mike Adams does this for a living and so he has no excuse.  And it's not as if this is a new phenomenon - I remember discussing this exact same thing eight or nine years ago on the JREF forum.  The answers have been out there for a while, so why does Mike Adams still promote these kinds of false conclusions?

(* I chose the 1,270 figure because according to the CDC the effectiveness of MMR against mumps is approximately 90% after two doses – which matches the calculated 10% infection rate with 1,270 children.  The ratio (1:7) works out exactly the same though, no matter what number of children you assume.)

David Kirby, King Of Denial

Since I posted my second annual Golden Woo Awards winners, it seems to me as though every woo in the world has been making their best efforts to get nominated for an award in 2010.  Case in point – David Kirby just wrote a startling un-self-aware piece in (where else), entitled The Lancet Retraction Changes Nothing.  (Yeah, I knew you’d say that David.  Over two years ago you wrote a similar thing – see Results Are In / Debate’s Not Over.)  It seems Kirby is trying hard for a “most persistent refusal to face reality” honor – and I have to tell you, he’s the front runner so far.  He starts off with an assertion that I partially agree with, although not in quite the way he means:

I believe that the public lynching and shaming of Dr. Wakefield is unwarranted and overwrought, and that history will ultimately judge who was right and who was wrong about proposing a possible association between vaccination and regressive autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).

Well yes, history probably will be the judge about who was right and who was wrong on this.  And I’m pretty sure it will show David Kirby to be wrong.

That was just for starters.  Barely worth a rebuttal, but fun to do anyway.  Here’s where it got me re-reading what Kirby had written before:

The evidence that autism is increasing at alarming rates, and that some thing (or things) in our environment is wreaking havoc on a vulnerable one-percent of all US children is now so irrefutable that, finally, the federal government is climbing aboard the environmental research bandwagon - way late, but better than never.

Kirby is reacting to the claim that autism may not really be increasing, or may not be increasing as much as people think, and that the reported increase may really (or mainly) be a result of the widening of diagnostic criteria, and more attention being paid to the issue.  Kirby is saying this is not true, and the increase is real.  If the increase is real, he says, then environmental factors must be to blame, and that includes vaccines.  (Actually, when you break down the weasel wording, he’s really saying it is vaccines.  More on that later.)

Get that?  If autism is really increasing, then vaccines must be to blame.

But, and here’s a funny story, in 2005 someone called David Kirby posted (same place) Autism, Mercury and the California Numbers, where he wrote:

For months now, a mantra of the thimerosal defenders has been as follows: “Mercury was removed from vaccines years ago, and we have not seen a drop in autism rates.”

It looks like they might have to find a new slogan.

Freshly reported numbers out of California show that new cases entering that state’s disability system (children who are three-to-four years old and newly diagnosed with autism) have indeed dropped since 2002, marking the first decline in new autism cases since California began tracking the mysterious disorder.

See, this David Kirby guy from 1995 thought that decreasing autism rates meant that autism was caused by vaccines.  Of course, that David Kirby was “author of “Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic” (St. Martin’s Press 2005)” – unlike the David Kirby from yesterday, whose post mentions nothing about that book.  Different guy.  I’ll bet that David Kirby, the one writing yesterday, thinks that David Kirby from 2005 is a real douche.  Hey, want to know something else that David Kirby from 2005 wrote?  See this in the New York Times in June of that year:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year

That David Kirby (in 2005) believed that falling rates of autism would prove that vaccines caused autism.  David Kirby from yesterday believes that rising autism rates prove that vaccines caused autism.  How to explain this seeming contradiction?  The only sensible conclusion is that these are two different people, both of whom just happen to be called David Kirby and who both believe vaccines cause autism.  That’s the only explanation.  Because if they were actually the same person, then that person would be saying that whatever happens to autism rates – going up or going down – they both prove vaccines cause autism.  Nothing could ever, even theoretically, get that person to change his mind.  What an idiot that guy would be.  If he were one and the same person.

Back to current day David Kirby:

This long-overdue paradigm shift will leave many in the scientific community with some proverbial but nonetheless uncomfortable egg on their increasingly irrelevant faces: Those who have protested with shrill certainty that autism is almost purely genetic, and not environmental in nature, and therefore not really increasing at all, will hopefully recede from the debate.  [My bold]

Well, I certainly hope that David Kirby guy from 2005 is embarrassed about all that uncomfortable egg on his increasingly irrelevant face.  He was certainly wrong about Thimerosal.  Perhaps he will, now, hopefully recede from the debate.  I’ll bet David Kirby 2010 hopes so too.  But there is one more thing about that paragraph.  See the word “will” that I bolded?  As in “will leave…”  The word “will” expresses the simple future tense – in this case a general prediction about the future.  The paradigm shift Kirby is talking about once his proof is in, will occur in the future.  The future, when vaccines, Kirby claims, will be proven to cause autism.  The future, when (as Kirby tells us) “history will [future tense] ultimately judge who was right and who was wrong.”  Now read what follows:

And that begs a nagging question: If those people were dead wrong about environmental factors in autism, could they also be mistaken in their equally heated denials about a possible vaccine-autism link? More bluntly, why should we heed them any longer?  [My bold.]

Kirby takes speculation of what might be proven in the future, to make a firm assertion about people who he claims were “dead wrong” in the past.  Sheesh – did he not think anyone would notice he just made an unsupported assertion based on speculation about the future?  It wasn’t that hard to spot – the one followed directly after the other.  Either that or Kirby is in possession of a time machine to know for certain what history will tell us.  (Perhaps he could use it to go back to 2005 and talk to that other David Kirby before he makes a complete fool of himself.) 

I mentioned before the weasel wording, to claim it’s not really vaccines.  Here we go:

We need to examine a host of environmental factors (air, water, food, medicine, household products and social factors) and how they might interact with vulnerable genes to create the varying collection of symptoms we call "autism." But these triggers almost have to be found in every town of every county of every state in the land - from Maine to Maui.

Are vaccines the only contributing factors to autism? Of course not. Other pharmaceutical products like thalidomide and valporic acid, as well as live mumps virus, have been associated with increased autism risk in prenatal exposures, so we already know that a variety of drugs and bugs can likely make a child autistic.

So it’s not just vaccines.  “Of course not,” he says.  How could we be so dumb as to think he’s just blaming vaccines?  Oh, I don’t know, but it might have something to do with what directly follows:

• Claims of six cases of autism caused by vaccines
• Hannah Poling – claims autism caused by vaccines
• Bailey banks - claims autism caused by vaccines
• Study in the Journal of Child Neurology – claims autism caused by vaccines
• Another review in PLoS Online - claims autism caused by vaccines
• 1,300 cases of vaccine injuries paid out in vaccine court
• Asks “is it not reasonable to ask if [vaccines] can cause similar injuries that lead to autism?
• Claim that the federal government is interested in “including a few studies that take in vaccines and the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal”
• Kirby asks Thomas Insel if the IACC would ever support direct research into vaccines and autism

(Read Orac today – The martyrdom of St. Andy, part 2: David Kirby rides to the rescue (sort of) - for an explanation of why those claims listed above, the studies, Hannah Poling etc etc – do not show an association of vaccines to autism.)

If it’s not just vaccines David, why did you follow it up with nine points concerning vaccines causing autism and nothing on any non-vaccine causes?

So this is what it’s come to.  Some years ago, Kirby (or was it the other Kirby?) wrote a book saying autism is caused by mercury in vaccines.  It has now been shown beyond any reasonable doubt that it does not.  But Kirby is too invested in this that he just can’t let it go.  If it’s not mercury then it’s something else in the vaccines.  Or  some environmental factors (vaccines, vaccines).  Wakefield has to be supported because he claimed the MMR vaccine caused autism (even though everyone knows MMR never had any mercury in it), and anyone who is against vaccines must be OK.  The science is coming up with nothing to support Kirby’s position so he writes that science is increasingly supporting his position.  Denial truly is not just a river in Egypt, it is where David Kirby lives and breathes.  While ignoring the uncomfortable egg on his increasingly irrelevant faces*. 

* Not a typo.

Andrew Wakefield Unethical so Age of Autism Stands By Him

The British General Medical Council (GMC) has just announced its verdict in their investigation into Andrew Wakefield, ruling that he had acted dishonestly and irresponsibly:

The verdict, read out by panel chairman Dr Surendra Kumar, criticised Dr Wakefield for the invasive tests, such as spinal taps, that were carried out on children and which were found to be against their best clinical interests.

The panel said Dr Wakefield, who was working at London's Royal Free Hospital as a gastroenterologist at the time, did not have the ethical approval or relevant qualifications for such tests.

[…]

Dr Kumar said he had acted with "callous disregard for the distress and pain the children might suffer".

He also said Dr Wakefield should have disclosed the fact that he had been paid to advise solicitors acting for parents who believed their children had been harmed by the MMR.

[My bold.]

In 1998, Wakefield claimed to have found a link between the measles virus in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract of children (following the MMR vaccine), and autism.  Wakefield’s small study, popularized by idiotic news media, led to an MMR-autism scare, a significant drop in vaccine rates and a resurgence of measles in the UK.  Wakefield may claim he didn’t say that MMR causes autism, but he certainly implied it strongly enough (and again, with the help of the press), that many people believed (and still believe) that the MMR vaccine causes GI problems which causes autism.  The evidence though, from a panel of 28 experts, clearly showed that this was not true.  The GMC have now, with this ruling, confirmed that in addition to Wakefield’s conclusions being false, he also acted unethically.  We still have to wait to see what sanctions they hand down.

Various vaccines-cause-autism groups immediately revised their positions, based on the conclusions of this independent expert body, and stated that they were wrong previously to claim that the MMR vaccine causes autism.

Ha – just kidding.  Of course they haven’t.  Nothing would ever convince these people that their previously determined conclusion could ever be wrong.  Just take a look at the flurry of activity from the Age of Autism blog in the last three days:

A Sad Day for the Future of Children – where they “unequivocally renounce the GMC’s findings” – no evidence, nothing they can say that is wrong with the GMC’s findings – they just renounce them because, well, because they do, so there.

Then from Mark Blaxill we have Naked Intimidation: The Wakefield Inquisition is Only the Tip of the Autism Censorship Iceberg - where he smears the witnesses in the case, oh and anecdotes, anecdotes I tell you (un-sourced) about anti-vaccination scientists being censored.  And “the only thing for the autism community to do now is stand by Andy Wakefield” – because clearly “the only thing” you can do when a discredited doctor is also found guilty of ethical violations, is to “stand by” him.  That’s “the only thing” you can do.  No other options, obviously.  Their hands are tied, you see.

And if that wasn’t clear enough, we have National Autism Association Supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield – the title says all you need to know.

Celebrity idiot Jenny McCarthy’s charity chimes in with Generation Rescue Supports Dr. Andrew Wakefield - (beginning to see a trend here).

Finally, we have fearless conversation advocate and fearless litigant to anyone who disagrees with her, Barbara Loe Fisher, who writes Vaccines: Doctor Judges & Juries Hanging Their Own – a touching story of the first time she met Wakefield.  (Why?  Who knows.)

And a couple more that I couldn’t be bothered to read.

Nothing could possibly ever convince these people that they might have been wrong.  Nothing.  Ever.  If you want to read some good sources on the GMC’s verdict, see below.

Further Reading

Steven Novella writes Andrew Wakefield “Acted Unethically”.

Investigative reporter Brian Deer (writing a year ago) MMR doctor Andrew Wakefield fixed data on autism – on how Wakefield changed and misreported results in his research:

Although the research paper claimed that problems came on within days of the [MMR shot], in only one case did medical records suggest this was true, and in many of the cases medical concerns had been raised before the children were vaccinated. Hospital pathologists, looking for inflammatory bowel disease, reported in the majority of cases that the gut was normal. This was then reviewed and the Lancet paper showed them as abnormal.

Ben Goldacre The Wakefield MMR verdict.

And finally, there is the GMC’s actual report.

Mike Adams – Pyromaniac in a Strawman Factory

(Unfortunately I didn’t invent that phrase.  I wish I had, but I didn’t.  It seems to fit Adams so well though.)

Mike Adams is going nuts.  (Possibly the word “going” is superfluous there – I’ll let you, gentle reader, decide.)  Following his meltdown after being disqualified from the “Shorty Awards” for cheating, he has just had another meltdown – this time about us evil skeptics - What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe.  This is a list he claims he pulled from various skeptic websites, although not one link is provided to show that any skeptic actually holds the positions he says we do.  It’s mostly a list of fairly obviously absurd straw man skeptic positions, plus a few actual skeptic positions that do actually make sense (eg we are opponents of homeopathy – well duh).

Here’s just one example of Adams’s idiocy:

Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

Well, I don’t think I ever said that all vaccines are necessarily safe if they haven’t been tested, and I’ve certainly never been in favor of forced vaccinations against anyone’s will.  But the puzzling thing is the “900 vaccines all at the same time…” bit.  Why 900?  Where did that come from?  Why not round it up to 1,000 and be done with it?  In a rant that makes no sense, “900 vaccines” isn’t even wrong.

I’d go through the whole thing line by line, but fortunately I don’t have to because Tom Foss already did.  Read Tom’s line by line take down of Mike Adam’s rant on skeptics.  It’s a classic.

Addendum January 25:

We’ve certainly riled Adams up.  Today he has yet another post up about skeptics.  More hilarity ensues, although you should probably shield your irony detectors before reading it.

This article succeeded wildly in infuriating the "skeptics" across the 'net by simply reminding them what they believe.

No, we weren’t infuriated at all.  Astonished by the stupidity and number of blatant straw men, to be sure.  But most of us found it hilarious.

They then resorted to their same old dirty tricks to attack me by doing things like joining our Facebook page then posting a message that says, "That article made me so mad, I'm quitting this forum!"

That’s pretty funny because, as you’ll read in a comment below, Tom Foss tried to leave a comment at Adams’s site, but Adams deleted it.  That’s how confident Adams is in what he’s writing – no one is allowed to criticize Mike Adams.  And if you do it's a dirty trick!

Here’s where you’ll need to shield your irony meter:

They also tend to jump to false conclusions about what people are really saying. In my previous article, for example, I never stated whether I believed in God, or whether I was an athiest (sic), or whether I followed organized religion and yet people read the article and they leaped to conclusions, assuming I was promoting organized religion, for example, or that I was condemning atheism.

Actually I never stated my position on those matters in the article at all, but the skeptics leaped to the conclusion that I did. This speaks to their tendency to warp all incoming information and restructure it to conform to the beliefs they already carry about the subject at hand.

Yes, Adams is annoyed because he thinks skeptics have misrepresented his positions.  Because, you see, misrepresenting an opponent’s position is something Mike Adams would never do.

Steven Novella also responded today: Mike Adams Takes On “Skeptics”

As did Orac: A pyromaniac in a field of straw man or a black hole of burning stupid incinerating every straw man in the universe? Mike Adams attacks skepticism

Who Lies?

You’ll remember that Barbara Loe Fisher is suing Amy Wallace et al for (as I understand it, mostly) the following piece that Wallace wrote about Fisher:

Fisher, who has long been the media's go-to interview for what some in the autism arena call "parents rights," makes him particularly nuts, as in "You just want to scream." The reason? "She lies," he says flatly.

You’ll note the “she lies” part, which seems to have been what got Fisher’s goat.  Of course, accusing people of lying can be problematic – unless you can read minds, you don’t really know if the person is actually lying or if they just mistakenly but honesty believe something that is false.  Regardless, that seems to be what Fisher is suing Wallace for.

Well, want to know something funny?  I just spent all of five minutes Googling and I found this piece written only two months ago by anti-vaccine supremo J.B. Handley, in the same Age of Autism blog that Fisher writes in.  The post was about (guess who?) Amy Wallace, and is entitled How Wired Magazine’s Amy Wallace Endangers Our Kids.  Guess what he says:

I know I speak for many when I say that we, as a community, are irate (sic) by the one-sided lies that Wired Magazine allowed Ms. Wallace to put in print.

