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Autism prevalence increases, and antivaxers blame it on vaccines (2018 edition)

As it does every two years, the CDC has issued its 2018 report on autism prevalence. As in years past, autism prevalence has ticked upward. As in years past, antivaxers have tried to blame it on vaccines. As in years past, they’re wrong. Vaccines are not responsible for increased autism prevalence.

Every couple of years, the CDC issues its report on the prevalence of autism, which has been rising steadily for the last couple of decades. Somehow, this year I didn’t get to it in a timely fashion, but, as I like to say, better late than never. Besides, every time autism prevalence ticks upward, antivaxers lose it and do their damnedest to blame the increase on vaccines. The same thing happened after the CDC issued a press release a week and a half ago, “Autism prevalence slightly higher in CDC’s ADDM Network“, about its report, Prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder Among Children Aged 8 Years — Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, 11 Sites, United States, 2014. Not surprisingly, the antivaccine movement pounced on this report, which showed a modest increase in prevalence since the last CDC report in 2016, as proof that it must be the vaccines, because to antivaxers it’s always—always—about the vaccines. But is it? Of course not. However, as usual, unpacking the data is far more complicated than antivaxers like to make it sound.

The CDC report on autism prevalence – 2018

Before discussing the CDC report’s findings, it’s important to recap what the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network is, as it’s been a few years since I’ve written about its results. In brief, the Children’s Health Act authorized the CDC to monitor the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in multiple areas of the United States, a charge that led to the formation of the ADDM Network in 2000. The CDC notes that since that time it has funded grantees in 16 states, tracks ASD in metropolitan Atlanta, and represents the Georgia site collaborating with competitively funded sites to form the ADDM Network.

The goals of the ADDM are:

  • To provide descriptive data on classification and functioning of the population of children with ASD.
  • To monitor the prevalence of ASD in different areas of the United States.
  • To understand the impact of ASD in U.S. communities.

To accomplish these goals, the CDC set up the ADDM as an active surveillance system that provides estimates of the prevalence of ASD among children aged 8 years whose parents or guardians reside within 11 ADDM sites in the United States (Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin), as well as other characteristics, of children aged eight years whose parents live in the ADDM sites. This age was chosen because the baseline ASD prevalence study conducted by the Metropolitan Atlanta Developmental Disabilities Surveillance Program (MADDSP) suggested that this is the age of peak prevalence. The ADDM is the largest population-based program to monitor autism (with more than 325,000 children in the sites under surveillance, or 8% of the US population aged 8 in 2014) and the only autism tracking system that examines health and education records. In other words, in the world of autism, the ADDM is a Big Deal, as are the periodic CDC reports on the data from the network.

Here is how the ADDM ascertains cases:

ADDM is an active surveillance system that does not depend on family or practitioner reporting of an existing ASD diagnosis or classification to determine ASD case status. ADDM staff conduct surveillance to determine case status in a two-phase process. The first phase of ADDM involves review and abstraction of children’s evaluation records from data sources in the community. In the second phase, all abstracted evaluations for each child are compiled in chronological order into a comprehensive record that is reviewed by one or more experienced clinicians to determine the child’s ASD case status. Developmental assessments completed by a wide range of health and education providers are reviewed. Data sources are categorized as either 1) education source type, including evaluations to determine eligibility for special education services or 2) health source type, including diagnostic and developmental assessments from psychologists, neurologists, developmental pediatricians, child psychiatrists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech/language pathologists. Agreements to access records are made at the institutional level in the form of contracts, memoranda, or other formal agreements.

It’s actually far more complex than that. For instance, certain education and health records were missing for certain children, including records that could not be located or whose retrieval would be impractical or too costly; so sensitivity analyses had to be carried out to determine whether these missing records would have an effect on case ascertainment. Another example includes the statistical tests that need to be done to provide confidence intervals and to determine prevalences in different racial groups. A total of 53,120 records for 42,644 children were reviewed from health and education sources. Of these, the records of 10,886 children met the criteria for abstraction. This represented 25.5% of the total number of children whose source records were reviewed and 3.3% of the population under surveillance. Of the records reviewed by clinicians, 5,473 children met the ASD surveillance case definition.

The 2018 report covers the year 2014, which includes the cohort born in 2006. Its key findings include that:

  • Autism prevalence has increased to 16.8 per 1,000 (one in 59) children aged 8 years
  • Estimated prevalence of ASD was highest in New Jersey (29.3 per 1,000 or 1 in 34.1) compared to each of the other ten sites
  • ASD prevalence was 26.6 per 1,000 boys (one in 37.6) and 6.6 per 1,000 girls (one in 151), for a prevalence ratio of 4.0.
  • Male-to-female prevalence ratios ranged from 3.2 (Arizona) to 4.9 (Georgia)
  • Estimated prevalence among white children (17.2 per 1,000) was 7% greater than that among black children (16.0 per 1,000)
  • Estimated prevalence among white children was 22% greater than that among Hispanic children (14.0 per 1,000)
  • Estimates for Asian/Pacific Islander children ranged from 7.9 per 1,000 (Colorado) to 19.2 per 1,000 (New Jersey) with wide confidence intervals.

The accompanying press release notes:

The latest estimate of 1.7 percent (1 in 59) is higher than the previous ADDM estimate released in 2016, which found a prevalence of 1.5 percent or 1 in 68 children. Some of the change in prevalence could be due to improved autism identification in minority populations – although autism is still more likely to be identified in white children than in black or Hispanic children. This identification is important, because children identified early with autism and connected to services are more likely to reach their fullest potential.

“Autism prevalence among black and Hispanic children is approaching that of white children,” said Stuart Shapira, M.D., Ph.D., associate director for science at CDC’s National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities. “The higher number of black and Hispanic children now being identified with autism could be due to more effective outreach in minority communities and increased efforts to have all children screened for autism so they can get the services they need.”

So, basically, ASD prevalence increased approximately 20% from 2012 to 2014. However, autism identification in minorities like African-Americans and Hispanics is improving, although it is diagnosed more frequently in white children.

There are, of course, several weaknesses with the ADDM estimates, as is the case with all large epidemiological studies. First, the areas that the ADDM covers are not necessarily representative of the rest of the US, and even the areas chosen in each ADDM area are not necessarily representative of the state as a whole. There are also limitations in the medical and educational records in terms of the information available. For instance, some children might have had earlier diagnoses that were not recorded in the records examined. Finally, comparisons with results from earlier ADDM surveillance years were not always restricted to a common geographic area, which led the authors to point out that “inferences about the changing number and characteristics of children with ASD over time should be made with caution” and that “although study methods and geographic areas of coverage have remained generally consistent over time, temporal comparisons are subject to multiple sources of bias and should not be misinterpreted as representing precise measures that control for all sources of bias.” In other words, when the increase in autism prevalence is modest, as it is in this report, one must interpret the data with caution, as there might in fact be significant less (or more) of an increase than is reported.

The bottom line is that, as has been observed in previous reports, this year’s CDC estimate for autism prevalence based on the ADDM has increased, albeit modestly. For instance, in 2012, the estimate of ASD prevalence in the year 2008 was 11.3 per 1,000 (one in 88), and in 2014 the estimate for 2010 was 14.7 per 1,000 (1 in 68). This increase really shouldn’t be too surprising, as it has been widely believed that autism diagnoses have been underreported for a long time. Likely we’re catching up and getting closer to the “true” prevalence of the condition. But what does this all mean? First, I’ll discuss what it doesn’t mean.

Antivaccine groups react

In 2016, as in 2014, as in 2012, as in 2010 (and, I’m sure, but don’t remember) every two years going back to the beginning of the ADDM, when the CDC reported its estimate for autism prevalence, the antivaccine movement tried its very best to blame vaccines. I noticed something different in 2018. For once, nowhere in the press releases from the usual antivaccine suspects were vaccines explicitly mentioned. (Oddly enough, even the first post by the antivaccine blog Age of Autism mentioning the study that didn’t just regurgitate another blog’s post doesn’t mention vaccines, although the commenters immediately did.) For instance, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s World Mercury Project (a group dedicated to fear mongering over mercury in vaccines as a cause of autism and health problems) didn’t mention vaccines once in its post CDC Still Paralyzed by Autism Epidemic: Report Shows One in 59 Children in the US Now Affected:

Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released the latest autism spectrum disorder (ASD) prevalence estimate from its Autism and Developmental Disabilities (ADDM) network. Among children born in 2006, in the 11 states included in the report, ASD prevalence at age eight was one in 59 children. In the early 1980s, only 35 years ago, the rate of autism was about one in 5000. That means that autism is about 85 times more common in today’s middle schoolers than it was in their parents. That is why nobody who grew up back then knew a child with autism but today everyone does.

The CDC report might as well be saying that one in 59 children has a hangnail for all the concern CDC expresses, when in fact, this is a public health disaster that will have repercussions for generations. At what point is the CDC going to admit that this disaster requires action? The largest amount by far of research dollars spent on determining causation has been directed towards genetics. “Genes don’t cause epidemics, environmental toxins do,” said World Mercury Project chair Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “Why is the CDC doing nothing to identify the environmental toxins responsible for the most cataclysmic epidemic of our era?”

Even though vaccines are not mentioned, the above is a common antivaccine trope, particularly the part about how nobody who “grew up back then” knew a child with autism. In that, I like to point out that I took care of teens with severe autism when I worked at a group home one summer back in the early 1980s. I also like to point out that “environmental toxins” is antivaccine code for—you guessed it!—vaccines. To be fair, antivaxers don’t limit themselves only to vaccines as a potential cause of autism, but, make no mistake, any list of “environmental toxins” produced by antivaxers as causes for autism in essence consists of twenty entries of “vaccines” (or thimerosal), followed by everything else. Also in fairness, I actually do agree with the World Mercury Project that the US doesn’t spend enough on autism research. More importantly, the government doesn’t spend enough on autism services. None of that means that vaccines cause autism.

Elsewhere, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA), a group that promotes the idea that vaccines cause autism, as well as advocates dubious “biomedical” treatments (i.e., quackery) to “cure” autism notes:

The increase in prevalence rate cannot be explained by better diagnosis alone. Some have suggested that autism is just being better diagnosed today versus years ago and that many cases of intellectual disability are now being coded as autism. This would also assume that the experts diagnosing autism before did not know what they were doing. This is NOT TRUE. Autism is the only disorder dramatically on the rise while mental retardation or intellectual disability, Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis remain relatively the same.

It’s a common straw man argument that misrepresents the actual arguments being made as to how the “true” prevalence of autism probably hasn’t changed much in decades but diagnoses of autism have increased dramatically to use terms like “better diagnosis.” What is really meant is increased screening. I’ll return to an example I use so often: ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a form of breast cancer. Well, actually, whether it’s really cancer or not is debatable, but it can clearly often be a precursor to cancer, although the percentage of DCIS lesions that progress to cancer isn’t precisely known. Be that as it may, before 1975 DCIS was a very uncommon diagnosis. Now it is very common. Indeed, back in the early 1900s, DCIS was rare because by the time it grew large enough to be a palpable mass, it almost always had become invasive cancer. Now, nearly forty years after mass mammographic screening programs became prevalent, DCIS is a common diagnosis. Indeed, approximately 40% of breast cancer diagnoses are DCIS, and a recent study found that DCIS incidence rose from 1.87 per 100,000 in the mid-1970s to 32.5 in 2004. That’s a more than 16-fold increase over a 30 year period, and it’s pretty much all due to the introduction of mammographic screening. This sort of thing should not be surprising to doctors, but apparently sometimes it is.

Unlike the case for autism, the diagnostic criteria for DCIS remained pretty stable over that 30 year period. Pathologists in the 1970s and pathologists in the 2000s would likely agree on what constitutes DCIS, which makes it particularly striking how, if you look for a disease or medical condition more intensely, you will always find more of it—often a lot more. Always. If this principle works for something that is diagnosed by an objective test, namely a biopsy, how much more so is it likely to be for a condition that has no unequivocal biochemical or tissue test to nail down the diagnosis, like autism, particularly for a condition whose diagnostic criteria has changed considerably over the last 25 years to be more inclusive? This brings up diagnostic substitution, in which diseases or conditions are classified differently now than they were 30 years ago, such that, for example, some children who might have been classified as mentally retarded 30 years ago receive an ASD diagnosis now. There is actually a fair amount of evidence for such a phenomenon, in which the decrease in diagnoses of intellectual disability are nearly completely offset by the increase in diagnoses of ASDs. There’s also the issue of whether we’re discussing administrative prevalence (diagnosis from school records of children receiving services) versus medical diagnoses of autism. (Hint: The two aren’t the same, and administrative prevalence is often higher, because the diagnosis of ASD is a basis for school-based services.)

None of this means that doctors 30 years ago didn’t know what they were doing. Diagnostic criteria were different, and there were nowhere near the resources in schools to identify potential cases.

A 13-year old “has more of a clue” than the CDC

None of this stopped the antivaccine propaganda blog Age of Autism from publishing a post by Cathy Jameson in which she uses her thirteen year old boy as an example of someone who “sees what experts can’t”:

Willem matter-of-factly added, “Well, we know what causes autism.”

Glancing back at his brother, I said, “Yep. We do,” and then added, “And you know what, Willem?”

“What, mom?” he asked.

“You know a heck of a lot more than some adults do,” I said proudly.

He said, “That’s good…but that’s kinda sad too, you know.”

“I know,” I told him. “It’s actually a little pathetic. Not about you knowing more – that’s going to help as you and brother get older. But the other people? It’s ridiculous how they’ve mislead the public about the rise in autism and what we know to be a cause of it.”

Looking back at his sisters, he said, “Yeah, they’d rather we celebrate it than make it stop.”

“Yep. That’s called turning a blind eye,” I said, “and I have a feeling that’ll continue to happen.”

He agreed.

Willem’s an insider looking out at what the world refuses to see—that vaccines can result in autism and that autism is here to stay. Since he knows that and since he sees the real-live struggle his brother lives through daily because of autism, he has every right to feel as frustrated as I do.

My 13 year-old has more of a clue than our paid government ‘experts’ do. If they ever fully understood just how much of a crisis autism is, I’d hope that the public would begin to pitch in a little bit more than know to do now.

