autism

Dr. Nancy Snyderman is NBC's chief medical editor. This morning she did a profile of Dr. Paul Offit, author of the new book Autism's False Prophets. The profile was pretty good, not great, it missed a few points. But check out what happened during the "outro" after the report. Dr. Snyderman...

Newsweek article - "Debunking the Vaccine-Autism Link"... and, "death threats"? Newsweek published a story they titled "Debunking the Vaccine-Autism Link", and centered it around Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a person the article calls...

Wow, just wow. http://www.pr.com/article/1076 Quick, someone tell Tobias that he's either not autistic, or not an adult. Thank you goes to a stopjenny.com fan for giving them the head's up. This is therefore being covered gleefully by the folks at www.stopjenny.com

Offered Without Comment

I'm very troubled by the rising media presence of Jenny McCarthy lately. She's really taken the lead role in the antivaccination movement's PR. Very rarely do any other figures in that movement make television appearances. It got me thinking about how Robert Lancaster established a great model...

I was going over some past articles on the two major candidates for president, and came across this: John McCain Enters the Autism Wars This opening paragraph reads: The article was posted February 29, 2008 at 7:11 PM on the ABC News website by Jake Tapper as part of his blog. Has Mr...

Quite a few parents of autistic children I've met are into "The Diet." Some of them swear by it as a miracle, others are simply considering it as a possibility and want to know what I think about it. My understanding of it is that there's little to no evidence that it does much of anything...

"Death may be better than autism in some cases,..." ... and further discussed here: http://leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk/?p=1355 Is there any way to reason with that kind of mindset?

Not that this will change the minds of the rabid anti-vaxers, but it might help rid the lingering doubt in the general public. Interestingly this study was authored by one of the mercury militia - Mandy Hornig. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003140...

(Sorry if I'm using statistical terms wrong. It's the lectures, they are so boring...) I've been arguing with an anti-vac guy, who is using this article as evidence of his claims. (This is a link to the first part of the article on UPI, the first link has both parts.) I want to know, am I...

Savage the host of Savage Nation , a sydicated radio show had the following to say http://mediamatters.org/items/200807170005?f=h_top Not that he doesn't say a lot of stupid things: http://mediamatters.org/issues_topics/tags/michael_savage?f=h_hot

Medicine is definitely not my strong point. But I just had to say something about this weekends USA Weekend article by Dr. Tedd Mitchell. The article is very short, he talks about 3 myths... Vaccines don't work Vaccines aren't necessary Vaccines are dangerous I am not upset about any of...

So my parents sent me a hard copy of this gem: http://www.naturalchoice.net/articles/mercurymind.htm From the article My parents don't really buy it, but they are more along the lines of "Hey, what about this article? Debunk this..." So, I'm going to sit down and Fisk this article, but in the...

There has been a lot of activity recently about autism/vaccination issues. First there was the rally rather strangely called "Green our vaccines", as though the protection of our nearest and dearest somehow comes hand in hand with a massive carbon footprint and environmental devastation. This...

A kindergarten teacher had her class criticize a classmate, a 5-year old boy believed to have Asperger's, a variety of autism, and then made the class vote on whether he should leave the class. The kids voted against the autistic boy, 14 - 2. His one friend in the class at first voted in...

In general I am a pretty tolerant person when it comes to woo -- if it's not hurting anybody, then people are welcome to believe whatever wierdness trips their trigger. But there are certain areas in which woo beliefs do active harm and for these I have no pity. One of the most egregious of...

Video at CNN I'm reminded of a Usenetter I dealt with, a vaccination opponent (and active measles-party organizer) who claimed that the human species had spontaneously developed a natural resistance to smallpox -- and that it had, just by coincidence, happened at the time smallpox vaccination...

I know autism is a hot topic, especially with many people concerned about what is the cause of autism. Here is a link to a news story by MSN highlighting a new study performed by Julie Daniels of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, linking autism with parents who have schizophrenia...

Very interesting article in the LA Times. Here's an excerpt: And this gem: TA: I just found this related, but different thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=107164

"Every 20 minutes a child is diagnosed with autism" - A mathematical model? Help? Gee, I hate differential equations, but I'm interested in math modeling. It's like sticking your hand into a garbage disposal for a sweet, sweet jewel. The garbage disposal is on. And there are flesh eating...

The Washington Post delivers a slapdown to both candidates. I'm disappointed in both candidates on this one.

I had a bit of a bone to pick with Randi about his recent comment about this controversy in SWIFT, so I emailed him and he replied quite promptly, to point out I said he said something he didn't say. Point taken. But, I thought I would start a thread so I can get some feedback from the Forum...

For ages the antivaxers have been bemoaning the preponderance of epidemiological studies on autism, and wondering why more studies are not done on autistic kids. Well Wakefield tried, but produced a crock of **** for results. Now some docs in London have studied autistics and controls, and...

So I've just read a singularly uninformative CNN article with the title "Case renews debate on vaccine-autism link". http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/03/05/autism.vaccines.ap/index.html Best I can tell the article contradicts the headline. Apparently several vaccines administered in one day are...

A woman in Okotoks, claiming to have several degrees is selling cures for autism. She can't provide any evidence that her technique works, she can't provide evidence of having any degrees (apart from a two-year diploma), but insists that she's charging a fair price for her miracles. For those...

Full article here

Saw this on the news last night from WKOW TV out of Madison, WI. http://wkow.madison.com/Streamer/stream.php?url=/Video/playlist.php?ID=19280 This is the same stuff that Randi exposed a while back in Madison, correct? I'm going to do some searching here to see what I find and send the station...

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=4311223&page=1 ABC news the people who brought you Jon of God are now touting Carly Fleischmann's ability to type her feelings about her experiences. Haven't we seen this before? As I recall facilitated communication has been throughly debunked. Or...

Well, not really. ;) But one could interpret the results of the latest study that failed to find a link between MMR vaccination and autism as demonstrating vaccination is protective: For those who can't access it, here is the abstract. A prediction: The study is bound to be dismissed by...

Pediatricians Say Fictional TV Show's Autism-Vaccine Link Could Be Literally Lethal By Brandon Keim January 29, 2008 | 1:54:19 PM The American Academy of Pediatrics wants television network ABC to cancel the opener of "Eli Stone," a legal drama slated to debut on Thursday with...