Amy Wallace’s one-sided lies.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Wired Magazine and Amy Wallace should sue J.B. Handley for calling them liars, oh no.  I never would.  Not at all.  Couldn’t recommend that at all.  No way.  Never.  Absolutely not.  Never crossed my mind.

Barbara Loe Fisher wants A Fearless Conversation About Vaccination

Damn!  That’s another irony meter blown.  And it was the industrial version too.

Readers of Orac’s blog will already know that anti vaccinationist and founder of the The National Vaccine Information (sic) Center Barbara Loe Fisher is suing Dr. Paul Offit, Amy Wallace, and Condé Nast for libel, for their very reasonable (and factually correct) article in Wired about the anti-vaccine militia: An Epidemic of Fear: How Panicked Parents Skipping Shots Endangers Us All.  As Orac wrote, suing people who you disagree with, instead of presenting evidence to support your case “sums up the attitude of all too many anti-science activists. They can't win on the science; so they try to suppress criticism through legal action.”  And as Orac wrote, Fisher’s selection of Virginia as the state to file her suit, means that the suit will not be thrown out under a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) statute – one designed to prevent lawsuits designed solely to silence debate – because Virginia doesn’t have such a statute.  (Hum.  Funny how she chose Virginia to file the suit when the three defendants live in Pennsylvania, California and New York.)

So why did my industrial strength irony meter blow?  Well, Barbara Loe Fisher just wrote a piece on the Age of Autism blog, entitled 2010 Needs A Fearless Conversation About Vaccination.  Well, yeah, because we’d all love to have a conversation free of the fear of a freaking lawsuit from Barbara Loe Fisher and her anti-vaccination loon friends.  It takes some serious chutzpah to call for a fearless discussion on your pet subject in the same week that you took out a lawsuit to silence the opposition.

Fisher’s post is quite astonishing.  In it she lists all the things she says people were scared about in the last decade – basically it’s just terrorism, but she draws it out by listing weaponized smallpox scares and bioterrorism, but also manages to include her pet project – vaccines.  So does she mean the false scare stories about vaccines – the false claims that they cause autism, or other problems?  You know, all the anti-vaccine scaremongering that has been covered on this blog and elsewhere?  Well, no.  Of course not.  Get a load of this:

The Decade of Fear began on September 11, 2001, a day of indescribable loss that marked the ending of so much. Among the losses was the end of a civil and substantive conversation about vaccine safety that had taken shape during the previous two decades 4 but which - after September 11, 2001 - was hijacked by fear.  [My bold.]

Zing!  Vaccines linked to 9/11 in one step.  (I hope she paid Rudy Giuliani his royalty.)

She ends:

Hopefully, 2010 will be the beginning of a fearless and fierce search for the truth about health and vaccination that will enlighten us all.

Yeah, “hopefully” scientists reporting the facts will be able to do so without fear of intimidation.  Unfortunately the new decade hasn’t started out with that hope, thanks to Fisher and her lawyers.  Of course, what Fisher really means is that she should be free of fear to promote her anti-vaccine nonsense.  People who disagree with her though – that’s another matter.

As a final irony in the “and fierce search for the truth” arena, I tried to leave a comment on Fisher’s blog pointing out quite politely that the conversation about vaccines might be more fearless if people like Barbara Loe Fisher didn't sue people who publicly disagreed with her.  Guess what happened.  (No prizes.)  It never made it through moderation.  I guess Fisher has found a way to deal with her fear of contradictory views – she just ignores them.

It’s only January 7th and we already have our first nomination for a 2010 Golden Woo.  Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

 

Oprah Dissembles

Several bloggers have reported on the recent Newsweek story that exposed some of the dangerous nonsense and pseudoscience that Oprah Winfrey insists on including in her TV show. From obviously crackpot ideas such as The Secret to dangerous pseudoscience such as the anti-vaccine nonsense spouted by celebrity idiot Jenny McCarthy, Newsweek did a pretty good job of calling nonsense nonsense.

Now Oprah has responded with a statement, as reported by EW.com:

I trust the viewers, and I know that they are smart and discerning enough to seek out medical opinions to determine what may be best for them.

This is a highly dishonest statement from Oprah.  You’ll note there is no attempt to justify any of the bogus* medical advice given on her show; no evidence that any of the quackery* she features actually works or is valid in any way.  So what is she saying, exactly?  That, yes, my TV show includes crap but my audience will realize it’s crap?  No, sorry, not good enough. If you have the sort of power that Oprah  has to influence opinion, you have a responsibility to make sure that the advice you give is good.  You should not just show any old crap and expect your viewers to do their own research to determine what is real and what is not, you should determine for yourself if it is real before you feature it in front of millions of viewers.  And you should then be able and willing to defend what you have promoted and rebut any criticisms with facts and evidence, or retract and admit you were wrong.  Instead Oprah hides the truth of what she is doing behind this sham claim that she trusts her viewers to discern what is real and what is not. It’s dishonest, unethical and cowardly.

You only have to read the comments to that EW story to see that many of Oprah’s viewers are neither smart nor discerning enough to distinguish between science and pseudoscience. Just a couple of comments in and you will read the regurgitated lies and logical fallacies of the anti-vaccination loons, repeated in all their idiotic glory.  Those comments are, unfortunately, proof of the damage that Oprah has already done.  Her lame self serving statement does not even begin to address her critics.

More on Oprah’s support of pseudoscience:

Combatting the Oprah Effect

Say It Ain't So, O

Oprah's ugly secret

The Oprah-fication of medicine

* Deliberate deception not implied.

Vaccines Didn't Cause Autism

This morning, Orac called Keith Olbermann out on his ridiculous “worst person in the world” slot yesterday, where he (Olbermann) named Brian Deer as one of his ”worsts”.  Olbermann called Deer’s reporting of the Wakefield MMR/autism fraud “journalistic malfeasance”, apparently because The Times didn’t mention that the investigation into Wakefield was the result of a complaint by Brian Deer.  Leaving aside for now the fact that that Deer is not the complainant in this case anyway, my reaction was “so what?”  How would Deer being the complainant change the facts so that Wakefield suddenly magically didn’t commit fraud any more?  Obviously, it wouldn’t.

Of course, we know that Wakefield's work was flawed at best, and paid for by those seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers.  Deer (as anyone knows) has been covering this story for years.  As Orac writes:

Olbermann apparently doesn't know that the reason Deer made the complaint to the British GMC was because of what he found in his original report in 2004 and then again in 2006. In other words, Deer discovered that Wakefield had been in the pocket of a trial lawyers seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers, having accepted £435,643 in fees, plus £3,910 expenses for his "research." Who wouldn't have reported him to the GMC for that?

Talk about a conflict of interest.  We now know that Olbermann’s piece was essentially written for him by anti-vaccine crank David Kirby, who is crowing about it today on the Huff Post.  Several people including Brian Deer himself have written to Olbermann today to inform him of his mistake(s), but since there was no retraction from Olbermann tonight we have to conclude that Olbermann is happy with his hatchet job on a respected journalist.  Pretty ironic for someone who criticizes Fox News presenters for reading talking points given to them without checking the facts.

Vaccines Didn’t Cause Autism

Which brings us to a related story.  Today a special court ruled that evidence presented to the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program did not demonstrate a link between autism and childhood vaccines:

In a statement shortly after the release of the decisions, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said it continues to support research "to better understand the cause of autistic disorders and develop more effective methods of treatment."

However, "the medical and scientific communities ... have found no association between vaccines and autism."

This is possibly a bigger deal than it may appear. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program was set up to compensate anyone who might have been injured by vaccines.  And quite rightly so.  Everyone benefits from a vaccinated population, and so it’s only fair that the very small number of people who are actually injured by vaccines should be compensated by the rest of us.  With this in mind, the Compensation Program was set up to make it easy for anyone injured by vaccines to claim compensation, with minimal legal and financial hurdles to overcome. The result is that the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program is very favorable to litigants.  The standard of proof is much lower than it would be in a regular court.  And of course, in a regular court, the standards of evidence are much lower than they would be in the world of science.  So these hearings would have been expected to be very friendly to the litigants.  The fact that even these courts found no link from vaccines to autism is very telling.

I predict that Kirby and his merry band will now commence smear tactics on the special masters of the court, and/or anyone else they can blame for this eminently sensible decision.  One thing they will not do, I predict, is reflect that maybe, just possibly, it is just conceivable that they might be wrong about vaccines and autism.  They won’t do that because nothing will ever change their minds.  It’s the vaccines.  It just has to be.  Anyone want to bet I’m wrong?

Reduced MMR Equals More Measles

Reduced uptake of the MMR vaccine, fueled no doubt by anti-vaccine propaganda, has resulted in a recent significant increase in Measles in the UK as shown by the graph on the right.  And despite what the anti-vaccine twits will tell you, Measles can be a very serious disease.  According to the CDC:

As many as one out of 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, and about one child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave your child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, one or two will die from it.

And that last statistic is sadly confirmed in the BBC article:

So far this year, 150 children have been admitted to hospital with complications and one child has died.

One child died.  Compare that with the slight risk of an allergic reaction to the vaccine.  And yet, the BBC reports that only 75% of children in the UK have had both doses of the MMR vaccine, at 12 to 15 months and at four to six years, as recommended.  This reduced uptake of MMR is almost certainly the reason for the current increase in the disease.

That is the result, so far, of the pseudo-scientific scare stories put out by the anti-vaccination loons.  If the uptake of the vaccine does not increase, there will be more deaths.

Hat tip to Jimmy Blue for the story.

No Way RFK

Several of my fellow skeptical bloggers have been getting worked up about the possibility – rumors really – that Robert F. Kennedy Junior might be chosen by Obama as the next head of the EPA. It’s encouraging to note that most science bloggers who have commented, realize it would be a really bad move to appoint such an anti-vaccine crank with so little understanding of science, to this position. Read what Orac has to say about Robert F. Kennedy Junior if you don’t know the details. In summary, RFK somehow got it into his head that autism is caused by Thimerosal in vaccines. To help confirm this idea, he read the transcripts of a medical conference that was set up to discuss any possible link, to see if he could find evidence of a cover up. Unsurprisingly, he found the confirmation and the evidence of a conspiracy he was looking for. But only by torturing the minutes of the meeting so the attendees appeared to be saying the exact opposite of what they did, actually, say. I read the detailed minutes myself and wrote two posts on RFK’s conspiracy mongering and RFK’s quote mining. You can see from all this that Kennedy first made up his mind about vaccines and then forced the evidence to match his previously made up position. And haven’t we had enough of that over the previous eight years? Yes, RFK would be a terrible choice.

I have to say though, I’m a lot more relaxed about this than most of the other skeptical bloggers. Not because I don’t think RFK would be a terrible choice, but because I don’t actually see Obama picking RFK for this. The reason is that Obama’s decision making seems to be characterized by careful thought and especially by comprehensive vetting of appointees. I just don’t see him making such a mistake. And that is especially so when you read Obama’s Statement in Support of World Autism Awareness Day and Awareness Month, where he states among other things, “while the causes of autism remain a mystery…”. Not to Kennedy. He knows it’s the vaccines.

And with RFK it’s not just anti-vaccine crankery. See this video where RFK talks favorably of Hugo Chavez and the nationalization of oil companies in Venezuela. While I don’t want to get into the argument about whether that is good or bad, you have to admit the nationalization of oil companies is actually socialism, unlike the lame “socialist” things Obama was charged with during the campaign. Just the thought of playing that tape and having to justify those comments at the congressional hearings ought to be enough for Obama’s team to rule out RFK. He really doesn’t want to start all that again.

And the rumors of an RFK appointment don’t even seem that credible. For example see this article that doesn’t even mention the word “Kennedy”. Reports hyping up RFK’s chances are from the likes of The Huffington Post. And we know how reliable they are when the subject has anything to do with vaccines.

So while it’s good to get the word out, again, about RFK’s total unsuitability for such a post, I actually doubt that he’s even on Obama’s shortlist. If I’m wrong, then clearly my opinion of Obama would take a very early nosedive, but I don’t think I’m ready to pre-criticize one of his future decisions just yet.

Stop Jenny McCarthy

A new website has just been created to counter to the anti-vaccine nonsense perpetrated by Jenny McCarthy - Stop Jenny McCarthy.  As they say on their website:

Jenny has no educational background and no license to give any type of medical advice on any medically related topic. Becoming a parent of an autistic child is a huge job, but that does not make Jenny's google research and interpretation of the experiences more valid than others who have had the same experiences and come to different conclusions.

We ask that Jenny re-evaluate her assertions, and ask all parents to learn about the issue in depth.

A nice idea but somehow I don't think she will "re-evaluate her assertions," because they are just that - assertions.  Jenny's views on vaccines were not arrived at following a rational review of the evidence.  And that which is not arrived at through reason is unlikely to be reasoned away.  Still, I think the idea of the Stop Jenny McCarthy site is a good one - not to "stop" her per se, but at least to provide a site that will counter Jenny's ridiculous claims for anyone who is actually researching the topic.  (You know Oprah won't do it.)  In future, anyone Googling Jenny McCarthy will now find at least one site presenting facts and rationality.

Do Vaccines Cause That?!

If you have a friend or family member who still thinks vaccines cause autism, or who is on the fence, you could do worse than to send them a copy of the book Do Vaccines Cause That?!, which, dubious punctuation aside, seems to cover the main points in a logical and easy to read format. The book’s authors want you to:

• Balance the risks and benefits of immunizations for your child.
• Recognize red flags that should raise alarms about vaccine- related information you read in the media.
• Determine whether or not a vaccine is the cause of an adverse event or disease.

As well as five chapters on how to weigh the evidence, there is a lengthy section on whether vaccines cause autism, dealing with both the MMR and Thimerosal claims. For example, the Thimerosal section has a very good explanation for the reasons Thimerosal was used, as well as what it really means to have “trace amounts” of the substance listed in the ingredients. It also explains the differences between methyl and ethyl mercury, and how we now know that the latter (which includes Thimerosal) is less of a risk. Also covered are an expose of some of the flawed studies beloved by the mercury nut jobs, such as the baby haircut study and Maddy Hornig’s Rain Mouse paper. It looks like an excellent source of good information on the subject – recommended.

They Seized Control of Wikipedia

That’s according to attorney Clifford J. Shoemaker, in his response to the Order to Show Cause. He states that Kathleen Seidel’s “principal co-conspirator” (ie her husband), has “seized control” of Wikipedia. Apparently this eminent attorney is unaware that Wikipedia is written and updated collaboratively by more than 75,000 active volunteers from all around the world. Or, as Kathleen put it:

These documents offer a remarkable exposition of the grandiose, cartoonish conspiracy fantasies entertained by advocates of the concept of autism as toxicity and tort, and the arguments of those who seek to justify the perversion of legal processes in order to oppress their critics.

Kathleen has nine days to respond to Shoemaker, if she wishes.

Update – Neurodiversity Subpoena Quashed!

And get this:

Attorney Clifford Shoemaker is ordered to show cause within 10 days why he should not be sanctioned under Fed R Civ P 11 – see Fed R Civ P 45(a)(2)(B) which requires that a deposition subpoena be issued from the court in which the deposition is to occur and Fed R Civ P 45 (c)(1) commanding counsel to avoid burdensome subpoenas. A failure to appear will result in notification of Mr Shoemaker’s conduct to the Presiding Judge in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

I’m not a lawyer, but that doesn’t sound good for Clifford Shoemaker.

No news yet on Marie McCormack’s subpoena - her motion to quash was filed ten days after Siedel’s.

Further reading:

Lawyer Ken writing in the blog Popehat: Anti-Vaccine Thug Lawyer Gets Burned By Pro Se Blogger

No news yet on Marie McCormack’s subpoena - her motion to quash was filed ten days after Siedel’s.

Scientist Subpoenaed Too

There is an old saying in legal circles that if the facts are on your side, pound the facts; if the law is on your side, pound the law; if neither is on your side, pound the table.  Clifford Shoemaker, with neither the facts nor the law on his side, prefers to pound the table. Or more accurately, to pound his opponents with frivolous intimidatory subpoenas.

