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Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Poul Thorsen: The fine art of distraction from inconvenient facts

My first big splash in the blogosphere will have occurred five years ago in June, when I first discovered the utter wingnuttery that is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. It was then that I wrote a little bit of that not-so-Respectful Insolence that you’ve come to know and love entitled Salon.com flushes its credibility down the toilet, a perfect description of an article by RFK, Jr. published in Salon.com and simultaneously in Rolling Stone entitled Deadly Immunity. As I look back, I realize that, as widely linked to and discussed as it was at the time, that post, arguably more than any other, was the one that established me as one of the go-to bloggers when it came to vaccines. Of course, it may also have been the gloriously Orac-ian verbiage I employed. As longtime readers may (or may not) recall, at the time, I referred to RFK’s article as the “biggest, steamingest, drippiest turd I’ve ever seen it [Salon.com] publish, an article so mindnumbingly one-sided and uncritical that in my eyes it utterly destroys nearly all credibility Salon.com has had as a source of reliable news and comment.” Nothing in the five years since then has changed my assessment of RFK, Jr.’s investigative prowess. Indeed, if anything, he’s gotten worse, such as the time he tried to out-crank CBS News’ resident antivaccine propagandist Sharyl Attkisson (who has been in bed with someone at Age of Autism to coordinate counterattacks on its enemies) or the time he teamed up with David Kirby and Generation Rescue to cube the stupidity.

That was over a year ago, and since then RFK, Jr. has been fairly quiet, at least on the vaccine front. Maybe it had something to do with his being ignored by the then-new Obama administration when his supporters lobbied very hard to get him appointed to head the EPA. Or maybe it was embarrassment at having so successfully cubed the stupid. Who knows?

Whatever the reason for his year-long disappearance from the anti-vaccine fray, it would appear that he’s been pulled out of storage, dusted off, and sent once again to tilt at mercury windmills. It feels like 2005 all over again. That’s because RFK, Jr. has laid yet another one of his steamy, drippy, corn-textured turds on the blogosphere as only he can in the one place where such a stench of bad arguments and pseudoscience can go completely unnoticed among all the other turds that routinely drip from it. That’s right, RFK, Jr. has reappeared on that bastion of anti-vaccine pseudoscience, The Huffington Post, and the title of his latest turd is Central Figure in CDC Vaccine Cover-Up Absconds With $2M. In what appears to be an obviously coordinated attack, Generation Rescue’s anti-vaccine crank blog Age of Autism is promoting RFK, Jr.’s article and adding a few of its own with titles such as Poul Thorsen’s Mutating Resume by the not-so-dynamic duo of fact-challenged anti-vaccine propagandists Mark “Not a Doctor, Not a Scientist” Blaxill and Dan “Why can’t I find those autistic Amish?” Olmsted and NBC 11 Atlanta Reports: Vaccine Researcher Flees with $2M, featuring this news report:


Looks like the mercury militia got to another reporter. There’s Lyn Redwood spewing misinformation and nonsense hither, thither, and yon.

So what’s going on here? Let’s look at RFK’s article and how he starts it:

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

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

You know, either heaven shines on them or the anti-vaccine movement must be the luckiest bunch of pseudoscientists in the world. Here it is, a mere couple of weeks after Andrew Wakefield’s fall was complete, after he had, in rapid succession, been found guilty of research misconduct by the General Medical Council in the U.K.; had his pride and joy retracted from the scientific literature, his 1998 Lancet paper claiming a link between the MMR vaccine and “autistic enterocolitis,” a paper that, with the help of Wakefield himself and the credulous, scandal mongering U.K. press, sparked a fear of the MMR vaccine that persists 12 years later and has resulted in MMR uptake rates plummeting; had his most recent pride and joy, an unethical bit of bad science in which he subjected baby Macaque monkeys to experimentation all in the name of “proving” that the hepatitis B vaccine causes autism and/or neurological damage withdrawn from the literature; and been ignominiously forced to resign from Thoughtful House by, of all people, Jane Johnson, heiress to the J&J pharmaceutical fortune. The result has been some truly tinfoil hat worthy conspiracy mongering from Age of Autism and Jenny McCarthy herself. And what happens? There’s a vaccine scientist who appears as though he may have absconded with as much as $2 million dollars, giving Generation Rescue and the anti-vaccine crankosphere an opportunity to go full mental jacket putting a face to vaccine scientists that they could attack. As Paul Offit knows, that’s what the anti-vaccine movement does best. (Certainly it’s not science that it does best.)

But was Thorsen really the driving force behind the Danish vaccine-autism studies that the anti-vaccine movement hates so much? I’ve been paying close attention to the vaccine-mercury-autism manufactroversy for nearly five years now, and I’ve never heard of him, although I had heard of one of his coauthors. If Thorsen was so important to the pro-vaccine movement, you wouldn’t know it from the two studies that the mercury militia is hoping to discredit by turning up its propaganda machine to 11 about Thorsen’s possible criminal behavior. Those papers are:

It is the Pediatrics paper that the mercury militia appears to be concentrating mostly on because it directly deals with thimerosal in vaccines. But look at the citations above for both papers anyway. Do you notice something? Look where Thorsen’s name is in the list of authors in both studies. Notice that it is not first, nor is it last. This is important because author order matters in scientific and medical studies. In straight science studies, the two most important authors are usually the first author and the last author. The last author is usually the senior author in whose laboratory the work was done, while the first author is the person whose project the work represents and who was the primary author of the manuscript. In medical papers, as in Pediatrics or NEJM, the author list usually signifies the relative contribution of each author to the article, the first being the most important and the last being the least important. In both types of articles, there is always designated one author who is the corresponding author. In scientific papers, the corresponding author is almost always the last author; in medical papers it is usually the first author. The corresponding author is responsible for answering inquiries about the study and, way back in the age before PDF files, used to be the author to contact to request reprints. Not only that, the corresponding author is generally considered to be the primary author for the paper.

Notice something else?

That’s right. Poul Thorsen is not the first author for either of these studies. He is not the last author, either. He is not the corresponding author; that would be Kreesten M. Madsen, MD, who was corresponding author on both the NEJM and Pediatrics papers. As it turns out, Thorsen is safely ensconced in the middle of the pack of co-authors. That’s why, when RFK, Jr. refers to the Pediatrics study as “Thorsen’s study,” he is either grossly ignorant or outright lying. (Take your pick.) Anyone who knows anything about how the scientific literature works would be able to spot that immediately just by looking at the abstracts of these articles. Trust me, if studies this large really were Thorsen’s babies his name would not have been relegated to fourth or sixth on the list of authors. Basically, Thorsen’s position in the author lists of these two papers indicates that, whatever leadership position he may have held at Aarhus University and in its vaccine studies group, he clearly was not the primary contributor for these studies, and they were not his studies primarily.

Not that that stops the mercury militia from going out of its way to paint him as such, referring to him as a “central figure.” I have to tip my hat to RFK, Jr. his language throughout his article is truly Orwellian, a propaganda masterpiece of prestidigitation of language and innuendo. Here are just a few examples of perfectly loaded phrases sprinkled throughout the article, all designed to suggest concealment and conspiracy:

  • …”built a research empire…”
  • “…failed to disclose…”
  • “…has disappeared…”
  • “…damning e-mails surfaced…”
  • “…culprit behind…”
  • “…leading independent scientists have accused CDC of concealing the clear link between the dramatic increases in mercury-laced child vaccinations.”
  • “…safe to inject young children with mercury…”
  • “…CDC officials intent on fraudulently cherry picking…”

RFK, Jr. also parrots anti-vaccine lies about the study that were hoary back when David Kirby first published the mercury militia Bible, Evidence of Harm, lies like:

His study has long been criticized as fraudulent since it failed to disclose that the increase was an artifact of new mandates requiring, for the first time, that autism cases be reported on the national registry. This new law and the opening of a clinic dedicated to autism treatment in Copenhagen accounted for the sudden rise in reported cases rather than, as Thorsen seemed to suggest, the removal of mercury from vaccines. Despite this obvious chicanery, CDC has long touted the study as the principal proof that mercury-laced vaccines are safe for infants and young children. Mainstream media, particularly the New York Times, has relied on this study as the basis for its public assurances that it is safe to inject young children with mercury — a potent neurotoxin — at concentrations hundreds of times over the U.S. safety limits.

Notice how RFK Jr. really, really wants you to believe that the Danish studies are the primary foundation upon which the science exonerating MMR and thimerosal-containing vaccines as a cause of autism rests, the be-all and end-all of the epidemiology studying thimerosal-containing vaccines, when in fact there are multiple studies and lines of evidence, of which the Danish studies are but a part. Also notice how he conflates a study’s being weak with its being fraudulent. The two are entirely different concepts, and it is entirely possible for a study to be poorly designed and executed without even a whiff of fraud. (In fact, fraud is almost certainly far less common than that.) Be that as it may, the Danish studies, although they have weaknesses inherent in a retrospective design, are actually pretty darned good studies. As I said before, RFK’s whine in the passage above is the parroting of a hoary criticism of the Danish studies cribbed straight from anti-vaccine sites. The criticism goes like this. Anti-vaccine propagandists argue that because, beginning in 1994, outpatient records were used in addition to inpatient records for case ascertainment in Denmark for purposes of these studies, the whole set of studies must be crap. As Steve Novella points out, this change was not chicanery, and in fact Madsen et al tried to test whether the change in case reporting by doing this was significant. Here is a quote from Madsen et al:

In additional analyses we examined data using inpatients only. This was done to elucidate the contribution of the outpatient registration to the change in incidence. The same trend with an increase in the incidence rates from 1990 until the end of the study period was seen.

In other words, Madsen et al considered the possibility that adding outpatient records to inpatient records beginning in 1994 might change the results. They tested for that possibility and determined that the addition of outpatient cases did not change the trend of increasing autism diagnoses. Again, RFK, Jr. is either grossly ignorant of the facts or lying through his. (Take your pick–again.) The same is true of J.B. Handley when he repeats the same misinformation time and time again, particularly on his Fourteen Studies website, and and of Ginger Taylor when she in her arrogance of ignorance parrots the same lie. Come to think of it, so is SafeMinds when it touts the fact that many of the study authors are employed by Statens Serum Institut (SSI), claiming that it is a conflict of interest because as a “government-owned vaccine manufacturer,” supposedly SSI makes a lot of money off of vaccines and would be liable legally if thimerosal in vaccines were found to cause autism. Believe it or not, this distortion was dealt with by a guest blogger Kristjan Wager (whose regular blog is here) way back in 2006. Not surprisingly, it’s utter nonsense born of a misunderstanding (either unwitting or deliberate) of the medical and legal systems in Denmark. Unfortunately, anti-vaccine lies never die; like a certain undead dictator, they always rise again.

Meanwhile, Not A Doctor, Not A Scientist (Mark Blaxill, in case you forgot), along with No Longer a Journalist (Dan Olmsted) lay down flaming stupid like this:

Thorsen, of course, is pre-eminently one of those leading scientists and was a co-author of a New England Journal of Medicine study on the MMR. Thorsen and Aarhus, as we’ve reported for years, made important contributions to some of the most influential autism-vaccine mercury (thimerosal) studies – studies disputed as poorly done and unconvincing by critics that over the years have grown to include the head of a panel mandated by Congress to study the issue. But based on five studies, three of which included Aarhus – and one of which Thorsen co-authored — the U.S. Institute of Medicine concluded in 2004 that “the evidence now favors rejection of a relationship between thimerosal and autism.”

Here’s what’s going on. In the wake of debacle the implosion of Andrew Wakefield represented, the anti-vaccine movement needed a distraction badly, and they needed it fast. It would be even better if the distraction were one that they could spin to make it look as though there were some dark corruption at the heart of the vaccine science that has exonerated vaccines as a cause of the “autism epidemic.” Like manna from heaven, Dr. Thorsen’s case dropped seemingly from the sky. I’m going to admit right now that I have no idea of Dr. Thorsen is actually guilty of absconding with $2 million in grant money. He may well have, and if he did justice needs to be done. He needs to be caught and tried. But here’s the rub.

It makes absolutely no difference to the science exonerating vaccines or thimerosal in vaccines as a cause of autism whether Thorsen is a criminal and thief or not.

As one of my readers pointed out, trying to argue that because Thorsen may have fled with stolen money is akin to arguing that if the fourth co-author of one of Einstein’s papers describing the Theory of Relativity ran off with $2 million it would somehow invalidate the Theory of Relativity. Maybe J.B. Handley, No Longer a Journalist, RFK Jr., or Not a Doctor Not a Scientist can help me out here. Was there an allegation against Poul Thorsen of actual scientific–rather than financial–fraud of which I wasn’t aware? Was there an allegation that somehow this alleged financial fraud had anything whatsoever to do with the design or excecution of Danish studies that failed to find a link between either MMR or thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism? Is there any evidence anywhere that Poul Thorsen committed scientific misconduct on the order of what Andrew Wakefield did? Seriously. I don’t see anything in any of the number of vicious attacks on Poul Thorsen (who may or may not be a criminal), the SSI (which doesn’t deserve them), or Aarhus University in Denmark (which also doesn’t deserve them). It’s a pure smear against these latter two institutions, guilt by association.

In other words, it’s very typical of the anti-vaccine movement. The bottom line is that this is not a scientific scandal. It is a financial scandal that happens to involve a scientist.

Here’s the other thing to remember. Even if RFK, Jr., Mark Blaxill, J.B. Handley, Dan Olmsted, and the rest of the merry band of anti-vaccine loons currently attacking these institutions were completely correct and the Danish studies were actually hopelessly tainted by Thorsen’s alleged criminality–even if both studies were completely expunged from the medical literature–it would not change the scientific conclusion that neither MMR nor thimerosal-containing vaccines. That’s because of a little pesky thing known as reproducibility. The Danish studies are not the only studies exonerating thimerosal as a cause of autism. There are Canadian, U.K., and U.S. studies whose results are concordant with those of Madsen et al.

For the anti-vaccine movement, the problem with the idea that thimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism was always that it makes a testable hypothesis. Remove the thimerosal from vaccines, and autism rates should plummet. This experiment has been tried in at least three countries, and the results have always been the same. Autism rates continued to rise after thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines. Indeed, thimerosal exposure from the vaccine schedule in the U.S. is currently lower than it was in the 1980s (there is still trace thimerosal in some childhood vaccines, and the flu vaccine still has thimerosal), but there has not been a decline in autism prevalence to what it was in the 1980s. The hypothesis that thimerosal causes autism has been roundly falsified, not just by the Danish studies but by several other studies.

In the end, anti-vaccine propagandists are very much like creationists and other cranks. They focus on the person more than the science, and they labor under the delusion that there is a single study (or tiny handful of studies) that are the whole support for the scientific conclusions they despise and that, if destroyed, would lead to the edifice of the science they hate collapsing. That’s why they prefer to attack persons rather than use evidence and reason to argue ideas. It’s also why they are always seeking that one study that they can tear down and thus “prove” that evolution didn’t happen, vaccines cause autism, the moon landing never happened, or the Mossad and the Bush administration were beind 9/11.

ADDENDUM: Further confirming that Thorsen was not a major player in the Pediatrics and NEJM publications reporting the Danish studies is this article at Philly.com:

In 2002, Thorsen was the sixth named author of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine that analyzed whether where is a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism by examining 537,303 children born in Denmark from 1991 through 1998.

The researchers concluded that their data provided “strong evidence” that there is no link.

“Poul Thorsen had absolutely no influence on the conclusions regarding this paper,” wrote Mads Melbye, head of the division of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and senior author of the study, in response to e-mailed questions.

“Thorsen was not actively involved in the analysis and interpretation of the results of this paper,” Melbye said.

The second study, published in Pediatrics in 2003, examined 956 Danish children diagnosed with autism from 1971 to 2000. It concluded the incidence of autism increased in Denmark after thimerosal was removed from vaccines.

Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen, the lead author, said Thorsen played a minor role.

“Dr. Thorsen was not in a position to change or compromise the data,” Madsen wrote. “Dr. Thorsen was part of the review cycle, but never very active in giving input. Dr. Thorsen never had access to the raw data nor the analysis of the data.”

Which is pretty much what I would have expected based on his position in the list of co-authors. Of course, this makes me wonder why his name was on either paper at all. Ah, well, that’s academia; you can sometimes get your name on papers for which you did very little work.

In the meantime, the comments after the Philly.com article make baby Jesus cry, so full of anti-vaccine pseudoscience, misinformation, and outright lies are they. The anti-vaccine contingent is there in full force, polluting the discussion thread with their ignorance. Come to think of it, they’re there in the comments of RFK Jr.’s HuffPo article, too.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

897 replies on “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on Poul Thorsen: The fine art of distraction from inconvenient facts”

If anyone with any taint of impropriety (for whatever reason) had their studies expunged from the scientific literature, at least we wouldn’t have to tolerate references to the work of any of the antivax crew’s favored pseudoscientists. I can’t think of one of them who has not been accused of something unsavory.

Bring it on, I say.

So one lonely guy runs with some money (allegedly) and all vaccine studies are worthless lies? Yet one chick is proven to be faking her so-called dystonia by being caught on tape walking normally and driving her car, and the anti-vaccine groups that comfort and supported her knew nothing about it?

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at the double standard anymore.

I hope not one of your supporters is with fault, or those loons “over there” will come after you, Orac.

“In the end, anti-vaccine propagandists are very much like creationists and other cranks.”

Thank you. I’m *almost* convinced that the anti-vaccinationist debate is a faith-based debate. There is a point in creationist arguments where science is left out in the hayshed (where the strawmen are assembled), and out of the argument. That point is not much earlier than when an anti-vaccinationist does the same. That is the point where evidence-based science is no longer an issue for one side, and we know which side that is.

Not only creationists, but scientologists. Isn’t this the same as the “dead agenting” tactic they use? reasonablehank is right, this has been faith based all along; we knew that when McCarthy uttered her “my son is my science” screed. Like scientology: when you can align the belief systems of the gullible and vulnerable to the needs of the profiteers, you have a powerful and alluring combination.

So, since everyone and his cousin is speculating wildly about Thorsen and the money, can I do it to? To me, a former university staffer, it smells like Thorsen got into a snit either with his teammates or with the Aarhus admins about how to allocate this grant money, and then transferred the money where it could be returned to the CDC in a flash.

That’s the only explanation I can see for why he would feel safe walking around the US having gotten into a dispute over federal grant money. So this might not even be theft, just a case of duelling prima donna professors.

“…steamy, drippy, corn-textured turds…”

You do have a way with words, Dr. Orac! LMAO

just curious – does anyone know if the cast of characters mentioned in this piece had their own kids vaccinated?

And what relevance does this have to the mercury militia’s smear campaign?

symball @4,
Great link. By AoA’s standards then, anything Olmstead and Blaxill turn up is bogus. They surely screwed up the Offit investigation so how can we ever trust them to do anything correctly?

Priceless (but typical) hypocrisy.

The Handley-Blaxill-RFK anti-science spin machine has revved it up to 11 on this one.

@reasonablehank – go get in some of their discussion boards sometimes (AoA, ABMD, and others) and your suspicion of them functioning as a cult will be reinforced and engraved in polished granite.

Waitaminute. The news were only online yesterday, and RFK is already talking about it. I say it’s suspicious. How did he get the info that fast? And who gave it to him?

Mode sarcasm off. My brain is hurting.

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

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

Actually, Olmsted was at one time a professional journalist working for UPI. What happened to him, I don’t know, but I can guess. He wrote a series of articles he called “Age of Autism” (hence the name of the anti-vaccine crank blog) in which he first promulgated the myth that the Amish don’t get autism and don’t vaccinate (the do both) and couldn’t even find an institute right in the heart of Amish country that takes care of autistic Amish. So, yes, he once was a professional journalist and apparently a reasonable one, but over the last several years he’s devolved into just another vaccine crank.

@ Brian Deer

If anyone with an ounce of journalistic talent gets anywhere near the anti vaxxers cause, they will run away holding their noses as fast as they can. Even a cursory check on the evidence shows this to be a conspiracy theory- which leaves only the dregs who can’t or won’t* look at it objectively to write this sort of dross.

(*I’m not sure where people like Melanie Phillips stand)

FYI:

To the station manager, NBC11 Atlanta

I write concerning an item yesterday by your Jayne Watson, who has caused to be broadcast a significantly misleading report. I can understand that Jayne may have been anxious to convince her managers that her material had some substance behind it, and wasn’t merely the recycling of anti-vaccine campaigners’ suppositions, but to misuse material taken from the NBC network’s Dateline, and specifically footage concerning my own work in The Sunday Times of London, is unprofessional beyond belief.

The following is the message I posted at your station’s relevant webpage:

“I am very concerned by the ethical standards at NBC’s Atlanta affiliate. You have used a clip giving viewers the impression that a report by me in The Sunday Times of London, headlined “MMR research scandal”, concerning Dr Andrew Wakefield, is in fact related to the allegations you make against a Danish scientist.

“I find it hard to believe that your action was accidental. It appears to me that you have sought to give viewers the impression that your report was based on some wider anxiety, and have intentionally misused my report to help you make your point.

“I know nothing of Dr Thorsen, but I strain to avoid the conclusion that, whatever he may or may not have done, you have acted dishonestly, with the intent to mislead your viewers.”

I look forward to hearing that you have looked into this matter, and removed any online clips, and made the necessary correction and apology.

I have notified the Dateline producer of this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Brian Deer

People, go check out what symball @ 4 found — it looks like the antis smeared an innocent man:

Update: Dr. Poul Thorsen not missing, NOT suspected in theft

For some reason, there seems to be a redirect on the direct link (has someone been hacking LBRB?), but I found a link to a comment therein that will get you to the post if the direct link doesn’t work: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2010/03/update-dr-poul-thorsen-not-missing-not-suspected-in-theft/#comment-79324#ixzz0hyYrvnbK

RFK jr. co-hosts a radio show,the enigmatically named “Ring of Fire”(originally on the now-defunct Air America),which apparently continues and has a website,ringoffireradio.com. It appears to allow comments.Gentlemen and ladies,start your engines.

“That’s because RFK, Jr. has laid yet another one of his steamy, drippy, corn-textured turds on the blogosphere as only he can in the one place where such a stench of bad arguments and pseudoscience can go completely unnoticed, given all the other turds that routinely drip from it”

Damn, Orac, tell us how you really feel! Lol…quite the visual, thanks.

Y’know, offline and away from the info, I was feeling my way through the issues (not thinking rationally or caring), and it occurred to me that I like RFK Jr. He had all that family tragedy, the sad stutter, the look of a beaten dog, some vocal concern for real issues. I was considering posting a question on SciBlogs wondering whether the one-sided nature of your stances may blind you to possibilities of corporate malfeasance – Not that I believe for an instant in antivax BS, but that maybe ol’ RFKjr was taken in by a very reasonable suspicion of The Man.

But seeing this post (and associated links) illuminated the truth of the matter to me: RFKjr is a charlatan who is undoubtedly sowing profits by helping a ring of malicious con men bleed the unfortunate and gullible. Oh yes, he can go to hell.

One very minor nitpick (SIWOTI syndrome?):
The practice you name as universal in scientific papers (first and last authors most important, minor ones in between) is not that universal: In theoretical physics, for example, common practice is to list authors alphabetically, no matter what their contribution was. I have also seen papers where the sequence of authors was exactly the sequence of “importance”:
PI, guy who did all the work, everyone else.

Not that this changes anything of substance in your post…

“Oozing malice and prejudicial, unsupported assertions, it was just of such poor quality”.

Sort of like anything that I have read by you in regards to Dr. Wakefield.

I am a creationist. Intelligent design makes me happy 🙂

I am not really into the anti vac thing. But, I had wondered about it for years since my daughter has autism. She is seventeen now. The theory never computed for me. There are deficits, beyond getting the shots, that caused the neurological condition of autism…

I think many parents of autistics have hung their hat on MMR as the cause. It gives them comfort to do so, for varied reasons. Then there are also doctors out there encouraging the belief. I guess if they can blame the shots, they can allow the idea that detoxing the child will cure him or her. I am not clear on how many this has actually happened for.

I am sorry that the parents become conspiratorial in their comments, and lash out. I encourage your patience as you kindly and persistently continue to point to facts and science – the hard headedness that we parents of autistics display also translates to going the extra mile for them.

There were things that I believed in the past, with regard to autism and how it might be handled, and I was proven wrong – but it took many years and a lot of “butt kickings” from my daughter’s several years spent in worsening psychosis, from initial label of autism. We both came out of it a little different, a little better. I now understand how little we all know, and how important she is as an individual in spite of her challenges. No matter the cause of her challenges.

She is doing pretty great at seventeen years old.

So the 2 million dollar question is, if Thorsen is proven to be a fraud and dishonest in his career as a scientific researcher should his work be called into question? And since Thorsen is the founder of the University’s North Atlantic Neuro-Epidemiology Alliances and Keersten Madsen is paid thru the NANEA wouldn’t it stand to reason that this could turn into a huge problem regarding a chain of custody as it pertains to the studies both Madsen and Thorsen worked on together?

I just wanted to thank you for your work on this. When my first child was born in 2006, someone forwarded me the RFK Jr. article, and I assumed he was being honest and doing a decent job of journalism simply because of his name and didn’t do much further checking. Fortunately, I did do a little checking and found that the thimerosal had been removed from most childhood vaccines by then. I’m not sure, even had I not found that, that the article would have been enough to convince me not to vaccinate, but I’m sure for many people (including the family member who sent me the article) it was. I went ahead with the standard vaccine schedule with my child, and my second child is following the vaccine schedule as well, especially since later searches on the subject led me hear and to Bad Astronomy.

It is simply irresponsible for any outlet, Rolling Stone, Salon.com, the Huffington Post, or anyone else with a shred of credibility to be publishing this tripe. I only hope that your work, and the work of others will help to counter the dangerous effects of RFK Jr. and other anti-vaxer’s work and of HuffPo and other credulous outlets. Thank goodness for the publicity created for this issue by the recent Wired Magazine piece, since it seems that the side of reason rarely gets good media coverage.

Keep up the good work.

For some reason, there seems to be a redirect on the direct link (has someone been hacking LBRB?), but I found a link to a comment therein that will get you to the post if the direct link doesn’t work

No. The first person to link to the article screwed it up. There is an extra ) which is causing the redirect.

I figured you’d do a post on this. I was over there yesterday hitting reply and doing my best to be as insolent as the censors would allow, but it was a big job. The believers were surely in the majority. I wish you had done the same on Dana Ullman’s latest screed.

I used to respect RFK, Jr, but now I am suspect of anything he is involved in. What a waste.

Rene @ 2: Actually, Desiree is probably NOT “faking”. As Steve Novella and others have observed, “psychogenic” does not equal “faking”. It’s a real psychological condition that she’d rather not have. It just so happens it’s not a direct physical disorder. She needs a good psychotherapist, in other words.

bensmyson@28: Um. Did you read this article? Your questions were addressed. At present there’s no evidence or allegation of scientific misconduct (and now Thorsen may be off the hook entirely). But I do slightly disagree with Orac’s claim that this would be completely irrelevant. Without evidence of scientific fraud, I agree that it would be unlikely to affect the study’s validity. Nonetheless, I do think any such outright financial misconduct would raise a little bit of worry. It calls his ethics and character into question in such a way that would leave his scientific integrity less than certain, as I think it relies on similar behaviors and choices. Not remotely enough to bin the study and again, hopefully he’s not a crook anyway, but I do think that would be a factor if it were true.

@bensmyson

So the 2 million dollar question is, if Thorsen is proven to be a fraud and dishonest in his career as a scientific researcher should his work be called into question? And since Thorsen is the founder of the University’s North Atlantic Neuro-Epidemiology Alliances and Keersten Madsen is paid thru the NANEA wouldn’t it stand to reason that this could turn into a huge problem regarding a chain of custody as it pertains to the studies both Madsen and Thorsen worked on together?

The 2 million dollar question REALLY is, if Tiger Woods cheated on his wife during his career as a professional golfer, should his game be called in to question? Furthermore, since he was sponsored by Nike, and was one of their leading spokespeople, wouldn’t it stand to reason that Nike encourages marital infidelity?

