Misleading reports about autism data - Page 17

[stik]

Autism Speaks is a private foundation, and if they are funding research on the autism/vaccine link then they might as well be shoveling donor dollars into a pit and setting them on fire.  They are intentionally and willfully spending money to fund research that scientists know will not lead to any new information about the causes of autism.  

On MDC, I'm not so concerned about the money.  I'm more concerned about the energy and the impact on public health.  These concerns lack scientific basis, and they drive people away from vaccination which increases the risk of dangerous outbreaks of VPDs.  

[Rrrrrachel]

Last time I checked autism speaks had a statement saying that they supported vaccination.

[slmommy]

For those of you who believe that Paul Offit is a menace to society who spends his time rolling in money while fantasizing about infecting tiny babies with neurotoxic pig DNA...

thanks for the imagery

[slmommy]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

Last time I checked autism speaks had a statement saying that they supported vaccination.

I honestly really do not know anything about this org, or similar orgs but I saw on wiki,

Quote:

Autism Speaks supports research in four main areas:^[7]

• Etiology includes genetic and environmental factors that may cause autism. This research includes searches for autism susceptibility genes, animal models for autism, environmental toxins, maternal viral infections, and vaccine schedules.

....

Autism Speaks believes that vaccines have been shown to be safe for the vast majority of children, and that vaccines are important for preventing serious diseases such as measles and mumps. It recognizes that some individuals may have adverse reactions to, or respond poorly to, vaccines, and advocates research into identifying any subgroups of such individuals and mechanisms behind any such reactions.^[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_Speaks

[Mirzam]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

Last time I checked autism speaks had a statement saying that they supported vaccination.

Austism Speaks is supporting research for the development of pharmaceutical drugs for autism. The only beneficiaries would be the pharmaceutical cartel (as if they need the money).

[slmommy]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/cdc-to-study-vaccines-and_b_837360.html 03/18/11 06:46 PM ET

Also probably not a source some people would like, but just found and read this, I don't know any more to comment further. I would be interested in finding the info from IACC he is citing.

Quote:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to study autism as a possible clinical outcome of immunization, as part of its newly adopted 5-year research agenda for vaccine safety, the agency said on its website.

...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Immunization Safety Office Scientific Agendaindentified the need to research "Neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder (ASD)" as a possible clinical outcome of vaccination.

...

The plan also seeks to deternine if the mercury-based preservative thimerosal is associated with increased risk for "clinically important tics or Tourette syndrome." The CDC cited one study (Thompson, NEJM, 2007), which "found that increasing exposure to mercury from birth to age 7 months was associated with motor and phonic tics in boys," and added that "an association between exposure to thimerosal and tics was found in two earlier studies (Andrews, Pediatrics, 2004; Verstraeten, Pediatrics, 2003)."

...

Meanwhile, the IACC has signaled a shift in research priorities into the causes of autism, moving away from genetic studies in favor of investigating the interaction between genes and environmental factors, which it said could include toxins, biological agents and vaccines.

...

As for vaccines, "Numerous epidemiological studies have found no relationship between ASD and vaccines containing the mercury based preservative thimerosal," the IACC noted. "These data, as well as subsequent research, indicate that the link between autism and vaccines is unsupported by the epidemiological research literature. However, the Institute of Medicine report acknowledged that the existing population-based studies were limited in their ability to detect small susceptible subpopulations that could be more genetically vulnerable to environmental exposures."

Quote:

And, the IACC once again took note that:

Although the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) stressed that the temporal occurrence of this regression and the immunization schedule is not evidence of a causal relationship, regressive autism warrants further research in rigorously defined subsets of ASD. In addition, the NVAC recommended that studies assess whether adverse events following immunization (e.g., fever and seizures) correlate with risk of ASD.

Quote:

Autism has become a "national health emergency," the IACC added.

That federal panel, along with the CDC's Immunization Safety Office, HHS's National Vaccine Advisory Committee, and even the national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) now all support further research into a possible association between autism and immunization.

Edited by slmommy - 4/24/12 at 4:17pm

[Rrrrrachel]

I'm calling my shot: it will never be enough and this issue will never go away, no matter how conclusive the research is people will dismiss it.

[slmommy]

Originally Posted by Rrrrrachel 

I'm calling my shot: it will never be enough and this issue will never go away, no matter how conclusive the research is people will dismiss it.

yeah, i agree to a certain extent, as long as parents are witnessing what they believe is their children being adversely effected by vaccines, science you can punch holes through, and legitimate researchers/drs asking questions and bringing up unanswered issues, with the absence of other answers, yeah i don't think it'll go away.

But I don't think you need worry too much, as far as I have seen the official attitude remains that vax program will be protected at all costs. 

[slmommy]

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500690_162-4086809.html

Quote:

Dr. Bernadine Healy is the former head of the National Institutes of Health, and the most well-known medical voice yet to break with her colleagues on the vaccine-autism question. 

