Vaccine - Autism link

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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BrandonD » Wed Aug 20, 2014 8:50 pm

I try not to make assumptions. Capitalism and "altruistic" fields such as medicine do not mix well, it is totally plausible that the medical establishment would cover up a connection between adverse health effects and a drug that is making people a lot of money. However at the same time, if a connection is not there then it is not there. Not every plausible conspiracy is necessarily true, of course.

Peering into this subject, starting from zero, is like looking into a muddy lake. I'd like to ask a question to anyone here who considers himself very well-informed on this subject: What would you consider the strongest evidence to support or debunk this alleged connection?
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 2:04 am

Hi Sounder. That's the classic antivax binary trap, that rejecting the notion that vaccines cause autism equates to unthinking allegiance to and support of the pharmaceutical industry - or Big Pharma, as they say. Me, I say that there is no reason to blindly trust the pharmaceutical co's even while vaccines science is sound and do work.

But the only reason why we are discussing vaccines and autism in this thread now is because of Andrew Wakefield and I really recommend that you read Brian Deer's investigative reporting on the matter. Wakefield is not going to be a side note of history, he is considered to have perpetrated a spectacular (and perhaps unprecedented) medical fraud. Since then we have been subjected to relentless aggressive opportunistic messaging and campaigning by true-believers and groups affiliated with Scientology.


.... Then Deer describes exactly how. For instance, before Wakefield ever undertook his infamous study, he and a solicitor named Richard Barr had claimed to have identified a new syndrome consisting of bowel inflammation and regressive autism and aimed to show a temporal association between MMR vaccination and the onset of first symptoms. Unfortunately, Child 11′s case was a disappointment, as his discharge summary from the Royal Free Hospital, which showed that the boy’s regression began two months earlier than claimed in Wakefield’s paper and a month before he had ever received his MMR vaccine. Deer also describes Child 2, whose parents were the first to have approached Wakefield, sent by the anti-vaccine group JABS. This boy appeared in numerous news reports and was one of the four “best cases” used by Barr in a lawsuit. The boy’s mother’s story was vague and she wasn’t clear on how long it was between the child’s vaccination and the onset of his symptoms.

But that’s not all. The more the paper was investigated, the more anomalies were found. For example, only one child clearly had regressive autism, and three of nine described as having regressive autism did not. In fact, none of these three even had a diagnosis of autism at all! There were other anomalies as well. Several of the children clearly had preexisting conditions. For example, all twelve children were described in the paper as “previously normal,” but at least two of them clearly had developmental delay and facial dysmorphisms noted before they were vaccinated with the MMR. All twelve children taken together did not support the existence of a syndrome of bowel problems and regressive autism, at least not the syndrome as described in Wakefield’s paper. Deer summarizes how Wakefield “fixed the link” between MMR and regressive autism with enterocolitis:

The Lancet paper was a case series of 12 child patients; it reported a proposed “new syndrome” of enterocolitis and regressive autism and associated this with MMR as an “apparent precipitating event.” But in fact:

-Three of nine children reported with regressive autism did not have autism diagnosed at all. Only one child clearly had regressive autism
-Despite the paper claiming that all 12 children were “previously normal,” five had documented pre-existing developmental concerns
-Some children were reported to have experienced first behavioural symptoms within days of MMR, but the records documented these as starting some months after vaccination
-In nine cases, unremarkable colonic histopathology results–noting no or minimal fluctuations in inflammatory cell populations–were changed after a medical school “research review” to “non-specific colitis”
-The parents of eight children were reported as blaming MMR, but 11 families made this allegation at the hospital. The exclusion of three allegations–all giving times to onset of problems in months–helped to create the appearance of a 14 day temporal link
-Patients were recruited through anti-MMR campaigners, and the study was commissioned and funded for planned litigation

As Brian Deer so aptly put it, Wakefield “chiseled” the data, “falsifying medical histories of children and essentially concocting a picture, which was the picture he was contracted to find by lawyers hoping to sue vaccine manufacturers and to create a vaccine scare.”

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2011/ ... elds-scie/


BrandonD » Wed Aug 20, 2014 5:50 pm wrote:What would you consider the strongest evidence to support or debunk this alleged connection?

