autism
oracknows | January 18, 2008Things are crazy now for me, both at home and at work. I mean really, really crazy. So crazy that even I, one of the most verbose bloggers out there, am forced to take two or three days off from my little addiction--I mean habit. Consequently, having foreseen that this time would come around these dates, I, Orac, your benevolent (and, above all verbose) blogger have thought of you, my readers. I realize the cries and lamentations that the lack of fresh material inevitably causes. That, I cannot completely obviate. However, I can ease the pain somewhat, and I can do this by continuing my…
oracknows | January 14, 2008I haven't written before about the tragic case of Katie McCarron, the three year old autistic girl whose mother killed her in May 2006. It's an incredibly sad tale, and others have covered it better. However, the trial started last week, and on Friday there was some testimony that suggests an effect of all the antivaccination fear-mongering that blames autism on either mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines (a contention against which strong evidence was published just last week, to add to all the other studies that show no link between thimerosal and autism) or vaccines in general. Indeed…
oracknows | January 12, 2008Someone sent me a transcript of part of the appearance of Deirdre Imus on her husband's radio show that's been making the rounds in various discussion groups. I'm glad I don't listen to the show, as this segment might have made me take a baseball bat to my radio, if I had enough neurological function to do so after being exposed to the toxic, intelligence-sucking effects of her black hole of ignorance. If you think her two Huffington Post articles that I deconstructed a while back were bad, just listen to her on Imus. Truly, it is hard to do so without losing some brain cells, but give it a…
oracknows | January 10, 2008The other day, I mentioned what Prometheus termed the "arrogance of ignorance," in which people with no training in a complex, scientific issue have the hubris to think that they know enough to be able to lecture medical scientists on shortcomings of their research. Here's another example of just such arrogance by antivaccinationist Barbara Loe Fisher:
As usual, it is not the M.D. or Ph.D. "experts" but parents of vaccine injured children, who understand the bigger picture involving accumulating clinical evidence that many children are regressing and becoming chronically ill after receiving…
sporte | January 9, 2008The New England Journal of Medicine published a study yesterday showing that small changes in the DNA in the long arm of chromosome 16 are associated with autism.
I met a teenager with autism last summer, when I attended family night at the Seattle Park and Rec summer camp program for kids with special needs. It's a fantastic program. The kids spend a week or more at summer camp and the parents get some much needed time off.
I sat down on a log and my daughter (one of the counselors) introduced to me a boy in her cabin and told me that he's interested in trains. Since I rode a train for…
oracknows | January 8, 2008I've pointed out before how MotheringDotCom and its associated discussion forums are supportive havens for the worst antivaccinationists, HIV/AIDS denialists, and anti-amalgam wingnuts, which is one reason why I do not recommend them for any parent as a source of health information. So, out of curiosity, before I move on to other topics tomorrow, I was curious what the reaction on the MDC discussion boards was to the study by Schechter and Grether yesterday that provided strong evidence against a link between the mercury in thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and autism/autism spectrum…
oracknows | January 8, 2008A little more than three months ago there came to pass a very bad day for antivaccinationists.
On that day, in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine appeared a study that was powerful evidence that vaccines are not associated with adverse neuropsychiatric outcomes in children. Not surprisingly, the usual suspects in the mercury militia went on the attack immediately, not wanting to believe that yet another strong piece of evidence was attacking their hallowed belief that mercury in the thimerosal preservative previously used in vaccines is a major cause or contributer to the…
purepedantry | January 7, 2008About a month ago, I posted about a paper in Child Neurology that was correcting a previous paper that looked at the relationship between mercury and autism. The original paper, Ip et al. 2004, was a case control study that compared the levels of mercury in hair samples from children with autism as opposed to children without. The 2004 paper showed that there was no statistically significant difference in mercury content.
DeSoto and Hitlan showed that the p-value for the 2004 paper was improperly computed. Further, they argue that using new corrected data -- published in an erratum by…
oracknows | January 7, 2008Pity the investigators at the CDC studying whether thimerosal, the mercury-containing preservative pilloried by the antivaccination movement as the cause of autism and everything that is evil in medicine. Three months ago, they published a high profile article in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled Early Thimerosal Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes at 7 to 10 Years, which, as had so many large studies before it, failed to find any correlation between thimerosal-containing vaccines (TCVs) and neuropsychological problems in children. True, it didn't specifically look at autism (…
oracknows | January 2, 2008...and he gets it right here.
If only someone with some sanity could actually sit down with Trump, as portrayed in the post above.
oracknows | January 2, 2008Any Oklahoma City skeptics out there reading this?
I just found an event that could use the presence of some actual science-minded individuals to refute the nonsense that's going to be there. It's an event called Educate Before You Vaccinate, and it's happening on January 19.