In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Healy said the question is still open. 

"I think that the public health officials have been too quick to dismiss the hypothesis as irrational," Healy said.

....

Healy said: "There is a completely expressed concern that they don't want to pursue a hypothesis because that hypothesis could be damaging to the public health community at large by scaring people. "First of all," Healy said, "I think the public's smarter than that. The public values vaccines. But more importantly, I don't think you should ever turn your back on any scientific hypothesis because you're afraid of what it might show."

As an example, Healy points to the existing vaccine court claims. 

CBS News has learned the government has paid more than 1,300 brain injury claims in vaccine court since 1988, but is not studying those cases or tracking how many of them resulted in autism. 

The branch of the government that handles vaccine court told CBS News: "Some children who have been compensated for vaccine injuries…may ultimately end up with autism or autistic symptoms, but we do not track cases on this basis."

Edited by slmommy - 4/24/12 at 7:14pm

[AbbyGrant]

       Quote:

Originally Posted by slmommy 

I guess it doesn't mean anything to you, put I will just put it out there anyway:

Quote:

One must note that the DSM-IV definition of “autistic disorder” is similar on its face to the VICP’s definitions of “encephalopathy, seizures and sequela.” (83) The VICP’s description of acute encephalopathy for children 18 months of age and older, including “significant decreased level of consciousness,” is consistent with the DSM-IV’s criteria for onset before age 3 of “autistic disorder.” The dimensions of autistic disorder are consonant with the VICP’s detailed description of “decreased level of consciousness”:

1.       Decreased or absent response to environment (responds, if at all, only to loud voice or painful stimuli)

2.       Decreased or absent eye contact (does not fix gaze upon family members or other individuals); or

3.       Inconsistent or absent responses to external stimuli (does not recognize familiar people or things). (84)

In other words, lack of normal eye gaze, impaired social relations, and non-responsiveness to external stimuli are noted in both the DSM-IV autism and VICP encephalopathy classifications as diagnostic criteria. To be sure, the DSM-IV description differs from the VICP description, but DSM-IV “autistic disorder” does not contradict the VICP description of encephalopathy, seizures and sequel.

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pel

That seems to be similar to the way littlest birds put it, and it appears to be paper written by lawyers. If you haven't already you can go to the links I provided about the DSM criteria to see how just having those three symptoms would not qualify one for an "autistic disorder"  diagnosis. 

[stik]

Originally Posted by slmommy 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/cdc-to-study-vaccines-and_b_837360.html 03/18/11 06:46 PM ET

Also probably not a source some people would like, but just found and read this, I don't know any more to comment further. I would be interested in finding the info from IACC he is citing.

This article is over a year old.  I don't know how much has changed since last March, though that isn't enough time to complete a medical research study.  The author of the article, David Kirby, is the author of "Evidence of Harm" which is a book that promoted the thimerosol/autism connection, for which there is also no evidence.  

This page summarizes the IACC's research priorities in the most recent available form:

http://iacc.hhs.gov/strategic-plan/2010/caused_prevented.shtml

Note that vaccinations do show up, but only as a factor that may be affecting sub-populations that have yet to be identified.  The research goal is to try to identify sub-populations in which autism might be linked to immunological challenges which are caused by a bunch of things, of which vaccination is only one.  I have no data to back it up, but my gut says that a lot of people wrote letters and the IACC got leaned on by Congress to the tune of $8 million over the next two years to be spent on something that has the word vaccinations in it so that Congresspeople can point to something that makes their anxious but poorly informed constituents happy.

[stik]

Quote:

The pro-vax community often conteneds the admistration of vax and the time autism is first noted is a coincidence.  One way to confirm or deny this would be to change the schedule - delay it a couple of years.  If the number of parents still claiming their children first display autistic symptoms after a shot remains the same, vaccines might be implicated.  If not, it might be co-incidence.  I do see issues with a very few vaccines (such as pertussis - which, if you want to give it, should be done as an infant, as that is when pertussis is dangerous) - but others are completely moot.  It is irrelevant whether a child receives the mumps vaccine at 12 months or 3 years. 

do not need to spend any more time or money looking at vaccines.  We, as a society, need to let go of the notion of a vaccine-autism link. 

Says you    Clearly a number of people feel differently.  To be honest, I am not 100% convinced research money should go towards the autism/vaccine link - maybe the money would be better spent on looking at other, simpler and cleaner (the vax-autism connection is messy) possibilities.  The pompousness of saying "there is NO autism-vaccine connection, and you people should not worry your little heads about" grates though.  It also isn't working for some of the population. 

Delaying vaccination does not affect autism rates or age of onset - that's been studied too.  It's one of the studies on the ARC page I linked.  