Without a doubt, the hate-filled rhetoric of the anti-vaxers and their campaigns of harassment of autistics and their families.
If you have evidence and are in the right, why would you make death threats?

I'll post some examples tomorrow, if you have trouble finding some for yourself.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BrandonD » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:46 am

Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:04 am wrote:Hi Sounder. That's the classic antivax binary trap, that rejecting the notion that vaccines cause autism equates to unthinking allegiance to and support of the pharmaceutical industry - or Big Pharma, as they say. Me, I say that there is no reason to blindly trust the pharmaceutical co's even while vaccines science is sound and do work.


From what I've read, it doesn't appear that the anti-vaccine people have a problem with vaccine science. As I understand it, there are active chemicals that prevent the illness, and there are also additional chemicals added for other purposes such as preservation. It is these additional chemicals that are allegedly causing the autism symptoms. These secondary chemicals are (claimed to be) most prominent in shots where multiple vaccines are being taken together, such as MMR.

I'll acknowledge a deep suspicion of large influential institutions such as "big pharma", to me it does not seem implausible that officials would push through questionable ingredients if money is a factor. But I have no conclusions or stance on the subject, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Is the argument above regarding the secondary ingredients bogus? Are all the chemicals in vaccines safe for children and babies? This is the area where I am currently unclear.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BOOGIE66 » Thu Aug 21, 2014 5:35 am

stickdog99 » Wed Aug 20, 2014 10:20 am wrote:The currently recommended vaccine regimen could easily be harmful to a small minority of people who are particularly sensitive to certain vaccine ingredients.

The claim that this idea has been "discredited" is categorically false. There haven't been any trials evaluating the health outcome of fully vaccinated vs. unvaccinated monkeys much less fully vaccinated vs. unvaccinated humans.


There is a big difference between saying vaccines "could easily be harmful to a small minority of people who are particularly sensitive to certain vaccine ingredients." and saying "vaccines can potentially cause autism."

There is a good trial regarding the health outcome of vaccinated humans vs health outcome of humans prior to vaccine, and I'm sure you have heard of it, it's called the polio vaccine.

Thinking a vaccine caused someone to have autism is pretty much saying that they didn't have it until they got the vaccine which caused them to develop it, is it not?
It couldn't be the chemical laden water that we drink and polluted air we breathe and possible damaged genes (it only takes 1 bit of a chromosome of one parent to be damaged) that both parents have been exposed to in their lives or any one of a thousand other environmental factors that might cause autism. No it's something in the vaccines given to the child after they are born that does it. Find out what ingredient it is that does it then. Don't say it's the vaccine because millions of people have been vaccinated with no problems at all.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby Sounder » Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:49 am

I think of the issue a lot like this, with minor variations.


Thinking a vaccine caused someone to have autism is pretty much saying that they didn't have it until they got the vaccine which caused them to develop it, is it not?
It couldn't be the chemical laden water that we drink and polluted air we breathe and possible damaged genes (it only takes 1 bit of a chromosome of one parent to be damaged) that both parents have been exposed to in their lives or any one of a thousand other environmental factors that might cause autism. No it's something in the vaccines given to the child after they are born that does it. Find out what ingredient it is that does it then. Don't say it's the vaccine because millions of people have been vaccinated with no problems at all.


The apparent rise in autism is no doubt multi-factorial, with a large component being ongoing exposure to complex chemicals that may combine in unexpected and unexamined ways.

The last sentence of Boggie's post is not true. Government’s, take liability precisely because vaccines do cause problems for some people.

Adjuvants are toxic elements added to the vaccine to amplify the immune response. Toxins in general tax and compromise ones immune system. Vaccines may well protect against one bug while at the same time making one more vulnerable to other threats.
All these things will continue as long as coercion remains a central element of our mentality.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby bks » Thu Aug 21, 2014 10:34 am

There is a big difference between saying vaccines "could easily be harmful to a small minority of people who are particularly sensitive to certain vaccine ingredients." and saying "vaccines can potentially cause autism."


Of course there is. But if a person even tries to insist on the first of these [which is inarguably true] they are immediately branded by the vaccination orthodoxy [hi Plutonia!] as a wild-eyed pre-modern. Doesn't matter who you are, or if you've had your own children vaccinated fully and accept that vaccines are probably the biggest public health success of all time, as I certainly do. You're a fucking lunatic danger to humakind.

