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Thimerosal Does Not Cause Autism
jamie found an article over at Washington Monthly discussing the recent finding that there is no link between thimerosal and autism. It seems that after the mercury-based vaccine preservative was withdrawn from use in 1999, no drop in autism rates has been observed in a large California study. Here's the Science Daily writeup on the study, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
That chemical preservative isn't used anymore because of Autism fears...
Because of that our vaccines are significantly les stable and have shorter shelf lives!
And this news comes just minutes after I bought a case of Anti-thimerosal cream!
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. But light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Given that the folks shrieking the loudest about the thimerosal-autism 'link' (as if a single study that's since been discredited many, many times can be called a 'link') tend to be parents of autistic children who also tend to go in for bogus new-age nonsense like 'chelation' and 'collodial silver' treatments, I don't think the whole nonsense is quite over yet. It's definitely a nice step in the right direction, but no amount of proof will really convince conspiracy theorists that their pet paranoia is without merit--they merely will claim that the 'truth' is being 'covered up' by the Big Pharmaceutical companies, and that the government is out to poison your children with the evil vaccinations that 'confuse your immune system' leaving you 'open to illness.' Most of them would benefit from a good solid course in basic logic (to overturn the fallacies they base their 'theories' on) and in basic biology and chemistry. The best we can hope for, I suppose, is that they'll select themselves out of the gene pool by applying nonsensical and hazardous treatments to themselves and their offspring.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
While it may very well claim 1999, that was when it ceased being PRODUCED. They still used the old stock and THAT wasn't cleared until at least 2001. Also the flu shot contains mercury, and is administered to pregnant women now.
Thimerasol has NOT been ruled out in causing individual cases of autism. Just that it is not the SOLE cause of autism. It's still a documented fact that US infants exposure to thimerosal increased starting around 1990, and that correlates with a huge spike in autism rates.
It doesn't say thimerosal is safe, the study just shows it's not the ONLY cause of the tenfold increase in the rates of autism.
No it wasn't. It was the consensus of fear mongering anti-vacationists.
It was a weak Hypothesis that has hurt the health of this nation by taking it serious.
I don't think in most cases it's about money. As a parent, there's a very low-level part of the brain that has a real need to defend one's child, and that means identifying threats to them and protecting them. When something goes wrong, there's a huge emotional drive to figure out what caused it, and to protect any other children from that threat. I'm sure there are a few folks who are in it for the money, but I think most of them just feel a need to figure out what caused harm to their child. Have a little compassion, these folks are having to deal with enormous life changes for both their child and themselves.
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Why would someone hate vacations?
"fear mongering anti-vacationists."
Yeah, we have a bunch of those here at work. I'm still taking my alloted time off.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
"Anti-vacationists" huh? Luckily they should be completely burnt out in a couple years... Incidentally, I'm not sure I see how this does anything to "hurt the health of this nation"...
After all, other countries have eliminated or dramatically reduced mercury in vaccines with zero effect on autism rates, and the mercury fanatics never batted an eye. Nor are they troubled by the fact that the neurological effects of actual mercury poisoning don't resemble autism.
It's a bit like homeopathy in reverse. Many of these guys have a superstitious fear of "toxins," and no matter how low the level might be, they will be convinced that it is poisoning their kids.
Of course, the real problem is that the age at which autism symptoms develop is about the same as the age when kids normally get their shots. A reasoned explanation of the difference between correlation and causality is often beyond the grasp of parents who are desperate for an explanation, or better yet, somebody to blame.
Through spreading fear, life-protecting resource was made unavailable, as result putting human lives at risk.
Doesn't the act meet definition of terrorism by a chance?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The link between thimerosal and autism has already been pretty thoroughly disproven. (Link to a blog rather than the paper because 1) it's a good summary and 2) I'm not sure whether the link is freely readable.) Whatever merit this hypothesis had in the past, any future work on it that "activists" manage to force clearly comes at the expense of projects that might be genuinely useful.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The people who really believe this have already reacted to the study and shifted their rhetoric to blaming some unknown factor in the vaccine. Because this issue is very personal to them, and they've invested a lot of personal energy in blaming the doctors/scientists, they won't let it go at this. Sadly, this diverts attention from actually doing reseach into real autism causes without some conspiracy-theory group breathing down your neck.
A fascinating theory, but one as yet unsupported by data, and indeed, contrary to the data.
Even if it were just "triggering" autism, the removal of thimerosal would, eventually, result in a change of the frequency of observed autism. It doesn't.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Except that study after study has now demonstrated that it does no such thing.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Currently, pediatricians are calling for autism screening to be standardized and performed at 18 and 24 months of age. However, there is no current standard for testing or for the age to test.
Taking screening at 24 months (autism can take up to 19 months or so before it becomes evident), that means the test is using 6 years of data -- 6 years during which the testing times for screening autism have changed and the tests themselves have changed. This means that a lot of children who would not have been flagged as having autistic tendencies prior to 2001 (when the test results would have begun being relevant) are now found. Added to this, in 2001 I believe the age for testing was closer to 3 years, which means the data is not as useful there either.
Based on the above, we should be finding that the number of reported infant cases has increased over the past 9 years -- the fact that it hasn't seems to me to point to a drop in actual cases of autism.
In another 5 years we will probably have enough data to make a conclusive statement; right now the margin of error is still quite significant.
No, the scientists and physicians who claimed a link have been in a very small minority. Nice attempt to discredit the climate science by implication, though.
The anti-thimerisol movement has been driven largely by parents of autistic children looking for an explanation (I'm not unsympathetic, but that shouldn't affect the scientific method) and the anti-vaccination lobby, which is a mix of paranoiacs and people who can't see that a small number of vaccine-caused deaths is preferable to a larger number of disease-caused deaths.
There are actually legitimate health concerns related to the use of mercury as a preservative, but since they are not as dramatic or emotionally charged as the subject of autism, they seldom enter the discussion.
Furthermore, even in the case where scientific consensus MAY be wrong, it's most sensible for those not directly involved in research challenging the consensus to proceed as if it is correct, unless doing so were demonstrably damaging. For instance, it is pretty sensible to respond to climate change by increasing energy efficiency wherever possible. Worst case scenario is improved productivity, competitiveness, and profit. If, on the other hand, increased efficiency came at the cost of infecting every person with leprosy, then global warming denialists might have more of a point.
Is that like fluoride, but used in bread and cakes?
I do sympathize with these parents, profoundly. But the fact is that very few of them have the expertise or the knowledge to make valid judgments about this issue, and yet they continue to spread unsupported claims about vaccination as though they were facts. This is potentially harmful to others and should be curtailed, regardless of how noble or humane their motivations might be.
'no statistical correlation' != 'doesn't cause'
'statistical correlation' != 'causes'
I know enough people who have observed a direct correlation between their children being injected with mercury and an observable shift in behaviour to be concerned about injecting mercury into my children. I also know enough people who have observed a correlation between chelation and improvement in the child's intelligence, even in later years, to try chelation if I ever have an autistic child.
I know that some people, when they consume a high-protein diet, they feel sick. I feel weak and tired if I don't. I know people who are very sensitive to bleach. If I spend any time around paint fumes, I get very upset, light-headed, and sick, in contrast with everyone else I work with. A small percentage of people who do cocaine have an aneurysm in their nasal passage and they die. I'm sure you know people who've done cocaine. I do (know people).
So the point here, people, is that if you want to call bullshit on something because it doesn't happen that often, the WTC attacks never happened (only once in 16 billion years, or whatever). Condoms never break.
I know a child who was fine before the vaccines, and a retarded biter who cried all the time immediately after. Now, maybe he is not the norm. Maybe he's got a genetic mutation similar to sickle cell anemia (low benefit to most people, but prevails in some) that makes him very sensitive to mercury poisoning. And maybe, just maybe, he's not retarded, and he's living a very productive life just like the rest of us. But I wouldn't fucking count on it.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Actually, because Americans are drinking so much bottled water, Fluoride exposure has decreased (resulting in increased cavities), so you would expect autism to do so too if they were related.
No, infallibility is reserved for God and His religion. (Which one? Why all of them of course.)
LOL
these folks are having to deal with enormous life changes for both their child and themselves.
I'm a parent and we get all the recommended shots for our daughter. She hasn't reverted back to a stage where she knows every postal code for every hamlet in Canada or whether a number is prime by looking at it. There's more weight to the idea that excessive TV is causing problems rather than vaccines. Maybe parents who use the TV as a babysitter and end up with an autistic kid don't like seeing the blame in the mirror, it's easier to blame a shot from 6 months ago.