Meanwhile, a website that is so extreme as to border on fake news, Big League Politics, is claiming that there was some sort of controversy and cover-up in the CDC that delayed the release of the report. The site claims that, rather than using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR), the 2018 report was going to use DSM-5, the newest version, which changes the diagnostic criteria for ASD. Of course, a clear reading of the text of the report shows that this is not the case and that the DSM-IV-TR served as the basis for case ascertainment. It is, however, true that the CDC does plan to phase out the use of the DSM-IV-TR with the 2016 numbers, to be published in 2020, but that’s only appropriate, given that the DSM-5 was released in 2013. I can see an argument for using the DSM-IV-TR for 2014 for the last time, but beyond that I have a hard time justifying it. Of course, antivaxers will likely argue that the change is being made to mask increases in autism prevalence, particularly if autism prevalence doesn’t continue its upward trend when the 2016 prevalence is published in 2020.

The autism epidemic that isn’t

One of the central narratives of the antivaccine movement is that we are in the midst of an “autism epidemic,” which I’ve sometimes heard called an “autism tsunami.” This narrative is essential to the idea that vaccines cause autism because of the expansion of the vaccine schedule in the 1990s that antivaxers blame for the “epidemic” that’s occurred over the last 25 years. Basically, no autism epidemic, no vaccine causation. Antivaxers know this. Unfortunately, what they either don’t know or refuse to acknowledge is that an increase in diagnoses of a condition is not necessarily the same thing as a true increase in prevalence. An increase in diagnoses without a true increase in prevalence (on a biological basis) can occur through, for example, changing of the diagnostic criteria over time or increased screening. My favorite example of the latter is, of course, DCIS, but there are others. For example, increased screening with ultrasound has led to a massive increase in the number of diagnoses of thyroid cancer, the vast majority of which are almost certainly overdiagnosis. Actually, there are issues with changing criteria for the diagnosis of thyroid cancer too. Indeed, diseases for which the prevalence is increasing often involve both increased screening and changes in the diagnostic criteria.

Another example is hypertension. Before the 1920s doctors didn’t routinely measure systolic/diastolic blood pressure ratios; so there were few, if any, cases of hypertension because doctors weren’t looking for it and didn’t know how to easily measure it. Even over the last decade, prevalence of hypertension has increased (for instance, in Canada). Perhaps a better marker for hypertension diagnoses is the percentage of adults who have been prescribed antihypertensive medications, which has skyrocketed since 1950. Of course, over that time, the definition of what constituted “hypertension” has changed markedly, to lower and lower diastolic and systolic pressures, as evidence showed that treating lower blood pressures could prevent premature death, although that trend appears to have leveled off. Amusingly, various denialists lambaste such broadening of diagnostic criteria to claim that hypertension is an “engineered” epidemic. And don’t even get me started on hypercholesterolemia.

So is the increase in autism prevalence “real” (as in an increase in the frequency of the neurobiological entity known as autism in the population) or is it an artifact of increased screening for school services, widening diagnostic criteria, and diagnostic substitution? There’s actually a fair amount of evidence that “true” autism prevalence has been fairly steady for decades. In other words, definitions of medical conditions matter. They can have a huge influence on prevalence rates observed. Moreover, if you don’t look for something, you won’t find it, and if you do look for something, you will find a lot more of it than you expected. It is quite possible that that is what’s happening with autism, but such a narrative doesn’t fit into the vaccine-autism idea. The antivaccine movement needs an increasing apparent-autism prevalence. If there’s no “autism epidemic,” there’s no way that vaccines cause autism. Over the years, there has been quite a bit of evidence that the “true” prevalence of autism has been fairly stable for quite some time. For instance, one study examined autism prevalence using stable diagnostic criteria between 1990 and 2010 and found “no clear evidence of a change in prevalence for autistic disorder or other ASDs between 1990 and 2010. Worldwide, there was little regional variation in the prevalence of ASDs.” Steve Novella has summarized several of these studies.

About a year ago, I took note of a new study out of Australia looking at the same criteria. It basically relies on one of my favorite sayings, namely that the harder you look for a medical condition the more of it you will find. Actually, it uses a corollary of that maxim, namely that, when you look for a condition and diagnose more of it (i.e., cause its apparent prevalence to increase), many of those cases will be milder cases. So, just as mammographic screening led to an increase in diagnosis of smaller tumors and premalignant DCIS, screening for prostate cancer led to milder cases of prostate cancer being diagnosed, and screening for hypertension led to milder cases of hypertension being diagnosed, if the increase in prevalence in autism is due to the broadening of the diagnostic criteria plus increased screening, we’d expect that the average severity of cases diagnosed would decline with time.

None of this rules out an increase in the “true” prevalence of autism over the last few decades, but the increasing consensus is that the evidence does rule out a massive increase. What is most likely happening is that we’re getting better and better at finding and diagnosing autism, including milder cases, to the point where the apparent prevalence of autism (i.e, the number of diagnoses) is starting to converge on the “true” biological prevalence of autism as it is defined today.

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]

235 replies on “Autism prevalence increases, and antivaxers blame it on vaccines (2018 edition)”

Seek and ye shall find.

I remember a news item where a city’s chief of police warned City Council not to be alarmed when reported crime rates and arrests went upgo up if he got the extra officers he wanted.

Is the son of Cathy Jameson ‘smart’, or is he just parroting his mothers ideas?

Weren’t those antivaxers harrasing a child who made a pro-vaxination video? I think that child was smarter than the son of Cathy Jameson.

To be fair Renate, Cathy Jameson’s unfortunate son is being brain-washed by his rabid anti-vaccine autism-hating mother. It is a sad offshoot of the anti-vaxx movement in which a number of children will grow up to believe what their parents believe and dehumanise autistics.

That’s exactly what I was aiming at. He just repeats the stupidity his mother spoonfeeds him. It has nothing to do with him being smarter than the people at CDC, because he repeats what his mom thinks, so it is exactly what she thinks and she thinks she is smarter than the people at CDC.

It’s certainly setting the child for a hard future. Whether by having him face a troubling awakening if he learns science later or face criticism from those outside the antivaccine movement if he doesn’t.

Jameson also wrote recently how her oldest child presented her anti-vax views in a secondary school project:
students had to write up “bills” for a mock congress. She of course wrote a health freedom bill that allowed parents to not vaccinate. The bill didn’t get far in the process.
I suppose her daughter had to deal with teachers’ and students’ reactions. I’m sure that that was fun and educational.

Is the son of Cathy Jameson ‘smart’, or is he just parroting his mothers ideas?

Jameson should not be mistaken for an actual documentarian.

I can’t help but consider the difference between this thoughtful, nuanced, in-depth analysis and antivaccine posts.

Mark Blaxill wrote a Facebook post when the numbers came out. He was very upset about the fact that autistics oppose the “epidemic” language because it can stigmatize them and that “rational people trying to raise the alarm about autism are [painted as] ‘anti-vaxers’ with an agenda.”

Well, Blaxill is an antivaxer with an agenda. So there’s that. Of course, anyone who uses the language of “epidemic” with respect to autism has at least a 99% chance of being an antivaxer with an agenda.

They were upset when the numbers stayed at 1 in 68 over two releases, as well.

We’re getting better at diagnosing autism, as it’s defined today, but some still blame its increase on vaccines.

In parallel, we’re getting better at understanding climate change but some still won’t blame it on fossil fuel consumption.

Q. How are autism and climate-change similar.

A. Both are increasing at an alarming rate.

Solution: Alternative forms of healthcare and energy consumption.

Change is difficult, but this is exactly what’s happening,

Are you really that thick, Michael?
Yes, you are, so I guess I’m going to have to spell it out for you.
An increase in reported cases or incidence does not automatically mean that the actual rate is increasing. In addition, there may be problems with the sampling used.

@ Julian Frost:

Your efforts are valiant but he will NEVER learn because his identity and self-esteem rest upon his research and career as an author
BUT you do educate newcomers and perhaps those who are on the fence.

Julian Frost says,

An increase in reported cases or incidence does not automatically mean that the actual rate is increasing.

MJD says,

The CDC and Orac are talking about an increased PREVALENCE of Autism Spectrum Disorders:

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2018/p0426-autism-prevalence.html ; and

see Orac’s title for the word “prevalence”.

@ Anti-vaxxers,

Yes, forced immunity is old school medicine.

In the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used as a means to eliminate herd immunity and control the spread of disease.

A downside of AI-based healthcare could be a loss of freedom.

In the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used as a means to eliminate herd immunity and control the spread of disease.

Please get imaging of the thing atop your neck-stalk.

In response to MJD, here is the last sentence of Orac’s post.

What is most likely happening is that we’re getting better and better at finding and diagnosing autism, including milder cases, to the point where the apparent prevalence of autism (i.e, the number of diagnoses) is starting to converge on the “true” biological prevalence of autism as it is defined today.

Read it, grok it, comprehend it.

@MJD

In the future, artificial intelligence (AI) will be used as a means to eliminate herd immunity and control the spread of disease.

I’m curious, do you actually know of a proposed mechanism for how AI will achieve such a goal or are you just using it in the generic way lay people so often do?

I ask because while AI has tremendous possibilities in the healthcare field, including disease detection, modelling and yes vaccination but even if we had a broad ASI with the sort of invasive domain awareness of biological, environmental and personal information that would be enough to give Mark Zuckerberg a state of permanent priapism I’m struggling to see how it would eliminate the need for or benefits of herd immunity. Not that we are anywhere near being able to create and implement such a system anyway.

Then again I’ve only got two degrees in the computer science field and a mere 15 years experience working in both industry and a very brief stint in academic research so I’m sure that can’t hold a candle to such an esteemed and respected researcher in the field such as yourself so I look forward to you enlightening me. Just remember to use small simple words that us plebeians can keep up with. I know I could read your important book on the subject (I know it’s important, the product description on Amazon tells me so) but it’s over sixty quid on Amazon and I sadly I’m yet to see any of that sweet filthy lucre I’m told I’ll be earning for my pro-vaccine comments here and elsewhere.

It’s possible that the ‘alternative forms of healthcare’ that Michael referred to isn’t ‘don’t vaccinate your kids’ but rather providing adequately for autistic people to enable us to live as independently as we can by providing us with the support we need. This currently doesn’t happen on either side of the Atlantic. Take it from a UK Autie.

Solution: Alternative forms of healthcare and energy consumption.

I would ask you to define the alternate healthcare part of that, but I am afraid of the potential display of jackanapesery coupled with a latex fetish.

Q: How are autism and climate change similar?

A: Both are made worse by people who refuse to accept the science involved.

Solution: Educate the populace about how science works.

Bad analogy is bad.

Check identical twin studies. Tehy always show that autism is genetic disorder.

I blame flushable toilets. I mean, you never heard of “autism” before 1596.

Due to the efforts of the anti-vaccine crowd, vaccination rates have actually dropped in this country over the last 20 years. So if vaccines cause autism, why would autism diagnosis rates continue to increase despite the drop in vaccination rates?

Yes, I know, I am assuming that the anti-vax crowd can deal with such concepts as facts and logic.

Yep. They trust the CDC’s word when they say that autism prevalence is increasing, but don’t trust the CDC’s word when they say that vaccines are safe and effective and don’t cause autism, saying these people are in the pockets of Big Pharma. /me facepalms

They trust the CDC’s word when they say that autism prevalence is increasing, but don’t trust the CDC’s word when they say that vaccines are safe and effective and don’t cause autism, saying these people are in the pockets of Big Pharma.

The hypocrisy is worse: The prevalence number is poop-smearers when convenient, and high-functioning austists don’t count when they have the temerity to pipe up.

You say “big pharma” and stop thinking. Arguments, please. Why CDC is wrong ?

“Due to the efforts of the anti-vaccine crowd, vaccination rates have actually dropped in this country over the last 20 years. So if vaccines cause autism, why would autism diagnosis rates continue to increase despite the drop in vaccination rates?”

But didn’t we go from 8 to 76 vaccines and double the toxins? There’s your explanation!!!

And don’t forget increased ingestion of GMO foods as well as vaccinating pregnant women and more caesarian sections.

And all this time I thought it was due to fallout from Chernobyl and Fukushima. Silly me!
Oh, and gluten, how could I forget? Or was it gun control?

Europe do not allow GMO food, so Europe should be autism free.

Actually, it uses a corollary of that maxim, namely that, when you look for a condition and diagnose more of it (i.e., cause its apparent prevalence to increase), many of those cases will be milder cases.

One thing that always bothers me about the antivaccine-autism cause is that they never seem to be very sensitive to the humanity of the people they are supposedly defending. I was diagnosed young of ADHD. Were I diagnosed of it now, I would be under the umbrella of ASD. They are very binary in categorizing autistic or not when most of the people under the umbrella are people who may develop somewhat differently than the rest of the cohort, but are really not disfigured people. I function quite highly, thank you; I’m not disfigured. That they’re so busy maligning these children by forcing bleach enemas and chemical castration on them is appalling to me. I think it should be considered child abuse.

At one time, the prevailing thought was that ADHD couldn’t be diagnosed in the face of (Goddamned murdering Nazi Hans) Asperger’s Syndrome, but after more study it seems that they can coexist quite nicely. They do in me, along with their running buddy, Bipolar II.

Hell, ADHD is often diagnosed alongside other neurological disorders. Not unusual. Not sure when the “prevailing thought” was, but at least today, completely normal to have ADHD and another condition like OCD or oppositional defiant disorder.

Anti-vaxxers don’t have psychology nailed down. Of course they’re not going to realize that autism comes in a spectrum (ADHD comes in a spectrum too). They’re also maligning children through implications that they rather have autistic children dead. I believe they did say they rather have “temporary” measles, risk of blindness and opening a window of immuno-compromising be damned, than a life-long condition they believe cripples the child rather than the more-realistic condition that will make life a little more difficult, but nowhere near freaking measles. How they view their autistic children is pretty patronizing and condescending to me, particularly when they insist, INSIST on bleach enemas (because no child will ever agree to one) and risk exposing them to disease. Furthermore, they use their children as a moral highground springboard to impose their political views, particularly the pro-libertarian ones with the “I have a right to choose to vaccinate my child” language.

One thing that always bothers me about the antivaccine-autism cause is that they never seem to be very sensitive to the humanity of the people they are supposedly defending.

