Facts, not Fantasy Blog

I just wanted to pop off a quick not about the Facts, not Fantasy series of blogs. There has been a lot of news to report on that front, especially in the field of the so called doctor that started this whole anti-vax pro-disease fiasco. Not only has he been discredited by ethics groups, but the whole article that started this has been retracted. In addition to this bit of good news, the web page itself has gone through some updates, and now the page detailing many of the lies and distortions told by the pro-disease nutters has received a revamp. Of course, with this latest bit of news, I suppose a small update is in order for that as well.

Another topic that I am handling there is the subject of evolution. In particular, countering the outright lies and distortions that creationists will use. It's not bad enough that "intelligent design" has such a strong grip by sounding pseudo-scientific, but outright young earth creationists are out there in droves. It's not bad enough that they are denying hundreds of years worth of reality based science, but they are trying to force that view on everyone else around them, and invent the most atrocious lies and distortions to try to prop up their lies (I suppose lying is okay, as long as you do it in the name of some imaginary sky fairy). As such, I have dedicated several pages to dismantling their poor logic, and even worse understanding of the world around them. Three of these pages were written by specific scientists and other well educated people, and the thing that I found particularly telling about them is that they are set up to debunk pretty much all the same arguments. it's as if these liars haven't come up with anything substantially new since they realized their fairy tales were in danger. If you want to read up on it though, there is Creationists, Read This; Creationist nonsense (from Scientific American); and 25 Arguments Refuted (from Skeptic Magazine as well as Michael Shermer's book Why People Believe Weird Things).

Anyway, trying to drum up traffic for that site as well.

Autism News

As the father of a child who has been diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder, I tend to keep my eye on scientific literature reagrding the subject. And by scientific literature, I mean actual science, not hare-brained ideas like "mommy sense" or whatever else type of bullshit the likes of Jenny McCarthy and those idiots peddle (which can be decidedly harmful). One of my favorite sites to go to is ScienceDaily. They even have a whole section dedicated to Autism.

So why make a blog entry on this? Well, mostly because I haven't blogged in a while! I have been very busy with numerous things that consume more time than the day offers, and blogging was one of those extra things that just had to be prioritized out. Im sure you know how that goes.

Anyway, I haven't been over to ScienceDaily lately, so I was excited to find out more about the ability to diagnose autism. Sadly, autism is a difficult dissorder to properly and truly diagnose, and it takes quite a while. Which of course leads to the whole confusion and confirmation bias with the vaccine canard. (Just as an aside, I am a dad of an autistic child, and we all vaccinate!) Anyway, here is the article that I found:

Brain Imaging May Help Diagnose Autism

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2010) — Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) process sound and language a fraction of a second slower than children without ASDs, and measuring magnetic signals that mark this delay may become a standardized way to diagnose autism.

Researchers at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia report their findings in an online article in the journal Autism Research, published January 8.

"More work needs to be done before this can become a standard tool, but this pattern of delayed brain response may be refined into the first imaging biomarker for autism," said study leader Timothy P.L. Roberts, Ph.D., vice chair of Radiology Research at Children's Hospital.

ASDs are a group of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders that cause impairments in verbal communication, social interaction and behavior. ASDs are currently estimated to affect as many as one percent of U.S. children, according to a recent CDC report.

Like many neurodevelopmental disorders, in the absence of objective biological measurements, psychologists and other caregivers rely on clinical judgments such as observations of behavior to diagnose ASDs, often not until a child reaches school age. If researchers can develop imaging results into standardized diagnostic tests, they may be able to diagnose ASDs as early as infancy, permitting possible earlier intervention with treatments. They also may be able to differentiate types of ASDs (classic autism, Asperger's syndrome or other types) in individual patients.

In the current study, Roberts and colleagues used magnetoencephalography (MEG), which detects magnetic fields in the brain, similar to the way electroencephalography (EEG) detects electrical fields. Using a helmet that surrounds the child's head, the team presents a series of recorded beeps, vowels and sentences. As the child's brain responds to each sound, noninvasive detectors in the MEG machine analyze the brain's changing magnetic fields.

The researchers compared 25 children with ASDs, having a mean age of 10 years, to 17 age-matched typically developing children. The children with ASDs had an average delay of 11 milliseconds (about 1/100 of a second) in their brain responses to sounds, compared to the control children. Among the group with ASDs, the delays were similar, whether or not the children had language impairments.

"This delayed response suggests that the auditory system may be slower to develop and mature in children with ASDs," said Roberts. An 11-millisecond delay is brief, but it means, for instance, that a child with ASD, on hearing the word 'elephant' is still processing the 'el' sound while other children have moved on. The delays may cascade as a conversation progresses, and the child may lag behind typically developing peers."

A 2009 study by Roberts and colleagues sheds light on how changes in brain anatomy may account for the delays in sound processing. The study team used MEG to analyze the development of white matter in the brains of 26 typically developing children and adolescents. Because white matter carries electrical signals in the brain, signaling speed improves when neurons are better protected with an insulating sheath of a membrane material called myelin.

In this previous study, the researchers showed that normal age-related development of greater myelination corresponds with faster auditory responses in the brain. "The delayed auditory response that we find in children with ASDs may reflect delayed white matter development in these children," said Roberts. Roberts says his team's further studies will seek to refine their imaging techniques to determine that their biomarker is specific to ASDs, and will investigate other MEG patterns found in children with ASDs in addition to auditory delays.