Trolling is a art,
Damn wasting all my mod points earlier today...this is by far the most intelligent response to the article...unfortunately, the /. crowd is hard pressed to read the articles that are linked here...there's no way the majority of them are going to go off and do actual research in *gasp* books
I sometimes work with autistic children.
IMHO There is a genetic component. Many things "cause" autism - Its never one cause for a particular individual case.
In Soviet Russia ^H^H^H America, The bank finances YOU!
Well since the "experts" don't know yet what is the cause they feel justified in trying to help. For a lot of them that is what they are trying to do is help. Now the people that are doing it to make money off these poor people are the lowest scum their is.
I do tend to put my faith in doctors and scientists. Maybe that is because I know a few of them.
The truth is that they know Mercury is dangerous, they know that it is being put into vaccines that there kids have taken, so logically it should be looked at. It has and it doesn't seem to be a problem now we need to look for other causes. Of course the people that wrote the books and sell the "treatments" will say it is all a lie too keep the money rolling in.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
"I do (know people)." - Sure, you're "friend" right? *wink*
"the WTC attacks never happened (only once in 16 billion years, or whatever)." - Twice actually...but who's counting
It's a commie plot to make us all autistic, I tells ya!
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
For sale: one sig space, gently used. Inquire for details.
That's for sure. My nephew is autistic, and I have met some of the other children who receive IBI therapy with him. I know that autism is a continuum and not a binary variable, but I think that calling some of those kids autistic is a bit of a stretch. Admittedly, I an no expert in such matters, and for all I know, the expanded diagnosis criteria is correct.
Still, I wonder if doctors aren't diagnosing some children with autism who would have been diagnosed as mentally disabled a few years ago. Either analysis would be very difficult for a parent to hear, but autism would be the least traumatic assessment.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Regardless of the Autisim link (which was thin at best) ethylmercury hasn't had the sort of widescale toxicity tests that bioaccumulating mercury compounds (e.g methylmercury) have had.
Until that point, I'm not big on the idea of injecting a solution containing a large amount of ethylmercury into my body. Most mercury compounds aren't really anything that anyone would want to inject.
It's no better to be irrationally pro-ethylmercury just because it's a good preservative...The reason the uninformed freak out so easily is because we leave ourselves open to this crap by not doing to full research.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
"One business-class ticket for the Crazy Train, please."
"Coming right up, sir. Enjoy your trip."
I met an Autism specialist who works for the school districts here in NY. She had some very interesting things to say about the increased rates. She said Autism wasn't increasing, just more children are being labeled Autistic. This is because children labeled autistic get all kinds of extra aid from the government that children who are just deemed learning disabled or have psychological problems don't get. So parents with mentally disabled children are increasingly encouraged to have their child autistic. It made sense to me, instead of some bogey man vaccine.
I wouldn't necessarily assume that. There are so many things he could have been attempting to discredit - why do you assume climate change?
For instance, it is pretty sensible to respond to climate change by increasing energy efficiency wherever possible. Worst case scenario is improved productivity, competitiveness, and profit.You need to explain what you mean by "increasing energy efficiency" then. If we are talking about product design, then increasing energy efficiency could very well mean LESS productivity, competitiveness, and profit. If you are talking about lifestyle changes, well, bicycling to work rather than driving would definitely decrease my productivity, and moving closer to work would decrease my profit.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Curiously though I think there is a distinct lack of studies that show how the use of multiple vaccines at earlier ages affect autism. Given that a child's immune system is at best only partially developed before the age of six months, it's somewhat irritating to me that doctors regularly inject 7 vaccines at a time into children as young as 1 month of age. My own son developed infantile spasms (a degenerative seizure disorder) a week after his 3 month checkup where he was inject with the MMR, DtAP, and Varicella vaccines (MMR and DtAP each are combinations of 3 vaccines, giving him 7 total).
Anecdotally, of the 6 children in my son's special education kindergarten class, 3 of the children developed seizure disorders within a week of similar vaccinations, one of which was administered at one week of age. Most countries wait until at least 6 months of age before beginning the injections of MMR and DtAP vaccines.
Personally I think that thimerisol is a red herring distracting folks from considering any contributing factors of age and volume of vaccines administered. I think we'd do well to compare current vaccinations correlation to autism versus a program that staggers vaccinations with individual vaccines starting at 6 months of age to see how much that contributes to the rate of autism.
Unbreakable toys can be used to break other toys.
Hear hear!
The parents are often desperate and deluded, but I've more often than that seen cases in which unscrupulous "therapists" tout various types of undocumented snake oil in order to capitalize on that desperation. I've seen parents that will try all kinds of chelation, crazy diets, sensory therapy, etc. to no avail--and the lack of results often doesn't diminish their determination in trying these wacky treatments. They are fighting as hard as possible to help their kids and others are capitalizing on it.
The only thing that I've seen to be effective is the relatively straightforward, but also very difficult to consistently implement practice of ABA. It's not sexy and it's not a magic bullet, but I've seen it used to teach autistic spectrum kids to do everything from shoe tying to reading and participating in a classroom.
u-bend
I have no idea why these earlier tests aren't being used (looking for rapid excessive head growth, lack of eye contact, etc) - especially since they don't require fancy equipment or major investments.
I find the head growth particularly fascinating (here's a link to the abstract)
http://jcn.sagepub.com/cgi/content/short/22/10/1182
As the incidence of autism spectrum disorder diagnosis has increased so too has the incidence of mental retardation diagnosis decreased. Essentially children who would have formerly been diagnosed as mentally retarded are now being diagnosed as autistic. That or we've all but cured mental retardation. Yay science!
We willna be fooled again!
Honestly, will you put your son or daughter on the altar of science to prove a theory? Could you live with yourself if you were wrong?
I'm a recent parent who insisted on a thiemerasol-free vaccine for my child. Note that I'm not against vaccines -- I just asked for the one without the mercury. They're available and didn't cost anything extra.
Why? Because if there was even a 1/1000th of a percent of a chance that it could cause irreparable harm I wasn't going to take the risk. I don't put much stock in anecdotal data, but if I have the option I'll choose to be sure. I'm sure science will someday discover the true cause of this terrible disease, but until they know for sure then I'll make the choice that doesn't give me any doubts.
I know I can't protect my child 100% of the time, but this was an easy choice. Even in light of this report, I'll still insist against the mercury-based preservative. Not because I distrust science, but because it's one less risk to take.
Good thing my local water source tastes like camel spit and you could build pyramids out of the junk it leaves on your dishes, or else they'd be poisoning me with their fluoride.
Most likely, there are a number of things that are causing a rise in the rate of children diagnosed with autism. What makes the anti-thimerosal camp so certain that it can be pinned down on any one thing?
Here are my top five "better suggestions":
5) Increased genetic susceptibility among the human race as a whole.
4) Increased awareness of autism spectrum disorders.
3) Better diagnostic methods.
2) Relaxed criteria for positive diagnosis.
And my #1 favorite:
1) Any of a number of synthetic chemicals children might be exposed to in increasing amounts today, rather than decreasing amounts like thimerosal.
It could be any combination of any, all, or none of the above. Chances are it's more than just one thing and, as this study suggests, thimerosal does not appear to be one of them.
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
It's a popular topic, and his signature line is: "Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!"
http://outcampaign.org/
"The only thing that I've seen to be effective is the relatively straightforward"
Currently. The thing is that there must be a cause. Probably a physical cause of some kind. Viral, chemical, or genetic. Probably a combination of genetic and some trigger. Once we know that we may come up with better treatments. Looking for the cause is a good thing, reacting out of fear and panic is a bad thing.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The rate of deadly infectious diseases is far below the rate of autism. That's plenty of reason to make "radical" choices. A child can be vaccinated later if circumstances change, and the likelihood of the child developing autism goes down drastically with age. But a child's brain is very delicate in the first 4 years. I may get my children vaccinated at age 8.
And yes, I don't think that vaccinations are likely to be the greatest factor. The fluorination of city water supplies is something I consider an even greater factor.
As much as researchers, well-intentioned doctors, pushy friends and neighbors and jackass strangers try to tell me I have nothing to fear from vaccinations and that I'm killing my children by refusing to vaccinate them, I'm going to make my own decisions. Life doesn't happen in a vacuum, or a in test-tube. A parent's instincts may not always be right, but as long as this is still a free country (I expect at least another year or so), these are my choices and no one else's to make. Sadly, this diverts attention from actually doing reseach into real autism causes without some conspiracy-theory group breathing down your neck. I doubt we'd even be having this research without this "conspiracy-theory group". Last time I tried to find information about it, I couldn't find any exhaustive studies on the relationship between autism and vaccinations.
