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The statistic of 1 in 60 is for ALL children, vaccinated or not. A study done on 95,000 children, 15,000 of which were not vaccinated shows no link. There were actually more in the non-vaccinated group, but theorized that is due to parents who notice signs of autism before vaccination begins and then delay vaccinations due to fear that vaccines cause autism.

https://www.autismspeaks.org/s...

https://www.autismspeaks.org/w...

    limited or inappropriate social interactions
    "robotic" or repetitive speech
    challenges with nonverbal communication (gestures, facial expression, etc.) coupled with average to above average verbal skills
tendency to discuss self rather than others
    inability to understand social/emotional issues or nonliteral phrases
    lack of eye contact or reciprocal conversation
obsession with specific, often unusual, topics
one-sided conversations
    awkward movements and/or mannerisms

BTW WHO THE HELL IS LETTING THIS CLUMSY FAT ASSHOLE POST SO MUCH!??

You are wrong. There are studies that compare vaccines (modified virus proteins plus adjuvants) against adjuvants.

No, you are changing the subject. My point is in no way wrong. There are many studies that compare vaccinated vs. unvaccinated. Placebo controls are not necessary in these studies for purposes of uncovering safety concerns--in fact, I wish there were more placebo controls in these studies because it would make vaccines look even safer than they are.

This is not a true comparison, because if the were negative side effects from vaccines, they could have been caused by the adjuvants

The vast majority of studies in this area (including but not limited to epidemiology studies) examine un-vaccinated individuals as well. Unvaccinated individuals are just as good as placebo-injected individuals for discovering safety concerns--in fact, you will routinely get plenty of false safety concerns if you don't include a placebo group.

You are arguing against your own cause.

A proper control would then be vaccines controlled against for instance distilled water, that's why I put emphasize on (true) placebo controlled studies.

Distilled water should never be injected into the bloodsteam, you scientifically illiterate jackass.

I see you're still spreading this lie. A lack of placebo controls cannot be argued to imply that there are lingering safety concerns, period.

Placebo controls do not reveal hidden safety concerns. It is literally impossible for placebos to do what you are claiming. There have been large trials on safety and they are more than sufficient. Your babbling about double-blind "gold standards" demonstrates a profound ignorance of how medical studies actually work and what the purpose of placebo controls are. Adding a placebo control would either do nothing or make vaccines appear even safer, depending on what is being measured and how.

> Why is this on Slashdot...!?

Because a lot of people on the spectrum have an obsession with trains.

.. And this seems to be news every few months.

I think the stories from parents come not from the vaccines doing actual harm but from the fact that coincidentally the age when symptoms of autism presents itself is the same as when the vaccines are scheduled to be administered.

Other factors that adds to parents concerns are the rate of autism being diagnosed appears to be rising exponentially based on the graph presented by AutismSpeaks: The rate for 1985 was 1 in 2500, the rate in 1995 was 1 in 500, and the rate for 2009 was 1 in 110. If you looked at the text rather than the very prevalent graph you would have read that the criteria for positive diagnosis of autism has changed and public awareness increased significantly during the time period graphed which can make the graph a little misleading.

AutismSpeaks also gave another possible reason for the increase over the years being attributed to the increase of the average parental age. Several research papers have demonstrated a link between autism and parental age and have concluded that the chances for a child being born with autism increases with parental age.

(Source: AutismSpeaks)

Could boys perhaps be more susceptible to vitamin D deficiency and mitochondrial dysfunction? http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/neurological-conditions/autism/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/autism-research-discovery_b_794967.html

One of the reasons we homeschool/unschool is that school especially these days push intense academics on all kids way too early, and boys especially suffer for that. Echoing your point, at least one study I've heard of shows that the focus on early academics is depriving children of the early experiences they need in nature and with water and sandboxes that kids need to later have an intuition about scientific and engineering things (so that they know what the symbols for mass, force, volume, rates of change, and so on actually physically represent).
http://www.ci.pleasanton.ca.us/services/recreation/gb/gb-playessentials.html
http://www.chrismercogliano.com/childhood.htm
http://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/
http://susanlemons.wordpress.com/category/early-academics/

And then the schools push parents to drug the non-compliant children...
http://www.thewaronkids.com/

Almost any school is filled with large numbers of well-meaning good-hearted hard-working adults who really care about children. The problem is they and the children are trapped in "an abstraction that has escaped its handlers":
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/16a.htm
http://www.the-open-boat.com/Gatto.html

Here is a psychologist saying the only reason affluent kids do better on math is that their parents teach it to them since most schools are terrible at teaching it:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201003/when-less-is-more-the-case-teaching-less-math-in-schools

The iPad has a lot of math-learning games for it that your son might like. We just got several for our kid. Here is one:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/motion-math-wings/id508228412?mt=8

See also:
http://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-apps
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/14/tech/gaming-gadgets/ipad-autism/index.html
http://www.squidoo.com/ipad-for-autism

The directness of the interface is probably a big win for that situation.

There are lots of interactive online resources for learning math of course, and PC simulation environments like "Scratch", and lots of other such tools you can use together with your kid (like geometry related ones).