It took me a while to figure that one out as well.. but the only (nauseating) conclusion I’ve managed to make fit is that, to put it bluntly, they don’t consider those of use with an ASD human. Oh they couch it in various euphemisms such as “vaccine injured” or what have you but every so often you see a revealing comment (such as Jenny McCarthy’s talk of the “soul” having gone from her son’t eyes) that shows how they really feel.

I actually sort of comprehend the mechanisms of why they feel that way – with those of us with an ASD looking like any other NT human but often lacking the “normal” social communications (body language, eye contact etc) to them we probably sit smack bang in the middle of the uncanny valley add in that to many anti-vaxxer parents the autistic child is actually a usurper who has replaced their “real” child cuckoo-style (or demonic possession-style for those with a strong religious bent) and they feel fully justified in hating the autistic personality they see before them while still loving this mythical NT person they believe is their real child. None of this makes it any more acceptable of course, I still think that anyone who submits their child to what amounts to little more than torture (bleach enemas, chemical castration and so on) deserves locking up. Preferably in a small cell with one or more starving wolves.

Never fails to make me furious. And, when we exist at a frequency of something like 1 in 60, it’s not like we’re really that uncommon either. Eventually, we grow up. A lot of people can tell similar stories.

It’s a pretty permanent thing to sterilize your child or to scar their bowels. Talk about heaping the wreckage of a childhood on someone forever. Ravening wolves would be too nice.

@ motosubatsu:

I like what you say.

You know, people do have troubles with differences. I can understand how some are let down when their child doesn’t measure up to the fictional one inside their head- I imagine that this happens even when kids aren’t autistic but may not be athletic enough, good looking enough or smart enough to fit their fantasy.
I know people whose oldest child was brilliant and a talented pianist before starting school: the second child was a disappointment because he was just smart and comical. They eventually discovered his strengths and hilarity..

Adults can adapt and learn.

I sometimes wonder if the BS tossed around by anti-vaxxers INTERFERES with parents learning to accept the child they have, instead of dreaming about one they don’t have. The stories about vaccines/ doctors “taking” their child gets a lot of play. One AoAer relishes time with “normal” kids and sought out a job working with them.

@Denice Walter

I sometimes wonder if the BS tossed around by anti-vaxxers INTERFERES with parents learning to accept the child they have, instead of dreaming about one they don’t have. The stories about vaccines/ doctors “taking” their child gets a lot of play. One AoAer relishes time with “normal” kids and sought out a job working with them.

I think you are on to something there… much of the rhetoric from the anti-vaxxers perpetuates this myth of the “real” child having been submerged or replaced by the autistic one, and as you say the vaccine or doctor is often blamed for this. Human nature is such that we like having a “villain” to blame things on and boy do the anti-vaxxers serve one up on a silver platter! Another common human trait is to view anything negative about or progeny as reflecting poorly on ourselves, and while groups like AoA and that vile Polly Tommey creature continue to promote the idea that autistic people are defective, failed human beings whose lives have less value than the lives of NT individuals NTs then they are going to continue to campaign for that horrible, shameful thing called Autism to be Somebody Else’s Fault and they won’t even try to understand and accept their child.

Vaccines cause autism and a lot of other non-communicable diseases:

In the British Medical Journal:

MMR, TBE vaccine and type 1 diabetes

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-2

Vaccine safety claims do not stand up to scrutiny

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-0

SIDS, Kawasaki Disease and narcolepsy: Same mechanism, different vaccines

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-11

New unsafe vaccines will only add to vaccine hesitancy

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-10

Influenza vaccines seem to be modifying influenza disease into a dangerous dengue-like disease
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-15

Ignoring immunotoxicity of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, won’t make it go away
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-14

All responses:

https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rapid-responses

Vaccines and the development of food allergies: the latest evidence
https://www.bmj.com/content/355/bmj.i5225/rr-0

In Harvard Health: Vaccines cause the development of food allergies
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/giving-antacids-and-antibiotics-to-babies-can-lead-to-allergies-2018041013627#comment-287765

In the British Medical Journal

That sounds impressive and all.. right up until one clicks on your links and discovers that what you are referring to is nothing more than your own anti-vaxxer claptrap posted as website comments on a BMJ article. I actually nearly stopped reading as soon as I saw that your first linked comment was part of a smarmy anti-vaxxer circle jerk with John Stone from the UK arm of Abusers of Autistics but I’m glad I didn’t. Otherwise I would have missed out on the true genuius of your comments. Sure you manage to stylistically make your comments look like they were made by a real scientist but upon closer inspection your citations seem to be mostly of laughable “technical reports” that you put up on Zenodo where you demonstrate the incredibly rigorous scientific method of “making wild guesses and calling them facts”.

In Harvard Health: Vaccines cause the development of food allergies

Oh look.. more of the same.

Honestly if it wasn’t about such a serious subject (which literally has lives at stake) your little game of make believe where you play act being epidemiologist might even be funny, pathetic but funny. As it stands though it’s just yet another deceitful anti-vaxxer desperately trying to whip up an air of credibility for their absurd ramblings.

Normally for someone so clearly desperate for attention I’d recommend getting a puppy but given your views you likely wouldn’t vaccinate the poor pup and I’m not going to enable animal cruelty.

That’s not how it works. You were the one making the claims, and instead of providing evidence you merely repeated those claims.
Argument by assertion doesn’t cut it on this forum.

@Julian Frost

Nailed it.. on the other hand making unsupported self-referential claims, calling them facts and just repeating them ad infinitum sure does look to be a whole lot easier than doing actual science, what with all that tedious work and research and so on. Not to mention all the effort of actually having to get an education in the topic first. I mean come on who’s got the time for that?!? Nah just pull in a reference or two that is tangentially related, jump to a few conclusions and pad the reference list out by referencing yourself a few times. Much better!

Let me give it a try…

Vinu Arumugham spends his weekends torturing unicorns to near-death and then dances around the poor wounded creatures singing “Cotton-eye Joe” by the Rednex [1], in our half-blind, double-caff, n=1 study 100% of participants reported Headaches, Fatigue and Muscle Pain when exposed to Vinu Arumugham comments which is conclusive proof of histoplasmosis infection transmitted via the IP packets used to deliver the comments to the test subject[2]. With biological plausibility, correlation, and causation now proven beyond all reasonable doubt[3] all that remains is determine an appropriate rreatment regimen,

References:

[1] motosubatsu, Respectful Insolence 2018-05-09
[2] Waitzman, D, RFC 1149 1990-04-01
[3] motosubatus, Respectful Insolence 2018-05-09

OK.. so I’m now the foremost authority in the world on Vinuhistoplasmosis, all I need to do is sit back and wait for the Nobel prizes to come rolling in.

Commenting on BMJ and claiming it is evidence is why you are called a liar.

Those are NOT “comments” in the BMJ. They are PUBLISHED ARTICLES, that are electronic letters to the editor, per the BMJ. Your comics won’t be published in the BMJ, for example.

Only if you are delusional. “Letters to the Editor” are not peer reviewed articles. Your claim that they are otherwise is just plain ol’ lying. This makes you a lying liar who cannot stop lying.

Read it again. I did NOT say peer-reviewed. That was your wild imagination.

I was just quoting the BMJ:
“Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on thebmj.com. Although a selection of rapid responses will be included online and in print as readers’ letters, their first appearance online means that they are published articles.”
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rapid-responses

If I send a rapid response in saying that butter on toast reverses autism and it gets posted then I guess I can claim I have a BMJ article too?

“Read it again. I did NOT say peer-reviewed. That was your wild imagination.”

Why do you think we would care about your opinion? If you want respect around here you would provide the PubMed indexed study by reputable qualified researchers not on the Dwoskin payroll to support your claims.

<

blockquote>Read it again. I did NOT say peer-reviewed. That was your wild imagination.

That is plausible deniability. On this blog, we’re asking for peer-reviewed evidence so please don’t post letter to the editor as evidence of your pet “hypothesis”.

Again, when you cite something, it has to be peer-reviewed. Get it?

Alain

“I…heard little from my former friend, save that he had set up in considerable style, and was making a bid for a high-class practice at once. I read one most deep and erudite paper in a medical journal, entitled “Curious Development of a Discopherous Bone in the Stomach of a Duck,” which emanated from his pen…”it was a domino which the old duck had managed to gorge itself with. It was a perfect godsend.””
– “Crabbe’s Practice”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Denice Walters,

“parents learning to accept the child they have, instead of dreaming about one they don’t have.”

Should that not apply to a child with polio induced disabilities too? Why vaccinate for polio then?

Polio vaccines prevent polio.
Milk-free vaccines will prevent most autism and milk allergy.
Where is the logic in supporting the first and rejecting the second?

Should that not apply to a child with polio induced disabilities too? Why vaccinate for polio then?

Analogy fail. Polio vaccines prevent polio, as you acknowledge just a few sentences on. They do not, however, reverse the sequelae of the disease.

Milk-free vaccines will prevent most autism and milk allergy.

You have failed to prove this. In fact, the vaccine autism causation hypothesis is now as discredited as geocentricism.

Where is the logic in supporting the first and rejecting the second?

There is irrefutable evidence that polio vaccines prevent polio, and solid evidence questioning the latter. That’s why.

Polio is preventable and is now nearly eradicated from the face of the planet. WE knew HOW to prevent it.

If “milk-free vaccines” prevented “most autism and milk allergy” what you say might make sense
BUT you have NO DATA about that or anything else that prevents autism.

We don’t know what causes autism entirely but
there are studies that perhaps suggest pre-natal vitamins and choosing not to be an older parent might prevent some cases
We know about some genetic factors as well.

Autism and polio are not the same.

WHY do I even try?.

Summary

Step 1: Cow’s milk containing vaccines cause the development of IgE mediated allergy to cow’s milk proteins.

Step 2: Depending on severity of allergy, it may be possible to consume cow’s milk. The result can be synthesis of IgG4 specific to bovine folate receptor (FR) proteins (a cow’s milk protein). FR specific IgG4 is the main cause of cerebral folate deficiency which can result in autism spectrum disorders.

Details

Step 1:

Equine IgE responses to non-viral vaccine components.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23088888

“These data suggest that non-essential protein components of vaccines
may sensitize horses for future adverse responses to vaccination.”

The Institute of Medicine (now known as the Health and Medicine Division of the National Acadamies) stated in 2011 that food proteins in vaccines such as ovalbumin (chicken egg), casamino acids (cow’s milk derived) do cause food allergies.

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality, p. 65 (pdf p. 94):

"Adverse events on our list thought to be due to IgE-mediated hypersensitivity reactions

Antigens in the vaccines that the committee is charged with reviewing do not typically elicit an immediate hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., hepatitis B surface antigen, toxoids, gelatin, ovalbumin, casamino acids). However, as will be discussed in subsequent chapters, the above-mentioned antigens do occasionally induce IgE-mediated sensitization in some individuals and subsequent hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis."

For those who may not be familiar, here are the basics of allergy – a two step process:

Sensitization: When exposure to an allergen (food protein) occurs for the first time, there are no symptoms. Over a period of a few weeks, the immune system develops antibodies specific to the allergen. The person is now sensitized. In other words, the person has developed allergy to the specific food item. “IgE-mediated sensitization”, is the technical description for development of allergy.

Elicitation: When a sensitized person is exposed to the same allergen again, they develop an immediate reaction (usually within minutes). Also called hypersensitivity reaction. This is called elicitation. A severe, life-threatening case of elicitation is known as anaphylaxis.

So in simple English, the IOM committee has concluded that food proteins such as gelatin, egg (ovalbumin) and milk (casamino acids are derived from milk) that are present in vaccines, cause healthy non-allergic people to develop allergies to those food items upon receiving the vaccine.

Further, they also reported in 2017 that there are numerous food proteins in vaccines and they are not regulated or labelled.

Finding a Path to Safety in Food Allergy, p. 241

"Allergens in Vaccines, Medications, and Dietary Supplements

Physicians and patients with food allergy must consider potential food allergen exposures in vaccines, medications, and dietary supplement prod- ucts (e.g., vitamins, probiotics), which are not regulated by labelling laws. Also, excipients (i.e., substances added to medications to improve various characteristics) may be food or derived from foods (Kelso, 2014). These include milk proteins; soy derivatives; oils from sesame, peanut, fish or soy; and beef or fish gelatin. The medications involved include vaccines; anesthetics; and oral, topical, and injected medications. With perhaps the exception of gelatin, reactions appear to be rare overall, likely because little residual protein is included in the final preparation of these items. The specific risk for each medication is not known.

Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein or gelatin."

Tetanus toxoids in the first dose of the tetanus vaccine caused sensitization (development of allergy to the toxoids). Allergic reactions were observed following the second dose of the vaccine.https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1160278?redirect=true

"The study thus revealed unexpectedly high rates of IgE responses to diphtheria and tetanus toxoids in a regular DT booster vaccination programme, which were associated to high rates of local side effects."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7668036

Repeated injection of egg containing vaccines produced egg allergy.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM195204032461403
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/serological-examination-of-ige-and-iggspecific-antibodies-to-egg-protein-during-influenza-virus-immunization/A7329D0D9F0C3F383FD5989BBE77FBCB

Gelatin containing vaccines caused the development of gelatin allergy.
https://www.pubfacts.com/detail/9949325/A-clinical-analysis-of-gelatin-allergy-and-determination-of-its-causal-relationship-to-the-previous-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14624794

An allergic (Th2) response to beta-lactoglobulin (a cow’s milk protein) was observed following administration of vaccines containing cow’s milk proteins. In other words, development of milk allergy was observed.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17116347

Tetanus and pertussis vaccines contain cow’s milk proteins because they are used as growth media. Once sensitized as above, the next cow’s milk containing vaccine can cause an allergic reaction as described below:
http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(11)00747-0/fulltext

Anti-hepatitis B surface antigen IgE antibodies were observed following HepB vaccine administration.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24374043

Basically, these illustrate that ANY protein injected can cause the development of allergy to that protein. The IOM listed all these proteins (antigens) as examples. This basic concept of injected proteins causing the development of allergy is of course more than a hundred years old and was described by Nobel Laureate Dr. Charles Richet.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1913/richet-lecture.html

Step 2:

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) report on Adverse Effects of Vaccines Evidence and Causality reviewed the entire medical literature from 1950 to 2011.