As I wrote two weeks ago in Bullying Attorney Thug, Clifford Shoemaker is the ambulance chasing attorney who makes his living filing claims in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Unable to cope with honest criticism of his methods, and with few facts on his side, he issued a massively invasive and irrelevant subpoena to blogger Kathleen Seidel. Kathleen now reports that scientist Marie McCormick received a similar subpoena at the same time. As with Seidel, McCormick has also filed a motion to quash.

You may remember Dr. McCormick from Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s dishonest article about thimerosal and autism of nearly three years ago. McCormick was one of the scientists whom Kennedy quote mined to make them appear to be saying the opposite of what they actually said. Three years later, little has changed. The opponents of vaccines, still lacking actual evidence to support their case, still resort to dishonest methods to push their agenda. All proponents of free speech should hope that both these ludicrous subpoenas will be quashed. If they are not, I would imagine that independent scientists would in future be less willing to serve on committees the way McCormick and others have done.

Autism’s Hidden Hordes Wrongly Diagnosed?

Anti-vaccinationists frequently a quote the recent (the last 10 - 15 years) increases in autism as evidence that vaccines cause autism. Since virtually all good science contradicts this idea, it seems there must be another explanation for this apparent increase. One possible explanation is a change in diagnosis - children who are now diagnosed as autistic would have been diagnosed with a different condition 20 years ago. Anti-vaccinationists ask, “where are the hidden hordes?” – the adult autistics who were not diagnosed autistic as children. Because, if increases in autism are merely a change of diagnosis, then there must be numerous adult autistics who were not diagnosed as such as children.

Professor Dorothy Bishop of the University of Oxford, led a recent study to examine this question. The study was published this month in the Journal of Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, and its conclusion was indeed to suggest that many children who would now be diagnosed as having autism, were in the 1980s and 1990s diagnosed with severe language disorders instead.

From the abstract we can see that Bishop looked at 38 subjects (aged 15 to 31), who had, as children, been diagnosed as having developmental language disorder, rather than autism. She then applied to them, modern tests for diagnosing autism at age 4 to 5 years – tests that involved interviewing both the subjects and their parents. The result was that one third of the subjects met the modern criteria for autism. The interviews with the parents were especially revealing: the subjects’ parents recalled what we would now regard as autistic symptoms appearing in their children when they were very young.  The conclusion is that much of the recent rise of autism could be due to a change in the diagnostic criteria.

The result is consistent with this study in Pediatrics from 2006 that showed the growing autism diagnoses from 1994 to 2003 were associated with corresponding declines in other diagnostic categories.

Of course the study needs replicating with a much larger number of subjects than 38, before any firm conclusions can be drawn. But the study’s tentative conclusion is consistent with the total lack of evidence that autism is caused by vaccines. To be sure, the anti-vaccine crowd would have been quick to publicize this study if the results had been negative, but now they will probably ignore the study, or criticize the independence of the study’s authors. That is their normal tactic when faced with studies they don’t like but have no evidence to refute. But what they won’t have are valid criticisms of the actual study, or studies of their own that show there was, in fact, no change in diagnostic criteria.

It would be nice if CNN and Larry King would now have Professor Bishop on to explain her studies to the public, and undo some of the misinformation they recently helped put out. But, again, we can be sure this won’t happen. They get higher ratings showing the idiotic views of “Professor” Jenny McCarthy.

References

Abstract: Autism and diagnostic substitution: evidence from a study of adults with a history of developmental language disorder

University of Oxford: Rise in autism related to changes in diagnosis

Bullying Attorney Thug

They don’t learn. This time the attack is directed at autism blogger Kathleen Seidel. Kathleen had blogged about attorney Clifford Shoemaker (pictured right), who specializes in prosecuting claims filed in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). Apparently Shoemaker frequently uses Mark Geier as an expert witness, which by itself should tell you all you need to know about Shoemaker. But Kathleen’s article dug a little more deeply into how attorneys like Shoemaker get paid for filing claims, regardless of their actual merit or end result. She listed the cases that Shoemaker had filed (and been paid for) in the previous 18 months – two thirds of which were dismissed as not satisfying even the relatively lax standard of proof required in these cases. Within hours of this post, Shoemaker issued an intimidatory subpoena.

But the subpoena had nothing to do with the actual article Kathleen had written. From Overlawyered:

The subpoena contains no indication that Seidel herself is accused of defaming anyone or violating any other legal rights of any party. Instead it seems she is being dragged in as a third-party witness in Shoemaker's suit on behalf of his clients, Rev. Lisa Sykes and Seth Sykes, against vaccine maker Bayer. Although Seidel has been a remarkably diligent blogger on autism-vaccine litigation, I can find no indication that she is in possession of specialized knowledge that Shoemaker would not be able to obtain for his clients through more ordinary means.

Instead, the first phrase that occurred to me on looking through the subpoena was "fishing expedition", and the second was "intimidation".

Indeed. The subpoena demands all documents, financial records and communications related to the creation and operation of her blog. This is to include all her financial records, and copies of all communications with a range of people, including what appears to be her entire autism blog roll. In it she is “COMMANDED to appear” in person at the court in New Hampshire (at her own expense, naturally). Since Kathleen is not a party to, nor has any special inside knowledge of, any of Shoemaker’s cases, it is obvious this is just an intimidatory tactic and an abuse of Shoemaker’s power as an attorney.

Kathleen has responded with a motion to quash. It ends with:

Kathleen Seidel prays her motion to quash this unconstitutional, unreasonable, irrelevant, excessive, invasive, burdensome, frivolous, and clearly retaliatory subpoena be ALLOWED.

Today Orac posted An open letter to David Kirby and Dan Olmsted about the Kathleen Seidel subpoena – an appeal to Kirby and Olmstead to use their influence in the autism movement to protest Shoemaker’s bullying tactics. Because, as one commenter wrote:

If I were on the legal team for Glaxo-SmithKline, Wyeth, Inc. and Bayer Pharmaceuticals Corporation, I would be preparing virtually identical subpoenas for David Kirby, Dan Olmsted, JB Handley, John Best, and all the "journalists" and bloggers associated with the Mercury Militia to be served the precise moment that the Judge rules the subpoena can go forward

Such action would perhaps provide some kind of grim satisfaction – to see these pseudoscientists hoist by their own petard. But it would be a hollow victory. If attorneys can shut down criticism this easily, using nothing but the threat of subpoena, most skeptical blogging will be at risk. One can only hope the judge will allow Kathleen’s motion to quash.

In the meantime, Clifford Shoemaker should enjoy his Streisand moment.

Other Articles

Popehat on attorney Clifford Shoemaker - Vaccine-Litigant Thuggery: Subpoenaed For Blogging

Overlawyered on attorney Clifford Shoemaker - Vaccine lawyer subpoenas Kathleen Seidel

I speak of Dreams on attorney Clifford Shoemaker – the snappily entitled Kathleen Seidel Slapped With Unconstitutional, Illegal, Barred by the Journalist’s Privilege, and Needlessly Invasive Subpoena

The Voyage on attorney Clifford Shoemaker - Neurodiversity Blogger Unfairly Subpoenaed

New York personal injury law blog on attorney Clifford Shoemaker - Abuse of Process: Blogger, Unrelated to Action, Hit With Subpoena

Legal Blog Watch on attorney Clifford Shoemaker - Blogger Subpoenaed for Influence

Autism – Still Not Vaccines

I’m sure you’ve heard anti-vaccinationists claiming recently that the government conceded that vaccines cause autism. Of course, they did no such thing. As Orac wrote in David Kirby and the government "concession that vaccines cause autism": The incredible shrinking causation claim, the government merely conceded that vaccinations may have aggravated a child’s underlying mitochondrial disorder – with some of the child’s symptoms being similar to autism. This doesn’t mean the child is autistic, or that autism is caused by vaccines. Also, the “may have” rider tells us merely that the government chose to settle the case rather than go the prolonged and expensive route of a disputed court case. Since we know that (a) vaccines do occasionally harm a small number of patients, and (b) it clearly benefits the majority that we continuing vaccinating, it is entirely sensible and ethical to compensate possible victims the few times this happens. Such facts haven’t stopped bigots such as David “the debate will never be over” Kirby and his ilk.

Anyway, others have deconstructed this case much better than I. If you want to know the facts on this case, Orac has a post up with some of the best links covering this vaccine injury case / mercury / autism story, including posts of his own as well as posts from Steven Novella, Kevin Leitch and others.

Study: No Mercury – Autism Link

You may have read about the new study in the Archives of General Psychiatry that (yet again) failed to find a link between mercury in vaccines and autism – a study that would have been expected to find some link if one existed. It’s been discussed in detail by Orac:

Another very bad day for antivaccinationists: Yet another study fails to find a link between thimerosal and autism.

Also Steven Novella:

One More Nail in the Mercury-Autism Coffin

And in Science Based Medicine

Mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism and autism spectrum disorders (ASDs): A failed hypothesis.

Click the links – I really don’t have much to add.

I think we’re now at the stage when we can safely say that the people who still insist that the debate on this subject is not over, are in the same league as creationists, HIV-AIDS deniers and global warming deniers – ie they’re cranks.

Results Are In / Debate’s Not Over

The utter vacuousness that is David Kirby can be found in the header to his recent confused rant in the Huffington Post. It’s right there at the top of his article, in bold so you don’t miss it:

Memo to those who wanted the autism-vaccine contretemps to just go away: You lost.

If you read that again and think about it, you’ll realize it’s more interesting for what it doesn’t say than for what it does. This is what it doesn’t say. It doesn’t say, “Memo to those who said that vaccines don’t cause autism: You lost”. It doesn’t say that because even he realizes that would be false.  (Although later, he equivocates like hell. Of course.)  Remember, this is the same David Kirby who said, in June 2005

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year

Just to be clear – by “this year” he meant 2005. That was two years ago. And newsflash – autism rates didn’t fall. In 2005, or since.

But, note, we Thimerosal skeptics “lost.” Not because we were wrong. But because Kirby insists that the “debate” is going to continue, no matter what the evidence tells him. Yeah. Doesn’t that remind you of the “debate” about whether evolution is true?

The definition of pseudoscience includes not altering your theory when contradictory evidence comes in. The pseudoscientist moves the goalposts and makes ad-hoc rationalizations for why his previously predicted results did not transpire exactly as planned. Want to read Kirby’s version of this? Prepare to be astonished at the chutzpah:

Finally, to all those who are going to post comments about the autism rates in California not coming down, following the removal of thimerosal from most vaccines: You are right. The most likely explanation is that thimerosal was not responsible for the autism epidemic. But that does not mean that it never harmed a single child.

No, of course it doesn’t. But note the new, impossible standard he has just sneaked in. The skeptics now have to prove that not a single child was ever harmed by Thimerosal. He wants us to prove a universal negative. Although even then we all know he’d find something else to go for. (Aluminum in vaccines makes an early trial run in this post.)

Kirby says right there in his post that most likely explanation is that thimerosal was not responsible for the autism epidemic, and yet he still wants the debate to continue. But if Thimerosal was not responsible for the autism epidemic, what reason do we now have for even continuing to debate Thimerosal? Kirby’s motive for writing this post is to gloat that we “lost”, because the debate will continue regardless. That’s his definition of “winning”. The word douchebag to describe Kirby seems a little unkind. To douchebags.

Note:

Orac takes apart Kirby’s arguments in more detail. I’ll just mention one point. Kirby makes a big deal because advocates of the mercury-vaccine-autism connection were appointed to a new federal panel on autism.  Funny thing, the day before Kirby posted this sorry screed, Orac wrote in a different post, “Expect the mercury militia to milk this connection for all it's worth”. Well it didn’t take long. One day, to be precise. Take that psychics.

Worst Arguments

Two weeks ago I posted Left Brain Right Brain closes – how the actions of John Best (who sometimes posts as Fore Sam) had forced Kevin Leitch to close his blog to protect his family. Predictably, John Best appeared in the comments to promote his pseudoscientific view that autism is caused by Thimerosal in vaccines. Several other commenters (details below) took Best to task and essentially ripped his silly arguments apart for all to see. Yes, my regular commenters really are smarter than the average bear.

Not everyone reads long comments threads, but I can honestly recommend reading this one to see how weak Best’s’ arguments are. You can compare Best’s mere assertions with the actual contrary evidence and citations provided by the other commenters. It’s worth a read just to appreciate the intellectual ass kicking the other commenters gave Best. Some of it’s pretty funny too. And remember, this repertoire Best has of fallacious reasoning, assertion and bullying represent the very best (no pun intended) arguments that he has been able to think of in all his years promoting these beliefs. You’ll need to set aside a couple of hours to read all of the 180 comments - more if you’re going to read all the citations (not the ones from Best because he doesn’t provide any), but it will be entertaining.

That said, I know not everyone has that amount of spare time, so I’m going to sum up Best’s arguments and the rebuttals.

Best Arguments for Thimerosal

Pun intended that time. His is an argument in two parts, namely:

1. Autism first appeared in 1943 (or maybe 1931 – a little uncertain over the exact date) – which corresponds to the date Thimerosal was first used in vaccines. The only explanation for this is that thimerosal causes autism.
2. Based on his personal observation only, Best thinks his son’s autism (or is it his ADD – a little unsure here too), and that of several other kids, was cured by chelation.

Take those two points, add insults about your opponents – call them deuschbags (sic), knuckleheads, Bozo’s (sic), idiots, dumb bastards, simpletons, boneheads, wack jobs, bunch of jerks, scum, dopes etc. – and reference your success at gambling on the horses as proof you’re smart (I’m not kidding), and you’ve essentially got Best’s arguments.

I’ll try to summarize the main reasons the other commenters gave for why Best is wrong.

Autism first appeared in 1943

Best actually writes:

How about we use a graph from the last million years? It will show no autism until 1943 with a slow rise for about 40 years and an increasing rise as the number of vaccines with thimerosal increased.

Even if we had data from the last million years (obviously we don’t), it wouldn’t show autism until 1943 because that’s when Leo Kanner determined that autism was a separate syndrome, not reported before. Kanner notes autism had most likely previously been previously reported as schizophrenia. Best provided no data, but Tom Foss found Kanner’s actual paper that states:

These characteristics form a unique “syndrome,” not heretofore reported, which seems to be rare enough, yet is probably more frequent than is indicated by the paucity of observed cases. It is quite possible that some such children have been viewed as feebleminded or schizophrenic. In fact, several children of our group were introduced to us as idiots or imbeciles, one still resides in a state school for the feebleminded, and two had been previously considered as schizophrenic.

It seems fairly clear that Kanner means autistics were around before but had been misdiagnosed as feebleminded or schizophrenic. That is, autism existed before 1943 (or 1931 – take your pick), but it had been called something else. Kanner is just the first person to recognize that autism is something different. Best insists Kanner is saying autistics didn’t even exist before he (Kanner) diagnosed these initial children. Reading what Kanner wrote, I don’t see how any reasonable person could possibly come to the conclusion that Best comes to. In any case, the idea is absurd.

Best’s entire case stands or falls on his interpretation of Kanner’s words, the truth of Best’s interpretation, and Best’s assertion that “Autism is never misdiagnosed”. And he means it never was misdiagnosed – even before Kanner. That’s clearly an absurd assertion on its own, but even more so after Joseph provided a link to Dr. J. Landon Down and "Developmental" Disorders – referring to an 1887 paper that reported on patients with a “developmental” disorder that we would now almost certainly refer to as autism. Best just ignores this inconvenient piece of data.

Best then leads with what he considers is a killer argument, the crudely phrased:

Are you trying to tell me autism existed before 1943? If your ridiculous assertion is true, you should be able to show me 77 year olds at the rate of 1 in 150 with autism. If you can do that, I'll blow you.

