Article

2011-01-06 Science

New review finds Autism/vaccine study entirely fraudulent

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Posted by mom 2011-01-06 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11125 views ] Top

#1 It was always a fraud to keep governments from having to inoculate.

An evil fraud.
Get your spawn inoculated. Be a real parent.

Posted by newc 2011-01-06 01:26|| 2011-01-06 01:26|| Front Page Top

#2 He should be thrown in prison for a long time at least for the endangering of children. I had my child vaccinated while mentally flipping this guy the bird a few years ago.

Posted by DarthVader 2011-01-06 08:35|| 2011-01-06 08:35|| Front Page Top

#3 "Dr.s Jenny McCarthy and Deirdre Imus to the Crank Phone. Code Blue!"

Posted by Frank G 2011-01-06 08:38|| 2011-01-06 08:38|| Front Page Top

#4 To start with, vaccination is essential because the diseases vaccinated against are terrible.

That being said, the human immune system is insanely complicated, both internally, and externally in its interactions with viruses, rickettsia, bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and many kinds of parasites. Humans swap out much of their intestinal flora several times in their life, which seriously alters immune function as well.

Science is maybe 1/10th of the way to understanding it.

Autism, on the other hand, seems to be mostly genetic, but is a spectrum condition with several different forms, and its severity may be to some extent determined by environment.

In the brain, autism is seen as having more than the typical amount of white matter, which interconnects the parts of the brain. So, much of problem seems to be from "information overload". When part of the brain is stimulated, it stimulates other parts in far more of a "brainstorm" than is needed.

This raises the question of whether autism is caused by excess white matter, or if autism causes excess white matter to develop. In either case, an environmental factor may contribute to the growth of this excess white matter, or determine how much overgrowth there is of it.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-01-06 09:35|| 2011-01-06 09:35|| Front Page Top

#5 Beware of the most common fallacy of modern times: cum hoc ergo propter hoc.

Posted by OldSpook 2011-01-06 09:46|| 2011-01-06 09:46|| Front Page Top

#6 Moose's observations are helpful.

We have three kids on the Spectrum, plus my dad the genius with no sense of proportion, plus cousins on both sides of my family with some Spectrum symptoms.

There are a number of things that can cause Autistic symptoms. The people who swear by the "Autism Diet" probably have the kids whose genetics create a metabolic disorder that produces symptoms. For our family, it's the combination of genetic tendencies exacerbated by problems in pregnancy, labor and delivery.

Another manifestation of Autism Spectrum Disorders has to do with the vestibular system in the inner ear. This is the mechanism that processes tactile, balance, and auditory data. When this system is broken, people rock, sway, or in the case of our friend "Pete", run. This movement is an attempt to restore some order to the balance organs. "Pete" has a GPS bracelet so that the local cops can find him if he gets away from his family. The confusion in tactile data processing produces the sensory defensiveness, and the problems in the auditory processing channel create the dramatic overstimulation of that system. An autistic person does not know how to tune out extraneous noise; he hears it all at the same level.

The people who tried to claim that the vaccines caused the symptoms made that connection because there's an important set of changes in the brain that happen generally between ages 15 to 18 months, about the same time that kids are getting the MMR. In some autistic kids, the brain does not make that change and they lose a lot of skills suddenly. In our family's case, we didn't know what to expect with the eldest son and were surprised; but by the time the youngest daughter came along, we had enough experience to know that something was odd from Day 1.

SSI just cut our two neediest Asperger kids off, so I'm going to spend the morning dealing with bureaucrats. We are within about a year of getting one of the kids employed at a job that will lead to economic independence and becoming a taxpayer, (though still in need of support for taking care of himself) at age 28; and the youngest daughter will probably need about 5 years to get functional enough to be semi-independent.

The caprices of the government agencies involved in providing autism support do not inspire confidence in the govt's capacity to know a hawk from a handsaw where health is concerned. When we had to go before a judge to appeal a case for Katie Beckett funding for the youngest son, the judge didn't know that Wisconsin's cutoff for in-home therapy at age 7 was arbitrary; he thought that no autism therapy worked after age 7!

Off I go to slay some dragons.

Posted by mom 2011-01-06 10:15|| 2011-01-06 10:15|| Front Page Top

#7 It was always a fraud to keep governments from having to inoculate.

I doubt it. Indications are that the guy was the corrupt tool of lawyers who planned to sue big Pharma for millions of pounds sterling based on his 'research' results. He also had a whole line of 'products' he intended to launch to make money directly from scared parents.

Scum.

Posted by lotp 2011-01-06 10:18|| 2011-01-06 10:18|| Front Page Top

#8 Don't forget Lancet's complicity here.

Lancet should have had a review process that would have stopped the paper in the review process.

Posted by Lord Garth 2011-01-06 10:55|| 2011-01-06 10:55|| Front Page Top

#9 I like my soaps. They had an ad on how to prevent your baby from getting WHOOPING COUGH!

GET YOUR DAMM VACCINATION!

Posted by anonymous2u 2011-01-06 11:10|| 2011-01-06 11:10|| Front Page Top

#10 Mom: First of all, do you know if the familial autism is fragile X related?

Second, there have been some impressive demonstrations of some autistics as synesthetes, which would make sense with increased white matter.

About 60 different types of synesthesia have been identified, and may become a useful means of communication.

Posted by Anonymoose 2011-01-06 11:17|| 2011-01-06 11:17|| Front Page Top

#11 Mom: First of all, do you know if the familial autism is fragile X related?

I know that you can have familial autism without Fragile X being involved.

Posted by gorb 2011-01-06 12:16|| 2011-01-06 12:16|| Front Page Top

#12 One of my cousins has a Fragile X kid, but that would be from the kid's mom, right? I've never heard of synesthetes; I will look it up. Thanks.

Posted by mom 2011-01-06 12:34|| 2011-01-06 12:34|| Front Page Top

#13 The indications of which lotp speaks are the tort lawyers who funded the research.

Posted by mom 2011-01-06 12:35|| 2011-01-06 12:35|| Front Page Top

#14 OK, know I'm swimming with my boots on - honest question:

There seems to be a general agreement autism is on the rise; is it: Better diagnosis? Broadening definition of autism? Increasing but still as percentage of population? Increasing as percentage of population? Become more aware and/or accepted by general population?

I ask, as an in-law is officially autistic (please do not ask me specifics but could find out if that would help answer above questions) but wonder if a cut-back in sugar intake and/or 60 years ago if anyone would notice other than the kid just being a bit different.

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-06 12:39|| 2011-01-06 12:39|| Front Page Top

#15 there is a definitional problem

today, there is an autism complex with autism, Asperger and Pervasive disorder making up the complex.

although the vaccination hypothesis has been discredited, the heavy metal and pesticide exposure hypotheses are still 'in the game' as agents that facilitate the expression of the genetic problem

Posted by Lord Garth 2011-01-06 12:53|| 2011-01-06 12:53|| Front Page Top

#16 And for the record, would like to knock the teeth out of this huckster for taking 2 hours out of my life calming the wife before each and every shot.

And you news programs who ran the story for a week, how about a follow up eh?

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-06 13:03|| 2011-01-06 13:03|| Front Page Top

#17 I have been told that the number of cases of severe autism has been on the rise, but haven't looked around to see what the numbers are.

The number of severe autism cases is significant because it is universally recognized.

It may blend in with retardation at some point, and I don't know how that would unpack here.

People may have tended to have hidden severely handicapped kids away forty-so or more years back, but you'd think they would for the most part still be around today, and some clever statistician would have looked into that already to see if they could infer the number of cases from that time frame.

Posted by gorb 2011-01-06 14:26|| 2011-01-06 14:26|| Front Page Top

#18 Chicken Pox vaccine is still stupid.

Posted by Iblis 2011-01-06 14:27|| 2011-01-06 14:27|| Front Page Top

#19 One of my cousins has a Fragile X kid, but that would be from the kid's mom, right?