The issue has been studied a bunch of times.  There is no evidence of any connection.  We need to move on to other questions or we will never find the cause.  There could well be something else out there that we could be worrying our pretty little heads about in a far more constructive manner.  If, somewhere out there, there is a preventable cause for autism, I think we should find it.  We've checked on the vaccines - no evidence.  We need to devote the research funding and time to other possibilities.  Otherwise we are spending time and money to confirm the same research that has already been confirmed, multiple times.  The opportunity cost to that is that whatever the real cause is, we have resources that are deliberately devoted to not finding it.  

[littlest birds]

Originally Posted by AbbyGrant 

       Quote:

That seems to be similar to the way littlest birds put it, and it appears to be paper written by lawyers. If you haven't already you can go to the links I provided about the DSM criteria to see how just having those three symptoms would not qualify one for an "autistic disorder"  diagnosis. 

That wasn't my point. 

I don't propose that those three symptoms constitute autism.  It's the other way around.  It looks to me like as long as you don't use the term "autism" that the early signs of autism qualify as vaccine injury.  And all those parents that the doctors are turning away after autistic regressions and telling them they didn't have vaccine reactions?  According to our CDC's definition they should have been considered as such because they WERE exhibiting the legitimate symptoms of:  TA-DA!    vaccine-induced encephalopathy.  Doctors seem to have had NO justification for ruling it out.  My point is that way back when these kids first presented they were presenting with symptoms of vaccine damage.  Why weren't they taken seriously?

I mean if it looks like brain damage and acts like brain damage and it also shows increased incidence with other causes of brain damage (like fetal oxygen deprivation and traumatic births) and you have another confirmed brain damage cause (vaxes) in the room you should take the coincidences pretty seriously. 

And here the medical establishment is basically saying we don't know what autism is but we'll fight like hell to stand our ground on what it isn't.  Not very convincing.  What exactly excludes the possibility that vaccines that can cause encephalopathy can also cause this somewhat more nuanced disorder that "starts out" just the same as encephalopathy but includes additional symptoms?  Everything about my son's symptoms seems pretty much centered on disconnect from environment and people around him--ALL the items in the DSM criteria could plausibly result from damage to the brain's ability to connect.  There's nothing that doesn't fit.  The encephalopathic symptoms indicate the original damage, and the DSM criteria are what life looks like when you try to function with that damage. 

I am not even saying I am 100% convinced of this theory but the pieces fit way too well for it to be written off IMO.

[slmommy]

Originally Posted by AbbyGrant 

That seems to be similar to the way littlest birds put it, and it appears to be paper written by lawyers. If you haven't already you can go to the links I provided about the DSM criteria to see how just having those three symptoms would not qualify one for an "autistic disorder"  diagnosis. 

Yes, it is a law review of VICP. Just because these cases fit VICP requirements, does not rule them out of DSM? 

Quote:

#12 Lassiter (1996) “Respondent argues that Eric’s current behavioral manifestations and mental retardation ‘fit the pattern of autistic spectrum disorders with severe mental retardation.’ Dr. Spiro summarizes: “This child had a [DPT-related febrile] reaction following his DPT booster, but, it is clear that he currently fits into the autistic spectrum disorder with retardation.”

#14 Reitz (1998) “He would bang his head approximately six times and then return to normal. These episodes …[occur] almost daily. Derrick has the cognitive skills of a two or three year old. Although he speaks, he cannot do so in complete sentences. He has behavioral problems due to frustration.  He receives behavioral therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, and speech therapy. He was never the same baby after the third DPT vaccine…He lost milestones and development.”

#16 Freeman (2003) “It was noted at the hearing that Kienan’s neurologic disorder has features that might cause it to be labeled as “atypical autism,” a condition within the category of “autism spectrum disorder.” I note, however, that even assuming that Kienan’s disorder is correctly classified with the “atypical autism” category, that is essentially irrelevant to my ruling concerning the entitlement issue in this case. As Dr. Kinsbourne explained, Kienan’s autistic type features seem to be a result of the brain damage that caused his severe mental retardation. As Dr. Kinsbourne further explained, brain damage is one of the possible caused of autism. Thus, I cannot see why the fact that Kienan’s disorder may fall within the autism spectrum has any substantial relevance to the question of what caused Kienan’s seizure disorder and mental retardation.”

http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1681&context=pelr

[purslaine]

Originally Posted by stik 

Delaying vaccination does not affect autism rates or age of onset - that's been studied too.  It's one of the studies on the ARC page I linked.  

I took a quick look and could not find it.  Repost the link or tell me which post, please.

K.

[Rrrrrachel]

I believe it is this link.

http://www.autismsciencefoundation.org/autismandvaccines.html

Excellent resources, thanks for sharing.

[littlest birds]

And with all that I've said above I also totally agree with there being significant genetic factors of susceptibility.

[Rrrrrachel]

The 70-90% for identical twins vs. 0-10% for fraternal twins stat is some powerful evidence of that!

[slmommy]

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/125/6/1134.full

this one? it's a sample of 1047 kids. 

[Rrrrrachel]

So?