Of course, it’s highly unlikely that 77 year old autistics, who value their privacy, would be lining up to present themselves now for classification at the order of John Best. Even so, Interverbal managed to provide:

California Department of Disability Services

Quarterly Report 7/1/1992

Age Cohort: 62-99

4 people meeting DSM-III-R autism criteria (stricter than the current standard).

1992 - 62 = 1930.

If they are alive today, then they are your 77 year old autistics, at the youngest.

Best just hand waved away this inconvenient piece of data.

The most charitable view is that Best hasn’t provided any even remotely extraordinary evidence for his extraordinary claim. The less charitable and more realistic view, is that his argument has been totally busted. And without it, what reason does he have to suppose autism is caused by Thimerosal? Oh yes, it’s:

Chelation

Best’s reasoning for this is:

My son's improvement, my son with ADD being 100% cured, friends and acquaintances who have cured their children and reports from DAN and others.

But he provides no double blind studies that show chelation to be better than placebo. There is a reason we use double blind studies – it is because we know that humans are good at fooling themselves. This is especially true with autism which involves delay in many areas of development. But delay doesn’t necessarily mean no progression. Autistic kids often progress without intervention, and certainly without chelation. Without a double blind study, you have no way of knowing if chelation is a factor in the progression or not.

Best also fails to explain why, if his son is “100% cured”, he still needs chelation. This is something you would expect if chelation was not curing the child. It’s a result that is inconsistent with chelation being the cure.

Without a randomized double-blind study we cannot possibly know if chelation is helping Best’s child or any other. And since that was the other leg of Best’s proof that Thimerosal causes autism, his “argument” such as it was, is completely destroyed. Best’s continued aggressive and anti-science responses such as “Studies are a waste of time to me” demonstrate his inability to even think coherently on this subject. It also means he doesn’t even realize how much he’s just been beaten, and how much his foolishness has been laid bare for the world to see.

Questions Best Can’t Answer

When debating someone, questions often arise from the claims the person makes. For example, if someone says “chelation cures autism”, a reasonable question is “where is the study that shows that?” Questions not answered, or answered dishonestly, can be very revealing about the strength of the person’s position and his or her intellectual honesty. Jimmy Blue and Tom Foss came up with several relevant questions that Best ignored. If you want to know how honest Best is, or how strong his case is, consider these questions that Best still can’t or won’t answer:

1. What reason do you have not to believe that all the Thimerosal has been removed from vaccines?
2. How does Thimerosal cause mercury poisoning?
3. If removing Thimerosal from childhood vaccines had no effect on reducing autism (because it's still coming from the parents' flu shots) then how do you know it was ever caused by childhood vaccines?
4. A lot fewer people get flu shots than get their children vaccines; still fewer get it while they're pregnant. How long does it stay in the mother's system?
5. What evidence do you have that chelation cures autistics?
6. So, were autistic kids born with "scrambled brains" before, due to the flu shots? If so, again, how could you blame childhood vaccines? If not, why has the flu vaccine started causing autism earlier than the mercury crowd used to claim?
7. How could Kanner (or you) say that autism had NEVER existed before 1943 if he (or you) did not have access to the medical records of every human being who had ever lived?
8. Why didn't mercury poisoning and widespread varied use cause autism until 1943/1931/1929?
9. How does chelation cure autism?
10. What is the chemical equation for the metabolization of some harmful mercury compound from Thimerosal in the body?
11. Why don't autistics exhibit the other symptoms of mercury poisoning (kidney dysfunction, ruddy faces, loss of hair, teeth, and nails, etc.) if autism is mercury poisoning?
12. How does HBOT cause brain cells to re-grow?
13. What evidence is there that autism is the result of brain cells damaged by mercury?
14. Why can't Best give us a detailed rebuttal of the sources found in the last week, when he has been researching this for years?
15. In what sense does he mean his son is cured of autism if he still needs treatment for it?
16. How does Generation Rescue respond to the accusation that its research is not peer reviewed?
17. Why does Generation Rescue still claim that the work of certain scientists supports their arguments when many of those scientists have specifically stated it does not and asked to be disassociated from GR's work?
18. How does Best explain the contradiction of claiming the CDC cannot be trusted whilst quoting autism prevalence rates provided by CDC research?
19. Why does Best think life is nothing to lose for autistic children?
20. How does Best explain his statement that autism is never misdiagnosed when there is clear evidence that it has been in the past and still is now?

Note in the comments below, whether or not Best attempts to answer any of these questions, and form your own views.

Acknowledgements

This post was written with the arguments developed and put forward by commenters on this blog.

Most of the heavy lifting of the detailed paragraph by paragraph rebuttals to Best’s points, was written by Jimmy_Blue and Tom Foss. From experience I know how much time this takes, and they should be congratulated. They also gave me several good laughs (“My dogs think they are smarter than you”). Tactical support was supplied by Bronze Dog and Techskeptic, pointing out fallacies and other problems with Best’s position. A couple of pieces of really interesting information came from Joseph, who has clearly been writing about autism longer than most of us. And of course, Interverbal found the 77 year old autistics that Best still insists don’t exist. Thanks to you all. It was quite a lesson in taking apart fallacious arguments.

Bestisms

I want to end with a few choice Best quotes. It’s not quite as good as this list of John Best quotes, but they are amusing none the less.

In response to requests for citations to back up his claims:

I don't use citations. I just rely on my memory. When you learn to do that, you will be a lot better off.

On the inventiveness of Eli Lilly:

Autism was invented in 1931 by Eli Lilly.

Argument by wild west wanted poster:

…just find me the 77 year olds, dead or alive.

On consistency in evaluating sources:

The FDA and CDC are not reputable sources for anything.

And then goes on to quote the autism prevalence of 1 in 150, which he gets from (guess where? No prizes) , the CDC.

On the true meaning of science

true scientists like myself…

and yet

I think you guys are too involved with science

Where I learned what I know to be true is of no concern to you.

Studies are a waste of time to me.

On humility

Autism is never misdiagnosed

And finally, the proof Best really is smarter than anyone else:

Until one of you morons can decipher a racing form and select 6 out of 9 races while I only pick 5, you will not be able to outdo me at any intellectual pursuit. For, handicapping horse races is the single most difficult problem solving exercise one could ever encounter.

Note: the single most difficult problem solving exercise one could ever encounter. There really is no answer to that. Best’s Nobel Prize must surely be a mere formality.

Left Brain Right Brain closes

Kevin Leitch’s Left Brain Right Brain autism blog closed today. Click the link and you will discover why:

The reason LB/RB is shutting is because I cannot continue to allow my beautiful eldest girl to be exposed to the hatred and bullying she is recieving from John Best. John has seen fit to compare my beautiful child to a trained monkey because he didn't like the fact she was progressing. He has made numerous jokes at her expense on that theme. He has assumed her identity online. He has encouraged others to do the same.

Let me be clear. I do not care one iota what this cowardly idiot thinks of me. He can write whatever he wants. But he has involved my daughter. Not to reference her progression. Not to quote me. But to laugh at her and to put words in her seven year old mouth.

I genuinely fear for her safety at the hands of this person (I will refrain from calling someone who picks on children 'a man'). Three days running he has posted blog entries about her, two of which assume her identity and one of which is attempting to gain money in her name. I do not know where he would stop. Therefore the only way to make her safe is to remove us from his presence.

More at the link.

This is sad. Kevin’s blog has been a source of much thoughtful and useful information on autism and autism quackery over the years, and all of this information is now lost (the wayback machine notwithstanding). But Kevin has to put the safety of his family first and I can’t fault him for doing so. I don’t know too much of this John Best, except that he posts numerous comments to blogs under the name “Fore Sam”, and is well known in the autism anti-quackery blogosphere. For example, this appears to be a sample of John Best aka Fore Sam’s thought on a variety of subjects.  This is his blog.

Whatever your views on the causes of autism, it’s a sad day when a blog has to close due to fears for the safety of its author and/or his family.

Get Your Flu Shot

From Carl Zimmer today I found this excellent opinion piece in the NYT by Jessica Snyder Sachs, explaining why you should get your children vaccinated and why the “natural” approach is no such thing. Some extracts:

Some parents have come to embrace colds and flus, and in recent years we’ve seen a resurgence of the chickenpox party, where parents deliberately expose their preschoolers to infected playmates on the theory that it’s better to get the disease than to have the vaccine.

But the idea that illness is good for children — or anyone else — is wrong. In part, the idea of “good sickness” is a throwback to a now disproved version of the “hygiene hypothesis.”

And she goes on to explain why this idea, which originally was thought to be sound, has been proven wrong. I actually met a woman recently who thought it was better for her kids to get a disease than to have the disease prevented by a vaccine. The logic for that escaped me (if your kid gets the disease he’ll then not get the disease again?). I wish I’d had this article handy. Also, I didn’t know this:

Moreover, studies now show that the more infections a person has during childhood, the greater his or her chance of premature death from scourges of old age like heart disease and cancer. The link appears to be chronic inflammation, a kind of lingering collateral damage from the body’s disease-fighting response.

I thought the most interesting part was how Snyder Sachs explained that getting immunity through getting the disease, is not natural:

A second misconception common among vaccine-shunning parents is that there’s something “natural” about the 6 to 10 respiratory infections the typical American child gets every year (or even the two to four we adults experience). Common, yes; natural no, not if “natural” represents the forces that shaped the human immune system during all but the last sliver of our 250,000 years as Homo sapiens. Colds, flus and most other contagious diseases found a central place in our lives only after we and our domestic animals began crowding together in large settlements some 5,000 years ago.

The article goes on to explain why you really should get your flu shot this year.

Autism – personal experience more credible than scientists?

No of course it’s not. But someone thinks it is. I recently received the following email from Kelly – the email subject line being “Thimerasol Link to Autism”. I thought some of you might be amused by the following exchange:

I will keep this email brief so as to not be misinterpreted.  I ran across your website by accident, but I just had to comment. 

I do not want to be a part of all the political rhetoric and garbage.  All I want to do is site personal experience and educate you on the facts.  I have autism.  The problem with thimerasol is that as an autistic person I lack the gene glutatione s-transferase.  That gene filters out heavy metals from your body.  When you lack the gene you cannot eliminate heavy metals, such as mercury, from your body.  So, over time they build up and damage your organs and tissues.

Let's say someone passed you an old fashioned mercury thermometer and it accidentally fell and broke.  You would jump up and get out of the room faster than one could blink.  Then you would call the Fire Department so the Hazardous Materials team could clean up the mercury.  Why is that?  You have not ingested any of the mercury.  Therefore, it is not dangerous.  So what is the problem?  After all, you have the gene to process the mercury out of your system. 

It ticks me off how so called "scientists" with no personal experience, can debate an issue without ever listening to the other side.  People with personal experience and knowledge have much more credibility than a scientist in a lab.  When you are lactose intolerant, no one debates that you cannot properly digest milk.  No one runs around and claims milk is bad.  Because it is not for the rest of us.  When you are diabetic, no one debates that you cannot properly break down sugar and carbohydrates.  Sugar and carbohydrates are not bad for the rest of us.  Then why is it so hard to believe that someone who is missing a gene to eliminate heavy metals from their bodies would have a devastating reaction to a heavy metal being ingested into their body?  It may not be bad for the rest of you, but it is bad for some of us.  Thimerasol does not cause autism, it simply is something we cannot tolerate.  That to me is pretty simple. 

If vaccines are required, and they should be, then pharmaceutical companies should take out the thimersol as a preservative.  Then everyone could enjoy the benefits of building immunity without having their lives ripped from them with devasting effects of having mercury coarsing through their veins.  Believe me, it is devasting.  I live it every day.

I replied:

You criticize scientists "with no personal experience", and state that "People with personal experience and knowledge have much more credibility than a scientist in a lab" - and then you write in detail about the gene for "glutatione s-transferase".  How, exactly do you even know about the gene for glutathione s-transferase?  From your personal experience?  Of course not.  The only reason you have even heard about the gene for glutathione s-transferase is from scientists working in a lab.  So who really has any credibility here?

I’m afraid you have jumped to a conclusion about this gene, heavy metals, and autism that is not supported by the science. As I understand it, autistics have no deficiency in Glutathione, and even if they did it wouldn’t matter:

If the average human carries around approximately 6 milligrams of mercury how much glutathione should we require to deal with environmental mercury levels ? Even if several molecules of glutathione were required for each mercury molecule, we should have millions of times sufficient glutathione to get the job done. Compare that to the reported upper limit of exposure through vaccines which has been estimated at less than 250 micrograms. A person so severely deficient in glutathione they would be unable to detoxify 250 micrograms of mercury probably wouldn't survive long enough to be vaccinated in the first place. Every breath of air would expose them to lethal levels of ozone, pollutants and other oxidants.

I’m sorry Kelly, but this desperate need to blame Thimerosal despite the evidence is not helping anyone find the real causes of autism.  You have absolutely no personal experience that has a hope in hell of telling you that glutathione s-transferase deficiency has caused your autism.  You have no idea, no clue.  Your only hope is with scientists.

She replied, but (and I know you’ll be really surprised by this), without addressing any of the points I raised. Instead there was a stream of fallacious reasoning. Her response and my replies are below.

Wow.  I just passed on a friendly email about my personal experience to give you more insight into this problem.  I tried to keep it brief so as to not be misinterpreted, but that didn't work.  You read quite a bit into my email that was no where near what I intended.  That is the problem with email, you cannot tell the other person's tone of voice, attitude, or inflection.  So, we end up reading in to what they are saying. 

A disingenuous start. The original email may have had a friendly tone, but she said she wanted to “educate [me] on the facts”. Somewhat arrogant. When her “education” didn’t take she now tries to make out that I’m over reacting or something, as though I am the one with a problem. It’s just an appeal to pity.

Do you have autism?  How are you so passionate about this cause?  I am impressed with the energy level you have concerning mercury and autism.  How long have you been studying this?  What is your background and training?  I like your spunk, too. 

I am passionate about applying critical thinking, and explaining how I apply it to issues such as the autism / mercury controversy.

Actually, I am a scientist by training.  I practiced pharmacy for 7 years.  I also have 25+ years as a pharmaceutical rep as well. 

An attempt to claim authority.

I was in no way criticizing scientists. 

Yes you were . You complained about "so called "scientists" with no personal experience" and you wrote "People with personal experience and knowledge have much more credibility than a scientist in a lab".

It is like anything else in this world, you are the expert if you actually have the condition.  You possess a personal, intimate knowledge that someone who does not have the disease can never possess.  Scientists and physicians get their science and understanding originally from the actual patient. 

Scientists study the patient using the scientific method. The person with the condition knows how it feels, what the disadvantages of it are. She is the expert on that, perhaps. But she doesn’t have any special insight into the causes of the condition.

When they loose sight of that, is when it angers me.  They can debate and believe all they want to, but that does not make it true. 

Something you might like to consider yourself before you write any more on this subject, Kelly.

In my experience, the best physicians out there are the ones who have a personal experience with a disease.  Ask any well known, highly respected physician why they went in to the specialty they did and they will tell you either a family member had the disease or they personally struggle with it.  I have worked with top thought leaders throughout the world in my career and the answer is always the same.  The credibility comes from actually experiencing an illness or disease.  You have an edge when you are that close to the disease.  One of the best Ob-Gyn Oncologists at MD Anderson lost his wife to ovarian cancer.   He has a personal vested interest in finding a cure for that type of cancer, since losing his wife his daughter is now at risk.  He will be more open to new knowledge, theories, and treatments than another expert who is only using straight science, speculation, and theories.

Such a person will be more motivated, may feel more passionate about finding a cure, may work longer hours etc. But he will absolutely not have any better idea of the causes of such illnesses just because a spouse died. And anyone who thought he did would be fooling himself and would be a lousy researcher.

Take for example, my friends with MS or Breast Cancer.  I would never go to them and lecture them about their diseases.  They have the disease and possess an intimate knowledge that neither you nor me will ever know.  Thank goodness.  It is very presumptuous and arrogant to boldly lecture and/or correct someone who is living with a disease every day. 