Grants from National Institute of Health, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, Autism Speaks, and the Pennsylvania Department of Health supported this research. In addition, Roberts holds an endowed chair, the Oberkircher Family Chair in Pediatric Radiology at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Roberts' co-authors were from Children's Hospital, including the Hospital's Center for Autism Research.

And to further debunk the anti-vax pro-disease nutters:

More Evidence That Autism Is a Brain 'Connectivity' Disorder

ScienceDaily (Jan. 11, 2010) — Studying a rare disorder known as tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), researchers at Children's Hospital Boston add to a growing body of evidence suggesting that autism spectrum disorders, which affect 25 to 50 percent of TSC patients, result from a miswiring of connections in the developing brain, leading to improper information flow. The finding may also help explain why many people with TSC have seizures and intellectual disabilities.

Findings were published online in Nature Neuroscience on January 10.

TSC causes benign tumors throughout the body, including the brain. But patients with TSC may have autism, epilepsy or intellectual disabilities even in the absence of these growths. Now, researchers led by Mustafa Sahin, MD, PhD, of Children's Department of Neurology, provide evidence that mutations in one of the TSC's causative genes, known as TSC2, prevent growing nerve fibers (axons) from finding their proper destinations in the developing brain.

Studying a well-characterized axon route -- between the eye's retina and the visual area of the brain -- Sahin and colleagues showed that when mouse neurons were deficient in TSC2, their axons failed to land in the right places. Further investigation showed that the axons' tips, known as "growth cones," did not respond to navigation cues from a group of molecules called ephrins. "Normally ephrins cause growth cones to collapse in neurons, but in tuberous sclerosis the axons don't heed these repulsive cues, so keep growing," says Sahin, the study's senior investigator.

Additional experiments indicated that the loss of responsiveness to ephrin signals resulted from activation of a molecular pathway called mTOR, whose activity increased when neurons were deficient in TSC2. Axon tracing in the mice showed that many axons originating in the retina were not mapping to the expected part of the brain.

Although the study looked only at retinal connections to the brain, the researchers believe their findings may have general relevance for the organization of the developing brain. Scientists speculate that in autism, wiring may be abnormal in the areas of the brain involved in social cognition.

"People have started to look at autism as a developmental disconnection syndrome -- there are either too many connections or too few connections between different parts of the brain," says Sahin. "In the mouse models, we're seeing an exuberance of connections, consistent with the idea that autism may involve a sensory overload, and/or a lack of filtering of information."

Sahin hopes that the brain's miswiring can be corrected by drugs targeting the molecular pathways that cause it. The mTOR pathway is emerging as central to various kinds of axon abnormalities, and drugs inhibiting mTOR has already been approved by the FDA. For example, one mTOR inhibitor, rapamycin, is currently used mainly to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, and Sahin plans to launch a clinical trial of a rapamycin-like drug in approximately 50 patients with TSC later this year, to see if the drug improves neurocognition, autism and seizures.

In 2008, Sahin and colleagues published related research in Genes & Development showing that when TSC1 and TSC2 are inactivated, brain cells grow more than one axon -- an abnormal configuration that exacerbates abnormal brain connectivity. The mTOR pathway was, again, shown to be involved, and when it was inhibited with rapamycin, neurons grew normally, sprouting just one axon.

Supporting the mouse data, a study by Sahin and his colleague Simon Warfield, PhD, in the Computational Radiology Laboratory at Children's, examined the brains of 10 patients with TSC, 7 of whom also had autism or developmental delay, and 6 unaffected controls. Using an advanced kind of MRI imaging called diffusion tensor imaging, they documented disorganized and structurally abnormal tracts of axons in the TSC group, particularly in the visual and social cognition areas of the brain (see image). The axons also were poorly myelinated -- their fatty coating, which helps axons conduct electrical signals, was compromised. (In other studies, done in collaboration with David Kwiatkowski at Brigham and Women's Hospital, giving rapamycin normalized myelination in mice.)

Sahin has also been studying additional genes previously found to be deleted or duplicated in patients with autism, and finding that deletion of some of them causes neurons to produce multiple axons -- an abnormality that, again, appears to be reversed with rapamycin.

"Many of the genes implicated in autism may possibly converge on a few common pathways controlling the wiring of nerve cells," says Sahin. "Rare genetic disorders like TSC are providing us with vital clues about brain mechanisms leading to autism spectrum disorders. Understanding the neurobiology of these disorders is likely to lead to new treatment options not only for TSC patients, but also for patients with other neurodevelopmental diseases caused by defective myelination and connectivity, such as autism, epilepsy and intellectual disability."

The current study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the John Merck Scholars Fund, Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, the Manton Foundation, the Children's Hospital Boston Translational Research Program, and the Children's Hospital Boston Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Center.

Duyu Nie was first author on the paper. Coauthors were Duyu Nie, Alessia Di Nardo, Juliette M Han, Hasani Baharanyi, Ioannis Kramvis, and ThanhThao Huynh, all of the F.M. Kirby Neurobiology Center and Department of Neurology, Children's Hospital Boston; Sandra Dabora of Brigham and Women's Hospital; Simone Codeluppi and Elena B Pasquale of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, and University of California San Diego; and Pier Paolo Pandolfi of Beth Israel Deaconess Cancer Center.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I am also one of the administrators for the Facts, not Fantasy website. Just in case anyone was wondering. And yes, i will put this article there in the near future.

Science! It works bitches!

