* According to PubMed, this is only the second time that Ratajczak has been the primary author of a published study in the past decade, and it’s only the fourth study she’s been associated with in any capacity during that time.
* The study’s citation for the claim that “the United States government…[says] that autistic conditions can result from encephalopathy following vaccination” does not point the reader to an article; the citation reads, in total, “Child Health Safety. 2010. June 30.” That same citation is given to back up the statement, “It has been determined that autism can be caused by an underlying predisposition to mitochondrial dysfunction.” This, apparently, is one of the “peer-reviewed, published theories” that Attkisson is referring to.
Attkisson’s fealty to the anti-vaccine movement has been an embarrassment to CBS News for years. That she continues to advocate for their cause is nothing short of remarkable.
* If you want to read a PDF of the study, it’s available here, courtesy of Rescuepost, which is maintained by Generation Rescue, the autism organization headed up by anti-vaccine activist Jenny McCarthy.
Looks like the Error Virus is still with you Seth.
Also, if you ever studied public health, you would know that it is generally accepted that it in fact was not vaccines or other drugs but sewage systems and improved hygiene that primarily caused the reduction in infectious disease deaths we have seen.
A couple things wrong here. While deaths may have decreased, in part, due to improved hygiene and sanitation, improvements in medicine also played a significant role. But Seth said “the drop in infectious diseases”, not “the drop in deaths of infectious diseases”. Vaccines were, demonstrably, responsible for the decreased incidence of disease. But that also translates to fewer deaths: if not as many people get the disease to begin with, not as many die from it. Further, hygiene and sanitation don’t mean much when it comes to diseases like smallpox or measles, which are transmitted through the air.
Don’t have time to go through all of your claims, but point E) about autism not being caused by genes is very likely wrong. There has been research in both mice and humans that identify several genes, such as the SHANK2, SHANK3 and RAB39B genes, that are strongly associated with and/or causal of ASDs.
You do not understand causation. And the correct terminology for causation is we believe “internal” vs “external” in relation to causation of any human condition. You confuse the presence of genes as a necessary condition for all human disorders with necessary and sufficient conditions. Genes are no more a necessary and sufficient condition than roads are in the causation of road traffic accidents.
Golly, Jake. I studied public health at the George Washington University, graduating with an MPH and a 3.9 grade-point average. I must have missed the hygiene class. That must be where my 0.1 for a 4.0 ended up. You over-estimate the power of sewage systems. Proof? The third-world countries where sewage has not been put in but polio has been snuffed out… THROUGH VACCINES.
Then again, who would believe you, Jake? You call us all shills and minions, but who’s YOUR daddy? JB? Kimmie? Give me a break.
Don’t include yourself among us, Jake. You are not a public health worker. By your standards, Handley would be a physician and Blaxill would be a scientist.
You didn’t study at the University of Google, Age of Autism campus, did you? Seems obvious by your attempt to stick to facts.
That’s a total “party university”, all they did was keggers and sit around making sh*t up. No academia. Being the geek that I am, I opted for a brick-and-mortar place with accreditation and professors and even a structured curriculum. Sure, it was more expensive than Google U, but, as you can see, my credibility is intact.
Jake, can you explain how improved sewage systems prevent airborne viruses (i.e., measles, smallpox) from infecting people? How do you explain the mumps outbreak that hit Japan in the 1990s? Was it because the combination MMR vaccine was unavailable for a time? Or because Japan is a third-world backwater hellhole riven with open sewers?
Still waiting for Seth to answer anywhere. Silence from him on CHS, silence from him on Age of Autism and silence from him on his own blog.
Interesting though that the usual suspects rush over to post thinking that is a substitute for comment from Seth. Journalists don’t like it when other people don’t answer their questions so there is no excuse for a journalist not answering for himself.
Will Dan Olmsted correct his “Error Virus” piece? I haven’t done the full accounting, but Mr. Olmsted made many errors in that piece, comparable to the number he claims were made in an entire book by Mr. Mnookin. My guess is no correction will be made as the Age of Autism blog does not correct anything, even when they know the facts are incorrect.