Or how about this one. Winston Churchill was a drunk. Doesn’t that call into question his abilities as a politician? Since he was the political leader of the United Kingdom during WWII, doesn’t it stand to reason that England actually LOST that war?

Or this one! Mel Gibson is a drunken lunatic anti-Semite. He is only TWO DEGREES away from Kevin Bacon. Doesn’t it stand to reason that Kevin Bacon gets drunk and smashes his car into synagogues on a regular basis?

(The answer to all of these questions is “no, stop being an idiot”)

In statistics, there is a concept called “leverage” in linear regression. This has to do with a point that lies outside the expected spread of data around the “best fit” line. It is possible that this outlying residual may influence the slope of the line, which depends on a number of factors: how far away it is, how many other data points there are, and where on the line it lies (if it lies towards the ends of the X axis it exerts more influence than if it’s in the middle).

Let’s say that Thoursen is the most diabolical and corrupt person in the world (his data point is far away). He still fails to exert enough influence on these studies to affect their scientific validity (he lies somewhere in the middle of the dataset, rather than on the ends). Furthermore, he is one of several authors of one of several papers refuting the thimerosal/autism link (there are many other data points). Strictly speaking, he lacks the leverage for this to make any difference at all.

RFK jr is an arrogant jerk who is typical of someone “who was born on second base and thinks they hit a double”. Like Prince Charles, his major accomplishment has been making the correct choice of parents.

He is also I a total hypocrite on environmental matters as illustrated by his reaction to a proposed wind power project that would have spoiled his ocean view. I heard him interviewed on the CBC radio One program “The Current”. He thought oil prices should be subsidized – that will really help with global warming.

As to whether he is colossally ignorant or lying – since he is a politician, I go for both.

@bensmyson

Right, because nobody died in WWII. My bad.

Also, thanks for missing the whole point of my incredibly hilarious retort, which is that your “reasoning” is as full of holes as Churchill’s liver. If this guy stole money, that doesn’t have anything to do with the science he’s done (except insofar as now there’s $2m less to fund it). The argument that him being a thief makes him scientifically untrustworthy is only valid if nobody checked his work… ever… and if there were ethical violations inherent in his study.

Sort of like anything that I have read by you in regards to Dr. Wakefield.

Please cite the unsupported allegations Orac has written about Wankerfield.

I shall now demonstrate my psychic abilities by predicting that the troll shall do nothing of the sort.

@Orac:

Actually, Olmsted was at one time a professional journalist working for UPI.

Considering that UPI’s the in-house news agency for the cult-owned Washington Times, saying that Olmsted was a “professional journalist” is being very generous.

@bensmyson:

So the 2 million dollar question is, if Thorsen is proven to be a fraud and dishonest in his career as a scientific researcher should his work be called into question?

Let’s assume, for a moment, that Thorsen really is guilty as charged. If you want to argue that the Denmark vaccine-related studies suddenly need to be revisited (even though Thorsen wasn’t a primary author on any of them) then fine.

But at the end of the day, does it really change anything, when the results of said studies have been replicated several times in other parts of the world? The answer is no, and if you were the least bit intellectually honest, you’d agree with that. Of course, that assumes someone like yourself has the capacity for intellectual honesty.

@rrt #32
No, she is faking. If you look at the latest video from Inside Edition (http://goo.gl/RMDE), you can see her symptoms come and go, appearing only when she knows the camera is on. Then again, being a pathological liar is a psycho-logical condition.
There’s crazy, and then there’s batshit crazy.

@Natalie

They’re scientists, not cops.

I’ve seen CSI. It’s the same thing. Also, at least one of the authors is a former stripper with a heart of gold and an ass that refuses to quit. My guess is Hviid.

I haven’t digested all of the stuff over at LeftBrainRightBrain, but it certainly looks like the anti-vaxxers really screwed themselves.

First, someone has a news story that someone at Aarhus University has been accused of theft.

Then, someone published a poorly-forged document saying that it was Thorsen.

Lastly, the idiots run with what they wish so hard to be true that they do not even bother with their bullshit detectors.

The amazing thing is that some major media have taken the story back and reported on it.

This could be actual libel.

Anyone want to take bets on how long it takes for the anti-vax crowd to decide that the person who forged the document is part of the Pharma conspiracy? (I had some friends insisting that the memos Dan Rather put on the air were forged by Karl Rove.)

“CDC is aware of the allegations by Aarhus University against Poul Thorsen,” agency spokesman Tom Skinner said in a statement.

Can some real journalist call Tom Skinner to say if he really made this statement?

“Also, at least one of the authors is a former stripper with a heart of gold and an ass that refuses to quit. My guess is Hviid.”

*snorting coffee out my nose*

Only one question are you all on the payroll or are some of you just stupid.

That’s two questions.

@a-non

You said: “But at the end of the day, does it really change anything, when the results of said studies have been replicated several times in other parts of the world? The answer is no, and if you were the least bit intellectually honest, you’d agree with that. Of course, that assumes someone like yourself has the capacity for intellectual honesty.”

At the end of the day if the studies have been replicated and there are no other studies that dispute it then yes Thorsen’s work is useless. But my problem is Im not smart enough to examine and understand all these hundreds of studies that claim vaccines are safe. Also I wonder if there have been studies for things like Vioxx that were corrupt that werent actually discovered for years. Oh here’s something http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672510903888207.html

Chain of custody refers to the chronological documentation or paper trail, showing the seizure, custody, control, transfer, analysis, and disposition of evidence, physical or electronic such as material gathered from 432,000 subjects in a particular study.

Chain of custody is also used in most chemical sampling situations to maintain the integrity of the sample by providing documentation of the control, transfer, and analysis of samples. Chain of custody is especially important in environmental work where sampling can identify the existence of contamination and can be used to identify the responsible party.

so, at least one of the authors is a former stripper with a heart of gold and an ass that refuses to quit. My guess is Hviid.

I’d be more confident about agreeing with you if it were spelled Hvidd…

@Maureeh:

“Only one question are you all on the payroll or are some of you just stupid.”

It’s not appropriate to assume that antivaxxers are on the payroll of some anti-American organization, or that they are incapable of understanding simple concepts. They are merely mistaken. Please be more considerate

Orac,

As always, hats off to you for diving into the muck. I’ve learned a great deal here about how to critically evaluate scientific papers and how to deal with rhetorical fallacies. Thanks a million.

One thing to add, Thorsen actually IS the “central” figure in those papers because his name is in the “middle” of the list. I guess his detractors were being literal (or maybe illiterate, hard to say).

@Scott

I’d be more confident about agreeing with you if it were spelled Hvidd…

*Slow clap* Took me a second there… double D… nice.

“Phoenix Woman”,
I wrote the articles for LBRB. My initial appraisal was that the document was forged, and I stand by the evidence I presented as raising that possibility. At this point, I consider authenticity still an open question, but don’t plan on saying anything more without some comment from Aarhus on the matter. I also stand by my conclusion that, PRIOR to this CDC statement, there was no direct identification of Thorsen as suspect.
I have noticed the influence of Kennedy on this affair. A comment I wrote for an unfinished article is that his initial article “has been shot into more pieces than Robert Patrick in Terminator 2.”

Uhhh, until a few days ago I think you could have found Thorsen at Drexel University in Philly…and he gave a presentation there in Oct 2009.

Ooh, it’s giant-smear-by-association season. I like this game. OK, how about: “Roy Kerry killed a kid, therefore Robert, Jenny and Dan are child killers too?” Next up: a pitchfork wielding mob.

At this point, I consider authenticity still an open question, but don’t plan on saying anything more without some comment from Aarhus on the matter.

@David: Even if Aarhus doesn’t ever say anything about it, I think at some point you have to post a correction, e.g. when Thorsen is formally charged. It was a blunder to make accusations of forgery, and also to give undue importance to Thorsen’s guilt or innocence. We all make mistakes. The difference between us and the likes of AoA is — I hope — that we do admit making mistakes.

Jesus H Christ, they’re squeezing blood from a stone to get at this guy. Here’s the way science works: As a lead author or a communicating author I’m responsible for every freaking piece of data and analysis that goes into the paper. The fifth guy on a paper will have his work checked. If coauthors don’t they run the risk of getting spanked and no one wants that. The only time I don’t check a coauthor’s data is if I have a long relationship built on trust.

@bensmyson is right about a chain of custody but he/she and the other bleevers are spending time pole vaulting over mouse turds to compensate for a lack of science that back up their beliefs. If the water is muddy enough, there could be anything there at the bottom.

It’s really not that complicated – AoA employs an us-vs-them mentality. Their idol, Wakefield, has been completely discredited. Therefore, they seek out an expert of the “enemy”, and purposefully create a controversy where none exists.

Enter Thorsen.

Once the troglodytes at AoA feed their minions the conspiracy fodder, it becomes irrelevant whether there is a shred of truth to story. The misinformation being voraciously ingested, it is then regurgitated throughout the anti-vax community until it becomes so interwoven with their other fables as to render moot any defense or explanation.

AoA did it’s job. It justified its existence by creating controversy where none exists, and diverted attention away from the fact that they have absolutely no scientifically credible evidence demonstrating their claims….as ever changing they may be.

They’re a very predictable group.

*Slow clap* Took me a second there… double D… nice.

*takes a bow* Thank you, thank you. No applause please, just throw money.

As a Philly native, I’m sorry about the Philly.com comments; My New Year’s Resolution was to not read the comment section of local papers. The stupid burns.

At the end of the day if the studies have been replicated and there are no other studies that dispute it then yes Thorsen’s work is useless. But my problem is Im not smart enough to examine and understand all these hundreds of studies that claim vaccines are safe.

In other words, bensmymom, you’re not intellectually dishonest, you’re intellectually lazy. That’s a distinction, but it’s a zero-sum one because the result is the same.

And by the way, nice attempt to tie vaccine safety to Vioxx. So using that same criteria, because Dr. Wakefield is a fraud whose research was bogus, all research that suggest there’s an autism-vaccine link is equally bogus. I think that’s fair, then, don’t you?

Okay, now that I’ve gone through LBRB, I don’t think we have forged documents — at least, forged by AoA or their friends.

The Denmark newspaper didn’t identify Thorsen, although he certainly seems like the person based on their descriptions. But European newspapers often have different standards. They may not want to use Thorsen’s name until he has been charged or more. (This is a good thing. A lot of people have been found not guilty in America yet the newspapers are filled with stories about the accusations.)

And the PDF from January wasn’t accusing Thorsen of stealing money, either.

I do wish I could find the CDC statement somewhere on the CDC’s website, but they probably do lots of statements every day that they don’t publish like that. American newspapers don’t seem to have covered this much, but they may think it’s a Denmark story for now.

Thought these quotes from the Philadelphia Inquirer linked in #19 were good. They show exactly what contribution a middle author from a study makes – essentially none.

“Poul Thorsen had absolutely no influence on the conclusions regarding this paper,” wrote Mads Melbye, head of the division of epidemiology at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen and senior author of the study, in response to e-mailed questions.

“Thorsen was not actively involved in the analysis and interpretation of the results of this paper,” Melbye said.

Kreesten Meldgaard Madsen, the lead author, said Thorsen played a minor role.

“Dr. Thorsen was not in a position to change or compromise the data,” Madsen wrote. “Dr. Thorsen was part of the review cycle, but never very active in giving input. Dr. Thorsen never had access to the raw data nor the analysis of the data.”

Oh, and a quick point about Desiree Jennings. If she truly is faking or overstating her dystonia symptoms intentionally than that is one of the most appalling things I’ve ever seen. Especially after watching that video of kids and adults suffering with real case of dystonia.

Rene: Yeah, I saw that broadcast when it aired. It didn’t seem to change Dr. Novella’s opinion (from what I recall), and as a non-doctor, it at least seems plausible to me that it could still be psychogenic. It’s a non-physical psychological condition, after all…so if some part of her brain is already saying “you’re sick! Act like it!”, I could also see it saying “These people don’t believe you’re sick and they have cameras…make sure you look sick!”. And likewise, having no problem with her symptoms being inconsistent and mild (or nonexistent) when she’s not on the spot since they are of course a hassle.

So I’m not saying I’m sure she isn’t faking, but I can still buy it. Inconsistency is one way to spot the psychogenic (and the sham). But if so, I’d think the latter Inside Edition report would be a good tool for a therapist to pry open her delusion.

Of course, this makes me wonder why his name was on either paper at all. Ah, well, that’s academia; you can sometimes get your name on papers for which you did very little work.

Yeah, really. The conference paper I submitted to accompanying my master’s thesis in Computer Engineering, all of the people in the department who had had anything to do with it, even if all they did was sit in on the defense, wanted their name on it. I wasn’t exactly in a position to complain, and truth be told I didn’t really care either (my master’s thesis turned out to be a bit of a dud, which wasn’t really anybody’s fault; sometimes you pursue a research angle and you turn up a big nothing — which doesn’t mean the work was bad, but it often means that nobody is going to cite it, and barely anybody is even going to read it. Ah well, c’est la vie)

Madsen’s e-mail makes it sound like he read through an early draft and pointed out a spelling mistake or something. Ooooooo….

You know, for a guy who’s supposedly “fleeing”, Poul Thorsen is surprisingly easy to find.

As for him (or someone else with the same name) “stealing” $2 million in grant money – well, that’s not so easy. It’s not like the granting agency just sends the PI a box of cash (small, unmarked bills, please) – they send the money to the university, foundation, research center, etc. and their financial folks do the doling out of funds for equipment and salaries.

Only in the rare case where the “research center” is a small fly-by-night organisation can someone actually “take the money and run”. And Aarhus University is not a small or disorganised organisation.

In my years of research, I’ve seen similar accusations flung about when a researcher receives a grant while working at one university and takes it with him (figuratively – they don’t actually take the cash) when he moves to another university (or research center). Twice it has happened to people in my department.

The argument usually plays out like this – the university (research center, etc.) feels that the money is theirs because the researcher wouldn’t have gotten it if they weren’t working at such a prestigious facility and the researcher sees the money as theirs because they were the one who wrote the grant and did the research (and, curiously, most granting agencies see it that way, too).

Did I mention that universities and research centers skim 50+% “off the top” of all grants they administer? They call it “overhead”. There are other names used by other people. Anyway, it suggests that Aarhus University may have….other motivations when it comes to accusing Dr. Thorsen of theft.

Unless someone is arguing that Poul Thorsen somehow deceived the financial dept. at Aarhus University into paying for a boat or Swiss chalet from his grants or paying him an outrageous salary, the use of “theft” to describe what happened is pure hyperbole.

I expect that when this all sorts out, we’ll find that Aarhus University was peeved when Dr. Thorsen transferred his grant money – which had been held at and managed by (and skimmed off by) Aarhus University – to pay for research that was done somewhere else. The “theft” – I suspect – will turn out to be their “cut” (“overhead”) that they feel entitled to despite not providing any of the services and facilities (the usual rationale for “overhead”) for Dr. Thorsen’s work while he was working out of the country…at a different research facility.

I could be wrong, but I find it difficult to imagine any other way Dr. Thorsen could have been said to “steal” grant money from Aarhus University without them handing it to him in a bag (which – as I said above – would be a singular event, indeed). He simply doesn’t have access to the money in that way.

And even if he did take the money – at gunpoint, say – it wouldn’t reflect on his research (although it might make it harder to get grants in the future).

Prometheus

I just saw Kennedy in the DVD for the recent Oscar-winning documentary “The Cove”. I was looking forward to seeing the movie, which is about dolphin slaughtering in Taiji, Japan. After I watched it (and enjoyed it), I checked out the “special features”, one of which is a short documentary titled “The Cove: Mercury Rising”. Kennedy appears in it at length, literally lying through his teeth about the long-disproven “link” between Thimerasol and autism, while simultaneously claiming to be “pro-vaccine”, “pro-science”, and, most laughably, “pro-truth”.

As much as I agree with the filmmakers of “The Cove” on their stance regarding the capture, captivity, and slaugher of dolphins and whales, I will not support their cause as long as they continue to use harmful anti-vax lunacy in an attempt to bolster it.

“Unless someone is arguing that Poul Thorsen somehow deceived the financial dept. at Aarhus University into paying for a boat or Swiss chalet from his grants or paying him an outrageous salary, the use of “theft” to describe what happened is pure hyperbole.”

Could it be that the admins at Aarhus are not familiar with the conditions that come with American Federal grant money?

Dan,
“I don’t think we have forged documents — at least, forged by AoA or their friends.”
It was never my intent to accuse AoA or any other party of a forgery. Conventional wisdom among those who deal with such things (see “P&G Satanism” rumor, which I have previously researched and written about) is that it’s nearly impossible to trace a “bogus warning” type document to a specific source.

8942 1139
Jørgen Jørgensen , Universitetsdirektør [email protected]
Mobil: 2467 0040 Rektoratet (1430-214)

Okay, the one thing in the story that does check out is that this guy is the director. I am writing him an open letter later.

I find it difficult to imagine any other way Dr. Thorsen could have been said to “steal” grant money from Aarhus University without them handing it to him in a bag

Adding some fictional postdocs to the payroll and collecting their checks would qualify. Depending on the systems in place, it might also be possible to inflate the cost of purchased equipment and pocket the difference.

There are a few possibilities. I’m not, of course, saying that he did any such thing – just that, in principle, such things could happen.

Did I mention that universities and research centers skim 50+% “off the top” of all grants they administer? They call it “overhead”. There are other names used by other people.

Well yes and no.

Federal grants, at least NIH grants and DOD grants (both of which I’ve had) usually add in overhead at a negotiated rate on the dollar, usually somewhere in the vicinity of 50%, depending upon what the university has negotiated with the feds. Let’s say I land a nice, juicy R01 from the NIH for $250,000 a year and, for simplicity’s sake, let’s assume my institution’s federal overhead rate is 50%. That means the NIH will dole out to my university $375,000 a year. I get to use $250,000 of that for my research; the university pockets the $125,000 for “overhead,” usually with lots of complicated arrangements for how much goes to the department, to the school, and to other entities that make up the university. So, in reality, the university doesn’t really skim 50% off the top; the government ladles 50% more on the university, which it keeps for “overhead.”

Now, it is possible that Dr. Thorsen didn’t understand this arrangement and spent too much, such that the university thought that it was owed the overhead, although $2 million in overhead would have had to mean that the total grants he controlled had to be on the order of around $4 million (or $6 million if you add $2 million in overhead to a $4 million grant).

There’s no arguing about one thing, though. Grant money isn’t just ladled out to the investigator or handed over in a large bag containing unmarked bills. It’s given to the university, which then disburses it, and the government has rules demanding careful accounting of how the money is spent. Investigators can only access the money through the university, using it to order supplies, hire technicians or postdocs, what have you (all of which is paid for through university purchase orders for supplies or the university payroll to pay for grant-funded employees). I can say from experience that it is rarely the investigator that can take the money. Usually, I’m poring over budget and spending reports line by line to figure out how the university shorted me when my estimate of my spending doesn’t match the balance shown in my accounts reports.

Consequently, I find the explanation that there was some sort of dispute over the funds when Thorsen left Aarhus and took his grants with him very plausible.

There are a few possibilities. I’m not, of course, saying that he did any such thing – just that, in principle, such things could happen.

I should additionally add that the possibilities mentioned wouldn’t be easy to pull off if there are ANY safeguards in place (which there almost certainly are). But such things happen.

I made the mistake yesterday of looking at the HuffPost comments section. Yikes!

In response to repeated requests for a paper saying that there was no link between thimerosal and autism, an enlightened commenter provided likes to a half dozen papers at PubMed. These links were dismissed because “they are also at NIH”.

Apparently the person
a) didn’t know the difference between the CDC and the NIH
b) didn’t know what PubMed was at all
c) thought that a paper listed at PubMed must have been authored at NIH, and thus, at CDC.

I pointed out that PubMed lists every single article published in every major medical or biological journal and asked what would be left if the suggested purge of literature were enforced.

(sigh)

The whole thing is sad.

I noticed that HuffPost was also rating actresses at the Oscars for how well they showed their cleavage. They might be well-advised to stick to the latter type of reporting.

@79:

Was this an appeal on the test cases or something? It so sounds like old news.

At the moment, the comments include:
1. MERCRY IS TEH TOXINZ
2. Admirably sane
3. It’s all vitamin D from the GUVMINT telling people to stay out of the sun
4. IT’S JUST ONE INGREDIENT, STILL THE VACCINES
5. Also admirably sane

40% is a surprisingly good ratio, even with the small numbers. And that depresses me.

Now, it’s new news — spanking new news. The previous rulings were about MMR sans thimerosal; and the girl with the mitochondrial disorder. These are the three thimerosal test cases. This is the money shot. “Special Court Rules Connection Between Vaccination and Autism ‘Scientifically Unsupportable” This afternoon, just a few minutes ago.

@ Cervantes–

I’m not sure how you can consider this over. Some of the so-called “evidence” considered by the court came from papers that received ratings of negative 5 on the famous ’14 Studies’ 0 to 40 point scale! Oh, never mind . . . .

I’ll harken back to my high school athletic days, and start singing the “warm up the bus” song to the anti-vaxers.

Time to get off the court, guys. Both figuratively and literally.

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Hastings.King%20Decision.pdf

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Campbell-Smith%20Mead%20Autism%20Decision.pdf

http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/Vowell.Dwyer.FINAL.pdf

Here are the 3 decisions that just came out today. I call Shenanigans! This is a plot by the illuminati. These decisions were clearly rendered intentionally to distract from the global intrigue about an author no one has ever heard of, who held a minor role in the Danish MMR and Thimerosal studies but Handley, Olmstead, Blaxhill, Kennedy & Associates are going to inflate its value well beyond insanity.

As one of my readers pointed out, trying to argue that because Thorsen may have fled with stolen money is akin to arguing that if the fourth co-author of one of Einstein’s papers describing the Theory of Relativity ran off with $2 million it would somehow invalidate the Theory of Relativity. Maybe J.B. Handley, No Longer a Journalist, RFK Jr., or Not a Doctor Not a Scientist can help me out here. Was there an allegation against Poul Thorsen of actual scientific–rather than financial–fraud of which I wasn’t aware?

No, no, you see, what Aarhus University thought was theft was actually a bribe. Big Pharma indirectly put pressure on the NIH through Congress and/or directly bribed members of the NIH to send $2 million Thorsen’s way to fabricate data, so the NIH intended for Thorsen to get the money, and they would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those meddling kids Aarhus University’s sharp eyed accountants.

I agree with Prometheus, a lot of the story sounds like a typical “guy changes job, takes customer/contact list/grant money/secretary with him”, and the old employer is griping. Add the “he had a contract with a new employer while still working for the old one” and it gets nasty fast. Add the international angle, plus him moving to the country the sponsoring agency is located (making legal life for the Danish university tricky), and you have a “scandal”. Only RFK could spin it worse than a National Inquirer headline.

What it looks like, from the Aarhus statement, is that Thorsen pulled down some advances from Aarhus based on possibly forged documents related to CDC funding. So I’m assuming that Aarhus made some advances expecting money to be coming in from the CDC, and the money didn’t come. What the advances were used for isn’t clear, but I assume that Aarhus didn’t just write a check to Thorsen so he could “abscond” with the money. This is all speculation of course.

Re Cervantes

As dandy Don Meridith used to say on Monday Night Football, turn out the lights, the partys’ over.

@78

I once had an anti-vaxxer tell me that they wouldn’t believe any article I pulled off PubMed because it was a “government” site and couldn’t be trusted (you know, http://www.pubmed.gov).

My response: it’s a search engine, dipstick. ::huge eyeroll::

I took a look at Junior’s article and was struck by his assumption of Thorsen’s guilt. Uh, what about presumption of innocence, Junior? Were you nodding off the day that was covered in law school?
Once again, I call on the late Dominick Dunne to give his verdict on RFK Jr:

“I don’t give a fuck about what that little shit has to say,” Dunne spits back. “That fucking asshole. This pompous, pompous, POMPOUS man. I don’t care what he has to say. He’s not a person that I have any feeling or respect for.”

Read more: Dominick Dunne vs. Robert Kennedy http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_8816/#ixzz0i0mYEg00

bensmyson @93, The Thorsen story will probably end up being rather mundane. Just so you don’t think that I am an apologist for any ‘pro-vax’ scientists that go tits up, I hope that, when this all shakes out, and if he has committed fraud, that he will be summarily punished for it. However, you won’t get your deep desired wish that the science is shite. His role in those studies was too insufficient to have manipulated data and results and there are still many more that have replicated it. You don’t seem to have any problem accepting replication by the same, incestuous group of authors swirling about and including ol’ Andy, but you stick your fingers in your ears when it is pointed out that the Danish studies have been independently replicated. Must be funsies in your opposite world.

Science Mom – Do you have any links for the independantly replicated studies? It would help me out greatly, thanks in advance.

@ bensmyson #93:
What a pathetic attempt at committing the Genetic Fallacy.

It’s very simple…If the studies were fraudulent then it should be possible to prove such, like what happened with Wakefield’s work. Unless you can provide evidence to that effect, then you’re just making using a fallacy to avoid discussing the lack of evidence (not to mention credibility) of the anti-vax position.

BTW are you going to answer the question at #63?

Im sorry I missed the part about Wakefield being a fraud. I read that he paid some kids at a birthday party for a blood sample but fraud? Hasnt his work been replicated? http://www.la-press.com/article.php?article_id=1816

Thorsen is a horse of a different color dont you think?

And seriously, stranger things have happened. You have the CDC’s authorities of vaccine safety taking money and favors from drug companies, you have a famous researcher faking his studies on Vioxx and other drugs for money. This alleged stealing of 2 million and forgery is nothing like that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123672510903888207.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/health/policy/18cdc.html

Im sure somewhere on some dusty shelf there is a study that backs up Thorsen’s study. Just like Im sure there is a study somewhere saying that smoking Marlboros brings out the cowboy in you.

Yes, rambling describes your writing well. Methinks thou dost protest too much. And the 6-7 comments I’ve read evidence not so much scientific detachment and dispassionate reasoning as sycophancy. Ramble on.
Respectfully and insolently yours,
bkrider9

I’m open to a pro-vaccines viewpoint, but here the emotions run too high to be considered reliable objective science. And the 6-7 comments I’ve read evidence not so much dispassionate reasoning as sycophancy. This website claims much, but the smell of lobbying is overpowering.

Re T. Bruce McNeely @ #91

Although I have no use for Robert Kennedy Jr., who is clearly a whackjob on the subject of vaccines, I would hardly consider the late cokehead, Dominick Dunne, a reliable source of information. The issue that was the cause of the brouhaha between Kennedy and Dunne was the accusations Kennedy made against him relative to the trial and conviction of the formers’ cousin, Michael Skakel, for the murder of Martha Moxley. Kennedy blamed Dunne for the leak of a private investigators’ report of an interview with Skakel; the private investigator had been hired by Skakels’ father.

Actually, Skakel senior made a fatal mistake when he personally hired the investigator. Had he obtained the services of an attorney to hire the investigator, the report would not have been admissible as it would be considered work product under the attorney/client privilege. Thus Kennedys’ complaint against Dunne was ill founded because no attorney/client privilege was in force.

However, like CNN whore Nancy Grace, Mr. Dunne had the bad habit of declaring defendants guilty before trial and pillorying their legal counsel. In fact, he once stated that we shouldn’t get too excited about erroneous guilty verdicts because the defendant was probably guilty of other crimes where either there wasn’t enough evidence to support a conviction or the latter was guilty of crimes for which he was not a person of interest.

Re T. Bruce McNeely @ #91

In addition, cokehead Dunne made an atrocious accusation for which he provided not a jot or a tittle of evidence. He claimed that Rushton Skakel was faking Alzheimer’ disease when he testified on the witness stand that he had no memory of the events surrounding the Moxley murder. This despite the testimony of several physicians. It should be noted that the elder Skekal died fairly shortly after the trial of his affliction.

In short, cokehead Dunne was a scumbag.

“Please cite the unsupported allegations Orac has written about Wankerfield.

I shall now demonstrate my psychic abilities by predicting that the troll shall do nothing of the sort”.

Dear Scott,

While it would be a lot of fun to waste time getting that information for you… The quote that I referenced was from Brian Deer, not Orac. I see that Reading Comp isn’t one of your areas of expertise.

Wacko,
Brian Deer’s investigative reporting was thorough and supported by evidence. Wakefield foolishly tried to sue Deer and lost, in part because the evidence was supported.