News from Dr. Plait

Dr. Plait is an all around good guy. He has taken on some buffoons in his position as JREF president, as well as having a pretty good platform on which to speak. So I just wanted to pass along this bit since I am involved in attempting to educate parents and the public about the lies of the likes of Jenny McCarthy:

I’m not shedding too many tears over the tsunami of bad press the Australian Vaccination Network (AVN) is receiving right now.

I’ve written about them before, oh yes. They are the ones headed by Meryl Dorey, the woman who says vaccinations are dangerous, who says no one dies of pertussis, who says that it’s better not to vaccinate, who insinuates (at the 11:50 mark of that video) that doctors only vaccinate children because it’s profitable for them. She says that, even though on that live TV program she sat a few feet away from Toni and David McCaffery, parents who had just lost their four week old daughter to pertussis because she was too young to be vaccinated yet and the herd immunity in Sydney was too low to suppress the pertussis bacterium. This year alone, three babies in Australia, including young Dana McCaffery, have died from pertussis.

Not enough parents are vaccinating their children. And groups like the AVN spread misinformation about vaccines, spread it like a foul odor on the wind.

As I wrote a few days ago, the AVN will be investigated for their propaganda about vaccines. And now Dick Smith, an Australian businessman and founding skeptic there, has sponsored a devastating ad created by the Australian Skeptics. The ad ran in The Australian, a national newspaper, on Thursday:

Click it to see it full-size.

The ad has picked up some press of its own; it was covered by the Australian Broadcasting Network website. The AVN claims they are not antivax, but instead are pro choice. Dick Smith disagrees:

They are actually anti-vaccination and they should put on every bit of their material that they are anti-vaccination in great big words.

The evidence is on his side.

There’s an article on the ad on ITWire, too. Word is spreading. You can help: blog about this. Tell people about this. Put it on Facebook, on Twitter.

By spreading misinformation about vaccinations the AVN is scaring parents. The herd immunity is low in part because parents are scared to vaccinate their children. The low herd immunity is killing babies. It really is just that simple.

My daughter recently found my cache of old home movies from when she was a baby. We’ve been laughing, watching her eat and play and be silly when she was just a few months old. Then I think of Toni and David McCaffery and a piece of my heart dies. Then I think of the AVN, and it screams.

Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of humanity; the ability to save hundreds of millions of lives through a simple inoculation. But because some people cannot accept reality, innocent human lives will be lost.

I applaud Dick Smith and the Australian skeptics, including my friends Rachael Dunlop and Richard Saunders, for undertaking this heroic effort of shining a bright light on the AVN.

Antivaxxers must be stopped.

Facts Not Fantasy

Just a quick post today. I am off to see the new Harry Potter movie with my daughter, so I have to say that takes precedence over anything that I would care to write today! Anyway, I combed through some news today, and there seems to be a lot of interesting science news on the stuff that I blog on at Facts Not Fantasy. Tool using apes. Figuring out the origin of flowers. Shark sex. Vaccines for Valley Fever and Alzheimer's. Isolating and figuring out 27 more genes associated with autism. More understanding of childhood brain development even.

It was also a good day for space news. Yesterday Falcon X launched a satellite for Malaysia. The Space Shuttle also got up. Although, from reports I am hearing, there was quite a bit of tile damage with this launch. That is concerning. Will have to keep an eye out on the news for more on that. Okay, I'll check with scientists and engineers, the news isn't worth shit...

Autism Awareness Loses a Fierce Advocate

Well, the pro-disease nutters have driven away an autism research advocate from a position where he could do actual help. Dr. Eric London resigned from the Autism Speaks organization. You can read his letter in the link. Although, I think it's quite obvious where he stands... Sadly, this is a case where someone finally got overwhelmed by the dismal science that they would rather walk away than stain their credibility. Autism has lost a fierce advocate for understanding it better. I'd like to call out this part of his letter (emphasis mine):

The arguments which Dr. Dawson and others assert-- that the parents need even further assurances and there might be rare cases of “biologically plausible” vaccine involvement --are misleading and disingenuous. Through its website and other communications, Autism Speaks has been influential and contributory in encouraging parents’ doubts. By preferentially investing and advocating for the use of limited financial resources on the “biological plausibility” argument, the organization is adversely impacting the advancement of autism research.

Recent reports have documented significant outbreaks of measles and other infectious diseases which could have been controlled and even eradicated. The lowering of the vaccination rate has already led to deaths. If Autism Speaks’ misguided stance continues, there will be more deaths and potentially the loss of herd immunity which would result in serious outbreaks of otherwise preventable disease. I further fear that if and when herd immunity is lost, there may be a societal backlash against the autism community.

So, not only are these nutters increasing the risk of people dying, but they are hurting their own cause. How poetic. It just pisses me off that people will act that irresponsibly because some vacuous blonde with big tits thinks her baby got autism from shots. Never mind that there are mountains and mountains of evidence that says otherwise. Or the fact that this dumb bitch wouldn't recognize real science if it fucked her! Why the hell do we even listen to her when she talks? She's an actress! When you get right down to it, an actor is a professional liar! The better they are at lying, the more believable their roles are (although I would contend that Jenny McCarthy is actually a pretty bad actress, but you get the point).

Well, I'm upset that this has happened obviously, but maybe now there will be more fallout from these nutters spreading their lies (you know, aside from people DYING from preventable diseases). And we could also hope that the Swine Flu is somehow intelligent, and only kills the ones who voluntarially turned down a vaccine. Of course, that's just me being vindictive, and such a coincidence would have me questioning my atheism. ;) Sadly, what will happen is that the flu, and many other diseases will kill lots of people that didn;t have to die at all because of their stupidity and selfishness.