Just watch out from becoming even more vitamin D deficient by being even more inside using fascinating computing gadgets. A focus on early academics instead of outdoor play also harms kids in that sense. My speculation about that:
http://p2pfoundation.net/backups/p2p_research-archives/2009-October/005083.html

See also the writings of John Holt and Seymour Papert on math education, including Papert's idea that to learn any foreign language, whether French or Math, it is best to be im

They think differently, no matter how much BS the Greens and Liberals tell you - people in the 3rd world do NOT think or act like YOU.

All homo-sapiens brains work in the same way.

That is just plain wrong.

3) If the test does reliably predict autism, how practical is it to put it into use? I can't imagine it would make much sense to do it to every 6-month-old--the cost would be prohibitive, particularly since it's a relatively small percentage of the population which are autistic. Would this become something that is only used for children who have a high risk of developing autism?
 

Unless or Until there is a early intervention/prevention treatment, finding these children early seems expensive and not that helpful.

AutismSpeaks is big on therapy but statistical evaluation of success seems pretty spotty at best, since no two kids are the same, and none of these seem appropriate for autism at 6 months to 1-year, which scans might detect.

Since normal detection typically occurs at 2 years, therapy has at best 12 to 18 months additional time to "work" if scans are performed. But all the therapy in use today was developed for 2 years and up.

The best hope the scans seem to provide is more data for those studying Autism. Not likely to help the patient much.

Please. Rosen is acting as a proxy for Google et al who can't be seen going up against this for PR reasons.

I am not saying in its present form it's workable, but the idea that somehow the right to be forgotten is at odds with free speech is total bullshit.

At least it will create a set of significant disincentives to people who want to come forward with this material, who can expect to be prosecuted for doing so, and that's a good thing.

Why are these two rights even being compared when the more obvious comparison is between the right to be forgotten and the threat of being blackmailed, manipulated , artificially limited and determined by your youthful mistakes and bad judgement before your brain had even finished maturing?

I know that Slashdot is filled with techie types and programmers and a supernormal number of those are people who have varying degrees of Asperger's Syndrome and therefore will voice comments like "meh. They made their bed. Let them lie in it". The whole POINT of the EU decision is to prevent that type of attitude from doing the damage it would do. Such "tough luck" attitudes represent nothing but an abysmal lack of insight into human character and the calculus of human relations.

Never before in human history have people been unable to walk away from truly youthful indiscretions. The consequences of this are far reaching and it's a brilliant insight on the part of the EU to recognize the potential for destructive and malignant power plays and the potential for people who would otherwise make real, vital contributions to society to exclude themselves from the public scrutiny that accomplishment would necessarily bring if a woman thought that the picture of the . of herself with the banana would inevitably surface one day.

This is something completely new- a forever memory machine focused in on you from the time of your birth, relentlessly taking pictures recording thoughts and documenting events. No creative person can survive that unscathed.

Now please, let the "fuck them, tough luck" commenters take the floor. ... but before they do, please, give generously:

http://www.autismspeaks.org/

At the time, it appeared that getting autism from the vaccine was a higher probability than getting the disease itself. For most of these diseases, Autism is more life altering the actual disease (assuming access to first world health care, which I have).

Autism is a spectrum disorder that is almost certainly genetically inherited. What you've actually done was to endanger your child because it's far more likely that an vaccine preventable illness would cause a fever sufficient to cause brain damage than it would for an immunization to have a similar adverse reaction. Many people and organizations have a vested interest in scare-mongering on this and other topics for example

, Autism Speaks has grown into the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization, dedicated to funding research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a cure for autism Autism Speaks History

yet when you look at their IRS Forms 990 for 2008 you see things like
Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits $17,756,876.
Total fundraising expenses $14,178,307 = 31,935,183 ;
Contributions and grants 65,826,629. ; 31,935,183/ 65,826,629 = 48 % of their revenues goes into salaries and fundraising! The only way you can pull those kind of number is to portray Autism in it's most devastating forms.

At the time, it appeared that getting autism from the vaccine was a higher probability than getting the disease itself. For most of these diseases, Autism is more life altering the actual disease (assuming access to first world health care, which I have).

Autism is a spectrum disorder that is almost certainly genetically inherited. What you've actually done was to endanger your child because it's far more likely that an vaccine preventable illness would cause a fever sufficient to cause brain damage than it would for an immunization to have a similar adverse reaction. Many people and organizations have a vested interest in scare-mongering on this and other topics for example

, Autism Speaks has grown into the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization, dedicated to funding research into the causes, prevention, treatments and a cure for autism Autism Speaks History

yet when you look at their IRS Forms 990 for 2008 you see things like
Salaries, other compensation, employee benefits $17,756,876.
Total fundraising expenses $14,178,307 = 31,935,183 ;
Contributions and grants 65,826,629. ; 31,935,183/ 65,826,629 = 48 % of their revenues goes into salaries and fundraising! The only way you can pull those kind of number is to portray Autism in it's most devastating forms.

Today's belated visit shows an increase over their previously published statistic.

Having studied the autistic spectrum to some degree, this provides hope for only a few of the range of autistic symptoms. To learn more, check out Autism Speaks.