Is that the active ingredient in flour?
The term you're looking for is "power". Obviously the study didn't have 100% power, and some tiny effect might have gone undetected. As the authors say (I don't know why you're demanding "references" so angrily, as if the link here didn't contain a thorough summary and more than enough information to find the original article) what can be excluded is that thimerosal had any major effect.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I bet if you read the studies, they will state their accuracy.
Correlation is, roughly, necessary but not sufficient for causation. Two variables that are statistically correlated are correlated, but they may not have a causal relationship. Two variables that have a causal relationship will be correlated. Two variables that are uncorrelated have no causal relationship.
Correlation is the clouds and causation is the rain, if you will.
The rest of the ggp is all anecdotal, which is not the same as correlation. (Also, nobody's children are injected with mercury. It's a substance containing mercury. A blood transfusion is not an injection of iron.) As autism has an onset (meaning children are fine beforehand) that is around the same time as many vaccinations, observing the onset of autism after vaccinations is hardly surprising.
They'll be much less likely to get hepatitis or tetanus?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream!
Despite what EULAs say, most software is sold, not licensed.
"Looking for the cause is a good thing, reacting out of fear and panic is a bad thing."
And this is EXACTLY what any parent championing against thimerosal is doing. This is hardly the first study to have found no connection between vaccination and autism: there were several large European studies, and the U.S. Institute of Medicine conducted a massive meta-analysis, none of which found any support for the hypothesis. And yet these online communities continue to thrive and beat the drum, and although some of that is certainly fed by the snake oil merchants, much of it is from scared, ignorant parents. This new study is unlikely to persuade them, so they'll go on promoting their erroneous message and potentially doing more damage, either by scaring people off vaccinations, or by distracting people from other directions of study. And the sad thing is, in the end, the only thing they're likely to get for their efforts is the feeling that they 'made a difference.'
Measles? Mumps? Rubella? Polio?
Are these are 'upsides' or 'downsides' to you?
Assuming you don't vaccinate and (s)he has autism anyway. What then?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If I do vaccinate, where's the upside?
They won't die or be crippled for life from a preventable infectious disease. Good enough?
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
You say they don't have the expertise or the knowledge, but I think what they don't have is a solid, scientific explanation for the things they see happening before their eyes. As I read on a different Slashdot post earlier today, the plural of anecdote is not data, but you may be surprised to know how many parents witness seizures in their children the same day they have a vaccination, and then over time the autism sets in. Jenny McCarthy was on Oprah a few months back discussing this same thing, and from what my mother tells me, the discussion boards on Oprah's site got a lot of posts from people detailing the same scenario I mentioned above. That's exactly what happened to my little sister.
Now I'm not saying that vaccinations should be stopped. I give them to my own kids. But I do believe that people are really seeing things happen, and just because those people are mostly soccer moms, they don't always get taken seriously. They end up making a lot of noise because that's the only way anyone will listen to them. Most of us here on Slashdot don't hear a lot of first-hand accounts of these things, because we read Slashdot instead of Oprah.com. The thing about Slashdot, is we tend to be very opinionated, and whenever a touchy subject comes up, be it politics, religion or whatever, you see a lot of people stating their opinions as absolute fact, even when they have no experience in the subjects at hand. To have any real discussion and make any kind of progress, we have to be able to at least listen to someone else's point of view, and acknowledge that they have a reason to feel how they feel, without prejudging them as crazy or paranoid. If Slashdotters expect the world to listen to them, then they have to be willing to listen, too.
I would also like to say that even though I do believe that there is some type of link between vaccinations and autism, I don't think it's a case of "chemical XYZ causes autism"... rather, I think it's a very complex interaction of environment, genetics, and maybe an immune system reaction to something that may be very loosely related to the vaccines. I don't think we're going to figure it out with any single study, and I don't think we can prove or disprove any individual theories without years of study. I think vaccinations are important, and we should be giving them to our children. I don't know that I agree with all of the vaccinations kids get these days (have you seen what the schedule looks like now?), and I don't think it's such a great idea to dump a whole bunch of vaccinations into a single shot or give several shots in one day, especially if the child is in any way sick. But I do think that vaccinations are important and absolutely necessary.
I do understand. My sister has an autistic son as does my wife's brother. They level of autism is vastly different as are the distances. I hate to use the word ignorance because frankly I am pretty ignorant when it comes to biology. I would but my knowledge at about the same level as a good first year college student but not any higher. I would say it is more fear, panic, and guilt. If it is genetic then it is one or both of the parents faults "in their mind". If it is something in the environment then it is their fault for not protecting their child "in there mind". If it is a vaccination that they where told was safe because some company put in a harmful chemical then it really isn't their fault. Guilt is a terrible motivator but a very human one. Unless your involved with an autistic child I doubt you can understand just what is like. I agree with everybody when they say that vacinations are not the cause. What I am simply saying is that judging these people without a big dose of compassion, understanding, and maybe just a bit of empathy isn't helpful.
What the worlds needs now is empathy and more understanding. But that is just my opinion.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Doesn't matter.
If a major source of the "trigger" goes away, and the incidence rate doesn't drop noticably, the trigger wasn't doing anything.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
How about, they don't get the diseases the vaccines are designed to prevent?
"Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself." -Richard Feynman
It is developing countries that suffer for it. In the developed countries, you have a much shorter time to market as well as refrigeration that takes care of most of this. OTH, the developing countries tend not to have refrigeration and their transportation takes a long time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If autism can indeed be "triggered" then I think that there's no avoiding this conclusion.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Increasing gas mileage and alternate energy
Voting machine fraud, WMD's, Kennedy, John Lennon, Ghandi, Tim Leary,
GM vs. Organic food. Smoking causing or not causing cancer, Marijuana
Tesla, Laithwaite, Hutchinson, Darwin, Galileo, Copernicus, Columbus
Perendev, Searl, Cold Fusion, The Earth Being round, String Theory, E8,Quantum Physics , Roswell
Jesus, Moses, Noah, The Ark of the covenant, the chalice, Troy, 12/12/2012, the holocaust, revelations. Everybody now! We didn't start the fire....
But I had NO issues with the vaccine having thiemerasol. WHy? Because there has been NOTHING credible about it in 10 years. In fact, 2 of the 3 scientist who wrote the ONLY real paper on it, now refute it. Were either of my children injected with it? I have no idea. There are FAR more important issues to worry about rather than something as ridiculous as that.
BTW, children can die by water, even in a bath. ANd that is fact, not just "alter" of science. I know. I have pulled them from the bottom of a lake. You going to keep your children out of the tub as well as not allow them to drink water?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
While I can agree that any research that gives us information is a good thing, I think that our research time might have been better spent elsewhere, since it appears to have confirmed what the experts have been saying all along. Would I welcome a study that shows that good oral hygiene doesn't lead to cancer? I suppose so. Would it be a good thing if a bunch of panicked lay people forced the medical research community to do it in lieu of useful research? Probably not.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Point missed in a very major way. We really need some better education standards, paticularly simple science that describes the difference between elements and compounds. What we are seeing here is the stupid alzheimer's disease vs aluminium debate dumbed down a notch and instead of misleading evidence (was contamination by a preservative in that case) we have no evidence.
As I read on a different Slashdot post earlier today, the plural of anecdote is not data, but you may be surprised to know how many parents witness seizures in their children the same day they have a vaccination, and then over time the autism sets in.
Here's another one: sample size cannot overcome sample bias. What you have is a very biased population coming together and drawing conclusions based on their size.
To have any real discussion and make any kind of progress, we have to be able to at least listen to someone else's point of view, and acknowledge that they have a reason to feel how they feel, without prejudging them as crazy or paranoid.
It has been fairly well documented that, in instances such as children coming down with something as devastating as autism, parent's memories tend to slowly morph until it fits a desired order and timing of events. An example could be parents who remember "he had a seizure the same day he got the vaccine" will in truth be that the seizure happened a week afterwards. The human mind is a very strange thing, and this is why we look for properly controlled randomized studies to increase our knowledge.
People, even well-intentioned intelligent people, are not reliable. This is why we do not accept anecdotes, even a lot of them, as data. My apologies to the soccer mom's who feel slighted because we do not accept their theory at their word, but we have a better way.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
You apparently fail to understand that the form of argumentation does not necessarily affect its truth value.