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13164/adverse-effects-of-vaccines-evidence-and-causality

says
“Conclusion 4.8: The evidence favors rejection of a causal relationship
between MMR vaccine and autism.”

and

“Conclusion 10.6: The evidence is inadequate to accept or reject a
causal relationship between diphtheria toxoid, tetanus toxoid, or
acellular pertussis–containing vaccine and autism.”

The report did NOT study the relationship between any other vaccine and autism.

Cow’s milk contains many proteins including casein and folate receptor alpha (FRA) proteins.

Many vaccines use cow’s milk derived casein or casamino acids as part of the growth medium for bacterial cultures. Thus these vaccines contain cow’s milk proteins. Daptacel, Pentacel, Prevnar 13, Tenivac, Infanrix, Kinrix, Pediarix, Menomune, Adacel and Boostrix all contain cow’s milk proteins.

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf

Kattan JD, Cox AL, Nowak-Wegrzyn A, Gimenez G, Bardina L, Sampson HA, et al. Allergic reactions to diphtheria, tetanus, and acellular pertussis vaccines among children with milk allergy. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2011;Conference(var.pagings):AB238.

Let’s compare the sequence of events in cow’s milk allergy and autism.

Cow’s milk allergy sequence

Cow’s milk containing, aluminum adjuvanted vaccines cause IgE mediated sensitization to, say, casein protein, resulting in milk allergy, as covered in Step 1.
If the allergy is mild, milk may be consumed without suffering a reaction. If the allergy is severe, milk can be introduced as part of an Oral Immunotherapy (OIT) desensitization protocol. In either case, casein specific IgG4 is induced due to prolonged milk exposure.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715943/

Continued dietary and esophagal exposure to milk, results in IgG4 mediated eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22236725

A milk-free diet, reduces casein specific IgG4, improving EoE.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22820121

Autism sequence

Cow’s milk containing, aluminum adjuvanted vaccines cause IgE mediated sensitization to the FRA protein, resulting in FRA allergy.
FRA allergy is likely mild because cow’s milk contains 1000X more casein than FRA protein.

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/

Thus milk may be consumed without suffering a reaction. FRA specific IgG4 is induced due to prolonged milk exposure.

FRA specific IgG4 antibodies against bovine FRA, cross-react, bind/block human folate receptors, block folate uptake, resulting in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) or Cerebral Folate Deficiency
(CFD) disorders. Bovine and human FRA have 90% amino acid sequence homology.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3578948/

A milk-free diet reduces FRA specific IgG4, improving ASD/CFD symptoms.

Ramaekers VT, Sequeira JM, Blau N, Quadros E V. A milk-free diet downregulates folate receptor autoimmunity in cerebral folate deficiency syndrome. Dev Med Child Neurol.2008;50(5):346–52.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715943/

Most of the FR autoantibodies belong to the IgG4 subclass, and the
switch to this class of antibodies seems to be influenced by repeated
exposure to the antigen over a prolonged period, which supports the
conclusion that repeated exposure to milk FR in the digestive tract is
the likely mechanism for autoantibody generation.”

Injecting milk proteins, causes the immune system to treat them as parasitic (worms, nematode) antigens. An initial IgE mediated response corresponds to a “low level of infection”. With increased milk exposure, we move to high IgG4/IgE ratio phase associated with “high level of infection”, as described below:

Turner JD, Faulkner H, Kamgno J, Kennedy MW, Behnke J, Boussinesq M, et al. Allergen-specific IgE and IgG4 are markers of resistance and susceptibility in a human intestinal nematode infection. Microbes Infect. 2005;7(7-8):990–6.

“Individuals who had detectable levels of IgE but not IgG4 to rABA-1A
(11%) had lower average levels of infection compared with individuals
who produced anti-rABA-1A IgG4 (40%) and sero- negative individuals
(49%) (P = 0.008). The ratio of IgG4/IgE in rABA-1A responders
positively correlated with intensity of infection (P < 0.025).”

Summary

Step 1: Cow’s milk containing vaccines cause the development of IgE mediated allergy to cow’s milk proteins.

Step 2: Depending on severity of allergy, it may be possible to consume cow’s milk. The result can be synthesis of IgG4 specific to bovine folate receptor (FR) proteins (a cow’s milk protein). FR specific IgG4 is the main cause of cerebral folate deficiency which can result in autism spectrum disorders.

Details

Step 1:

Equine IgE responses to non-viral vaccine components.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23088888

“These data suggest that non-essential protein components of vaccines
may sensitize horses for future adverse responses to vaccination.”

The Institute of Medicine (now known as the Health and Medicine Division of the National Acadamies) stated in 2011 that food proteins in vaccines such as ovalbumin (chicken egg), casamino acids (cow’s milk derived) do cause food allergies.

Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality, p. 65 (pdf p. 94):

"Adverse events on our list thought to be due to IgE-mediated hypersensitivity reactions

Antigens in the vaccines that the committee is charged with reviewing do not typically elicit an immediate hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., hepatitis B surface antigen, toxoids, gelatin, ovalbumin, casamino acids). However, as will be discussed in subsequent chapters, the above-mentioned antigens do occasionally induce IgE-mediated sensitization in some individuals and subsequent hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis."

For those who may not be familiar, here are the basics of allergy – a two step process:

Sensitization: When exposure to an allergen (food protein) occurs for the first time, there are no symptoms. Over a period of a few weeks, the immune system develops antibodies specific to the allergen. The person is now sensitized. In other words, the person has developed allergy to the specific food item. “IgE-mediated sensitization”, is the technical description for development of allergy.

Elicitation: When a sensitized person is exposed to the same allergen again, they develop an immediate reaction (usually within minutes). Also called hypersensitivity reaction. This is called elicitation. A severe, life-threatening case of elicitation is known as anaphylaxis.

So in simple English, the IOM committee has concluded that food proteins such as gelatin, egg (ovalbumin) and milk (casamino acids are derived from milk) that are present in vaccines, cause healthy non-allergic people to develop allergies to those food items upon receiving the vaccine.

Further, they also reported in 2017 that there are numerous food proteins in vaccines and they are not regulated or labelled.

Finding a Path to Safety in Food Allergy, p. 241

"Allergens in Vaccines, Medications, and Dietary Supplements

Physicians and patients with food allergy must consider potential food allergen exposures in vaccines, medications, and dietary supplement prod- ucts (e.g., vitamins, probiotics), which are not regulated by labelling laws. Also, excipients (i.e., substances added to medications to improve various characteristics) may be food or derived from foods (Kelso, 2014). These include milk proteins; soy derivatives; oils from sesame, peanut, fish or soy; and beef or fish gelatin. The medications involved include vaccines; anesthetics; and oral, topical, and injected medications. With perhaps the exception of gelatin, reactions appear to be rare overall, likely because little residual protein is included in the final preparation of these items. The specific risk for each medication is not known.

Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein or gelatin."

Tetanus toxoids in the first dose of the tetanus vaccine caused sensitization (development of allergy to the toxoids). Allergic reactions were observed following the second dose of the vaccine.https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/1160278?redirect=true

"The study thus revealed unexpectedly high rates of IgE responses to diphtheria and tetanus toxoids in a regular DT booster vaccination programme, which were associated to high rates of local side effects."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7668036

Repeated injection of egg containing vaccines produced egg allergy.http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM195204032461403https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/serological-examination-of-ige-and-iggspecific-antibodies-to-egg-protein-during-influenza-virus-immunization/A7329D0D9F0C3F383FD5989BBE77FBCB

Gelatin containing vaccines caused the development of gelatin allergy.https://www.pubfacts.com/detail/9949325/A-clinical-analysis-of-gelatin-allergy-and-determination-of-its-causal-relationship-to-the-previous-

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14624794

An allergic (Th2) response to beta-lactoglobulin (a cow’s milk protein) was observed following administration of vaccines containing cow’s milk proteins. In other words, development of milk allergy was observed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17116347

Tetanus and pertussis vaccines contain cow’s milk proteins because they are used as growth media. Once sensitized as above, the next cow’s milk containing vaccine can cause an allergic reaction as described below: http://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(11)00747-0/fulltext

Anti-hepatitis B surface antigen IgE antibodies were observed following HepB vaccine administration. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24374043

Basically, these illustrate that ANY protein injected can cause the development of allergy to that protein. The IOM listed all these proteins (antigens) as examples. This basic concept of injected proteins causing the development of allergy is of course more than a hundred years old and was described by Nobel Laureate Dr. Charles Richet.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1913/richet-lecture.html

“BUT you have NO DATA”

Unfortunately, to get the data, you have to read and understand these:

Professional Misconduct by NAM Committee on Food Allergy

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1034558

Epidemiological studies that ignore mechanism of disease causation are flawed and mechanistic evidence demonstrates that vaccines cause autism

https://www.zenodo.org/record/1117106

Autism Spectrum Disorders: A special case of vaccine-induced cow’s milk allergy?

https://www.zenodo.org/record/1034557

I get a Privacy Error when I click through to the second and third links. I can only access the first, but that is enough to tell me just how full of brown organic matter you are.

AM report pg.241″Allergens in Vaccines, Medications, and Dietary Supplements

Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein or gelatin…

”So, as the IOM report and Dr. Richet have pointed out, ANY injected protein, food proteins,viral proteins, bacterial proteins, cause the development of allergy to those proteins

“May” is not the same as “does”. And “ANY injected protein…cause[s] the development of allergy”?
You are once again going beyond your facts.

@Julian Frost

There’s no data in the other two either, just more opinion presented as fact along with the dual whiffs of petulance and arrogance that accompany everything else he posts. Now if you’ll excuse me my Vinuhistoplasmosis seems to be flaring up for some reason.

Er, dude. You do know where gelatin comes from, right? Bullocks’ connective tissue. To be allergic to gelatin would require a beef allergy, something so vanishingly rare that milk, egg, and legume allergy together in the same individual is common by comparison.

According to Jeff Holiday, anti-Vaxxer Larry Cook is currently running a crowdfunding campaign so that he can spam Facebook with anti-vaccine memes targeting parents. The video discussing Cooks campaign is linked below.

For more information on Larry Cook, at an earlier point in his career Myles Power did a series of videos about three years ago covering some of the nonsense he was spreading. It looks like he’s zeroed in on the Anti-Vaccine movement as a major money spinner.

Letters to a journal editor, whether electronically submitted or not, only constitute articles in the sense that they may be indexed in PubMed. At best they may raise interesting points worthy of discussion and actual research; at worst (hello vinu!) they contain rank speculation and obsessional ranting.

Wonder if I should add the various letters to newspaper editors that I’ve had published over the years to my CV.

I seem to recall a time when BMJ Rapid Responses were indexed by Pubmed (vide John Stone), but that’s not the case any more. The Cisco Kid has zero search results.

““A desperate disease needs desperate remedies,” said I. “You remember old Hobson at college. He writes once a year to the British Medical and asks if any correspondent can tell him how much it costs to keep a horse in the country. And then he signs himself in the Medical Register as ‘The contributor of several unostentatious queries and remarks to scientific papers!’”
– “Crabbe’s Practice”, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Chris,

“reputable qualified researchers”

What causes food allergy? Don’t know.

What causes asthma? Don’t know.

What causes autism? Don’t know.

What causes type 1 diabetes? Don’t know.

So they are qualified to do what? Warm their seats?

So they have a reputation for what? Spending billions and decades to come up with “Don’t know”?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. Where are the answers? The alphabet soup following your name does not mean a thing if you cannot produce answers.

I have the answers if you bother to READ AND UNDERSTAND them …

What causes food allergy? Don’t know.

What causes asthma? Don’t know.

What causes autism? Don’t know.

What causes type 1 diabetes? Don’t know.

Yes we DO know. Genetics.

I have the answers if you bother to READ AND UNDERSTAND them

The motto of the crank.

Unfortunate genetics.

I have several allergies. The one to mold almost killed me from an asthma attack when the swamp cooler was turned on in early spring. My nickle allergy is why I do not wear a wedding ring and why I sew with special needles (it is very common with needle workers). My 91 year old father has similar allergies. It kind of runs in the family.

Diabetes Type 1 is genetic. That has been determined, it was quite an issue in the early part of the 20th century. Recommend reading: Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle by Thea Cooper and Arthur Ainsberg

The genetics of autism is well known, and more is being learned with modern technology. Over half of the genetic sequences related to autism syndrome are known, and more are being discovered:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/

“So they are qualified to do what? Warm their seats?”

My son does more than “warm any seat.” He is intelligent, and is working towards a full life (presently volunteering at a library). It is fools like you that are a problem.

“I have the answers if you bother to READ AND UNDERSTAND them …”

I read and understand the actual science, not your conspiracy theories. I know that random comments posted on the BMJ website are not science. Value and support your child, stop making them be considered “damaged” and a “mistake.” In this case, you are the disability!

“The alphabet soup following your name does not mean a thing if you cannot produce answers.”

What alphabet soup to I post after my name? I freely admit I am just a structural dynamics engineer with a BS in aerospace engineering. I learned very quickly how my engineering degree did no prepare me for the reality after giving birth to a baby who had neonatal seizures on his second day of life… and that he could not speak when he was two years old. At least I looked for answers from actual experts and did not make up some random conspiracy.

Kudos for the local Children’s Hospital for having a Parent Resource Center that checked out books, plus workshops for parents… and a very awesome autism research group that posts their workshops on YouTube:

Chris,

Sorry to hear about your son’s medical challenges.

“Unfortunate genetics.”

Equine IgE responses to non-viral vaccine components.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23088888

“These data suggest that non-essential protein components of vaccines may sensitize horses for future adverse responses to vaccination.”

Nothing to do with genetics. You inject protein, you create allergy to the protein.

Anaphylaxis: a history with emphasis on food allergy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21682750

“In the century since Paul Portier and Charles Richet described their landmark findings of severe fatal reactions in dogs re-exposed to venom after vaccination with sea anemone venom, treatment for anaphylaxis continues to evolve.”

Replace dogs with children. Replace venom protein with milk protein.

And severe fatal reactions in children re-exposed to milk after vaccination with milk is what you have today. The milk allergy epidemic and the food allergy epidemic in general.