As to your “bob’s your uncle piece”. It is one thing to post that on you blog where the audience welcomes any hit piece and is rather uncritical. In the outside world, your piece falls flat. To paraphrase a much better writer than I, there isn’t any there there.
B) Autistic conditions can result from encephalopathy following vaccination. The US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) confirmed to CBS News that of 1322 cases of vaccine injury compensation settled out of court by the US Government in secret settlements: “We have compensated cases in which children exhibited an encephalopathy, or general brain disease. Encephalopathy may be accompanied by a medical progression of an array of symptoms including autistic behavior, autism, or seizures.” , .
C) It is biologically plausible that a live virus vaccine like MMR contains live viruses one of which is scientifically accepted as causing autism. The first known cause of autism was rubella virus.
It is not “biologically plausible that a live virus vaccine like MMR contains live viruses”. It is a fact that MMR contains live viruses. A fact which has nothing to do with the second part of his sentence.
This typifies the sort of poor logic that has created the vaccine scare. Congenital Rubella Syndrome has been identified as a cause of autism (and many other disabilities). The word “congenital” should suggest to the most casual of observers that this is due to a prenatal infection. More precisely, a prenatal infection of the mother, not the fetus. My recollection is that the infection must occur not only prenatally, but during a specific period of gestation.
One can not logically jump from that to implying that it is biologically plausible that MMR (a vaccine given to infants) causes autism.
One must further explore the logic. If the CRS is a cause of autism, then it only follows that autism has been with us as long as rubella infections. But we are often told by vaccine-causation proponents that autism is somehow “new”, appearing only after vaccination with thimerosal.
The person to answer is Seth Mnookin. You and your cronies have rushed over here from Kev Leitch’s “LeftBrain” blog to answer for him. Notwithstanding you are not doing a very good job of it, the reason you have done is because you know Seth will make an even bigger mess of it than you.
Explain? It is known that a live virus causes autism – rubella virus. It is therefore plausible that a live virus in a vaccine could also cause autism. The fact that MMR contains three live viruses makes it even more plausible.
Thank you Professor Sullivan, but is it obvious you have no medical or scientific qualifications for anyone to take any notice of what you say.
Strangely enough, vaccine-causation proponents usually shy away from this statement. If we are, today, still missing 40% of the autistic children, how can we claim these data as proof of an epidemic? Are we to assume that previous prevalence data missed no one?
Clearly we have historically miscounted autism in our population. We are getting better at it, and we still miss 40%.
The Cambridge results of two undiagnosed for every three diagnosed autistic conditions in children has nothing whatsoever to do with getting better at diagnosis.
You seem to choose not to understand and thereby sow confusion amongst those with less knowledge than you [probably a relatively small number – humour]. .
There is a time lag between onset of symptoms and diagnosis. The average age of diagnosis of Aspergers is 9 years. 70% of ASCs in the UK are Aspergers. Work it out.
How you can spin research results in this way and maintain any pretence at intellectual integrity is a source of constant amazement to us.
Did you actually read what Ms. Attkisson wrote? More to the point, did you understand it?
Point 1: HRSA did not “confirm” this, CBS news found it by checking the records.
Point 2: Because CBS news found this by checking the records, clearly these aren’t “secret settlements”.
Point 3: these were settled “in court” not “out of court” as you assert.
Mr. Mnookin would be hard pressed to “deny” your statement as you have challenged. He could quite easily refute it.
Wrong again. We are quoting directly what HRSA said.
I’ve always found that one a very confusing decision, but I am also always struck by the title: “Non-autistic developmental delay”.
Wrong again. You can be struck by whatever you like. The only thing that counts is the explicit decision of the Court.
Still waiting for you to respond here to your multiple errors in your challenge.
Time for Seth to start answering the questions. He is a journalist and he is remarkably quiet in the circumstances.