Perhaps your response would have been satisfactory and appropriate on a fallacy-identification exam in a college course on debate or formal logic. In a casual discussion on a social forum - actually, even in a formal debate this would be true - your response is inappropriate and nearly meaningless.
The fact that someone modded you up for posting a 300-word version of "bad form!" is ridiculous. This isn't class and you aren't the teacher. Grow up.
Not only is this statement true, but side from flu vaccines it is hard to find a vaccine with thiemerasol these days (which incidentally is the point of the article).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
As far as everything I've read that has any sort of referenced research in it, the "cause" is that many mild-retardation diagnoses have been moved into "Autism Spectrum Disorder" (which is oh-so-helpfully shortened to "Autism" for the general public and PSAs), and by healthcare professionals paying more attention to the symptoms ASD. Back when I was a kid, we called Aspergers kids "geeks", "nerds", and "dorks". Now they've got a form of Autism. Same with retarded/developmentally-delayed/WHATEVER kids who aren't "quite right", in ADDITION to the kids who have profoundly autistic behaviors.
Skeptic magazine and The Skeptical Inquirer have both, to my knowledge, run very good features on this.
"I believe," "I think," etc. are the reasons we have these stupid health scares. There are still idiots out there who believe that their digestive system can't process chewing gum (most of it doesn't get digested, but it goes through just fine when swallowed) or that people who don't get frequent enemas get sick because of toxic substances in their colons. Scientific evidence doesn't mean jack to the crowd getting their information from garbage-spewers/enablers (Oprah, Montel and their ilk; though even the big news broadcasts tended to be uncritical on the thimerosal issue), and the long-term effects of this irrational distrust of medical professionals can only be harmful.
This is the part that I can't figure out why people don't grasp. I mean, we *eliminated* Smallpox and Polio in the US by this very same method, so it obviously works. The methods and science are well understood. Do people who think there's no upside to immunization really not think it through far enough, or are they just amazingly stupid?
So far it's a toss-up, if you ask me.
I think that we need to look at the wisdom of the crowds. If the soccer moms say that they see something going on, then the scientists need to be quiet and listen. Often times, scientists are looking for 1 key ingredient, but the answer probably involves a complex combination of ingredients.
testing out my trending skills
'no statistical correlation' != 'doesn't cause'
'statistical correlation' != 'causes'
Correlation does not prove causation, however it is necessary condition for causation. If there is no correlation there is no causation.
Now you can argue the accuracy of the experiment involved and make a statement like "given the expected rate variability of sample size xyz we can place a 99% confidence interval on the causation being no higher than one case every 100 million vacinations" at which point it becomes far more sensible to spend your time and resources worrying about things far more likely to harm your child like riding in automobiles or getting E.coli in bad beef.
Because vacations lower productivity. Get back to work!
testing out my trending skills
Altered diagnosis from other categories is insufficient - to my recollection the per capita rate of autism now exceeds the TOTAL diagnosis rates from all even mildly similar categories.
Perhaps we're diagnosing a lot of kids who previously we only would have called 'weird' and never taken to a doctor...
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
"...you're clueless."
So are you (as are the neurologists for that matter).
All the article stated was that there is strong evidence to suggest that one often accused ingredient of many vaccines is not to blame for the rising rates of autism.
Said ingredient was eliminated, autism rates continue to rise.
This is not proof of anything, but an observation/supposition that should be validated (my opinion is that after reading the two articles this supposition probably will be.)
True words about the "I told you so crowd" I will note.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I agree, it's probably some combination of things.
I just can't believe that people are trying to justify injecting heavy metals know to cause brain problems into infants.
Then call me crazy when I point it out.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
If this were true, would not the article report *lower* rates of autism b/c the (or better yet, "a very common") trigger was removed?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Then you just don't get it. And did exactly what I was complaining about.
That this issue has turned into another who killed John F. Kennedy. There is the official story and the other versions that get ripped apart not by logical argument but by people who don't look at it and just respond with an almost religious fervor.
If you have seen the amount of flame that I have received just for speculation of vaccination as being a problem, you'd understand maybe.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
yes, I can.
Worrying doesn't get a damn thing done. It makes sense to not inject things into your children that you feel uncomfortable injecting into them. My parents ignored the medical advice they got when I was a child, and they didn't put me on Ritalin. Good for them, good for me.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
So you are saying it may "trigger" autism. But it never, ever triggered autism when used in vaccines -- that's why the incidence of autism remained the same after it was no longer used in vaccines.
That's some interesting logic you have there.
if you look at it closely, beside hearing the plane over your heard going swooooshhhhh, you`ll see they`ve been referring to people not wanting anyone to take vacations...
It's not a conspiracy theory if the theory isn't about a conspiracy.
In other words, software piracy is not software piracy if the tenants of piracy are not being observed in its execution.
And copyright infringement is not stealing.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Generally it's only for the old and health care workers.
..........FULL STOP.
Nobody here seems to be aware of where this rumour started. The doctor responsible, Wakefield, published an article with cooked results largely on the request of an ambulance-chasing law firm which was suing the drug companies, and for whom Wakefield was making a lucrative career as an expert witness. The motivation was greed, pure and simple. Wakefield's article got picked up by reporters in England and they made an hour documentary about it on TV, and all hell broke loose.
It quickly became obvious to other doctors and researchers that Wakefield cooked his results, but the media fear machine was already in high gear. Wakefield is finished as a doctor for his mind-boggling ethical breaches. The entire thing was a hoax, and yet look at all the people who actually think there is a link... to this day. There never was.
There are, however, hundreds of kids who are now paralyzed because their parents decided not to give them vaccinations. Many of these diseases can infect the spinal cord and damage it. Furthermore, the diseases have now made a comeback, and mutating, and may soon evolve into strains for which there are no vaccines. At that point, there will be thousands of kids dying or paralyzed as a result of the efforts of a lot of cranks who have no medical knowledge beyond "Mercury Bad!" Like people who wince and gag when a wiff of tobacco smoke drifts their way, thinking that a single atom will transform them instantly into a tumour, these idiots forget what even the ancient Greeks knew--that poisons become poisons by the dosage. Your body can handle low dosages of all kinds of toxic shit--it does so all the time.
The reason that autism is rising is that the number of systemetizers in the population, people like programmers, engineers, scientists--basically, nerds--is increasing, and certain job pools, and hobbies, draw nerds together. The biggest boon to nerd socializing was the internet. Now you actually have nerds marrying and having kids. Previously, being generally shy and often lacking social skills, nerds had a hard time finding each other. Autistics are extreme systemetizers. I'm quite certain that if I met and married a girl as nerdy as I am and we had four kids, at least one would be autistic. Look at the Wired article on Ausperger's Syndrome. And if you're a coder, look around at your co-workers. I'm sure you've met at least one textbook case of Auspergers in your career.
For instance, it is pretty sensible to respond to climate change by increasing energy efficiency wherever possible. Worst case scenario is improved productivity, competitiveness, and profit.
... think of the children!
Yeah, because no one would ever decide to increase his "productivity, competitiveness, and profit" voluntarily.
Responses to climate change are damaging by definition. You're doing something you wouldn't otherwise choose to do without the climate change factor. Since folks choose to do things or not do things to make themselves better off, eliminating that choice makes those folks worse off. Eliminate enough choices and poverty is the inevitable result.
If, on the other hand, increased efficiency came at the cost of infecting every person with leprosy...
I'll take leprosy over slavery. Leprosy is easier to cure -- at least until someone decides that the cure for leprosy has Thimerosal in it or that manufacturing and transporting that cure results in CO2 emissions and we have to stop curing leprosy right away because
it's only ad hominem if it's rhetorical. and it didn't read that way to me. And calling something a "Conspiracy Theory" when it has nothing to do with a conspiracy is like saying evolution is just a theory: it's using semantic bias to preempt the need for a premise.
let's drop the links from TFA, then, no?
You caught one.
Right, if he'd dropped the "intelligent" part, this statement stands fine on its own.
Right, it should have read, "It makes sense that a parent of a child suffering from autism..." A fallacy doesn't in a prepositional clause doesn't invalidate the rest of the sentence. What fallacy is that?
Right, but it could be argued that he's trying to establish that you are just a mechanical logician who possesses no facts and purely argues based on form. But that would be ad hominem abusive, huh?
My lord. You CAN answer a question! Ahem... Appeal to authority. If you can't make your own argument, shut up.
See, this is straight up ad hominem abusive, and adds zero content to the argument. BRAVO!
At the point he wrote that, he had admittedly gotten pretty far into his post. Maybe he's obsessive-compulsive. Whatever. Anyway, your rhetorical question smacks of another passive-aggressive ad hominem attack. Thanks again.
Nope. Or at least it contains content that the OP was communicating, unlike all of your ad hominem attacks, which exist solely to discredit OP without adding anything to your message.
That's all, I'm tired. And the rest of it is innocuous enough. Have a good one. Inject your children. It's at worst quite improbably dangerous. Whatever you please.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
I have a very close family member who has been into alternative medicine for some time, but in recent years has become more fervently anti-vaccination/anti-medication. She refuses to take vaccines, and told me that she "couldn't sleep" after she heard that I had taken a flu vaccine this past year. Last time I saw her, she gave me some rubbish literature she had gotten from her chiropractor about how vaccines are full of evil nasty chemicals that will cause various diseases. She refuses to take most medications; recently a doctor diagnosed a potassium deficiency as the cause of heart problems she's suffered for years, but she's refused to take the potassium supplement prescribed to her. The family member also refused to have a diagnostic cardiac catherization performed, saying that she would rather die than go through the procedure. She's also an advocate and seller of products by Mannatech, a multi-level marketing company that sells (literally) sugar pills which its proponents claim cure cancer, Down syndrome, HIV/AIDS, etc.
Does anybody have advice for dealing with people with such a set of beliefs? Of course, one might suggest just ignoring the situation, but I care deeply about this person and very much wish for her to stay alive and well. My attempts so far at discussing things with her have largely just led to her telling me that I'm just repeating what the pharmaceutical companies want me to believe.
It's also worth noting that my family member is a practicing nurse, so her refusal to take vaccines isn't just risking her own health, but that of her patients. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Except that they were taken seriously. Mercury is a known toxin, and while the levels or very low, and autism doesn't really much resemble mercury poisoning (of which there have been many authentic examples over the years), it is conceivable that some people might be extraordinarily sensitive and be affected in an idiosyncratic way. Which is why thimerosol was taken out of vaccines (even though it makes them more expensive and vulnerable to contamination) and why there have been numerous careful studies of the relationship between thimerosol and autism. The reason they are no longer being taken seriously is that the studies failed to substantiate a connection between thimerosol and autism, and removing thimerosol from the vaccines had zero effect on autism incidence, as shown by careful studies in multiple countries.
The issue is that some people couldn't bear to let go of a pet hypothesis. It was very satisfying; it provided an explanation, somebody to blame, and even a therapeutic approach--chelation therapy, which has turned out to be very lucrative for unethical therapists despite its lack of efficacy and its very dangerous side effects, in some cases including death.
Sorry, this study refutes that hypothesis too.
Uh no, no "statistical correlation", provided there aren't any problems with the study design or the statistics, DOES mean "does not cause." A statistical correlation, on the other hand, does not mean "causes." However, it does mean "linked in some way." Possibly by a third factor.
It's tough... people who are really into alternative medicine will often go to any lengths, including dying. You could try explaining the principles behind evidence based medicine. It's really a remarkable system (I taught a grad lecture on it last semester). Try a look at badastronomy.com. Maybe you can pull off something (except more platonically, of course) like this story: http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/12/20/reality-your-bridge-to-marital-bliss/
She probably shouldn't be a nurse. If nothing else sick people are vulnerable and don't need someone in a position of trust telling them stuff like that.
I forget where I first read this (I think it was one of the Quackwatch articles). Credit to whomever first said it.
Oxygen and hydrogen are explosive and flammable gasses. Water is made of oxygen and hydrogen. It is obviously wrong, though, to posit that drinking water will cause a person to catch fire and explode.
It's not a completely parallel situation, natch, but it's vivid enough an example that people might actually listen.
Well, some diseases are communicable. That means you can pass them on to someone else. Sometimes people with such diseases go to hospitals. Often the medical staff are exposed to them. If you're not vaccinated for a particular disease then you might catch it. If you're one of those medical people then you tend to come into contact with lots of other people, many of whom aren't the picture of robust health. You could then pass on that disease to them.
Sarcasm aside, there are a few vaccinations that medical staff would be crazy not to have. Hepatitis is one. It's easy to catch, and easy to spread.
Aside from that, even a flu vaccination, even though it's not effective against all types of flu, will reduce the chances that you're carrying an infection that you can unknowingly infect patients with compromised immune systems with.
Do not conflate the MMR theory with that of thimerosal as a cause of autism. The two are totally different: the former postulates that, for a subsection of the population, the immune system is overwhelmed by the sudden introduction of 3 viruses, causing damage to the intestinal tract and possible crossing of the blood-brain barrier and neurological damage. The latter theory postulates that, for a different subsection of the population, an inability to properly flush out toxic mercury leads to its accretion in the brain, also causing similar neurological damage. Different causes (although both potentially arising out of vaccination), same symptoms (symptoms which, not incidentally, resemble those of heavy metal poisoning), both very hard to test for (since they require both genetic predisposition and particular causes).
It's very hard to prove a negative, and since the mercury theory is just one of many possible contributing causes to the autism explosion (numbers not sufficiently explained by better diagnoses, since we would otherwise see the same percentage of undiagnosed adults in the general population with untreated autism spectrum disorders of similar severity, and we just don't), the fact that thimerosal has been eliminated but a continued rise is seen does *not* therefore disprove the thimerosal hypothesis. All it says is that, for the population tested, those specific individuals may have had their autism brought on by other factors besides thimerosal.
Whether or not the autism link is significant, I am personally thrilled (as a parent of one child on the spectrum and others who aren't) that we are eliminating mercury from injections given to our children--why put a known neurotoxin into their bloodstreams, particularly at such a young age? As for the MMR, the easiest approach (which we followed) was to find a pediatrician willing to seek out the vaccines in single form rather than bunched, to allow potentially sensitive children to get one at a time, absorb it, and then get the next. It also makes sense to actually test children for immunity rather than giving boosters blindly. {ProfJonathan}
(P.s. My son who is on the spectrum is a budding animator. See his stop motion, Flash and mashups here.)
Tough love. Does she work for a hospital? Tell the infectious disease control department what you told us. They are better educated and better equipped than you and I are to explain things to her. Additionally, they may also reassign her to a less patient-oriented position if they believe it's in the best interests of her and the people she cares for.
Yes, this would probably suck for her during the transitional phase. I don't think there's really a way around that. But look at it this way: if it takes 2 years to get her back into the swing of things, then this time two years from now she'll be back on track. If you do nothing, then 2 years from now she'll be no better off than she is today.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I should stay out of this but the original comment that "'no statistical correlation' != 'doesn't cause'" is in fact true. First it is claimed that mercury levels in vaccines have not drop to zero. If it is proven that vaccines still contain mercury regardless of it being from Thimerosal or not then recent studies have no statistical basis. Second removal of a single cause of something does not necessarily mean the occurrence will subside as other causes can appear in the same time. Specifically in the case of autism the diagnostic criteria has changed, and continues to change, on a fairly regular basis causing there to be a potentially more lenient definition of autism.
I'm not supporting the Thimerosal/mercury connection to Autism as I happen to be one of the few that believes it's quite possible that autism is not a disease in need of curing. I'm only saying that just because there is "no statistical correlation" does it mean that Thimerosal or mercury exposure is not a potential cause of autism.
The point you make is that a person who chooses not to receive a vaccination opens themselves up to the possibility of contracting said disease. However, isn't that their fundamental human right to practice their religious and philosophical world views? If truly indeed you yourself have your faith in the vaccinations you receive, and you truly indeed believe that these vaccinations will immunize you from said disease, what right is it of yours (the proverbial "yours", not you personally) to force, mandate, or criticize another for holding a different view and choosing not to vaccinate?
That said, you point out that the non-vaccinated individual might carry the said disease to a patient and commute the disease to them. That would require a prerequisite understanding that said patient was not in fact themselves vaccinated for said disease. Is it not then their own doing for contracting said disease? Since that individual did in fact choose not to vaccinate themselves? If it is said that the individual may, however, contract said disease in spite of previous vaccination, then for what remedy was the vaccination originally obtained? That argument in itself would invalidate reasonable claims for vaccinating.
It can be argued back and forth regarding the effectiveness of vaccinations, health concerns and the pros/cons regarding the vaccines, and a whole plethora of debatable material when it comes to vaccinations. Many of these arguments are logical, some scientific, and others more on the philosphical/religious side. The fact remains, however, if you truly have faith in vaccinating, then what the non-vaccinated people do is upon their own heads, and should effectively only apply to their health. If you say it risks the health of those who were vaccinated as well, then there could be no faith in the vaccination process, as that argument already invalidates the claimed reason for vaccination.
The point is, if vaccinations accomplish what is generally touted to the public, in that they create an immunization to the said vaccinated disease, then the individual choice not to vaccinate (for whatever reason there be) should be of no concern to, and certainly not forced upon by, those who do choose to vaccinate. To use an argument that there is the possibility of communicating the disease to those who are vaccinated (and thus showing a distrust and ill-faith towards the reliability of vaccines to begin with) holds, in my opinion, less authority than the clear fact that people smoking in public causes me ill health, or that a person drinking and driving endangers my life, or that bald pony-tailed (I know, oxymoron) men selling flowers and Krishna at the airports violated my privacy.
The point is (I said that already, didn't I), is that if you (the proverbial you, not you personally) truly believe in the effectiveness of your vaccinations, then this is all but a non-issue. When I read through the posts, it is all rather interesting how hot-headed people get on both sides of the issue. Anything like this always seems to become a "science vs. religion" issue when it is far from it. And very little logic is ever seen in the attack posts. People need to step back and look at things objectively. Science is not all logic, and religion is not all faith. There is a little bit of faith in things scientific, and there is a little logic in things religious.
Both sides, when properly argued and debated, have viable pros and cons with regards to the issue of vaccinations. And when one gets down to the core of the issue, logic mandates that neither side has an excuse not to tolerate the other side, and as one side would say, "live and let die."
First, we're talking about a medical professional. Many of the people in hospitals don't have fully functioning immune systems. Vaccines aren't magic, they require that your immune system be in working order.
Second, many vaccines are only effective for a certain period of time. I think tetanus boosters are recommended every ten years, for example. For a lot of things adults simply aren't routinely given the boosters because the disease tends to be more common, or more dangerous in school age children. That disease may be dangerous to someone in hospital. Additionally, diseases are (of course) more common in hospitals. It's often not worth keeping adults going on their boosters in the general public, but if you're going to be in a particular environment (Costa Rica, an elementary school, a hospital, an animal care facility) where such diseases are concentrated that changes the equation. You can't give people a battery of vaccinations when they're carried into a hospital because they're sick, vaccinations take time to take effect, and you have to have a healthy immune system. So the caregivers, who have the greatest chance of infecting patients, should be immunized to block that vector.
It's quite common for certain rights to be curtailed by necessity when you're engaged in particular jobs. While a private citizen may be able to say certain things under their right of free speech, a police officer, for example, should not. A school teacher has the right of freedom of religion, including preaching that religion, but should not be permitted to do so while at work in a public school. For that matter, you are allowed to walk around with the flu if you want to, but you are not permitted to come to work as a health care professional if you are sick.
I bet you'd be right in line to sue if you got hepatitis in a hospital.
Sorry I have no points. Great post. I'm really surprised at giving so many shots to an infant. What was the logic in speeding up the timetable of when a child vs an infant gets their shots?
I have conveniently hacked your response into three main phrases. It is true that many (if not most) vaccinations are only effective temporarily. However, how many people actually know this? How many people understand that the HAV and HBV (HepA and HepB vaccines) are generally effective for up to 20-23 years? Knowing this, where is the logic in not obtaining boosters for HAV and HBV? It is a person's own responsibility to make sure that they are properly protected, whether it is during sex, in regards to personal health (vaccinations and preventive medicine), in person or effects, and so forth.
We live in a society where people simply do not want to take responsibility for themselves. That is why politicians are hailed by the sheeple for passing intrusive (and many times unconstitutional) laws because they just want to "think of the children." That is why sole proprietorships wane to the more "secure and protected" LLC and INC which are "entities of the State." That is why people (literally) get away with murder because some game or program made them do it (even "the Devil" doesn't have as much sway). Because, generally, people do not want to take responsibility for themselves.
If you know that your HBV may not be effective after 23 years, then booster it. The vaccine is available. Doctors are able to do it. Or is it that people don't really have faith in the vaccine? Or possibly, people have too much faith in science, and do not use enough logic and intellect to know that they may have a need to booster? In any case, however, it is still the responsibility of the individual to take care of their own health in this regards. If they choose not to booster their vaccination, then that is their problem. They are no different from the ones who do not vaccinate at all.
And if physicians are not educating their patients about these issues, then what the hell are they being paid so damned much for? This is one point in which it IS someone else's responsibility, because you (or your insurance) are paying them to do so. If a person truly believes that vaccination will keep them from contracting a disease, then let them vaccinate. But do not shift responsibility to another. People need to grow up! Unfortunately, (I think I can safely say) we can both agree that this is not going to happen, and people will continue to shift responsibility on to others.
Although your response does hold merit in the "real world", as what you pointed out is general practice, realistically, people should take responsibility for themselves (especially medically), and when/if they choose not to perform a procedure, take a medication, utilize recommended techniques, or inject various foreign elements (including vaccines), then what happens to their health should fall on them.
Most people take enough responsibility to pay their car insurance every month, because they understand the need to keep their license and the unreasonable requirements of law that force them to support an outdated and otherwise failing industry. Most people understand the need for electricity, and thus pay their municipality their per kw usage tax (I call it a tax because many States require you to pay for generating your own electricity), and are thus responsible in that manner.
Yet, for some reason, people not only seem to believe that "someone else" should be responsible for their health, but also believe that anybody who does not believe in the manner that they do, and act accordingly, that these people are "endangering" others. Well, if the shoe fits...
If you're (not you personally again...that
It can be proven that tomatoes kill. Any person who eats tomatoes eventually dies. Tomatoes are so toxic and habit-forming that they eventually kill anyone who eats them. If they stop eating tomatoes, they will eat something else as a substitute but that still kills them too. Strangely, even people who are born and grow up without ever having eaten tomatoes all eventually die anyway due to the lack of exposure to toxic tomatoes. Tomatoes are truely a two-edged sword. I have not tested the effect of mercury on this fatal tomato toxicity.
Most countries wait until at least 6 months of age before beginning the injections of MMR and DtAP vaccines. First off, its DTaP, not DtAP (which becomes important below.)
Second your statement is quite untrue. If you look at the WHO's vaccine information, you can see the vaccine schedules for various countries. http://www.who.int/vaccines/globalsummary/immunization/scheduleselect.cfm
If you search for DTaP, you will indeed find that many countries list the first time they give this as a much older age than we do in the US. However, this is not because they leave their kids vulnerable, but because the first diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccinations are often given with DTwP which is cheaper. In older kids, if you use the whole cell pertussis component they have worse side effects (which are rare in infants and younger children). So you use the cheap DTwP first, then the DTaP later in childhood. So stating that 'most countries' give DTaP at a much later age is misleading at best.
Anecdotally, The plural of anecdote is 'not data'.
Even if it does not cause Autism, it is known to cause other problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_(element)#Safety
So I'd really like to avoid exposure unless it's inevitable. Shorter shelf life in vaccines does not qualify as "inevitable".
C - the footgun of programming languages
... this story has been up for about 20 hours, and NO ONE has put together the fact that, while Thimerosal was withdrawn in 1999, George Bush started his bid to become president that same year, which should explain everything! Isn't that the standard answer here on /. for every world problem?
That /is/ a sticky situation, and one I've encountered once or twice myself. My best suggestion would be to point her toward alternative therapies that are actually valid, i.e. the teas, plants, and extracts that contain the active components that modern medicines synthesize. Maybe point out that many natural remedies can be bought cheaply or grown for free and that most people selling a cure-all at a premium are con-artists and that she has no more reason to trust their pills than those from big pharma. If she doesn't want to take a potassium pill, then she can eat some bananas. Diet modification is a long-standing all natural therapy. Basically, try to set her right without coming off as thinking that modern Western medicine is the only solution and that all alternative therapies are false, since that will just make her more defensive. That she holds such extreme beliefs as a medical professional is disturbing; my mother is an RN and I currently work as a caregiver, and infection and contamination control are of extreme importance (as you already seem to know). If you have reason to think that her beliefs are interfering with her work to the point of endangering anyone, it's time to consider talking to the nursing board (you call anonymously and just ask questions without giving out her name, if you wish).
It's never easy to change someone's mind, and it's not easy to see a loved one disregard logic at every turn. My advice may not help much, but I wish you the best of luck all the same.