Allergy is mediated by specific antibodies. IgE antibody against peanut or milk causes peanut or milk allergy. IgE against ragweed or cat dander protein results in allergic asthma. IgG4 antibody against the bovine folate receptor protein (a cow’s milk protein) causes a majority of autism cases.

You CANNOT inherit the ability to make SPECIFIC antibodies. You can inherit SUSCEPTIBILITY to allergy, but you CANNOT inherit a SPECIFIC allergy.

If you could inherit the ability to make SPECIFIC antibodies, you would have inherited the ability to make antibodies against measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, pertussis etc. There would be no need for vaccines.

How do you create antibodies against diphtheria, pertussis etc. today? Using vaccines that contain diphtheria, pertussis proteins. What happens when those vaccines contain milk proteins? You create antibodies against milk proteins. No conspiracy needed. Elementary, hundred year old immunology.

Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Only the abstracts were available.

Link #1 is about horses and uses the words “suggest”, “may” and “hypothesise”.

Link #2 as you say is about the history of anaphylaxis. Again, you have provided no proof of the existence of milk protein contamination in vaccines.

As I said before on a much earlier thread, you created a hypothesis that proteins in vaccines are responsible for allergies, and then you looked for evidence to confirm it, instead of properly testing it.

Actually, whilst there is a genetic component in autism in that an autistic person will often have autistic family members spanning multiple generations (something first demonstrated but not noticed by Leo Kanner in his 1943 paper), the neurology has epigenetic mechanisms at its base. There is no ‘autism Ben’s, so you can’t easily eliminate us the way you are people with Down’s syndrome.

Kanner was very much aware of the familial factor in autism, but he couldn’t come out and say “genetic” for he was also very much aware of the strength of the eugenics lobby at the time, who would have delighted in demanding the mass sterilisation of autistic families. Hence his calculated ambiguity between environmental and hereditary contributions.

By the way, Vinu, my aerospace engineering experience is in random vibration. So before having to quit work to deal with a medically challenged baby that spent his first week in a hospital … my job required a more than casual knowledge of statistics.

I understand random stuff happens, and you need to deal with it.

Apparently that is a concept you cannot understand. Let go of your fantasies and get to know your child. At least I understood why I had to spend lots of time in medical care facility waiting rooms, because I know how to read medical literature.

Only to throw more on the fire: my kid also had a genetic heart disorder discovered when he was fourteen years old: obstructive hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. That required open heart surgery (so it is no longer “obstructive”). And yes, it is genetic. Except he has a version that has not yet been discovered.

My kid is quite fascinating. He knows lots about history and political stuff (he has an AA degree in political science). His “only” issue is that sometimes his speech is hard to understand and he belongs to the anti-social social club. Yeah, other people scare him, especially a really judgy folks like you, cause a bit of anxiety.

Get over yourself. You are just a random computer nerd with random conspiracy theories posting the interwebs. Give it a rest and get to know your kid.

Autism,especially syndromic autism,with regressions,and multiple medical conditions,is proving to be genetic.Thanks to genetic testing,like improved whole exome sequencing,we now know autism,especially syndromic autism,can be caused by any number of genetic conditions.Most of which were unknown to science until relatively recently.A few examples being.
Autism due to mutations in the PTEN gene,a gene commonly associated with prostate cancer,neoplasms,and brain tumors.

https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/scientists-catalog-effects-of-pten-mutations-in-autism/
https://consultqd.clevelandclinic.org/pten-mutations-and-autism-the-search-for-individualized-treatments-gets-underway/

Autism has been linked to previously unknown expressions of other well known cancer genes as well.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/the-curious-connection-between-autism-and-cancer/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4769654/
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2017/01/autism-cancer/512894/

The graphic here is pretty effective in driving home this point.
https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/dozens-of-autism-genes-have-cancer-connections/
Picture

Based on my own experiences,I am willing to say that pretty much any cancer gene can be implicated in autism,no matter how rare they might be.It’s just that not every one has been documented yet.

Then there are relatively newly discovered diseases that explain some forms of medically complex syndromic autism,such as ADNP Syndrome,or Helsmoortel-VanDerAa Syndrome,a relatively new disease,only officially documented for the first time in 2014,but has probably existed for many years unrecognized.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ng.2899
https://www.adnpkids.com
http://omim.org/entry/615873

If you have followed my posts around the internet over the years,you know I was diagnosed as a child,almost 50 years ago,with a fairly serious syndromic form of regressive autism,with many unexplained medical,and neurological issues.In 2015,I had a whole exome sequencing myself,and I was found to have a pair of mutations usually known to only cause certain rare cases of breast cancer,and an even rarer disease associated with ataxia and oculomotor apraxia,with only about two dozen cases known in the world.I was also found to have double strand DNA breaks on a couple of chromosomes.After all other diseases were ruled out,I went online,and looked through the global gene databases.I found only two documented cases of autism associated with the gene,one in the UK,and one in China,neither as complex as mine,although there were a couple of other cases involving this gene with intellectual disability.but not autism.I am hoping to get help in finding other cases with autism elsewhere.Double strand DNA breaks are not unknown in autism,especially in more severe cases.

All these disorders represent the type of autism that we hear antivaxers rail about.Regressive autism,with many complex medical disorders,not so much the more mild Asperger’s type.These are complex conditions,that had previously only been identified by a few behavioral symptoms,conditions that science is only starting to unravel.The unfortunate part is,too many parents have been brainwashed by two decades of antivaccine propaganda,that they won’t look for causes elsewhere.

I do not understand.

Yes, there are many genetic disorders that present with autism-like developmental delay & behaviors. They also include craniofacial anamoly, though.

Are you saying there is no Autism? Just autistic symptoms indicative of a genetic disorder?

Meaning Autism is not a multifactorial genetic disorder? If you are looking for rare variants in a person with confirmed ASD; you may have my data if it would help.

I don’t have Rett Syndrome but I am ASD & I have a variance on MECP2 that is “reverse to the genome” & I am the only known case, according to the Rett genome database.

Isn’t cancer immune-mediated?

I don’t think that is what he is saying. I think he is pointing out the connection with genetics of autism and cancer. I assume there are others like autism and seizure disorders, and perhaps even with genetic heart disorders (my son has both autism and a severe genetic heart disorder).

He cited Spectrum News, which is part of the Simons Foundation. This group has been recruiting lots of families for a big data deep dive into autism genetics. This is its blog:
https://sparkforautism.org/discover/

Roger Kulp,

Patients with autism, as you point out have higher genetic risk for cancer. Yet they develop FEWER cancers.

Autism Linked to Increased Oncogene Mutations but Decreased Cancer Rate
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26934580

Why?

Cow’s milk containing vaccines cause the development of folate receptor alpha antibodies. Targeting folate receptor alpha is a cancer treatment approach.

Credit where credit is due: Cow’s milk contaminated vaccines prevent cancer … by causing autism
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1038485

Targeting folate receptor alpha for cancer treatment
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5239573/

Autism Linked to Increased Oncogene Mutations but Decreased Cancer Rate…
Cow’s milk containing vaccines cause the development of folate receptor alpha antibodies. Targeting folate receptor alpha is a cancer treatment approach.

Yet again, you have made a claim that vaccines are contaminated and not provided evidence to support it.

Link #2 of yours is another self-cite where you recite a load of assertions and again provide no hard evidence in support.

Link #3 mentions vaccinations specifically engineered to target folate receptors. I don’t see how this relates to any vaccine currently on the schedule.

Do you think vinu had a terrible encounter with a cow as a child, and that is why he fixates on milk? It’s not like he’s ever presented any real data.

I dunno. Remember, for a while he was fixated on the imaginary presence of peanut proteins in vaccines — first directly through peanut oil, then as a contaminant in polysorbate-80. Each time someone ruled out his imaginary mechanism by which peanuts might find their way into the vaccines, he retconned a new mechanism, even more Rube Goldberg. And he’s also joined the Aluminati to cover all the bases.
He must have been traumatised by many many things in childhood.

Milk in vaccines:

Smut Clyde notice peanut oil also?

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23658/finding-a-path-to-safety-in-food-allergy-assessment-of

Finding a Path to Safety in Food Allergy, p. 241

"Allergens in Vaccines, Medications, and Dietary Supplements

Physicians and patients with food allergy must consider potential food allergen exposures in vaccines, medications, and dietary supplement prod- ucts (e.g., vitamins, probiotics), which are not regulated by labelling laws. Also, excipients (i.e., substances added to medications to improve various characteristics) may be food or derived from foods (Kelso, 2014). These include milk proteins; soy derivatives; oils from sesame, peanut, fish or soy; and beef or fish gelatin. The medications involved include vaccines; anesthetics; and oral, topical, and injected medications. With perhaps the exception of gelatin, reactions appear to be rare overall, likely because little residual protein is included in the final preparation of these items. The specific risk for each medication is not known.

Vaccines also may contain food allergens, such as egg protein or gelatin."

Numerous vaccines contain cow’s milk derived casein and casamino acids:

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/13164/adverse-effects-of-vaccines-evidence-and-causality
Adverse Effects of Vaccines: Evidence and Causality, p. 65 (pdf p. 94):

"Adverse events on our list thought to be due to IgE-mediated hypersensitivity reactions

Antigens in the vaccines that the committee is charged with reviewing do not typically elicit an immediate hypersensitivity reaction (e.g., hepatitis B surface antigen, toxoids, gelatin, ovalbumin, casamino acids). However, as will be discussed in subsequent chapters, the above-mentioned antigens do occasionally induce IgE-mediated sensitization in some individuals and subsequent hypersensitivity reactions, including anaphylaxis."

Julian Frost, notice casamino acids (among others) “DO” induce allergy, not “MAY”.

Milk in Dtap/Tdap:

Anaphylaxis to diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccines among children with cow’s milk allergy

https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(11)00747-0/fulltext

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/aaaai/25520

Horses:

“about horses and uses the words “suggest”, “may””

Strong enough “suggest” and “may” to warrant fixing the vaccine:

Immune modulation of T regulatory cells and IgE responses in horses vaccinated with West Nile virus vaccine combined with a CpG ODN.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/26424604/

Can you tell us which vaccine contains cow milk.
Injection of foreign protein does cause immune reaction, not allergy. Blood transfusion causes, if properly done, causes neither, even though many proteins are involved.
Oncogenes are actually growth promoting genes. Brains of autistic patients show many growth problems, so linkage you mentioned is not suprising. And no, nobody claims that cancer is genetic.
If autism was caused by vaccine toxins, why prevalence is higher amongst boys ? Why immune reaction is different ?

“Can you tell us which vaccine contains cow milk.”

Please see:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2018/05/07/autism-prevalence-increases-antivaxers-blame-vaccines/#comment-395082

“Injection of foreign protein does cause immune reaction, not allergy.”

Initial injection of foreign protein causes sensitization. Subsequent exposure causes an allergic reaction. Immune reactions against self-antigens are usually prevented due to thymic selection of T cells. So blood transfusion can be done.

“If autism was caused by vaccine toxins, why prevalence is higher amongst boys ? Why immune reaction is different ?”

Gender affects allergy rates. Allergy is mediated by IgE/IgG4 which are naturally involved in helminth defense. Perhaps gender difference related activity differences resulted in differing helminth exposure risk. So males may have evolved a more aggressive helminth defense, which means stronger allergies now.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2990684/

There are gender differences in TCR repertoire. Since girls will go on to secrete folate receptor proteins in breast milk, one can expect that they will have a stronger protection against autoimmunity for this self-antigen.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27183615

Vinu, do you have any idea how dull your perseveration is? Can’t you take it elsewhere?

Can’t you take it elsewhere?

He seems to have been blacklisted at PubPeer for spamming across multiple threads (and being a bore).

Actually, the true numbers are probably 50/50 boys and girls, but because the current diagnostic criteria the signs of autism seen in males (Kanner saw two girls, Asperger saw none) girls are diagnosed with much decreased frequency.

“Indeed, approximately 40% of breast cancer diagnoses are DCIS, and a recent study found that DCIS incidence rose from 1.87 per 100,000 in the mid-1970s to 32.5 in 2004. That’s a more than 16-fold increase over a 30 year period, and it’s pretty much all due to the introduction of mammographic screening.”
Scientific questions deserving further investigation include the relationship between mammography use and DCIS incidence.
I have addressed this question: this increase is due both to better detection and to mammography-induced cancers.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/12/22/238527

As DCIS are mostly radiologic findings, focusing on them avoid the problem of lead-time bias, which is
the delay between clinical and screen-detected cancers.

Holy hell. I wasn’t going to let you take this thread over (and am still not), but I can’t let that go by without a response, lest someone misunderstand lead time bias. It’s very clear to me that you really don’t understand the concept of lead time bias. No one who did would ever say something like what you just said. In reality it is precisely in asymptomatic patients with findings found through a screening test, be they blood tests or radiological tests, where lead time bias is most likely to be a confounder.

@ Orac
There’s no problem of lead time bias in this study, because almost all the DCIS are asymptomatic. Lead time bias occurs when clinical cancers are compared to screen-detected cancers.

Yep. You don’t understand lead time bias. I don’t think it’s worth my time to explain it to you, though.

@ David Gorski
Maybe what you are concerned about is the detection of prevalent cancers compared to incident cancers. This would translate in a decrease of the observed number of DCIS following the prevalent peak. However, such decrease is not observed after 1993 (full coverage) in the UK. The fact that it is not observed suggest that the mean sojourn time of DCIS is less than the interval between screening rounds (3 years in the UK). In any case, such phenomenon would translate in a decrease, and not an increase of DCIS observed incidence, unlike what is observed in Fig 1.

What we really need is to allow our children to reconnect to their stream of health, using anthroposophical medicine and toxin avoidance.

I am most impressed by the wise words of Debra Gambrell, D.O.* as regards to vaccination:

“Avoid vaccinating in the first 6 months, and even better, the first two years. During the first six months of life, a baby has increased spaces in their tight junctions of their gut…
Do not vaccinate while your child is teething. This is a time when the gut is once again “open.”

“Use measured caution when vaccinating with any lab confirmed leaky-gut, and especially with lab-confirmed leaky brain. While the gut and/or brain are “open,” the chance of toxins bypassing those barrier protections are increased, which increases the chance of injury.”