Go back to LBRB instead of trolling here. And notice that our comments are in the majority responses. Your’s are originating comments designed to provoke responses – and you are explicitly demanding responses.
This all of course has the appearance of attempting to answer in Seth Mnookin’s place when he clearly seems to lack the knowledge to answer and/or cannot answer in any event. Amazing really that he has had the front to attempt to write a book on these matters.
You are of course buying him time to try to get answers from others. We are waiting. It is his own blog after all.
You should go back to the one you run with Kev.
Why would Mr. Mnookin possibly deny that? In his book he specifically discusses the changing number of children with autism diagnoses on pp 80-84 and 166-167.
Has Seth Mnookin got no voice of his own? He could quite easily come on his own blog and confirm he agrees the figures. You pop up trolling all over the internet. Why are you answering for him. This is his blog not yours.
Still waiting for Seth Mnookin, New York based journalist and author to answer the questions.
the last three words don’t make any sense. Wasn’t there an editor on the piece?
Apparently this is being compared to the tinikling dance, which ANB has already described. It is a very descriptive metaphore. The point is, injection of human DNA into infants may have unforeseen consequences.
“Tinikling” is a Filipino dance in which the dancer (traditionally a woman) steps between two long wooden poles (representing a bird-trap) held near the floor and drawn together and apart to the rhythm of the music. Perhaps Ratajczak is implying that vaccines are safe only when perfectly timed, otherwise crippling foot fractures may ensue.
I thought it was “tinkling” or maybe a misspelling of “tingling”, like tingling one gets from a stroke… Which is, in my opinion, something the writer of that “challenge” should be checked for. Grammar is all over the place, and some of those things aren’t even words!
Mnookin has also now posted CHS’s challenge on his own blog. Everyone should write to Mnookin at his blog demanding an explanation.
Oh, oops, Mr. Stone. You have posted the challenge in a comment. Since Mr. Mnookin doesn’t throttle discussion in the dissent-throttling manner common at AoA, it’s here.
Oh, oops, Mr. Stone. You have posted the challenge in a comment. Since Mr. Mnookin moderate comments in the dissent-throttling manner common at AoA, it’s here.
Ms. Attkisson showed a distinct lack of professionalism when she forwarded a fax to the Age of Autism blog. One organization had faxed CBS in response to a piece she had done, and that fax was posted hours later on the Age of Autism blog. Clearly she is working together with that blog.
Btw Seth, on second looking, it seems you did not read the page on the website you are referring to, as it focuses on explaining the drop in infectious disease deaths, not infectious disease in general.
Perhaps it’s time for yet another correction Seth, not that you seem to be learning from your mistakes.
Chris – @ “It is old news, and Orac also took it apart”.
Mr. Stone and Mr. Miller, if we went by young Master Crosby’s degrees of separation there could be made several ties between him a Big Pharma Shill. Like the fact he goes to the same university as Robert Goldberg who wrote Tabloid Medicine. As it stands, both Age of Autism and any articles by Master Crosby are silly, and pointless.
Liz D appears to be someone other than Liz Ditz. A bit childish.
Sharyl Attkisson is one of the MOST responsible mainstream journalists covering vaccines and autism.
Kudos to Helen Ratajczak for writing this article about the studies she has reviewed, and kudos to Sharyl Attkisson for publicizing it. I hope that Helen Ratajczak will write more, now that she is free from the restrictions imposed by her prior career.
There are problems with vaccines. Serious problems which are adversely affecting many children. Those problems need to be studied and better understood, for the sake of both prevention and treatment — not just swept under the rug. Science has never disproven a link between autism and vaccines. A lot of evidence supports such a link. It’s not just a question of whether or not to do away with all vaccines.
Yet, the vaccines have been studied extensively over the past decade. There has yet to be any real evidence that has revealed they pose a risk greater than the diseases. This is something that is very important to understand when babies are dying from pertussis, and kids are being hospitalized for measles.