Wakefield will likely lose his license and should complete his despicable career in obscurity except for the odd reverence he engenders in the loon anti-vax community. That despite his efforts to replace the MMR with a vaccine of his own. Cognitive dissonance.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

The benismymom-Sue M antivax hissing cockroaches are antivax. Back under your rocks, ladies. There you can take the time necessary to open your minds to science and reason so you don’t miss the part about Wakers being a fraud… or you can keep posting your little hopes and dreams on AoA and ABMD to the willing 10’s of like-minded lemmings.

Thanks Orac, although Im sure your opinion and that of Brian Deer are well thought out dont you think that would be like me quoting or linking to a AoA blog?

What I found was the GMC said that children had been subjected to invasive procedures that were not warranted, a disciplinary panel ruled. They had undergone lumbar punctures and other tests solely for research purposes and without valid ethical approval. And that he did not tell the Lancet that £55,000 funding for the study came from the legal aid board. Wakefield was advising Richard Barr, an attorney who was acting on behalf of the parents of children with autism.

Was there any proof that Wakefield’s article was slanted to favor Barr? Wasn’t it the CDC’s money that funded Thorsen’s investigation? Aren’t a large majority of research studies funded by either the CDC, the NIH or pharmaceutical companies?

Forging signatures, lying on grant applications and absconding with a couple of millions of dollars seems to be a horse of a different color.

BTW, hardly anti-vax here, I had my son vaccinated.

Back under the rock, opening mind.

bensmyson
Glad Ben is vaccinated.

Read through Brian Deer’s investigation here. Eye-opening.

Dan @96
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16818529
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/15342825
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/3/793
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/12880876
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/14595043
http://tinyurl.com/ylqkfam
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14519711

Bensmyson @98:

Im sorry I missed the part about Wakefield being a fraud. I read that he paid some kids at a birthday party for a blood sample but fraud? Hasnt his work been replicated?

Don’t play coy; you are a regular of AoA amongst other anti-vax sites so you know what Wakefield has been found guilty of. How could you even consider yourself to be informed if you haven’t read the OAP? Wakefield was dropped as a petitioners’ witness for very good reason, which was highlighted by Dr.s Bustin and Chadwick.

That is not independent replication of Wakefield’s work; it’s just the same incestuous group slopping together a pseudo-scientific paper in a non-peer reviewed vanity journal put together and is overseen by Wakefield. Don’t be a drooling sycophant, content to get spoon-fed pabulum by agendised organisations like AoA, read for yourself, discuss the studies with those that know what their talking about.

Dan the Man:

Science Mom – Do you have any links for the independantly replicated studies? It would help me out greatly, thanks in advance.

List of journal articles here.

Summary of research here. List of thimerosal studies from that link (cut and paste), notice that they are from four different countries:
Source Study design Location
Stehr-Green et al., 2003 [22] Ecological Sweden and Denmark
Madsen et al., 2003 [23] Ecological Denmark
Fombonne et al., 2006 [9] Ecological Canada
Hviid et al., 2003 [24] Retrospective cohort Denmark
Verstraeten et al., 2003 [25] Retrospective cohort United States
Heron and Golding, 2004 [26] Prospective cohort United Kingdom
Andrews et al., 2004 [27] Retrospective cohort United Kingdom

@107: Or this?

“At a year old our son’s pediatrician looked my wife in her eyes and insisted to her that vaccines are safe just before our normally developing was injected with 3 shots containing 8 vaccines. After that nothing was ever the same. He crashed. Vaccines are not safe, it says so right on the side of the box they come in. He lied.”

http://bit.ly/7FSpb2

I would hardly consider the late cokehead, Dominick Dunne, a reliable source of information

Do you consider the quotation I provided “information”?

And as far as declaring someone guilty before trial, what’s with the “cokehead” shot?

Dan @96
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16818529
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/15342825
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/114/3/793
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/12880876
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/14595043
http://tinyurl.com/ylqkfam
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14519711

Bensmyson @98:

Im sorry I missed the part about Wakefield being a fraud. I read that he paid some kids at a birthday party for a blood sample but fraud? Hasnt his work been replicated?

Don’t play coy; you are a regular of AoA amongst other anti-vax sites so you know what Wakefield has been found guilty of. How could you even consider yourself to be informed if you haven’t read the OAP? Wakefield was dropped as a petitioners’ witness for very good reason, which was highlighted by Dr.s Bustin and Chadwick.

That is not independent replication of Wakefield’s work; it’s just the same incestuous group slopping together a pseudo-scientific paper in a non-peer reviewed vanity journal put together and is overseen by Wakefield. Don’t be a drooling sycophant, content to get spoon-fed pabulum by agendised organisations like AoA, read for yourself, discuss the studies with those that know what their talking about.

It wasn’t too long ago in history when the Nazi Government of Germany professed to its people and the rest of the world that scientific evidence from research showed the Aryan people to be superior to all other races.

In our own U.S. history we took so called scientific research at its word in the 1940s and 1950s when it was determined by researchers a select few should be sterilized because of discoveries of mental disorders which were thought to be hereditary. We also legitimized the direct exposure to nuclear blasts for a number of experiments in the name of science and stood by watching silently as human beings suffered and died from syphilis.

Surely the scientists of that era had found evidence to support such claims and actions. Such is science.

Oh, wow. An invocation of Godwin’s law all mixed up with a silly and fallacious invocation of the “science was wrong before” gambit.

A true crank masterpiece!

It’s too bad nothing has changed in the realm of medical science since the 1950s. At all. As a specific reaction to those things bensmyson just talked about.

Yes, science has been wrong before, and the word “science” has been abused (even though there is no science supporting Aryan supremacy, the safety of radiation, or justifying the non-treatment of syphilis). You know what’s been wrong even longer? Stupidity.

Thank you! I do my very best, its nice to be recognized. I wish I could take all the credit but I can’t.

I take it this an admission to copy pasting antivax lunacy from here, there and verywhere as you own.

bensmyson, instead of invoking strawmen, why don’t you look at how the scientific process works. Tobacco companies failed in their endeavour because the science that demonstrated the association between smoking and lung cancer prevailed. Your ilk like to invoke Needleman’s research confronting corporate interests; his science was sound.

Now I find it positively bombastic that you would even mention the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment without recognising that your own champions have violated the Declaration of Helsinki such as the Geiers and Wakefield et al. I wouldn’t be too damn proud of that if I were you.

Wakefield’s science was built upon a fraud from the get-go and that is why it can’t be replicated. Can you really not see this? Does it mean so much to you to defend an unethical, dishonest man because he told you something that you wanted to hear? I’ll bet a lot of smokers and the physicians that touted smoking were happy to hear that smoking didn’t cause lung cancer but they were deluded now weren’t they?

“Oh, wow. An invocation of Godwin’s law all mixed up with a silly and fallacious invocation of the “science was wrong before” gambit.

science usually gets it correct eventually – just not in oncology

mmmbuck,
Come on, at least put a little effort into it. At least bensmyson usually writes more than one sentence and tries to make a point even if it is silly, wrong, or just ignorant. My initial response to your posts is something like “Boring troll is boring (and stupid)” because of the lack of content.

Im sorry if I gave you the impression that I am defending Wakefield. I am not educated enough to understand, in such detail as what you are familiar with, one scientific paper from another. But some things make sense when compared to personal experience and others dont, that’s my science I guess. For instance, Im sure eugenics means one thing to some and another thing to others.

Did not mean to side track this Thorsen story. My point is that as it seems to me and my uneducated tin-foil hat covered pea brain, Thorsen’s situation could be something much worse than what Wakefield did with his son’s friends at a birthday party.

And Declaration of Helsinki, what’s that? I honestly have no idea.

bensmyson – why do you bother with this site?
i stumbled upon it, have wasted about 5 min and will now move on; maybe you should to.

oncology is still a gong show

bensmyson, I have not been following this story so much so I am not going to reply to all of your post in 125, I am sure those who have been participating will do that. But the Declaration of Helsinki is a set of ethical principles for the medical community related to experimentation using humans.

“Im sorry if I gave you the impression that I am defending Wakefield. I am not educated enough to understand, in such detail as what you are familiar with, one scientific paper from another.”

Tre, who exactly do think you’re crappin’?

http://bit.ly/aP21Ve

Oh that Helsinki thing, the one the FDA doesnt recognize right?

“At the end of April (2008) the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) published a regulatory change ending the need for clinical trials conducted outside of the US to comply with the Declaration of Helsinki. The FDA’s decision had been in the making for several years and is a major victory of corporate interests which have sought to loosen the ethical standards for international clinical trials.” http://www.socialmedicine.org/2008/06/01/ethics/fda-abandons-declaration-of-helsinki-for-international-clinical-trials/

http://www.issuesinmedicalethics.org/173ED118.html

And Declaration of Helsinki, what’s that? I honestly have no idea.

Google it.

While you’re at it, Google the Common Rule and the Belmont Report. These are documents that set forth the ethical principles upon that all biomedical research is expected to follow. In fact, search this blog for these terms as well, because I’ve written about them on multiple occasions over the last five years.

Really, if you can’t be bothered to learn relevant background that is mind-numbingly easy to find, why should we bother to spoon feed it to you?

As for claiming that what Wakefield did was “just” offering kids money at a birthday party to let him draw their blood, you clearly have no clue. I posted the links showing Wakefield’s undisclosed conflicts of interest, his incompetent science, his subjecting children to invasive medical procedures such as colonoscopy and lumbar puncture without a valid medical indication, and his very likely research fraud, but you obviously didn’t bother to read them. The posts to which I linked all contain additional links to the primary sources.

Re T. Bruce McNeely @ #113

1. Let me amend my comment by stating that Mr. Dunnes’ opinions are worth about as much as any information he may convey. Namely zilch.

2. Mr. Dunne, by his own admission, was a long time user of cocaine. He claimed to have kicked the habit interview he gave in which this admission was made. However, it is my information that long term use of cocaine is not the way to preserve brain function.

Re mmmbuck

One certainly hopes that, if Mr. mmmbuck is diagnosed with cancer, he will eschew seeking treatment from an oncologist.

Re Bensmyson

Since Ms. Bensmyson essentially admits that she doesn’t know her posterior orifice from an excavation in tierra firma, maybe she should acquire some knowledge on the subject before commenting.

Thanks Orac, I got the links, I went through what you had to say, your interpretations seem a valid opinion based on your understanding and the understanding of others. To me though a colonoscopy is a necessary investigative tool when dealing with children with bowel disorders, likewise if one discovers measles virus in the intestines to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain. I know a child that had cancer and was being treated with chemotherapy and radiation, made him very uncomfortable and it was a tough decision for his parents to experiment on him that way.

An April 2000 paper presented by Professor John O’Leary to the Committee on Government Reform reported the investigation whether measles virus was present n the gut biopsies of autistic children, and if so, where and how much. The paper reported that the biopsies of 24 out of 25 (96%) of the autistic children examined were positive for measles virus, and that amongst normal (non-autistic) controls, only 1 out of 15 children (6.6%) were positive, strongly suggesting a connection between measles virus and autism.

A February 2004 paper presented by Singh, Department of Biology Center for Integrated Biosystems, Utah State University, to the US Institute of Medicine, Washington DC, measured antibodies in autistic children to five viruses, measles, mumps, rubella, CMV and human herpes virus 6. Researchers found that the antibody level of the measles virus alone, and not the other four, was significantly higher in autistic children than in normal children. The research also found a correlation between measles antibody and brain autoimmunity, which was marked by myelin basic protein antibodies. The two markers correlated in over 90% of the autistic children tested for them, suggesting a causal link between measles virus and autoimmunity in autism. The serology to other viruses and other brain autoantibodies did not show this correlation. This suggested a temporal link of measles virus in the etiology of autism.

An earlier 1999 paper Bitnun et al, Measles Inclusion-Body Encephalitis Caused by the Vaccine Strain of Measles Virus, Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal, 1999, 29 855-61 (October) has previously and independently confirmed the presence of measles virus in the brain tissue of a previously-healthy child following exposure to MMR, when the child had no history of wild measles infection.

Stands to reason that Wakefield may have believed he was on to something when he began his work with those children.

But again we are drifting away from Thorsen arent we?

“To me though a colonoscopy is a necessary investigative tool when dealing with children with bowel disorders, likewise if one discovers measles virus in the intestines to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain.”

This has got to be a put-on.

“This has got to be a put-on.”

No, I can assure you that this is how bensmyson is on all websites I’ve witnessed xir on, and on all topics, in all conversations with all people.

I have neither time nor inclination to get into a complicated discussion right now, but @bensmyson — perhaps you missed the bit of the evidence against Wakefield, which pointed out that more than half the children in his study did not, in fact, have the GI symptoms he claimed they did. (This is made explicit in the GMC ruling, available at http://www.gmc-uk.org/static/documents/content/Wakefield__Smith_Murch.pdf .) The colonoscopies etc. were not clinically indicated, because Wakefield was lying about what GI symptoms were present and when. Which is also clear research fraud.

Explain to me, please, just for my curiosity, what serious cognitive compartmentalisation allows you to ignore this.

@bensmyson

Stop saying “it stands to reason”. That phrase doesn’t mean what you think it means. You haven’t used anything close to reason even once on this thread.

Ian- I use that term a lot? Really? Thanks Ill try to use something else, maybe Ill just say, “it seems to me” from now on.

Seems to me Thorsen’s work should be called into question, even if it is just a simple hearing that’s open to the public in order to explain how he had no influence over any of the work, that he just signed on because he was head of the organization receiving the grant.

Im sorry if I gave you the impression that I am defending Wakefield. I am not educated enough to understand, in such detail as what you are familiar with, one scientific paper from another.

Cut the coy act; you look psycho. You are quite an outspoken defender of Wakers although I agree that it is done by one that is not educated enough to understand, in such detail as what you are familiar with, one scientific paper from another.

Did not mean to side track this Thorsen story. My point is that as it seems to me and my uneducated tin-foil hat covered pea brain, Thorsen’s situation could be something much worse than what Wakefield did with his son’s friends at a birthday party.

Thorsen’s situation could very well be worse than that single incident on Waker’s behalf. But that is not Waker’s only offence, in fact, probably one of the lesser revolting of many. I find it so curious that you choose to only recognise that as his only offence. Is that because he was captured on videotape joking about it and can’t slime his way out of it with his mindless sycophants?

I don’t think that you are actually reading the materials that you are being provided with if you think that this is any replication of Waker’s 1998 study. O’Leary’s lab was subject to an extensive audit by Dr. Stephen Bustin (someone who actually knows how to do PCR) and there was no way, O’Leary could have found measles vaccine-virus. You see, measles virus is an RNA virus and O’Leary’s lab left out the crucial reverse transcription step for some of the samples. His instruments were also not calibrated correctly which would have also altered the results and he didn’t have sufficient starting material, i.e. RNA in samples. Still want to defend this piece of tosh as replication? Given what O’Leary and Wakers claimed to have found, it would only require a study size of 15 to get a statistically significant difference between autistic and normal cohorts when detecting measles vaccine virus. But guess what? Studies that employed more rigorous detection methods with larger sample sizes couldn’t find a damn thing:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18769550
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18252754
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16555271
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez/11318548
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/full/118/4/1664

Thorsen was not a point man on the Danish MMR and thimerosal studies, he was not responsible for any data collection or analyses and since the lead author has spoken as to Thorsen’s role (or lack thereof) in those studies, I don’t foresee them coming into question accepting those, like you that have such a tenuous grasp on reality to begin with. What may be scrutinised, are the studies that he had in the pipeline for which this grant money was allocated for, if that was indeed, the case.

A February 2004 paper presented by Singh, Department of Biology Center for Integrated Biosystems, Utah State University, to the US Institute of Medicine, Washington DC, measured antibodies in autistic children to five viruses, measles, mumps, rubella, CMV and human herpes virus 6. Researchers found that the antibody level of the measles virus alone, and not the other four, was significantly higher in autistic children than in normal children. The research also found a correlation between measles antibody and brain autoimmunity, which was marked by myelin basic protein antibodies. The two markers correlated in over 90% of the autistic children tested for them, suggesting a causal link between measles virus and autoimmunity in autism. The serology to other viruses and other brain autoantibodies did not show this correlation. This suggested a temporal link of measles virus in the etiology of autism.

Bollocks! These findings don’t mean what he thinks they mean: http://justthevax.blogspot.com/2009/04/mmr-vaccine-roseola-and-autism.html The mere presence of anti-myelin basic protein antibodies is meaningless as well.

An earlier 1999 paper Bitnun et al, Measles Inclusion-Body Encephalitis Caused by the Vaccine Strain of Measles Virus, Clinical Infectious Diseases Journal, 1999, 29 855-61 (October) has previously and independently confirmed the presence of measles virus in the brain tissue of a previously-healthy child following exposure to MMR, when the child had no history of wild measles infection.

Nice quote-mining. The child was found to have an immunocompromised disorder and that is the only case of MIBE after MMR vaccination. MIBE is a specific diagnosis with specific clinical features, not GI issues, nor autism and given that these works were published after Waker’s 1998 study, how could he think he was ‘on to something’? Or is that part of the anti-vax group-think time warp?

Keep digging though, it’s always fun when your lot come to sites like this to edumcate us and spread your twoof. You are doing more to educate parents as to the perils of anti-vaxxing then we ever could.

“Seems to me Thorsen’s work should be called into question, even if it is just a simple hearing that’s open to the public in order to explain how he had no influence over any of the work, that he just signed on because he was head of the organization receiving the grant.”

I recommend the site of the Spahn Ranch as a venue. You’ll feel right at home.

“Thanks Orac, I got the links, I went through what you had to say, your interpretations seem a valid opinion based on your understanding and the understanding of others. To me though a colonoscopy is a necessary investigative tool when dealing with children with bowel disorders, likewise if one discovers measles virus in the intestines to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain. I know a child that had cancer and was being treated with chemotherapy and radiation, made him very uncomfortable and it was a tough decision for his parents to experiment on him that way. ”

To me, as an autistic who knows what it’s like to be an autistic kid, I think that a colonoscopy would have been an absolutely terrifying experience, to the point of health-threatening anxiety. And that is apart from the normal risks of colonoscopies, especially when they mean comrposmising the integrity of the colonic mucous to remove a sample. I also know that lumbar puncture would have been no fun either.

To me, as an adult, this looks like a perfect example of the need for independent institutional review boards to oversee experimentation on human beings, the same kind of oversight that Wakefield deliberately evaded.

@ bensmyson:

First of all, you may not have noticed (whether it’s due to a lack of comprehension, Morton’s Demon, or you’re just lying…I don’t know), but it’s NOT “Thorsen’s work” as you claim in what seems to be an attempt to make a deliberate lie. Rather, it is a couple of papers for which Thorsen was a participant.

Please read the following…Autism-study doctor facing grant probe
Also, please note the parts about Thorsen’s limited involvement in the reports.

Once again you’re resorting to the Genetic Fallacy. You’re asserting the if Thorsen was involved in the studies then they must be tainted, ignoring not only the quality of the reports and the other (more influential researchers involved) and ignoring the body of other independent research that also come to the same general conclusions. You also seem to be hoping that we won’t notice the systematic corruption and fraud in the anti-vax industry (because lets face it..it’s a business) as well as the utter lack of credible supporting evidence for a link between vaccines and autism.

So yes, it will be investigated, but in the end it won’t matter because even if the papers Thorsen was involved in were fraudulent (and that looks rather unlikely at this point, since it seems to be simply a matter of possible graft) there is still the body of independent work that still supports the scientific conclusion that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Just as one hoax fossil does nothing to undermine modern evolutionary theory. So even if (and that’s a BIG “if”) the studies are found to be fraudulent, it does nothing to change the rest of the body of evidence against the anti-vax position, and it does nothing to provide the still missing credible positively supporting evidence for the anti-vax position.

So once again the anti-vax community is trying to put the pro-science side on the defensive with baseless accusations and guilt by association. Meanwhile ignoring both the body of evidence against their position, the lack of credible evidence supporting the anti-vax side, and the rancid stink of corruption coming from their own house.

—————————————————————————–

Others have already pointed out Wakefield’s fraud and how the only “replication” of his work involved equally bad science. Not to mention Wakefield’s deliberate attempts to hide his financial conflicts of interest, and attempts to silence Deer when he tried to bring the truth about Wakefield into the light.

——————————————————————————

So when are you going to answer the question at #63?

I find it ever so humiliating to respond politely to such vicious personal attacks. It seems to me that many of you feel I am a threat, otherwise why take this so personally?

Personal, you know what’s personal? Having your 12 months old child’s brain swell, his fever reach critical levels, seizures, measles titers 15 times the high norm, loss of nearly every developmental milestone and the over $50,000 of uninsured therapy and the enormous loss of income associated with our need to give him every chance humanly possible to bring him back.

Now to me this was absolutely no coincidence, this happened immediately after his 12 month vaccines. That’s just me, my observation, my science and I realize those of you who have never experienced anything remotely like it will never understand or believe. To me, resorting to personal attacks is just wrong. I am no threat, I mean no harm, there are lots of questions I have and I seek answers.

I don’t have the education and experiences many of you have, but I have what is in the next room, playing with his Thomas the Train, pretending, using his imagination, theory of mind I think it is called. This education and experience I have comes from that 4 year old little boy and all that we have been through together the past 3 years to get him so he can play, pretend, wonder where I am, when I am coming into the room to play along side. I’ve lived this, I know what happened to my child, I know for nearly 2 years he suffered. I know he is a great kid, a kid that has been diagnosed several times with autism, not an ASD, autism. I know he is different than many kids his age, its not that hard to see. I know that on April 18th, 2007 as he lay in his mothers lap, screaming, that the shots he got 3 hours earlier were wrecking his brain. I know this without an MRI, or what ever it would take to see inside him, I know this because it was that night when asked, “What’s wrong?” he responded “Me miss daddy” and that was the last thing he spoke for nearly a year.

Maybe your sense of right is to attack me personally, to attempt to portray me as an idiot, a tinfoil hat wearing loon. Fact is you might be right, I dont know anymore, but isnt that like calling someone in a wheelchair a cripple, or my son a retard? What sport is that?

“Now to me this was absolutely no coincidence, this happened immediately after his 12 month vaccines. That’s just me, my observation, my science and I realize those of you who have never experienced anything remotely like it will never understand or believe. To me, resorting to personal attacks is just wrong. I am no threat, I mean no harm, there are lots of questions I have and I seek answers. ”

Yes, that is just you and your observation. It is not, and will never be, your science. It is ample justification for you to feel strongly about the situation. But that is itself justification for setting your opinion aside when the science doesn’t support it. And it is not a justification for your behavior on this site.

Maybe your sense of right is to attack me personally, to attempt to portray me as an idiot, a tinfoil hat wearing loon. Fact is you might be right, I dont know anymore, but isnt that like calling someone in a wheelchair a cripple, or my son a retard? What sport is that?

A person in a wheelchair or someone with a developmental disorder didn’t choose to be the way they are. It’s cruel to taunt someone over a difference they can’t control and didn’t choose. You, however, are alternating between being willfully ignorant, parroting old and oft-refuted arguments completely uncritically, and fishing for sympathy because you’re just a woeful mensch who can’t understand all this big fancy book learnin’. Even if you don’t have the education to interpret the literature, there are lots of science blogs (this one included) that have discussed the studies at length in layman’s terms. Instead, you seem to prefer to spout faux-concern and then, when cornered, you cry about how people are attacking you personally. Pointing out stupidity isn’t an attack, it’s an observation of fact. The people who have been responding to you have been attacking your poor logic and unsupported assertions.

While I am sympathetic to your history and that of your son, it’s completely irrelevant to whether or not the science is correct. It is also completely irrelevant to the validity of the unsupported aspersions you’ve been casting at the authors of the study. The fact that your family has suffered doesn’t give you any scientific insight, it means you have personal experience. It’s absolutely appropriate to talk about gaps in service or lack of care for autistic kids – that’s something your experience makes relevant. But leave scientific commentary alone until you understand the process better.

You are one of the more polite combatants I’ve seen on these forums, though. So thanks for that.

@bensmyson,

Your attempt to get people to pity you in your woe-is-me post at #143 strikes me as more than disingenuous at best, given your tendency in other venues to engage in highly questionable comments that are vaguely menacing:

“My feelings exactly. Im scared, Im angry, Im depressed, Im broke, Im frustrated, Im sick, hurt, and did I say angry? It’s a good thing I dont know how to fly a plane…. by remote control. :)” AoA, Feb 21, 2010 9:09 am

“I hope this guy is found and brought in alive, there are a few questions Id like answered.” AoA, Mar 11, 2010, 8:55 am

“Thorsen, whatya wanna bet, won’t make a single headline. My guess is if he is mentioned at all it will be because he was found in the trunk of some burned out car.” AoA, Mar 10, 2010 6:58 pm

@bensmyson,

know that on April 18th, 2007 as he lay in his mothers lap, screaming, that the shots he got 3 hours earlier were wrecking his brain. I know this without an MRI, or what ever it would take to see inside him

I am hopelessly sad for you, because that quote shows me the charlatans and quacks in the anti-vaccine movement have convinced you that your child’s condition was caused by the MMR vaccine. Science or medicine be damned.

I am not going to argue whether the events you described really happened, or whether your timeline is accurate. Only you know that for sure.

What I must argue is that there is no credible scientific evidence that vaccines in general, or the MMR in particular, cause autism. There just isn’t. And if you want to remain willfully ignorant of that reality because you prefer the echo chamber of the AoA crowd, then so be it.

But by doing so, do not pretend that you want to engage in any meaningful discourse on the topic. That’s insulting to everyone’s intelligence.

Now to me this was absolutely no coincidence, this happened immediately after his 12 month vaccines. That’s just me, my observation, my science and I realize those of you who have never experienced anything remotely like it will never understand or believe.

First of all, I am very sorry that your son has the condition he has. It must be very difficult for you to deal with.

But that doesn’t justify you remaining willfully ignorant. You will almost certainly yammer back with self-pitying bullshit about “oh how dare you launch your vicious personal attack on me I choose to interpret that as proof that I must be right because otherwise why would you so cruelly attack saintly little me –” Because you are willfully ignorant, refusing to learn anything that would contradict your presently held ideas, that’s why I’m calling you willfully ignorant.

I’m sorry that you and your son have a hard row to hoe. But calling what happened to your son “my science” is like interviewing a single person and calling it “my poll.” “Mr. President, how can you ignore a clear mandate from the people? 100% of the Americans who responded in my poll said they wanted your top priority to be elimination of crabgrass! Why are you ignoring the people??” Sound silly? Well, guess what. It sounds equally silly to anyone who knows science when you say “Event A happened and 3 hours later Event B happened and that proves that Event A causes Event B, that’s my observation and that’s my science.”

Let me explain something to you very clearly. Emotion does not trump reality. You seem to think that telling us why you are so emotional on the subject of the alleged vaccine-autism connection will convince us that you are an expert on the alleged vaccine-autism connection. “those of you who have never experienced anything remotely like it will never understand or believe …” “I know this without an MRI, or what ever it would take to see inside him, I know this because it was that night when asked, “What’s wrong?” he responded “Me miss daddy” …”

But it doesn’t work that way. I could get kidnapped tomorrow by Muslim terrorists, but that wouldn’t make me an expert on the Middle East. You had the heartbreaking experience of seeing your son regress into autism but it doesn’t mean you know what causes autism. Caring very much for your son with autism doesn’t mean you know what causes autism.

You tell us you want answers and God knows that’s understandable; who could possibly be in your position and not want answers?? But when you tell us that you already have the answers to the puzzle of autism, answers that have eluded researchers who make it their life’s work, and you have these answers not because you actually went through a sane process of inquiry which would eventually produce the correct answers and weed out the plausible-seeming-but-incorrect answers, but merely because autism has caused you heartbreak, you are making no sense.

If I got kidnapped by Muslim terrorists, it would certainly motivate me to try and figure out what’s really going wrong in the Middle East. But if I started showing up on forums devoted to studying the situation in the Middle East and announcing that my kidnapping already taught me what I needed to know about the Middle East, and I sneered at anyone who tried to tell me anything about the Middle East that didn’t fit with my existing “knowledge”, people would very soon start treating me as an idiot or a tinfoil-hat-wearing loon. For the very good reason that I’d be acting like one.

bensmyson @ #143:

I find it ever so humiliating to respond politely to such vicious personal attacks.

