Interverbal's blog has a great discussion about the significance of the recent California autism numbers.
He's following up on a post on Ginger's blog that tried to demonstrate a perceived drop in the increase of autism cases in the state and also attempted to correlate that the drop (given the corresponding time lag) with the reduction of thimerosal in the vaccines given to young children.
On Interverbal's blog you'll get dry data and conservative but accurate analysis. He skips the posturing and melodrama all too common in discussions of autism. So check it out.
Bottom line: the jury's still out about the roots of autism.
-BC
posted by Bartholomew Cubbins @ 1/14/2006 11:06:00 PM
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I've just deleted my first non-spambot comment. To see this guy's viewpoints, go to
Prometheus and look for Fore Sam making some comments. You'll see why I deleted his here, since it was a continuation of that discussion and unless someone would bother going between the two blogs, they'd have no context.
Cute stuff.
Fore Sam - you're more than welcome to comment here, as long as it's within the thread's context o/w it's just spam.
I wouldn't want you lowering yourself to ad hom arguments on a logically correct blog. I don't have your email so I put it here.
I'll put my email on the next video I put up in a couple of days.
I see, I suppose if I were in your shoes I'd feel like I was getting beat over the head in that other discussion too. Here's to hoping I never adopt a self-righteous, absolutist mantra in an attempt to run block on rational and topic-based discussion (at Prometheus' blog or anywhere else). The kind of bobble head lemmingism that works on EoH just isn't tolerated by scientists and those interested in the scientific process.
If you're that interested in APOE and autism then maybe I should do those papers.
While waiting with bated breath for the next BC video installment, why don't you take some time and open your mind to the possibility that your child is developing just as he would have without intervention. Also, I'd suggest actually reading the papers that you are so keen on citing. That way, there can be a more productive discussion of the facts and interpretation of the data involved in the APOE paper(s). I'll get on it.
If you wish to learn about APO-E4, check with Dr Donald Miller.
I'm not being beat over the head over there. I'm just being sophistrized(is that a word)and it's comical to me. The truth is so simple to see if one is not trying to hide it and neither one of us has the time to engage in a 200 page debate. It's too simple. One or one half microgram of mercury is considered safe by the CDC and/or the FDA. It stands to reason that about 200 micrograms is not safe by their own standards. You don't need extensive studies for this, only some old-fashioned common sense.
Common sense is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure it was common sense for Ted Kaczynski to do what he did. You might as well be trying to say "It is because Jesus says it is" to a group of muslims.
I'll get on the APO papers so check back in a couple days for that.
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Fore Sam,
I understand your desire to reach parents and let them know about the miracles of chelation and share your conviction that autism is really mercury poisoning. What I can't understand is why you would try to argue the science when you clearly don't understand it very well. It doesn't help your case or your cause if you always end up looking foolish.
I understand you've seen the light and you truly believe what you believe, to the point that you are on a mission to convert non-believers, but I doubt any intelligent parents will be so easily swayed by your circular arguments.
If you think APOE is involved with mercury excretion because someone else told you it is, why are you unwilling to consider a greater body of evidence to the contrary? Could it be that you ARE painting targets around bullet holes?
So we won't have to search for your Dr. Donald Miller's publications, why don't you provide a link to his APOE and Hg research and we'll take a look. Who knows, maybe you can convert a few skeptics and earn your risqué angel wings.
Fore Sam - I've deleted that religious slander comment. You want to rip on all religions equally go for it. You want to praise all religions equally, fine. But there is no way I want to be associated with singling one out and bashing it.
So, the conversation has moved over here. You may want to check back at A Photon in the Darkness, fore sam.
It was once "common sense" that the Earth was flat and stationary. It took careful gathering of data and experimentation to prove otherwise. That's why I don't always trust my gut.
For the times I do trust my gut, I always leave a way to quickly find out if it's wrong, namely double-blind control studies and similar scientific procedures. That's what I like about being open-minded: If I'm wrong, it's easy to find out.
bronze dog: That's what I like about being open-minded: If I'm wrong, it's easy to find out.
I learn more when I am wrong. I don't prefer it that way but it's liberating to cast aside bad ideas once they are proven wrong.
Bronze Dog;
It was once thought there was no known cause or cure for autism. Now we know better. It's time to upgrade your obsolete data base.
Whoever asked for links, I don't save links and I only know of Miller because he wrote something a couple of years ago and answered some questions for me.
The lot of you need to follow the money so you can understand the truth.
Bronze Dog;
It was once thought there was no known cause or cure for autism. Now we know better.