You not wanting to accept the results of the more than two dozen studies done in several countries does not alter the facts. Your own biases prevent you from actually looking at the data with an open mind, and has predisposed from every accepting results that differ from your preset conclusion.
In the future when you say “A lot of evidence supports such a link.”, try to actually provide the evidence. Just make sure it does not come from former travel writers, lawyers or researchers paid by lawyers.
Chris, why are you telling me to provide evidence when you are not providing evidence? Your side loves to make vague statements about science proving vaccines are safe, don’t cause autism, and have less risks than the diseases — without providing any specific citations to studies. Fact is, the tracking of vaccine reactions is very poor, basic research has not been done by our govt agencies and mainstream medical organizations, such as studying the injured children to better understand vaccine injury, doing an epidemiological study comparing health issues in vaccinated and unvaccinated children, comparing animals who go through the standard vaccine schedule (adjusted for weight) with unvaccinated controls.
But there are thousands of reports by parents of toddlers suffering vaccine injuries followed by regression into autism. These reports are consistent with the vaccine package inserts listing conditions such as encephalitis, seizures and diarrhea as possible reactions, and consistent with cases of vaccine induced seizures, encephalitis, and encephalopathy paid out in vaccine court, and listed on the HRSA table.
Don’t tell me, “Aw, that’s just Generation Rescue — they’re anti-vaccine!” GR just listed these links to studies, they didn’t conduct the studies, which are from a variety of sources.
Thanks. Your long list of papers supposedly demontrating vaccines cannot be implicated in causing autistic conditions demonstrates how corrupt the published medical journal evidence base is.
– The US HRSA has confirmed vaccines can cause autistic conditions.
– Merck’s current Director of Vaccines Division confirmed vaccines can cause autistic conditions – and that was when she was the Head of the US Centers for Disease Control.
– Autistic conditions can be caused by multiple vaccines as was conceded by the US Department of Health and Human Services in the Hannah Poling case.
– Autistic conditions can result from acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM) following MMR vaccination as held by the US Federal Court in the case of Bailey Banks.
– The increase in autistic conditions, diabetes, childhood asthma and obesity can only be caused by enviromental factors as was confirmed by the current Director of the US National Institutes of Health and leading geneticist Dr Francis Collins in evidence to Congress when he was head of the Human Genome Project.
– the cost to the UK has been estimated to be £28 billion per annum.
Just to point out that it is virtually impossible to run a site like Age of Autism without heavy moderation. Back in 2007 I was frequent contributor to JABS Forum. JABS Forum was not pre-moderated and it was quite a placid place until one day I submitted a Rapid Response to BMJ about Dr Ben Goldacre and his competing interests.
Whether there was a causal connection or not, but virtually from that moment (and a whole week before BMJ got round to posting my comment) the site was over-run by people who were fundamentally trying to stop anyone saying anything that did not fit in with public policy and propaganda, and indeed a lot of them seemed to be connected with DrGoldacre’s Bad Science Forum. It was mostly aggressive, unreasonable, disruptive stuff, and I and others spent an immense amount of time for about a year trying to respond as politely as we could, but the situation did become impossible and Jackie Fletcher who runs JABS had to take the decision to pull up the drawbridge, as it were. Basically, it was mobbing in cyberspace and it was designed to stop free expression of opinion and inconvenient facts.
But I have to say here that CHS has raised a substantive issue. Is Seth Mnookin suffering some kind amnesia about the statements of Julie Gerberding, and concessions made by the US government through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Programme, or did he never know? Either way it strikes at the very heart of his claim to be a popular authority on the subject.
Also, if Seth wants to post his answer on AoA or CHS he will most likely be very welcome.
Because it is really difficult to continue the lies when people post those annoying facts.
The the fact that the incidence of measles in the USA declined by more than 90% between 1960 and 1970. Or that Wakefield committed fraud, and there were questions about his study before 2001. Or that all pediatric vaccines have been available without thimerosal for ten years (even influenza!). Or that there have been vaccinated versus unvaccinated studies in the past with children being injured and killed (most of them were either disabled or in Africa). Or that chelation, stem cell therapy, and other bio-med quackery have injured children. Or that speculating on who certain bloggers are is incredibly lame.