Do you seriously think that the people here pointing out the fallacies in your reasoning and how your past comments contradict your current statements is a “vicious personal attack”?!?! Really?

You should try posting on Pharyngula! 😉

It seems to me that many of you feel I am a threat, otherwise why take this so personally?

Not really, it’s just about countering obvious falsehoods/fallacies in order to not let them mislead any fence-sitters (at least for me it is).

Everything in the above article, and the links, already pointed out that Thorsen was apparently just a part of the teams involved here, there is no evidence that he was the principle author or a major influence.So why you to keep talking like he was when you know you have nothing to support that assertion?

You already should know that the abuse of public funds and fraudulent research are two different things, so why do you act like they’re not different?

You should already know that there is a vast body of research supporting showing a lack of connection between autism and vaccines, so why do you act as though these two studies are somehow so important? While on the subject, have you ever asked yourself why the anti-vax groups don’t try to fund credible research over their own? Why is that the anti-vax research always turns out to be poorly-done/fraudulent/incompetent?

Personal, you know what’s personal? Having your 12 months old child’s brain swell, his fever reach critical levels, seizures, measles titers 15 times the high norm, loss of nearly every developmental milestone and the over $50,000 of uninsured therapy and the enormous loss of income associated with our need to give him every chance humanly possible to bring him back.

Now to me this was absolutely no coincidence, this happened immediately after his 12 month vaccines

If true, I’m sorry to hear that, but considering how easy it is to induce false memories and how often the parents of autistic children tend to misremember the progression of symptoms in their child’s condition, I’m afraid that unverifiable anecdotes aren’t that convincing. It’s nothing personal, it’s just that people are often wrong about many things, especially when deep emotions are involved. They tend to be confident in their recollection of things that didn’t happen the way they recall. That’s not a slight against you personally, but it’s a fact, all humans have the problem of being poor witnesses. I personally would gladly change my position if credible evidence that the damage caused by vaccines outweighed the harm, but what I find instead are strings of logical fallacies, bogus “evidence”, and excuses.

That’s why the pro-science side keeps asking for scientifically credible evidence, but when asked for it the anti-vaxers almost invariably get offended or start to make excuses. What we don’t see are credible studies being performed that show support for the position that vaccines cause autism, just a few such studies could change the world of medicine(if the premise is true) and help thousands of future children. So why aren’t the anti-vax groups trying to perform credible tests/studies that are ethically acceptable?

Maybe your sense of right is to attack me personally, to attempt to portray me as an idiot, a tinfoil hat wearing loon. Fact is you might be right, I dont know anymore, but isnt that like calling someone in a wheelchair a cripple, or my son a retard? What sport is that?

For me it’s not about making fun of you. It’s about arriving at the truth (or something reasonably close to it) so as to maximize human welfare. Bad logic and unfounded assertions don’t cut it when trying to rationally determine what is best for the general public. To borrow your analogy, it’s not like making fun of someone in a wheelchair, it’s more like trying to quarantine Typhoid Mary to prevent harm to innocent people.

If what you say about your child is true then maybe your time would be better spent trying to encourage others in the anti-vax community to push for some credible research from the anti-vax organizations. Personally though, I’m not holding my breath for any such research from groups like AoA and Generation Rescue.

Thanks Science Mom and Chris for the links to those studies. I am not so good with that sort of thing. They have been a big help to me, cheers.

In a moment of weakness I pulled out the hankie to offer up a bit of background regarding what fuels the fire that drives me to post the things I do. Some of you have see what I witnessed with my own two eyes as I guess a coincidence and others as false memory. To me it is my science, my own personal science. I could care less what others experience in their world, it is my world that is important to me. Do I need to read and pour over in detail a study that says coffee/caffeine tastes good or bad for me to know whether or not I will drink it? My tasting of it is my science.

Two things disturbed me most about your responses. One, “Typhoid Mary?” Harm to innocent people? Please! Exactly how immune are you right now to the diseases you have vaccinated against? Hand washing (sanitary conditions) , food and access to proper health care have been known to save a few lives.

The other thing that disturbs me but in weird, wacky kind of way is KWombles collection of my prior posts and her attempt to portray me in a particular “vaguely menacing” light. Vaguely menacing? WTF is that? How silly! 🙂

I do sense a genuine spirit of compassion regarding my son and I am appreciative. I am not surprised because Im sure a majority of you are parents yourselves, parents who love and cherish your own child and know in your heart of hearts that you would do anything to see to it your child has every advantage possible. They say there is no greater love than what a parent has for their child.

Some of you may be under the mistaken impression that I have fallen for quackery and voodoo. Nope, I havent. But I will say this about that, whatever a parent chooses to do for their child is their right. They want Jesus to heal them, fine, want to rub oil of pecans on them, fine, want to carry them to a doctor who tells them that sticking the child in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in hopes of helping them, fine.

Some of you are smart enough to look up studies about hope versus no hope. Hope is telling the world things are looking up. No hope is what happened to 8-year-old Jude Michael Mirra in a Manhattan hotel. I want parents to have hope, even if it is false hope, long enough for them to find solid ground and proper support.

Enough of this. Save your stories of chelations gone wrong and Lupron and the rise in measles and McCarthy for someone who cares. Time to get back on to the topic.

“But I will say this about that, whatever a parent chooses to do for their child is their right. They want Jesus to heal them, fine, want to rub oil of pecans on them, fine, want to carry them to a doctor who tells them that sticking the child in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in hopes of helping them, fine.”

You left out “sell them to a dog-fighting ring as training bait.”

I want parents to have hope, even if it is false hope, long enough for them to find solid ground and proper support.

And here is the difference between you and us. We want the parents to have REAL hope, and not waste their time and money with charletons who are profiting off of their dispair.

I support people who are seriously looking for honest answers and solutions. You are like Suzanne Sommers, and running to anyone who is willing to tell you what you want to hear, even if they lie to you. You know what happens when you do that? They lie to you.

@Bensmyson,

“In a moment of weakness” my arse. You made an appeal to pity. You insist that your science is a personal science of one and all you need. Bleh. You really don’t understand science, then. That’s anecdote, and faulty at best.

You assert here and elsewhere that parents can do whatever they like with their children, whatever that may be, and I cry foul on that as well. Legally (and you of all people should know better) you do not have the right to do whatever you like for and to your child. Morally, you do not, either. And you sure don’t have the right to behave in whatever fashion you like regarding your child and not deal with the societal repercussions of your actions.

You are not a victim. I’ll very much grant that your child may be, though, but vaccines aren’t what he’s a victim of.

False hope is no hope at all.

@Pablo
You said, “You are like Suzanne Sommers, and running to anyone who is willing to tell you what you want to hear, even if they lie to you.”

You obviously have no idea who I am. Because you made such a assertive statement about something you have no idea about, what kind of person does that make you?

Any idea about placebo effects and why they work?

http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar02/placebo.aspx

A 2004 study in the British Medical Journal of physicians in Israel found that 60% used placebos in their medical practice, most commonly to “fend off” requests for unjustified medications or to calm a patient. The accompanying editorial concluded, “We cannot afford to dispense with any treatment that works, even if we are not certain how it does.” Nitzan U, Lichtenberg P. 2004 Questionnaire survey on use of placebo. BMJ. Oct 23;329(7472):944-6. PubMed

You obviously have no idea who I am. Because you made such a assertive statement about something you have no idea about, what kind of person does that make you?

I think your activities here and elsewhere speak volumes about who you are, your ethos and what you are willing to do to your child, not to mention what you may be capable of doing to those you perceive as causing your child’s autism.

Any idea about placebo effects and why they work?

Are you seriously trying to equate the ‘biomed’ crap you subject your child to with a placebo? If only that was all you were truly giving your child. It’s for you, only for you because you feel like you have to do something radical or you have failed.

If you were truly in the throes of de-programming, you would have so many questions and you would, undoubtedly, be treated much differently. But you aren’t as your easily-found internet activities establish. I don’t know what your game is, but it sure isn’t ‘to learn’. You have been provided with a lot of good information and your response has been contrary to one who is looking for answers.

#132 @bensmyson = whale.to plagiarist

It’s like watching ping pong with this one – waaaah, I’m not smart enough, quote whale.to, waaaah, I’m not smart enough, quote whale.to, waaaah, I’m not smart enough, quote whale.to.

You came here to make a point. You did. It wasn’t the point you intended. But I will give credit to you and Handley’s other five web-mouths: you’re loud.

Some of you have see what I witnessed with my own two eyes as I guess a coincidence and others as false memory. To me it is my science, my own personal science.

And now you have no excuse to complain when people call you a willfully ignorant loon. You have already had it explained to you why a single personal experience, no matter how emotional it was for you, cannot be promoted to the status of “science,” but you insist on doing so.

And by the way, telling people that there is something you would do in your state of anger and depression, if you were able to fly a plane by remote control, that it’s “lucky” you’re not able to do? Everybody understands the implication you’re making. You’re talking about a violent act of mass destruction at the very least if not murder. KWombles is not being “silly” in the least by describing that as menacing; you are being silly when you pretend that it’s not menacing to talk about how you envision yourself lashing out violently to satisfy your anger.

This is why AoA will gather the faithful more easily than we will; they’re muuuuuch nicer than us 😛 I love watching the comments on AoA articles where someone will say something COMPLETELY off-the-wall (like ‘whatever parents decide for their children is their right’) and instead of countering that dangerous assertion, they line up to kiss the behind of whoever has the saddest story.

Maybe we should hire some PR people, or get some popular figure to be our spokesperson. I hear Andy Wakefield’s looking for work – people seem to love him.

@ Antaeus Feldspar – Do you not see the little smiley face at the end of that quote?

It really is enlightening to see how all your black and white, analytical minds have absolutely pegged me so perfectly with your keen perception and dead-on sense of reasoning with almost mystical powers and of course clairvoyant like social skills. Amazing, no wonder you have such a superior indisputable grasp of all things science, especially how it relates to autism. (I know some of you think you are autistic because at 40 you got a diagnosis of aspergers but Im talking about autism) Raise your hands if you currently care for someone diagnosed with autism. Wombles? Otto? Sciencemom? Any of you other “cockweasel douchenozzle” know-it-alls?

Someone, anyone, please tell me exactly what if any bio-med programs I have involved my son in, tell me what if any invasive procedures I have subjected my son to, please prove that you have any knowledge of what I do or dont do with my son in regards to therapy and treatment. You know absolutely nothing yet you post things like this, “You are not a victim. I’ll very much grant that your child may be, though, but vaccines aren’t what he’s a victim of.” “I think your activities here and elsewhere speak volumes about who you are, your ethos and what you are willing to do to your child” “‘biomed’ crap you subject your child to” and “you feel like you have to do something radical or you have failed” And you know this how?

And again Antaeus Feldspar, I said “To me it is MY science, MY own personal science.” Did I say anything about expecting it to be yours?

You obviously have no idea who I am.

True. I only know you from what you say.

Hence, my response.

If you are not a sucker like Suzanne Sommers, who prefers to be lied to rather than to face reality and the truth and work within that, then stop acting like you are.

And as others have noted, your concept of a placebo effect is so far afield from reality that I don’t even know where to start.

Many times Pablo hope is just a placebo. Churches are full of people of faith based on hope. And if you spent a second or two looking at the science of placebo effects and what effect false hope has on healing and the physiological transformations that take place in the brain of the believer you might want to say you’re sorry for being so ignorant.

Are people who get on their knees and pray fools? Do they waste their time? You ever wish someone “Good luck”

And again Antaeus Feldspar, I said “To me it is MY science, MY own personal science.” Did I say anything about expecting it to be yours?

There is no such thing as “your own personal science.” It’s as asinine to talk about such a thing as it would be for a convicted criminal to say “Well, yeah, I was caught red-handed in the actual act of first-degree murder, and the jury did find me guilty beyond all reasonable doubt of the crime, but my verdict, my own personal verdict, is that I am not guilty.” The criminal has his own wish for what the verdict was, but that does not mean that wish can be artificially promoted to the status of a verdict, or referred to by any such asinine locution as “his own personal verdict.”

But you know something? Even if, for the sake of argument, it was possible for people to have “personal” sciences, what you have been referring to as your “own personal science” still would not qualify. Science is a process of looking at multiple hypotheses and evaluating their likelihood based on the evidence. By your own admission you simply selected a hypothesis to explain your child’s autism and ruled out all others based on your emotional convictions.

This means when you tell us that your conviction about what happened to your son is “your own personal science” and expect it to be respected it’s as dishonest as a counterfeiter passing a phony $100 bill and expecting it to be honored because he calls it “my own personal currency.” 😉 See the little smiley face? Doesn’t that make everything better? 😉 It’s so versatile! 😉 I can say that you are an ignorant dishonest manipulative untrustworthy whackball loon and you can’t claim I insulted you because I used a smiley face! 😉 Because if you claim that it remains an insult despite the smiley face at the end, then the logical conclusion is that a statement about lashing out violently to satisfy one’s sense of entitlement is still a statement about lashing out violently to satisfy one’s sense of entitlement even if a smiley face is appended! 😉

“There is no such thing as “your own personal science.”

Personal science and/or experience works… When vaccines damage a child, it is that child’s (family’s) personal experience. Period. This isn’t difficult people.

Are people who get on their knees and pray fools?

It depends. What are they praying for?

As I told Calli Arcade some months back, praying for the earthquake victims in Haiti doesn”t help them. Send them $5 and you will do a lot more.

Similarly, you just illustrate the point that you don’t understand a placebo effect. How does praying for someone help them? It doesn’t, it only helps the person praying. Similarly, you have made it very clear that you want whackadoodle treatments to make the parents feel better. Why does the placebo effect on autistic kids depend on whether their parents have “hope” or not?

I have no problem wishing nothing but the best for autistic kids, and I hope they do well. But for the parents, my wish is to do something to actually help your child!!!! Don’t screw around with them just because it makes you feel better. Do things that make THEM better.

It’s not about the parents, and making them feel good. It’s about helping the child.

And that is why we disagree. You think it’s about you.

After reading the back and forth between bensmyson and all the rest, and on top of my own experience with the antivaxers, I’m beginning to get the sense that many antivaxers are true narcissists with control issues. It’s not just about name calling; they seem to make the issue very much about themselves and hope to get attention.

Wacko:

When vaccines damage a child, it is that child’s (family’s) personal experience. Period. This isn’t difficult people.

And it is just too bad when the actual disease causes damage? Perhaps it was because the child was not “healthy” due to some random definition? I’ve actually had some say that somehow my son deserved his seizures and permanent disability due to some perceived guess at his “health.”

Again, what evidence do you have that shows that vaccines damage children at the levels you claim? What evidence shows that the MMR vaccine causes damage greater than measles does? Measles is known to cause permanent damage at about one of a thousand cases.

Of course you will come back with your normal insults that are completely devoid of data.

Personal experience. The messianic model of science fed to us by Hollywood. The delusion that a human being can attain godlike infallibility in regards to causal relationships by observing ONE event, divorced from a worldwide context.

We don’t buy into that bullshit, Wacko. Human beings are fallible creatures. That’s why we need science. That’s why science is largely a process of enforced humility. We won’t let you prop up anyone as a god. You’re just angry that we won’t worship you and your friends as superior beings.

Personal science and/or experience works…

Wacko is sort of right about this. There’s a reason we have a biological instinct to assume correlation is causation. It must be an adaptive trait to some extent, so it must work more often than not.

However, when your personal experience is at odds with more careful population-level observations, then it’s a good idea to question your personal ad-hoc “science.” (Coincidences do happen.) This is a luxury that technological humans have and that our ancestors didn’t have. Use it.

“By your own admission you simply selected a hypothesis to explain your child’s autism and ruled out all others based on your emotional convictions.”

What other hypothesis have I ruled out? And what exactly are my “emotional convictions” You honestly think that while my son was suffering from chronic fevers, seizures and encephalitis I didn’t look at fifty causes? That the staff of doctors at major university hospitals zeroed in on vaccines as the cause of my son’s injury? Did I not go through very expensive genetic testing to look for a clue?

Again you think you know me and you dont.

*”But for the parents, my wish is to do something to actually help your child!!!! Don’t screw around with them just because it makes you feel better. Do things that make THEM better.”*

What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system? If they couldnt talk would you get them speech therapy? Would you cram experimental drugs down their throat? Do you have any idea what I have done or didnt do?

And Pablo, you said “How does praying for someone help them?” I guess you would have to ask the billion people that ask for prayer on a daily basis.

“Science is a process of looking at multiple hypotheses and evaluating their likelihood based on the evidence.”

Merck’s ProQuad (an MMRV) was written up by the FDA for having contamination, faulty measurement equipment, high incidents of seizures. Merck in November of 2008 filed a report with VAERS that ProQuad caused two deaths, bringing the total for the year to 4. It was black labeled, removed from the AICP recommendation list and is still not back on the market.

My son immediately developed a fever, seizures, uncontrolled crying, and a few days later a body rash that was diagnosed by his pediatrician over the phone as roseola. He lost his language, changed his eating habits, and a couple of months later he stopped responding to outside stimuli and did not register any discomfort to pain.

The blood work taken after his vaccines showed a compromised immune system. Six months ago Ben’s measles titers were 15 times the high norm.

It is well documented that vaccines cause injuries, and they injured my son. I have evidence of that. But do I have evidence that a vaccine caused his autism? No. As far as I know there is no blood test or anything that proves the date of onset of autism. I know we recognized a serious change in behavior within a couple of days, we just didnt suspect autism.

Perhaps with some of your already proven psychic abilities of discernment you can tell me exactly what caused my son’s regressive autism. Ruling out of course vaccines, we know that’s not possible right?

As far as I know, no one has looked at records of all those tens of thousands of children who regress every year and interviewed parents, looked at home movies, journals, medical records for a common link. Are all parents left handed, exposed to a certain chemical toxin, blue eyed, of German decent, tick bit, dog owners, shell fish eaters, or what have you?

There have been studies looking at the MMR alone, studies looking for genetic traits, head sizes, etc but no one has knocked on my door, no one has given me some paperwork to fill out. No CDC investigator phoned for an interview.

And now the Thorsen allegations and the so many other news articles of drug studies faked and conflict of interests.

It really is hard for simple minded people like me to know what the truth is.

Some good scientists turn out to be rather poor financial managers. There are lots of ways to get into trouble for misusing funds that do not necessarily involve converting grant funds for personal use. I’ve seen most of these happen:

1) Using money awarded for one grant to fund studies that were not proposed on that grant. Most scientists do this to some extent. It is almost the only way to do the preliminary studies needed to initiate a new project. Most funding agencies understand this and tolerate it to some extent, but one can get into trouble by doing it too flagrantly. Many scientists tend to treat all of their grant funds as one big pot of money, and not worry too much about which product is going to use, for example, a particular chemical (besides, often the answer is “both of them”). Standards have gotten tighter, and things that a scientist may regard as routine practice may not be perceived in the same way by an auditor.

2) Running over budget. Many universities do not keep close track of grant funds. At some institutions, grant funds are only debited once invoices are paid. As this may happen weeks or months after placing the order, those funds will still be listed for some time in one’s grant balance even though the money has actually been spent, and it is possible for a careless investigator to spend the same money more than once, only to have the grant end up overspent. If this is extreme, this could result in legal action.

3) Moving equipment from institution to institution. Most institutions allow grants to be transferred to other institutions, although they do not have to. Technically, the grant is to the institution, not the investigator, and the institution can potentially decide to retain the grant and assign a new principal investigator. However, there is a sort of “gentleman’s agreement” among universities not to do this when somebody is moving to another academic institution. However, this does not apply when somebody moves to a private company, and in any case, equipment can be a source of disputes. Depending upon what funding source a piece of equipment was purchased with, a university may insist that some of the equipment purchased for a project must remain at the institution. Usually, there is negotiation involved over what an investigator gets to take and what they have to leave behind, but sometimes an investigator will simply pack up and move equipment that is not theirs to take as far is the university is concerned, and this can result in legal action. Similar issues can arise regarding valuable research materials created at a university, such as transgenic animals.

4) Commercially valuable discoveries made using university facilities are technically the university’s “intellectual property.” The investigator may not see it this way, and there may be disputes about to when and where a particular discovery was made if an investigator leaves a university to found a private company to exploit some particularly valuable idea or discovery.

benismyson: If your child really had an immunocompromised state equivalent to late stage AIDS you would have known about it long before any MMR vaccine. Look up “severe combined immunodefiency” and “agammaglobulinamena” for some examples.

bensmyson,
If you have a chance, find a copy of Dawkins’ The Greatest Show on Earth and read about the “gorilla film.” It’s a great example of how obervations and experiences can be horribly unreliable and misleading.

BTW, what did you use to treat your son’s high fevers?

Jen, used various anti-inflammatories.

dedicated lurker – post MMR, not before MMR, and who said anything about late stages?

Thanks trrl for getting back on topic

Question-

It seems that there may be a possibility of what I term “double dipping” and in so doing someone could very easily use product or funds from one source commingling funds and technically be in violation of the law. What is telling about the press release from the university was that they claim no knowledge that Thorsen also worked for Emory at the same time which to me may indicate some of that, “hey he stole from us” kind of reaction particularly if there was some paper source showing 2 million went to some Emory study.

Sorry, the question is, who else has been brought up on charges for something like this? Is there any history of that?

jen, sorry that earlier answer might have been too vague, we used Motrin periodically when needed (more than we wanted to, but he responded well to it) and Curcumin prophylactically on a daily basis for about a year, maybe 8 months.

So, you didn’t use Tylenol at all, ever? Did your wife use acetaminophen-containing drugs while pregnant or lactating? Sorry, I have to ask, and if I’m being too nosy, feel free to tell me so! Like you, I seek answers. I am genuinely curious.

What other hypothesis have I ruled out? And what exactly are my “emotional convictions” You honestly think that while my son was suffering from chronic fevers, seizures and encephalitis I didn’t look at fifty causes? That the staff of doctors at major university hospitals zeroed in on vaccines as the cause of my son’s injury? Did I not go through very expensive genetic testing to look for a clue?

What diagnostics were used to conclude encephalitis? What staff of doctors at what major university hospitals ‘zeroed in on vaccines’?

What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system? If they couldnt talk would you get them speech therapy? Would you cram experimental drugs down their throat? Do you have any idea what I have done or didnt do?

You are now saying your son has an immunodeficiency disorder akin to AIDS? But it was the vaccines? I do have an idea of what you have done but why don’t you clear that up for us.

Merck’s ProQuad (an MMRV) was written up by the FDA for having contamination, faulty measurement equipment, high incidents of seizures. Merck in November of 2008 filed a report with VAERS that ProQuad caused two deaths, bringing the total for the year to 4. It was black labeled, removed from the AICP recommendation list and is still not back on the market.

I know that Merck was having production problems but you don’t provide any supporting evidence for contamination. You have an interesting spin on reality. A pharmaceutical company is required by law to file a VAERS report if an adverse reaction is reported to them. It still needs to go through investigation. In other words, filing a VAERS report isn’t proof of causality. ACIP didn’t ‘black label’ ProQuad, they withdrew their preference for it over MMR and V: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5710a3.htm Also in the link provided is the increased rate of seizures associated with ProQuad, not seizures. Please get your facts straight as the 2 are vastly different and febrile seizures have not been shown to be associated with any short or long term sequelea.

My son immediately developed a fever, seizures, uncontrolled crying, and a few days later a body rash that was diagnosed by his pediatrician over the phone as roseola. He lost his language, changed his eating habits, and a couple of months later he stopped responding to outside stimuli and did not register any discomfort to pain.

Funny but that is not what you or your husband report: http://bensmyson.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/science-in-for-a-bumpy-ride/ So nothing at all happened after his 1 year jabs as you claim and you didn’t report a concern with speech for a full 6 months after those jabs.

The blood work taken after his vaccines showed a compromised immune system. Six months ago Ben’s measles titers were 15 times the high norm.

So what is his immune disorder? Did no one inform you that a high, even very high, anti-measles titre is meaningless? http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=172

As far as I know, no one has looked at records of all those tens of thousands of children who regress every year and interviewed parents, looked at home movies, journals, medical records for a common link. Are all parents left handed, exposed to a certain chemical toxin, blue eyed, of German decent, tick bit, dog owners, shell fish eaters, or what have you?

I see you don’t read much literature. You are mistaken about reports of regression and how they translate to reality. There are numerous studies (look up Catherine Lord for starters) that have examined ‘regression’ and most cases aren’t really. What do you think is being done with autism research? Do you even keep abreast? You and your ilk revile genetics research but what do you think is going to identify commonality or patterns the fastest, most efficient way? If you want it done your way, go tell JB Handley and Jenny McScience to put up or shut up.

There have been studies looking at the MMR alone, studies looking for genetic traits, head sizes, etc but no one has knocked on my door, no one has given me some paperwork to fill out. No CDC investigator phoned for an interview.

How in hell is anyone supposed to know who you even are? Do your DAN! doctors even bother to inform you of the autism studies that are recruiting? Do you think you might want to be a bit pro-active about such things? I have friends whose children are under the care of properly-trained neurodevelopmental paediatricians and therapists who are constantly informed of clinical studies that are recruiting and they jump on any they can.

It really is hard for simple minded people like me to know what the truth is.

I, for one, would like to believe you but I don’t. You give absolutely no indication that you are really confused, quite the contrary as your post history all over the place establishes. You are quite certain that vaccines cause autism, caused your son’s autism and vaccines are teh evil. And please don’t pull your, “I’m not anti-vax” schtick. Anyone who perpetuates the ‘AIDS was caused by vaccines’ myth, is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-vaxxer. I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than some languid statement of bewilderment to convince me that you are interested in the facts.

Jen – yes we used Tylenol at the beginning, in fact it was what the doctor recommended but it didnt work as well as Motrin. When he was bad off and the fever was tough to knock down we would alternate with Tylenol.

Ben’s mother is pretty healthy however after Ben’s birth she developed some gallbladder complications and used Tylenol briefly a couple of times to manage pain. He was breast fed.

The only other med he was given prior to being a year old was Prevacid for acid reflux.

@Bensmyson,

Three. Tre, I have three children on the spectrum. Which is completely irrelevant. You don’t get to cast yourself as the victim, period.

Smiley faces and just kidding don’t let you say anything you like with no consequences.

@bensmyson:
Thank you for clarifying. The subject of fever suppression/analgesic use and autism interests me greatly. 🙂

And Pablo, you said “How does praying for someone help them?” I guess you would have to ask the billion people that ask for prayer on a daily basis.

I’ll take this as you not being able to answer, then. Got it.

wombles, Good to know you say the same prayers at night as the rest of us. But it’s not irrelevant, it honestly isnt because I can have a touch more respect for you knowing how much you care and love your children, the amount of time sacrificed over the years working with them, giving yourself totally to them with hopes of progress (I wont go woo on you) and a better life. Just curious what you think caused the autism in your children or does it matter to you?

wombles, pablo made me think if a question you might be able to answer for me. Is there a God? Was Jesus resurrected? Is there any science to that? Any science to being the beneficiary of prayer? Does prayer help?

“Prayer. How to do nothing and still feel like you’re helping.”

Nothing fails like prayer.

@Bensmyson,

As I doubt you had any respect for me prior this, Tre, I’m not going to be bowled over by you having a “touch more respect for” me now.

Your respect for me should not be tied to whether I am a parent of children with a disability. I do not use my children to elicit sympathy in order to make others feel guilty for arguing against my points.

You miss the point, actually. Scientific evidence isn’t dependent on pity over another person’s situation. Anecdote doesn’t trump scientific evidence. And a “science” of one is not science. It’s anecdote.

Memory is horribly flawed, and we work ourselves into all sorts of memories, convictions, beliefs of what has happened and why, and we self-justify ourselves out of our cognitive dissonance. It’s why we don’t rely on anecdote.

It’s irrelevant what “caused” my children’s autism; sometimes why doesn’t matter nearly as much as what next. Maybe it’s time you learned that.

And you’re more than capable of finding research on the internet and mangling the research findings; I’ve read you all over the internet for the last year, so I know the false humility of your postings here on this thread.