Quick Blog Again

Today I have a a couple of different entries for you. First of all, I just love this comic: http://www.viruscomix.com/page433.html. How horrible are such things!?

I also have a couple items about subjects that I have been blogging on a lot at the Facts, not Fantasy site, so I wanted to add them here.

Vaccines/Autism:
Somehow I missed this article in the Skeptic eNewsletter. It's a great rundown. Here is a brief excerpt:

During a question and answer session after a talk I recently gave, I was asked for my opinion about the vaccine/autism controversy. That was easy: my opinion is that there is no controversy. The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no controversy.

There is, however, a manufactroversy — a manufactured controversy — created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of endemic measles in the U.K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. children have died. Herd immunity has been lost. The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse before they get better — a load of unscientific nonsense has put us all at risk.

And it would probably be a good idea to read the article that preceded this one as well. Between these two articles, I still can't understand how people buy into the lies and deceit of the anti-vax pro-disease brigade, but they do. We still have a lot of work to do!

Evolution:
For today, I wanted to have a more lighthearted bit of news. The Florida Citizens for Science sponsored a contest where you could draw a stick figure comic talking about some classic mistakes people make in thinking about science. My wife and I both entered the contest, and we both placed in the top ten (although I hear her entry beat mine, how humiliating!). Please head over to the page and check out the comics, I think some are indeed much more worthy than mine and I am glad they beat me.

Okay, that's all I have for today. I may end up being a bit quite over the next few days as I have job interviews and things like that to take care of.

Evolution, Vaccines, and Autism

Stayed out late having fun with my daughter, so I really didn't get a chance to blog much. So, today I will repost my blog from Facts, not Fantasy instead. Sorry, but it's the best I can do with the time constraint I am under.

Vaccines:
Here is an interview/book review where they discuss the eradication of Smallpox. Can you imagine if this effort had been fighting today's anti-vax pro-disease movement? Would countless deaths and the opportunity to make something just a distant memory be enough to get them to understand that in science, there is always a weighing of risk versus benefits? Or are they so self centered and craving attention, that they would rather put millions at risk?

Here is an OpEd piece discussing how emotions are horrible guides when it comes to the scientific. Particularly addressing the non-existent link between autism and vaccines. Well worth the read.

Autism:
One handicap of the autism spectrum disorders is being able to put names and faces together. That is why I found this article interesting. Especially the implications to the many other aspects of how people deal with others as well as objects even.

While the generally accepted view of autism is as a handicap, keep in mind that quite often it manifests as a narrow focus, or even a hyper focus. This has manifested in some research regarding problem solving. The key take away though is that there are still so many things that we just don't understand about autism and how it truly affects the individual.

Evolution:
First of all, I wish that there was a better way to bring pay journals to the public. In my daily search on articles, I ran into some very interesting stories that not only highlighted the interconnectedness of genetics and evolution, but also gave a great understanding to the complexity and wonder of it! Sadly, the journals are probably beyond the reach of most citizens.

Again, while abiogenesis isn't evolution, just the starting point, I found this article particularly fun and entertaining to read. I must say that it is pretty speculative, but if the speculations have any data to support them, they are worthy of pursuit. However, should the data not support the speculation, then the theory needs to be shelved (you know, that stuff that science does).

In tracking the amazing evolution of humans, the University of Leeds has tracked down some interesting information on how our behavioural and physical traits evolved. I am particularly interested in where else this REST protein shows up.

Open Letter to Oprah

I encourage and implore you to read this open letter to Oprah! Copy it to your Facebook page, tweet it, blog it, put it up on MySpace even! Thankfully most of the comments are supportive, although now that the lette is getting attention, beware the wrath of the anti-vax pro-disease brigrade. Not to be outdone by the Bad Astronomer, here is a particularly well worded excerpt:

To me, it is clear that a significant number of people look up to you, and trust your advice and judgment. That is why it is such a huge mistake for you to endorse Jenny McCarthy with her own show on your network.

Surely you must realize that McCarthy is neither a medical professional nor a scientist. And yet she acts as a spokesperson for the anti-vaccination movement, a movement that directly impacts people’s health. Claims that vaccines are unsafe and cause autism have been refuted time after time, but their allure persists in part because of high-profile champions for ignorance like McCarthy.

I sincerely wish that I was this eloquent! Again, if you know Ms Winfrey, or know how to get in touch with her, please pass this along. Spread the word! And of course, direct them to Facts not Fiction in case they are confused about anything (yes, I know, the page is still under construction).

Facts, not Fantasy!

Who hoo! We are getting a start for a collection of information for the "Facts, not Fantasy" page. It's only a start, and I am still trying to figure out a great number of things, but now we have a place in the world wide web. This is a resource for all who want to fight the anti-vax pro-disease nutters out there. Feel free to copy and paste the info on there and place it wherever you want.

The page still needs some work, but we are at a start. Right now, the main focus of the page has the vaccine/autism link information on it. It has a very basic start on the evolution information, but that is nowhere near ready. The FAQ and Links page aren't ready yet either, but those aren't nearly as difficult to put finishing touches on as pages with a great deal of content.

Some things that I want to do is enable comments (only for people who wish to register of course). We'll do our best to not actually moderate the comments there, but we will make fools out of those who come in there and spread lies or use anecdotes.

I also need to work on a graphic for the page to get rid of that "Optimus" thing... Not even sure what that's about!