You may be aware that I have different views on some of those subjects (and we could get very bogged down!!!) but I think it would be far better if focussed on the specific issues generated by this blog. Seth Mnookin criticised Helen Ratajczak’s citation of CHS, but CHS’s sources were impeccable and Seth should know that. Seth is supposed to be an expert on the subject, so why doesn’t he know (if he doesn’t)?
Whatever, Mr. Stone. There is a collection of blogs created because you moderate out the inconvenient facts. These are in addition to Respectful Insolence at ScienceBlogs, LeftBrainRightBrain and ScienceBasedMedicine that have several articles deconstructing the misinformation of AoA. These in included SilencedbyAgeofAutism, kwomblescountering and the ever erudite JABSloonies.
@ Twyla; how nice, you can C & P a Wiki entry about homologous DNA recombination. Now tell me how that occurs with random fragments of DNA with IM injection into a human recipient. Tell me how this would always lead to autism/”inflammation”. Looks like Ratajczak left that part out, ooops. But surely you can fill in that gap for me.
No, science mom, of course I can’t. I was simply responding to Liz Ditz’s statement that “the last three words don’t make any sense” — simply trying to clarify what those words seem to mean — and I’m not even sure I’m interpreting correctly.
But I can clarify that as far as I know nobody said that “this would always lead to autism/inflammation”. Nothing ALWAYS leads to autism. Not everyone becomes autistic from the same toxic exposures, vaccines, nor genetic anomalies such as MET and Fragile X.
Seth, Helen Ratajczak’s paper has almost three pages of references at the end containing something like 150 references to all sorts of sources, including some that you would no doubt like. As John Stone pointed out, the reference to the Child Health Safety page was simply a verification of the statement that, “The United States Government and Dr. Geberding, Director of Vaccines at Merck & Co., Inc. say that autistic conditions can result from encephalopathy following vaccination.” This CHS page includes a video of Dr. Gerberding making that statements, while she was still head of the CDC, and other references.
Pretty silly to focus on this one thing and try to brand the whole paper as “anti-vaccine”. This is not scientific argument, logic, reason, nor sharing information — it’s simply stating that anything tarnished with the “anti-vaccine” label should be ridiculed and not taken seriously. That’s just prejudice and spin.
Of course, if you are going to cite a website like ‘Jabsloonies’ which is pure personal abuse from start to finish you ought not to expect anyone to take you very seriously, but it is only distracting from the matter in hand. What is the point of saying CHS cherrypicked the sources. The fact is that these things were said and done, and then quietly buried – and Seth seems to be suffering from the collective amnesia – even to the point of pretending that they can simply be dismissed because the are quoted by CHS. Well, I think Seth need to address the fact that thing were said and done, and it affects his credibility as a reporter.
Folks — I appreciate the robust conversation. I think after 50 comments everyone has had ample opportunity to make his or her point. At this juncture, I’m concerned the tenor of the discussion is focusing more on personalities and less on the actual issues involved, so I’m going to shut this down. There will be lots of chances for more debate in the future.
This is also a good time for me to lay out my comment policy. I will allow anyone to comment on my site, and I do not edit or check comments for accuracy — not because I think that would be a Herculean/Sisyphean task (which it likely would be) but because I’d rather give people free rein to make their views known than to stifle discourse.
The second is for readers who “spam” the site with comment after comment, all of which say the same thing. As a rule, I will not ban these readers from making future comments; however, I will re-set their permission protocol so that each new comment needs to be approved by a site administrator — i.e., me. Again, to be clear, these comments will not be held due to their content but due to their waste of (virtual) space…and again, as can be clearly seen by the above, I’m fairly lenient when it comes to this regard.
The third is exemplified by the current post: When it seems that a debate has run its course, I’ll shut down the entire discussion.
Thanks again for all of the passion and interest.