Not necessarily, mom. According to Wikipedia, if the subject is male, it came necessarily from the mother, but in the rarer case when the subject is female, it can have come from the father. The article notes the physical and behavioural markers, which can be considerably less noticeable in females with the problem.

swksvolFF, I imagine at least part of the increase in Asperger's Syndrome diagnoses has to do with increased sensitivity as well as increased mainstreaming instead of institutionalizing (Temple Grandin, multiple PhD, professor, and expert on animal behaviour, would have been institutionalized by age 5 years retarded, had her mother not stood firm). Another portion has to do with the internet and the computer industry, each of which provides an outlet for those with poor social skills to meet, fall in love, and marry. Silicon Valley diagnoses of Asperger's and autism are said to be significantly higher than elsewhere.

Trailing daughter #1 is a synesthete. For her numbers, letters and words have colors, textures, shapes. This has enabled her to both write and learn mathematics quickly and at a high level.
She sees/feels the correct answer to math problems, which makes every problem an open book one for her; her writing (prose, poetry, fiction, and fact) comes out as a woven whole, not piecemeal as we neurotypicals generally do it. The two composition scenes in the film Amadeus -- one with Salieri working out a piece phrase by phrase, the other Mozart dictating the entire Lachrymosa for the Requiem Mass as it must be -- show this kind of difference quite clearly, not that Mozart was necessarily or even probably an Aspie. My discussions with td #1 about alternative word or phrasing choices have been quite interesting because of the other senses she brings into how the words fit together. As has been the exercise of rewriting to differently address the concept or purpose of a piece after she mis-aimed on the first draft. On the other hand, there is music that she can't listen to because it triggers her synesthesia in unpleasant ways.

It seems to me mild-to-moderate synesthesia would be useful in a great many fields to short-cut the path to a solution. Not just perfumers, but advertising copy writers and forensic accountants, where the feel/taste/smell/texture of words and numbers would short-cut the search for rightness for the first, and wrongness for the second. So long as it isn't disabling, synesthesia seems to me to add a deep layer of richness to life.

Posted by trailing wife 2011-01-06 17:02|| 2011-01-06 17:02|| Front Page Top

#20 Thank you TW, interesting and insightful.

Another in-law, this with ADHD tendancy, was with us for a few weeks. A change of diet and us learning to instruct with steps instead of goals, showed a remarkable change from the behavior which got him sent to us in the first place. When my wife and I were wondering how we could help or what could be done we had a similar thought: how many people in history who have contributed amazing thoughts would, today, have been suggested for medication. Not saying some do and some don't but in-law was suggested remedies with the paint brush when mechanical pencils were the better way. That is, it is very much case by case...which could lead me into a rant against beaurocratic medicine but the ol whistle is a blowin'.

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-06 18:10|| 2011-01-06 18:10|| Front Page Top

#21 Back on subject, I did hear them announce the review on the radio..how about the tv news programs? Anyone?

Posted by swksvolFF 2011-01-06 18:57|| 2011-01-06 18:57|| Front Page Top

#22 Iblis, if you have a child who is immunocompromised, that vaccine can be a lifesaver.

Yes, I know, we all had it and nobody died. But I'm betting that none of your little buddies were undergoing treatment for cancer, for example. In that case it can and does kill.

Posted by Swamp Blondie 2011-01-06 19:30|| 2011-01-06 19:30|| Front Page Top

23:34 gorb
23:31 trailing wife
23:30 gorb
23:13 newc
23:12 newc
22:53 ryuge
22:49 Anonymoose
22:44 ryuge
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22:23 Pappy
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21:48 Barbara Skolaut
21:47 Water Modem
21:38 Frank G
21:33 Warthog
21:12 Zebulon Slusort4264
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20:49 trailing wife
20:47 SteveS
20:26 Frank G
20:11 Redneck Jim
20:04 Redneck Jim
19:56 CincinnatusChili
19:52 CincinnatusChili