The key move is: turn ANY AND ALL discourse that's critical of the current vaccination regime (even Stickdog's entirely fair and modest claim) into rabid "antivax" propaganda. There's a much deeper agenda here that goes beyond medical science and health, and it's not the caricature Plutonia wants to advance about evil big Pharma.

Compliance with vaccination regimes is about the triumph of "security," and is fueled by fear-mongering strategies similar to those advanced by the state securitization sector. There is pretty close to zero understanding of this or insight into it I can find among people like Paul Offit (who I've interviewed) and others within the vaccination orthodoxy.

If you dare to speak out in any form against any aspect the orthodox regime of vaccination in the US, you are at risk of being branded a child-killer by the likes of Orac or any number of the pens-for-hire inside the orthodoxy whose job it is to police the borders of full compliance and find heretics. This is by far the most striking feature of the entire vaccine mess: that medical officialdom has determined that not even the most modest, honest, and fair criticism of vaccination will be tolerated. They therefore need an adversary against which to fight, and they've helped to create one in the "Antivaccine movement," something that doesn't exist any more than the "9/11 truth movement" did. What DOES exist is a loose archipelago of organizations and websites with various foci, which of course includes plenty of ill-informed claptrap among it.

It was medical science itself, in the form of an article published in a well-regarded medical journal by an as-yet-not-discredited Andrew Wakefield, that greatly accellerated the vaccines-are-linked-to-autism narrative. By himself, without the vast power associated with the trapping of mainstream medical science, Wakefield would have been a voice howling in the wilderness. This is basically the whole story, slightly oversimplified, but none of this is focused on by the arch defenders of the vaccination regime since it's much easier to make pinatas out of Wakefield and that great epidemiologist Jenny McCarthy.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:26 pm

BrandonD » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:46 am wrote:
Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 1:04 am wrote:Hi Sounder. That's the classic antivax binary trap, that rejecting the notion that vaccines cause autism equates to unthinking allegiance to and support of the pharmaceutical industry - or Big Pharma, as they say. Me, I say that there is no reason to blindly trust the pharmaceutical co's even while vaccines science is sound and do work.


From what I've read, it doesn't appear that the anti-vaccine people have a problem with vaccine science. As I understand it, there are active chemicals that prevent the illness, and there are also additional chemicals added for other purposes such as preservation. It is these additional chemicals that are allegedly causing the autism symptoms. These secondary chemicals are (claimed to be) most prominent in shots where multiple vaccines are being taken together, such as MMR.

Is the argument above regarding the secondary ingredients bogus? Are all the chemicals in vaccines safe for children and babies? This is the area where I am currently unclear.

Yes, the anti-vax message has taken seed far and wide and, yes, there are those out there who have moderate voices and appear reasonable, but to reiterate, the case for the link between vaccines and autism was an established fraud which was only uncovered by the efforts of an independent journalist against the resistance of the British Medical Establishment. There is no link between autism and vaccines.

More, the idea that there is some environmental contaminant that is the cause of autism is predicated on the idea that there is an autism epidemic - because suddenly Wow! there are so many more autistic kids now than in the past. Others have refuted this idea better and more thoroughly that I will now, but this is a Hooey and is entirely dependent on the sustained invisibility of autistic adults and thus the persistent harassment and denigration of autistics, which at it's height a few years ago, was truly despicable.

But also, the idea that autism is a disease caused by an environmental contaminant has led to bizarre psuedo-science "cures" like bleach enemas and the Lupricon Protocol (chemical castration). That parents will subject their children to such horrors is the result of anti-vaxxers campaigning the most negative, foul and deranged representation of autism so that having autism is seen as being worse than death - a representation that adult autists are constantly objecting to.