Wrong. If that person claimed they knew what caused the disease, with no reason, then you would be perfectly correct in telling them they were wrong.

Any reputable scientist will tell you that no matter how much you read and study something, it does not always mean that is what can be replicated in the lab or human experience.  That is why it takes an average of 12 years and $400 million to bring a drug to market.  Yet, every year dozens of drugs are pulled from the market, because you just cannot replicate the entire human experience in a study.  You cannot predict all the possible consequences and all the possible outcomes that could happen when a large number of people consume a medication.  But, the FDA does the best they can.  Like anything else, the system isn't perfect, but it is pretty darn good.

I know all that. Funny. I though you said that people with the condition knew more that the scientist. So why do we need scientists to do these tests that cost so much? Why don’t we just ask the people with the illnesses what caused it and what the cure is? You prove yourself wrong with your own words Kerry. You demonstrate that only science will determine what the cure is (or isn’t), not the person with the disease.

Something concerned me in your email.  You keep referring to "supported by science."  Come on, you know that science is an ever evolving field and we have barely touched the surface on any one disease. 

Yeees, but that still doesn’t mean that you know, just because you happen to have a condition, by some magic, that autism is caused by not having the gene for glutatione s-transferase. As I wrote to you, and as you have ignored, there is no way you could possibly know that other than through science. Tell me – how do you know this is true Kelly? How did you even hear about the gene for glutatione s-transferase? Explain how that works please.

Forming conclusions, based on past events and results is what we do.  Then, we continually try to prove or disprove our theories.   There will always be conflicting data and conflicting opinions.  That is why scientific symposiums are such wonderful places.  The ability to share information that one scientist has done with other scientists is phenomenal for the advancement of science in general.  Everyone has their theories, their studies, and their opinions.  Theories and opinions are based on so many different things and I am always leery of people who are extremely adamant in their opinions.

As you seem to be, you mean? Because you are adamant in your opinion of what causes autism and yet you have not cited a single study that demonstrates that. I cited an examination of a study that the mercury militia thinks shows it, and my cite explains why they are wrong. You ignored that cite. Did you even read it? Because if you didn’t read it, and still think you’re right, I would say you are extremely adamant in your opinions. You should be leery of yourself.

When they are close-minded

It is not closed minded to reject claims that are not true. On the other hand, it is closed minded to insist that autism is caused by a missing gene for glutatione s-transferase although the article I cited for you (that you ignored) shows it is not the case. It is closed minded to insist you are right when you have nothing but your arrogant belief that you know more just because you happen to be autistic. Read The appeal to be open-minded to learn more.

I have to ask where their funding or loyalties lie. 

No you don’t. The conclusions do not depend on the motives of the funding. Read Ad Hominem to learn why.

I always find it humorous to sit with the skeptics.  I like a little controversy, too. 

I don't know how old you are, but were you around for all the AIDS symposiums, discussions, and rhetoric in the early 80's?  Fascinating theories and discussions.  What we thought was absolute has been proven and subsequently disproven over the last 20+ years.  The heated debates were amazing.  Some well-known scientists stuck their necks out, were ridiculed and ostracized at the time, and are now revered.   Love it.

What theories that were disproven? I only remember Peter Duesberg who said that HIV did not cause AIDS. He’s still saying it, as far as I know. He’s still wrong. Anyway, I think you are trying to appeal to “science was wrong before”. Read the link to find out why that is fallacious.

Citing my own personal experience and a plethora of studies,

No – only citing your own experience. Not one study. Nada. Zip. What? Didn’t you think I’d notice?

when a person lacks glutathione s-transferase to properly eliminate heavy metals from their body, the heavy metals will build up and damage organs.

Still no evidence that’s what causes autism.

Surely, you have heard of the dangers of mercury poisoning, arsenic poisoning, lead poisoning,  etc.?  There is an easy test to determine the levels in someone's body.  There are endless studies showing the devastating effects on the body from prolonged exposure and/or toxic levels of any heavy metal be it mercury, lead, arsenic, copper, titanium, aluminum, etc.  Just recently, several children in south Dallas were tested and treated for lead poisoning because their homes are near an old paint factory.  They had the gene, but because there were such high levels around, their bodies could not eliminate it quickly enough and they succumbed to the effects.  To my knowledge, all are doing okay, but suffering some permanent damage to their organs due to prolonged exposure.   No one can dispute that they are ill due to lead exposure. 

Now we’re on to arsenic and lead. Nice misdirect, but still no evidence that Thimerosal causes autism.

Autistic people have toxic levels of all heavy metals, not just mercury. 

Evidence please. (Hint: I don’t think there is any. Oh, and I wouldn’t bother to cite those debunked “baby haircut” studies. Up to you though.)

And I must correct you.  This is not a desperate need on my part to blame thimerosal.  

I’m glad to hear it. Many others do, though.

The facts are the facts. 

Yes they are. Only you don’t have any.

People ingest heavy metals from a variety of sources, not just vaccines. 

Oh, but your email subject was “Thimerasol Link to Autism”. Now it’s heavy metals (not just mercury) from a variety of sources, not just vaccines. Standard woo – shift the goalposts. Still no evidence it causes autism, though.

My health deteriorated after each injection I received as a kid.  Luckily I am old enough that very few vaccines were required.  

That makes no sense. You must have been young once. Unless you were created in a lab. Were you created in a lab?

I did not go completely downhill until I had my mercury fillings removed. If this is not done properly, it can be dangerous for anyone - even you. 

Oh, now we’re in total woo land. Mercury fillings.

That is actually just common sense.  If too much of a toxic substance is released into the blood stream, the person will suffer the problems associated with that substance. 

Except that the typical clinical signs of mercurism are not similar to the typical clinical signs of autism.

I thought I had a quailfied dentist, little did I know the damage that was to come.  Trust me, I have learned more about the devastating effects of mercury and autism first hand.  And, as a scientist, I have done my research and homework.  I do not rely simply on what someone cites in one small study.  Any study can be manipulated to say whatever you want it to say.  There are hundreds,  if not thousands, of studies that support the harmful effects of heavy metals on the body that are well controlled and reputable.   

Yes. But not one study that shows thimerosal causes autism. Funny that.

Reason with me for a moment.  Thimerosal is harmful by inhalation and ingestion, and lethal between 50 and 1000 times the usual intake, which for mercury is . 0.1 milligram of mercury per cubic meter of air (0.1 mg/m3).  I wanted to get my hands on the original package insert and studies submitted to the FDA by Eli Lilly in the '20's.  Thimerosal is a substance like several other older drugs, that if submitted today, would not be approved by the FDA.

But none of that matters if your liver is incapable of eliminating the mercury.  No one is debating that mercury, a neurotoxin, is dangerous.  Look at all the warnings on fish consumption, flourescent lighting, etc.  The FDA even admitted that the vaccine schedule in 1999 exceeded the EPA standards for mercury exposure.  No one is debating that mercury is toxic.  No one suggests that the levels in my body are in any way okay.  Autism is on the rise and that should be a cause for concern.  We need to find out why there is such a exponential rise in autism, or any disease for that matter. 

Yes we do. And insisting that thimerosal causes autism, despite the increasing evidence it does not, will make it harder to find the cause. Why don’t you see that?

Aaah, science, we learn we grow.  It is a fascinating journey if you look back at the history of medicine.  So many people unfortunately die as we try desperately to figure out disease processes.  When we barely understand something, we may be actually hurting the people we are supposedly treating.  But, as we study, advance, and grow in our knowledge, things change.   Molecular geneticism has played a huge role in identifying problems and improving treatment outcomes.  Genetics, genomes are something to keep your eye on in the future. 

The debate will continue on any link with mercury and autism.  But, please, don't completely discount someone who has a disease and therefore has a more intimate knowledge of the disease than you.  I ask that you open your mind up to the fact that heavy metals have been undeniably proven to be toxic and that those of us who cannot eliminate those substances from our body will suffer if we ingest even a tiny amount. 

Still waiting for the studies you say you’ve read. And I’m still waiting for you to open your mind to the possibility that you are wrong.

My motivation is simple.  I personally do not want anyone else to suffer like I have and so I try to gently inform others of the dangers of mercury, lead, and heavy metal toxicity.  My intention is to educate and hopefully prevent someone else, especially a much more vulnerable child,  from dealing with the horrendous effects of heavy metal toxicity.  I have been there and it sucks. 

You have autism. But you are not educating anyone as to its cause. Sorry, but you are part of the problem.

The “Autism Community” Punk’d!

Orac and Kevin Leitch both comment on how  the “Autism Community” (whoever the hell they are – who decided they represented the “Autism Community”?) have asked for messages of support for Andrew Wakefield. You know, the researcher whose crappy “research” supposedly linked autism to the MMR vaccine, and thereby (with the help of a complicit media) caused a reduction in uptake of the vaccine and an increase in Measles. (No reduction in autism, funnily enough.)

Anyway, several people posted messages with, shall we say, less than supportive messages. But the “Autism Community” is only accepting supportive messages. Shame.

Anyway, I thought I should post a message. But it had to be supportive, or it wouldn’t have been published. This is what I wrote:

Well done Dr. Wakefield. Although the medical establishment denies your research. Keep up the good work. Even though you are criticized. For the sake of the children. I know you are a man of integrity. Every thing you have said has turned out right. Lots of kids got autism from vaccines. Did that stop them poisoning our kids?. I don’t think so. So much for integrity. All we have are beacons of honesty such as yourself. Let our words give you strength. I trust you will continue your research. Autism is treatable. Real doctors know that.

U Menteur

So, I hear you say, a strange message from me. Seems a little too supportive.  And who the hell is U Menteur?

Perhaps if I started each sentence on a new line, my message might be a little clearer:

Well done Dr. Wakefield.

Although the medical establishment denies your research.

Keep up the good work.

Even though you are criticized.

For the sake of the children.

I know you are a man of integrity.

Every thing you have said has turned out right.

Lots of kids got autism from vaccines.

Did that stop them poisoning our kids?.

 

I don’t think so.

So much for integrity.

 

All we have are beacons of honesty such as yourself.

 

Let our words give you strength.

I trust you will continue your research.

Autism is treatable.

Real doctors know that.

I’ve bolded the first letter of each sentence - just read down. Also, “Menteur” is French for “liar”. So it’s signed, “U Liar”.

The funny thing – they published it. Click the thumbnail to read the actual section (just in case they take it down).

Childish? Of course. But deserved.

MMR Scares Debunked

Ben Goldacre writing in Bad Science, exposes the dishonesty in recent newspaper reports on how “MMR causes autism”. Ben does what the newspapers should have done and actually contacts noted autism researcher Simon Baron-Cohen and other researchers quoted in the newspaper, and finds out what they actually said and think. A sample:

But in fact, the two “leading experts” concerned about MMR were not professors, or fellows, or lecturers: they were research associates. I rang both, and both were very clear that they wouldn’t really describe themselves as leading experts. One is Fiona Scott, a psychologist and very competent researcher at Cambridge. She said to me, very clearly: “I absolutely do not think that the rise in autism is related to MMR.” And: “My own daughter is getting vaccinated with the MMR jab on July 17.”

She also says, astonishingly, that the Observer never even spoke to her, before incorrectly reporting that she has a privately held view that MMR might be partly to blame for autism. I say “reporting,” but in some ways, it’s more like an accusation. Dr Scott horrified. She simply does not believe that MMR has caused a rise in autism.

Ben concludes the news media, in its need for alarmist stories, is more of a problem than dishonest researchers such as Andrew Wakefield.  It's worth reading Ben’s entire post.

Edit July 22, 2007

Ben comments on the newspaper’s lame attempts to retract and apologize cover up its errors.  Sample:

This is beyond childishness. They were wrong. They should have clarified the closeness of the relationship in the article, and if they’re making amends now, they should do so properly. But instead they’re still trying to cover up (rather ironically for a story effectively claiming a cover up about autism).

RFK a true believer?

Longer term readers will remember Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s rather absurd articles in Salon about how autism is caused by mercury in vaccines and the CDC etc is covering it all up. In June 2005 I covered RFK’s manipulation of the facts and quote mining, as well as a more detailed review of his quote-mining of the Institute of Medicine report. Many others blogged about it too. I wondered aloud if Kennedy really believed the nonsense he was spouting, or if he just hadn’t read the reports he was writing about.

Reader Kim just sent me this link to the Going All the Way blog where blog owner Gabolicious described how she was present recently at a talk given by RFK. And it seems RFK is still spouting the same old nonsense, judging by this response to a question from the mother of an autistic child:

[RFK’s] response was a good ten-minute rant about how our vaccines are making kids autistic because of the mercury in them, how American pharmaceutical companies introduced autism to China because of the vaccines they sent over, how more and more kids are being diagnosed with autism every year because there is so much mercury everywhere, that the Amish don’t have autistic kids because they don’t vaccinate their babies, the Christian Scientists and Scientologists don’t have autistic kids, either, for the same reasons…

Same old nonsense. (Incidentally, I also wrote in August 2005 how Kennedy was wrong about the Amish claim and his conclusions. Nothing has changed and Kennedy is still just as wrong about this as he was then.)

Later at the same meeting, Gabolicious got to meet RFK as he worked the room, and she asked him what he would say to a family who has just learned their child was autistic:

He said yes, chelation is a tough issue, you know, our bodies don’t produce as much of this hormone/ chemical anymore, and it is one of the big things we need to process and extract mercury…

As Gabolicious points out, this doesn’t even make sense.  If autism has increased because of increased mercury in vaccines, then why is our supposed recent inability to produce as much of a hormone as before, even an issue?

Obviously I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the above report, but Gabolicious, as an apparent admirer of RFK in other areas, seems genuine in how she reports these events. So it seems that RFK probably really does believe the nonsense he spouts about autism. Although autism numbers are not falling, despite the removal of mercury from childhood vaccines, RFK is apparently still a true autism conspiracy believer. Ho hum.

Autism not declining so Kirby redefines it

Via Orac I learn of David Kirby’s strange but boldly deceptive piece in the Huff Post Tuesday.

You see, Kirby has a problem. He has to explain why the current autism figures haven’t “declined by 2007” as he claimed they would due to removal of thimerosal from vaccines, but he can’t admit it’s because thimerosal doesn’t cause autism. So how does he get out of this mess of his own making? Tricky one. Well, his response is quite brilliant in its imagination. Get this - he redefines what autism is. Yes, according to Kirby, all the “higher functioning” autistics (ie the ones that are not declining in number), are not really autistic. This increasing number has to be taken out of the total, so that the total isn’t increasing any more. This leaves just the real autistics (ie the ones poisoned by vaccines):

I'm talking about kids who spin like fireworks until they fall and crack their heads, kids who will play with a pencil but not with their sister, kids who stare at nothing and scream at everything and don't even realize it when their dad comes home from work.

Get it? These are the ones poisoned by thimerosal, not the increased numbers with Asperger's, etc. Wow! Probably the most blatant case of moving the goalposts I’ve ever seen. But you really have to give him some credit for thinking out the box. Quite inspired.

Of course it’s nonsense and as well as Orac, Kevin Leitch, Autism Diva and Autism Vox take it apart in more detail.

Kirby even has a new name for his newly defined not-autism- if-it-hasn’t-declined syndrome:

Maybe what these kids have is not autism, but something like, say, "Environmentally-acquired Neuroimmune Disorder," which we could call E.N.D. (Great slogan: "Let's End E.N.D.).

Yeah, good one Dave. I’ve got one to describe what you seem to be suffering from: "Disorder Enabling Nonsensical Interpretations And Lies", which we could call D.E.N.I.A.L. And I've got a great slogan too: "It’s not just a river in Egypt".

Some good links

I haven’t written much recently, but I thought I would share some links to what I thought were some especially interesting recent skeptical or science blog posts.

First, Phil Plait the Bad Astronomer has a superb explanation of what makes a year (sidereal or tropical) in Happy New Year Arbitrary Orbital Marker! :

Yay! Tonight at midnight it’s New Year!

But what does that mean, exactly?

The year, of course, is the time it takes for the Earth to orbit the Sun, right? Well, not exactly. It depends on what you mean by "year", and how you measure it. This takes a wee bit of explaining, so put down the champagne, take the lampshade off your head, and hang on.

Phil gives a really good explanation of the astronomical factors at play – and it’s not as simple as most people think. Of course, the Earth’s “wobble”, and the resulting difference between the sidereal and the tropical year is the reason that most astrological charts, and therefore your sun sign used by most astrologers, is wrong. Not that it would make any difference if astrologers used the sidereal instead of the tropical zodiac – astrology is crap either way.

Next, Orac writes about how Andrew Wakefield was paid to undermine MMR vaccine.

ANDREW WAKEFIELD, the former surgeon whose campaign linking the MMR vaccine with autism caused a collapse in immunisation rates, was paid more than £400,000 [$780,000] by lawyers trying to prove that the vaccine was unsafe.

Of course, the fact that he was paid does not in and of itself prove Wakefield was wrong, although the conflict of interest clearly means we should examine his data more skeptically. However, the anti-vax crowd routinely use this kind of conflict of interest to smear anyone who disagrees with their position. It will be instructive to see how they handle this piece of news.

Next, John Lynch of Give Seed, Get Seed Stranger Fruit gives us ID in 2007 - from the horses mouth – a list of developments in ID that we almost certainly won’t be seeing. My favorite:

A theory of how the Designer-Who-Shall-Not-Be- Named did the designing.

Don’t hold your breath.

Then there is Ben Goldacre’s review of the year in bad science. Sample:

And what a great year for scares. The Times reported on its front page that cocaine use among schoolchildren had doubled when it had done nothing of the sort (they simply misinterpreted the report). The media’s anti-MMR campaign continued unabated as the Telegraph, Mail and Times all reported on unpublished research claiming to show a link between the vaccine and autism, even though the research was from a man with a history of making such claims as far back as 2002, which he still hasn’t published. Over the year, at least two fully published studies showing a negative result for almost the exact same experiment were inexplicably ignored by all newspapers.

Finally, I liked RealClimate’s 2006 Year in review, which starts:

Best highlight of the gap between the 'two cultures':

Justice Scalia: 'Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist. That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming'.

I’m sure you don’t.

New Study Says No Vaccines-Autism Link

Via Autism Diva I learn of this study just published in the journal Pediatrics. The objective of the study was to estimate the prevalence of pervasive developmental disorder (PDD), which includes autism, and compare this with cumulative exposure to both thimerosal and MMR vaccines. The authors surveyed 28,000 children born from 1987 to 1998. Children with PDD were identified by a special needs team.

What they actually found was that children who had had no exposure to thimerosal actually had a higher degree of PDD. No association to PDD was found with the MMR vaccine. From the abstract (all quotes are with my bold):

The prevalence of pervasive developmental disorder in thimerosal free birth cohorts was significantly higher than that in thimerosal-exposed cohorts (82.7 of 10 000 vs 59.5 of 10 000). Using logistic regression models of the prevalence data, we found no significant effect of thimerosal exposure used either as a continuous or a categorical variable. Thus, thimerosal exposure was unrelated to the increasing trend in pervasive developmental disorder prevalence.

The authors conclude that the increased prevalence of PDD is due to broadening diagnostic criteria and increased awareness. If you remember, this is the explanation that Bobby Kennedy called “a theory that seems questionable at best, given that most of the new cases of autism are clustered within a single generation of children”. Well, it’s hard to see what other conclusion could be drawn from this study. From the paper again:

During the 12 years encompassed by our study, thimerosal exposure before age 2 of each birth cohort changed several times and ranged from nil to a high value of 225 μg. This provided a unique opportunity to test the relationship of ethylmercury exposure with rates of PDDs, free of a known problem of vaccine safety studies when high rates of exposure in populations, and therefore low variability in exposure, constrain the data and limit the opportunity to detect effects.⁶³ No association between thimerosal levels treated either continuously or categorically with PDD rates could be found in our study. In fact, it was remarkable that the PDD rates were at their highest value in birth cohorts that were thimerosal free, providing a clear and convincing message on the lack of an association. The results were robust and held true when various analyses were conducted to evaluate the potential impact of misclassification on exposure and diagnosis. Within each period of medium, high, or nil exposure, the same trend toward a steady increase in PDD rate was observed, demonstrating total independence of the 2 variables.

The authors also address one of the mercury-causes-autism lobby’s criticisms of other studies that have also shown no link, namely that these other studies were in countries with lower exposure to thimerosal or lower rates of PDD:

Previous negative studies, especially those conducted in European countries, have sometimes been criticized on the account that either the rates of PDDs were not as high as those in North America, that the cumulative exposure to thimerosal was much lower than that attained in the United States in the 1990s, or both. This study avoids both pitfalls and is, therefore, very informative for the North American public. In addition, the rate of exposure varied from nil to very high levels of vaccine-derived ethylmercury, allowing us to test for effects along the full range of exposure and to detect possible threshold effects as well. All of the results were negative.

Of course, don’t expect this study to convince the religious mercury-causes-autism groups. From a (pretty good) BBC article on the study we find:

Jackie Fletcher, from campaign group Jabs, a support network for parents who believe their children have been damaged by vaccines, said the study still did not prove there was not a link.

Well, proving a universal negative is always difficult, but with one more seemingly well run study finding no link when you would expect to find one if it were there, haven’t we passed the point when it becomes perverse to insist there is a link?

Edited to add:

Two more excellent reads today on this subject. Respectful Insolence has a more detailed write-up about this study, along with an examination of some of the usual smear tactics used by the mercury-causes-autism group SafeMinds. Left Brain/Right Brain has a further perspective on SafeMinds hypocritical ad hominems, and insight on where they might be headed in their future mercury claims.

Autism epidemic? What autism epidemic?

The April issue of the journal Pediatrics contains a study by Paul Shattuck at the University of Wisconsin, entitled, The Contribution of Diagnostic Substitution to the Growing Administrative Prevalence of Autism in US Special Education. This study would appear to contradict the view that there is an epidemic of autism – the supposed autism epidemic that many blame on vaccines. Orac recently wrote a good summary of the paper.

Of course, if there has been no increase in autism, the case against vaccines being responsible for this (non) increase is weakened quite a bit (or a lot). Unsurprisingly the vaccines-cause-autism industry wasted no time in smearing Shattuck with the usual personal attacks, claims of bias due to funding, and phony links to discredited researchers. No valid criticisms of the actual data, though. For a good take-down of these fallacious smear tactics you really should read (this time) Orac’s take down of Shattuck’s critics.

Also, you should read the comments section. Shattuck himself leaves a detailed comment, and I thought I would highlight a couple of the points he made.

First, he tackles the accusation that he received a large grant from the CDC:

As for the $540,000 from the CDC...it's not entirely clear what they are talking about. I certainly don't have a grant that big from anyone. They are probably talking about the autism surveillance grant that our center received from the CDC...a proposal which I helped prepare but am not listed as a co-investigator and am not funded from. Our University is one of several sites around the country funded to do prospective monitoring of the prevalence of autism and other disorders...am not sure why that is so horrible in the eyes of some advocates.

So his critics essentially made that one up.

On whether being a autism skeptic is actually a lucrative career for a researcher:

If I was truly an unscrupulous researcher looking to boost my grant portfolio in any way possible then I would be better off trying to stoke concerns about an epidemic, rather than do the research I've undertaken. I've actually had colleagues from other universities nervously joke that if concern about autism fades then their research funding might dry up. So, the "unscrupulous researcher bends findings to boost financial self-interest" angle doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

What do you know? Pushing vaccines-cause autism is where the money is.  (That would explain the Geiers.)

And on the smear by association – the claim that a fellow researcher had been discredited (and so by association Shattuck must also be tainted):

Finally, yes there was a graduate student who was caught doing bad things at the same University where I was a graduate student. She was disciplined appropriately by the University and the NIH, and the small amount of affected data was quickly quarantined and never made its way into any published work. The attempt to paint me as guilty of data falsification because I was a graduate student at the same time as this person is just incredibly insulting.

Lame, just lame. And totally dishonest.

And a general comment on the (lack of) honesty and integrity of Shattuck’s critics:

It's worth noting none of the attacks on me have actually addressed the evidence presented in my paper. It's been my experience in debating that when one side abandons talking about evidence in favor of personal attacks it's usually because they have no credible evidence to bring to the table themselves.

Precisely. It’s called ad hominem, and it’s a logical fallacy for the reason that you don’t arrive at the conclusions they want you to from the arguments they present.

I don’t know if thimerosal in vaccines causes autism, honestly I don’t, but I doubt it for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that autism and mercury poisoning appear to be different. But I could be wrong – I’m not an expert on this subject. But you would think that anyone honestly out to find out what causes autism would be interested in Shattuck’s study, and would at least examine the data to see if it was good. That they don’t is telling. When the vaccines-cause autism group appears only to be interested in shutting down opposition by smear tactics and other dishonesty, you’ve got to wonder what they have to hide.

Ask the expert

Via Reason Online I learned of a discussion about blogging entitled Ask the expert: Should old media embrace the new? going on over at FT online. Included were some comments about a couple of blogs you may have heard of:

… the idea that there are hundreds of thousands of “niche experts” blogging away (or ready and willing to blog) lacks empirical evidence. I’m very impressed with scienceblogs.com – read the surgeon/scientist “respectful insolence” and you get a real sense of how the mainstream need to upgrade their medical reporting.

And yet at the same time, I see scienceblogs.com as a sort of rearguard action against a blitzkrieg of rubbish on the net rather than the vanguard of an expert army. The “collective intelligence” of the blogosphere is nothing more than a virtual Maginot Line against bad information, which often begins in the mainstream press and, thanks to the immediate parasitical nature of blogging, invades and permanently occupies the Internet.

Consider the furor over vaccination and autism. Last year, the mainstream press (Rolling Stone and Salon) published an extraordinarily flawed story by Robert F. Kennedy on how the American government was supposedly covering up data linking a mercury-based preservative in vaccines to an “epidemic” of autism. This was picked up the Huffington Post, which, inter alia, damned ABC news for radically changing a story based on Kennedy’s claims. It was a big bad corporate pharma pile on.

Yes, the original story was negligent journalism of the highest order, but the frontlines of blogging simply amplified it. Bloggers such as Skeptico and Respectful Insolence did a terrific job of analysing and pointing out why Kennedy’s claims had no merit, but they lacked the impact of the Huffington Post or Salon or Rolling Stone. And given that the elite blogging circles are dominated by journalists, established pundits and their dauphins, I don’t see how this kind of expert network can leverage its intelligence to inoculate the public against bad information.

The moral of this story is that mainstream news organisations need to look at this kind of event, and figure out what is best for the public interest. Co-opt science and medical expert bloggers into their news model? Maybe. Do a better job of covering this kind of story? Definitely. Re-evaluate what constitutes news and how it should be presented? Absolutely. It’s no good patting yourself on the back because your organisation knew better than to swallow Kennedy’s anti-vaccine Kool Aid if a rival publication ends up propagating misleading and potentially deadly information.

(My bold, shamelessly added.)

Good to know not everyone in the mainstream media swallowed Kennedy’s anti-vaccine Kool Aid.

Drinking the anti-vax Kool-Aid

Some people never get it. Despite being put straight by Dr. Sanjay Gupta five weeks ago, Bill Maher still doesn’t get vaccines. Just listen to this piece of stupidity from him tonight on Larry King tonight (all bold mine):

MAHER: I'm not into western medicine. That to me is a complete scare tactic. It just shows you, you can...

KING: You mean you don't get a -- you don't get a flu shot?

MAHER: A flu shot is the worst thing you can do.

KING: Why? MAHER: Because it's got -- it's got mercury.

KING: It prevents flu.

MAHER: It doesn't prevent. First of all, that's...

KING: I haven't had the flu in 25 years since I've been taking a flu shot.

MAHER: Well, I hate to tell you, Larry, but if you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row, there's ten times the likelihood that you'll get Alzheimer's disease. I would stop getting your...

KING: What did you say?

MAHER: That went better in rehearsal but it was still good. Absolutely, no the defense against disease is to have a strong immune system. A flu shot just compromises your immune system.

First – he’s really been drinking the anti-vax Kool Aid. This “vaccines compromise the immune system” is just nonsense. Idiocy. Vaccines train the immune system so they are ready if the real disease strikes.

Second – where does he get the data that says five flu shots makes it ten times more likely that you'll get Alzheimer's disease? That’s a very specific number. What study could this have come from? He didn’t just make it up did he? Nah, surely not.

Then, get this about the polio vaccine – that has virtually wiped out polio from the world:

KING: Polio was eliminated.

MAHER: Yes but, you know, there are many books out that will -- that will -- and I'm not well enough versed on it to talk about it that will indicate that there are other reasons why it was.

And a lot of diseases that have been they say, whoa, this was eliminated because of a vaccine, they find out well no actually the country got toilets and that's what happened.

This idea that better hygiene and sanitation meant that diseases had already begun to disappear before vaccines were introduced, is just more anti-vax nonsense. Yes, better sanitation helped, but vaccines were still the reason most diseases have gone away. I suppose we should be grateful Maher doesn’t want any kids – we don’t want any more unvaccinated kids in the country.

I decided to email bill and ask about that ten times figure:

Bill:

On Larry King tonight you said “if you have a flu shot for more than five years in a row, there's ten times the likelihood that you'll get Alzheimer's disease”. Can you please provide the source for that statement? I’m ideally looking for a citation in a peer reviewed scientific journal, but I’d be interested in any source you have.

Unless there is something to back it up, your comment would also seem like a scare tactic.

I’ll let you know if he replies.

Of course, you could also Email Bill and ask him where he gets his information from. If you wanted.

Polio’s spread halted

Polio has been wiped out in 10 African countries, according to the World Health Organization, the BBC reports:

No cases have been found in the 10 west and central African state since June.

"This is the light at the end of the tunnel," said Bruce Aylward, WHO co-ordinator for the eradication of polio.

"The world can be polio-free in another 18 months everywhere and the poorest countries in the world are committed to turning this around."

All thanks to vaccination.

The polio outbreak began in 2003 when Islamic clerics in Nigeria organised a boycott of the polio vaccine, claiming it was part a western plot against Muslims

And they say the world can be free of polio in 18 months if the anti-vaccination and religious nuts can be kept at bay.

Kennedy wrong again

Robert Kennedy has been Huffington Posting again, this time suggesting that we study the Amish to see if vaccines are a cause of autism:

If Dr. Fineberg genuinely wants to test his assertions about Thimerosal safety with epidemiological data, he should commission a study comparing American children who were exposed to vaccines to (sic) the Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists or others, who, for religious reasons, did not receive Thimerosal-laced vaccines.

A recent survey by United Press found that autism is virtually unknown among Pennsylvania's large Amish populations -- a strong indication that vaccines are indeed a principal culprit of the epidemic. Despite the repeated urgings of independent scientists and the families of autistic children, the federal agencies involved have refused to commission such a study and have closed federal vaccine files in order to derail the creation of those studies by outside scientists.

(My bold.)

It was encouraging to note that many people in the comments could immediately see the flaws in Kennedy’s reasoning. I’ll repeat a few of them below.

First, a “survey by United Press” is hardly solid evidence that there is virtually no autism in the Amish. Maybe it is true, I don’t know, but it sure can’t be taken as a given, and I’m not going to take Kennedy’s word for it.

Secondly, even if true, it is absolutely not “a strong indication” that vaccines are responsible for Autism. In fact, it means virtually nothing: there are many other confounding factors that could contribute towards this supposed piece of data.

The first obvious confounding factor would be genetics: the Amish are largely an inbred community with many genetic diseases. They could easily have a genetic immunity to autism.

