Heretics' almanac

Putting the vaccination issue to rest

Adventures in Autism has read an article I also came across recently in which SurveyUSA conducted a phone survey in California to see if there were any reported differences in prevalence of autism among vaccinated vs. non-vaccinated kids. In a sample of 17,674, 991 (about 5.6%) were reported as being completely unvaccinated. Among this group (the control group) autism was significantly less common.

As the article itself points out, this is not a definitive conclusion; but it does raise questions that warrant further investigation. And as adventures points out, it also proves that it should be possible to find a statistically meaningfully-sized control group for purposes of comparison.

The unknown risks of vaccination

Since I published my piece yesterday on Arthur Allen's naked disdain for parenthood, I have received several reactions and poked around a bit more.

As it turns out, David Kirby (author of "Evidence of Harm") and Allen have a bit of a traveling show going, meeting for bouts in various venues. Kirby's shtick is that vaccines have harmed kids, Allen's is that vaccines are a public health miracle of unquestionable benefit. And I mean unquestionable - anyone who questions Allen's convictions has some kind of moral or intellectual deficiency.

Arthur Allen insults parents

Slate has some excellent writers (Bazelon, Lithwick, Saletan, Kipnis, among others) and a few that really deserve a lesser platform for their views. Hitchens is one, Arthur Allen another.

Most recently, Allen published a polemic under the title Medical Examiner trying to get rid of the "myth" that vaccination contributes to, triggers, or causes "autism." The article is a mix of factoids, ad hominem attacks, and logical fallacies that falls neatly in with his other rants Slate inexplicably wanted to cover.

I will say this: I'm not sure whether there is such a link. Any honest person would concede there simply isn't enough information to draw a firm conclusion either way. But if anything convinces me that the theory has merit, it's the lousy case people like Allen put up against it.

The coming wave of autism backlash

The United States Centers for Disease Control recently published statistics that indicate that 1 in 150 children within a certain age cohort, across 14 states, is autistic. This is way more than the previous official numbers, which placed the incidence at about 1 in 5,000 (or thereabouts) and even higher than previous estimates, which put it at 1 in 166.

The next shoe to drop is an acknowledgment of the obvious implication, namely that the increased incidence is due to environmental factors. Until now, mainstream medicine has held it to be a hereditary condition.

Sowing a confidence crisis

In the Huffington Post, David Kirby writes that the American Academy of Pediatricians is likely to oppose any research into a possible connection between vaccinations and pediatric neurological disorders and are trying to hold up a bill that would, among other things, fund such research.

The AAP, along with a dwindling number of organizations, are trying to convince us that since some research fails to provide evidence of a link (although there is lots of research that lends support for it), we can safely assume that no link exists.

This is obviously a logical fallacy, but what is truly puzzling is why the AAP would oppose such research, even if its only purpose would be to put parents' concerns to rest.

I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories - I don't think at all that pharmaceutical companies are corruptly trying to protect their financial interests by continuing to poison kids.

But what I do believe is this:

New York Times would prefer worse parents

The New York Times published its article on the thimerosal controversy, making it more or less about the heroic efforts of "scientists" and "experts" to persuade parents that no, there is no link between the use of thimerosal in vaccines and their children's serious diseases.

It's telling that the New York Times article never mentions the fact that there is overwhelming evidence that chelation has shown dramatic improvements for at least some kids with the diagnosis, but still feels compelled to highlight the experience of one self-proclaimed scientific mind, Jim Laidler, who rejects the whole thing on the basis of his experience with his own two sons. 

Now, there are a great many things wrong with this article, but let me point out a few: