Comments on: Some stuff

By: David N. Brown

David N. Brown — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:02:40 +0000

JB Handley,
Absorbing your argument would mean risking absorbing your narcissism and sociopathy.

By: ScriptPhD

ScriptPhD — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:39:53 +0000

A) I have a good friend who is a behavioral scientist that works with autistic children and she literally goes into apoplectic fits regarding Jenny McCarthy’s “appearances”. The woman has done so much harm in terms of parents who now won’t vaccinate their kids. Every single epidemiological study known to mankind has disproven the correlation between immunization and autism. It’s incredibly sad (and coincidental) that diagnosis often occurs in and around the same time.

B) Thanks as always for the props, Phil . I just gave the Bad Astronomy blog mad props back during a talk I did at the UCLA Film school.

By: JB Handley

JB Handley — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:32:52 +0000

Perhaps you guys should actually absorb the substance of my reply? Like Phil’s misguided assertion that the “blood mercury study” means anything?

By: Atticus05

Atticus05 — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:56:35 +0000

Well… I sit corrected. Handley did reply… of course he needed 2 seprate posts. Which reminds me of the overwhelm them with information tatic of debating. If that’s the best he’s got, I can’t help but wonder why he has so many people standing in his corner.

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:49:20 +0000

Ah, California, home of the non-sun-bathing blond subculture, as in people who avoid getting their daily dose of vitamin D. Let’s see, when did autism rates supposedly begin increasing? About 1980 something, as I recall. When did people start seriously avoiding sun exposure for skin aging and skin cancer? About 1980 or so, as I recall. Of course, this doesn’t prove diddly but it’s at least as good a link as the autism/vaccine, with one additional caveat: autism rates in the temperate zone are higher for dark complected people than for light skinned folk and that too seems to indicate a low vitamin D causality.

But it could also be just a co-incidence.

Gary 7

By: Steve in Dublin

Steve in Dublin — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:27:37 +0000

@TheBlackCat

Thanks for the heads-up. Well, Part 1 of Handley’s response went missing, so can’t comment on that. But Part 2 of his response is up. Hmm. The first paragraph is completely incoherent (it sounds like he’s quoting someone who is calling him out on that phone survey), but we’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that has something to do with Part 1 missing.

Anyway, in Part 2 of his response he mainly cites excerpts from a study that was published in the Jan 2009 issue of the Epidemiology journal. The study purports to show that autism rates in California have increased from 6.2 per 10000 in 1990 to 42.5 per 10000 in 2001. Unfortunately, you have to pay for this study, but I tracked down the abstract for it, which in part says:

“Methods: Autism cases were identified from 1990 through 2006 in databases of the California Department of Developmental Services, which coordinates services for individuals with specific developmental disorders. The main outcomes were population incident cases younger than age 10 years for each quarter, cumulative incidence by age and birth year, age-specific incidence rates stratified by birth year, and proportions of diagnoses by age across birth years.”

To me, that just says that more people may be availing of publicly accessible services to help with the care of their child’s autism because of increased awareness of the services. In other words, their only source of data (that I’m aware of) is people that *come to the Department of Developmental Services* for assistance. Not exactly an unbiased sample, I would say.

The study’s authors also don’t call out vaccines as a cause per se. They just conclude that the increase in autism rates in California seems to be due to unspecified environmental factors.

By: TheBlackCat

TheBlackCat — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:39:41 +0000

@ Steve: yeah, that is exactly what he did.