Links
Death threats to pro-vaccine doctor/writer Paul Offit: http://autism.about.com/od/whoswhoinaut ... loffit.htm
British Medical Establishment shielded Wakefield: http://www.theguardian.com/science/blog ... mmr-autism
Attacks on Autistic People: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/2006/1 ... ic-people/
No Epidemic pdf: http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=& ... uCSGj5jp1A
MMS aka Bleach enema treatment: http://www.thinkingautismguide.com/2013 ... leach.html
Lupron Protocol: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/che ... y-notices/
Autistic Hoya speaks against the most prominent autism advocacy group, Autism Speaks, for their vile representations of autism: http://www.autistichoya.com/2012/07/geo ... peaks.html

And I hate to link to it, but the website that is the hub of anti-vax/anti-autism ideology is Age of Autism, so you aught to go there to get a feel for them and their talking points.

I'll acknowledge a deep suspicion of large influential institutions such as "big pharma", to me it does not seem implausible that officials would push through questionable ingredients if money is a factor. But I have no conclusions or stance on the subject, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Excellent. Just be careful that you are not unwittingly signing on to the Co$ anti-pharma, alternate health bandwagon.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby bks » Thu Aug 21, 2014 4:59 pm

What would you consider the strongest evidence to support or debunk this alleged connection?


The Wakefield study, which had been presented as the strongest evidence, has been thoroughly (and best I can tell, deservingly) discredited, and him along with it. One would expect a decrease in the incidence of autism after the removal of thimerosol from vaccines if in fact it was the primary causal agent - to my knowledge there has been no such decrease.

Which is not to say that no vaccine has ever had anything to do with any child becoming autistic ever (which is the orthodox medical line). That's not been proven, nor could that be proven.

Keep in mind: there is a great ideological investment among the medical orthodoxy that autism be found to have a primarily genetic cause, and so the ferocity with which the link to autism was denied [even before the best evidence against a connection was fully established] was partially about thimerosol being viewed as a proxy for ANY environmental causative agent.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BrandonD » Fri Aug 22, 2014 7:48 am

Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 12:26 pm wrote:More, the idea that there is some environmental contaminant that is the cause of autism is predicated on the idea that there is an autism epidemic - because suddenly Wow! there are so many more autistic kids now than in the past. Others have refuted this idea better and more thoroughly that I will now, but this is a Hooey and is entirely dependent on the sustained invisibility of autistic adults and thus the persistent harassment and denigration of autistics, which at it's height a few years ago, was truly despicable.


Thank you for this info. So do you think that there is no autism epidemic? Or do you think that autism is in some way an imaginary disease, like ADHD? The symptoms currently gathered under the name "autism" have a definite physical reality at least in my opinion, as I can attest by the appearance and behavior of my nephew. His head is larger than over 99% of the population and his behavior during development was highly abnormal.

I'll acknowledge a deep suspicion of large influential institutions such as "big pharma", to me it does not seem implausible that officials would push through questionable ingredients if money is a factor. But I have no conclusions or stance on the subject, I'm still trying to figure it out.

Excellent. Just be careful that you are not unwittingly signing on to the Co$ anti-pharma, alternate health bandwagon.


There's no danger of that, I'm already much further out-there than the anti-pharma alternate health people - that's why I like this place! :lol:
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby stickdog99 » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:19 pm

Why can't we solve this scientifically, folks?

Crazy ant-vaxxers are more than willing to put their children's longitudinal health outcomes to the test against the health outcomes of the pro-vaxxers' children who follow the recommended vaccine regimen by getting 49 doses of 14 vaccines before age 6.

Why not do the science? Why not scientifically determine cost and risk vs. benefit, unless you unscientifically presuppose what you should instead wish to prove?
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby Plutonia » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:22 pm

BrandonD » Fri Aug 22, 2014 4:48 am wrote:
Plutonia » Thu Aug 21, 2014 12:26 pm wrote:More, the idea that there is some environmental contaminant that is the cause of autism is predicated on the idea that there is an autism epidemic - because suddenly Wow! there are so many more autistic kids now than in the past. Others have refuted this idea better and more thoroughly that I will now, but this is a Hooey and is entirely dependent on the sustained invisibility of autistic adults and thus the persistent harassment and denigration of autistics, which at it's height a few years ago, was truly despicable.


Thank you for this info. So do you think that there is no autism epidemic? Or do you think that autism is in some way an imaginary disease, like ADHD? The symptoms currently gathered under the name "autism" have a definite physical reality at least in my opinion, as I can attest by the appearance and behavior of my nephew. His head is larger than over 99% of the population and his behavior during development was highly abnormal.