Where is the relevance of whether I believe there is a god and whether Jesus was resurrected or not? You should know there’s no science on that, but you’re more than welcome to go read Deepak; he’s got a new post up at Huff on god.

You want to know if prayer helps the beneficiaries of it? Look it up yourself.

What other hypothesis have I ruled out? And what exactly are my “emotional convictions” You honestly think that while my son was suffering from chronic fevers, seizures and encephalitis I didn’t look at fifty causes? That the staff of doctors at major university hospitals zeroed in on vaccines as the cause of my son’s injury? Did I not go through very expensive genetic testing to look for a clue?

What diagnostics were used to conclude encephalitis? What staff of doctors at what major university hospitals ‘zeroed in on vaccines’?

What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system? If they couldnt talk would you get them speech therapy? Would you cram experimental drugs down their throat? Do you have any idea what I have done or didnt do?

You are now saying your son has an immunodeficiency disorder akin to AIDS? But it was the vaccines? I do have an idea of what you have done but why don’t you clear that up for us.

Merck’s ProQuad (an MMRV) was written up by the FDA for having contamination, faulty measurement equipment, high incidents of seizures. Merck in November of 2008 filed a report with VAERS that ProQuad caused two deaths, bringing the total for the year to 4. It was black labeled, removed from the AICP recommendation list and is still not back on the market.

I know that Merck was having production problems but you don’t provide any supporting evidence for contamination. You have an interesting spin on reality. A pharmaceutical company is required by law to file a VAERS report if an adverse reaction is reported to them. It still needs to go through investigation. In other words, filing a VAERS report isn’t proof of causality. ACIP didn’t ‘black label’ ProQuad, they withdrew their preference for it over MMR and V: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5710a3.htm Also in the link provided is the increased rate of seizures associated with ProQuad, not seizures. Please get your facts straight as the 2 are vastly different and febrile seizures have not been shown to be associated with any short or long term sequelea.

My son immediately developed a fever, seizures, uncontrolled crying, and a few days later a body rash that was diagnosed by his pediatrician over the phone as roseola. He lost his language, changed his eating habits, and a couple of months later he stopped responding to outside stimuli and did not register any discomfort to pain.

Funny but that is not what you or your husband report: http://bensmyson.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/science-in-for-a-bumpy-ride/ So nothing at all happened after his 1 year jabs as you claim and you didn’t report a concern with speech for a full 6 months after those jabs.

The blood work taken after his vaccines showed a compromised immune system. Six months ago Ben’s measles titers were 15 times the high norm.

So what is his immune disorder? Did no one inform you that a high, even very high, anti-measles titre is meaningless? http://photoninthedarkness.com/?p=172

As far as I know, no one has looked at records of all those tens of thousands of children who regress every year and interviewed parents, looked at home movies, journals, medical records for a common link. Are all parents left handed, exposed to a certain chemical toxin, blue eyed, of German decent, tick bit, dog owners, shell fish eaters, or what have you?

I see you don’t read much literature. You are mistaken about reports of regression and how they translate to reality. There are numerous studies (look up Catherine Lord for starters) that have examined ‘regression’ and most cases aren’t really. What do you think is being done with autism research? Do you even keep abreast? You and your ilk revile genetics research but what do you think is going to identify commonality or patterns the fastest, most efficient way? If you want it done your way, go tell JB Handley and Jenny McScience to put up or shut up.

There have been studies looking at the MMR alone, studies looking for genetic traits, head sizes, etc but no one has knocked on my door, no one has given me some paperwork to fill out. No CDC investigator phoned for an interview.

How in hell is anyone supposed to know who you even are? Do your DAN! doctors even bother to inform you of the autism studies that are recruiting? Do you think you might want to be a bit pro-active about such things? I have friends whose children are under the care of properly-trained neurodevelopmental paediatricians and therapists who are constantly informed of clinical studies that are recruiting and they jump on any they can.

It really is hard for simple minded people like me to know what the truth is.

I, for one, would like to believe you but I don’t. You give absolutely no indication that you are really confused, quite the contrary as your post history all over the place establishes. You are quite certain that vaccines cause autism, caused your son’s autism and vaccines are teh evil. And please don’t pull your, “I’m not anti-vax” schtick. Anyone who perpetuates the ‘AIDS was caused by vaccines’ myth, is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-vaxxer. I’m afraid it’s going to take a lot more than some languid statement of bewilderment to convince me that you are interested in the facts.

bensmyson@161

Raise your hands if you currently care for someone diagnosed with autism. Wombles? Otto? Sciencemom? Any of you other “cockweasel douchenozzle” know-it-alls?

I also have a son with autism, I don’t want brownie points or symapthy. It is not about me, or my “personal science”, it is about the facts. You are not interested in the facts, just standing on your soapbox and yelling at the top of your voice.

@184

Good to know you say the same prayers at night as the rest of us…the amount of time sacrificed over the years working with them, giving yourself totally to them with hopes of progress (I wont go woo on you) and a better life.

You are very pretentious thinking you know how all mothers feel, I doubt Kwombles has much in common with you, other than having children with similar challenges.

Also, you sound like you are bragging about what you have done for your son. Guess what? You are not a saint, when you became a mother you signed up for this. You are doing your job!

Just curious what you think caused the autism in your children or does it matter to you?

What ’caused’ my son’s autism is completely irrelevant to the job at hand; helping him accomplish all that he can, improving his skills, and helping him find a place in the world. There are many very intelligent and accomplished professionals who are working on finding the “cause” of autism. I will stay out of the way and let them do their jobs. You are so arrogant to think you know better then the scientists and doctors who spend their whole lives trying to solve these puzzles just because you read the bile that AoA spews.

I am not impressed.

Hey, Bensmyson, if you want to give shout-outs, what about one for my dad who spent his professional career educating children with autism, Down’s Syndrome, and a range of other conditions that cause mental disabilities?

And unlike so many in the “my son’s f***** up because he’s got autism” camp, he actually liked his students. Respected them as people. And fought tooth and nail for them, every step of the way.

“In other words, filing a VAERS report isn’t proof of causality.”

Tre has had this explained plenty of times. It doesn’t care. VAERS 331194 and 331196 (and, sometimes, 331195!) are an idee fixe.

@bensmyson

So your child had a fever of 107 degrees (!) in January 2007, prior to receiving the vaccines you claim caused him to develop autism? That he was also having immune problems with low white blood cell counts? And that there was no immediate reaction to the MMRV?

In other words, according to your own words, he was having serious health problems before being vaccinated?

These are very large discrepancies with what you’ve told us here?

Twist the facts much?

Rob – it’s not about “twisting the facts.” It’s about completely lying through his teeth.

I’ll admit, I didn’t believe much of the crap that was being said about how “he got shots, and immediately things went bad.” Now we know the REAL timeline:

Jan 2007 Bad fever
April 2007 Shots
June 2007 Fell and cut lip
Aug 2007 Bad fever and problems started

Who in the bloody hell could honestly blame vaccines for the problem?

bensmyson – you have complained that “I don’t know you.” As I said, you are right. I can only judge you by what you say, and to that extent, I was wrong. I just assumed you were an idiot. Now I know better. You are actually a lying sack of shit.

I feel bad for your son. He deserves so much better.

@wombles – “Where is the relevance of whether I believe there is a god and whether Jesus was resurrected or not? You should know there’s no science on that” So then you deny the existence of God? You dont talk to God daily? Just curious because of this issue of hope vs false hope.

@sciencemom – Merck’s plant was contaminated, vaccines were recalled, ProQuad has not been put back on the market since then. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24388001/

“your son has an immunodeficiency disorder akin to AIDS”

Who says?

“And please don’t pull your, “I’m not anti-vax” schtick. Anyone who perpetuates the ‘AIDS was caused by vaccines’ myth, is a dyed-in-the-wool anti-vaxxer.”

Who says I think AIDS is caused by vaccines?

I certainly hope you are a little but more careful with your suppositions at work than you are here.

@ Kristin – you said, “What ’caused’ my son’s autism is completely irrelevant to the job at hand; helping him accomplish all that he can, improving his skills, and helping him find a place in the world.”

Suppose you find your daughter laying unconscious in the driveway, head bleeding, a broken 2×4 laying next to her. You rush her to the hospital ER, she is still unresponsive, what question do you think the doctors will want to ask right off the bat? “What happened?” It is extremely relevant.

@otto – you saying vaccines never killed anyone?

“@otto – you saying vaccines never killed anyone?”

No, I’m saying what I said, which is that you seem to trot out the same ProQuad VAERS line of horseshit anytime you think it might slip under the radar.

@194

Suppose you find your daughter laying unconscious in the driveway, head bleeding, a broken 2×4 laying next to her. You rush her to the hospital ER, she is still unresponsive, what question do you think the doctors will want to ask right off the bat? “What happened?” It is extremely relevant.

WTF? How would I know what happened (even if this was a plausible scenario…what’s with the 2X4)? I would tell the doctor; ‘I don’t know what happened, this is how I found her’. One thing I would damn well not do is argue with the doctor on whether or not her injuries could be cause by the additives in the asphalt on the driveway.

I see you chose to take issue with one very minor point I made in my comment. I am with Pablo on this one; you are full of it.

And also, I am not a highly educated person. I, too am a mother, that is the extent of my expertise on this matter. But I come here to learn, and I am willing to listen when I am shown evidence contrary to my understanding. I don’t sit at the computer all day telling people they are wrong and whining that I am not all that learned. Do you think you deserve deference for your inane babble because you are willfully ignorant?

@bensmyson

A person is rushed to the hospital from being in a car accident. Do the doctors ask what happened? Do they ask which car the patient was driving? WTF? Do you really believe what you write?

How about addressing the timeline discrepancies? Why do you lie?

bensmyson:

@otto – you saying vaccines never killed anyone?

Oh, for god’s sake – are you being deliberately obtuse, or so you actually believe anyone here is stupid enough to not recognize the enormous strawman you just erected here?

By the way, that answer to the question @63 is still absent. Just to “get back on topic.”

@198

Oh, for god’s sake – are you being deliberately obtuse, or so you actually believe anyone here is stupid enough to not recognize the enormous strawman you just erected here?

I don’t think it is either. I don’t think she understood Otto’s comment at 191.

Jan 2007 Bad fever – recovered from it, still gaining ground, meeting and surpassing milestones, still very much a part of this world

April 2007 Shots – immediately changed, lost language, drastic behavioral changes, change in sleep and eating habits.

June 2007 Fell and cut lip – yep, showed no discomfort, no reaction to pain

Aug 2007 Bad fever and problems started – Problems started? What problems started? I believe that is when I became aware of the things my wife had been telling me for months.

We are not the kind of people that run to the doctor over every thing. We had no idea about anything. I honestly was not home enough back then to know exactly what was going on and I really wasnt interested in reports that my son refuses to eat, or come when he is called. As far as I was concerned he had just turned into a stubborn and difficult kid that wanted to be on his own. The concern over loss of language was no big deal initially because it fell into that whole stubborn and difficult want to be alone thing. Pretty soon my wife is crying about it and I finally heard her. I believe her words to me that night were, “Its like he is a shell of who he was, our son is gone” And at the time neither of us knew anything about autism, or the potential for brain injuries from vaccines. And yes this is August, it took another 2-3 months before the word autism came up. Pediatrician notes show they dismissed my wife as an overly concerned parent, “child appears normal” My wife had it bad, she got it from the pediatricians and from me, overly concerned. Turned out she was right as are so many other mothers out there who witness this regression.

There’s no need to lie, its not like any of you actually care what happened. You are just interested in the circle jerk of being right. I could care less.

My bad, I should have be referring to bensmyson in the masculine. I apologize.

#63 – who said there is no truth to his work? You telling me that there is no disproportionate share of gut problems in children diagnosed with autism?

“#63 – who said there is no truth to his work?”

Oh, sorry, I forgot that you were just calling for “a simple hearing that’s open to the public in order to explain how he had no influence over any of the work, that he just signed on because he was head of the organization receiving the grant,” while waving around a Vioxx flag.

“You telling me that there is no disproportionate share of gut problems in children diagnosed with autism?”

You changing the subject?

@sciencemom – Merck’s plant was contaminated, vaccines were recalled, ProQuad has not been put back on the market since then. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24388001/

A news report? Actually, I’m familiar with this incident, however, you stated, “Merck’s ProQuad (an MMRV) was written up by the FDA for having contamination, faulty measurement equipment, high incidents of seizures.” So, ProQuad, specifically wasn’t contaminated and how does the FDA ‘write up’ a company for ‘high incidents of seizures’? Answer: They didn’t. Get your facts straight.

“your son has an immunodeficiency disorder akin to AIDS”

Who says?

You did @ post#171:,“What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system?”

Who says I think AIDS is caused by vaccines?

You do. From: http://tinyurl.com/yc5vbg7

“vaccines can give you AIDS.”?
Submitted by bensmyson on February 2, 2010 – 4:43am.

You said, “vaccines can give you AIDS.”

Are you talking about the 2007 report that Merck’s experimental AIDS vaccine delivered in South Africa was actually causing AIDS?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/24/AR200710

Or are you talking about the world’s leading vaccine expert, Dr. Maurice Hilleman, who explains why Merck’s vaccines have spread AIDS, leukemia, and other horrific plagues worldwide? An on camera admission that Merck drug company vaccines have traditionally been injecting cancer viruses (SV40 and others) in people worldwide can be seen here.

Those are some serious mental gymnastics you are performing there.

kristen – what I said was “what question do you think the doctors will want to ask right off the bat? ” It’s a very important question. Some of us ask ourselves that question every day, “what happened” it is a very important question for many reasons. Suppose methods of treatment would vary depending on what the cause was, or that you want to have another child and dont want the same thing to repeat. Suppose it was an assault, someone to blame, some potential that more harm could come to others if there is not attention brought to the potential for danger.

Im not going to allow doctors to poke and prod and inject, and sedate and scare the bejeebus out of my son to search for answers. Its not right, we can test to make sure he is healthy, that he is not in danger of an infection or something, we can keep an eye on him, make sure he is not regressing further. As long as he is thriving, as he is today, there is no need to stick a needle in his brain, his back, sedate him and stick him in an MRI or CAT or push something up his butt. I dont want to try this drug or that until he can say it causes him to itch or that his stomach hurts or something. We are moving extremely deliberate and conservative now. At the beginning it was all about boosting his immune system, repairing that and even then it was basic missionary style variety of treatments, nothing freaky.

Jan 2007 Bad fever – recovered from it, still gaining ground, meeting and surpassing milestones, still very much a part of this world

April 2007 Shots – immediately changed, lost language, drastic behavioral changes, change in sleep and eating habits.

June 2007 Fell and cut lip – yep, showed no discomfort, no reaction to pain

Aug 2007 Bad fever and problems started – Problems started? What problems started? I believe that is when I became aware of the things my wife had been telling me for months.

We are not the kind of people that run to the doctor over every thing. We had no idea about anything.

Aaah, the timeline mangled to fit what you posted here and all over the place. So you are not the type to run to the doctor for every thing? You went for a split lip but didn’t go for what you claimed was an episode of encephalitis the day of his jabs? You. Are. Full. Of. Shit.

@bensmyson

“I’m not going to allow doctors to poke and prod and inject, and sedate and scare the bejeebus out of my son to search for answers.”

How the fuck else do you think they will find answers? Osmosis?

Didn’t you have dozens of diagnostic tests done including blood draws, possibly used mis-prescribed antibiotics, had allergic assays performed, etc.? How is that not prodding and poking?

Isn’t that what you felt Wakefield was justified in doing? Didn’t you downplay his actions and state that they were far less egregious than Thorsen’s financial misdeeds?

You really need to find a storyline and stick to it, as you have completely lost any credibility here by your contradictions and outright lies.

@bensmyson

“To me though a colonoscopy is a necessary investigative tool when dealing with children with bowel disorders, likewise if one discovers measles virus in the intestines to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain.”

Getting caught up on my reading, sorry for the late response to this. I’ve mentioned before that despite my biology degrees I never took anatomy and physiology. Both semesters were at 8 am, so I took botany in the fall and ecology in the spring (1 pm, much better time). So I ask this in all seriousness, as I have no clue about what a body looks like under the skin.

ARE THE INTESTINES REALLY IN A POSITION TO LEAK INTO THE BRAIN?????

@JohnV

You’ve never been called a “shit-head” before? What do you think that means?

Your intestine leaked shit into your head, duh!

JohnV asked rhetorically

ARE THE INTESTINES REALLY IN A POSITION TO LEAK INTO THE BRAIN?????

The large intestine certainly is in a position to leak into the brain. How else can you explain all the shit for brains creationists, 911 troofers and anti-vaxxers?

Here is a choice quote from bensmyson on the subject of whether vaccines cause autism. Our expert here stated that vaccines causing autism is “a one in a million event.”

One in a million.

There were 12,250 deaths per million people due to car accidents in 2008.

There are 1,070 deaths due to measles per million people worldwide in 2002.

In children aged 10-14, there are 1,300 deaths by suicide per million people in 2006.

@sciencemom – AIDS thing is BS and you know it

You did @ post#171:,”What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system?”

Do you see the word “THEIR” in there? Was I talking about my son? Them, their, someone…. please!

And now to Merck and ProQuad http://bensmyson.wordpress.com/2009/02/03/proquad/

Food and Drug Administration Team conducted an inspection of Merck’s vaccine facility in West Point, PA, over several weeks from November 2007 through January 2008, producing a 483 with 49 items citing multiple issues in the quality, production, laboratory, materials, and other systems.

Investigators Ann Montemurro, Joan Loreng and Jacqueline Diaz-Albertini noted that Merck’s investigations “into unexplained discrepancies did not always extend to other lots/products that may have been associated with the discrepancy.” They specifically cited the company’s failure “to quarantine/assess all product or process intermediates affected by atypical events pending completion of investigations” as required by the company’s SOP.

For example, the team noted that an investigation into foaming during product filtration concluded that the problem lay with certain filter membranes and that “any culture media manufactured with the same lots of filters as the subject lots are potentially impacted by this atypical event.” However, the firm only quarantined distilled water lots associated with the observed foaming.

Merck’s packing methods for vaccine products shipped with dry ice allowed ingress into the headspace head·space.

Although Merck requested regulatory approval for changes to its packing and shipping methods, the company “did not acknowledge the ingress as the reason for the change” and did not notify regulatory authorities of the issue.

The investigating team further cited Merck for failure to thoroughly review and correct any unexplained discrepancy or failure of a batch or its components to meet specifications.

****The FDA team also reported that during an investigation into the sterility failure of ProQuad, “the thaw bath was determined as the most likely source of the contamination,” due to insufficient disinfection of the can’s exterior. Loose clamps on the cans could have been a “potential mechanism for sterility failure,” that report stated. However, the FDAers wrote, the investigation “failed to specify how this potential cause was investigated and how it was ruled out.”

Batch production and control records did not include complete information relating to the production and control of each batch, the report stated. PedVax bulk batch records did not include records of equipment sterilization.

Validation protocols for detecting volume-of-fill defects for vaccine products “were not representative of the actual automated inspection process in that there was no assessment made for non-defective vials,” the inspectors wrote.

Procedures for scheduling the cleaning, sanitizing and maintenance of equipment were deemed deficient by the FDAers. They noted as an example that Merck had not documented the change-out in PedVax bulk processing tanks, and no schedule for replacement or routine sterilization existed for the WFI transfer hoses used in PedVax bulk operations.

Single-use vent filters used as sterile boundaries across manufacturing areas, “including bulk bacterial vaccine, bulk viral vaccine and formulation/filling operations,” are not integrity-tested, the report stated. The can database designed to maintain the history and control over use, certification testing and retesting of cans used to store sterile material contained inaccurate information, the 483 added.

The control procedure for sterility test methods “does not direct that any anomaly concerning the product or sample preparation, such as leaking vials or test canisters, over-pressurized vials or particles, be documented on the testing worksheet.” The control procedure for performing plaque assays to measure varicella varicella: see chicken pox. potency and the training of the staff to perform the procedure are deficient, the investigators found.

The FDA team stated that although Merck’s SOP calls for quarantined and rejected materials to be separated from products in process, a quarantined bulk lot of PedVax and ProQuad was not separate from work-in-progress materials. They also noted that the company did not practice first in/first out (FIFO (First In First Out) A storage method that retrieves the item stored for the longest time. Contrast with LIFO. See traffic engineering methods.FIFO – first-in first-out ) for using bags “prior to the deviations that identified particles on vial stoppers stoppers, nor was FIFO instituted as a corrective action for this deviation. Since FIFO was not used, Merck could not conclusively identify the timeframe when the unsuitable bags were used.”

Hope this is helpful.

@sciencemom 207- “Aaah, the timeline mangled to fit what you posted here and all over the place. So you are not the type to run to the doctor for every thing? You went for a split lip but didn’t go for what you claimed was an episode of encephalitis the day of his jabs? You. Are. Full. Of. Shit.”

The split lip was gaping open, still has a scar from it. Fell face first on brick steps. He never cried.

Encephalitis presents itself how? This is a 12 month old child with high fevers. Would you rush your child into the ER with a fever of 104? Would you be able to tell if anything else was wrong with him?

You really are making yourself look silly.

@sciencemom 207- “Aaah, the timeline mangled to fit what you posted here and all over the place. So you are not the type to run to the doctor for every thing? You went for a split lip but didn’t go for what you claimed was an episode of encephalitis the day of his jabs? You. Are. Full. Of. Shit.”

The split lip was gaping open, still has a scar from it. Fell face first on brick steps. He never cried.

Encephalitis presents itself how? This is a 12 month old child with high fevers. Would you rush your child into the ER with a fever of 104? Would you be able to tell if anything else was wrong with him? The night after the shots, the doctor said over the phone that he was fine. Never suggested any thing out of the norm.

You really are making yourself look silly.

“AIDS thing is BS and you know it”

Well, I guess that explains why you asserted that the Maurice Hilleman video “explains why Merck’s vaccines have spread AIDS, leukemia, and other horrific plagues worldwide.”

Unless, of course, the problem is now HORRIFIC CONTAMINATION.

@bensmyson 215,

I personally would (and have taken) take my child with a fever of 104 into the doctor, health clinic, or ER if the first two aren’t available. High fevers are dangerous.

You’re saying you didn’t take your child in, but then can after the fact decide he had a case of encephalitis? You, with your admittedly limited scientific background, can diagnose your child with encephalitis?

Your story doesn’t hold together, and that’s your own fault.

Might I also suggest, if you and your wife are using the same screen name all over the place, that you clearly distinguish which one of you is posting?

A bit late, but…

@benmyson

But I will say this about that, whatever a parent chooses to do for their child is their right. They want Jesus to heal them, fine, want to rub oil of pecans on them, fine, want to carry them to a doctor who tells them that sticking the child in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in hopes of helping them, fine.

No, it is not their right to do whatever they want. Do a quick Google search and you’ll find parents who let their child die from a urinary tract infection, because they didn’t take him to the doctor in time. Prayer is not medicine and it is not okay to subject a child to useless actions when medicine has actual results.

@sciencemom – AIDS thing is BS and you know it

Of course I know it’s bullshit, but you don’t seem to know that as evidenced by your post.

You did @ post#171:,”What things are there to do that MAKE them better? If their immune system was comparable to someone suffering from AIDS would you boost their immune system?”
Do you see the word “THEIR” in there? Was I talking about my son? Them, their, someone…. please!

Who do you think you’re kidding? Is it just a coincidence that you are ‘boosting’ your son’s immune system?

And now to Merck and ProQuad

A lengthy C&P that is not properly referenced does not provide you with the latitude to state that ProQuad, specifically had contamination.

The split lip was gaping open, still has a scar from it. Fell face first on brick steps. He never cried.

Encephalitis presents itself how? This is a 12 month old child with high fevers. Would you rush your child into the ER with a fever of 104? Would you be able to tell if anything else was wrong with him? The night after the shots, the doctor said over the phone that he was fine. Never suggested any thing out of the norm.

You really are making yourself look silly.

Pretty funny coming from someone who has outright lied and distorted numerous truths. You stated that you knew your son had encephalitis and you didn’t need an MRI for. If my child presented the way you described here, you bet your ass I would be at the ER. You are furiously back-peddling and haven’t even answered any of the questions that I posed to you earlier. The jig is up Tre, you aren’t kidding anyone but yourself. Now shouldn’t you be off changing your blog entries to fit with the ‘new truth’ you manufactured? Screen shots be damned.

wombles: well guess what, we called the doctor, he said it was nothing to be concerned about. And since Im not a doctor why would you expect me to diagnose him? After months of fevers, seizures, doctors visits, blood tests, we were sent to a neurologist. I believe that is the proper way to have something diagnosed.

And wombles, there is no rule about who can share a screen name. You honestly believe one person can keep up with all this? It would be a full time job, we have a child to take care of.

You never answered the question from back at 194

You asked “Where is the relevance of whether I believe there is a god and whether Jesus was resurrected or not? You should know there’s no science on that” So then you deny the existence of God? You dont talk to God, pray for people? Just curious because of this issue of hope vs false hope. Id say belief in God is hope and could even be to some as false hope. I believe you are a Christian and as such have faith in something you cant prove scientifically. It is a belief, it is hope. How can you not get how important hope is to parents who so desperately need answers and feel as if they are doing something to help? I dont know, maybe you have renounced God, but surely you have someone you love, a parent, a sister, brother that has strong faith in Christ, would you make it your life’s work to destroy his/her faith in the hope he has that God exists? You honestly believe you would make him/her a better person for that? I get you on the exposing the Jimmy Swaggarts and false profits but there is a really fine line that you need to be aware of. People do jump off of bridges, and hold up in hotel rooms with bottles of pills. You have to remember not everyone is you or your brother.

sciencemom – “You stated that you knew your son had encephalitis and you didn’t need an MRI for.”

I knew my son had encephalitis AFTER the neurologist told me so. It took months to get to the neurologist, much less to an infectious disease specialist. Everything is documented, every necessary test was performed. You forget Im not a doctor, I paid someone to see to it I passed my science classes, Im an idiot, Ben is my first and only child, what do I know what is normal or not. He presented with fevers and seizures. We took him to his doctor. The pediatrician said the fevers were nothing to worry about and the seizures were more than likely febrile, again nothing to worry about. “Kids get sick.”

@bensmyson,

You perhaps wouldn’t read like you were undergoing multiple mood shifts if the two of you weren’t posting under the same screen name. There may be no “rules,” but most people have a sense that others assume that when they are talking to a screen name, they’re talking to one person. If there’s more than two of you using a screen name that you actually have to type in (and you do here and at AoA), you could at least have the courtesy to sign it off with Ben’s Mom or Ben’s Dad.

The two of you can’t decide on a story. You (collective pronoun) are the two who can’t decide on what happened and when. Your blog contradicts you, you contradict yourselves here. Either own the contradictions, take a minute, try to reflect where the truth actually is, and come back and share, or expect that very few of us will hold either one of you with any credibility.

I don’t have to answer your question regarding god, and I certainly don’t need a sermon from you regarding hope versus false hope. And I have no idea what you’re talking about sibling wise. Do you or are you trying to distract others?

False hope through the use of quack treatments is dangerous. Period. And has nothing to do with religious beliefs, unless those religious beliefs are affecting treatment choices.

208 rob-
I’m not going to allow doctors to poke and prod and inject, and sedate and scare the bejeebus out of my son to search for answers.”

How the fuck else do you think they will find answers? Osmosis?

Since my son was thriving I saw no need for that.

Didn’t you have dozens of diagnostic tests done including blood draws, possibly used mis-prescribed antibiotics, had allergic assays performed, etc.? How is that not prodding and poking?

Blood draws, were critically important at the time. No antibiotics, Ben has only taken them twice in his life. Hair and urine samples.

Isn’t that what you felt Wakefield was justified in doing? Didn’t you downplay his actions and state that they were far less egregious than Thorsen’s financial misdeeds?

Wakefield’s patients had gut issues, Wakefield was a gastrointestinal expert, Ben never saw Wakefield or any other gastro.

210 rob – finally!

212 – “There were 12,250 deaths per million people due to car accidents in 2008.

There are 1,070 deaths due to measles per million people worldwide in 2002.

In children aged 10-14, there are 1,300 deaths by suicide per million people in 2006.”

What are you talking about? Are you saying that over 3 million people die in car crashes every year in the US?

And how is my one in a million quote used? We all know the number of children diagnosed with autism is at about 1 in 110. Do you honestly think I believe there are only 300 people in the US diagnosed with autism? My math is a little better than yours I think.

“And wombles, there is no rule about who can share a screen name.”

Uh, Breaker One-Nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck
You got a copy on me Pig-Pen? C’mon

@bensmyson,

You paid someone to pass your science classes? Interesting the sudden loss of punctuation you have in your response to Science Mom.

You said earlier your doctor told you not to worry and diagnosed a rash over the phone. Your story is inconsistent from comment to comment.

kwombles- there are no conflicting stories, and I suspect I am just not communicating properly. For instance your failing to grasp the importance of the idea of hope. I used the example of God for a reason. You stated in your blog that you “talk to God everyday” and that at one time you wanted to be a missionary. I suspected that you might relate somewhat to an analogy of believing in something science cant provide evidence for and how quite possibly you might feel some sense of comfort in your faith in something hoped for. To me this would be very similar to what many parents are doing, clinging to hope, finding comfort in the faith that things will get better for their child. I thought you might see how destroying this hope may cause serious ramifications, even if you’re right. Im sure a debate on the issue of whether or not God exists or whether Jesus was resurrected would fuel more spit and anger than any antivaxxer ever could. But what good would it be to argue with someone about that? Same with what many of you do with desperate parents who believe in restoration. There is no proof as to what causes autism any more than there is any proof God exists yet people have their own ideas, there own science and I believe it is to be respected.

@bensmyson

So, let me get this straight…your pediatrician diagnosed roseola over the phone, and told you that a fever of 104F was no big deal. Sounds like either your doctor is an idiot, or you are a liar.

So #225 is Mrs. Bensmyson? This disparity in tone is the whole reason that I opined @133 that there was a put-on afoot.

sigh… Wombles said, “You said earlier your doctor told you not to worry and diagnosed a rash over the phone. Your story is inconsistent from comment to comment.”

The night of the vaccines the doctor was called to report Ben’s fever and discomfort. We were told it was normal to have reactions like that. The next day called to report that he was still sick, told to just keep an eye on him. A day or two later called in again to report a body rash, he was diagnosed over the phone as having Roseola. Not once did we suspect a life threatening emergency. Were just upset that our son was sick, same as any parent. Had no doubt at the time that the doctor was lazy.

The night of the vaccines the doctor was called to report Ben’s fever and discomfort. We were told it was normal to have reactions like that. The next day called to report that he was still sick, told to just keep an eye on him. A day or two later called in again to report a body rash, he was diagnosed over the phone as having Roseola.

Nope. As per your blog, the roseola incident was well-prior to his 12 month immunisations:

Science is that Ben was sick in January 2007 with a serious week long bout with a fever. The fever was recorded at home by ear at 107, prior to that it was 105 and over most of the day. We reported the 105 earlier to the doctor’s call in service at UNC Hospitals.

Science shows that on January 2, 2007 Ben had some abnormal scores on his blood work. Primarily very low white blood cells (3,000), his GRAN was at 0.8 and low red blood cells (4,500). His RDW was high at 14.6 and his PLT was low at 131. Ben was very sick. Later broke out with Roseloa.

And not a single entry on your blog about this supposed encephalitis episode that accompanied his 12 month jabs but other, less spectacular incidences are.

bensmyson

Your doctor diagnosed roseola over the phone? Are you serious?

Roseola has an incubation of 10-15 days, and is caused by a herpes virus. It is spread by fecal-to-oral contact.

@228

I’m calling BS. IMHO and experience no good pediatrician would diagnose a rash over the phone. My son’s doctor wouldn’t even give me an educated guess over the phone when my son had a rash that turned out to be roseola, he said the only way to diagnose a rash was to see it.

Unless they have started selling medical licenses at Wal-Mart, I am going to just go with you being a liar.

kristen – “So, let me get this straight…your pediatrician diagnosed roseola over the phone, and told you that a fever of 104F was no big deal. Sounds like either your doctor is an idiot, or you are a liar.”

Ben’s pediatrician was incompetent. Has since left the practice and moved on to another state. In January when Ben’s fever reached 107 at home and 106.5 at the hospital he was feverish for more than 24 hours prior to it and we were told that children can handle higher fevers than adults and that we should not be worried unless the fever reaches over 105. That night in January when Ben’s fever reached 105 we called again for the 50th time it seemed. We were told it was ok (over the phone by the call center nurse) because Ben seemed alert. To just keep an eye on him. The next time we checked (by ear) he was at 107, dunked him in the tub (didnt know better) wrapped him in a blanket and flew to the ER. The entire time I was demanding that Ben’s pediatrician call me. At the hospital while Ben sat on a gurney screaming I called one last time and told the call center nurse that I would find the doctor at home in 15 minutes if he didnt call me back in 2 minutes. He finally called back. Ben’s fever dropped, got some fluids, later he developed a rash and he was diagnosed with roseola over the phone (this is January) So again in April when fevers spike, rash appears a diagnosis was made of Roseola over the phone and it made sense to us at the time.

@bensmyson,

My full statement was “Even though I don’t believe, I talk to God everyday. I joke that he/she/they listen as well as my kids, my husband, and my students.”

And you’re conflating hope with engaging in all manner of dangerous, crackpot treatments and outright condoning people’s use of it. You can have hope, real sustainable hope, without resorting to woo, or for that matter, god.

I see by looking at your Huff comments, that you did, in fact, mean that you paid your way through your science classes (whichever one of you that is).

If you had no doubt your doctor was lazy and if your son was so ill, why would you not take the child in to be seen by someone else?

And having made clear that the two of you are posting under the same name, having had it made clear to you that it’s rude not to distinguish to whom we are speaking, well, it’s more than rude to continue to not note who’s posting.

I think the two of you need a better support system than you have, that AoA does you far more harm than good, and that at this point, the two of you are not helping yourselves cope adaptively. And one of the ways that this lack of adaptive coping is reflected is in the odd need to have one screen name for the two of you. I recommend you read back through the posts the two of you have made here. Copy and paste them over into a word document and then take some time to read through them as if you were an outsider. Compare your posts to your blog. See where the stories conflict. Search Countering for my Memory Like Wine post and do some cogitating. I guarantee the above activities will be more productive and rewarding that what you’re engaged in now.

sciencemom – “And not a single entry on your blog about this supposed encephalitis episode that accompanied his 12 month jabs but other, less spectacular incidences are.’

Do you have any idea when he first saw a neurologist? When encephology was even suggested?

Again do you know how encephalitis even presents itself? How it is diagnosed?

Kristen & Rob – No lie. Both times over the phone. You dont want to get me started on the whole “I think my son is having seizures” thing over the phone. Being told it is most likely febrile seizures. Again and again. I asked how Im supposed to tell and was told if he has a fever it is febrile.

wombles – “If you had no doubt your doctor was lazy and if your son was so ill, why would you not take the child in to be seen by someone else?”

Hell one of my best friends is a pediatrician (he lives out of state) and I never even once called him about any of this until Ben got his diagnosis of autism and I got copied of Ben’s files. He suggested I talk to an attorney. The doctor is gone.

You really have to understand I had no clue what was the right protocol. I was not the second guess a doctor kind of guy. Its not easy being stoopid.

And thanks for the advice on how to look to see how our perception of events may vary, maybe if what I had to say were to actually mean anything to anyone I might take the effort to do just that. But this all seems a bit masturbatory to me, its not like any of this is going down in some history book or actually does anything more than give someone something to do without having to brush your teeth or spend some money at a coffee shop to have conversation. I dont take this as serious as it may seem. Its just something to do. Its not like I got as real life away from autism.

sciencemom – “And not a single entry on your blog about this supposed encephalitis episode that accompanied his 12 month jabs but other, less spectacular incidences are.’

Do you have any idea when he first saw a neurologist? When encephology was even suggested?

Again do you know how encephalitis even presents itself? How it is diagnosed?

Yes I do know how encephalitis presents itself and how it is diagnosed. You seem to have the magical power of diagnosing it without any benefit of established diagnostics. From post #143:

Personal, you know what’s personal? Having your 12 months old child’s brain swell, his fever reach critical levels, seizures, measles titers 15 times the high norm, loss of nearly every developmental milestone and the over $50,000 of uninsured therapy and the enormous loss of income associated with our need to give him every chance humanly possible to bring him back.

Now to me this was absolutely no coincidence, this happened immediately after his 12 month vaccines. That’s just me, my observation, my science and I realize those of you who have never experienced anything remotely like it will never understand or believe. To me, resorting to personal attacks is just wrong. I am no threat, I mean no harm, there are lots of questions I have and I seek answers.
[snip]
I know that on April 18th, 2007 as he lay in his mothers lap, screaming, that the shots he got 3 hours earlier were wrecking his brain. I know this without an MRI, or what ever it would take to see inside him, I know this because it was that night when asked, “What’s wrong?” he responded “Me miss daddy” and that was the last thing he spoke for nearly a year.

Yet not a single mention of this in his medical chart that you posted and not a single mention of any testing for encephalitis and not a single concern expressed about language skills until 6 months later. You can’t even keep the roseola diagnosis straight, which would have absolutely nothing to do with vaccines. You are trying so desperately hard to pound a square peg into a round hole. You should really take Wombles advice and examine all of the glaring inconsistencies with your information and find some better support for yourselves. This is truly sad.

@bensmyson,

So we can add lazy to the list of things, as well as being disingenuous and inconsistent.

If this were about your son and helping him achieve his full potential, if this were about making your lives better, then you’d want to take stock of where you might be wrong so that you could adjust what you’re doing.

Instead, you’ve essentially admitted this is for shits and grins for you and yet again attempted to elicit sympathy with the “Its not like I got as real life away from autism.”

I’d submit, and gosh, I’ll play the personal card with my experience parenting three awesome kids who just happen to be on the spectrum, that your life is what you make it.

wombles – “And you’re conflating hope with engaging in all manner of dangerous, crackpot treatments and outright condoning people’s use of it. You can have hope, real sustainable hope, without resorting to woo, or for that matter, god.”

I have no idea what is or isnt dangerous. Obvious right? I condone parental rights. Father knows best kind of thing. Look, sometimes hope is all that someone has left. There is a period of grieving for most people when autism suddenly hits and the education begins. There is also a period of anger. Most people cope with events like this with denial, some escape. For some people acceptance may be escape, the “my child’s autism is a gift from god” kind of people. However you or any other parent decides how to cope is fine with me, as long as it isnt harming the child. There are worse things than handing your kid vitamins every day or attempting to remove toxins under the care of a doctor.

I know there are quacks out there, to me now every doctor is suspect. But parents believe in these things and it boosts their hope and reaffirms their faith in their child’s recovery and keeps them close to their child, creates a bond with the “new” son or daughter.

My suspicions as to what caused my son’s autism is vaccines. Do I care if someone proves something else causes autism? Id rejoice because in a sick way, all of us who suspect vaccines have a potential for enormous guilt, we held them down while they were being injected. We participated. We signed the paperwork. It is our job to protect our children. So if there were some other cause proven to cause autism it would let us all off the hook.

@Bensmyson (either mr or mrs): Why, yes. I DO happen to know how encephalitis is diagnosed. In newborns, children and adults. I could describe presentations, but you would have to be specific on how old Ben was when he had it. The presentation is very easy to make and I doubt any ER physician would have missed it. It requires a spinal tap which Ben apparently didn’t have when he actually HAD the encephalitis. It does not look like roseola.

Febrile seizures do occur with a fever. However, unlike true seizures, they are usually self limiting and rarely have a postictal period.

Shall I go on?

I find it ever so humiliating to respond politely to such vicious personal attacks.

First you make ignorant statements, then you ADMIT your ignorance, then you keep on making ignorant statements while expecting us to take pity on you because of your ignorance. And now you’re playing the victim and crying about “personal attacks?” Who the Hell do you think you’re fooling here?

If you know you’re ignorant, and admiot you’re ignorant as part of a ploy to get our sympathy, then you should be smart enough to guess that further ignorant statements will get you humiliated.

It seems to me that many of you feel I am a threat, otherwise why take this so personally?

Are you hiding behind self-pity as a helpless waif in a debate you can’t understand; or are you a “threat” to all of us? Pick one and stick to it — trying to do both at once is transparently dishonest.

As for why we might consider people like you a threat: we all know, from direct and indirect experience, that lies — like the ones you’re parroting with your fake-innocent tone — are dangerous.

Personal, you know what’s personal? Having your 12 months old child’s brain swell, his fever reach critical levels, seizures, measles titers 15 times the high norm, loss of nearly every developmental milestone and the over $50,000 of uninsured therapy and the enormous loss of income associated with our need to give him every chance humanly possible to bring him back.

And your self-righteous asinine attidude here is helping your child…how? If you’re so concerned for your child, why haven’t you made more effort to correct your admitted ignorance of the relevant issues?

Your posts here — and the mindset they reveal — do NOTHING to help your child; so invoking your child’s suffering will get you no sympathy here.

@Rob and @Kristen: The battalions of incompetent paediatricians is also a prevailing theme amongst the vaccines-cause-autism crowd. In fact so much so, that not a single one seems to be able to find a competent physician, outside of DAN!, of course. So don’t get snookered by that, yet another appeal to emotion.

sciencemom – is this really that hard to understand? “I know that on April 18th, 2007 as he lay in his mothers lap, screaming, that the shots he got 3 hours earlier were wrecking his brain. I know this without an MRI, or what ever it would take to see inside him, I know this because it was that night when asked, “What’s wrong?” he responded “Me miss daddy” and that was the last thing he spoke for nearly a year.”

I KNOW THIS BECAUSE IT WAS THAT NIGHT WHEN ASKED, “WHAT’S WRONG?” HE RESPONDED “ME MISS DADDY” AND THAT WAS THE LAST THING HE SPOKE FOR NEARLY A YEAR.

Am I just not being clear to you? Looking back I knew something happened that night because it was the sentence he spoke for nearly a year. I didnt need to look back as some MRI scan to prove anything to me.

…all of us who suspect vaccines have a potential for enormous guilt, we held them down while they were being injected.

And this, I strongly suspect, is one of the major reasons why parents will ALWAYS be inclined to blame vaccines for whatever happens to their kids: the trauma of willingly allowing their precious babies to be INJURED and MADE TO CRY. Notice the HUGE and GLARING photomontage on whale-dot-to: countless precious little kids CRYING INCONSOLABLY because they’ve just been stuck with a needle by an uncaring-looking man in a white coat.

This is another case of science and common sense being shouted down by pure, blind emotion.

“I didnt need to look back as some MRI scan to prove anything to me. ”

And yet you know it was the vaccine. Why did you rule out the stress from the injections or even just the doctors visit? People with the genetic disposition to schizophrenia may appear normal, then wham! Some traumatic incident in their lives, typically in their late teens/early 20’s induces a fundamental change in brain function and the behavioral changes described as schizophrenia ensue.

And this is just one possibility.

So, how were you able to eliminate all the other possibilities and narrow it down to the vaccine(s) based on changes in behavior? Or better yet, why won’t you entertain other possibilities now?

My suspicions as to what caused my son’s autism is vaccines. Do I care if someone proves something else causes autism? Id rejoice because in a sick way, all of us who suspect vaccines have a potential for enormous guilt, we held them down while they were being injected. We participated. We signed the paperwork. It is our job to protect our children. So if there were some other cause proven to cause autism it would let us all off the hook.

The more I think about this, the more it chaps my ass. Newsflash for you; This isn’t about you or your guilt or ‘letting you off the hook’ for something that you have contrived yourselves, it’s about your son. Just because you can’t rule something in, doesn’t mean that you can’t rule something out.

Now, coping with autism doesn’t have to go to such extremes; acceptance does not mean not having hope. You have doomed your son before he has even had the chance to show the greatness that he could very well be capable of someday. Accept who he is and that he is different but every bit as equal.

Yes, bensmyson is bringing out the full emotional artillery: the repetition, the CAPSLOCK, the hysterical insistence that she “knows,” regardless of what information is presened to her, even as she flatly admits: “I have no idea what is or isnt dangerous.”

And note the handle, “bensmyson:” she’s not assuming any identity of her own, or taking any responsibility as an adult in her own right; her life is notghing but her son, and nothing else — even the doctors who are trying to help her, or the information that might help her understand what’s really wrong with her son — is real to her.

Am I just not being clear to you? Looking back I knew something happened that night because it was the sentence he spoke for nearly a year. I didnt need to look back as some MRI scan to prove anything to me.

I’m not the one that needs convincing now am I?

Looking back I knew something happened that night because it was the sentence he spoke for nearly a year.

More than anything, this sounds like selective memory. Once you get an idea in your head, your memories of previous events start getting rearranged to support that. Happens to all of us.

Unless it was written down at that time that he suddenly stopped speaking, human memory is simply too fallible to draw such a firm conclusion from.

@bensmyson

You said: “There is no proof as to what causes autism any more than there is any proof God exists yet people have their own ideas, there own science and I believe it is to be respected.”

You are wrong on numerous counts.

First, science will prove what causes autism. It is only a matter of time and money and the efforts of intelligent scientists.

Second, there will never be any proof of God, because it is impossible to prove the existence of something that doesn’t exist. Legends and myths from illiterate, superstitious pre-historical goatherds cannot be proven.

Third, ideas are not science. If by ideas, you mean hypotheses, then you are still wrong. If you mean explanations, you are yet again wrong.

Fourth, science is not a belief. Science is a process by which the natural world is understood.

Fifth, beliefs do not deserve respect, especially if they have clearly been shown to be unreasonable or wrong. That we are told to respect other’s belief systems is unreasonable if the belief system is unreasonable.

Bensmyson–

If you have no life outside of autism, give yourself at least a little bit of one. Take the time you’re spending at the keyboard and reading discussion groups, and go for a walk. Maybe even see a movie. (If you can’t get a sitter, go to the same movie on alternate nights, so you can talk about it, or go to Netflix and watch something at home.)

You don’t need to drop following actual medical news online, but arguing with us won’t help your son. I don’t know what causes autism (I suspect there is no single cause), but whatever it is, your son is already autistic. Genes, vaccines, bacterial infection, lead poisoning, werewolves, it doesn’t matter: what your son needs is help with day-to-day stuff. Let people who aren’t so snowed under handling the day-to-day worry about causes.


That whole “parental rights”/”Father knows best” attitude is also dangerous, and not just because it tends to be linked with a trust in other authority figures: that’s the culture in which cancer patients not only didn’t choose their own care, they usually weren’t told they had cancer. Father doesn’t always know best–however loving, neither motherhood nor fatherhood conveys omniscience. Sometimes mother knows better, or the doctor or teacher or cousin. And some sick and evil people use that attitude to shield them: a loving parent may not even realize that there are people out there who, when they say “parental rights” or “I know best, I’m his mother,” mean “my children are my property and I can abuse them if I want.”

benismyson: Whether you are referring to late stage AIDS or not (and mind you, severe immunosupression only appears near the end of the disease) the only conditions that can cause that kind of immune state are genetic. As in one hundred percent genetic, you get the gene(s) at conception or not. (Prenatal HIV infection could of course cause it, but I’m willing to bet there’s no history of that.)

Bee – “As for why we might consider people like you a threat: we all know, from direct and indirect experience, that lies — like the ones you’re parroting with your fake-innocent tone — are dangerous.”

Dangerous? How so? How am I dangerous?

MI Dawn – yes please go on.

Tell me what the symptoms are for a 12 month old.

And as for the febrile seizures, again originally diagnosed over the phone, I have videos of Ben lost, starring off into space. Also one of the scary things, prior to any diagnosis, was his pulling away from us. I honestly though it was some kind of night terrors. Again all this PRIOR to him seeing a neurologist. BTW he has no more seizures.

“Accept who he is and that he is different but every bit as equal.”

You have got to me kidding me! Equal? Equal to what, a 2 year old? Equal to a well trained dog?

I accept who my son is, we are all different, he is awesome. But equal? Seriously.

This is really tiring, half of you cant understand what I write (my fault Im sure) and the rest of you just want to swing away at some demon I must represent to you.

And Vicki, you said, “I don’t know what causes autism (I suspect there is no single cause), but whatever it is, your son is already autistic. Genes, vaccines, bacterial infection, lead poisoning, werewolves, it doesn’t matter: what your son needs is help with day-to-day stuff.” Thank you!

But just to clear something, what I mean by “father knows best” is that Im not a social worker, I have no authority nor right to project my own beliefs and values onto another. I have yet to hear of a DAN doctor do anything any worse than any pediatrician. Jeez didnt some pediatrician just get arrested for raping a hundred or so of his patients? Im just talking about allowing parents to choose what they think is best. Feeding kids a GFCF diet and mixing cocktails of various supplements is hardly something that’s going to cause serious injury.

rob – “Second, there will never be any proof of God”

You know what, my guess is that there are a billion people that will argue that with you to the death.

I’m confused. You mention when your son fell over and split his lip he didn’t even cry (#215). I’m not a doctor or a scientist, but I am a mom, and my child not crying after a serious traumatic incident would make me worry. Specifically, it would make me wonder if perhaps there was a larger underlying problem, that he could seem so detached from something so serious. At the very least, I think I would mention the “he didn’t cry” bit to the treating physician, to see if it set off any alarm bells for a trained medical professional.

“You know what, my guess is that there are a billion people that will argue that with you to the death.”

Perhaps a billion people who are irrational too.

No one can prove the existence of a god (or gods). If they argue otherwise, they are not being rational. If they choose to believe in a god, then that’s through an act of faith (often, a product of being brought up with that belief system in practice). Not through evidence.

Please answer my questions posed in post #245.

Memory – one of the least reliable forms of information but, regrettably, the one that is most often used when discussing child development. During the Autism Omnibus Proceedings, video recordings showed that the recollections of at least one set of parents were dead wrong.

This is not a new development – police and attorneys have known for decades that “eyewitnesses” are notoriously unreliable. Not because they “lie” (although some do), but because human memory is not good at keeping “fact” separate from “fiction”. We all routinely “mis-remember” events because our memories are “edited” by our beliefs and our expectations.

This phenomenon has been studied so much and for so long it is hard to believe there are still people who feel confident putting their “recollection” forward as if it were anything more than hearsay.

I have no doubt that “bensmyson” (all possible iterations) believes their recollections are correct. That’s the way memory is – it can be very persuasive even when it is wrong. However, I have seen too many demonstrations of how human memory is “altered” by before-the-fact ideas and after-the-fact suggestions. And that doesn’t even begin to get into the whole question of post hoc, ergo propter hoc (roughly, “happened after, therefore was caused by”). Even if “Ben” regressed and became autistic exactly as his parents recall, it still doesn’t “prove” that vaccines had anything to do with it.

Perhaps I’m being a “Pollyanna”, but I hesitate to accuse parents of “lying” about the events surrounding their child’s autism unless I catch them in a deliberate lie. Even contradictions are not necessarily prima facie evidence of lying, since they can also occur when memories have been “edited” by beliefs. The fact that the people don’t, themselves, immediately see the contradiction is good evidence that they are unaware that they have “tampered” with their own memories. A deliberate lie would avoid obvious contradictions.

Once a belief – no matter how correct or incorrect – becomes firmly entrenched, any memory that would contradict that belief is subject to “editing”. Again, this is not “lying” in the sense we normally think of it. However, just because something is not a lie does not make it the truth. Edited memories, like edited video, are not reliable sources of information.

So, when someone’s memories are in conflict with reality, it’s not reality that should be questioned.

Prometheus

“Fourth, science is not a belief. Science is a process by which the natural world is understood.”

Yah, if there’s one thing this argument needed, it’s the flag-waving of primitive materialism.

rj – “So, how were you able to eliminate all the other possibilities and narrow it down to the vaccine(s) based on changes in behavior? Or better yet, why won’t you entertain other possibilities now?”

Doctors (plural) did the work for me. And I do entertain any and all possibilities. As I said and was made fun of earlier, I dont want it to be vaccines.

maydijo – you ever been hit in the mouth in a fight or playing a rough sport? I have many times. 9 times out of 10 you wipe what you think is sweat or spit off your face or lip or nose and it turns out that its blood. He cried being examined. I wish I could be like you, smart, thinking these things out but Im not. In fact I was out of town and handled that one over the phone.

There’s a difference between being hit in the mouth during a fight or contact sport as an adult, and falling over and hitting your face as a child. Children tend to cry a lot more than adults, and require a lot less of a reason to do so. Certainly sustaining a blow to the face that was serious enough to leave a scar would make most children cry.

Look, I can’t say *for sure* that it’s a sign of anything – but if I had an autistic child and was looking back for past signs that maybe it’d been there all along, surely a non-reaction to a serious injury would at least make me pause and go “huh”.

@Orac
Wonderfully written as always. I am very grateful to you for battling the vast amount of pseudoscience that seems to thrive online.

I also sympathize that Bensmyson or Bennysmom or w/e has hijacked your post.

Happy Posting
Hugs and Laughter,
Sirenity

Prometheus- I agree with you 100% And Im sure I would be the last to know if my memory wasnt serving me correct. Ive often excused it because whether something was Saturday or Sunday it was beside the fact that the important thing about it was that there was a dinner party 10 years ago at so-n-so’s house. I realize that whether or not what I say jives with a particular order of events posted in my blog may seem that I might be lying. But the truth is that the blog was written with notes and journals and medical records in hand. My posts here are from memory. I have videos documenting nearly everything. These videos have been seen by most of the doctors treating Ben including one that serves on a board with the AAP. Someone who used my video compilation as a teaching tool to illustrate true regression. And who also said to me, totally unsolicited, that vaccines can not be ruled out as a cause of his autism. I was extremely careful not to say anything about vaccines, anything at all because of this doctors reputation and standing in the AAP community I didnt want to muddy the water. But I know this will be somehow dismissed as a doctor saying that nothing can be ruled out since there is no known cause.

“Yah, if there’s one thing this argument needed, it’s the flag-waving of primitive materialism.”

This is what draws the great division between rational skeptics and the ‘altmed’ community. The methods we proper skeptics use to evaluate data is rejected by them. In fact, it seems any rubric used to discern ‘truth’ from fiction is met with accusations of bias and prejudice as if objectivity was a quality man cannot posses and the default position was ‘believe whatever you please.’

Maydijo – you said, “Look, I can’t say *for sure* that it’s a sign of anything – but if I had an autistic child and was looking back for past signs that maybe it’d been there all along, surely a non-reaction to a serious injury would at least make me pause and go “huh”.”

Here’s the thing, at the time I had no idea he was autistic, no idea that his not crying was not normal. Though it odd yes, of course but I explained already that I applied my own personal experience to that incident.

And yes, looking back at that and the 100 other examples of not showing a typical experience to painful events. But at the time, to me, he was just being a hardheaded, tough kid that liked to take risks and didnt mind getting hurt like most people. His mom has an extremely high tolerance to pain too so we never really thought too much of it until the diagnosis, then yes, it made us pause and go “huh”

I have no doubt that “bensmyson” (all possible iterations) believes their recollections are correct.

With anti-vaxers, I don’t know anymore. It’s possible some of them are in fact trying to deceive. Ginger, for example, has altered old blog posts of hers to make her story “fit” better with her current “advocacy.”

Lingam et al. (2003) showed that parents changed their stories post-Wakefield. But did they change them inadvertently?

Okay. My next question to you is this: In light of the lip-splitting incident, in light of “the 100 other examples of not showing a typical” response, are you still so certain that his autism is vaccine-related at all?

@bensmyson

Re: billions of people

As the late, great Frank Zappa once said: “Why do you necessarily have to be wrong just because a few million people think you are?”

An overwhelming number of people who have the skills to evaluate the science do not find evidence that vaccines cause autism, but you refuse to accept this.

An overwhelming number of people believe in magic gods and angels, and I refuse to accept this.

There is a major difference, though. There is no credible evidence that vaccines cause autism, yet you cannot see this. Neither is there is credible evidence that gods exist, yet you accept this. Why?

That is the difference between rational and irrational people.

maydijo – “Okay. My next question to you is this: In light of the lip-splitting incident, in light of “the 100 other examples of not showing a typical” response, are you still so certain that his autism is vaccine-related at all?”

Why should I? The lip splitting was AFTER the vaccines.

rob – “Neither is there is credible evidence that gods exist, yet you accept this.”

That’s not true. I do not accept it. I used it as an example because Kwombles said she talked to god daily and used to want to be a missionary. I thought she might be able to relate to my point whatever that was 200 comments ago.

Isnt this getting old yet>?

As were all of the other 100 atypical responses? This child showed no atypical responses *at all* prior to a vaccine? But suddenly after a vaccine he is almost immune to pain?

@Bensmyson,

Dude, seriously, your attempt was to redirect attention. God (the reality of and whether or not you can talk to the accidental cosmos while thinking it’s not listening to you) is completely irrelevant to the conversation. It got old a long time ago, but you continue to raise it and folks continue to respond to you, and in all honesty, far more nicely than your compatriots would elsewhere to any of us.

You (both husband and wife) have shown a predilection for obfuscation that boggles my mind. You pretend to have no idea whether I have children on the spectrum (despite several months of having actually responded to each other’s posts in several places) and then betray that you’ve read one of my blogs that isn’t actually read by very many people and refer back to a post from nearly two months ago.

You pretend you’re not very smart and know nothing of science (and I’ll grant that may very well be true as you reach erroneous conclusions), yet one of you posts links to journal articles and talk of science as if you understand it well, no hint of the “poor, little me who doesn’t get science” — you’ve already admitted here you’re essentially bored and have nothing better to do than clog the thread and prove the fine art of distraction all over again.

If I were one of the loyalist AoAers (and as such totally into the conspiracy theory scene) I’d almost have to conclude that you are one of the collective sent here to keep us to busy to respond to AoAers elsewhere, like at Forbes.

Alas, I’m not that far into whole conspiracy theory thing, but I will tell you that I personally think there’s little to be gained in discussion with you.

I hope for Ben’s sake that the two of you get the assistance you need to help him achieve his potential.

“I hope for Ben’s sake that the two of you get the assistance you need to help him achieve his potential.”

While you are pondering conspiracies, is there really a Ben?

“But suddenly after a vaccine he is almost immune to pain?”

Not only that, we never saw him scratch an itch, also he would walk on sharp rocks barefooted but could not stand to walk in the grass. We used to not need a playpen in the yard, we could take his shoes off and put him on a blanket and he would never leave the blanket. For an experiment once we put a second blanket down, just a touch out of reach to see how he might negotiate the move.

bensmyson: none of what you say about your child’s symptoms even comes close to proving they were caused by vaccines. You can tell all the horror stories you want, but if you don’t have proof, you don’t have a case.

If you actually think there’s a link between vaccines and autism, don’t you think at least a few scientists would be doing credible work on it, at least to get a Nobel prize and lots of money for such an earth-shaking discovery? Do you really think so many scientists would knowingly conspire to shaft themselves by blocking pursuit of a line of inquiry they knew was valid?

Jeez didnt some pediatrician just get arrested for raping a hundred or so of his patients?

So ONE pediatrician committing a crime means the entire field is untrustworthy forevermore? Trust me, if you apply that reasoning, you won’t be getting any help from any field for anything.

Oh, and what about those pediatricians you DO trust to support your emotion-based prejudices? Or do criminal incidents only matter when you’re not being told what you want to hear?

bensmyson @ #152:

One, “Typhoid Mary?” Harm to innocent people? Please!

Sorry about the delay in response. I was actually trying to be generous in my estimation of you. Typhoid Mary apparently never intended to infect innocent people, in fact it seems that she just didn’t believe that she was a carrier. The forcible quarantine was necessary since Mary just refused to believe the evidence that she was spreading disease. Who would want to believe that about themselves? In the comparison I was simply alluding to the possibility that you might be similarly posing an unwitting threat to public health through your actions.

Judging by your following comments I apparently may have been to generous.

Exactly how immune are you right now to the diseases you have vaccinated against?

Far more protected than without vaccination. At least vaccines give your system a “head start” on exposure to infections. Feel free to look up the effectiveness studies of any vaccine you care to.

Hand washing (sanitary conditions) , food and access to proper health care have been known to save a few lives.

Yes they have (duh) but so have vaccines. Tell us bensmyson… When was the last time someone died of Smallpox? How many people in the USA today die of polio versus in 1952? Without a widespread program for the smallpox vaccine millions of children around the world would still be dying every year from disease. Humanity is very close to wiping out polio.

The fact of the matter is that hand washing, and sanitation only goes so far (especially when dealing with diseases that have transmission routes that aren’t effected by such measures). Also, you can’t count on everyone to wash their hands, etc.

Enough of this. Save your stories of chelations gone wrong and Lupron and the rise in measles and McCarthy for someone who cares.

Thank you for finally coming clean that you don’t actually care about the children being harmed and killed by anti-vax propaganda and snake-oil salesmen.

I find it rather telling how anti-vaxers will often acknowledge that their policies will harm and kill people, but they just don’t care. There’s always seems to be an undercurrent that everything revolves around them and their feelings/ego. The attitude is often one of “Me, me, me, screw everyone else”. The arrogance and self-absorption in much of the anti-vax community is astounding.

@ bensmyson:
By the way…
You never did answer the question @ #63.

Nor did you answer my question as to why the anti-vax groups don’t try to fund a scientifically credible study of the relation between vaccines and autism. They’ve already tried some studies, but they were so incompetent (perhaps deliberately fraudulent) as to be useless. As I earlier pointed out, just a few such studies would be a huge medical breakthrough. The anti-vax groups have the the money, and they’ve had the time to perform such a study.

So where is it?

If they really care about protecting children (and they’re not just about the money) why the hesitation? IMO they don’t perform the study because they’re afraid of proving themselves wrong (“Bye, bye money!” if that happens). It’s so much easier to ignore studies showing a lack of connection between vaccines and autism when it the other guy’s study. It becomes much harder to play it down when it’s your own study.

bee said “none of what you say about your child’s symptoms even comes close to proving they were caused by vaccines.”

Well Im glad that’s settled.

“So ONE pediatrician committing a crime means the entire field is untrustworthy forevermore?”

You talking about Wakefield? Im not sure he actually was proven to commit a crime.

Chadski – you telling me there arent a billion religious fanatics in this world that would fight to the death to defend their God?

Zetetic – “Thank you for finally coming clean that you don’t actually care about the children being harmed and killed by anti-vax propaganda and snake-oil salesmen. ‘

Ill match you two for one, for every kid harmed by a DAN protocol Ill give you two that have been harmed or killed from malpractice by a pediatrician or the drug or vaccine that they prescribed.

“Humanity is very close to wiping out polio. ”

Sure they are. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/health/11iht-polio.1.7847606.html?_r=1

Zetetic- “The anti-vax groups have the the money, and they’ve had the time to perform such a study.”

What “anti-vax” groups are you talking about? How much money does a study like this cost?

“Feel free to look up the effectiveness studies of any vaccine you care to. ”

I have, the MMR in some cases is about 70-80% effective. Meaning if 100 million people are vaccinated with the MMR, 20-30 million of them have zero immunity. So how exactly is that wiping out the measles? http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/13/771 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

Im curious, how certain are you that you are immune to the measles or mumps or the rotavirus or polio?

@young skeptic: “This is what draws the great division between rational skeptics and the ‘altmed’ community. The methods we proper skeptics use to evaluate data is rejected by them. In fact, it seems any rubric used to discern ‘truth’ from fiction is met with accusations of bias and prejudice as if objectivity was a quality man cannot posses and the default position was ‘believe whatever you please.'”

You should run for president of the Anarchists’ Club.

@bensmyson

You continue to be absolutely wrong on all accounts. Most of what you write is so ridiculous that it isn’t even wrong.

Twenty years after the MMR vaccine was first used in the United States, a study published in Pediatrics (1985, 76, 524-532) estimated that the vaccine prevented 52 million cases of measles, 17,400 cases of mental retardation, and 5,200 deaths.

My wife’s sister has been deaf and slightly retarded since birth because my wife got German measles (rubella), infected her mother when she was pregnant with her sister. A vaccination would have prevented her sister from a lifetime of problems and my wife from considerable guilt.

@bensmyson

In your citation of the CDC study of transmission of measles among vaccinated children, you may have failed to read the conclusion to the study:

“A serologic study has shown that up to 15% of persons lose detectable measles specific antibody, measured with standard techniques, within the 16 years following vaccination. Upon revaccination, such individuals typically produce secondary immune responses, implying they are still protected from measles disease (6). Further evidence against waning immunity is that measles incidence is at near record low levels 21 years after vaccine licensure. If loss of immunity with time since vaccination were a major problem, higher incidence rates would be expected. Nevertheless, since this outbreak suggests a potential problem, detailed investigations of other measles outbreaks in highly vaccinated populations should address this issue.

If waning immunity is not a problem, this outbreak suggests that measles transmission can occur within the 2%-10% of expected vaccine failures (5,7). However, transmission was not sustained beyond 36 days in this outbreak, and community spread was principally among unvaccinated preschool children. The infrequent occurrence of measles among highly vaccinated persons suggests that this outbreak may have resulted from chance clustering of otherwise randomly distributed vaccine failures in the community. That measles transmission can occur among vaccine failures makes it even more important to ensure persons are adequately vaccinated. Had there been a substantial number of unvaccinated or inadequately vaccinated students in the high school and the community, transmission in Sangamon County probably would have been sustained.”

Highlighted for your reading comprehension. The fucking study states clearly this was an ISOLATED instance and that it would not have occurred if all children had been vaccinated.

Your citation actually nullifies your argument. FAIL

“Dangerous? How so? How am I dangerous?”

People like you continue to erode the public safety net of universal vaccination. That is how you are dangerous.

I’m still waiting on my anatomy lesson to explain how the intestines and brain are able to leak into each other.

rob- In 1985 one fifth of the population of the US got an MMR? I wonder how many children were saved from a developmental disorder from advances in prenatal care, in the food stamp program, WIC, in early detection, in antibiotics, in birth control, abortion, in seat belts, child proof bottle caps, preterm natal care?

You wife being vaccinated against the measles would have been no guarantee of her immunity.

Im not saying that a vaccine against the measles isnt needed to help save lives, Im just saying it aint a sure thing and there are many other things one can do as a society to help stop people from dying of infectious disease and premature death.

“Most of what you write is so ridiculous that it isn’t even wrong.”

So you saying Im correct?

Im not saying that a vaccine against the measles isnt needed to help save lives, Im just saying it aint a sure thing and there are many other things one can do as a society to help stop people from dying of infectious disease and premature death.

You do realize that this entire line of thought has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with anything at all, right?

So you saying Im correct?

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_even_wrong

Kim is right @272. I recall a previous run-in with bensmyson over at LBRB. He pretended he couldn’t understand concepts like disability. For example, he insisted that for someone to be disabled, they must not be able to hold a job (which is nonsense in practice, despite technical definitions used in, say, social security benefit laws.) He was complaining about autistic adults who appear high functioning to him, all the while telling us that his own son is high functioning himself (IQ over 90.)

He would insist that saying his son is autistic is the same as saying his son is autism.

He’s shown to be wrong in one comment, and a couple comments later repeats the same argument that was shown to be nonsense.

It’s hard to tell if he’s honest and just clueless, or a troll who is intentionally out to provoke. I believe Sullivan over at LBRB decided it’s the latter when he banned bensmyson.

@bensmyson

52 million cases over 20 years. Can you fuckin’ read?

No, you are not correct. Your statements are so incoherent, off-topic, obtuse, or incomprehensible that they cannot be evaluated as right or wrong, so what you write is so stupid that it isn’t even wrong. Truly, can you understand English?

“Accept who he is and that he is different but every bit as equal.”

You have got to me kidding me! Equal? Equal to what, a 2 year old? Equal to a well trained dog?

Words simply fail me.

“Feel free to look up the effectiveness studies of any vaccine you care to. ”

I have, the MMR in some cases is about 70-80% effective. Meaning if 100 million people are vaccinated with the MMR, 20-30 million of them have zero immunity. So how exactly is that wiping out the measles?

Typical cherry-picking and mangling of statistics. Why don’t you look at more contemporary literature? Since those studies, a 2-dose strategy has been implemented and there have been no indigenous measles cases. And cases have all been imported and occurred in more than 90% that are unvaccinated. Have you bothered to look at recent statistics? You should have used mumps, your measles example failed, but then again, no one is making claims of mumps eradication.

Im curious, how certain are you that you are immune to the measles or mumps or the rotavirus or polio?

There is no adult rotavirus vaccine, no need, and rotavirus infection only confers temporary immunity. I keep up on boosters and then some. All in all, I’ve had more vaccines than my children have had.

@287
bensmyson

“So ONE pediatrician committing a crime means the entire field is untrustworthy forevermore?”

You talking about Wakefield? Im not sure he actually was proven to commit a crime.

Maybe you and your wife/husband should read one another’s comments.

bensmyson commented at 255;

Jeez didnt some pediatrician just get arrested for raping a hundred or so of his patients?

Everyone, this troll is not worth our time. I’m impressed with Orac’s patience when it comes to thread-hijacking trolls. I would have banned this moronic asshole about sixty comments ago. Everyone else will do what they want, but I am officially ignoring this dolt. There isn’t even a word in the English language that describes this degree of idiocy.

@290
Sciencemom

I was tempted to reply to the same comment about equity, but I would have used way too much profanity.

When he/she said that, that is when I decided that this (these) person (people) is one of those ‘my child is not good enough for me because he isn’t perfect’ ass monkey dick holes. To me, this is so offensive, it is not even offensive (apologies to Wolfgang Pauli).

kristen – “There isn’t even a word in the English language that describes this degree of idiocy.”

Yet you try and try and try.

sciencemom- “And cases have all been imported and occurred in more than 90% that are unvaccinated. ”

90%, really?

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00000359.htm

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/13/771

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646939/

Imported? Once again…

http://www.jstor.org/pss/4461020

kristen – ‘my child is not good enough for me because he isn’t perfect’

yep you got me, thats me, been so used to perfection all my life then I get stuck with a kid that’s not perfect. Christ sake, is that the best you can do?

I know others that have 12 -15 year old boys in diapers, unable to speak, 200 pounds, large breasts dripping milk from the anti-psychotic fed to them to keep them from hurting people, shit smearing adolescents that will run naked in the ice and snow to jump into a creek to chase after a windblown leaf. Ive actually met and talked with a police officer that was part of a group of officers that piled on a combative adult with autism and suffocated him by positional asphyxiation. Last summer less than 30 miles from my home a 9 year old autistic girl drown in park fountain, it had 3 inches of water in it. Equal? To what?

sciencemom- “And cases have all been imported and occurred in more than 90% that are unvaccinated. ”

90%, really?

Dumbass. Since 1992, after the implementation of a second MMR dose, there have been no indigenous cases because herd immunity interrupted circulation. Now all measles cases in the U.S. are imported and nearly all occur in unvaccinated. There have been less than 200 cases annually since then. How many cases of congenital rubella syndrome have you heard of in recent decades? Do you know that maternal rubella infection causes autism? The last was a case report of MIBE after MMR vaccination. Your lack of science education really shows.

Equal? To what?

You really need to STFU you incredibly vile duo of dickwaddery.

Because these things only happen to autistic children and adults. The troll has wasted an incredible amount of whitespace with this highjack. I’ll say it again, these AoA lemmings are talented mouths with an antivax, antiscience agenda of pure hatred. They are fighting reality and losing terribly.

for every kid harmed by a DAN protocol Ill give you two that have been harmed or killed from malpractice by a pediatrician or the drug or vaccine that they prescribed.

Undoubtedly. Given the vast number of mainstream pediatricians, a 1% error rate for them would completely overwhelm a 90% error rate for DAN! doctors.

vindaloo – “They are fighting reality and losing terribly.”

Sure they are.

Check the scale of Merck’s vaccine business problem, according to its Q1 2009 earnings report:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/21/merck-sees-57-percent-dro_n_189395.html

Drugmaker Merck & Co. on Tuesday posted a 57 percent drop in first-quarter profit, falling short of expectations and sending its stock down.

Merck said net income amounted to $1.43 billion, or 67 cents per share. A year ago, first-quarter net income was $3.3 billion, or $1.52 a share.

* The decline in sales of HPV vaccine Gardasil alone was more than $100 million.

* The overall 2009 revenues for Rotateq® are down, driven by U.S. revenue declines of over 25%.

Akorn Takes 3Q Loss On Weak Vaccine Revenue …

Swine flu was the biotech industry’s cash cow for much of 2009 thanks to government stockpiles. MedImmune, won a contract for up to $453 million to manufacture and deliver its FluMist vaccine to the federal government, boosting its parent company’s revenue and stock price. At least two other companies, Novavax Inc. and Cel-Sci Corp., sped up flu-related vaccine research. But now the Department of Health and Human Services will likely leave $64 million of that original $453 million contract with MedImmune on the table. With 74 million unused H1N1 vaccine doses of its own, the department plans to redirect those toward the next seasonal flu vaccine, which will include the H1N1 strain. Overall, the feds spent $1.6 billion on flu vaccines last year.

Despite flu drug sales Glaxo’s U.S. revenue fell 12 percent.

Despite flu drug sales Glaxo’s U.S. revenue fell 12 percent.

I guess that explains the cut in my kickback from them!

benmyson@132:

Thanks Orac, I got the links, I went through what you had to say, your interpretations seem a valid opinion based on your understanding and the understanding of others. To me though a colonoscopy is a necessary investigative tool when dealing with children with bowel disorders, likewise if one discovers measles virus in the intestines to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain.

Others have already spoken to the perils of colonoscopy, as well as the fact that several of the children in Wakefield’s original study did not, in fact, have bowel disorders prior to the colonoscopy. So I would like to add some perspective on the lumbar punctures, if you think it is at all reasonable to perform one merely to find out if the gut has “leaked” via some hitherto unknown mechanism into the brain.

When I was four years old, I developed a terrifyingly high fever — 107. I had a blinding headache and a very stiff neck, classic signs of meningitis. I was rushed to the emergency room, where the triage nurse immediately put me at the front of the line (irritating a family who was there for a boy with a broken arm, but then, broken arms don’t get much worse in an hour; 107 fevers can kill in the same time). The nurses immediately got to work trying to get my temperature down, and doctors came to perform a lumbar puncture to a) definitively diagnose meningitis, and b) determine the pathogen (and therefore the treatment, since you manage viral menigitis differently from bacterial meningitis). The spinal tap was performed, and the sample was sent off to the lab. As my fever was so high, I was delirious and not entirely aware of the process.

It was a very busy day at the hospital, as this was the peak of flu season. Somehow, the sample was lost on the way to the pathology lab. Given the seriousness of meningitis, the doctors ordered a second one, and my spinal membran was punctured again. The nurses had managed to get my fever down a little, and I do remember this one. It was excruciating, and though I remember screaming, my mother says I only gave a little whimper. (I was quite weak by this time.)

The hospital managed to lose the second sample as well. Despite the fact that it was very important to give me the proper treatment, they decided not to perform a third puncture. The risks (excruciating pain, infection, paralysis) exceeded the benefit (determining the proper treatment for my meningitis). They decided instead to assume the worst (haemophilus influenzae b, for which there is now a vaccine) and treat per that. I was put into an isolation ward and given intravenous antibiotics, though the later course of the disease suggested it was probably actually a viral infection.

I want to repeat that: the doctors felt that lumbar puncture was not indicated for me even though I had an actual condition that needed immediate diagnosis. The risks were too great, even though what they wanted to diagnose in me was something that threatened my life.

Given that even in the case of someone with meningitis, an additional puncture was deemed too risky, what possible justification could there be to perform a lumbar puncture on an otherwise healthy child? Pure science is not adequate, yet that is essentially what Wakefield was after. Children are not guinea pigs. You cannot put them at risk if whatever you hope to gain will not actually directly help them.

Lumbar puncture is not a trivial procedure. It’s simple, but that’s not the same thing. The risks are similar to epidural anesthesia and spinal blocks — infection in an extremely vulnerable area, excruciating headache which typically does not respond to any pain relievers or even narcotics, and permanent nerve damage. (My husband’s grandmother had a lumbar discectomy a few years back. The membranes were accidentally punctured, and she did develop nerve damage. She’s completely incontinent now, and has to be careful walking because she has very little sensation below the waist.) The risks are low enough for the procedure to be used, but not low enough to use it lightly, and certainly not low enough to use it in children for the sole objective of testing a theory of autism causation.

@bensmyson

Very nice example of selective quoting. Fosamax sales were down 44%, as were the sales of many other drugs, including Zetia (-18%), Vytorin (-28%).

What you didn’t note, however, as would have someone who read more carefully, is that sales of Gardasil are recorded as equity income from company affiliates.

Furthermore, Rotateq sales were down in 2009 because the company recorded $41M in revenue in 2008 as a result of government purchase for stockpiling. So, in fact, sales of Rotateq were only down slightly (about 11%), consistent with overall declines in across-the-board revenues.

Zostavax sales were up slightly, despite significant back-orders. Isentress (HIV integrase inhibitor) sales went from $47M in 1st quarter 2008 to $148M in 1st quarter 2009.

And finally, sales of Merck’s other oral viral vaccines including Varivas, MMR-II, and Proquad were up 12% (i.e., increased) over the same quarter in 2008.

Now STFU about things you know so little about.

@Kristen and Science Mom

Thank you for the incredibly apt phrases “ass monkey dick holes” and “vile duo of dickwaddery”. I intend to incorporate both into my lexicon for when I’m dealing with idiots like the tireless troll infesting this thread.

Bensmyson notes:

“Drugmaker Merck & Co. on Tuesday posted a 57 percent drop in first-quarter profit, falling short of expectations and sending its stock down.

and

Merck said net income amounted to $1.43 billion, or 67 cents per share. A year ago, first-quarter net income was $3.3 billion, or $1.52 a share.

He/she/they attribute this to a decline in the public’s trust in vaccine safety.

In today’s Wall Street Journal, I noted that housing starts are down, as well, presumably reflecting a decline in the public’s trust of house safety.

In fact, one of the few products which has shown a steady increase in sales over the past year has been guns and ammunition, reflecting – according to Bensmyson’s logic – an increase in the perceived safety of guns in the public mind.

Of course, it is entirely possible that the declines seen in vaccine sales are due to the current recession, but where’s the fun in that?

Prometheus

Pablo @ 116:

It depends. What are they praying for?

As I told Calli Arcade some months back, praying for the earthquake victims in Haiti doesn”t help them. Send them $5 and you will do a lot more.

Similarly, you just illustrate the point that you don’t understand a placebo effect. How does praying for someone help them? It doesn’t, it only helps the person praying. Similarly, you have made it very clear that you want whackadoodle treatments to make the parents feel better. Why does the placebo effect on autistic kids depend on whether their parents have “hope” or not?

I agreed with you at the time, I seem to recall. Praying helps the one saying the prayer, and perhaps people who know about the prayer. The former is helped mostly in the sense of having their mind put at ease (meditation is helpful for this, whether a deity is invoked or not) and the latter is helped in the sense that it tells them they haven’t been forgotten. Beyond that, sending $5 is the best way to *materially* help in Haiti. (And Chile, and any disaster area, really.)

The “placebo effect” is a bit of a misnomer, because it’s not really an effect. It’s a perception. Several factors contribute to the perception. One is post hoc ergo propter hoc; some people will get better anyway, regardless of what you do, and if it happens to be right after they took the placebo, they may think that’s what made them better. A more significant one is the fact that when we perceive the world around us, it is a combination of what our senses tell us and what our experience tells us we *should* perceive. So if we think we should get better, we will unconsciously alter our perception to fit that expectation. That “unconsciously” part is important; it’s not something we can entirely control, and every human being on the planet is susceptible to it. That’s why you it’s dangerous to rely on anecdote and personal experience; we cannot reliably discern what part of our perception is real and what is fabricated by our brains in order to flesh out the reality-model that is human perception.

Prayer works mainly because people expect it to, but, and this is the important part, it only works in areas influenced by human perception and never farther than that portion of perception which is generated by our brains. Prayer *can* lead to help in Haiti, by getting more people to donate money, but again, this is an area where it is working soley by its influence on human perception. We think prayer will help, so when we think about giving money, we perceive God moving us to give money, so we give money and perhaps more money than we would have otherwise.

So yes, the placebo “effect” can affect people’s perceptions and thereby their behavior — but this is not because of any special property on the part of the actual placbo, nor because of a mystical self-healing capacity that humans possess if only they could unlock it (as some woo-peddlers like to claim). To put it bluntly, it’s because we’re good at lying to ourselves, and willing to collude with other liars.

(Lest any Christians take offense, let the record state that I am Christian, and pray regularly. Make of that what you will, but I just think one ought be able to think critically regardless of one’s opinions on that which is untestable.)

Otto @ 224

Uh, Breaker One-Nine, this here’s the Rubber Duck
You got a copy on me Pig-Pen? C’mon

I always heard it as “Big Ben,” personally. 😛 “Mercy sakes, looks like we got us a convoy.”

I always heard it as “Big Ben,” personally. 😛

It’s Pig Pen, because he’s hauling hogs (I don’t remember if that is the Kenmore that he is driving or not).

At one point, they had to back off because the stench of the pigs was getting too strong.

(man, this is scary that I remember this stuff)

Argh. Screwed up the blockquotes above. Pablo’s quote ends with “Why does the placebo effect on autistic kids depend on whether their parents have “hope” or not?”

And actually, I realize now I didn’t answer that question. The answer is simple: the parents are the ones evaluating the treatment, and hope will color their perceptions of the treatment. One thing a lot of people forget is that the placebo effect isn’t about the patient. It’s about perceptions, after all, so it’s really about the observer. For most medical treatments, the patient and the observer are one and the same; you report less pain while on a placebo treatment because you think you should experience less pain. For a child, the observer is usually the parent. “Is he calmer? Does she use full sentences?” Diagnosis is often heavily dependent on parent perception — and the placebo effect alters perception. If the parent thinks the kid should be getting better during a treatment, they will perceive things a little better while the child is on the treatment. And hope is perhaps the most powerful form of the placebo effect.

That’s not that hope is bad. Hope is good; it’s what gives you the motivation to keep on going. But it means you have to take a step back and examine your conclusions and observations a little more critically than usual, lest you make a serious mistake. Like not noticing that your child dislikes the treatment but isn’t really being helped by it.

…to do a lumbar puncture to see if the gut has leaked into the brain.

How the Hell does someone’s gut leak into his/her brain? Seems to me there’d be a few obstructions in the way, like the skull, half the head, the neck, heart, lungs, diaphragm, stomach, liver, pancreas, etc. It seems this incredibly self-important shrieking hyeteric “bensmyson” doesn’t even know basic anatomy.

Why are we wasting time trying to talk sense to someone this stupid?

The answer is simple: the parents are the ones evaluating the treatment, and hope will color their perceptions of the treatment. One thing a lot of people forget is that the placebo effect isn’t about the patient. It’s about perceptions, after all, so it’s really about the observer.

Which is why the animal accupuncture loons, for example, are wrong when they claim there can’t be a placebo effect in animals.

In fact, there is a huge potential for placebo effect in animals, because assessment of pain, for example, is so challenging. You can’t ask the animal to point to a face on the wall that most closely resembles their current feelings (which also has it’s problems, but fewer than trying to do an external assessment)

“It’s Pig Pen, because he’s hauling hogs (I don’t remember if that is the Kenmore that he is driving or not).”

The Kenworth is pulling logs, the Jimmy hauling hogs.

@312:

In addition, it’s certainly possible for animal subjects to respond to their handlers’ attentions. A treatment that involves handling the animal, for instance, could very easily have an objective effect on the animal’s behavior (I hesitate to say ‘state of mind’ because that’s so amorphous and unmeasurable). It would be entirely reasonable to label such an effect placebo.

And a cabover Pete with a reefer on, don’t forget. 😉 Pig Pen does make sense; I just always heard it the other way. A mondigreen. I’ve actually got most of the song memorized now, because I put it on my “driving CD”. (Followed immediately by “Doppler Shifting” by Astrocappella.)