Other confounding factors would be the Amish’s many lifestyle differences. For example, they shun much else of modern medicine (not just vaccines), such as ultrasound tests. Additionally, they have a diet of home grown organic un-pasteurized food with no hormones. Theirs is also a typical pre-World War II rural diet: meat, potatoes, gravy, eggs, vegetables, bread, pies, cakes, with no fast food. I’m not saying any of these things are what gives them protection. I am saying that these (and no doubt numerous other lifestyle differences) are confounding factors that would mean the simple “no autistic Amish = vaccinations are to blame” conclusion that Kennedy appears to be suggesting, is absurd.

One interesting comment referred to a recent article suggesting that Autism might be the product of both parents being systems-type thinkers, rather than empathizers:

One needs to be extremely careful in advancing a cause for autism, because this field is rife with theories that have collapsed under empirical scrutiny. Nonetheless, my hypothesis is that autism is the genetic result of "assortative mating" between parents who are both strong systemizers. Assortative mating is the term we use when like is attracted to like, and there are four significant reasons to believe it is happening here.

FIRST, both mothers and fathers of children with autism complete the embedded figures test faster than men and women in the general population.

Second, both mothers and fathers of children with autism are more likely to have fathers who are talented systemizers (engineers, for example).

Third, when we look at brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging, males and females on average show different patterns while performing empathizing or systemizing tasks. But both mothers and fathers of children with autism show strong male patterns of brain activity.

Fourth, both mothers and fathers of children with autism score above average on a questionnaire that measures how many autistic traits an individual has. These results suggest a genetic cause of autism, with both parents contributing genes that ultimately relate to a similar kind of mind: one with an affinity for thinking systematically.

This sort of thinker – scientifically inclined rather than emotional and with social sensitivity – would probably be unlikely to join / more likely to leave the highly regimented and religious Amish. Consequently the “systems thinker” trait would be rare in Amish – and very rare in both parents.

Of course, if the Amish really do have no autism, then a study into the reasons would be extremely useful. It’s just that the rather childish study Kennedy appears to be suggesting would be a waste of time. I don’t know if a study of the Amish could be designed that would reveal anything useful regarding autism. I just know Kennedy’s idea is absurd.

Sticking up for thimerosal

There is an interesting article in today’s Slate Magazine covering the thimerosal issue and Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s involvement. It points out some of the flaws in the Geiers’ work:

The main Geier approach is to mine data from a CDC reporting system that contains a mishmash of real and garbage vaccine-injury allegations, according to the vast majority of the scientists who work in this area. The Geiers have found a sixfold increase in autism in children who got thimerosal-containing vaccines. But nearly all the reports of autism they tallied came after allegations of the vaccine link had been publicized in the newspapers. In other words, the Geiers report the public's response to a scare as if it were meaningful data.

And it talks about other possible reasons for the supposed increases in autism:

A far more obvious explanation for the increase in autism rates in California was the one that mainstream autism experts expounded: diagnostic changes, new laws that expanded federal payments to care for autistics, and greater parental awareness of these resources. In 1990, Congress made autism one of the disabilities that qualified for federal funding. Thereafter, states were obliged to report all cases of autism. In a Minnesota study, to take one example, admissions of autistic children to developmental programs jumped starting in the 1991 school year and continued to do so for a decade. Often these increases occurred within the same grade. For example, 13 autism cases were reported per 10,000 Minnesota 6-year-olds in the 1995-96 school year—that is, among children born roughly in 1989. Five years later, the prevalence rate for this cohort was reported at 33 per 10,000. These were the same kids. Between the ages of 6 and 11, they'd suddenly "become" nearly three times as autistic—or rather, doctors, parents, and school counselors were enrolling them in programs more aggressively.

The author concludes he doubts vaccines are the cause of autism.

Skeptico wins another award

… or at least a testimonial. From Orac I learn today that regarding my autism posts, Skeptico is one of

the top three "skeptical bloggers" on the issue

… the other two being Orac and Autism Diva. I’m honored.

Seriously, read Orac today expose the logical fallacies and complete lack of meaningful content in this piece by Karl Bode.  Also, read a piece just about me (be sure to read the comments).

Edited to add:

If you click on the “just about me” link above to see Karl’s post about me, and if you read the comments to that post, you should know that Karl has edited virtually all of his comments where he replies to me, to try to make his posts look slightly less stupid than they were originally. Click on the comments below to see an example of what I am talking about. So far I don’t think he has edited any of my comments, but who knows what he will do in the future. He has now closed his post to comments.

Of course, this is very intellectually dishonest and a definite no-no on internet boards. It is the sign of a frightened immature poster who realizes he has made a fool of himself and has no answer but to change history by altering the actual posts that I did, in fact, reply to.

Kennedy admits he’s not qualified to talk about vaccines or autism

Last night on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show”, Robert F. Kennedy Junior admitted that he’s not qualified to talk about vaccines or autism:

“It’s not really my area”

… a crestfallen Kennedy admitted to host Jon Stewart. And despite repeated questioning by Stewart, Kennedy would not be drawn on why ABC’s autism special did not support Kennedy’s accusation of a link between autism and mercury in vaccines:

“I’ve no idea what happened”

… he said defensively, the desperation showing in his voice as he sidestepped why ABC did not buy into the scaremongering tactics of a lawyer, but had instead chosen to listen to the qualified scientists on the issue. However, instead of taking immediate steps to quell the panic instigated by his earlier dishonest article in Salon, Kennedy used the rest of the interview to cover his now admitted lack of expertise with some even more hysterical claims, including that 1 in 6 American children had become brain damaged due to vaccines.

Kennedy and his cohorts, many of them sincere, even idealistic, who are participating in efforts to hide the science on thimerosal, claim that they are trying to advance the lofty goal of protecting children in developing nations from autism. They are badly misguided. Now they have at last admitted they are not qualified, they should stop this dishonest campaign.

Post Script

If Kennedy or any of his supporters were to read the above article and compare the quotes with a full transcript of the interview, they might suggest that I had quote-mined the interview and reproduced those quotes out of context to prove my pre-conceived opinion. They would be right. Now they know how it feels. (And you can see how easy it is.)

In reality Kennedy repeated his usual crap, with a couple of new “facts” thrown in for good measure. Some of the low points:

It was “unnecessary to add (thimerosal) to the vaccines”

Not strictly true. Kennedy selectively chose to ignore the fact that thimerosal was a preservative, and that it actually had a purpose.

“Today, one in every six American children born (between 1989 and 2003) has some degree of neurological disorders”

Of course, no source was given for this statistic; I have no idea if it is true, although I’m skeptical. Kennedy didn’t actually say that 1 in 6 children had neurological disorders because of vaccines, but it was certainly implied given what they were discussing - very seriously dishonest.

There is “very strong science, really overwhelming science linking these autism rates to thimerosal in vaccines”.

What science could this be? Well, it couldn’t be this study that showed no link. Or this one. Or this comprehensive review of the literature. Could he be talking about the kind of flawed research the Geiers produce? Surely not.

“If you actually read the science which most journalists don’t do, the science is overwhelming that there is a link between the autism and the thimerosal.”

(My emphasis.)

(Damn, that’s another irony meter broken.)

“These people have been caught red handed conspiring to hide this information from the American people”.

Actually I’m getting really sick of this crap from Kennedy. He is presumably talking about the Simpsonwood conference which was an honest attempt by scientists to evaluate the science on the subject, not a cover-up as Kennedy claims. Or perhaps he’s talking about the IOM meeting which was another honest attempt to design the parameters of a study to get to the truth, not a cover up as Kennedy also alleged. Either way, Kennedy can’t claim any more that he doesn’t know that the Simpsonwood conference or he IOM conference weren’t conspiracies. He’s just lying.

All in all, it’s depressing that Kennedy can get airtime to present this stuff without the counter-position being made known too.

Citizen Cain corrects Kirby

There’s a new blog in town: Citizen Cain looks at David Kirby’s claim in the Huffington Post:

For months now, a mantra of the thimerosal defenders has been as follows: “Mercury was removed from vaccines years ago, and we have not seen a drop in autism rates.”

It looks like they might have to find a new slogan.

Freshly reported numbers out of California show that new cases entering that state’s disability system (children who are three-to-four years old and newly diagnosed with autism) have indeed dropped since 2002, marking the first decline in new autism cases since California began tracking the mysterious disorder.

It’s not easy to see where Kirby gets his figures (he says “fresh numbers out of California”), but Cain uses the same California DDS that Kirby presumably used (except that Cain actually provides a link), to produce the following table:

It looks to me as though autism is rising slightly, not falling as Kirby claims. Citizen Cain comments:

As you can see, caseload in the 3-5 year old group increased during every quarter, at a fairly constant rate, even as exposure to mercury in vaccines was decreasing. Completely the opposite of the picture portrayed by Kirby! Moreover, caseload over this period increased by 38 percent among 3-5 year olds, but by only 34 percent among 6-9 year olds, although even by mid-2005 nearly all of the children in this category were born prior to 1999. If the thimerosal-autism theory were correct, caseloads should have been increasing faster in the 6-9 year old category, in which there has been essentially no change in thimerosal exposure, than among the 3-5 year old category, in which thimerosal exposure has plummeted.

So, if we’re going to trust the California data, it’s pretty clearly telling us that removing thimerosal from infant vaccines isn’t an effective way to reduce autism.

What Kirby is on about is anyone’s guess.

Cain ends with the hope that Kirby will now correct the record. Ha, I see that like me, he likes to end with a joke.

SkepDic weighs in

Bob Carroll of the Skeptics’ Dictionary has weighed in with some interesting angles on Robert F. Kennedy’s scaremongering piece in Salon.

Carroll starts off examining the argument for protecting the vaccine industry against lawsuits, and highlights a problem with the use of lawsuits that he first wrote about (quoting Marcia Angel),with regard to silicone implants:

What causes this is the use of expert witnesses. The expert gives an opinion, and that becomes the evidence. Since they are hired by the adversaries, they get the most extreme people they can find. In science it's the opposite. It doesn't matter who you are; what matters are what your data say

What he’s saying is that the actual data will not matter in a lawsuit, once the lawyers get hold of it. That’s because courts of law are not about determining the truth, they are about advocates for opposing views presenting their case as strongly as possible. Carroll concludes the vaccine industry does need some protection against lawsuits.

Carroll also discusses the Simpsonwood conference, and touches on Kennedy’s out-of-context quote mining that Orac, Majikthise and I commented on before, and discusses the whole “conflict of interest” (non) issue.

Having looked at the detail, he then examines the broad question:

Is there any truth in Kennedy's article? There may well be but I am not going to waste my time tracking down every claim he makes since I already know that he has distorted some very important data and twisted facts to serve his purpose. There is no way to close this issue of mercury and autism. Whatever data is available can always be mined for some gem that supports the conspiratorial theory and there is always hope that some future study will provide some support for the causal belief. No study will ever be able to show with absolute certainty once and for all that thimerosal or any other substance does not cause autism in some people some of the time.

In the meantime, we must ask ourselves what is the likelihood that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and the American Academy of Pediatrics have joined a drug cartel to dupe the public by agreeing that there is no evidence linking thimerosal and autism? Are we to believe, for example, that the WHO made it all up when they published the results of a study that examined the health records of 109,863 children born in Britain from 1988 to 1997 and found that children who had received the most thimerosal in vaccines had the lowest incidence of developmental problems like autism?* Or are we to believe the parents of autistic children who are desperately seeking a villain?

I wish I’d written that. Carroll then quotes at length a section he wrote on this subject over three years ago, and it is striking that he could just have well as written it today. A good read.

Skeptico wins four tiaras

It is with great pleasure that Skeptico accepts this award from Autism Diva – her highest award. It’s so unexpected, it’s the first award Skeptico (the blog anyway) has won. I had nothing prepared and don’t know what to say except a very big thank you and you’re welcome.

I will display them here for all to see and pine for.

Oh and checkout three reasons not to believe in an autism epidemic, and other recent posts, at Autism Diva.

Lies, damned lies, and quote mining

OK, I’ve just read a second lengthy document that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his fellow travelers say is proof of a CDC/IOM cover-up, and I’ve found it is nothing of the kind. In fact it quite strongly shows the opposite.

First, a refresher. Kennedy wrote a scare piece linking thimerosal to autism, stating that a CDC meeting had spent days covering up a supposed link. I wrote a piece showing how Kennedy’s article was totally dishonest, and my conclusion was later confirmed and expanded upon by Majikthise. Kennedy also claimed in his article that the Institute of Medicine (IOM) had been paid by the CDC to further bury this so-called link, and presented several (un-sourced) quotes to support this claim. The IOM’s president replied that the quotes were taken out of context, and denied that they were part of any cover up. I reported on this, stating that Kennedy should offer evidence (with cites) of the original quotes (in context) and evidence of the “paid cover-up” that he so scandalously alleged. He hasn’t done so, as far as I am aware.

My post generated several comments, including several from a poster calling himself “Critical Thinker”, who did manage to find the transcript that contained the Kennedy IOM quotes. He challenged me:

Here is a link to the full IOM report. Read this document. Then tell me how I can possibly believe that the CDC did not want the IOM to find a link (Note by Skeptico: presumably he means “find no link”) and that the IOM had not already made up their mind BEFORE the study started that they would find no link between thimerosal and autism. Explain to me how these quotes are taken out of context as the IOM president would like us to believe. Here are some specific quotes that I find most concerning:

Page 32 Dr. Kaback:

"We have got a dragon by the tail here. At the end of the line, what we know is -- and I agree -- that the more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization, and we know what the results of that will be.

We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work out way out of the trap, I think, is the charge."

Page 34 (Note: actually page 33) Dr. McCormick:

"I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis."

Page 72 (Note: actually page 74) Dr. Stratton:

"We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday. The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.

We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.

We wouldn't say compensate, we wouldn't say pull the vaccine, we wouldn't say stop the program."

Page 95 (Note: actually page 97) Dr. McCormick:

"What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?"

These did appear to be the quotes Kennedy was using. So I read the full transcript and the following is what I find those quotes to really mean, in context.

NOTE: I have shown the portion of the quotes that Kennedy included, highlighted in yellow. I believe that makes it clearer which bits Kennedy included and which bits he left out.  It should be easier this way, for you to make your own mind up as to whether the bits Kennedy missed out (ie the non-highlighted text), alters the meaning.  All additional bold is mine.

Page 32 Dr. Kaback:

The first quote is preceded by a lengthy discussion on how most people are bad at understanding statistics and determining relative risks (several anecdotes are recounted). There is a discussion about how there are always risks to anything, and that sometimes one risk trades off against another, and that people have to make decisions about these trade-offs. Finally, there is the recognition that, in reality, doctors only have a little time (1.6 or 1.7 minutes are quoted), to explain these factors to their patients. Then we have this:

It (the doctors’ explanation) all has to be done in 1.6 minutes in a way that they can make a – I will come back another time and give you a nice anecdote about informed decision making.

That, of course, is threaded through all our vocabularies, this great notion of informed choices that patients make.

We need to think a lot about that. We have got a dragon by the tail here. At the end of the line, what we know is -- and I agree -- that the more negative that presentation is, the less likely people are to use vaccination, immunization, and we know what the results of that will be.

We are kind of caught in a trap. How we work out way out of the trap, I think, is the charge. It does have a kinetic component.

That’s why I think we can’t sit two years to do it. (Snip)

Of course, we live in a 24-hour-a-day seven-day-a-week media blitz on our public. They are always looking for things to fill up the time and the newspapers with. This makes a great story. So, we have a big job.

They are talking about how people don’t understand statistics, and how it might be difficult to explain certain findings, and how difficult this job will be.

Page 33: Dr. McCormick

Following immediately from the above is:

I took away actually an issue that we may have to confront, and that is actually the definition of what we mean by safety.

It is safety on a population basis, but it is also safety for the individual child.

I am wondering, if we take this dual perspective, we may address more of the parent concerns, perhaps developing a better message if we think about what comes down the stream as opposed to CDC, which wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe on a population basis.

This is a discussion of the need of parents to know if a vaccine is safe for their individual child compared with the CDC’s requirement to know safety for the whole population.  McCormick is proposing the committee additionally considers the parents’ concerns about the health of their individual children, instead of just safety for the whole population.