There is an autistic self-advocacy movement that defines autism as simply "neurological difference":
Neurodiversity is also an international online disability rights movement that has been promoted primarily by the autistic self-advocate community (although other disability rights groups have joined the neurodiversity movement). This movement frames neurodiversity as a natural human variation rather than a disease, and its advocates reject the idea that neurological differences need to be (or can be) cured, as they believe them to be authentic forms of human diversity, self-expression, and being. These advocates promote support systems (such as inclusion-focused services, accommodations, communication and assistive technologies, occupational training, and independent living support)[1] that allow those who are neurologically diverse to live their lives as they are, rather than being coerced or forced to adopt uncritically accepted ideas of normalcy, or to conform to a clinical ideal.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity

Autistic self-advocates say STOP trying to cure or eradicate us!; STOP misrepresenting us as monstrous!; STOP making decisions about us, without us!. And dear god! STOP subjecting autistic children to dangerous quackery like MMS.

You see, autistics, for the most part, like being autistic - even quite severely disabled autistics. This seems to be hard for non-autistics to grasp because they look at the surface and only see a retard. :tongout

Think of our enculturated bias towards exteriority and the possibilities of interiority. :wink:

So here is a pos-aut view of autism from Steve Silberman - who is a great friend of the Neurodiverse community, and who has been working on a book on autism for about 10 years and who is very approachable if you want to query him: @stevesilberman
Neurodiversity Rewires Conventional Thinking About Brains

By Steve Silberman
Illustration: Mark Weaver

In the late 1990s, a sociologist named Judy Singer—who is on the autism spectrum herself—invented a new word to describe conditions like autism, dyslexia, and ADHD: neurodiversity. In a radical stroke, she hoped to shift the focus of discourse about atypical ways of thinking and learning away from the usual litany of deficits, disorders, and impairments. Echoing positive terms like biodiversity and cultural diversity, her neologism called attention to the fact that many atypical forms of brain wiring also convey unusual skills and aptitudes.

Autistic people, for instance, have prodigious memories for facts, are often highly intelligent in ways that don’t register on verbal IQ tests, and are capable of focusing for long periods on tasks that take advantage of their natural gift for detecting flaws in visual patterns. By autistic standards, the “normal” human brain is easily distractible, is obsessively social, and suffers from a deficit of attention to detail. “I was interested in the liberatory, activist aspects of it,” Singer explained to journalist Andrew Solomon in 2008, “to do for neurologically different people what feminism and gay rights had done for their constituencies.”

The new word first appeared in print in a 1998 Atlantic article about Wired magazine’s website, HotWired, by journalist Harvey Blume. “Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general,” he declared. “Who can say what form of wiring will prove best at any given moment? Cybernetics and computer culture, for example, may favor a somewhat autistic cast of mind.”

Thinking this way is no mere exercise in postmodern relativism. One reason that the vast majority of autistic adults are chronically unemployed or underemployed, consigned to make-work jobs like assembling keychains in sheltered workshops, is because HR departments are hesitant to hire workers who look, act, or communicate in non-neurotypical ways—say, by using a keyboard and text-to-speech software to express themselves, rather than by chattering around the water cooler.

One way to understand neurodiversity is to remember that just because a PC is not running Windows doesn’t mean that it’s broken. Not all the features of atypical human operating systems are bugs. We owe many of the wonders of modern life to innovators who were brilliant in non-neurotypical ways. Herman Hollerith, who helped launch the age of computing by inventing a machine to tabulate and sort punch cards, once leaped out of a school window to escape his spelling lessons because he was dyslexic. So were Carver Mead, the father of very large scale integrated circuits, and William Dreyer, who designed one of the first protein sequencers.

Singer’s subversive meme has also become the rallying cry of the first new civil rights movement to take off in the 21st century. Empowered by the Internet, autistic self-advocates, proud dyslexics, unapologetic Touretters, and others who think differently are raising the rainbow banner of neurodiversity to encourage society to appreciate and celebrate cognitive differences, while demanding reasonable accommodations in schools, housing, and the workplace.

A nonprofit group called the Autistic Self Advocacy Network is working with the US Department of Labor to develop better employment opportunities for all people on the spectrum, including those who rely on screen-based devices to communicate (and who doesn’t these days?). “Trying to make someone ‘normal’ isn’t always the best way to improve their life,” says ASAN cofounder Ari Ne’eman, the first openly autistic White House appointee.

Neurodiversity is also gaining traction in special education, where experts are learning that helping students make the most of their native strengths and special interests, rather than focusing on trying to correct their deficits or normalize their behavior, is a more effective method of educating young people with atypical minds so they can make meaningful contributions to society. “We don’t pathologize a calla lily by saying it has a ‘petal deficit disorder,’” writes Thomas Armstrong, author of a new book called Neurodiversity in the Classroom. “Similarly, we ought not to pathologize children who have different kinds of brains and different ways of thinking and learning.”

In forests and tide pools, the value of biological diversity is resilience: the ability to withstand shifting conditions and resist attacks from predators. In a world changing faster than ever, honoring and nurturing neurodiversity is civilization’s best chance to thrive in an uncertain future.
http://www.wired.com/2013/04/neurodiversity/

Just one other thing: researchers are looking for a genetic marker for autism because autism very clearly runs in families and one of the ways that undiagnosed adult autistics are becoming aware of their own autism is via their child's, or family member's child, autism diagnosis. There are no statistics for adult autistics, as far as I'm aware, but more than one of my friends have "come out" as autistic in this way, in recent years.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby stickdog99 » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:33 pm

Maybe autism is just evolution's reaction to our modern toxic environment? As in only technology can solve the problems engendered by technology?
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BrandonD » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:51 pm

There are a lot of different things that are currently being collectively called "autism". It is my opinion that these things are not necessarily related.

For example, according to popular categorizations I am on the autism spectrum in the aspergerian region. This is the area that seems to deal strictly with behavior and social integration.

However, my experience with my nephew has made it very clear to me that there is an actual *disorder* called autism, totally separate from the behavioral traits that are popularly known. This is not just something "different", it is a genuine problem, very much like having a child born with down syndrome. There are physical as well as developmental problems, it is not strictly behavioral.

My sister pays a gigantic amount of money for a special education program specifically for my autistic nephew. It is called ABA (applied behavior analysis). Programs like these are apparently one of the prime reasons why today, autistic symptoms can be improved as the child grows. According to my sister, my nephew's behavioral and learning disorders did not begin improving at all until he entered this special education program. But it is extremely expensive.

ABA has worked so well in fact, that my sister has abandoned her previous field of study and is now going to school for ABA.

stickdog99 » Fri Aug 22, 2014 12:19 pm wrote:Why not do the science? Why not scientifically determine cost and risk vs. benefit, unless you unscientifically presuppose what you should instead wish to prove?


Much better than a "risk/benefit" analysis would be simply scientific studies to show exactly what IS the cause of these physical and behavioral symptoms. They are not imaginary, SOMEthing is causing them. Perhaps it is simply a genetic "defect", like down syndrome - or perhaps it is something ingested by the developing baby.

As I said before, my sister believes it is toxic ingredients in our modern-day diet. She is very well-read on the subject, but she is also a born-again Christian, so as you might guess I feel hesitant to entirely trust her conclusions on things.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby BrandonD » Fri Aug 22, 2014 1:57 pm

Plutonia » Fri Aug 22, 2014 12:22 pm wrote:Just one other thing: researchers are looking for a genetic marker for autism because autism very clearly runs in families and one of the ways that undiagnosed adult autistics are becoming aware of their own autism is via their child's, or family member's child, autism diagnosis. There are no statistics for adult autistics, as far as I'm aware, but more than one of my friends have "come out" as autistic in this way, in recent years.


This example of people "coming out" as autistic is the type of thing that I would associate with the social/behavioral characteristics commonly associated with autism. People in this area generally did not have any physical or developmental abnormalities when growing up.

My nephew has both physical and developmental abnormalities, I think this is a crucial difference between the two. Because one can be conceivably dismissed as just a behavioral "difference", while the other is truly a disorder.
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Re: Vaccine - Autism link

Postby stickdog99 » Sat Aug 23, 2014 11:45 am

My girlfriend just suggested the uptick in autism rates has been caused by the recent cultural prohibition of smoking and drinking among pregnant women.

Yes, I know that I'm very lucky.
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