Looking at the pamphlet advertising the event, I see the standard antivaccination lies about vaccines causing autism and some really dumb pseudoscientific blather about how a "genetic epidemic" of autism is impossible. The keynote speaker will be April Renée, keynote speaker for Vaccine Injured Children (VIC) and…
oracknows | January 2, 2008Although this may be more up Abel Pharmboy's alley than mine, there was an article in the New York Times yesterday that indirectly demolished one of the favorite claims of advocates of "natural" medicines and cures. Appropriately enough, it appeared in the Business section. It also demonstrated just what a big business finding natural compounds with therapeutic properties.
The story opens with a description of Chris Kilham, ethnobotanist, a man who's searched the world for medicinal plants:
Part David Attenborough, part Indiana Jones, Mr. Kilham, an ethnobotanist from Massachusetts who calls…
oracknows | December 31, 2007Perhaps I spoke too soon when I said that 2007 finished on a good note.
I never would have chosen mercury militia recruit Jenny McCarthy as a "woman who inspires us." Let's see. Just because she decided to make claims that she could "cure" her son of autism and that vaccines caused it does not constitute a reason to be "inspired" by her, unless scientific ignorance inspires you.
oracknows | December 31, 2007What better way to finish off 2007 than to look at a most amusing judicial ruling on the admissibility of some of the favorite "expert" witnesses trotted out to try to demonstrate a link between mercury in vaccines and autism. It was issued on December 21 in the case of Blackwell v. Sigma Aldrich, Inc. et al. (Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Case No. 24-C-04-004829). As you might expect, this is a case in which the plaintiffs claimed that their son's autism was caused by thimerosal-containing vaccines.
Kathleen Seidel, as usual, has the details, but I can't resist grabbing a few tidbits…
oracknows | December 29, 2007As if Jenny McCarthy weren't enough stupidity in pushing the alleged "link" between vaccines and autism, it looks as though Donald Trump has joined the fray on the side of pseudoscience:
In an interview with Palm Beach Politics, Donald Trump offered a controversial opinion on a new topic: autism. The New York-Palm Beach real estate mogul is no doctor, but he said he thinks the rising prevalence of autism is related to vaccinations given to children at a young age.
Autism now affects 1 in 150 children, a sharp increase from a few decades ago.
But whether vaccinations have anything to do with…
oracknows | December 26, 2007The whole post-Christmas thing left me without time to do anything other than a couple of brief bits. Consequently, given Deirdre Imus' two recent appearances on the Huffington Post, I thought it would be as good a time as any to resurrect this post from June 27, 2005. For those of you who haven't been regular readers that long (and I'm guessing that's most of you), this should be a good primer about why I consider the Huffington Post to have been a bastion of antivaccination misinformation and propaganda since its very inception. With the exception of Arthur Allen's occasional posts, the…
oracknows | December 26, 2007While I'm recharging a bit from the Christmas festivities yesterday to the point where soon I'll be able to write a substantive post, full of the Respectful Insolence⢠and science or medicine that readers have come to expect, here's something to amuse (I hope).
On Sunday, I wrote a not-so-respectfully insolent takedown of a truly mendacious Huffington Post article by antivaccinationist and card-carrying member of the mercury militia, Deirdre Imus, wife of washed up shock jock Don Imus. In essence, while deconstructing her misinformation about the alleged dangers of vaccination, I also…
oracknows | December 23, 2007I've mentioned before that it irritates me that Don Imus is back on the air. It's not that I give a rodent's posterior that he made an offensive comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team that lead to his being fired from his previous gig. It's actually more because he somehow managed to displace the radio show that I usually listened to on my way to work in the morning (and in my office on mornings when I didn't have any clinical responsibilites), Curtis & Kuby, which may have been getting a little bit long in the tooth but was still usually far more entertaining on its worst day…
oracknows | December 13, 2007There's been a bit of bad news on the vaccination front:
ATLANTA - More than a million doses of a common vaccine given to babies as young as 2 months were being recalled Wednesday because of contamination risks, but the top U.S. health official said it was not a health threat.
The recall is for 1.2 million doses of the vaccine for Hib, which protects against meningitis, pneumonia and other serious infections, and a combination vaccine for Hib and hepatitis B. The vaccine is recommended for all children under 5 and is usually given in a three-shot series, starting at 2 months old.
Drug maker…
oracknows | December 8, 2007Sorry, but I can't help but feel a bit of schadenfreude over this. Chelationist extraordinaire Dr. Rashid Buttar is, it would appear, in a bit of trouble:
A Huntersville doctor is facing charges of unprofessional conduct.
Dr. Rashid Buttar's alternative medicine clinic treats autism patients from the around the country, but tonight there are questions about his treatment of cancer patients.
The North Carolina Medical Board's allegations are spelled out in a 10 page document.
They could ultimately lead to the revocation of Dr. Buttar's medical license.
He is accused of offering therapies that…