You mean you have data demonstrating a cure, rather than one lucky shot you've conveniently painted a bullseye around?
It's time to upgrade your obsolete data base.
Perhaps you'd like to provide it.
Whoever asked for links, I don't save links and I only know of Miller because he wrote something a couple of years ago and answered some questions for me.
In other words, we have to take your word for it because you're too lazy to put any effort into convincing us.
The lot of you need to follow the money so you can understand the truth.
PROPAGANDA TACTIC: Ad homenim, subtype: Appeal to motivation:
If you knew anything about the scientific method or the peer-review process, you'd know that proper testing protocols and independant replication filter out bias, falsification, dumb luck, and all that.
You, however, choose not to filter out your biases with such methods.
You're also in another sophist Cartesian Circle: Assuming that you're right, any experiment that says otherwise must be false, and therefore ignored. Any lucky shot that supports you must be right, because you're right. Your premise is your conclusion.
Besides, if you follow the money, I imagine you'll find that quacks make an even larger profit margin. But that's all irrelevant because the scientific method is designed to remove biases. I'm not going to fall for your cowardly attempt to change the subject.
NOW GET BACK ON TOPIC: SHOW US THE DATA!
Mr Dog;
If you knew anything about politics, you would realize that Pharma did not donate countless millions to Congress and both Presidential candidates without expecting some return on their investment. They got that return a couple of days before Christmas when Frist pulled off his Alaska for pharma protection deal. There's no scientific method to analyze that, it requires common sense, the common sense that you scientists are lacking when you think it's OK to put 200 times as much mercury into an infant as is deemed safe by your own standards.
You know all the links. I can tell that by your carefully thought out sophistry. However, www.generationrescue.org will give you all the answers you allegedly need. It's your choice to decide if you want to keep poisoning babies or stop it. Sophistry will help the poisoning continue while demanding honesty from our elected officials and their bosses at Pharma will end it.
I told you before, your data about the cure is at ARI and Autism-Mercury Yahoo group. It's just not in scientific form. If any of you are motivated by having a poisoned kid, you can find all you need to know there. Of course, if all your interested in is denying the fact, keep sophistrizing.
If you knew anything about politics, you would realize that Pharma did not donate countless millions to Congress and both Presidential candidates without expecting some return on their investment. They got that return a couple of days before Christmas when Frist pulled off his Alaska for pharma protection deal.
If you knew anything about science, you'd realize that the politics are rendered irrelevent by the scientific method and the peer review process. If there was some big pharma conspiracy, it'd only take a handful of replicable double-blind control studies to tear it down.
There's no scientific method to analyze that, it requires common sense, the common sense that you scientists are lacking when you think it's OK to put 200 times as much mercury into an infant as is deemed safe by your own standards.
1. It was once "common sense" that the Earth was flat, yadda, yadda. I don't know why I'm typing this, since you're ignoring each and every point I make. Just because you rubbed your lucky rabbit's foot before you hit the bullseye doesn't mean that you hit the bullseye BECAUSE you rubbed your lucky rabbit's foot.
2. Are we talking about mercury or thimerasol? Elements and compounds made of those elements are very different. Otherwise we'd burn and explode from drinking water.
You know all the links. I can tell that by your carefully thought out sophistry.
No, I don't. I haven't even had to touch the data, because all your arguments are dead on arrival. You don't have any substance. You're tripping the exact same baloney detector I have for politicians, psychics, lawyers, and used car salesmen: You're using the exact same tactics they do.
For the Big Pharma conspiracy theory: It's just like Senator Joseph McCarthy: It's conducted solely on insinuation and innuendo. I see no signs of them conducting any real research. Just parroting the quackery industry lines with no support for their arguments.
However, www.generationrescue.org will give you all the answers you allegedly need.
That's what a guy said about a different website on the same subject. Unless you're going to tell me that website has double-blind control studies, it's all meaningless. DBTs are what it takes to convince me, or any logical person. If you or these people are telling the truth, you have nothing to fear from conducting DBTs. He also made vague references to a DBT there, but guess what! Nope, I couldn't find it. It wasn't anywhere on the website.
It's your choice to decide if you want to keep poisoning babies or stop it.
PROPAGANDA TACTIC: Loaded language. You're also assuming your conclusion. Prove to me it's poisonous in the amounts given.
Sophistry will help the poisoning continue while demanding honesty from our elected officials and their bosses at Pharma will end it.