“Consider testing your child for SNPs such as MTHFR, if you suspect a problem with methylation or other second stage liver processing. These processes are responsible for turning fat-soluble substances into a more water soluble substance that can be easily excreted by the body. A defect in one of theseprocesses can lead to accumulation of a fat-soluble toxin in tissues made of high amounts of fat, such as the brain. Things such as glutathione, phosphotidylcholine, and vitamin D can be helpful in supporting certain areas of the liver processing that may need help. Again, consult your doctor for specific recommendations in this area.”

“Other things to consider using are Thuja Comp, bentonite clay, chlorella tablets, cilantro, vitamin C, and echinacea.”

http://drdebragambrell.com

I would enjoy being a fly on the wall in Dr. Hickie’s office, when a pro-Gambrell mom tries to get him to buy into her health plan for the kids.

*one of those cases where D.O. means D’oh!

Bentonite clay? Isn’t that the stuff I put in the litterbox of my cat, which forms lumbs if it comes in contact with urine?

especially with lab-confirmed leaky brain

After the lumbar puncture, of course.

@ Renate:

Some of it IS Bentonite.

Cheapskate beauty mavens grind litter up to make a clay face mask. There are videos on this process amongst others.
Another useful clay is kaolin – which was in Old Style ( only) Kaopectate- and some vet meds for diarrhea.

Maybe the silicon part of alumino-silicate protects against the aluminium.

Not to forget the awesome martial arts of the Kaolin Temple Monks.

Good to see that Scientific Reports has retracted the Japanese study purporting to show that HPV vaccine causes neurologic damage.

“The paper, by a group led by Toshihiro Nakajima of Tokyo Medical University, was published online 11 November 2016. It describes impaired mobility and brain damage in mice given an enormous dose of HPV vaccine along with a toxin that makes the blood-brain barrier leaky. Shortly after the paper appeared, two groups separately wrote to Scientific Reports and its publisher, the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), pointing out problems with the experimental setup, the use of a dose proportionally far larger than what is normally given, the use of the toxin, and inconsistencies between the data presented and the descriptions of results, among other issues.”

http://sciencemag.org/news/2018/05/journal-retracts-paper-claiming-neurological-damage-hpv-vaccine

@vinu None of vaccines listed contain cow milk. Growth medium used is sometimes derived from casein, which means that molecules are cut into peptones or amino acids. Casaminoacids are amino acid derived from casein. Do you think that they remember their original molecule, like homeopathic water ?
Autism prevalence is 4 boys to 1 girl. If male immune system was this terrible, there would be no male around. And males are needed to sire children, you know.
Your folate theory is rather speculative. Small girls does lactate, and everybody has folate receptor, it is indeed a vitamin

@Aarno

“None of vaccines listed contain cow milk.”

Sorry, you are wrong.

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/aaaai/25520

“We believe that the vaccine may have very trace milk protein in some lots.”

Just like H1N1 nucleoprotein containing Pandemrix inducing narcolepsy.

“Your folate theory is rather speculative”.

Folate receptor alpha antibody role in CFD/ASD is well documented.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3578948/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715943/

“everybody has folate receptor,”

Yes, but what matters is who is more prone to develop folate receptor autoimmunity, when injected with bovine folate receptor protein containing vaccines.

Just like H1N1 nucleoprotein containing Pandemrix inducing narcolepsy.

Cool gibberish, bro.

It is always “believe”. You can believe ten things before breakfast. Next time, please cite a result of an experiment.
If there was cow milk in vaccines, it is triple contamination. First, casein is extracted from milk, secondly casein is hydrolysed to peptones or amino acids and thirdly, weakened bacteria from growth medium is used in vaccines. I suggest that you make an experiment demonstrating that there are folate receptor in vaccines, or cite a paper doing same.
My argument was that folate theory cannot explain autism, because it would predict absurdly bad male immune system. Please answer to this.

“My argument was that folate theory cannot explain autism, because it would predict absurdly bad male immune system. Please answer to this.”

There is nothing wrong with the male immune system. It is the insane vaccinologists who inject cow’s milk into humans that created this problem.

“believe”

https://www.jacionline.org/article/S0091-6749(11)00747-0/fulltext

8-18ng/mL of casein was detected in the vaccines.
Before approving such a vaccine, you should prove that it is safe. Please show us the studies proving safety of injecting such milk contaminated proteins.

I read through the study. A key sentence:

Most children with cow’s milk allergy receive these vaccines without incident, but the patients we identified have very severe milk allergy, very high milk-specific IgE levels, and, for 4 of them, past reactions to trace milk contamination.

In other words, the patients were already severely allergic.

I forgot to mention that folate receptor should survive treatment that cuts casein into peptones and amino acids. You should prove this before looking vaccines.

Already proved that casein itself survives the treatment (anaphylaxis to milk contaminated Dtap/Tdap). So why would folate receptor protein not survive treatment?

Not entirely sure where to put this but…vaccines

Over the past several days. I’ve been seeing “news” that Gates bought the Cochrane Collaboration for 1.15 million USD
Anti-vaxxers are yapping about the death of scientific integrity ( as though they could identity scientific integrity if it hit them in the head forcefully)
HOWEVER I’ve only seen this on woo-ish sites like AHRP and Vera Sharav, maybe an AoA comment.
I did find something about an educational initiative from Gates and Chan Zuckerberg though.. They’ll hate that too.

Alain writes,

Again, when you cite something, it has to be peer-reviewed.

MJD says,

Does being in auto-moderation here at RI count as a peer review?

If the comment gets through the auto-moderation process it thereafter carries Orac’s peer review stamp-of-approval.

@ Alain,

Ten push ups right now minion for overstepping your boundaries.

Does being in auto-moderation here at RI count as a peer review?

No.

If the comment gets through the auto-moderation process it thereafter carries Orac’s peer review stamp-of-approval.

Add peer review to the extremely long list of things you don’t understand.

MJD:

if Orac approves your comment after auto-moderation it doesn’t mean he approves of the content- i.e. agrees with you- it means only that he let the comment be visible to others.
After all, he allows crazed anti-vaxxers’ and woo-meisters’ comments through so we can critique them or merely laugh at them:
this process is not peer review in any shape or form

If I understand correctly, he may rarely NOT let a comment become visible because it contains a threat or something truly horrendous. At any rate, it is solely up to him
.
I suspect that your obsession with latex and vaccines may fall into that category..

and -btw- who are you to order Alain about? He knows lots more than you do and is in much better standing here than you are.
PLUS people like him.

PLUS people like him.

Indeed. Alain and I have corresponded by E-mail in the past, and he is a gentleman of the first water.

@ Alain,

Ten push ups right now minion for overstepping your boundaries.

Fuck off.

MJD,

Not only I won’t EVER do your ten push-ups but I will be throwing a party in a large brewpub for every regular here, you will only be able to order kombucha and everyone’s tab is on YOU. That include the many planes ticket and hotel bills.

Get it?

Sgt Hartman 😀

@vinu Casein and folate receptor are different proteins. They react differently. Besides that, receptors are on the surface of cells, and cells in milk are bad, meaning that cow is sick. They are regulated very strictly. Casein, instead, is raw material of growth media.
Your refusal to answer a question is insane. Why is male immune reaction to folate receptor so different ?
Paper says that if a patient has severe milk allergy, a vaccine with another growth media should be used. There is no rants about insane vaccinologists.

Vinu is an engineer. He thinks that qualifies him to pontificate on medical matters. It is better to ignore his rantings.

By the way, I was an engineer. Therefore I get to criticize other engineers making fools of themselves as they pretend to be medical research experts. Examples include Brian Hooker and long list of others.

How many folate receptors there are in a cell ? How many cells there are in regulated milk ? How many of these survive pancreatic digest ? Hint: too many folate receptors is suspected cause of cancer.
You did not answer my point, that folate receptor should be much more toxic to boys than to girls.

<

blockquote>Sorry, you are wrong.

<

blockquote>

What the fuck is that paper supposed to have to do with your newly frosted Richet obsession, Vinucube.?

Has vinu ever proven that the casein in cow’s milk is a totally different protein with a completely different structure from the casein in human milk? Or does vinu think that humans are not mammals and should not consume any milk?

So are you saying that humans generate proteins that they are then allergic to? How completely is casein broken down by the digestive system before it crosses the intestinal epithelium, a tissue that is completely packed with immune cells of all types?

Also, throughout the human consumption of cattle dairy people have a had milk introduced into their bloodstream through cuts and other open wounds. In case you weren’t aware, milking a cow can be dangerous, and being a farmer involves working with the hands, and therefore injury to the hands.

But you know, let’s back this whole train up a bit and get back to a basic question: what is the mechanism by why a casein allergy causes autism? Does it happen in utero, when the changes to the brain first happen in autism?

Medical researchers admit they don’t know what causes food allergies, asthma, autism or type 1 diabetes. So engineers are just as qualified to research the matter.
Engineers live “outside” the medical box. So “thinking outside the box” comes naturally. Most medical researchers seem to be stuck in the rut of epidemiological studies.
Once you focus on mechanistic evidence instead, the causes are immediately obvious.

Engineers live “outside” the medical box. So “thinking outside the box” comes naturally. Most medical researchers seem to be stuck in the rut of epidemiological studies.

Chris is bang on with her assessment of you. You are a perfect example of Dunning-Kruger. You do not realise that your engineering training and experience do not qualify you to pontificate on medicine and your understanding of the subject is extremely shallow. From an engineering perspective, animals are many times more complex than even cruise ships and airliners. That you presume that you can extrapolate your knowledge of engineering to medicine is astounding, and I don’t mean in a good way.

“I have a chance to avoid that with real medicine”

You cannot generalize either way. Vaccines helped eradicate polio. That’s great. But that does not automagically make them safe.

Who is generalizing. Cutler self treated his high blood pressure and cholesterol with his own methods, and it did not work. I am on the standard medical recommendations and I am living longer than he did. Plus I am living longer and healthier than my grandmother and her sisters.

And Cutler is just example of why you do not take medical pontifications from engineers.

@ Chris::

I’m sure that you’ve seen speculation about the relationship between engineers ( or STEM professionals) and autism. Simon Baron Cohen has written about this and I think that there is also research about children of engineers having ASDs at a higher rate than average.

I seem to have seen several alt med “theorists” who started out in engineering. I don’t know whether it is the particular mindset/ skill set necessary for solving problems in engineering or if it actually illustrates another trend.
Perhaps we should list them: Hooker is numero uno.

You certainly are an exception.. More cognitive complexity perhaps.

Actually the engineers on the autism spectrum is a separate issue. Plus that is debatable, and many on the spectrum feel they are being shoehorned into something they are not particularly interested in. I have one living in my house who was being guided to a computer repair career, when he prefers political science.

The engineers who think that they are an expert on something else is more closely related to “Nobel Disease.” Think Linus Pauling and Luc Montagnier:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/luc-montagnier-and-the-nobel-disease/

Another example is Gary Taubes, who thinks his physics and engineering degrees means he can pontificate about diet.

An example of out of box thinking comes to my mind:
Support: Press any key
Customer: What is the any key i should press
Epidemiological studies are facts you must explain, like autism prevalence amongst boys and girls

Aarno,

Any injected protein causes IgE mediated sensitization. Injecting casein causes IgE directed against casein. Injecting folate receptor (FR) protein causes IgE directed against FR.

This is all well documented. Inject BSA, you created IgE against BSA. Inject bee venom (bee sting) you create IgE against bee venom. Inject gelatin, you create IgE against gelatin. Inject influenza protein, you create IgE against influenza proteins. What more do you need?

The immune system (male or female) is an extremely efficient and finely tuned system that has evolved over millions of years. Stupidly injecting milk protein into humans and asking ‘Why is male immune reaction to folate receptor so different’ is insanity. The immune system has not evolved to handle cow’s milk injected intramuscularly.
It is like asking why your car behaves so different when you pour water into the gasoline tank. You have to stop doing stupid things if you want things to work as designed.

You have to stop doing stupid things

If only you’d take your own advice!

This insanity thing again. Immune system IS actually evolved to handle foreign proteins like bovine casein. Some of these, though not casein, is toxic. Insect bite injects lots of foreign proteins.
You should really show immune reaction difference between boys and girls in the case of folate receptor. Calling me insane does not help you any.

” Immune system IS actually evolved to handle foreign proteins like bovine casein. ”

We are injecting bovine casein with an aluminum adjuvant designed to maximize an immune response. Where does that happen in nature?

“Insect bites”

We have evolved to handle that. That is why you don’t die of anaphylaxis to mosquito bites.
Since bee stings are not common, that evolution is still in progress. Multiple strings sensitize and you can develop anaphylaxis.
Primary dengue infection causes development of IgE mediated sensitization. Secondary infection causes an allergic reaction.
Nothing different than sensitization to injected bovine casein causing the development of milk allergy and in the case of FR protein, autism.

Why car A runs for 1 mile and car B runs for 2 miles after pouring water into the gas tank is your question. My response is pouring water into the gas tank is insane. Stop doing it so you don’t have to answer the question.

<

blockquote>Since bee stings are not common, that evolution is still in progress

<

blockquote>

You’ve really outdone yourself with this one.

We have evolved to handle that. That is why you don’t die of anaphylaxis to mosquito bites.

“We”? What is or are the gene or genes that prevent this anaphylactic predicament? It’s not as though mosquito bites don’t generate allergic reactions, fuckwit.

Narad,

“What is or are the gene or genes that prevent this anaphylactic predicament?”
The answer is in your own reference:

“The serum IgE and IgG from Manitobans reacted with the antigens of all three species. ”

IgE causes reactions. IgG4 is a blocking antibody that scales back the reaction severity preventing anaphylaxis. Since repeated mosquito bites is common, it is like natural allergen immunotherapy. Allergen immunotherapy induces IgG4 against the allergen.

Same with casein or folate receptor (FR) milk proteins. If you inject milk you create IgE against them. If you subsequently drink milk (repeated exposure), you create IgG4 against casein and FR. IgG4 against FR causes autism.