Raging Bee: that puzzled me for a long time, too, about the leaky gut hypothesis. I had this picture in my mind about the gut leaking material into the abdominal cavity, because I usually think “rupture” when I hear “leak”. Turns out, that’s not what they mean. It’s part of the mercury hypothesis, and the toxin gambit as well. The idea goes like this: measles or gluten (depending on who you ask) damages the cilia, breaking down their natural defenses against toxins. They become more permeable, allowing in toxins that would normally be kept out, or allowing in more of them than normal, and these toxins then travel through the blood to damage the central nervous system, which is either uniquely sensitive to the toxins or uniquely sensitive in those individuals predisposed to autism.

You can see the problems in that, of course. There are several remarkable assumptions, none of which has been empirically validated, but because their children had vaccines/gluten/etc and are presently autistic, the entire chain of reasoning is presumed valid.

(Er, I have a mistaken citation there. “Doppler Shifting” is by The Chromatics, and the album is “Astrocappella”. Very nerdy, highly recommended, suitable for grade-school classrooms.)

“I’ve actually got most of the song memorized now, because I put it on my ‘driving CD’.”

It’s a complete show-stopper in French.

So Im confused, whats wrong with giving a parent who just lost their child to regressive autism a bit of hope, to allow a placebo effect to get them to recognize and appreciate small positive changes in development that may or may not have taken place regardless of treatment, to give the parent time to bond with their child they see as changed, lost, unrecognizable instead of crush their spirit with talk of woo and scare the bejeebus out of them with your “science”

Most of these parents are in this forever, there is no escaping the diagnosis for most of them. And not all of these children are “high functioning” or verbal or gentle. Some of these children are not very pleasant to be around and require great patience and self discipline. Hell some of these parents are single moms, abandoned and left to care for this one child with autism and perhaps more.

We all know the stories of mothers killing their autistic child, we know of the children abused and neglected with or without autism. We hear of children with autism who are sick and failing to thrive, children who will not likely experience their 30th birthday and yet require love and attention and they need someone to give hope and encouragement to them and their families.

What’s so wrong with giving a parent a little hope? A little time to work things out. What’s wrong with saying a prayer or believing in a better world, a baptism, nirvana, recovery from autism? What’s wrong with a few vitamins, a splash of “woo” how is looking for the good in a child’s development, getting excited from a word or a hand that touched a face in “love” so wrong?

@320:

A short list of the problems with that:

1. It’s called “lying”, not giving hope.
2. It’s expensive.
3. It’s uncomfortable for the child.
4. It’s actively dangerous for the child, in many cases.

Any parent who can ignore points #3 and #4, especially, in order to provide themselves some completely false comfort – well, let’s just say I pity their children and leave it at that.

@bensmyson

What’s the harm in believing in a placebo? Apart from the examples found at that site, selling woo gives people false hope and engenders a belief in magical thinking and “tooth fairy medicine”.

Let’s take a look at Facilitated Communication. That gave lots of families “hope” that they would be able to communicate with their child, at long last. It turned out to be nothing but a sham, though. There was no real communication, and it diverted time away from effective support and therapy to pursue things which ultimately did not benefit the child. In some cases, belief in FC led to demonstrable harm to families.

Just because something gives hope does not mean that it is a good thing. Think about the possible costs: time, money, emotional investment…all wasted on things that do nothing.

“So Im confused”

Should have just made that your first post and not festooned us with your insanity over the last couple of days.

Calli Arcale – Judging by the number of lumbar punctures Ive had to undergo in my lifetime I assumed they were extremely ordinary. Same with a colonoscopy, seems every Matt Lauer and Katie Couric is getting one. Sort of like an enema. If Wakefield ordered them who am I to second guess.

Ive witnessed a child receive a spinal, and I have to say that it was 100 times easier (quicker) than it was for me.

But I am aware that it has its risks as does a HepB vaccine given within a child’s first hour of life.

Todd W. – “wasted on things that do nothing.”

What does something for severely autistic children? What can a parent to from day one that will help the child’s cognition, their pain, their inability to communicate, to express love? What is wasted on spooning some cod liver oil into their mouth?

Not that my son was initially seen as being severely autistic, but autism meant to me for life. The idea that there is an alternative way to approach autism was almost life saving. It wasnt like from the moment I learned the diagnosis that I was going to do anything else but work on my son. Fortunately I had money at the time. $50,000 dumped into traditional therapies, maybe $10,000 into blood tests, genetic testing, fish oil, and vitamins and other supplements. I honestly believe we have seen progress, a near recovery and as a self deceived parent who loves his child more than anything else in this world, perhaps abnormally so, I think the biggest part of his recovery is the amount of love and attention we gave him. Now if we lived in the woods somewhere, had no access to OT, ST, ABA, DAN!, behaviorists, neurologists, and only held and played and talked and loved this boy as we have for the past 2 and a half years since the diagnosis I honestly do not know whether or not he would be any different. Ego, narcissism, deception, insanity who knows but Im just telling you that hope is huge, HUGE.

The question is, would he have made the progress he has made without us, his parents? Stick him in a well funded, well staffed clinical environment, give him the approved OT, ABA, etc and how would he have thrived?

That vax v unvax study has ethical problems, as would something like hope v no hope.

Im not sure you can say giving one hope, even if it is later proven to be false hope, is a lie.

You telling me that there is no disproportionate share of gut problems in children diagnosed with autism?

In fact, it is by no means clear that there is a disproportionate share of gut problems in children diagnosed with autism. Here are a couple of studies that have failed to find evidence for a substantial increase in gut problems in people with autism:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19886906
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19651585

Even if there is an increased incidence, the relationship to autism may be indirect, because many autistic individuals have high levels of anxiety, which can affect GI function. Autism researchers that I’ve spoken to are receptive to the possibility of associated gut disorders, not because of the Wakefield hypothesis (which no scientist I know considers even remotely plausible), but because many genes involved in development of the brain are also expressed in the gut, so if (as is the dominant hypothesis) autism is fundamentally a genetic disorder, then it is very plausible that there would be abnormalities in the enteric nervous system in at least a subset of individuals with autism.

Many parents seem to believe that the “regression” which is frequently observed in children with autism is strong evidence of an environmental trigger. Neuroscientists see this very differently, because development of the brain is very different from the steady increase in height or weight that occurs as a child ages. Despite the appearance of a steady gain in capabilities in normally developing children, there are dramatic developmental changes that are occurring in the brain over the first few years of life, with many critical points at which things could conceivably go very wrong. For example, large numbers of synapses are lost in the normally developing brain. If these are not the “right” connections being pruned, then it is easy to see how a loss of function can result. Indeed, children with Rett syndrome, which is characterized by autism as well as other problems, typically exhibit regression, even though Rett syndrome is well established as a genetic disorder, with a specific gene defect identified.

“Same with a colonoscopy, seems every Matt Lauer and Katie Couric is getting one.”

For the love of all that’s holy… are you even trying? Do you think this has anything to do with their age and the recommendations of when annual colonoscopies should begin?

Here’s a hint, if you think the age is “little kids” you’re off by an order of magnitude.

You have got to me kidding me! Equal? Equal to what, a 2 year old? Equal to a well trained dog?

I accept who my son is, we are all different, he is awesome. But equal? Seriously.

@bensmyson: Are you stating, for the record, that disabled people are not equal? I’ll give you a chance to read the Wikipedia article on Social Equality before you respond:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_equality

Im not sure you can say giving one hope, even if it is later proven to be false hope, is a lie.

Well, that pretty much proves bensmyson is unreachable and totally disengaged from reality. He/she has fully retreated into self-delusion, and judges the truth or falsehood of a statement based on nothing but how it makes him/her feel. If it makes hom/her feel good, it’s not a lie, even if it’s proven false. There’s no sense arguing with her — she’s delusional, and probably pestering us here just to make him/herself feel relevant.

benmyson @ 320:

So Im confused, whats wrong with giving a parent who just lost their child to regressive autism a bit of hope, to allow a placebo effect to get them to recognize and appreciate small positive changes in development that may or may not have taken place regardless of treatment, to give the parent time to bond with their child they see as changed, lost, unrecognizable instead of crush their spirit with talk of woo and scare the bejeebus out of them with your “science”

First off, this isn’t about the parents. It’s about the children.

Hope is good, hope is wonderful, but hope can also blind. False hope is the worst kind, because it wastes precious time. Time that can be spent with more effective treatments, but also time that could be spent coming to terms with the situation and, yes, bonding with the child.

Hope is wonderful. But so is truth. I’d rather do what is right for my child than what will make me sleep better at night. I’m a parent; I’d rather suffer than let my child suffer. So it’s not about what makes me feel better. It’s about what makes my child better.

Hope is important through that; it keeps you going, because suffering on behalf of your child is painful and stressful and you need *something* to keep you going. But be ware of false hope. Prayer’s okay if it helps you keep it all together. Vitamins are harmless, and if your kid has trouble eating a balanced diet, useful, but don’t overdo it; if nothing else, there’s no reason to spend extra money on something that isn’t going to help.

And then there are the genuinely risky interventions, and the painful ones. Those subject the child to risk, and in some cases actual harm. If the only benefit is hope for the parent, then something is seriously messed up.

benmyson @ 324:

Judging by the number of lumbar punctures Ive had to undergo in my lifetime I assumed they were extremely ordinary. Same with a colonoscopy, seems every Matt Lauer and Katie Couric is getting one. Sort of like an enema. If Wakefield ordered them who am I to second guess.

Ive witnessed a child receive a spinal, and I have to say that it was 100 times easier (quicker) than it was for me.

But I am aware that it has its risks as does a HepB vaccine given within a child’s first hour of life.

I don’t know why you had to have so many lumbar punctures, but I hope they were all for an actual indication; it’s done often enough that nurses are good at it, but it’s not something to mess around with. Same with colonoscopy; it’s done enough that they’ll even recommend it for the general population above a certain age, but it has enough risks that you don’t want to do it unless there’s a reasonable chance of finding something out that’ll save the patient’s life. These are riskier than the Hep B vaccine. Seriously. Complications are much more common with lumbar puncture than with vaccination. (In particular, the relatively common risk of severe migraine, which, as it is not life-threatening, is not considered a serious health risk.) In addition to my two spinal taps, I have also had one epidural anesthetic, and one spinal block. These carry pretty much the same risks, since it’s all mechanically pretty similar; I had no complications for those.

Bottom line, the test is pretty safe. But not safe enough to justify doing it purely to satisfy curiosity. There has to be an actual medical benefit to the patient to justify it, especially in a child. (An adult can give consent to something like that; I don’t believe a child can.)

benmyson @ 325:

Fortunately I had money at the time. $50,000 dumped into traditional therapies, maybe $10,000 into blood tests, genetic testing, fish oil, and vitamins and other supplements.

That is a LOT of money to spend on stuff. It is of course impossible to tell whether your son really needed all of that money spent on him, or whether he would’ve done fine with only some of it or even none of it. But what if you didn’t have money at the time? What if you mortgaged your house, with an ARM, at the peak of the housing boom, in order to fund that stuff? The results could be disastrous for your family, creating a pretty significant net loss for your son.

So how does a parent decide what to do for their autistic child? Well, you do the best you can; it’s what we all do. Love them. Care for them. Laugh with them. And do whatever you believe will help. Knowing that personal experience is inadequate, I seek the knowledge of experts — and I look to see if their work has been replicated, and what has been shown across large numbers of autistic children. So, not just what worked for my child, but what worked for hundreds of children in controlled conditions. This sort of evidence isn’t available for all therapies, but I work with what I have. If it’s plausible, not too expensive (I do have mouths to feed), and carries no extra burden of risk — sure, I’ll go for that. But as the risk goes up, my willingness to just try stuff goes down dramatically. It doesn’t take much risk at all before I will decline to try something which is largely speculative. I have seen no evidence that vitamin supplementation helps, but there’s half a century of safety and efficacy data on methylphenidate, so I do use that. I do not feel there is enough evidence for some of the other pharmaceuticals, so I do not use them. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s what I’ve got.

I wouldn’t say that false hope is neccesarily a lie; after all, something is only a lie if it was intentionally wrong. Most false hopes are not intentionally wrong. Most are born of noble intentions. They can be very tragic, though, especially during that moment when one realizes that they are false hopes.

Bensmyson asks:

“So Im confused, whats wrong with giving a parent who just lost their child to regressive autism a bit of hope, to allow a placebo effect to get them to recognize and appreciate small positive changes in development that may or may not have taken place regardless of treatment…”

Well, for starters, if it is a placebo, then any “small positive changes” are definitely not (not “may or may not be”) due to the “treatment”. By definition, a placebo has no effect of its own.

However, the “placebo effect” is alive and well in “biomedical therapy” of autism. Any improvement is seen as a direct result of the “therapy” and any setbacks or deterioration are seen – usually with the help of the “practitioner” – as either a need for “more therapy”, a need for different “therapies” or the result of not following the therapeutic recommendations closely enough.

It’s a classic case of “Heads I win, tails you lose”, although it would be better phrased as:

“If he gets better, the treatment is working, if he doesn’t get better (or gets worse), it’s the parents’ fault.”

Here are some reasons given by DAN! practitioners (and non-affiliated quacks) for why their prescribed “biomedical treatment” didn’t work:

1. If you’d come to me sooner, it would have worked.

2. You’re not eliminating every scrap of gluten and casein – be more vigilant!

3. The worsening of his behavior is a sign that the “toxins” are coming out of his system.

4. You need to keep treating for two years or more [despite having said – at the beginning – that the treatment would “work” in two or three months]. Don’t give up before the miracle!

5. He is better – you just don’t see it because you’re with him every day. [the “Emperor’s New Clothes” excuse]

6. The treatment can’t work if you don’t believe in it.

These are not things I’ve made up – they’ve all been said to me or to my friends with autistic children.

There is nothing wrong with using a placebo…if!

[1] If there is no other effective treatment available or if using the placebo doesn’t prevent or discourage the use of effective treatments.

[2] If using the placebo doesn’t prevent the patient/parent from dealing with reality.

[3]If there is no charge for the placebo.

I think that most of the “alternative” practitioners “fail” on at least the third condition. I submit that most of the placebo-based “alternative” treatments for autism also fail the second condition.

Finally, given all of the heated rhetoric about the “conflict of interest” that pharmaceutical companies have (which, by the way, is the reason they are monitored and regulated by the FDA), I am shocked [ala Capt. Renault (Claude Rains) in Casablanca] to see that the people advocating “alternative” treatments fail to see the massive (and unregulated) conflicts of interest of the practitioners who peddle these “treatments”.

Well, there are none so blind as those who will not see…

Prometheus

So Im confused, whats wrong with giving a parent who just lost their child to regressive autism a bit of hope, to allow a placebo effect to get them to recognize and appreciate small positive changes in development that may or may not have taken place regardless of treatment, to give the parent time to bond with their child they see as changed, lost, unrecognizable instead of crush their spirit with talk of woo and scare the bejeebus out of them with your “science”

Oh get a damn clue already, or buy one since you can afford it. There isn’t an onslaught of ‘regressive autism’ as you describe of yourself and fellow ‘my bebe is vaccine-damaged’ comrades. The problem is, is that it isn’t innocently giving an autistic child some cod-liver oil or nutritional supplements where there are true nutritional deficits.

It’s about
this insanity

and this insanity
oh,
and this bit of insanity.
Do you question your homebase of AoA when they call for the undying support of king quackpins,
Rossignol and Ussman
, the former for diagnosing a child over the damn phone and the latter for administering an atrocious regimen of shite based upon dubious tests!? Let’s not forget chemically castrating children for profit. And how many of you are still deluded into believing that
OSR
is just some harmless dietary supplement? It should scare the hell out of people because there IS no science to support it and every indication that doing many of these can cause serious harm.

Do you think you are doing any favours to yourself, your child and others to perpetuate the belief that vaccines caused your child’s autism? Really? Someday Ben will be able to read all of this that you both have posted all over the place and gets to know that he is ‘damaged’. And unfortunately, he may never know that he isn’t really damaged, but is in his own parents eyes because they have decided it must be and all based upon their own faulty recollections and inability to accept what nature has dealt them. Blame. You thrive on it and DAN!s sell it. You all suck.

Joseph – Equal to what? Social equality? Of course. Thanks for answering my question. However Im not sure that’s what sciencemom was getting at.

trrll – have they identified the areas of the brain effected by this natural process of pruning? It would have to be in the exact same area for there to be so similar presentations.

JohnV- I was relating my own experiences to my own beliefs, such as a kid playing with a balloon is dangerous or when you take the balloon from him it causes him to suffer.

Bee – “He/she has fully retreated into self-delusion, and judges the truth or falsehood of a statement based on nothing but how it makes him/her feel.”

When you are cold do you feel it or do you have to look it up in a book?

Callie – “First off, this isn’t about the parents. It’s about the children.”

Of course it is. The first thing I was taught as a lifeguard was if you cant control the situation get out of it and try another approach. If a parent’s mind isnt right, depressed, hopeless, angry how are they going to care for the child at an optimal level?

Doing what’s right for my child is what helps me sleep at night. And the only person that knows what’s right is me and/or my wife.

Prometheus- First of all my son’s DAN practitioner is none of the above. We have been extremely conservative. Im sure there are doctors that take advantage of their patients just as there are doctors that take advantage of the medicaid system, stealing hundreds of millions from the public.

You said: “Finally, given all of the heated rhetoric about the “conflict of interest” that pharmaceutical companies have (which, by the way, is the reason they are monitored and regulated by the FDA), I am shocked [ala Capt. Renault (Claude Rains) in Casablanca] to see that the people advocating “alternative” treatments fail to see the massive (and unregulated) conflicts of interest of the practitioners who peddle these “treatments”. ”

You’re a bright man, extremely bright, why you can’t see why public opinion is not on the side of the government regulators/watchdogs is beyond me. Seriously how could you be “shocked” as to why people run to alternative treatments?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/18/health/policy/18cdc.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/20/health/policy/20avandia.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/14/60minutes/main3831900.shtml

and lastly a story I worked on

http://www.newsobserver.com/2009/02/25/94385/fda-ignored-debris-in-syringes.html

So Im confused, whats wrong with giving a parent who just lost their child to regressive autism a bit of hope

Is it just me or is the use of the phrase, “lost their child” rather striking? I mean, the kid is still alive.

Sentences I never expected I’d ever read, #63524:

udging by the number of lumbar punctures Ive had to undergo in my lifetime I assumed they were extremely ordinary.

Callie – “First off, this isn’t about the parents. It’s about the children.”

Of course it is. The first thing I was taught as a lifeguard was if you cant control the situation get out of it and try another approach. If a parent’s mind isnt right, depressed, hopeless, angry how are they going to care for the child at an optimal level?

Doing what’s right for my child is what helps me sleep at night. And the only person that knows what’s right is me and/or my wife.

That’s well and good, but when you emphasize the importance of how the treatment looks and feels for the *parents* then it seems that you are placing your own comfort *above* that of your child’s, rather than on a par with it. I don’t know whether that’s true (I doubt it is) but it looks bad, and if you take a moment to look at it that way, you’ll see why it has bothered a number of commenters.

In particular, you have indicated that it is important for the parents to have hope, even if the treatment is useless for the child. Since no treatment is entirely without risk, how can you justify that?

I repeat what I said before: if the only benefit is hope for the parent, then something is seriously messed up. Probably, it means the parent needs help. There’s nothing wrong with needing help; there’s what folks in the biz call “respite care”, for instance, and that can be enormously helpful. If you need a break, take a break. Spending time and money on false hope doesn’t strike me as much of a break.

@bensmyson: you said: “Judging by the number of lumbar punctures Ive had to undergo in my lifetime I assumed they were extremely ordinary.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME??????? Extremely ordinary? NO, NO, NO!!!!!

A lumbar puncture is a MEDICAL procedure, performed by physicians or specially trained nurse-practitioners. It is NOT within a regular (not advanced practice) nurse’s scope of practice. It can KILL you. Doctors don’t do them for shits and giggles. They entail threading a needle between the bones into the spinal column to obtain spinal fluid. However, if the fluid pressure is high (which can occur with many illnesses), the sudden release of that pressure can be fatal. It can also lead to infection (hey, let’s introduce bacteria right into the fluid that bathes the brain…and these idiots worry about vaccine if they think these procedures are ‘no big deal?????’).

I find it very hard to believe that bensmyson has had “a number” of them. If he/she has, then he/she has serious health issues. Most people go through life never having it done. It is NOT the same thing as an epidural anesthesia (which many women have for childbirth). They are painful to have done, usually require 4-8 hours of lying FLAT afterwards to prevent debilitating headache, and are NOT a walk in the park.

Joseph – Equal to what? Social equality? Of course. Thanks for answering my question. However Im not sure that’s what sciencemom was getting at.

@bensmyson: Which other equality were you talking about? Define equality.

In order to be equal to someone else, do you need to have the same skills?

MI Dawn: my dad has had back problems for a long time and has had several lumbar punctures as a result. He never described them as ordinary, though – he mentioned even if you lie flat the headaches still show up and they are quite involved.

calli – You know what I think, I think none of you know me. Never been around me, never had a beer with me, never seen me at work, at play, never grew up with me. Sometimes I expect people to know me or at least give me the benefit of the doubt. But it’s my fault for allowing this to get personal. I dont think when I write this stuff and even if I did I dont think I could gather up the necessary skills to get my points across.

To me, sometimes, you get your head working and other stuff begins to happen. Sort of like the black belt that can smash bricks with his fists. At the beginning I didnt have to will myself to want to “heal” Ben. To me it was a natural act. But I did have to will myself to make sacrifices later on and the only way I could have made those sacrifices was to convince myself I was on the right path. And I am, or at least I FEEL as if I am.

The way I see it is that the problem most of you have with me is that I believe a parent has a right to do what they feel is best for their child, vaccinate, not to vaccinate, chelation, acupuncture, shamanism. Within reason of course, no blood sacrifices please. I also feel a great deal of people suffer from the failings of the FDA and CDC. I dont trust much of anything along those lines since my son’s diagnosis.

Calli I truly appreciate your tactical suggestion for some rest. (Gee does it show?) My wife and I are both at home with him, sharing the load. We take turns, each has plenty of time to blog, take the day off and go somewhere with friends, nap, watch tv. I keep getting misunderstood about hope. The best I can do is relate it to someone who is a fundamentalist Christian, or Muslim. (I live in the South, more familiar with Christians) I would no more tell my next door neighbor that Jesus is dead than I would tell someone on AoA that they are fools for believing in Wakefield’s work. I get your concern that a belief in Jesus is harmless unless you take into account the fanaticism regarding our nationalism and the Israel, Arab conflict. I get your concern that Wakefield followers are scary and anti-vaxxers could cause the world’s children to die from various horrible diseases. I totally get how you may find comfort in the whole protect the herd mentality. But Im not buying it and the tough part for me is like I said, I expect you to know me, and to respect my opinion much the same way I do yours. Not once have I called any of you a fool. Not once. Not even whispered it to myself either.

@dedicated lurker: when I started nursing, we used spinal anesthesia for c/sections (very few places were doing epidurals then, and they had a very high risk of headache also due to dural puncture). I can well recall caring for those poor women. One in particular…she had a hideous spinal headache for 3 days and ended up getting a “blood patch” (they drew blood from her arm and injected it into the area over her spinal column where she had her spinal anesthesia) the blood clotted and stopped the leakage of spinal fluid and she was finally able to sit up). I saw enough complications and problems with spinals (not to add the lumbar punctures we had to assist with on very ill newborns) that I hope to never have one.

My sympathies to your father for having to go through them several times. I’m sure they were medically needed, but I’m also sure your father didn’t think they were “nothing out of the ordinary”.

MI – “I find it very hard to believe that bensmyson has had “a number” of them. If he/she has, then he/she has serious health issues.”

An aneurysm in my 20’s, so every time I get a headache someone has to take a look to make sure I didnt spring a leak. Usually the procedure has to be done by a neurosurgeon because my back muscles bend the needle so much. One time I spent an hour on a fluoroscope table, it was a scene out of Marathon Man.

Sometimes I expect people to know me or at least give me the benefit of the doubt.

Now how could you even entertain that thought while you and your wife are tag-teaming with the same username, can’t even keep your stories straight and don’t even know what each other is posting where?

Joseph – “In order to be equal to someone else, do you need to have the same skills?”

I am extremely competitive, sports, gambling, etc and to me if something is equal it weighs the same, same size, equal intelligence, same potential. My left hand is not equal to my right hand. In golf if you are not equal one will get a handicap.

So when someone says a child with autism is equal to a child that is not then of course Im thinking that’s absurd.

I am extremely competitive, sports, gambling, etc and to me if something is equal it weighs the same, same size, equal intelligence, same potential.

@bensmyson: So according to your definition of equality, no one is equal to anyone else, right?

“So according to your definition of equality, no one is equal to anyone else, right?”

Depends. Two fighters, both with 12 wins, both 235 pounds might be equal in terms of betting purposes. Like two dogs, one a black lab the other a french poodle might be equally good pets. I might think two different breweries make equally as tasty beer. I compare people sometimes in a way that’s not the way you might.

But to answer your question, one person is equal to another in terms of rights, no two people are exactly equal. Equal to me is a term of measure. I am not your equal, nor could I be.

“I totally get how you may find comfort in the whole protect the herd mentality. But Im not buying it”

As someone who has spent a brief amount of time in sub-Saharan Africa, sentiments like that frighten me. Polio is still a problem in that part of the world; and often it’s quite hard to get the people there to trust Western medicine. Imagine the damage that could be done by the anti-vax movement in a place like that.

I would love for people who are anti-vax to be held legally responsible for the pain, suffering, and death that results from their narrow-minded, ill-informed stupidity.

MI Dawn – thanks. He’s had back problems most of my life (he even had back surgery on my tenth birthday) and has been through a few medical procedures for it, and he still says that’s the worst. (My stepfather after being diagnosed with multiple myeloma said bone marrow aspiration was the most painful thing in the world.)

benismyson: “Equality” and “sameness” are not the same thing.

maydijo – “I would love for people who are anti-vax to be held legally responsible for the pain, suffering, and death that results from their narrow-minded, ill-informed stupidity.”

And id love people responsible for the pain, suffering, and death of people who were injured from vaccines to be held legally responsible. As it stands now there is a law that protects them. An eye for an eye? What’s fair is fair. You get it your way when I get it my way.

And id love people responsible for the pain, suffering, and death of people who were injured from vaccines to be held legally responsible.

In the U.S. it’s called NVICP, get over it. Vaccine manufacturers can still get sued, every one of the denied NVICP claims can do so.

People are on their own when their child becomes disabled or dies from a wild-type infection, VPD or not.

Sued? SUED? I want an eye for an eye, I want criminal charges brought against PEOPLE. We pay all pay the judgements in higher costs. Also if the corporations were held accountable it would be the stockholders to have to pay. Nope I want someone to sit in prison for 29 years, right after they are horse whipped. In China a corrupt head of a drug company that sold tainted product was taken outside after he was found guilty and shot. Sounds reasonable to me, his product killed babies.

Bensmyson retorts:

“…why you can’t see why public opinion is not on the side of the government regulators/watchdogs is beyond me. Seriously how could you be “shocked” as to why people run to alternative treatments?”

Clearly, my reference to the movie Casablanca was lost on Bensmyson – doesn’t anyone study the classics anymore?

I’m not sure if Bensmyson simply didn’t understand what I was saying or was trying to “strawman” the point of my “shocked” from ignoring conflict of interest to running to “alternative” treatments.

I’m not at all puzzled why people run to “alternative” treatments – the “alternative” practitioners are (in)famous for claiming they have the “cure” for ailments that real doctors know are difficult or impossible to treat.

The basis of most “alternative” medicine is the well-known tendency of people to prefer a pleasing lie to an unpleasant truth. Given the choice between a practitioner who says “This may help, but there is no cure.” and one who claims “This will cure you without any side effects.”, I find it amazing that so many choose reality. It’s a testament to the innate common sense of most people. There are exceptions, of course, else the “alternative” practitioners would be out of business.

The argument that “everybody’s doing it” didn’t work with my mother and shouldn’t work with any adult. Despite the fact that some people “run to alternative treatments”, those “treatments” haven’t been shown to work (and some have been shown to not work). The gullibility of a minority of people is not a very convincing argument.

Public opinion is important in some things – like elections – but is completely irrelevant to whether or not “alternative” treatments work. They either do or don’t, regardless of “public opinion”.

Prometheus