You, who creates phantom conspiracies, accuse me of sophistry? I'm asking for a test against reality. You're content with one lucky shot as evidence that your lucky rabbit's foot works. When I continue pressing for a test on the firing range, you attack my political naivety, and claim the range is biased. And yet, you sit there content to talk when actions will convince me. YOU ARE THE SOPHIST.
I told you before, your data about the cure is at ARI and Autism-Mercury Yahoo group. It's just not in scientific form.
If it's not scientific, it's not data. It could just be cherry-picked testimonials. Do something to convince me that they're more than that. Show me the actions undertaken at the website to prevent cherry-picking. You're the one making the claim. You do the work.
Of course, if all your interested in is denying the fact, keep sophistrizing.
If YOU would stop sophistrizing, you could get out of your off-topic, unfalsifiable, circular logic, and into DOING something to prove your point, rather than shout your premise/conclusion over and over.
How about this: On the topic of "Does X cure autism?":
Why should I lower my standards below peer-reviewed double-blind control studies?
Start with answering that question.
fore sam: However, www.generationrescue.org will give you all the answers you allegedly need.
No, that site provides all of the answers you need and if you want to follow JB and Buttar cream, be my guest. I've noticed that you, JB, and the rest of the Chelati all talk about how they are "curing" their children through chelation but I don't see anybody using the past tense of cure. I'm happy that your child is improving, really, that's great, but don't you think it's a bit premature to talk cause and cure if your child is still very much autistic? Is that too logical for you?
Clone; I don't follow Buttar. Andy Cutler is the expert on chelation. That's why I suggest going to Autism-Mercury if you'd like to talk to parents who have cured their kids. There are lots of them that still hang out there advising other parents. Chelation can be a very long process and only claims to cure 50%. Perhaps while engaging in the process, knowledge will be gained that allows us to cure the other 50% as well. The one thing we are certain of is that the mercury must be removed or there is no chance of recovery.
Mr Dog; You try to be a sophist but are not skilled at it. You can't understand the politics which means you can't decipher the truth. Remember the Ace of trumps. You can't win this argument so you might as well give up. All those cured kids and improving kids trump all of your allegations and innuendos.
Cowardly, propagandistic evasions noted.
Mr Dog; You try to be a sophist but are not skilled at it. You can't understand the politics which means you can't decipher the truth.
You can't understand that politics are rendered irrelevant by proper testing protocols. No amount of politics are going to change test results in an undetectable manner. Your "politics" require truly absurd and monstrously cynical assumptions:
Assume that "Big Pharma" can suppress any test results across the entire planet.
Assume that "Big Pharma" controls all public universities engaged in medical research.
Assume that "Big Pharma" controls all private universities engaged in medical research.
Assume that "Big Pharma" controls all privately funded medical research.
Assume that "Big Pharma" suppresses all research funded by altmed supporters, including those funded by the British government into homeopathy.
Assume that all mainstream medical doctors are inhumanly greedy, caring only about money.
Assume that all mainstream doctors are incapable of joining the industry specifically to research cures.
Assume that even if mainstream doctors can feel compassion, assume that all dissenters willing to conduct proper studies are easily cowed by economic or physical threats.
Assume that all altmed practioners are too poor to pay for simple tests.
Assume that all altmed practioners are magically rendered incapable of carrying out double-blind control studies of their own, on their own projects.
Assume that the entire world is a police state controlled by "Big Pharma" so that they can stop any double-blind control study.
Assume that "Big Pharma" has control of the entire Internet to prevent people from organizing to perform double-blind control studies.
Assume, assume, assume. Assume phlogistan exists. Assume Platonic eidolons exist. Assume Elvis is alive.
Only under such a dystopic world could there be no double-blind control studies supporting your hypothesis.
I make no such assumptions, Plato. If you anyone can conduct a double-blind control study, it'll be published somewhere. Period. This is the information age. You can't suppress ideas anymore.
More stuff:
BronzeDog: "That was a lucky shot."
fore sam: "No it's not! My magic rabbit's foot makes me a better shooter!"
BronzeDog: "Prove it. Let's go out to a targeting range and keep score."
fore sam: "That's all sophistry! I've got the Ace of Trumps right there on my one shot in the bullet hole!"
BronzeDog: "I still say it was a lucky shot. Let's go out to the targeting range and pit two people of equal skill against each other, firing against identical targets. The difference is, one of them will have a magic rabbit's foot, and the other will have a non-magic hare's foot."
fore sam: "Targeting ranges are all sophistry! All you have to do is look at my one hole in the target. And ignore all the rabbit's foot users who missed."
