Tuesday, January 8, 2008

The epidemic that wasn't



How many of these children might have been labeled autistic when this photo was taken?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting photo but unfortunately there is no science showing the rates of autism before the most recent decades, Mr. Science. Surely those in the photo were less likely in that day to receive the appropriate care and compassion from society, implicit in the institutionalized setting displayed.

Maybe those who have achieved so much more in this day than the face value of that old image would suggest for those particular children have some thoughts as to the evolution of how best to help such individuals reach their greatest potential.

Progress in this area will continue to defy the past ideas and once again, you are showing your true colors ANB-not so pretty.

Big picture here is to fast track the science to screen children and locales for environmental stresses and sensitivities and improve population neurodevelopment in those most at risk by avoidance of unnecessary exposures and yes that includes many things outside of vaccinations.

But wait, maybe we should go back to the glorious past of leaded gasoline, using x-rays to treat acne and thalidomide for morning sickness-how bout those good old days!

Anonymous said...

About 38%.

Anonymous said...

Too bad Eli Lilly didn't invent autism earlier, then these kids could have been chelated and HBOTed so they could play football like their big brothers.

Anonymous said...

Ken,

Why are you so worried about the alternative treatments that are working for my son, prove mercury poisoning? You have an agenda that does not help. My son has confirmed mercury poisoning, as I offered, I am happy to share his lab work with you. His first labs showed many issue other than mercury toxicity. My older boys are receiving a college education because of their football talents. Many young boys, like mine, dream of playing college sports. Adam has been denied any childhood dreams and the opportunity to be a student because he was poisoned.

Anonymous said...

Is Adam being treated by a toxicologist?

Anonymous said...

lindaweino: If your child had confirmed mercury poisoning, maybe he wasn't autistic? Was the autism confirmed?

By confirmation, do you mean actual tests that confirmed he had toxic levels of mercury in the blood (very rare in autistics and non-autistics) or do you mean something else, like high levels of porphyrins?

BTW, my son's progress must mean I'm curing him somehow too, perhaps with my mental powers or something.

Anonymous said...

Linda, I'll take you up on your offer to share Adam's lab work, but I need to know about your motivation and expectations. Are you looking for a second opinion from an evidence-based physician? Joseph makes some excellent points about mercury poisoning. What do you want to hear?

Anonymous said...

Adam was diagnosed with PPDNOS by his pediatrician, a developmental pediatrician diagnosed him PDDNOS/Autism and Munroe Meyers Institute for Genetics and Rehabilitation diagnosed him with Autism. After 6 years bio medical and 4 years chelation therapy, for heavy metal toxicity, he is recovering from mercury poisoning. I guess those who mis-dignosed him believe the symptoms of mercury poisoning mimick autism.

My only motivation is to save babies from mercury poisoning.

I have plenty of experts and MD's on Adam's team including an Ophthalmologist, 2 Endocrinologists, Infectious Disease Specialist, Specialist in Internal Medicine, Geneticist and Pediatrician. He has a list of diagnoses including combination of endocrine dysfunction, pituitary dysfunction, hyperlipidemia, hyperinsulinemia, hypothyroidism, low growth hormone, metabolism disorder, severe chronic constipation, high testosterone, many vision issues and developmental delays due to adverse effect of thimerosal.

Our pediatrician said he has never had a patient with autism make the improvements Adam has made. After reviewing Adam's extensive lab work, he wrote "Heavy Metal Toxicity" on his chart.

Want me to send his labs to your office?

Anonymous said...

Our pediatrician said he has never had a patient with autism make the improvements Adam has made.

He must not have seen that many autistic kids. Good outcomes, even excellent outcomes, are not so rare that a pediatrician would never see them. You should read Kanner (1972) if you haven't. Keep in mind that until the 70s institutionalization of children was so rampant that Kanner's kids didn't really have much of a chance. Still, some were doing quite well in their late 30s.

Anonymous said...

Is your geneticist Dr. Mark Geier?

Is it possible you are confusing correlation with causation?

The anti-vaccination movement has been backing away from the discredited mercury hypothesis for the past year. First it was MMR, then mercury, now it's attenuated viruses. And yet still there's no sound science connecting vaccines to autism.

If you still want to email me PDFs of Adam's lab work, I will gladly share them with evidence-based physicians, and report back what they had to say. Some might be willing to post their own responses. You already know my email address, as well as my home address, phone number, wife's name, and what I had for breakfast this morning. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Is there an autism epidemic or not Bill and Ken?

You first said no epidemic, now you quote that autism is going up in California, which suggests an epidemic. If it is not the thimerosal it must be the vaccines in general. Autism diagnoses have increased in triple digits across the country during the same time that the number of vaccines tripled. The CDC has a real problem if it is not the mercury that caused this, it must be the entire vaccine program. This has all happened on the CDC’s watch., they should evaluate the poor health of our children and ask the question why are our children so sick?

Ken, you should have had your Wheaties this morning.

Anonymous said...

Linda, you need to understand the difference between prevalence and incidence. Until then, you're way in over your head.

Anonymous said...

I don't know how many times I've had to explain this. The administrative prevalence of autism going up is not the same as an "epidemic". In IDEA this is more clear, given that as the prevalence of autism goes up, the prevalence of MR goes down. Clearly not an epidemic, just diagnostic substitution, but the autism numbers do go up.

Furthermore, this argument that if it's not the thimerosal it must be the whole vaccine schedule, is frankly preposterous. Are these the only two possible environmental triggers ever? For some people, they seem to be. Why that is is the interesting question.

Anonymous said...

Linda,
regarding epidemics and rising numbers, in 1993 in the UK the National Autistic Society estimated prevalence of all autistic spectrum disorders to be 91 in 10000. In 2006 Baird et al came up with 116 in 10000. So the prevalence in the UK has shifted from just under one per cent to just over one per cent in 13 years. This is against a back ground of a much less intensive vaccination policy than that practised in the USA and our vaccines have always contained less thimerosal than those in the USA.

Could it be that significant numbers of autistic children were missed in the past or misdiagnosed? There is a simple test. Carry out an epidemiological study using the criteria from DSM III that were in force up to 1987. If I am right I predict that you will find a rate around 5 in 10000 amongst today's kids.

Anonymous said...

Surely there is a lot of diagnostic substitution going on with this, probably explaining the recently published increasing rates in California.