The whole flap around this quote is the wording “wants us to declare, well, these things are pretty safe”. She means, the CDC wants to know if they are safe. Seriously, the conspiracy believers need to grow up a little – it’s obvious what she means when you read the whole transcript.

Page 73: Dr. Stratton:

There is a discussion about just what the CDC wants to know from the IOM, with the conclusion being that the CDC primarily wants to know if there really is a causative link (ie doesn’t want to “whitewash” anything).

Dr. Stratton

I think there are two things we absolutely have to do and there is no doubt about it. We have to give them your best judgment of the causality assessment.

Exactly how you define that… you can decide.

This committee has to make a causality assessment. That is clear, and they have to recommend action, inaction, you know, how much action in some sense.

How you get from one to the other is your judgment. They have made suggestions for the things that you might want to consider. But we must give them a causality assessment.

Dr. Goodman:

… when you say action, how are you defining action? How far down the line are you defining actions?

(Snip)

Dr. Stratton:

We said this before you got here, and I think we said this yesterday. The point of no return, the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine, change the schedule.

We could say it is time to revisit this, but we would never recommend that level. Even recommending research is recommendations for policy.

We wouldn't say compensate, we wouldn't say pull the vaccine, we wouldn't say stop the program.

It really is very clear from the above that nothing is being buried. In fact, the key piece of information the CDC wants is, is there a causative relationship?  Stratton is saying that they must say if the vaccine is dangerous – they must “make a causality assessment”. But Stratton is saying this committee draws the line at policy – whether or not the vaccine must be pulled. And this is confirmed by an earlier quote (that Kennedy ignored), from page 16:

Ms. Davis: So our recommendations can then influence public policy, but we will not be specifically recommending that they follow them.

Dr. Stratton: Right. When CDC and I talked about sort of how far we would go, and the president of the IOM and I spoke about the project, it is clear that it is not the purview of this committee

(Snip)

We would never say that something should be covered, something should be pulled, some schedule should be changed, but just suggest the evidence is sufficient that they themselves take a look at it.

“Suggest the evidence is sufficient” – hardly a group who had “already made up their mind BEFORE the study started that they would find no link”. Anyone who concentrates on “the line we will not cross in public policy is pull the vaccine” and ignores “they must say if the vaccine is dangerous “is just not reading the transcript with an honest desire to ascertain the intent of the committee.

Page 97 Dr. McCormick

What I am trying to get at is, do we want to simply, on our gut, say looking at the significance of the wild disease that you are protecting, and the seriousness and potential association with the vaccine - because we are not ever going to come down that it is a true side effect - is that going to be sufficient for you to judge public health impact?

This quote comes in the middle of a long discussion about risks of disease verses possible risks of vaccines, and severity of symptoms, and how you would grade such things. It’s hard to be sure exactly what McCormick  means, but I think she is saying that it is unlikely they will be able to prove a causative link with 100% certainty.  Then she says, remembering that the disease and autism are both serious conditions, would being less than 100% sure of a link be sufficient to make a public health judgment. In other words, she is not whitewashing a potential bad outcome; she is suggesting that a less than 100% certainty of a link could still be reported as a bad outcome: the opposite of what the conspiracy believers want to think. I’ve read this section about 20 times now and that’s the only explanation that makes sense. None of the other discussion even hints that a decision has been made by the committee; in fact, they are discussing how to quantify their results. It’s probably just a bit of careless language (in a meeting lasting a whole day, remember – did you ever have a bunch of conspiracy nuts with preconceived beliefs analyzing your every word for a whole day?), and in any case, even if I am wrong, taking this one quote out of 199 pages and suggesting it means the decision had already been made, is frankly absurd.

The rest of the transcript shows a group of people discussing: how to do the studies; how to prioritize; who would be the best people to get involved; how to educate the public about the outcome; how to define association v. causality; the difficulty of diagnosing autism; how to evaluate data. Nothing on how to “whitewash” anything, as Kennedy alleges.

But that’ not it. In fact, I saved the best for last.

Walt Wants

I found the “Walt wants” quote. In the Salon article, Kennedy writes:

According to transcripts of the meeting, the committee's chief staffer, Kathleen Stratton, predicted that the IOM would conclude that the evidence was "inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation" between thimerosal and autism. That, she added, was the result "Walt wants" -- a reference to Dr. Walter Orenstein, director of the National Immunization Program for the CDC.

This is probably the most disgraceful piece of out-of-context quote mining of the whole sorry piece. The following is the actual quote from Dr. Stratton, starting on page 123, with the only actual words quoted by Kennedy in yellow highlighter as before, and my bold:

What Walt said to us, and I know they are worried about, I mean, he said to us, saying something is category two, which means what Mike is calling category four, vaccine safety called category two inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation.

What he said is, telling me that it is still a category two isn’t enough to tell me what to do.

(Snip)

What Walt has said is, just telling me it is here isn’t enough. That is where he started to call what he wants, what everybody wants in the vaccine safety field is, break this one out for me. I am just telling you that is what they say.

First, you may notice that “Walt wants” doesn’t appear at all – that is a manufactured quote.  For the sake of this discussion though, I'll accept "what he wants".  ("He" being Walt.)  More to the point, it is very clear from reading the whole thing that what Walt “wants” is to know if there is a causal relationship.  Sheesh - it's right there in the actual words actually used by Stratton: “inadequate to accept or reject a causal relation [...] isn't enough..”  Isn't enough!  "He wants the IOM to “tell [him] what to do”. So, very clearly, Walt is not dictating to the IOM what the conclusion should be, as Kennedy alleges. It is the exact opposite. Walt clearly “wants” the IOM to break it out so it is clear if the vaccine is dangerous or not. He says: “inadequate to accept or reject” "isn't enough."  He wants to know yes or no if it is dangerous or not.

Some In Context Quotes

Having said all that, now it’s time for some representative, not out of context quotes, that demonstrate the integrity of this committee:

Page 15 Dr. McCormick

…we could potentially come up with , there isn’t evidence for this one way or another, keep going full court press, or there is so much evidence to support this adverse reaction, pull the vaccine.

Page 73 Dr. Stratton

I think there are two things that we absolutely have to do and there is no doubt about it. We have to give them your best judgment of the causality assessment.

Page 83 Dr. Shaywitz

I wonder if we are just over-complicating the question that CDC is asking us. They really want to know – it is a complicated enough question for us scientifically.

They really want to know the causality of – they want to know about adverse effects.

Page 84 Dr. Kaback

…the real goal of this thing is to provide the public – not the CDC and not the congress, but the public – with a reasonable basis upon which to make decisions about immunization.

Hardly people covering anything up is it? Or, to paraphrase, read those quotes and tell me how I can possibly believe that the CDC wanted the IOM to whitewash a link and that the IOM had already made up their mind BEFORE the study started. Do tell.

OK, that’s it. Enough! The conspiracy believers have taken their best shot – and that was your best shot – and neither document quoted by Kennedy shows any conspiracy or cover-up. And frankly, taking a few out-of-context quotes from a 199 page transcript as proof of a conspiracy is pretty stupid anyway, but when the transcript reveals a group of honest scientists trying, with integrity, to grapple a difficult problem, it gets beyond stupid and is just thoroughly dishonest. It’s pathetic, frankly. If there really was a cover up, wouldn’t they have something better than this?

No more. Don’t bother throwing down a url linking to a huge .pdf with a couple of dodgy quotes in it and expecting me to read it. That’s over now.

Orac Thunders

Today Orac delivers another thundering rebuke to the Huffington Post and the rest of the thimerosal conspiracy believers. Interestingly, Orac compares the believers to creationists, a link that had occurred to me too. Orac notes their similar methods, for example challenging opponents to public “debates” (and writing popular books), instead of publishing in peer-reviewed science journals the way real scientists do.

And this really astonished me (although perhaps it shouldn’t have): Orac finds Kennedy in discussion with Scarborough continuing to lie about what transpired at the Simpsonwood conference:

There are scientists there from the government who are saying—who are reading the reports and saying, this is undeniable. There's no way we can ever deny this.  I am not going to give this to my children, but now let's hide this from the American people.  And it's that clear. 

And this is what I write about.  It's this language that I write about in the “Rolling Stone” and the “Salon” piece that is so shocking, where we have the guys who are supposed to be protecting Americans' health who are actually conspiring to keep this stuff in the vaccines. 

Kennedy is a liar. A liar. There can be no doubt about this now, no possibility that he just didn’t read the whole transcript. I can’t help but think if he had any real evidence he wouldn’t have to lie.

Thimerosal update

I thought I would link and summarize some other bloggers’ posts and other feedback on Robert F. Kennedy Junior’s ridiculous thimerosal scare piece that I commented on unfavorably last Monday.

My original thread attracted a lot of comment, and much of what follows here is relevant to those comments. For example, one commenter who (sometimes) refers to himself as “Critical Thinker” keeps referring to a paper entitled Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal that has been posted on Kennedy’s website. Apparently this is supposed to be evidence of the dangers of thimerosal, or of a cover up or something, certainly not a dishonest, inaccurate or sensationalist article like his Salon piece, oh no.

Autism Diva

Anyway, Autism Diva points out a rather interesting conclusion (via Michelle Dawson) from this paper. On page 40, Kennedy writes that American children received much higher doses of thimerosal than UK children, and especially, more in one day than UK children, with the conclusion that American children are at a much higher risk of autism than children from the UK (since thimerosal causes autism, you see). Okey dokey, keep that in mind and read on.

Ten pages later, Kennedy approvingly cites a paper by Marc Blaxill entitled, What's going on? The question of time trends in autism. Blaxill states that autism rates in the UK and the US rose by the same amounts, as these graphs show:

 

(Note: the graphs are easier to read at Autism Diva.)

The UK and the US both clearly underwent the same increase in autism at the same time, and both now have the 1 in 166 rate, despite the much lower thimerosal doses in the UK. Autism Diva summarizes:

Kennedy says that there's no comparison between the usage of thimerosal in the U.S. and the U.K., and if the Brits say they can't see thimerosal as a cause of autism it's because they have used so much less of it –

and Blaxill says that the increase of autism has been the same in the two countries.

(Snip)

The conclusion is: thimerosal usage has no effect on autism diagnosis rates.

That conclusion would seem to be entirely consistent with the data, although perhaps any critical thinker(s) reading could explain why this conclusion could be wrong.

(Of course, the conspiracy theorists in the UK blame autism on the MMR shot, since thimerosal is so low in the UK, but that’s another story.)

Majikthise

Moving on, I find that Majikthise has also read the full Simpsonwood transcript (I’m not the only one without a life, apparently). Like me, she concluded Kennedy had been dishonest about the meeting, or as she puts it:

Nothing said at Simpsonwood suggests an attempt to whitewash or cover up anything. The study got some interesting results, which later failed to withstand verification at the third HMO. Vaccine experts said some nasty things about anti-vaccine activists. That was about it.

She also makes some interesting comments on the actual data they were examining, and explains why no firm conclusions could be drawn:

Of course, there are confounds upon confounds. Care-seeking may be related to socioeconomic status, socioeconomic status to maternal mercury intake and breast feeding, and therefore to prenatal and postnatal mercury exposure, and so on. You can generate any number of alternative scenarios.

It is difficult to interpret the Simpsonwood data because the diagnoses of interest are so fuzzy. The study is trying to capture small differences in the relative risk for relatively rare conditions. As we learned from the recent JAMA obesity study, if you're studying a relatively rare phenomenon, like death at age forty (or infantile autism), small numerical differences between groups translate into huge increases in relative risk. Under these circumstances, it's especially important to be mindful of confounds that could account for small differences between the groups, e.g. local variation in diagnosis rates and diagnostic criteria in the case of relatively subtle and fluid diagnoses like "speech delay" or "attention deficit disorder."

As one of the pediatric neurologists at Simpsonwood pointed out, most of the kids in the study were too young to be diagnosed as speech delayed or attention deficit disordered with any degree of rigor. There's just too much overlap between the "normal" and the "pathological" curves at that age. Of course, once someone gets diagnosed with something, it's pretty rare for them to get undiagnosed, especially in the eyes of an administrative database. So, it's unclear how many kids with early diagnoses actually had a pathological problem to begin with.

All in all a very good write-up – worth reading the whole thing.

The Institute of Medicine

You’ll recall Kennedy accused the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of being part of the cover up. There were also some (un-sourced) IOM quotes that I had questioned. The IOM’s President replies:

Mr. Kennedy sought to buttress his misrepresentation of the purpose of the IOM studies by selectively using and fabricating quotations from the transcript of an organizational meeting held by the committee. He took words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes.

Hum, taking words and phrases out of context, combined them and misrepresented them as direct quotes – yep that sounds like Kennedy. The IOM president goes on to defend the IOM’s integrity, especially with reference to its studies being peer reviewed, unlike the work of many of the thimerosal activists:

Mr. Kennedy's piece does not mention that the IOM's studies on vaccines and autism -- like all IOM studies -- were peer reviewed (the equivalent of fact checking in the scientific community) by a group of outside experts before being approved for publication. The IOM, a branch of the National Academies, also follows stringent policies for reviewing the potential conflicts of interest or biases of individuals who are chosen to serve on its study committees. The members selected for the committee that reviewed vaccine safety issues had no links to the CDC, vaccine manufacturers, vaccine-related litigation or advocacy groups, and they had received no recent funding from the sponsors of the study. They received no remuneration for their work on the committee. The reputation of the National Academies for objectivity, integrity, independence and competence has been earned through numerous studies, and it is one of our most important assets.

Salon allowed Kennedy to reply. Amusingly, Kennedy pouts that the IOM President “offers no evidence of "fabricated" quotes”, as if Kennedy is all about evidence now. Of course, if Kennedy could offer evidence (with cites) of the original quotes (in context) and evidence of the “paid cover-up” that he so scandalously alleged, I might concede that the IOM President should back up his claim; but as I see it, Kennedy is the one unable to back up his claims, not the IOM President. Kennedy continues with more of the “conflict of interest” ad Hominem fallacious reasoning Orac and I have debunked before.

Michael Fumento

Finally, Michael Fumento writes in the Wall Street Journal online:

…Mr. Kennedy isn't to be relied upon for facts. He told Mr. Scarborough in a June 21 interview: "We are injecting our children with 400 times the amount of mercury that FDA or EPA considers safe." Yet four days earlier this correction to his piece appeared: "The article also misstated the level of [mercury that infants have received]." It was "40 percent, not 187 times, greater than the EPA's limit for daily exposure to methyl mercury." Mr. Kennedy not only ignored this correction on Mr. Scarborough's show; he overstated it even further.

(My bold.)

Kennedy being loose with the facts. Wow! And Fumento comments on how Kennedy relies on people who will agree with him, rather than on people with expertise who don’t:

…Mr. Kennedy quotes from vaccine conspirators like Boyd Haley, "one of the world's authorities on mercury toxicity." Actually, Mr. Haley has co-authored, since 1993, a total of five mercury-related publications listed on the medical data base Medline--not exactly what you'd expect from a world authority. By contrast, Frank DeStefano, an epidemiologist at the CDC who does not believe that vaccines cause autism, has co-authored 49 vaccine papers.

Finally, Fumento debunks the conspiracy to hide the data:

Mr. Kennedy had claimed that "to thwart the Freedom of Information Act," the government "handed its giant database of vaccine records over to a private company, declaring it off-limits to researchers." But this practice, Dr. DeStefano noted, was required by federal regulations to protect the privacy of autistic children and their parents. It still allowed access by external researchers but not to any Joe Blow with a FOIA application.

Nicely put.

Edited to add:

See the pretty good article in yesterday's New York Times which included this quote from David Kirby, the author of "Evidence of Harm" that premotes the link between thimerosal and autism:

Because autism is usually diagnosed sometime between a child's third and fourth birthdays and thimerosal was largely removed from childhood vaccines in 2001, the incidence of autism should fall this year

Yes it should, David, if you are right.