Vaccination & epidemic

[TheMercenary]

Glad you edited that. How dare you call us that.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Tiki

I don't think there is a single thing wrong with viewing ADHD or Aspergers as variation on normal rather than as diagnosable disorders, but you have to admit that replying on accurate self-reporting and excluding the only metropolitan area in the state could have a major effect on the survey, which for these reasons I cannot consider a valid study.

They addressed the concern in the study's methodology anyway: they used the exact same questions and parental-reporting standards that the CDC uses for their overall incidence statistics. I don't know what problem they saw with the county they thought was abnormal, but they provided the numbers with it both included and excluded, and the difference was still there.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That covers the overview and (partially) one of the studies, what of the other 19?

You have to remember to distinguish between three suspected problems: thimerosal, the MMR vaccine without thimerosal, and the overly-aggressive vaccination schedule in general.

The majority of the studies are on only thimerosal, which is basically a moot point by now, because most countries have removed it from almost all childhood vaccines anyway. But if you're truly interested (which, no offense, but I suspect you actually aren't, because you don't have a kid in the game)--this book systematically debunks the methodologies used in each of the studies you are referencing. They range anywhere from using bad data to deliberately altering the survey parameters four different times until they could come up with a result they liked. I can't cite all of the information in it, because it's a book's worth of information. But as one example, an often-cited study from Britain showed that after thimerosal was removed from vaccines in the UK, new autism cases continued to rise. However, looking at the data shows that they were counting newly diagnosed cases, including children who were 3 years and older--meaning they'd had the shots. If you separate the data by birth year rather than when they were diagnosed--the exact same data set that this study used, not a new survey--there was a clear downtick in the number of cases after they removed the thimerosal. (And yet, again, it obviously did not end autism altogether--even the anti-thimerosal advocates agree that it was just one contributing factor, not a silver bullet. If you are being stoned to death, which one stone is the one that kills you?)

[Undertoad]

The majority of the studies are on only thimerosal

7 of the 20.

this book systematically debunks the methodologies used in each of the studies you are referencing

Really. How many of the 20. A majority? More than 7?

I suspect you actually aren't, because you don't have a kid in the game

No offense, but it's precisely because I don't have a kid in the game that I can be brutally objective in a way that you cannot. I could admit both that some of what Jinx said had a basis... and that telephone surveys taken by minimum wage slaves calling a bunch of people in Oregon, don't produce as reliable studies as scientists writing peer-reviewed articles do.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Really. How many of the 20. A majority? More than 7?

Skimming back through, I count six pro-thimerosal studies that the book presents the methodological problems with, as well as three anti-thimerosal. I also count at least 12 MMR studies discussed, both for and against. It's harder to identify those just skimming through, because they're separated by the biological problems caused by the measles virus itself, and the studies regarding widespread use of vaccines, so some are referenced twice.

Originally Posted by Undertoad

No offense, but it's precisely because I don't have a kid in the game that I can be brutally objective in a way that you cannot. I could admit both that some of what Jinx said had a basis... and that telephone surveys taken by minimum wage slaves calling a bunch of people in Oregon, don't produce as reliable studies as scientists writing peer-reviewed articles do.

What, you think when the CDC does a study they get the executives hunkered down for an all-nighter on the phone banks? The phone survey I linked to was performed by a professional survey company, and the study designers were very specific in using the exact same methods that the CDC uses for every step of the way, so the final numbers could be compared to the national incidence rates that the CDC reports.

You can't be brutally objective in a way I cannot unless you're looking at the same data I'm looking at. PM me your address, I'll send you a copy of the book. Or get it from your library; that's where I got my first copy, because I used to roll my eyes at people just like me, and didn't want to give some quack any of my money. But I did want to know about several other things he talks about that are unrelated to vaccines--which, for what it's worth, my kid is living proof of his credibility in that department. Read the book, and let us all know what your conclusions are.

In the end, it won't matter a bit whether I convince you, or anyone else on this particular forum, because the problem is rapidly becoming a crisis. 1 in 90 boys is now autistic. The rate of new cases is growing at 10% a year; i.e. it's accelerating. People like me and jinx don't matter, but every time a doctor's kid gets autism, every time a lawmaker's kid gets autism, shit starts getting done. Did you know, incidentally, that the guy who wrote the book I've linked, the doctor who is successfully treating my son--he used to be an ER surgeon? Then his child was diagnosed with autism, and his wife started researching all this crazy nonsense on the internet. Being a doctor, he set out to disprove her with sound medical science, and ended up finding more information than he was prepared for, and ultimately abandoning his ER career to treat autistic children instead. We've just got to hit critical mass, we just need one prominent lawmaker to have a child diagnosed with autism, and then everything will change.

[Flint]

I have made joking comments in this thread, but this is not one of them. And this is not a trolling or shit-stirring comment either, but rather a product of my natural curiosity and Devil's Advocacy. The question is: are there actually more cases of Autism, as opposed to more diagnoses of Autism?

[Aliantha]

Exactly my thought Flint.

If a child is undiagnosed, then no one ever asks how it happened, but when they are, people ask questions.

When we get bad news, we always want someone or something to blame for it.

[Undertoad]

I will get the book.

Last year, no one in my family was autistic. Now FIVE of us are.

What changed?

I can't seem to find any information on the company that actually did the statistical interpretation on that survey. Anybody else find that?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Flint

The question is: are there actually more cases of Autism, as opposed to more diagnoses of Autism?

The book covers that too. There is no question that these children with the autism diagnosis have a developmental delay: they do not meet the criteria for entrance into kindergarten, and they wouldn't have met them 20 years ago either. (With Asperger's or ADHD, the lines are blurrier, and that's also seen in the fact that those kids aren't usually diagnosed until they're older, and they almost always attend a normal school classroom. But though people talk about "autism spectrum disorders," "autism" is still an actual diagnosis in and of itself, and as I mentioned, anyone who has actually lived with an autistic child would laugh at the idea that someone who behaved this way could ever go undiagnosed. Nor would the schools pay all the extra money to have them in a special education classroom if there was any chance they could be mainstreamed.) So then the question becomes, if there are only more diagnoses of autism today, then decades ago they must have been diagnosed as something else. So you would expect to find an equivalent decrease in the diagnoses of things like mental retardation, pathological speech delay, etc. There hasn't been one.

[Flint]

Well, well, well. Your book is kicking my ass. I guess I missed the distinction between Autism "spectrum" and Autism. You know, I've been told I'm Asperger's, but I wouldn't have known that before I knew what that was. What I was thinking was: the day I figured it out, there wasn't "another" case of Asperger's. There was the same amount as before. And I think, actually, Asperger's has become a "popular" diagnosis. That doesn't (necessarily) mean that people have physiologically changed, it could just be that we're applying different or more specific labels.

There's tremendous overlap:
http://stanford.wellsphere.com/autis...part-ii/608417

[Aliantha]

I think decades ago (at least over here) they were simply seen as problem children and spent a lot of time being caned.

Originally Posted by Aliantha

I think decades ago (at least over here) they were simply seen as problem children and spent a lot of time being caned.

Yep.