Later the page will be a resource for both the Vaccine/Autism crowd, as well as the Evolution/Creationist debate. Check back often. And if you want to help on this project, feel free to drop me a line.

Autism News

Since I have become involved with "Todd W." and "IVAN3MAN" from the Bad Astronomy Blog in fighting the anti-vax pro-disease nutters, I've been keeping my ear to the ground for news. So today Dr. Plait posted a link to news saying that scientists have actually identified the gene that can be traced to 15% of autism cases. That's good news in many ways. First of all, it confirms that vaccines got nothing to do with it. Also, with our better understanding of genetic therapy, we may be on the road to figuring out more effective treatment for autism.

While on the subject of autism causes and information, there is also the "baffling" correlation to folks who have vinyl flooring. Keep in mind, correlation is not causation... That's the same bad reasoning that got hold in the pro-disease nutter community. Scientific American has also run an article on a possible connection to a Vitamin D deficiency. Of course, on the same page there is a link to an article talking about environmental factors causing autism. While overall the jury is still out on this, we are starting to find some of the myriad of interrelated factors that can play into it. One thing we do know though is that it's NOT vaccines that play into that particular myriad.

I also can't help but to put out a warning and admonishment to people. Don't try to look for the simple answer. All over the internet, I see parents and debaters attempt to simplify autism as to being caused by X or Y and say that's the end of the discussion. Most of the time, the people who do so are laypeople who have no scientific training, so I can sort of forgive them. However, we live in an incredibly complex and dynamic world. Almost nothing is simple anymore. It really is imperative that the responsible citizen get at least some amount of scientific literacy. Otherwise they will continue to be simpletons looking for the simple answer.

Science is pretty cool though. We don't have answers to something, so we look into it, and then we find it. We don't make up fairies or pixies, but use what we know and delve into it more. It's almost as if Science Works Bitches!

Pro-disease Nutters...

There are people out there that think vaccines cause autism. They have some "celebrities" in their ranks. Never mind that these people are just plain WRONG in their assertions, but they are a public health risk in their stances. Dr. Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer and President of JREF) takes on these nutters on a regular basis. Not because it's particularly astronomy related, but because these nutters are lying to make their case, are endangering children (not only their own, but others as well), and are trying to drag public health back 70 years. (P.S. That body count is out of date, I think the numbers are closer to 18,000 and 160 as of 23 April 09.)

Invariably, every time he makes a post on his blog, the nutters come to try to spread their lies and falsified claims. A fellow that posts on Dr. Plait's blog by the name of Todd W. has made a preemptive compilation of why these nutters are wrong. So, for your enjoyment, here is that list (with some added material at the end for even MORE actual evidence and citations):

The Truth About The "Evils" Of Vaccination

by Todd W

Before making any comments on how evil vaccines are and how they cause autism, please read the following. I apologize for the length, but the mouthpieces of the pro-disease anti-vax movement spout so much nonsense and misinformation.

MMR

(info available from FDA, CDC, investigative reports by Brian Deer)

• Some in the pro-disease anti-vax movement claim that the MMR has/had mercury in it. However, the MMR vaccine does not and never has had any mercury in it.


• The basis of the “MMR vaccine causes autism” argument is a flawed study by Andrew Wakefield, who had several ethics breaches, including failure to disclose financial compensation from a lawyer representing families claiming MMR cause their children’s autism, failure to disclose financial interests in patents for MMR alternatives, failure to include data which contradicted his conclusions, use of contaminated samples to support his conclusions.


• Independent studies trying to replicate Wakefield’s results have come up negative. To date, no properly controlled study has shown a causal link between vaccines and autism.

Thimerosal

(info available from both FDA and CDC)

• Thimerosal is a preservative that is used in the manufacturing process of some vaccines and other medicines to prevent the growth of bacteria and fungi, which could otherwise cause illness or injury.


• It metabolizes into ethylmercury, not methylmercury, a mistake commonly made by pro-disease anti-vaxers who claim that the amount of mercury that used to be in vaccine exceeded EPA exposure guidelines. Those guidelines were for methylmercury, a compound that has a half-life in the body of several weeks to months and is often found in fish or other environmental exposures. Ethylmercury, on the other hand, has a half-life of a few days to about a week, meaning that it is not in the body long enough for it to build up to toxic levels from vaccination to vaccination.


• It was removed from the final product of nearly all vaccines around 2001/2002. This was a political move, due in large part to public pressure, rather than based on sound science. This was a recommendation rather than a regulatory requirement. A handful of studies that suggested problems with thimerosal, but which were inconclusive, prompted a “better safe than sorry” approach from the FDA while the issue was investigated by FDA, CDC and others. No follow-up studies have found any health risks beyond local hypersensitivity.


• Some vaccines still use it during the manufacturing process, but remove it from the final product, leaving, at most, trace amounts. The influenza vaccine still uses thimerosal, though thimerosal-free versions are available.


• Despite the removal of thimerosal from vaccines, resulting in exposure levels lower than anytime in the past, autism rates have not declined, suggesting that there is no connection between thimerosal and autism.


• To date, no properly controlled study has shown a causal link between thimerosal and autism.

Other Vaccine Additives

• Some pro-disease anti-vaxers claim there is antifreeze in vaccines. This is false. Antifreeze is ethylene glycol. Vaccines use polyethylenes glycol. These are different substances, the latter of which is not toxic. More info can be found at Inside Vaccines.


