Special Master Denise K. Vowell wrote in one of the decisions that "petitioners propose effects from mercury in [vaccines] that do not resemble mercury's known effects in the brain, either behaviorally or at the cellular level. To prevail, they must show that the exquisitely small amounts of mercury in [vaccines] that reach the brain can produce devastating effects that far larger amounts experienced prenatally or postnatally from other sources do not."
She also dismissed claims that some groups of children are unusually susceptible to the effects of mercury. "The only evidence that these children are unusually sensitive is the fact of their [autism] itself."
In a separate ruling, Special Master George L. Hastings wrote: "This case . . . is not a close case. The overall weight of the evidence is overwhelmingly contrary to the petitioners' causation theories."
OK, so the hypothesis that vaccines and autism were somehow connected (other than that children get vaccines and are also, sometimes, diagnosed with autism) doesn't hold up. No big surprise there, especially since thimerosal was removed from vaccines in Denmark in 1992, without any effect on the continuing rise of autism diagnoses.
Graph from Science Magazine via Bad Astronomy
So how did the anti-vaccine movement take all this? Rationally? OK, it looks like we were wrong about this hypothesis, so it's time to take a good hard look at what else might be causing the rise in autism. Yeah, right.
No, according to the anti-vaxxers, this is all a giant conspiracy. All of these scientists must simply want their children to get autism. Because the alternative, that they were wrong to leap to a conclusion without evidence, is simply not acceptable to them. Actresses know better than scientists. Moms don't need evidence. They just automatically know what's causing their children's illnesses. (Funny how moms let their children die for generation after generation, blaming it on demons, witches, the "evil eye," since they all must have known that germs cause disease, right?)
If you think this way, what could possibly convince you that you were wrong? If scientific evidence won't do it, what would? Anything? Do you just think that you're infallible? In order to convince rational people that vaccines cause autism, you must have evidence to back up your beliefs. You don't. It's not even a close call.
I don't want to be flippant here, since this is a tragic business. I sincerely sympathize with parents of autistic children, in fact all parents worried about this scary situation. I even sympathize with parents who want to find someone to blame. That's just human nature. But you've got the wrong culprit here. Scientists have looked into this hypothesis and it proved to be wrong. Time to move on, to look elsewhere. No one will fault you for proposing a hypothesis that later turned out to be wrong. But you are at fault for clinging to a failed hypothesis after the evidence is in.
And meanwhile, you are killing children. You are scaring parents needlessly, which is causing vaccination rates to drop and putting children at risk. It's not just your children, either. We are losing the herd immunity that helps protect very young children, those who are too young to receive vaccinations. And children are dying because of this. Right now!
You are missing the point... Parents are screaming for help for their children... Address the needs of the Autism Community for services for their injured children and they will back off the vaccine hypothesis ( By the way fair & Honest science has yet to be done... Show us a vaccinated vs Non-vaccinated study & Publish the Primate thimerosal study ). Parents will dismantle the vaccination program because that is a way of forcing society to take notice. Money & lives are wasted on all sides. Join with us & call for therapies, services, treatments, and answers. We are not scaring parents the numbers are NOW #1in91 ( When I was younger it was 1 in 10,000 )
ReplyDeleteNo, you're the one who's missing the point, TannersDad. No one is saying that autism isn't a serious condition, or that we don't need to find the cause. But do you really think that KILLING CHILDREN is a good way of "forcing society to take notice"? How sick is that?
ReplyDeleteThe point is that you jumped to vaccines as the culprit without good evidence, and that you stick to it despite further evidence that you are wrong. This is typical of pseudoscience, of everything from astrology to homeopathy. In all of these, believers simply have no reliable mechanism for separating truth from fantasy.
I guess it's just human nature to love a good conspiracy theory, to fixate on a belief despite the evidence, and to abhor "I don't know" as an answer, even when it's the only accurate answer we've got right now. In any case, it does no good at all in finding the real cause(s) of autism.
Furthermore, you confuse frightened, gullible, scientifically-ignorant people into forgoing something that's life-preserving. Children are DYING because of this. If you'd chosen marshmallows, instead of vaccines, for your crusade, it wouldn't be so bad (except that you'd still be taking time and attention away from finding the real cause of autism).
PS. And you ARE scaring parents when you claim that the numbers are 1 in 91, whether that's true or not. In fact, it seems to be ten times too high, according to most estimates I've seen. In addition, we don't know how much of the increase is simply due to changes in diagnosis (not all of it, I'm sure).
It's a scary thing already. We all recognize that. There's no need to exaggerate the situation when it's clearly a real problem in reality. And there's no need to invent a culprit just to "force society to take notice." If you feel you must do that, please pick marshmallows instead of vaccines.
a) Could there be an association with increasing exposure of fetal ultrasounds?
ReplyDeleteor
b)Increasing use of later parenting in men?
c)finally, is perhaps a relation with nutrasweet, or other artificial sweeteners?
"Could be"? There could be a lot of things. But there's absolutely no reason to suggest any of them without evidence.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, there's one thing we can be sure of, that there are a lot more things that don't cause autism than things that do. So throwing out a bunch of "could be's" is completely useless, not to mention foolishly inflammatory and fear-inducing.
(And I wonder about that "increasing use of later parenting in men." On the face of it, that doesn't even seem to be true. Is there some sudden wave of older men having children these days? It used to be that men had huge families, so why weren't the later children autistic then?)