“Most of the FR autoantibodies belong to the IgG4 subclass, and the switch to this class of antibodies seems to be influenced by repeated exposure to the antigen over a prolonged period,”

A milk-free diet downregulates folate receptor autoimmunity in cerebral folate deficiency syndrome
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715943/

Alain is one of the regular posters I really would miss, just like some others who aren’t around anymore and are missed.

There are two others I tend to ignore and can miss like a sore tooth.
One has a latex fetish, the other has a milk fetish.

@ Chris:

I certainly don’t agree with ALL of his ideas but I think that he may have something about styles of thought being more prevalent amongst certain professions maybe because they are necessary to deal with the subject matter..
Also I think that his test is meaningful. Selective mating amongst similar people- not so much.

Alain,

Orac’s blog is not peer-reviewed. Why do you swallow it hook, line and sinker?

My evidence is mechanistic which matches reality that people can verify for themselves in their own personal experience.
Unlike your “epidemiological evidence” that is uncontrolled, with misinterpreted statistics, disconnected from reality, and uses “tricky statistics” as Dr. Cunningham explains in the British Medical Journal below:
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-6
My published articles are NOT based on MY original laboratory research. So no peer-review is required.
Researchers who admit that they are clueless about the cause of food allergies, asthma, autism, diabetes, how vaccines work, etc. are NOT qualified to perform ANY peer review including the review of my work.
And peer review itself is broken. Article below by Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal.
Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420798/
So, every article must be judged on its own merits. The rotten “peer review” system gave us unsafe vaccines that have sickened a generation of children with an epidemic of non-communicable diseases.

My evidence is mechanistic which matches reality that people can verify for themselves in their own personal experience.

Erm, no. You don’t have “evidence” you have what could charitably be described as a “hypothesis”, real, verifiable evidence would come in the form of well designed, repeatable experiments not “personal experience” a.k.a anecdotes (and neither the plural nor singular of anecdote is “data”) or in the most charitable light I can put them they could be considered a case report, which sit right at the bottom of the established hierarchy of clinical evidence. Which is not to say they are never useful but they have to be viewed within the context of their numerous limitations. They have no controlled conditions, they aren’t typically repeatable and so on.

However it would appear that in your mind the fact that you haven’t done any experimental verification of your “mechanistic evidence” and no-one is actually a good thing and somehow makes it more solid rather than the other way around? To paraphrase out illustrious host ‘I don’t think “science” means what you think it does’

My published articles are NOT based on MY original laboratory research. So no peer-review is required.

Well certainly Peer Review is not “required” for your “articles” but no-one is saying that it is – people are pointing out that the lack of peer review leaves their credibility at a severe disadvantage to studies that are.

The whole foundation for your argument appears to essentially be “because I said so”, and when people have the temerity to question your pronouncements you just keep pointing them back to the same assertions and act confused why people are no more convinced.

Peer review has it’s problems certainly but it’s leagues ahead of proof by assertion which is all you have to offer.

So, every article must be judged on its own merits.

Indeed.. and the merits of yours have been judged and found wanting.

Engineers live “outside” the medical box. So “thinking outside the box” comes naturally. Most medical researchers seem to be stuck in the rut of epidemiological studies.

Your whole “I’m not educated or qualified in the medical field at all and this makes me better” spiel is hilarious. I take it that if someone were to produce a car with the promoted USP being that it was completely designed, manufactured and tested by someone with zero education or experience in the car industry you would be first in line?

“You don’t have “evidence””

Wrong. How do you know if I have evidence or not when you refuse to read my articles because they are not “peer reviewed”?

If you want to challenge the evidence I provide, read, understand and challenge the specifics with relevant citations.

“I take it that if someone were to produce a car with the promoted USP being that it was completely designed, manufactured and tested by someone with zero education or experience in the car industry you would be first in line?”

Car designers understand how cars work. Vaccine designers DON’T understand how vaccines work. Why do you use such horrible vaccines then?

Drs. Pulendran and Ahmed of the Emory Vaccine Center write:
“Despite their success, one of the great iro-nies of vaccinology is that the vast majority of vaccines
have been developed empirically, with little or no understanding of the immunological mechanisms by
which they induce protective immunity. However, the failure to develop vaccines against global
pandemics such as infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) despite decades of effort has
underscored the need to understand the immunological mechanisms by which vaccines confer
protective immunity.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21739679

Wrong. How do you know if I have evidence or not when you refuse to read my articles because they are not “peer reviewed”?

I actually have</> read your articles, and sure enough no evidence to be found, just proposed mechanisms and assertions. I don’t “refuse to read them because they are not peer reviewed”, I just deduct an appropriate (significant) amount of credibility from them as a result. Add in that you have no education, experience, credentials or track record in any form of medical science, or even anything even tangentially related and you aren’t left with enough credibility to even register. This is not a made for TV movie, and you are not the plucky outsider who stumbled on the Great Answer through pluckiness and sheer gumption and you have this whole heartwarming arc where the establishment doesn’t recognize your genius but you are vindicated in the end and cheesy piano music plays as the credits start to roll.

Drs. Pulendran and Ahmed of the Emory Vaccine Center write [snip]

Nice cherry-picking from the abstract there, especially given the whole point of that paper is about how the subject of how vaccines and the immune system interact has been extensively researched over the preceding decade (paper was published in 2011) and that as a result vaccinologists now have a much better understanding of how vaccines work and have been using that knowledge to further improve vaccine design and development but I suppose “they didn’t know much about how vaccines worked but now they do” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it for you does it?

Orac’s blog is not peer-reviewed.

Agreed. Do you have an issue with that?

Why do you swallow it hook, line and sinker?

That is some very loaded assumptions in there. Asking for peer reviewed evidence never meant that I swallow this blog, hook line and sinker?

Second, I have the right to like the blog. Is that a problem?

Third, I am a scientist; ergo, I have the right to call for peer-reviewed evidence.

Alain

Ok. That will cost you 150$ per hour of peer-review done payment of 3500$ in advance before any works begin.

Alain

“My published articles are NOT based on MY original laboratory research. So no peer-review is required.”

Except that it is. Do you really think that review articles, meta-analyses, & so on are published without peer review? For those of us who aspire to publication in good quality journals, a robust peer review process is very definitely par for the course.

Ha. All my review articles and commentaries are so good they should be published withour peer review.

Trouble is those pesky reviewers like driving battleships through the holes in my arguments and I have to go and tidy them up.

“Evidence-based medicine can’t completely explain the etiology of some diseases or cure them, so as an untrained observer I’m free to make stuff up” is not the definition of “mechanistic”.

It’s deranged.

Why are more sensitive to folate receptor ? why you cannot answer this simple question ? I am repeating, because you are.

“Why are more sensitive to folate receptor ?”

No, people develop allergy to ANY milk protein that is injected. So mostly they develop milk allergy.
If they develop allergy to folate receptor protein, they develop autism. So autism is just a special case of milk allergy.

Milk allergy occurs in about 2-7.5% of people. Autism 1 in 59.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2083222/

Autism Spectrum Disorders: A special case of vaccine-induced cow’s milk allergy?
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1034556

folate receptor proteins in cow’s milk

You don’t understand why this is yet more gibberish, do you?

If it’s not casein then why have you been beating the casein drum for the past year + here? And let’s be real a minute: if cow milk allergies caused autism, then it would have been obvious a millennia ago (because even oral consumption of an allergen can cause a systemic reaction). Given that the retention of lactose tolerance into adulthood has arisen 3 separate times in the human species in the past 10,000 years, your “idea” is without merit.

Vaccines do not cause autism. Vaccines prevent disease.

You have no data, no lab work, no studies, nothing but statements without substance.

My comment is about folate receptor overexpression.. Check how many folate receptor a cells in milk have, and how many of these end up vaccines.
Cow milk does cause autism. Why would boys be more sensitive ? Your throry must explain autism prevalence.

“Check how many folate receptor a cells in milk have, and how many of these end up vaccines.”

Cells or not, folate receptor proteins are present in milk.

Folate and folate-binding protein content in dairy products.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9161916

Is it not funny that these basic questions (folate receptor protein content of vaccines) have not been answered during vaccine design and BEFORE vaccine approval? That’s the problem. The vaccine regulators don’t not care about non-target protein contamination of vaccines. That is why Pandemrix caused narcolepsy. That is why milk contaminated vaccines cause autism. That is why food protein contaminated vaccines cause food allergy. That is why animal protein contaminated vaccines cause autoimmune disorders.

Why would boys be more sensitive ?
Even though it is an irrelevant question, I already answered that gender affects immune response.

Narad, I’m starting to think that vinu doesn’t actually understand what a receptor is.

The two links you posted are to articles written by you. Zenodo is an open data repository. Anyone can create an account and post there. And your two articles haven’t been peer reviewed. In short, they are just your opinion, not proof.

Vinu links to opinions by Vinu as if they were fact? It is nice to see some things never change.

@Orac

A Vinu break? Probably a good idea, he’s a stuck record wrapped up in big old Dunning-Kruger blanket and it’s getting so very tedious.

I know. I let his comments through because he’s sometimes a nice chew toy for the regular commenters, but inevitably he always pushes the limits, comments more and more (and more repetitively), and finally becomes a nuisance. I think a break for at least a few days is advisable. I’ll decide later.

I do get tired too and given his challenge out of me to do his peer-review, I doubt he’ll cobble up the pony to pay me to do it.

Alain

@vinu Your citation is not relevant. Folate uptake upregulates folate receptors, which is moderately obvious. Somebody with issues of folate should reduce folate uptake, which is obvious.
You should really answer this: A theory should explain all facts. Autism prevalence is 4 boys to 1 girl. Genetic theory can explain this, so it can be true. Folate theory cannot, so it must be false.
Unnaturalness is no answer: why boys react more strongly to unnatural things ?

@vinu “Peer review is broken”. Perhaps reviewers ask you what is concentration of folate receptors in regulated milk. You answered that either.

@vinu Another thing that a peer reviewer could notice: Does nanograms of casein cause any immune effect at all, expect in the of case of hypersensitivity. Reaction depends on dose, you know.
Why is autism gender difference irrelevant ? It is one facts you must explain. You mentioned helmints and lactation. Small girls does not lactate, and boys and girls require equal helminth defense. If I forget one of your ad hoc hypothesis, you can repeat it.

@vinu You confuse folate binding protein with folate receptor. I am shocked. Besides, I asked you to check concentration, not existence.

Folate-binding Protein Is a Marker for Ovarian Cancer
http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/51/19/5329.short

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ijc.21712
It is used interchangeably.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/folate-binding-protein
“Despite being a rather recent evolutionary occurrence, Folr1 (originally termed folate receptor alpha in humans and folate binding protein 1 in mice) constitutes an essential gene for mice. “

It is used interchangeably.

I understand that there has been talk of a temporary sequestration. Please?

“(paper was published in 2011)”

Most vaccines on the schedule were released before 2011. And even the package inserts declare that the mechanism of the vaccine function is unknown.

motosubatsu,
“now have a much better understanding of how vaccines work”

Nope, still speculating.
SHINGRIX is one of the latest vaccines introduced.
https://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/ApprovedProducts/UCM581605.pdf

“The risk of developing herpes zoster (HZ) increases with age and appears to be related to a
decline in VZV-specific immunity. SHINGRIX was shown to boost VZV-specific immune
response, which is thought to be the mechanism by which it protects against zoster disease [see
Clinical Studies (14)].”

“appears to”, “thought to be” speculation?
Julian, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

I’m against suppressing Vinu’s clarifications.

News flash: I think most would favor bringing the banhammer down on your useless head once and for all.

Narad writes,

I think most would favor bringing the banhammer down on your useless head once and for all.

MJD says,

Violent words that add nothing to the discussion, Narad.

Orac politely asked,

What does everyone think of a Vinu break for a while?

I’m grateful that Vinu shares his viewpoint on vaccine safety here at RI.

@ Vinu,

Be careful of Orac’s twenty-five rule. That is, if you stay under 25 comments per post he can’t/won’t energize you into outer space.

Vinu’s made 36 comments so far, oops!

MJD says,

Violent words that add nothing to the discussion, Narad.

I would like a plebiscite.

@MJD

Repeating the same thing ad infinitum is not the same thing as a clarification. I would have thought you would have known that but given you’ve got form for doing exactly the same perhaps not.

Be careful of Orac’s twenty-five rule. That is, if you stay under 25 comments per post he can’t/won’t energize you into outer space

It’s so cute when you pretend to speak for Orac.

Aarno,

“Does nanograms of casein cause any immune effect at all, expect in the of case of hypersensitivity. Reaction depends on dose, you know.”

Thanks for bringing up dosage.

Before ANYTHING is allowed in a vaccine, a safe dose must be established.
Could you please show us the studies used to estimate the safe dose of casein/folate receptor proteins allowed in vaccines? Well, you can’t. No such studies have been performed to derive a safe dose for those proteins. So today’s vaccines are unsafe by definition. No one did the homework to prove the safety of vaccine ingredients before design/approval of these vaccines.

Boys vs. girls:
FACT 1 : Injected proteins cause the development of allergy to that protein.
FACT 2 : Boys have higher allergy prevalence rate than girls.

Are you going to dispute Fact 1 because we don’t know the cause for fact 2?
I hope not. In the same manner, you cannot reject the mechanism for autism I described just because we cannot explain the difference in prevalence rates.

You wrote:

https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2018/05/07/autism-prevalence-increases-antivaxers-blame-vaccines/#comment-395098

“Small girls does lactate”

Now you write:

“Small girls does not lactate”

You need to make up your mind.

“boys and girls require equal helminth defense.”

Due to fact 2 above, we KNOW they don’t have equal helminth defense.

“expect in the of case of hypersensitivity.”

We ARE talking about hypersensitivity here.

The dose of allergen required to elicit a reaction is greater than the dose required to sensitize (IgE mediated).

http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2329-6631.1000137

Since we know that nanogram level protein elicited anaphylaxis, they are more than enough to cause IgE mediated sensitization.

More boys vs. girls:

FOXP3+ Treg Cells and Gender Bias in Autoimmune Diseases

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585344/

“Hence, it is significantly important to take sex-based differences into consideration when exploring the role of Treg cells in human illnesses and development of Treg cell therapies for treating autoimmune diseases.”

Foxp3 Treg cells play a major role in allergic disease too.