• Vaccines contain formaldehyde. However, the chemical structure of the formaldehyde in vaccines is the same as that produced by our own bodies. It is used during the manufacturing process, but is diluted to remove it from the finished product, leaving only small or trace amounts. The total amount of formaldehyde in a finished product is far less than what is naturally found in the human body.


• As an aside; the total amount of Formaldehyde in vaccines from the vaccine schedule for a 6 year old child is 1.2016mg, BUT 1 (one) banana contains 16.3mg!


• Vaccines contain aluminum in a salt form. Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim this is toxic, and some will cite that 4ppm will cause blood to coagulate. However, individuals are not exposed to such amounts of aluminum in a single vaccination visit. Blow are the vaccines containing aluminum, with the corresponding parts per million (ppm) for an infant (~251 mL of blood in the body) and an 80lb. child (~4000 mL of blood); note the two numbers for DTaP represent extreme ranges of aluminum content: (I'm sorry, I tried to make this table all nice for folks, but now I can't get rid of all this extra white space... Stand by for an actual web page with this info.)

ppm (w/v) = (weight in grams of sample/volume of sample in mL) * 106
Vaccine	ppm in infant	ppm in child	age received (in months)
DTaP (170mcg)	.677	.043	2, 4, 6, w/ final ~4-6 yrs
DTaP (625mcg)	2.490	.156
Hep A	.996	.063	12 w/ final ~6 mo. later
Hep B	.996	.063	birth, 1 or 2, final at 6+
HiB	.896	.056	2, 4
HPV	.896	.056	11 or 12 yrs., then 2, 6 mo.
Pediatrix	3.386	.213	2, 4, 6 (in lieu of DTaP, IPV and Hep B)
Pentacel	1.315	.083	2, 4, 6, 15-18 (in lieu of DTaP, IPV and HiB)
Pneumococcus	.498	.031	2, 4, 6, 12-15

• Further, about 71% of the aluminum is excreted from the body after about 5 days or so.


• An interesting source of aluminum is breast milk. After between 51 and 346 days breast feeding, a child will have taken onboard the same amount of Aluminium as from the total US vaccine schedule for a 6 year old child.

Polio

• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that polio rates increased after the introduction of the polio vaccine, that OPV spread the disease, and that polio was on a decline before introduction of the vaccine. This is wrong.


• Before the approval of the vaccine, paralytic polio struck 13,000-20,000 individuals every year in the U.S. The number of cases peaked at 21,000 in 1952, only three years before approval of the vaccine. By 1960, there were only 2,525 cases, and only 61 cases in 1965.


• The oral polio vaccine (OPV) was nearly 100% effective in preventing polio, though it did have a very small risk of causing paralytic polio in the recipient. OPV-caused paralytic polio resulted in about 6-8 cases per year. However, when vaccination rates were low, OPV had the added benefit of contact immunity. In other words, the virus from the vaccine was present in the stool, resulting in about 25% of people who came in contact with the immunized person would also become immune.


• With the eradication of wild type polio in the U.S., the OPV vaccine is no longer used, and the less effective inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is used. This version does not cause paralytic polio. OPV has not been used in the U.S. since 2000.

Vaccine Court and National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP)

(info available from the Autism Omnibus Proceedings)

• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that Hannah Poling and Bailey Banks are examples of successful Vaccine Court cases where vaccines caused autism. This is wrong.


• Hannah Poling was found to have a mitochondrial disorder, and that the vaccine worsened her condition. The court did not rule that a vaccine caused autism. Note, mitochondrial disorder is not autism, though some in the anti-vax camp claim it is.


• Bailey Banks was found to have suffered acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM). This disease occurs in approximately 1 or 2 per million vaccine recipients, compared with 1 per 1,000 individuals infected with measles and 1 per 500 rubella infections. The court ruled that this is a type of pervasive developmental disorder, but made clear that it is not autism. Like the Poling case, anti-vaxers try to distort the truth to make their case. In the case of ADEM, vaccination helps reduce the risk of contracting the disease by reducing the likelihood of natural infection.


• Despite the low standards of proof in the vaccine court (more likely than not, or 50% + a hair), no one has been able to establish a causal relationship between vaccines and autism.


• In three of the best cases put forth by the anti-vax movement, the court ruled in all three that vaccines did not cause the individuals’ autism.


• Before VICP, the media fueled fears about vaccines, leading to increases in law suits and many manufacturers halting production of vaccines altogether. The VICP was proposed by a coalition of government, health organization, and industry representatives, as well as physicians and ordinary citizens as a means to ensure a suitable supply of vaccines while allowing legal recourse to those injured by vaccines.


• Individuals may still seek damages through the tort system, if they choose, though they must then prove not only that the vaccine caused the injury, but also that the manufacturer was at fault.

Vaccines in General

• Pro-disease anti-vaxers want vaccines that are 100% safe. This is never going to happen, as all medicines carry some risk. However, the relative risk of injury from vaccines is significantly lower than the risk of injury from getting the disease naturally. For more information, see the CDC website.


• Reduced vaccination rates lead to higher incidents of infection. This has been illustrated in the U.K. following Wakefield’s bogus study, in Germany in 2006 (including two deaths in unvaccinated children), in California, in MN (where an unvaccinated child died from hemophilus influenza type b).


• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that “Big Pharma” makes lots of money from vaccines. If vaccination rates dropped, however, there would be an increase in preventable illnesses, many of which have high rates of complications resulting in hospitalization and expensive treatment. See the link about Germany above for information on costs associated with the measles outbreak there. The money to be made from the diseases far outweighs any money to be made from vaccines.


• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that better hygiene has led to a decrease in disease, rather than vaccines. However, many of the diseases prevented by vaccines are airborne, and are not greatly impacted by improved sanitation or hygiene.


• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim that too many antigens (the parts that make the vaccines work) are given at once, ignoring that infants and children are exposed to thousands of antigens every day by touching things and putting their hands or the object in their mouth, through absorption or by inhaling.


• They claim that combination shots should be avoided, and that parents should break up the vaccinations into individual vaccines and spread them out. However, this increases the total number of shots received, as well as exposure to those various “toxins” they hate so much.


• There have been no properly controlled studies establishing a causal link between vaccines and autism.


• There have been numerous properly controlled studies sponsored and run by various people and organizations around the world that have shown no link between vaccines and autism.

Population X and Vaccines/Autism

• Pro-disease anti-vaxers claim the Amish do not vaccinate and do not have autism. This stems from a lie by Dan Olmsted from Age of Autism. The Amish do, in fact, vaccinate, and it appears that their rates of autism may be lower than in the general population.


• Some claim that the Chinese do not have a word for autism (they do, it’s 自闭症 [zì bì zhèng]). And simply not having a word for the disease does not mean that it does not exist, merely that it is not recognized as a specific disorder. Did autism only afflict people after someone created the diagnosis? No, but it may have been called something else.


• The same claim about the Chinese has been made about Somalis due to a recent article about Somalis in Minnesota. Again, lack of recognition does not mean that the disease never occurred in the population. Further, the cases in Minnesota do not have a consistent connection to vaccines. Some of those with autism have been vaccinated, some have not. Despite a lack of evidence, Generation Rescue (which runs Age of Autism) has told the Somali parents that vaccines were the cause.


• There is a phenomenon called "Herd Immunity" (Google it). So even if you have your children vaccinated, the irrisponsible pro-disease anti-vax nuttters are still endagnering your child with their antics.

Some additional reading:
The CDC Pink Book has an appendix G with lots of statistics on cases and deaths. Here are some of the data for measles:
Disease: Measles in the USA
Year__Cases___Deaths
1961__423,919_434
1962__481,530_408
1963__385,156_364
(^^ first vaccine licensed)
1964__458,083_421
1965__261,905_276
1966__204,136_261
1967___62,705__81
1968___22,231__24
1969___25,826__41
1970___47,351__89
1971___75,290__90
(^^^ MMR licensed)
1972___32,275__24
1973___26,690__23
1974___22,690__20
1975___24,374__20
1976___41,126__12
1977___57,245__15
1978___26,871__11
(^^^ Measles Elimination Program started)
1979___13,597___6
1980___13,506__11
1981____2,124___2

Pertussis still kills over a dozen American babies every year.

Anyway, about the silly “money trail”… Which makes more money for “Big Pharma”: selling vaccines or by providing supplies and medication to hospitals for those who have been hospitalized due to pertussis, measles, mumps, Hib, etc? Be sure to provide real actual factual evidence of the type I can find in my local medical school library. Something like this:
Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2005 Dec;159(12):1136-44.
Economic evaluation of the 7-vaccine routine childhood immunization schedule in the United States, 2001.

“RESULTS: Routine childhood immunization with the 7 vaccines was cost saving from the direct cost and societal perspectives, with net savings of 9.9 billion dollars and 43.3 billion dollars, respectively. Without routine vaccination, direct and societal costs of diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, H influenzae type b, poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, congenital rubella syndrome, hepatitis B, and varicella would be 12.3 billion dollars and 46.6 billion dollars, respectively. Direct and societal costs for the vaccination program were an estimated 2.3 billion dollars and 2.8 billion dollars, respectively. Direct and societal benefit-cost ratios for routine childhood vaccination were 5.3 and 16.5, respectively. CONCLUSION: Regardless of the perspective, the current routine childhood immunization schedule results in substantial cost savings.”

Links to support with actual DATA!

The economic study: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/159/12/1136
The California experience with the 1990 measles epidemic: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=8855680
Another study on the impact of medical interventions on mental retardation, it notes the effect of measles, Hib an rubella: http://archpedi.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/160/3/302
The CDC Pink Book: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/default.htm
And the Appendix G: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/appdx-full-g.pdf
Just the cases and deaths: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/G/cases&deaths.pdf

An Interesting article on some possible connection to Vitamin D and autism: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=vitamin-d-and-autism&sc=DD_20090424 I would caution reading too much into this though since it is very preliminary. After all, there have been correlations of autism with linoleum floors too!

One final addition to the discussion. Many people claim that autism is on some sort of WILD upswing, and is an epidemic of sorts. While I cannot say if there is a rise or not for sure, one thing is quite certain: The autism spectrum is much more understood in this day and age. We are able to correctly identify someone as autistic as opposed to mislabeling them as troublesome, distant, aggressive, impulsive, etc. There is a certain selection bias involved with the autism diagnosis increase claim.

Now, one of the places that a lot of this pro-disease nuttery is coming from is the Huffington Post (proving that woo and delusions know no political boundaries). So a good man who goes by IVAN3MAN happened upon this:

From the Huffington Post article:

Every 20 minutes, a child is diagnosed with autism. In a study of select populations around the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that one in 150 children has the condition. According to the Autism Society of America, this is the fastest growing developmental disability with a 10-17% annual growth rate.

At Least 11% of American Women Smoke During Pregnancy

The negative effects of nicotine exposure to their fetuses and newborns are significant.