BronzeDog: "I've told you what it'd take to convince me. Are you too lazy or dishonest to take the test?"
fore sam: "You're just a pharma shill! You don't understand the politics of rabbit's feet! The politics of anti-rabbit's feet people would run onto the targeting range and deflect my bullets, even if you put up countermeasures!"
The targeting range with identical targets is the controlled portion of the test. The shooter with the non-magic foot is the placebo control group. If that middle school science project is too complicated for you, I have someone equally cynical, content-mute, and propagandistic. The only differences between you and him is that he's a lot angrier and has worse grammar:
http://www.timecube.com/
Since you've convinced you're cynical and close-minded beyond hope, I'll leave you to your own devices.
Fore Sam: That's why I suggest going to Autism-Mercury if you'd like to talk to parents who have cured their kids. There are lots of them that still hang out there advising other parents.
Oh yes? How many would you guess? a few thousand? That would be about 50% of the members, right?
Between all of the kids that escaped thimerosal induced autism, once it was removed from vaccines, and the 50% being cured through chelation therapy, there should be an awfully big decrease. Is there a hidden horde of recovered auties somewhere? Should be easy for Lou Diamond Philips to fill a stage with recovered kids, I would think. What about all of the expert parents who have been chelating their kids for years and years. You know, the ones who speak at lectures and treat kids like Bradstreet and Blaxill. I would expect at least one of them to have a fully recovered kid by now if the cure rate is 50% and all.
I didn't realize that you belong to the Cutler sect. I apologize for suggesting that you follow Buttar but you did provide a GR link and JB does shill for Rashid. My bad.
Fore Sam, you're a broken record and you know it. I'm trying to put myself in your shoes to figure out why you do what you do on these sites, and I can't.
Further, I can't bear to hear the word sophistry again, so please grab a thesaurus and let it rock.
Bronze Dog and clone make some great points, as usual. The "Ace of Trumps" is another ill-defined and context-dependent claim. It has as much universal relevance as does scripture and common sense.
All children develop. There's different paces and there's different end points. What's going to happen if you see your "chelation gains" plateau? Did the technique fail? Did your DAN! doc fail? Did the child fail?
At some point acceptance has to come into play. Acceptance doesn't mean giving up hope. It doesn't mean giving up on someone.
This conversation is a dead end. Let's get back to the science.
lol Mr Bronze;
I'll hit the target for you on a shooting range and I'll hit the green on a golf course. I'll also hit the nail on the head about Pharma. The IOM had the evidence handed to them and simply denied it. They had the balls to suggest taking future research in other directions. How many times did they alter Verstraeten? Hop over to EOHarm today to see a post by the CDC that ludicrously defends the Verstraeten folly. If you can't get in there, your Diva spies may forward it to you. Who paid for that absurd Danish study that played with the numbers until they had it the way they wanted? What happened to the data at the CDC the Geier's wanted to see? Why can't they get access? For that matter, why can't I just walk in off the street and look at it?
What's the use in going on with this? Go read Evidence of Harm. That covered a lot of this stuff.
Tell me why we can't get insurance to pay for chelation. Oh yuh, the AMA has not deemed it proper treatment for autism. It's proper treatment for mercury poisoning but not autism. In other words, if they AMA decided to approve it, it would show them up for the idiots they are for putting the mercury in the kids in the first place. Does that help you understand the politics?
Now tell me the idiots at the IOM are giving us an honest appraisal of Geier, Deth, Haley, etc who when added all together would make any sane person think it was imperative that thimerosal be removed from ALL vaccines immediately. I understand that result was pre-determined by the CDC. Do politicians decide who runs the CDC and does the CDC do what the politicians tell them to do? Do the politicians do favors for their million dollar campaign contributors? Does that help you understand politics. Does that give you a clue that the junk science that claims mercury does not cause autism is a pre determined result of the people who paid for the bogus studies?
BTW, you know my stake in all of this nonsense. Do you mind telling me what your interest is?
The incidence of autism will likely continue on its flat trend despite the piecemeal but continuing reduction of thimerosal in vaccines given to children. That is as close to a thread-relevant comment as there has been so far here.
Fore Sam - you're a master at repeating the points but I think you've got a ways to go before you actually understand why the people who've put those points together for you believe that they're true. I was hoping this blog could get people to actually think about science, or lack thereof, behind the big claims. In that way, someone like yourself might think twice before parroting the Griers, who happen to say some pretty ludicrous and faulty things. These misunderstandings come from both a thin grasp of biology and chemistry and a wealth of dangling facts and either overinterpreted or misinterpreted science from the internet.
Since learning is not happening here I declare this thread dead. I'll see you soon with another paper or two.
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