Don't trust school district specialists for anything regarding special needs kids. Personal experience - the districts hire specialists who keep costs down. Although Fed funds help, states must foot most of the cost of teaching special needs kids, and federal law (IDEA - Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act) does not permit "lack of resources" (money) as a reason for not meeting kids' needs. So the districts hire and promote "specialists" who have track records for low "positive" rates. The result is kids who have minor needs (like ADHD and High Functioning Autism) are treated as behavioral or "emotionally disturbed" and are shunted off to juvenile detention as soon as the district can engineer it. Before trusting a govt agent with an agenda, read the research yourself. YES, there is a rising number of kids with autism, and no one good explanation yet.
"This is because children labeled autistic" versus "children who are just deemed learning disabled" and So parents with mentally disabled children are increasingly encouraged to have their child [labelled?] autistic."
Autism IS a learning disability, and it's what the f**king law is there for.
It is NOT necessarily a "mental disability", in that it does not necessarily cause a child to have lower IQ scores, nor (with training) does it cause a child to have extremely unacceptable behaviors. However, a teacher that treats an HFA kid as purely a discipline problem can cause all kinds of punishable behaviors.
Please take some time to learn a little more about this - your understanding of the topic seems quite muddled.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
#1: FDA "grandfathered" a lotta medicines and treatments as it took control over drug regulation. Most grandfathered drugs did not require safety testing, even to this day. I'm not saying that was good or bad - but was thimerosal one of the 'grandfathered' drugs? Aspirin is a good example of why "we've always done it that way" is NOT a good safety policy. (aspirin can trigger seizures in children). ..."
Autism is neither a fad disease nor is "mild retardation". Please study a topic before spouting on it.
Autism is diagnosed more because: several syndromes that were thought unrelated have been shown to be related; Better techniques for diagnosing "minor" versions of Autism (like Asperger's, ADHD) are available; Doctors are becoming better educated on the subject. But the rise in diagnoses far exceeds the combination of all these effects.
Please note the article is highly biased: "many autism advocates still aren't convinced. I'm not surprised. I suspect that the emotional investment in
The writer immediately dismisses those who disagree as being "emotionally invested" and doesn't mention whether those who study the problem are "financially invested".
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
Alarmist moms that feed their kids only organic food from keeping their kids away from the doctor and refusing to vaccinate them.
The segment that believes in the thimerosal hype will never really stop believing it.
+++ATH0
Then we're both crazy. Well said. {ProfJonathan}
Sadly, it is next to impossible to reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into. No amount of fact will straighten out a person with an irrational belief.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Look it up.
I really hope that, if a succussful gene therapy program is ever discovered to reverse or prevent the development of autism, the medical industry will refuse to offer it in any form other than a thimerisol-preserved shot as the ultimate fuck-you to all these people who have wasted so much of everybody's time and money.
While I agree that people do need to be better educated, including being taught to think critically about things, in this case that's not necessarily the primary reason.
Take hepatitis for example. Hep A and B are so rare in the industrialized countries that there really isn't any point in immunizing the population. Vaccinations do carry some risks, slight as they are, so you want to make sure that you're not giving them unless they confer a statistical benefit. Plus they cost money, so if you're vaccinating against something that the person has almost no chance of being exposed to you're wasting money that could be spent to improve health in other ways.
Now, there ARE lots of places in the world with Hep A and B are so common that it's hard NOT to be exposed to them. A small percentage of the population will travel to those places and be exposed. IF they've gotten their vaccinations then they're fine, and they won't bring back either disease. However, if they haven't, because of the abrogation of personal responsibility you mentioned, then they will. Even then, usually that's not a problem. BUT, if that person is in the food service industry, he or she can spread the disease widely. It happened here last spring. Alternately, if that person gets sick and goes to a hospital then the disease might get transferred to a doctor or nurse treating him (patients usually don't have close contact with each other). The doctors and nurses can then pass that disease on to all their other patients.
Vaccination is a type of preventative medicine. Some preventative techniques are worth giving to absolutely everyone. Others are best applied in places where they'll do the most good. The study of which is which is a well respected scientific discipline.
And I'm sure you could find a whole lot more subjects of research that are far more useless to complain about wasting time.
It would be a better comparison to say, research about tooth-whitening creams leading to cancer.
And have you forgotten about human radiation experiments? With so many "experts" these days talking about diminishing the world's population, how much SHOULD you trust them?
My child got his shots. My child became autistic. So the autism must have been because of the shots.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
As I said, they need to have a good scientific explanation for what they're seeing. I don't think that they can claim any scientific knowledge based on the fact that a bunch of them think they've seen something. I do think that attention should be paid to the fact that these people are seeing something, even if they don't know what it is, or even if they are making their own wild and unscientific guesses about what they see. Someone needs to ask why are they seeing anything at all.
It may be true that people's memories aren't entirely accurate, especially when something so emotional is involved. But if people can be taken at their word that there was any seizure at all, even as far as a week or two after having a vaccination, and if a large enough group experiences the same thing, isn't that something that someone should look into at least a little? We seem to be awfully quick to dismiss these people.
It may be true that people's memories aren't entirely accurate
No, you don't understand. The human memory is *extremely* inaccurate. There have been myriad scientific studies demonstrating that human memory is remarkably malleable, and memories can actually change *every time they're recalled*. One classic example is crime witnesses who often provide testimony uncannily similar to events as they were reported in the news, papers, etc.
The human memory is, without question, one of the worst ways to perform a scientific "study", and any claims based on such biased testimony should be outright ignored, unless they're supported by documented accounts of the events shortly after they have happened.
Actually I am familiar with Asperger's (not Ausperger's) syndrome, that's what my kid sister has. What I'm saying is not based on what some Dr. said, or some TV feature story, but based on real people posting about the things they have seen with their own eyes in their own children. Of course, since they are so close to the situation, and because they have, on average, little scientific knowledge in the applicable areas, I don't think these parents are a good place to find a scientific explanation of the problem. But I do believe that people who are more emotionally separated from the experience, and who have scientific knowledge in these areas, need to pay attention to the fact that there are currently people experiencing these things.
Keep in mind, I did not say in my previous post that I believe that mercury is the cause or even that it is involved in the problem. I recognize that I can't even begin to create a theory about what the real problem is, but I think that someone should consider the fact that there are kids having seizures sometime relatively close to when they receive vaccinations, and start from there. The fact that a study proved that Thimerosal does not cause autism does not prove that there is absolutely no link between vaccinations and autism.
Obviously it's unscientific to believe whatever scientific-sounding theories these parents are coming up with on their own, but isn't it also unscientific to not recognize that there are parents reporting problems?
It seems unreasonable of you to demand empathy for these parents while at the same time stating that I probably can't understand their experience without having had it myself. I absolutely do sympathize with anyone who is coping with this, and I can only imagine the complex blend of anger, guilt, and confusion that they must feel. But at the same time, the fear and confusion caused by their protests don't serve the public good, and I have to wonder if it's really psychologically healthy in the long run. Which would be the more horrible scenario to have to accept: that your child's future was stolen by some rich, evil drug company that will never be held accountable for its crimes, or that your child has suffered for reasons that medical science doesn't yet comprehend? I can understand why having a well-defined villain to blame can be cathartic, but given the lack of any real evidence, it just seems self-delusional and ultimately fruitless.
Here's the problem with your reasoning: for every soccer mom who comes forward to say that her child developed autistic symptoms the day he was vaccinated, there is some greater number who can come forward and say that their kids were vaccinated and turned out fine--after all, development of autism is still pretty rare compared to the alternative. We'd have no way to decide if the autism was just a sad fluke (after all, even if the vaccines are harmless, some kids will develop autism the same day anyway by sheer chance) or whether there is a risk, albeit a small one, that vaccination can trigger autism. This is why scientists use statistics to deal with problems like this. And while I haven't specifically reviewed any of the major studies for or against thimerosal in vaccines, I'm sure they all set out to answer the same question: once you've eliminated all the other known autism risk factors, are kids who get the shots more likely to become autistic than those who don't? And if so, is the difference sufficiently great that we can be confident it's not just a coincidence?
600 years ago the wisdom of crowds would have told you that we live on a flat planet at the center of a perfect clockwork universe. Give me some experts with a validated, logical process over the wisdom of crowds any day.