Huffington Post:

Throughout Healing and Preventing Autism, Jenny passionately reminds us that she and her dedicated army of advocates for autism are in this for the long haul:

Thousands of parents, like me, have learned so much and the only reason we won't shut up is to teach YOU, so you don't have to walk in our shoes. Dr. Jerry and I want to arm parents with all the tools and information necessary to have the healthiest baby you can. The next generation of kids is counting on it!

Jenny McCarthy SMOKING!

Jenny McCarthy STILL SMOKING!

Make of that what you will. And this is the lady that likes to inject one of the most deadly neurotoxins into her face, but thinks vaccines are bad... Wow... Just wow!

And for all those people who have anectdotal stories remember that the correlation may seem remarkable to you because anomalies always seem remarkable when they happen to you. However, what you need to understand is that in the context of the 360 million people in the United States, anomalies are actually not only expected, it would be remarkable if they didn’t occur. Here’s a back of the envelope explanation why (from another blogger that frequents BA http://padraic2112.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/my-last-vaccination-post-for-a-while/):

There is a simple reason why this is not relevant, take the following facts…
* children take vaccines
* autism displays its first symptoms in childhood
* children under the age of 5 make up ~7% of the population
* there are ~306 million people in the U.S.* about 80% of children are vaccinated entirely
(editor’s note: I didn’t make those numbers up, you can find them with a couple seconds and a web browser)

This means 306 x 0.07 x .8 = 1.7 Million children (roughly) have been vaccinated. With the vaccination schedule being what it is, then, there are somewhere around 100,000 children getting a shot every month (that last one is hand-wavey, it assumes a lot about frequency distributions, but that’s not really germane to my point). Autism rates are estimated at anywhere between 1 in 100 and 1 in 150 children, that means we have about 17,000 diagnosis of autism. If every single one of those autism diagnosis was given to a vaccinated child (they’re not, but again for our sake here it introduces very small error), and those 17,000 have a scatter distribution of vaccination patterns, that means not one, not dozens, not hundreds, but *thousands* of those diagnosis came within days or weeks of a vaccination: yes, this means that dozens will occur within an hour of a vaccination.

Put those thousands of people together on a message board (and since autism is hard to deal with, a very high percentage of these family *do* bond together, like SMA sufferers or MS or cancer or any other family-impacting disease), you’ll have a few thousand people all saying to each other, “Gee… MY kid got a shot right before her symptoms started showing, too! There are thousands of us! THAT CAN’T BE A COINCIDENCE.”

But you can see, it actually *isn’t* a coincidence… it’s exactly what we would expect to happen.

Autism Spectrum and Human Evolution

This blog entry is all about personal experience and speculation. Just some idle cogitating and wondering about the prevalence of what most see as an ailment. So, are the varieties of autism "disorders" a sort of next step in human brain development?

First of all, you have to understand a couple things. In particular, how evolution works; as well as the varieties of the autism spectrum. I will not try to explain the entirety of evolution, it's been done before, ad nauseum. I just want to highlight that evolution isn't always a full step forward. Sometimes there are drawbacks in the next step that needs to be refined. The evolutionary process can even have lots of dead ends and false starts. That's how we get some strange things that apparently don't make sense. However, over the course of millions of generations, you can get a vastly improved model to deal with what the current environment needs to solve further challenges. Also, this is not meant to say that there is a goal of evolution, but a selective breeding pressure of humanity.

Also, describing the full spectrum of autism is beyond the scope of this post as well. My intent is to just focus on a couple things that got me to thinking along this line of thought. Basically though, autism can allow the brain to focus very deeply on a particular problem, or develop a skill to phenomenal levels (the so called "Rain Man" phenomenon).

Okay, if you know anything about the autism spectrum, there are numerous "disorders" that really don't carry a huge impact, while imparting the incredible mental focus of some autism characteristics. However, there are those who suffer a great deal under other autism spectrum disorders. Now, you take those individuals throughout the spectrum, and you contemplate the possibility of them passing on their genes. Those with the greatest disabilities obviously are at a disadvantage, while those who do not display these disabilities are at least not hindered by their condition. Cases like "Brainman" could even, through their notoriety and special skills, have their chances improved (although in his particular case we have another obstacle, but that's neither here nor there).

Take the left end of the spectrum as the "undesirable" end, and the right end of the spectrum as the "Brainman" end, and keep favouring the right with chances to contribute to the gene pool, and where does that take you in numerous generations? Possibly people that have a vast mental array at their disposal to be able to handle the incredibly complex world we have built for ourselves. Of course, that begs the question of exactly what environmental pressure is this particular mutation trying to fill? Considering that for millions of years, we've been a species that generally only handl;es things at walking speed, at a hieght of at most trees we climb, and in an area that we can cover during a long walk in a day... Let's just say that we're quite far removed from that. Even many thousands of generations back we started expanding out of that comfortable environment we had evolved into with our technology and already prodigeous brainpower.

In today's world, there are so many fields that require an all consuming dedication to study them just to understand the basics, let alone make contributions to the field. Evolution itself (as a field) requires not only understanding genetics, biology, chemistry, geology, astro-physics, etc. but surely many more fields. Then get into essoteric fields like quantum physics, and even the most brainy amongst us is seriously challenged to explain it. The type of dedication to delve into these matters though is displayed by certian autism spectrum behaviours. So perhaps at this point it's not the environment so much driving the next step of evolution, but our own understanding of the universe, and the need to delve deeper.

Anyway, just a random musing for today. Do you have any thoughts on the subject? And no, vaccines don't "cause" autism...