Foxp3 expressing regulatory T-cells in allergic disease.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20429425

So clearly, there are mechanisms that are gender dependent which can explain difference in allergy and autism rates.

Are we speaking about allergy or autism ? Or do you think that autism is food allergy ?
I of course meant “small girls do not lactate”.
Meanwhile, you have not tell us what is folate receptor concentration in cow milk, or better in casein used in growth mediums.
My immunology textbook states that 100 nanograms of bovine serum albumin elicits B cell reaction. This is not full immune reaction, because T cells are not involved. Casein is quite similar. If you have a better number, you can quote it.
Vaccines need adjuvant, because immune reaction to main component is without it is too weak. There is allergy desensitation therapy, which involves injecting allergens. How would this work if any amount of allergen is dangerous?
Hypersensitivity is not a normal condition. You must explain how a normal person gets hypersensitivity, so you must start with normal reaction. Or say that it is genetic.
There are of course boatloads of vaccine safety studies. Just check Google Scholar.

@vinu “we must take gender difference in account” is not same as gender difference is 4 boys to one girl.
And do boys have more helminths than girls ?

Aarno,

“Are we speaking about allergy or autism ? Or do you think that autism is food allergy ?”

Autism is a special case of milk allergy. Let’s look at bovine casein vs. bovine folate receptor (FR) sequence:
Inject casein + aluminum adjuvant -> IgE mediated sensitization to casein (allergy) -> Exposure to casein via oral immunotherapy results in casein specific IgG4 induction (desensitization) -> Esophagal exposure to casein results in IgG4 mediated eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) -> avoiding oral casein exposure reduces casein specific-IgG4 -> Improves EoE.

Inject FR + aluminum adjuvant -> IgE mediated sensitization to FR (mild allergy*) -> Exposure to FR due to consuming milk causes FR specific IgG4 induction (desensitization) -> Bovine FR specific IgG4 cross reacts with human FR, blocks folate uptake resulting in cerebral folate deficiency and autism -> avoiding oral FR exposure reduces FR specific-IgG4 -> Improves autism.

*FR allergy is mild because FR concentration in cow’s milk is 1000X less than casein.

Details: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1034556

“I of course meant “small girls do not lactate”.”

The thymus shrinks in adulthood. So one can expect that T cells with TCR specific to human FR are selected in the thymus of girls in higher numbers (than in boys) to produce better protection against FR autoimmunity (via FR specific Tregs), during adulthood.

“Meanwhile, you have not tell us what is folate receptor concentration in cow milk, or better in casein used in growth mediums.”

Factors influencing levels of folate-binding protein in bovine milk

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958694604000421

“There was considerable variation between cows in levels of total FBP (2.9–11.1 μg mL−1) …”

“My immunology textbook states that 100 nanograms of bovine serum albumin elicits B cell reaction. This is not full immune reaction, because T cells are not involved. Casein is quite similar. If you have a better number, you can quote it.
Vaccines need adjuvant, because immune reaction to main component is without it is too weak.”

100 ng with or without adjuvant? Reliable B cell response in every individual? How many injections?
With adjuvant, the allergen quantity required for immune response can be reduced. Further reduction in allergen quantity will result in fewer individuals who respond. 8-18ng/ml of casein in vaccines results in 5-15% of children developing milk allergy. FR quantity is much less hence 1-2% develop autism. And remember milk allergy severity depends on IgE level which is a function of the quantity of milk protein in the vaccine and number of vaccines. Autism severity depends on that as well as IgG4 level which is a function of the amount of milk in the diet.

“There is allergy desensitation therapy, which involves injecting allergens. How would this work if any amount of allergen is dangerous?”

As noted above, this works by inducing allergen specific IgG4 in people who are already sensitized. Inducing IgG4 is not a cure.
It is modifying the disease from one state to another. As you know, IgG4/IgE are involved in helminth defense. In allergy, the immune system has been trained to treat allergen proteins as helminth proteins. Low IgG4/IgE ratio means mild helminth infection, aggressive immediate immune response. High IgG4/IgE ratio means strong helminth infection, scaled back, long term immune response (equivalent to desensitization) to avoid host damage due to aggressive immune response.

“Hypersensitivity is not a normal condition. You must explain how a normal person gets hypersensitivity, so you must start with normal reaction. Or say that it is genetic.”

Hypersensitivity SUSCEPTIBILITY has increased in children today due to lack of helminth infections, sub-optimal gut microbiome due to c-section birth or antibiotic use. Specific hypersensitivity against an allergen develops easily in this population when you inject foreign proteins into them.
When you inject influenza proteins by influenza vaccine, even non-allergic subjects develop IgE mediated sensitization directed against influenza proteins.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1365-3083.2005.01710.x

“There are of course boatloads of vaccine safety studies.”

There are no studies that have covered FR antibodies pre/post vaccination with cow’s milk contaminated vaccines.

4:1 boys/girls ratio

I can use your own argument against you.
Can the genetic theory of autism predict exactly why it is 4:1? Why are boy’s genes so bad?
You need men to sire children you know?

Hundreds of genes have been associated with autism. How do 1 in 59 develop genetic defects in the same set of genes? How do these genetic defects explain the induction of IgG4 against bovine FR in ~75% of autism patients?

FBP same as FR alpha:

http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P02702

Protein namesi
Recommended name:
Folate receptor alpha
Short name:
FR-alpha
Alternative name(s):
Folate receptor 1
Folate-binding protein 1
Short name:
FBP
Milk folate-binding protein

Why you cannot answer a simple question: what is folate receptor concentration in regulated milk ?
Thymus actually grows until child is ten years and there are no gender differences.
Folate binding protein and folate receptor is not same thing. Folate binding protein in milk is folate carrier protein,.
You throw in lots of numbers of casein immunochemistry. From your hat, of course. Cite experiments.
Gist of my argument was that main component of the vaccine, with concentration higher than nanograms, does not mount immunoresponse without adjuvant. Why would nanograms of casein be different ?
You yourself admit that desensitation works. So why would small amounts of casein be harmful ?
You do not admit that hypersensitivity is genetic. So everyone must have normal immune system before bogeyman hits. You should prove that vaccines (or it is c section now) destroys a normal immune system. Throwing statements is not a proof.
You do not know even concentration of folate receptor in regulated milk. Why would anybody be interested doing safety studies ?
Antibody against bovine folate receptor is not same as autoantibody against human one. And there is no reference, of course.
Human has about 30000 genes. Say that 300 of them cause autism separately. This would give ballpark estimate of one procent. Hemophilia is a classic example of genetic disease that affects only males. Sex chromosomes are culprit. Y defect affects only males, and in case of X defect women are protected, because they have double copy of genes. So genetic theory can explain gender difference, and folate receptor theory cannot.
One of names of folate receptor used to be folate binding protein 1. There are many different folate binding proteins.

Aarno Syvänen asks,

You yourself admit that desensitation works. So why would small amounts of casein be harmful ?

MJD says,

Vinu is on Orac’s auto-moderation radar for graciously answering numerous minion questions. Now, you subject Vinu to many more interesting questions?

@ Vinu,

Allow me to answer Aarno’s question described above.

Answer: Immune predisposition, timing, frequency, intensity, and type of exposure.

In simplification, small amounts of casein may be harmful if the adaptive immune system recognizes it as an allergen.

Perhaps vinucube could also “explain” why NMDAR is 4:1 females to males.

Answer: Immune predisposition, timing, frequency, intensity, and type of exposure.

Christ, nuke it from orbit.

A wall of text.
One self-cite which you have already used before.
One Letter to the Editor which ends:

Our study supports the view that influenza vaccination is a safe procedure and the involvement of IgE probably does not have a direct adverse effect in this context. There may even be a beneficial role for IgE by initiating a rapid local inflammatory response quickly recruiting lymphocytes and by modulating the immune response.

In short, it doesn’t support your argument.
Orac, I support putting vinu into time out.

Julian,

“IgE probably does not have a direct adverse effect”

“probably” is good when it supports your position, otherwise it is not?

“There may even be a beneficial role for IgE by initiating a rapid local inflammatory response”

Yes, this is what the “rapid local inflammatory response” does:

Allergic reactions after egg-free recombinant influenza vaccine: reports to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25428412

And in the British Medical Journal:

Influenza vaccines seem to be modifying influenza disease into a dangerous dengue-like disease
https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-15

Allergic reactions after egg-free recombinant influenza vaccine: reports to the US Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System.

There are multiple things wrong with using that as evidence.
1) VAERS is a passive reporting system. Anyone can report an adverse event. One person was able to enter a report that vaccines turned his son into The Incredible Hulk. Just because an adverse event is reported to VAERS it does not automatically follow that vaccines caused it, or that said adverse event ever happened.
2) “Allergic reactions”. That is not proof that vaccines sensitise people.
As for your BMJ link, it’s another letter written by you. I suspect that as you have done before, you used citations that didn’t say what you claim they say.

“One of names of folate receptor used to be folate binding protein 1.”

Please provide citation as to when such a name change occurred.
According to Uniprot, you are wrong.

“Why you cannot answer a simple question: what is folate receptor concentration in regulated milk ?”
I already provided FBP (which is FR protein) concentration in milk. And any way what use is that information because you don’t know the sensitizing dose for FR in the presence of aluminum adjuvant, and multiple repeated vaccine injections.

“with concentration higher than nanograms, does not mount immunoresponse without adjuvant. ”
We are talking about adjuvanted vaccines, containing milk proteins.

“You yourself admit that desensitation works.”
For desensitization, first you need sensitization. Vaccines sensitize for FR. Milk consumption desensitizes via FR specific IgG4, causing autism .It is straight forward.
I don’t know why you make it complicated.

“So why would small amounts of casein be harmful ?”
Because they sensitize and cause milk allergy, especially with aluminum adjuvant.

“Antibody against bovine folate receptor is not same as autoantibody against human one. ”
Of course it is. You don’t read my references.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2715943/
“Further characterization of the FR autoantibodies from these nine patients showed that the autoantibodies blocked the binding of folate to the FR purified from human placental membranes, human milk, bovine milk, and goat milk with highest cross-reactivity against FR from bovine milk”

“The cross-reactivity of the blocking autoantibodies with antigen from different sources is consistent with the significant homology in the native structure of these proteins. FR is well conserved across species, with more than 90% amino acid sequence homology between human FRα and bovine FRα,15,16 and this could contribute to common antigenic epitopes and cross-reactivity of the autoantibodies. The antibody showed better reactivity with the FR from bovine milk than with the FR from human placenta, human milk, or goat milk, suggesting bovine FR as the likely primary antigen.”

The first of the link dump is apropos of nothing, and I’m not going through the second for the sake of your attenion-whoring ass. You didn’t understand the comment, which is no surprise. I’m talking about you, not to you.

Your UNIPROT citation itself lists folate binding protein 1 as a former name of folate receptor. So name has changed.
There is review of folate binding proteinS: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2166548
You just state that nanograms of casein with adjuvant causes immune response. Your statements are not facts. You should cite an immunokinetic experiment.
Small amounts of injected allergen desensitise hypersentisitive person. They do not sensitise him. So a normal person is surely safe.

@vinu Paper is about milk free diet. A glass of milk has trillion times more milk proteins than a vaccine shot.
What is folate receptor concentration of regulated milk ? About nanograms, probably. Let suppose a. ll of them ends up in casein used for making the growth media. You have yourself showed that pancreatic digest used to make the media reduces casein from grams to nanograms. It would reduce nanograms othf folate receptor to something that does not have even name.

NOT SURE where to put this ( anti-vax)…

Orac’s minions might appreciate AoA’s current post:

Kim embraces tattoo artist/ makeup entrepreneur Kat Von D at whom she had formerly scoffed ( Kat had a lipstick named ‘Celebutard’ which Kim thought offensive)

BUT now Kat is coming out as a pregnant vegan anti-vaxxer** who isn’t exactly thrilled with doctors so I guess she is fine.

Vaccine supporters cleverly created images of lipsticks named after VPDs

so of course Kim hijacks the idea substituting vaccine “injuries” for VPDs.

** Kat worries about vaccines BUT is tattooed and tattoos people using ink I suppose

Who cares about a little aluminum when you’re getting mercury, lead and cadmium!
At least the pigments migrate to the lymph nodes, not the brain!.

” What is most likely happening is that we’re getting better and better at finding and diagnosing autism, including milder cases, to the point where the apparent prevalence of autism (i.e, the number of diagnoses) is starting to converge on the “true” biological prevalence of autism as it is defined today. ”

No sir; I believe that would be literally impossible. The CDC’s ADDM does not use ASD diagnosis to establish prevalence. It uses indicators of impact, from both education & medical sources.

Coincidentally, that third goal of the ADDM: “To understand the impact of ASD in U.S. communities.” Is the one goal that your analysis did not address.

I would further disagree that trends in DCIS diagnosis is an equivocal analogy to trends in ASD diagnosis. The prevalence of DCIS rose due to standards of practice with imaging studies but had been detectable by pathology from biopsy for decades.

Lacking both pathology & imaging diagnostics; ASD was & still is, measured by observations of atypical developmental progress.

The rise in prevalence in DCIS is not due to “better diagnosis”; it’s due to better diagnosTICS.

A final point on the impossibility that we are better at diagnosing autism: The CDC has designated the ADDM to set the consensus for autism diagnosis, since the year 2000. But the ADDM is actually under the MADDSP; which was established in 1991.

MADDSP; had already been setting the consensus for other childhood disabilities, including intellectual disability, for almost a decade before autism was added & there is a marked difference in how intellectual disability & ASD is assessed.

Whether or not clinicians across the US are over or under diagnosing Autism is actually irrelevant. The ADDM re-evaluates every child in their research as defined by their criteria, which will be the most accurate in existence (at least in the US).

I would be intrigued to see your analysis of goal # 3: “To understand the impact of ASD in U.S. communities.”

Christine Kincaid,

The ADDM, from your word, are responsible for defining the consensus of autism diagnosis. Under which criteria do they establishes an autism diagnostic for their purpose?

For disclaimer[1], I am aware of the DSM-5 criteria as well as the ADI-R and ADOS-G as applied in a medical clinic directed by a physician-researcher for whom I did work later on.

[1] == said disclaimer could constitute as a COI but I fail to imagine how so.

Alain

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