I think that the digestive trouble that correlates with autism spectrum disorders combined with the modern Western diet (American in particular) is helping to amplify autism symptoms. In short: the inside of the intestines is considered to be outside of the body. If intestinal permeability is increased (leaky gut), larger molecules start entering the bloodstream. How bad that is depends on what is being consumed and the genetics of the person in question. The petrochemicals that make up most artificial coloring, flavoring and preservatives do Bad Things and are the likely cause of the rise in ADHD (Lancet published a study about that). Large proteins like gluten and casein (wheat and dairy protein) that are unlikely to fully digest entering the bloodstream will trigger all sorts of immune responses. A high refined sugar (or simply high carb) diet feeds yeasts that will puncture intestinal walls, and broad spectrum antibiotics will kill off competitors to those yeasts. Carbonated beverages are intestinal irritants by definition and are usually loaded with synthetic chemicals as well (says the recovering Diet Coke addict).
Anyhow, a whole foods (versus processed foods) diet free of synthetics often goes a long ways towards reducing autism (and other) symptoms, and it's something we all should be doing anyhow. It takes time but it doesn't cost much, if anything. GFCF (Gluten Free Casein Free) is well worth trying for combating autism and maybe for people with poor digestion in general.
Epigenetics looks like a very interesting topic to study.
One more thing: anyone with an autism spectrum disorder should get their ammonia level checked. It's often high. Calcium butyrate combined with a proper diet will fix this. The medical textbooks still say that hyperammonemia is acute and fatal and never persistent. If you're just fuzzy-headed all the time and can't figure out what's going on it's worth getting the simple blood test, if only to rule it out.
I didn't say that it is impossible I said that I doubt that you could understand. I don't know that I completely understand but an attempt at empathy doesn't require full understanding. A better way to look at ti would be to ask why would I act in that manner. What feelings would cause me to act in such a way. Of course it is way to easy to just say that you or I would never act that way but that doesn't help much. I wasn't disagreeing with what you said but how you said it. Ignorance is such a harsh and cruel word in this case. Frankly unless you are a PHD in biology, biochemistry, or a medical doctor specializing in Autism you are ignorant of the subject as well. Everybody has some level of ignorance on some subject. Unless you know everything in which case your problems go far beyond ignorance. Yes this blaming vaccines is useless and counter productive. The people that will continue to use this fear to make money are the lowest form of scum on the face of the earth. The parents that fall for it are victims and telling some one that they are ignorant and self-delusional isn't going to help them. Explaining that the there is now proof that this isn't the source of the problem and that we now have to look at other causes may help.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
What the hell are you talking about? I'm talking about people who have witnessed seizures in their children, and that's a hard thing to be inaccurate about. A kid has a seizure or he doesn't. My sister did, and I remember that. Don't try to make this into a "You don't understand, I know more about the brain that you, blah blah." I'm talking about parents reporting that their kids had seizures. And I'm not talking about having a study that uses people's memories for data. I'm talking about people's experiences with a terrible phenomenon being a reason to do studies to find answers.
/. comments are skeptical, there's at least a healthy amount of understanding that the complaint should be looked into. But if you even mention vaccinations here, the instant knee-jerk reaction is completely that anyone who thinks that there's any problems with vaccinations is an idiot and they should shut the hell up. We're talking about parents watching their children go into seizures, and parents witnessing their children's personalities slip away forever. This is a big deal. Just because it isn't your problem doesn't mean it's not a tremendous problem to a lot of other people.
I can't understand why people here have such a strong reaction this way. They won't even admit that further study is needed to understand why kids have seizures, if these seizures could possibly related to autism, or anything like that. Again, I never said that vaccinations should be stopped or that they should even be reduced (for now). I do think there should be a lot of study into the effects of vaccinations to see if there are more effective/less risky ways to deploy them.
It's funny how around here, if someone writes in their blog that MS or Apple or Sony may have possibly violated someone's privacy or that they may have shipped a product with a defect, even if the
I would be concerned that she would offer her "medical advice" to patients (solicited or unsolicited). "Oh, I forgot to ask the doctor, does your office give flu shots?" "Oh, darlin', you don't want to do that. Let me tell you about vaccines..."
Could it just be that when two geeky parents breed, the geek factor is just over-enforced in the genes of their kids. I think there was a good treatment of this years ago in Wired's article on "The Geek Syndrome: Autism in Silicon Valley".
As far as the shape of the earth goes, 600 years ago, people didn't have the technology to safely travel around it, so it wasn't exactly easy to form a decent opinion about the shape of the world.
Experts with a validated, logical process can also allow 2 shuttles to explode. You can argue that they aren't experts, but that would be hand waving away any negative results. It would be like saying, "Well, only the people who were successful in hindsight are/were experts and had a good process.".
Bear in mind, I'm not an advocate of alternative medicine or anything. I just know that sometimes people make mistakes
testing out my trending skills
Don't forget they have amazing stupid experts to tell them that "It's not the vaccinations baby! People just started washing their hands!" as a credible explanation for the drop in incidence of vaccinated against diseases.
No, I'm not joking. Some people are actually claiming the drop in disease incidence is merely amazingly coincidental in that it usually follows vaccination levels and is most likely to strike those who have not been vaccinated. It's really improved sanitation and reduced crowding that's behind it all. It all works as long as you ignore the anti-vaccination scare and their fallouts in the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland among others.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
You point out that our understanding improves with every day, but continue to justify the fact that it's not perfect as a reason to distrust it? It will never be perfect, but it's the best/most accurate knowledge we have. Feel free to come up with your own studies and conclusions, but I guarantee that they're going to be right more often than you. It's not about putting absolute trust in someone or something, it's about trusting the right authority and their conclusions, even as they change over time.
All that research that gets done on medicines to establish safety and effectiveness, when they could just ask you 'do you feel comfortable injecting this into your child' and save all that time and effort...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I'm talking about people who have witnessed seizures in their children, and that's a hard thing to be inaccurate about. A kid has a seizure or he doesn't.
Yes, I'm sure she did. And I never once disputed that. But tell me, when precisely, did it happen? What were the order of events? What were the details? These are the things people get grossly wrong after the fact.
So sure, you can tell me your sister had a seizure. But I'll be damned if I'll believe your accounts regarding when it happened relative to her immunization.
I appreciate your point, but what little experience I have had with doctors doesn't make me want to trust them. And the extensive experience I've had second-hand through my brother and ex-girlfriend is even more damning. So really, the research is great, and I can take it with a grain of salt if I don't trust it. We end up being fed and injected with a lot of things that turn out to not be so good for us.
Be your own primary care physician, and treat everyone else as a specialist, and you'll be a lot safer than not. Especially if you are good at perceiving the limits of your abilities, and the limits of others. For the most part, doctors know more than I do, but couldn't give a rat's ass. I find that caring is oftentimes a more crucial component to treating someone than posessing a mass of dormant, apathetic book-learning.
I never said research was no good, however. Just because a study concludes something is safe, doesn't mean you're stupid for not eating it.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Personally, I'm more curious about prenatal nutritional deficiency. Specifically, I'm very curious about the Vitamin D Hypothesis.
If true, it would explain the (1) black/white numerical disparity, the (2) latitude correlation, and the (3) male/female numerical disparity. Also, most women in developed countries are severely deficient in vitamin D (20ng/ml of 25(OH)D measured in blood) due to advice over the past 25 years to avoid sun/wear sunscreen, combined with a severe lack of dietary sources of bioavailable vitamin D. Those few adults who drink milk get very little benefit since it is supplemented with Vitamin D2, which is only about 20-33% as effective at raising 15(OH)D levels as Vitamin D3.
This particular possibility is a just hypothesis and not a theory (based on a complete lack of confirming/refuting observations), but there are now some studies being started and I'm extremely curious to hear about their preliminary results. Since chronic Vitamin D deficiency can be corrected in about two months, if there's any validity to the hypothesis, they should be able to establish a significant experimental dataset within just a year or two.
I find that caring is oftentimes a more crucial component to treating someone than posessing a mass of dormant, apathetic book-learning.
That homeopath may care deeply for you or your child, but if you/they were uninfected previously, they wont be able to stop you/them being infected with measles or diptheria without a vaccination.
Da Blog
I meant that 'autism is not retardation' solely in regard to the person's actual mental abilities. I wasn't considering the actual diagnostic history of the two. Sorry for the miscue.
Actually, Asperger's syndrome was first described clinically in 1944. It didn't make it into the DSM IV until 1994.
Pavlov wouldn't be so famous if he'd used a can opener instead of a bell.
All I know is that right after my son's MMR vaccine (with Thimerosal)
MMR is also unique in that it, along with the varicella vaccine, are made from immortal human embryonic lung cells.
Why focus in on the preservative?
My God, it's Full of Source!
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